"Wrath of Khan" article from FM #186

From issue #186 of Famous Monsters, published August 1982, comes this article on "The Wrath of Khan," with exciting full-color photos (something new for the mag). The inclusion of a color section didn't help the magazine much, as it folded shortly thereafter.

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The photos in this article really served to get me even more excited about the movie than I already was, action and drama-packed as they seemed to be. Ready for something really good after the snooze-inducing pace of ST:TMP, this issue fanned the flames of expectation, and I was not let down.

Below, from the same issue, is the merchandise page featuring the Trek material. How much of this stuff did you have, and how much do you still have? I still have the books, and had the three ship models, but none of my old models survived the years and many moves. I do still have some unbuilt ones in their boxes, but I'll never put them together.

The sleeping bag allowed one to really "get into" Star Trek more literally.

Bonus: below, Kirk is on the receiving end for a change, in this funny promotional pic shot during the filming of "I, Mudd."

"Fully functional, you say? I've been called a love machine myself, sometimes."

US magazine preview of ST:TWOK

From the pages of the June 22, 1982 edition of "US" magazine, comes this preview of the Vonda McIntyre novelization of the upcoming movie. The tease of the scene is preserved as well as the movie, since it was not revealed in the excerpt that this was only a simulator exercise. It served well to pique the interest for the movie and make many reading think that it was indeed how Spock died, effectively setting them up for the trickery of the scene in the film, which derailed one's expectations of Spock's actual death scene later.

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Remember, word had leaked out early that Spock was going to die in the movie, prompting fan outcry and letter writing protests. In early drafts, Spock did die near the beginning of the film, shockingly. But realizing that the shock factor of Spock's death had been lost, the simulator scene was written to fool the audience into thinking "oh, this is what made people think Spock was going to die, we can relax now because it was a mistaken rumor." Then when the actual big death scene came, it was still a surprise. The leak actually helped the movie script be better than it might have been. See, fans can influence the moviemakers! The effort didn't spare Spock, but made his death more meaningful and dramatic within the context of the movie.

Bonus: Below are several pages from the 1980 "Enterprise Officer's Manual" by Geoffrey Mandel (and co-illustrated by Doug Drexler) that deal with some elements of "Space Seed," the episode that introduced us to Khan. As you can see by the cover below, it was a spiral-bound notebook affair, and since it was not licensed, but a fan-produced book, it was not available on a widespread basis at the time; I bought my copy at the specialty shop "Starship Enterprises" in Ft. Lauderdale. It was, however, very influential, and the idea was used in several licensed books later on, as well as some of the information contained within.

Update: Although the link has been on my sidebar for awhile, in looking through the contents of the "Star Trek Blueprints" site, I see that they have the entire Officer's Manual posted. No need for me to scan in more pages, since all are viewable here! Enjoy.

Mad Spoof of "The Wrath Of Khan"

While perusing one of my collection cabinets last night, I came across this 1982 MAD magazine spoof of "The Wrath of Khan." Mort Drucker does his usual spot-on charicatures, and it's obvious that they had at least seen the movie, as the costumes and sets are pretty accurate. All in all, a well done parody! Enjoy... "Star Blecch II:The Wreck Of Korn!"

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And below, one of Don Martin's hilarious cartoons, spotlighting the sexy new addition to the crew! There is something different about her...

Bonus: Below, another of the randomly-captioned Leaf bubblegum cards from 1967.

Bonus: a couple of panties shots from "The Gamesters of Triskelion," in which our lovely communications officer finds herself unceremoniously dumped onto the ground after a sudden transport. Her bad luck is our good luck, however. You could almost call this set of photos "A Day At The Beach."

Speaking of Nyota sunbathing, here's a tantalising comic panel...

Want to see the whole sequence of pages from this scene? Let me know!

Update: a personal note... sometimes as I backtrack links that lead to this site, I see they come from discussion boards where they are talking about something I've posted. The comments go on for pages, sometimes. But here on the actual blog, sometimes there are no comments left at all! So, if you like a post, leave a comment! It helps me to judge how my readers are enjoying the blog. If I see no comments, I assume my visitors aren't liking it, and that doesn't give me much incentive to post more very quickly. So, if you like the post, leave a comment and let me know, and you'll get even more, and more often!

ST:TWOK local newspaper review

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Above, a local Beckley, WV newspaper review for "The Wrath of Khan" that was published in early June, 1982. Giving the second movie only three stars ("average") the cynical reviewer admits he doesn't understand the appeal of Trek. So I suppose the lukewarm review he gives the film is still a backhanded compliment considering the disdain he obviously held for the fans and the franchise. (When I clipped the article I added the extra stars to show my own regard for the movie.) Perhaps the critic's name was left off the article to avoid imagined reprisal from the fans, or simply because it was penned by someone on staff too unimportant to warrent a byline.

Below, a photo clipped from the entertainment section of a Charleston WV paper.

Next, a clipping from TV Guide the week that the movie premiered on pay TV in March of 1983.

Below, the cover of a July 1982 Jet magazine. I wasn't able to clip tha actual article, all I could get was the cover. I think someone else gave it to me who knew of my interest, but they didn't bring the whole magazine. I suppose they thought I only liked to look at pictures.

"Crazy" Spoof of "The Wrath of Khan"

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Featured this time is a "Crazy" magazine spoof of "The Wrath of Khan" from issue #92, published in December of 1982. Another winner of a cover by Bob Larkin, whose likenesses and accurate details never failed to delight a fan like me. And the inside spoof art is not too shabby this time, either. The last post I made with their ST:TMP story was merely a retread of old "Mad" art based on the TV show with a bit of the new movie script sprinkled in. But this time, the ships, sets, unforms and plot are represented well. It's a bit strange, though, that although the cover does give away Spock's death as a plot point, the story inside doesn't even touch on it. The last page feels rushed, in fact, as if there should have been more but they ran out of time. Anyway, enjoy!

Time Review of "The Wrath Of Khan"

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From the scrapbook this time comes the Time magazine review of "Star Trek II," published June 7, 1982. I don't have a single negative review of this movie in my scrapbooks; which is more than can be said for the first one. Even lukewarm reviewers still manage to give it a thumbs-up.

Below, two more of the 5 x 7 collector's cards.

The Second Coming of Star Trek

Well, it didn't come on a cloud in great glory to judge the living and the dead, or to usher in a new age of peace and righteousness, but it did usher in a new age of good reviews and happiness in the lives of Trekkers everywhere.

Posted this time from the old scrapbook is an article on "The Wrath of Khan" from the Rolling Stone magazine, published in July of 1982. It was so much more rewarding reading the reviews of this movie than those of the last, ST:TMP.

As an aside, you may have noticed a slowdown on posts here and on my other blogs. I've been devoting myself to finishing a personal project, and now that it's done, I'm going to try to get back to a fairly regular schedule of posting again. Thanks for sticking around!

Below, another in the aborted 1967 Leaf card series.

Even back during the series original run, Bill and George had their problems.

The Man Who Saved Star Trek

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This article was scanned from the pages of a 1982 issue of "StarBlazer," a lower-rung magazine that was grouped in with the near-tabloid quality of such mags as "Star Warp," "Space Wars," "Star Encounters," and many others. During the 70's and 80's, one might see a over a dozen or so mags from the same company on the stand and not know it. Publishing mogul Myron Fass and son published a wide range of pulp exploitation mags in various genres, including soft-core porn (read a page about him, but be warned, NSFW since covers are shown).

Being the collectorI was of any kind of magazine about Trek and SF, I of course bought many of them, even then knowing they were trashy. But, occasionally an article would rise above sensationalism and made-up stories, like this interview with Nicholas Meyers. Illustrated with many awesome behind-the-scenes photos, it read more like an article from Starlog. The sloppily mis-matched photo captions -a seeming trademark of these publications- still plagued the layout, though.

Below: Did you catch this photo in the article? I'm betting not many fans know about this cut plot point of Khan's baby son; did you? There had to be other scenes; since I doubt that the baby shows up only in the last seconds to crawl on the platform with the activated Genesis device.

"No, Leonard, I don't think giving Kirstie a line about Spock's "Vulcan endowment" is a good idea... sorry."

Below, one of the earliest articles announcing the new film, clipped from a Beckley, WV newspaper on March 18, 1982. This was the first look I and many others had of the new uniforms and I loved them!