Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Death of Khan

1982.  It is the weekend of my senior class trip, and on Friday we go off to Great Adventure theme park in New Jersey.  We get back very late at night, and on Saturday morning I am woken up all too early to join my younger brother and parents in driving down to Paramus to see Star Trek 2:  The Wrath of Khan.

We went to see it at the RKO Stanley Warner Route 4 Paramus Quad.  If you really want to know more about the history of the theatre click the link, but at that point in time it had a huge huge huge huge main downstairs screen in its original building, which was added on to before then added on to later and then the original main screens cut up a bit, but even at its death a couple years ago as a tenplex the main screen at 2/3 of its original size was awfully danged big.  We would drive down, 1:15 in good traffic which rarely there was, to see big new movies on that big screen in glorious 70mm.  The Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan were the two best of them, and I have lots of fond memories of the Paramus Quad.

Star Trek 2 is a great movie.  It's incredible fun from beginning to end, and Ricardo Montalban's performance as Khan was a hoot.  And I say that in the very best and nicest and most wonderful sense of the word.  It's a movie that holds up.  I saw it again on a big screen at the Loews Jersey not all that long ago with a pretty decent crowd, and I was in love with it as a fortysomething every bit as much as a teenager on his senior class tip weekend.

Ricardo Montalban, you will be missed.  Or as Khan might say "I shall avenge you!"

2 comments:

  1. Ooooh, wild trip down memory lane. I worked at Great Adventure for seven summers. Loved that park, despite some of the ride disasters.

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  2. Heard it here first O.o' tragic :(. I had even liked the Fantasy Island show from way back, when my parents would watch it all the time. It was like Dream Park mixed with councelling :). He will be missed.

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