Why Walter Koenig Held His Tongue To Keep His Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan Role

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“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” gives Pavel Chekov (the late Walter Koenig) one of his meatier arcs in any of the “Star Trek” films. In his new assignment as first officer of the USS Reliant, Chekov and his captain, Terrell (Paul Winfield), scout planets as a testing site for the Genesis device. But what they think is planet Ceti Alpha VI is actually the barren Ceti Alpha V, where the Enterprise left Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), the 20th century’s most infamous genetically engineered warlord, and his followers at the end of the episode “Space Seed.”

Chekov and Terrell are captured and brainwashed via Ceti eels implanted in their ears. Khan and his people thus seize the Reliant, and boom, we have our movie. The sequence on Ceti Alpha V is predicated on Khan and Chekov recognizing each other. When Chekov and Terrell come across Khan and co.’s makeshift home, Chekov recognizes the name “Botany Bay” (the name of the sleeper ship where the Enterprise found Khan in “Space Seed”). Once the pair are captured, Khan recognizes Chekov and proclaims “I never forget a face.”

Chekov also speaks to and of Khan as if he witnessed the events of “Space Seed.” Except, technically, he didn’t. “Space Seed” was made in “Star Trek” Season 1, and Koenig/Chekov only joined the cast in Season 2. Ergo, he obviously never appeared in “Space Seed” and shared no screentime with Khan. Oops!

Over 40 years later, Trekkies still note the inconsistency and rationalize it. Koenig, for his part, has said he recognized the error when he read the script, but chose to stay silent to preserve Chekov’s role. Considering how often “Star Trek” overlooked Chekov, it’s hard to blame him.

“Wrath of Khan” writer Harve Bennett wasn’t a “Star Trek” fan when he took the job. That worked for the best. “Wrath of Khan” is widely credited for revitalizing “Star Trek” and part of that is because Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer brought fresh eyes. To that end, they couldn’t expect everyone who would go see “Wrath of Khan” had previously seen “Space Seed.” So, the movie doesn’t rely on the episode outside of its big picture story details, which are easily explained via some dialogue in Khan’s first scene. (I saw “Wrath of Khan” before “Space Seed” as a kid, and I followed the former just fine.)

But Chekov knowing Khan is the kind of detail that evidently slipped by Bennett. Koenig, who was asked to read the script and give it a “Trekkie read,” had a vested interest in not pointing out the mistake. As Koenig put it when interviewed in “The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years” by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman: “I was faced with the ethical dilemma of mentioning it to Bennett or letting it go. I chose survival as opposed to ethics.”

Chekov is the only member of the “Star Trek” main cast who shares physical screentime with Khan in the movie. (Khan and Kirk only ever talk via viewscreens and communicators.) It’s also Khan’s first appearance in the movie, as well as the scene from “Wrath of Khan” that I rewatch the most in isolation. Montalbán’s performance, savoring every line, is just spectacular. I can see why Koenig would, as an actor, want the chance to be in a scene as strong as that one, and he holds his own balancing Chekov’s courage and fear.

For Koenig’s part, his cheeky theory to explain away this inconsistency was that Chekov once made Khan wait an uncomfortable amount of time to use the Enterprise’s restroom. “Chekov was on the Enterprise, just offscreen” has become the go-to fanon answer. The novel “To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh” by Greg Cox legitimizes that; Chekov is said to have led a failed effort to retake the Enterprise from Khan, and is part of the detachment that helps Khan and his people get settled on Ceti Alpha V. 

Despite the continuity gap with “Space Seed,” Chekov was the best pick among the main characters as the one captured by Khan. Amusingly, this is precisely because he’s the most ancillary one. The Enterprise can function without him in a way it wouldn’t without Spock (Leonard Nimoy) or Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley). 

While Koenig evidently feared that they would swap Chekov’s part out in the script, the only other main character who could work would be Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), which would add some icky subtext to Khan violating her body with the Ceti eels, or Sulu (George Takei). With Sulu, you run into the same problem because he wasn’t in “Space Seed” either! While Sulu/Takei was part of the show in Season 1, he was absent for that particular episode. If it had been Sulu who landed on Ceti Alpha V with Terrell and met Khan, you might be getting forum posts highlighting that inconsistency today.

Walter Koenig may have created a small problem in “Wrath of Khan” by staying silent here, but he helped fix a much bigger one, too, by suggesting moving Spock’s death to the end of the film.