Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan: Photostory

Star Trek Fotonovel

by Richard J. Anobile

Witness the drama, feel the suspense, see the startling special effects--as Kirk, Spock, Scotty and the crew of the Enterprise battle to save the universe!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Media Tie In, Graphic Novels

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Anobile pioneered the use of the movie frame blow-up technique to recreate entire films in book form. His books were valuable resources especially in a time before VCR's and DVD's and the internet. While they might be viewed as simplistic picture books now, they were an attempt at curating film at a time when it was often still an after-thought. Anobile has spent much of the rest of his life in film production.

Reviews

[Reesha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh no no no. This is so sad. This is such a waste, an infuriating waste!

The Original Series had a run of Fotonovels covering 12 episodes, done by Bantam. They were wonderful, such fun to flip through and relive episodes in your mind.

This thing is a travesty. I'm offended for Trekkies everywhere.

The photography was probably beautiful and would have been wonderous to look at had this been a real Fotonovel or Photostory, but instead they chose to make every photo a grainy black and white copy on paper thin enough to see the next page's photos through.

To make it even worse, there was apparently little to no editing in the text, with extremely obvious typos like "hade's" when Kahn is stabbing from Hades' heart and "take the com" for the common naval phrase "take the conn."

2 stars only because the story of The Wrath of Kahn is quite good, though that's no thanks to the producers of this book. Negative 10 stars for execution.

I work in book publishing myself, and I absolutely understand the cost of book production and the need to save money where you can. But there comes a point where either the savings so reduces the quality of the product you wish to create that it will not be worth creating or the quality will so raise the price that the audience will be greatly reduced. In those moments, you must decide to either take the hit in profits or terminate the project. This sad excuse for a photostory decided to do neither, and instead left us with a sad and horrible collection of blurry, grainy, black and white photo reproductions that are embarrassing to page through.

Avoid at all costs. Just watch the movie again!

[Fangirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thankfully ST:TWOK was a much better film then ST:TMP, which made me, as a Trekker, very happy.
Having a fotonovel in your hands was really cool, especially in the times before the internet.

[JJ Waggy · Rating 1 out of 5]

As others have said, the shift from the photo-novels with full color and almost comic-book-esque outline that were thoughtful and vibrant into...*this* is a lot. This feels like a Word doc where someone wrote the bare bones of the script and added some stage directions and then copy-pasted bad stills in between the text. There are several dialogue exchanges without any markers whatever, so I kind of lost who was speaking and had to restart. Any lighting in the film that produced a glare washes out the image here--which means the iconic scene of Spock and Kirk looks less like an emotional gutpunch and more like what happens when your toner is running low. Warp speed looks like a paint splatter. Keeping everything black and white might have been much cheaper but it robs the book of the nuances of the films, from the specific uniforms to the incredible light show of the transformation of Ceti Alpha V. (Actually, the Genesis film looked like stills from some of the early space films of the 1930s, which was a sweet but unintentional homage.)

This is one of those things that needs the quote of "just because you can do it doesn't mean you should." Watch the film instead. It's a good film. This is faithful to it in terms of telling the tale, but gosh does it undermine everything that it being a visual medium offers.

[David Horton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike the photonovel adaptation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - which used proper colour frame blow-ups - this offering has only low quality screen captures that are oddly in black and white (a huge letdown considering the book cover features a high resolution colour photo of the main cast) and are so high contrast that it looks as if the editor took snapshots from a TV broadcast. This would only make sense of these were place holder images for a future draft. Why this passed for a finished product is a real mystery. There was even a run that printed the inside pages upside down from back to front. On the other hand this might arguably qualify, in a time before pirating, as the first "cammed" copy of a film.

[Tim Ristow · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sad ending for the Star Trek line of photonovels. Filled with poorly printed black and white photos on cheap paper. Even the selection of photos do not represent the stages of scenes very well, often taking shortcuts to represent reactions or actions with as minimal number of images as possible. Several images are even printed upside down. Text is equally as brief, often inaccurate to the script or images used with several misspelled words. A poor way to capture such an iconic film. For completionists only. And even then…

[Michael Hanscom · Rating 2 out of 5]

As others have noted, the quality of the photos leaves much to be desired. Additionally, some pages are in the wrong order, and one photo is upside down. Still, as a funny little collector’s item, it’s amusing to have on my shelves.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought unopened from a used bookstore, this does not live up to the admirable quality of the original “Fotonovels”. Composed of lower quality black and white printed images with simple text below images, it lacks any graphic design whatsoever.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unfortunately, the weakest of the four photonovels I've read. The images were incredibly grainy and difficult to see. Quite a few typos in the dialogue. I loved this movie and I'm glad to have this book as part of my collection but I wish it had been better constructed.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great film, awful presentation. Low quality black and white screenshots from the film on equally low quality paper.

[Scott Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one’s a bit disappointing. All the images are in black and white and many seem not to be of great quality. There are also some upside down frames of ships.

[Michelle b · Rating 3 out of 5]

photos were ass. still cried

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Would have been a cute little novelty had a good chunk of the pages in the middle not been out of order.

[Kristina Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike the first photostory, the pictures here are black and white and lacking clarity. It is told with additional text rather than a comic format. The plot is, of course, irreproachable and it is only a shame production costs let down the quality.

[colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

read 09.01.84
read 05.25.85

[Roxanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wrath of Khan with Ricardo Montablan was my favorite of the Star Trek movies. I have watched it about 50 times. He is so excellent in it that he stole the whole movie.

[Taaya · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is known and good, but the picture story version leaves out many of the 'deeper' lines, some character information and some action.
The pictures are of such a low quality that one can't see much - especially as they are only black and white, not multi colored.
The few text would not be enough for a non-Trekkie to understand what was happening, do not really a good book, no matter how good the movie behind it was.