Finding God in Wrath of Khan

Any self-respecting geek can look at this picture and not only tell you what movie it comes from, but also the specific scene and the exact line of dialogue. If they're really geeky, they'll re-enact the performance.

Today I'm talking about the best of all the Star Trek movies - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. You have the right to disagree, but that's like saying that The Empire Strikes Back isn't the best Star Wars film. Wrath of Khan is the film all other Star Trek films want to be, up to and including the 2009 reboot. It's understandable, given how great it is, as it succeeds in not only being a good Star Trek movie, but in being a good movie.

As a geek, I love this movie. As a Christian, I also love this movie because tucked within gratuitous shots of Ricardo Montalban's galactic pecs are spiritual truths straight out of the Bible. I truly see God speaking through this movie. (But, no, he's not asking for a starship. Everyone knows God doesn't need a starship.) Today I'm going to take a look at the many Biblical lessons found in this movie.

Oh, there's spoilers galore below, so don't stab at me from Hell's heart if I give something away. You were warned.

Six Sequels Better than the Original

I spent two columns railing against sequels that weren’t just bad, I try to pretend like they never happened. I'm sure that any of you who watched these movies would love to remove them from your memories, if not the canon entirely.

What really irritates me about bad sequels is that it’s entirely possible to craft a great sequel. A good sequel isn’t just more of the same and hoping it works like the first time. It’s being able to continue the story in a direction that’s credible, deeper, and worth investigating. The best universes take the world established in the original and give us something more, something new, and at their best, they give us a better movie than the original.

8 Great 80's Movies

As a child of the 80's, I had many people in my life trying to expand my horizons, particularly regarding the merits of media from the 1950's. Sometimes it was the music (referred to as "real music") or the television shows (thank you Nick at Night) but, most of the time my elders wanted me to watch the great movies of the 1950's. To me, all these things were in the stone age. We're talking 3 decades and 6 presidents ago. That's forever for a child. It didn't help matters that when I watched Back to the Future, I was amazed at the primitive world of the 1950's and wondered how anyone could live in that decade. Why on earth would I want to watch a movie made in the 50's?

I was ignorant, and thankfully I was relieved of said ignorance about that decade and have now grown to appreciate those influences: the television, music, and of course the movies. Well, now many of my fellow children of the 80's have children of their own, children who hold a similarly ignorant view of the time period three decades prior, with the strange music, odd television shows, and of course, movies that they readily dismiss. They, too, need to have their ignorance eliminated so they can fully appreciate the contribution that this decade's movies made to our culture.

Today I will profile 8 essential movies of the 80's. It is imperative that this current generation see these movies. If I happen to converse with your child one day, and they don't get a single reference from Airplane, Ghostbusters, or Back to the Future, then I'm blaming you. Because that's just bad parenting.