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Star Trek has always struggled in its attempts to remake Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but it could finally have found the answer with a new spinoff. The second feature-length outing for the Star Trek: The Original Series cast is regularly cited as the best Star Trek movie, and so it's easy to see why the franchise has often revisited it. A sequel to Star Trek season 1, episode 22, "Space Seed", the movie saw Khan Noonien-Singh (Ricardo Montalban) seek revenge against Captain Kirk (William Shatner) for exiling him to the doomed Ceti Alpha V.
Star Trek: Nemesis, the final cinematic outing for the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, featured a similar face-off between Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who sought revenge against the Romulans for exiling him to the dilithium mines of Remus. As a TOS reboot, a remake of Khan in the Kelvin timeline was inevitable. Star Trek Into Darkness was a much more explicit remake of Wrath of Khan, swapping Kirk and Spock's roles slightly, and replaying the events of "Space Seed" against the backdrop of the more militaristic Kelvin timeline. However, both films failed to repeat the successes of Wrath of Khan, and audiences were left wondering about the merit of revisiting such a classic Star Trek story. This year's Star Trek Day celebrations revealed that the franchise would be returning to Wrath of Khan once again, but in a manner that might be more successful than a straight remake.
Appearing on stage at Star Trek Day, the co-writer and director of Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer, revealed that he and Alex Kurtzmann had worked on a spinoff series about Khan's time in exile, which avoids the issues that yet another movie remake would possess. Originally intended for TV, Star Trek's Khan comeback never surfaced. Now, Meyer has adapted his scripts as a serialized audio drama entitled Star Trek: Khan: Ceti Alpha V. It will explore what happened to Khan and his disciples during the fifteen years between "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan, including the tragic death of his wife. It's an exciting prospect that is also the only satisfying way to revisit the iconic Star Trek villain.
Focus On Khan's Life On Ceti Alpha Won't Tarnish His Star Trek Legacy
The Wrath of Khan gives some insight into what happened to Khan and his fellow Augments after Kirk exiled them to Ceti Alpha V. Khan tells Chekov (Walter Koenig) that the neighboring planet, Ceti Alpha VI exploded six months after they arrived, and their new home became a barren and inhospitable world. It's not clear at exactly what point Ceti Alpha V will begin from, but the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI feels like a good starting point. The fact that the Starfleet ships took 15 years to discover that Ceti Alpha VI exploded opens up an interesting exploration of how the seemingly utopian Federation deal with criminals.
In "Space Seed", Khan and his Augments were effectively abandoned by Starfleet and the Federation on a world that was described as "somewhat habitable". Despite the explosion of the neighboring planet, it's clear from Wrath of Khan that no help was forthcoming. A spinoff series focusing on Khan attempting to keep his wife and his disciples alive in an increasingly hostile environment for over a decade with no help forthcoming will provide a fascinating character arc. Khan was never a hero, but Ceti Alpha V will be the perfect way for Star Trek to explore how he went from the suave and sophisticated leader of "Space Seed" to the vengeful, bloodthirsty warrior that appears in The Wrath of Khan.