Funny / Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

• After the Kobayashi Maru test, the novel adds in Sulu teasing Bones for being a Large Ham who chewed the scenery in the simulation.
• In the Director's Cut, Kirk decides to have a little fun at Midshipman Preston's remark that the Admiral will find everything "ship-shape".
  Kirk: Oh, do you? Do you have any idea, Midshipman Preston, how many times I have had to listen to Mr. Scott on the comm, telling me his trouble? Do you have any idea of the ribbing I've had to endure in the officers' mess... to the effect that the Enterprise is a flying death trap?
  Preston: Oh, no sir! Wha... this is the finest engine room in the whole Starfleet! If the Admiral can't see the facts for himself, then, with all due respect, he's as blind as a Tiberian bat!
  Scotty: Ahem.
  Preston: Sir!
  • I believe in the novelization Kirk pulls out his glasses and puts them on right after the "blind as a Tiberian bat" outburst.
  • Scotty introduces him as "my sister's youngest, Admiral", but the reading makes it sound like "my sister's youngest Admiral", which is apropos to Preston's speech.
  • The cadet next to him immediately goes wide-eyed and looks like he's about to pass out from holding his shock/laughter.
  • The novelization takes it a step further: After Kirk has his little joke at Preston's expense, the young man runs off, opens an equipment locker, and intercepts Kirk before he leaves Engineering, handing him a tool saying "I believe the Admiral asked for this." When Kirk asks what it is and why he'd want it, Preston replies that it's a left-handed spanner. Scotty is furious at Preston for the prank... but Kirk is barely able to keep from laughing.
• The scene where Spock has Saavik pilot the Enterprise out of spacedock. Kirk is trying his level-best not to be scared out of his wits by the fact Spock is making her do it without any prior experience.
  McCoy: Would you like a tranquilizer?
  [Kirk quickly shakes his head]
  • The funniest part is Mr. Unemotional is clearly being a Troll. The most external reaction is Spock raising one eyebrow, but you can tell he's giggling in his head.
  • After Saavik nails it and successfully pilots the ship out, he smiles and shrugs to Bones as if he had no doubts in her abilities all along. Bones' expression is silently calling bullshit.
    • This is even funnier when you realize that Saavik isn't actually piloting anything! She's giving orders to Sulu, the same guy who helmed the Enterprise back when Kirk was still Captain...unless Kirk thinks that Sulu is Lawful Stupid enough to blindly obey an incorrect order and crash into the dock.
  • Also, it's a drydock - basically an n-shaped tunnel of girders with parallel sides. Unless they parked skewiff, the only order needed is "go forward and don't turn". How hard is that?
    • Ask Tommy Webber.
• When they share a turbolift, Saavik is utterly oblivious to Kirk's attempts at flirting. Followed by McCoy (who's been waiting for the lift) snapping, "Who's been holding up the damn elevator?"
  Bones: She change her hair?
  Kirk: I hadn't noticed.
  Bones: Wonderful stuff, that Romulan ale.
• When Bones and Spock debate the morality of the Genesis Project, Bones is working himself up into a pretty good lather... and Spock says, utterly deadpan, "Really, Dr. McCoy, you must learn to govern your passions. They will be your undoing." Spock just couldn't resist egging Bones on.
• Using the prefix code to drop Reliant's shields has three moments:
  • The look Khan gives Joachim when he says that the shields are dropping screams "Well, raise them, dummy!" before he actually says "Raise them!".
  • When Joachim can't get the shields back up, the expression on Khan's face as he realizes what that means is utterly priceless.
  • He then frantically searches for the override on the helmsman's station, which the DVD fact track makes a point to note isn't the right place at all.
• "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN"! But in a Narm Charm sort of way...
  • It becomes funnier after seeing the whole movie since it's now known that Kirk already outsmarted Khan in that instance and is just hamming it up.
  • From the same scene, often overlooked:
    Kirk: Khan, you bloodsucker, you're gonna have to do your own dirty work now. Do you hear me. Do you!
    Khan: Kirk! Kirk, you are still alive... my old friend.
    Kirk: Still. Old. Friend. You've managed to kill just about everyone else, but like a poor marksman you keep. Missing. The target!
  • Ricardo Montalban's Eye Take in the above scene as Kirk starts raging at him over the communicator is amazing.
• Kirk, McCoy and Saavik are about to beam to Spacelab Regula 1:
  Spock: Jim... be careful.
  McCoy: We will!
  • Immediately before that, when Saavik gets herself onto the away team to Regula 1 by quoting a bogus regulation after being made the expert on them:
    Saavik: Begging the admiral's pardon. General Order 15: "No flag officer shall beam into a hazardous area without armed escort."
    Kirk: There's no such regulation!
    [Cut to Saavik smirking as Sulu shoots Kirk a knowing smile, then to Kirk and McCoy, with McCoy trying to hide his own grin and Kirk glancing at Spock as he realizes he's just been had]
• Kirk and company are about to follow Carol and David's last transporter coordinates, which are inside the desolate rocky planet:
  McCoy: Where are we going?
  Kirk: Where they went.
  McCoy: Suppose they went nowhere?
  Kirk: Then, this will be your big chance to get away from it all.
• This exchange:
  Kirk: I would not presume to debate you.
  Spock: [half smirk] That is wise.
• When Kirk is climbing down the levels with Spock on the way to the bridge, Kirk tells him, "That young man there. That's my son!" Spock replies in the most bored tone of voice, "Fascinating." For an unemotional being, Spock is certainly expressing his non-interest in a very emotional way!
  • One could also read plenty of sarcasm into Spock's reply, too. As if to say, "You sleep around so much, of course you'd eventually come upon a son."
• Saavik swears in frustration during the Kobiyashi Maru test. Stoic, deadpan, emotionless frustration.
  • Once the test concludes, Saavik is clearly a simmering kettle of barely restrained anxiety and emotion, fidgeting nervously as she awaits Admiral Kirk's evaluation of her performance.
  • After the test is over, Kirk can't resist Trolling Bones, "Physician, heal thyself."
  • Of note is the way the test plays out. We know that the exploding panels and cast members falling to the ground dead are, in fact, for the benefit of the Audience, who aren't aware during the initial viewing, that this was thrown in to make people believe this scene is the origin of the "Spock will die" rumors. But In-Universe, why would Starfleet think it's at all a good idea for cadets and senior officers to be in a situation where there are pieces of equipment blowing up all around them and having them fling themselves over rails and fall down "dead" on the deck (where they could sprain, strain, or break something during their "performance")?^note Maybe it's Starfleet's idea of a "live-fire exercise". And knowing that it is all an act, you have to laugh at the realization that Spock's fake death is one of the Vulcan's hammiest performances in the series. Then Kirk walks up to him, "Captain?" Spock pops open an eye and stands up like nothing has happened.
• Early in the film, Saavik tells Spock that Kirk isn't what she expected.
  Saavik: (in Vulcan) He's so... human.
  Spock: (in Vulcan) Nobody's perfect, Saavik.
  • Then, at the very end of the film, Kirk remarks on how Spock was the most human person he'd ever met. Watch Saavik's non-verbal response.
  • It's explained in the novel (and other Star Trek novels where she appears) that Saavik is half-Vulcan half-Romulan, and so does not have the same ability to repress her emotions as a full Vulcan.
• Kirk's observation that for all of Khan's self-supposed superiority, repeatedly playing a Batman Gambit with him by hitting his Berserk Button is reliably easy:
  Kirk: I'll say this for him: he's consistent!
• When the Reliant goes into the nebula, Joachim sensibly orders a reduction in speed (glaring right at Khan to hit home that charging after the Enterprise is a bad idea). Khan instinctively turns to rage at him, but, knowing Joachim is right, manages to rein himself in and keep quiet.
• In a meta example, Ed Byrne recalls meeting Captain Terrell's actor Paul Winfield at an airport, where this exchange occurred:
  Ed: Weren't you in Wrath of Khan?
  Paul: Yes. I died so the white man could live.
  • Which becomes either more or less funny when you realize this was a recurring thing for Paul in most of the SF movies he was in. The Terminator, The Serpent and the Rainbow and Damnation Alley come to mind.
    • Becomes even more Hilarious in Hindsight with his next appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation where he plays an alien Captain...who dies so that Picard can live.
• It's ridiculously pitch dark, but Khan's reaction after the... unpleasantness with the Ceti Eels (aka the Nightmare Fuel levels of agonized screaming) dies down:
  Khan: (smiling benignly) That’s better.
• Meta-Example: Walter Koenig's explanation for how Khan recognized Chekov. As a junior officer, Chekhov accidentally made Khan wait an uncomfortably long time for the bathroom. Afterwards, he saw that the ensign had used all the toilet paper, cursed him, and vowed to never forget his face. Slightly more seriously, Walter Koenig talks about first getting the script, seeing the plot hole that he wasn't in that episode (or even, that season), and agonizing about whether or not to point it out "for a good three, four seconds" before deciding to keep his mouth shut because he had an awesome role with a lot of focus.
• Early in the film, the Doctors Marcus are discussing their cooperation with Starfleet, and suddenly the stock reputation of Starfleet officers runs head-first into the reputation of James T. Kirk.
  David Marcus: Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of guy...
  Carol Marcus: Listen, kiddo, Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout!