DerekFaraci

First - yes, this should be in the Canon Second - I think Devin almost hits on why this deserves to be in the Canon, but misses a piece of it. I don't think WRATH OF KHAN is a response to just the 70s, it is a response to the failures of the 60s and the coming of the 80s. STAR TREK is the 60s - the promise of space exploration, the concept of equality for all races, and a fair share of hippy styles and free love ideas. WRATH OF KHAN is a guy of the 60s, Kirk, looking back at the ramifications of his actions. It is the hippie becoming the yippie - he looks at what he did in his 20s and sees that the positive effects he thought he was having on the world really didn't help much of anything. Khan represents the ghost of the 60s, down to his and his crew's clothing style - they look like sci-fi hippies. He is the reminder of what Kirk was. David is the representation of what Kirk created - the preppy who thinks everything is owed to him, the coming of the Reagan era. Kirk find himself caught in the middle of it all - he no longer fits the 60s era, but he can't connect to the 80s. He's no longer so sure of his actions and choices in life. His ability to rationalize what he does is fading. Spock's death is the death of Kirk's rational side. In the end, with his rational side dead, Kirk says how he feels - he feels young. He's entering his midlife crisis. He has shed the last vestiges of his hippie past, and embraced the preppy future. He even got himself a shiny new planet to explore. WRATH OF KHAN is the movie that brings sci-fi films into the Reagan era and beyond.

He did not kill the cat. West is not evil, he is egotistical. He also never lies in the movie, so having him lie at this one point, but never again, and never get called on it, makes no sense.

I vote no. While the movie is pleasant, it has no real meat to it. There's nothing about the movie that creates real conversation, which we can see (hear) in this episode. Devin, Amy, and FCH barely talk about the pluses and minuses of the movie itself, but more about anime and the career of Miyazaki. At multiple points, the argument for Kiki pretty much breaks down to "the movie is pleasant". I don't know if just being pleasant is enough of a reason. Points are made about why Miyazaki should have a movie in the canon, but never why this specific film is the one.

Something I think Amy and Devin both miss in the casting of RRP and the bad dialogue is that it was done, I think, in part to play on the style of action movies at the time. Piper's Nada is spouting bad one liners and acting "movie hero" tough, but he's not that good at it. It plays into the working man concept and why you would get an 80s wrestler - Nada is playing tough without really understanding what he's doing. This is a guy who surely watches wrestling and earnestly loves movies like Commando and Rambo II. As he goes about trying to be the hard ass he needs to be, Nada apes the styles of those silver screen action heroes. The difference is, he isn't that good at it, and (in the world of the movie) he is actually fighting.

Swear to God, before I started listening to this episode I figured both Devin and Amy would love the movie. I'm shocked that not only does Amy not like it, but that she doesn't like Dustin Hoffman. Simply amazed.

Superman wins my vote without question. One major thing you can feel in Superman is that the movie is being made by people who have real love for the character and the world. Burton never liked Batman (an ongoing issue for Batman movies is that the people who make them don't like the comics) and you can feel it. The movie is stilted. Superman is a movie that perfectly captures Superman. It bums me out that DC/WB (both in comics and in film) are afraid to have a Superman who is good and pure and a little cheesy. I really thought that Marvel's take Captain America for the movies would be a blueprint for them to follow. You don't make the character dark, you make the world around him dark, and he is the light that breaks through.