Though there are a number of Star Trek movie sequels that are adored by fans and non-fans alike, there’s a pervading belief that the even-numbered sequels are the best. (Particularly when discussing the original six movies featuring the original cast of the TV show.)
Of those movies, the two that you’ll most likely hear debated as the best of the best will be 1982’s Wrath of Khan and 1986’s The Voyage Home. Here, we put the movies’ best qualities side by side to make the case for Voyage Home being the greatest Trek sequel (and for Wrath of Khan being the undisputed champ, with no disrespect at all to the other sequels).
Voyage Home: The Humor
Perhaps still the funniest of all the Star Trek movies, The Voyage Home rounded out a trilogy of heavy emotional losses for the franchise with a much more lighthearted entry that harkened back to the most humorous episodes of The Original Series.
Star Trek can be something that people take very seriously but it’s most fondly remembered for how happy it makes people feel. The comedy capers and hilarious hijinks of the dearly beloved original cast produced one of the most confident hits of the franchise’s entire run.
Wrath of Khan: It Saved Star Trek
Though not without its fans, and much better-appreciated over the years in hindsight, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was not an overwhelming success when it first came out. The movie was made partly due to the rejuvenated interest in the sci-fi genre brought on by the financial phenomena of Star Wars, and Star Trek’s insistence on being its own thing was working against it.
Wrath of Khan was very much seen as a swansong to the entire brand. A final blowout, as it were. But it resonated so emphatically with audiences, bringing in new fans and uniting old ones, that the franchise has survived through periods of feast and famine to this very day.
Voyage Home: Environmentalism
One of the things that fans have always loved about Star Trek is the idealism at the heart of it. It’s been famous for over fifty years now for weaving in messages that would be overly-preachy in the hands of any other franchise, and without ever trying to hide them either.
Voyage Home has a clear message - save the whales. Value nature and all life, before it’s too late. It’s never ashamed of it, it never even attempts to make it metaphorical and it never slows down the story. It is the story, and it makes your heart soar higher than any superhero movie could take it.
Wrath of Khan: The Villain
When trying to identify the greatest aspects of Wrath of Khan, the clue is in the name. Ricardo Montalbán’s performance as the titular villain was a scene-stealing showstopper in a movie remembered for its exceptional performances.
Montalbán doesn’t just chew the scenery, he savors it like Hannibal Lecter relishing his diabolical cuisine. Khan was already one of the most memorable villains from The Original Series but his performance elevated the intergalactic warlord to being one of cinema’s most memorable bad guys ever.
Voyage Home: Nobody Dies
Even non-fans are aware of Star Trek’s perilous missions (usually symbolized by the short life expectancies of the infamous “Red Shirts”) and the first two movies are packed full of some truly gruesome demises for a number of characters, even longtime favorites.
Voyage Home, on the other hand, spins a thrilling time-travel heist story (well over thirty years before The Avengers did it) with equally high stakes while killing absolutely no one. The closest thing that Voyage Home has to a main character death simply results in a Benny Hill chase through a hospital and an old woman getting a new kidney.
Wrath of Khan: Costumes
While Voyage Home certainly isn’t phoning it in (nor is any Star Trek movie or TV show, really), Wrath of Khan truly excels in the costume department. It redesigned the iconic Starfleet uniforms into something equally striking and original while providing a huge amount of variation for its sprawling cast of characters.
The costuming in Voyage Home is also a little less noticeable in its brilliance, considering that most of the movie takes place in the 1980s.
Voyage Home: Full Use of the Main Crew
Though each movie makes sure to give screentime to each of the main Enterprise crew members from The Original Series (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov), Voyage Home really shows them working together as a close group.
For the first time ever, the beloved team appeared essentially as equals: friends and colleagues who shouldered the same burdens and worked towards the same specific goal.
Wrath of Khan: A Perfect Ending
Back when those involved believed that Wrath of Khan would be the last time we’d see the crew of the Enterprise, the movie had to deliver an ending that had been over fifteen years in the making. And it couldn’t have been more perfect.
It understood that the heart of all things Star Trek was the relationship between Kirk and Spock, without ever overplaying its hand. Wrath of Khan was teary-eyed, yet triumphantly hopeful. It offered a final sacrifice and thrilling possibilities for the future (which the franchise almost immediately seized upon after the movie’s success).
Voyage Home: Diversity
Star Trek has always been known for being ahead of its time but Voyage Home was the first moment when the Star Trek universe really showed the diversity of Rodenberry’s vision of an egalitarian future on screen.
The movie opens with a woman of color commanding her own starship and keeps the representation at a high level throughout, without forgetting to show the contrast between the reality of the time it was made in and the hope that the Star Trek creators saw for the future.
Wrath of Khan: James Horner’s Score
Though Leonard Rosenman’s score for Voyage Home is delightful to listen to, as most of the music made Star Trek is, James Horner’s score for Wrath of Khan ranks as one of the most memorable in all of science-fiction movies, perhaps even poplar cinema in general.
Epic, whimsical, sweeping and intimate, Horner builds upon the legacy left by Jerry Goldsmith (which he respected very deeply) to create a roaring, seafaring, adventure score. It’s frankly a masterpiece in and of itself.
