Something I never noticed about “Wrath of Khan”...

[Captain Dunsel]

We all know that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was the Trek movie produced on the lowest of budgets, but one thing I never realized, until watching it a few weeks ago, was that there are NO new Enterprise miniature visuals onscreen until you get to the first engagement between the Reliant and Enterprise.

Prior to this scene, every single shot of the Enterprise is recycled from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

The overall story and acting is so good, I never even realized this before.

 

[Apollo]

That’s Have Bennett showing the suits how its done!

 

[Krieger]

Best. Trek. Ever.

 

[robn1]

They redressed a lot of sets too. The Enterprise torpedo room was the K'T'inga bridge, the hatch the torpedoes slid into was the view screen.

 

[CB2001]

No different from any of the shows to be honest. I mean, seriously, how many times have people seen the Enterprise going from left to right of the screen with no planet in the background? How many times have you seen similar shots with the Enterprise-D in warp? Or the outside of Deep Space 9 without any ships? How about how many times we've seen Voyager just traveling without much of anything new? I mean, unless it's really necessary, the shows recycled shots. Makes sense the movies would have too in some degree.

They redressed a lot of sets too. The Enterprise torpedo room was the K'T'inga bridge, the hatch the torpedoes slid into was the view screen.

And models too. Don't forget, Carol Marcus' space lab in the second film was used in the first film. Except they flipped it upside down to make it look different from how it was seen in the first film.

 

[AJK001]

Everything was reused in all versions of Star Trek. From uniforms to weapons they used it all many times and sometimes didn't even make any changes.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

No different from any of the shows to be honest. I mean, seriously, how many times have people seen the Enterprise going from left to right of the screen with no planet in the background? How many times have you seen similar shots with the Enterprise-D in warp? Or the outside of Deep Space 9 without any ships? How about how many times we've seen Voyager just traveling without much of anything new? I mean, unless it's really necessary, the shows recycled shots. Makes sense the movies would have too in some degree.

Stock footage is less a thing in movies, though. Even movie series. In a perfect world, Bob Wise would've had time to properly edit and finish TMP, and then Harve could have chosen from the many unused shots or trimmed portions that Bob didn't include. But since Bob only had time to drop in whole sequences uncut, there weren't alternate angles or takes or moments to use from what had been in the first released film. Notice in TWOK, even though shots are re-used, they're tighter edits.

And models too. Don't forget, Carol Marcus' space lab in the second film was used in the first film. Except they flipped it upside down to make it look different from how it was seen in the first film.

I personally always preferred the TMP version:

Everything was reused in all versions of Star Trek. From uniforms to weapons they used it all many times and sometimes didn't even make any changes.

At least in this case it made sense not to. Same phasers as TMP. Duh, continuity. Same uniforms, too. Not all of them -- but one version of the crew jumpsuits was re-dyed and fitted with the trapunto collar and cuffs, and given Kirk's TMP flag-officer insignia to be the enlisted uniform for the rest of the film series... *sigh* ...and Cadet Picard's uniform in his Nemesis Academy pic. Regardless, that's some good re-purposing, there. Never mind how many times that TMP bridge set got reworked into other ships' bridges, and even entirely different rooms!

 

[robn1]

Notice in TWOK, even though shots are re-used, they're tighter edits.

The up angle under the saucer as the Enterprise leaves spacedock is a longer cut in TWOK, and oddly is missing the dirt marks seen in TMP.

 

[Krieger]

The only thing they didn’t reuse were Khan’s crew of super humans. Chippendales. Brilliant idea for the movie, it worked well