When someone thinks of Star Trek, they probably don’t think of nightmares – unless you have a terrible phobia of long ears. That’s definitely not the case for me, the more Vulcans the merrier! There is however a moment in over 55 years of Star Trek historywhich robbed me of my sleep as a child and still makes me shiver at the mere thought.
The horror hides in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, who celebrates his 40th birthday this summer. Anyone who has seen this film even once probably knows exactly what I’m alluding to.
The grossest moment in Star Trek history starts small
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan is a surprisingly sensitive film about aging, about friendship, and about the deep-seated fear that you a parasite crawls into the ear, settles in the cerebral cortex and drives you insane. Enterprise veteran Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) learns this firsthand.
Together with Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) of the USS Reliant, Commander Chekov travels to a dusty clod of earth in space. Actually, nobody should live on this planet, but they find the remains of Botany Bay. The ship of the genetically modified superman Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) was dumped on Ceti Alpha V by Captain Kirk in an episode of the original Star Trek series.
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The Ceti Eel
Chekov wants to get away, knowing exactly how dangerous the situation is. But Khan – or as Kirk would say: Khaaaaaaaan – stands in the way with his mutants. Well follow almost 8 minutes of high tension and the acquaintance with the only indigenous life form of Ceti Alpha V: the Ceti eel.
The Ceti Eel is a nightmare creature and a fantastic movie invention Armored Ceti Eel is a devilish dwarf. Khan puts a pair of tweezers in his terrarium and the creature is already freaking out. That alone would be repulsive enough, but the Star Trek film teases out the horror and disgust even further. Khan extracts tiny ceti larvae from the cracks between the wriggling beast’s armor plates.
This image alone speaks to the level of detail that promotes the horror to come. Then the creature and its brood appear uncomfortably realistic. The Ceti eel is more than just a whimsical alien, it might as well crawl into your tent on your next camping trip. At least that’s what I thought as a child and developed a deep aversion to sleeping on the ground floor.
This mind control fleas Chekov and Terrell are put into their ears, which director Nicholas Meyer and his team explicitly show. It screeches on the audio track, it screeches under the helmets as the larvae crawl into the ear canals of the two Starfleet officers. It hurts to watch.
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Chekov gets a lodger
At the same time there is a somber poetry perish. In his eyes, Khan gives the two officers the same medicine that Kirk gave him back then. He lost his wife and numerous companions to the critters after being exposed to the planet. Now it’s Kirk’s crew turn. The wrath of the Khan from the film title is justified early and effectively, including its consequences. That the extraordinarily strong superman Khan of all things perfidious little monsters speaks volumes about his intelligence and character.
What as rationalization of horror is all well and good and most importantly it helps me to write about this trauma without hiding under my desk. Just like a few quirky facts (via CNET):
What I’m trying to say is that Star Trek 2 is an amazing and potentially traumatizing film. Also because on my 40th birthday I could just as well have written about three, four or five other outstanding moments that are among the best you can see in science fiction cinema.
But I still hate camping. Thank you Star Trek!