Originally written on July 2, 2000.
Revised for the Special Edition on September 1st, 2002.

"KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!"

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Paul Winfield, Kristie Alley and Ricardo Montalban.  Screenplay by Jack B. Sowards.  Story by Harve Bennett and Jack B. Sowards.  Produced by Robert Sallin.  Directed by Nicholas Meyer.  Released by Paramount in 1982.

This story actually started in the original TV series episode "Space Seed".  Khan was once a prince who came very close to dominating the world in the late 20th century.  When that failed, he and his genetically engineered followers were banished into space in a "sleeper" ship appropriately called the "Botany Bay".  The Enterprise intercepts the ship three hundred years later and manages to save Khan before his own sleeper unit kills him.  Khan somehow manages to seduce a female crewmember of the Enterprise into following him with his group.  The next thing you know, the crew of the "Botany Bay" has taken over the Enterprise.  Kirk barely makes it out alive of a decompression chamber and with the help of Spock, they both knock out everyone on the ship with the help of sleeping gas.  Khan and his group are banished to the planet Ceti Alpha 5, a fertile planet where such a group could probably survive and maybe even thrive.

Or so they thought.

The planet next door, Ceti Alpha 6, blows up six months later.  The shock wipes out all life on Ceti Alpha 5 and the crew of the Botany Bay barely survive the catastrophe.  To add insult to injury, Kirk forgets about them completely.  Needless to say, Khan is thoroughly pissed.

It is now fifteen years later.  A research team on station Regula 1 (Chekov is part of the crew) is looking for a totally dead planet on which to detonate the Genesis device, a machine that can turn a dead planet into a living planet.  The crew of the starship Reliant find what they believe to be Ceti Alpha 6 but is actually Khan's planet, Ceti Alpha 5.  Chekov and the captain of the Reliant beam down to see if they can "transplant" off whatever they detected that was alive down there.

They are captured by Khan.  And once again, he manages to take over another ship and finds out from his prisoners the purpose of their visit.  Now Khan wants both the Genesis device and Kirk.  By forcing Chekov into making an excuse that the Genesis device must be moved off the research station Regula 1, the research team headed by Kirk's old flame Carol Marcus contact the Enterprise and demand why Genesis must be taken from them.

With a ship full of trainees, Admiral Kirk heads off to investigate the situation at Regula 1.  And Khan is waiting for him, an opportunity to finally seek revenge against the man who marooned him and his crew on a dead planet.

This is a Revenge story.  And it is among the best installment of the Star Trek movies.  Despite tacky sets that rival the sets from the original TV series, the story is very well constructed.  Add to this a highly convincing Ricardo Montalban as a revenge-obsessed conqueror and you have a quite a battle brewing up here.

This new edition contains about two minutes of extra material scattered at different places in the movie.  They help explain a few odds and ends in the storyline without turning the entire movie upside-down.

Picture

2.35 anamorphic widescreen.  This new transfer is not as bad as the previous DVD edition's image transfer despite the claims they're suppose to be the same transfer.  I can't be 100% sure about this since I sold the original DVD release months ago.  Black level and shadow detail appear to have been improved a bit, and the colour is much more stable although there's still a few rough spots.  There's still a grain problem in the image, but now it doesn't appear any worse than in other DVD transfers I've seen recently.

Sound/Subtitles

Dolby Digital 5.1.  As before, the 5.1 track was mainly used to increase the overall sound quality and boost the bass.  And yes, the vocals bug is still there.  The vocals were recorded both on the set and during post-production.  And the tonal balance is still way off just as in the previous DVD edition.  On-set recordings sound flat while the ADR recordings sound bright.  And these tonal changes can be heard in the same scene.  It's downright irritating!

Also included is a Dolby Digital 2.0 French language track and English captions.

Features

Now this is what the movie needed more than anything else!  The last edition only had the movie's original theatrical trailer.  But this new version has almost a couple of hours of excellent  interviews in anamorphic widescreen and with French subtitles!  Also included with the main feature is a somewhat reasonable commentary by director Nicholas Meyer and an excellent text commentary by staff regular Michael Okuda.

From all angles, the extra material does an excellent job on the budget constraints the movie had to endure, how to deal with "The Spock Affair", the inspiration for the nebula scene, the reaction from the public following the official release...  This installment of the series has so much background information that there was no problem filling this DVD release with plenty of fascinating tidbits.

Final verdict

This Special Edition does much to repair the damage caused by the movie's original DVD release.  The picture and sound haven't improved all that much, but at least they're tolerable.  Where this edition shines is in the special features, chock full of information which most trekkies probably already know, but which will be highly informative and entertaining to the casual viewer.

Picture		Video	2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen
Sound		Audio	ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 2.0 (surround) FRENCH: Dolby Digital 2.0 (surround)
Story		Subtitles	English (captions)
Features		Features	Featurettes and present day interviews with the cast and crew Storyboard archives Audio commentary by director Nicholas Meyer Text commentary by Michael Okuda Theatrical trailer
Value		Final word	Obsessive bugger, isn't he!  TAKE A VALIUM!!!