The Wrath of Khan’s smooth and sculpted chest, more like it.
You may have heard, thanks to our yakkety podcast, that Sean and I completed the Starfleet Academy Experience this past weekend at the Canada Museum of Aviation and Space. It’s a really cool exhibit in Ottawa until September 5th – after that, it could be in a museum near you!
We spent the day training to be Starfleet cadets. We majored in science, navigation, communications, and more. Everything was very interactive – we learned Klingon, plotted our ship’s course, selected safe planets to land on, shot phasers, and even got teleported. It was a grand day and loads of fun (our Twitter account @AssholeMovies was witness to it). But it got Sean in a Star Trek kind of mood, which is what inspired him to force me to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan against my will.
I admit, ever since watching For The Love of Spock, I’ve been a little curious about the original series. The new movies are surprisingly tolerable to me, so why not? The original television series was cancelled in 1969. The first movie, with the same cast and characters, was in theatres in 1979, a full decade later. The Wrath of Khan followed in 1982: by then, Shatner was 50 years old. The movie is quite jokey about his age, his creaky old dotage actually, his need for reading glasses and a retirement plan but they went on to make 6 of these, chasing the series into star date 1991 (Shatner would also appear in Generations with Patrick Stewart in 1994). So yes, the Enterprise crew had aged. So had their enemies. Ricardo Montalban played villainous Khan in an earlier television episode (Space Seed) and was asked back for The Wrath of Khan. 
And he is the owner of that smooth and sculpted chest that kept me so enthralled. For the record, Montalban was in his early sixties when this movie was in production. It didn’t quite match the face that went along with it. Was the chest perhaps a prosthetic?
Montalban says no. He claimed that lots of push-ups did the trick. The costumers gladly put him in a plunging deep-V neckline to show it off. Khan was buff. Many of his henchmen were Chippendale dancers, so for a 60+ gentleman to flaunt his broad, oddly hairless chest among them took some doing. Good on you, Mr. Montalban. I salute your beautiful chest.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
The best theatrical Trek to date. Kahhhhhn!
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Yes, Sean really wanted to make sure I knew where all those references came from.
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It’s a critical movie in Trek lore though. It’s the cornerstone. I cry every time Spock dies and I’m not making that up!
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I get sucked into this one every time I see it on!
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There isn’t a Star Trek episode, except for those in the strange Deep Space Nine, that I’ve missed and except for the most recent, I’ve also seen all the movies. There are fine chests in all of them, but I agree that Kahn’s second appearance was especially chesty. It never occurred to me that the décolletage could have been added, although I did know about Spock’s ears
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And Kirstie Alley’s!
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(jealous of your Trek adventure, of course) GREAT CHEST, I mean post.
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Haha, I’ll take chesty any day 😉
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I heard it was a prop. Which leads me to ask where you can buy one.
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Because I’d be wearing it everywhere. Nothing weird.
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Ah yes, one of the movies I got dragged kicking and screaming to. I do believe I enjoyed it, though. (Other movies my parents dragged me kicking and screaming to: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back…)
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Little did you know you were getting quite a crash course in cinema!
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This was the best movie made by the original cast.
I always wondered about that chest. I still think it couldn’t possibly be him.
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It wasn’t. Otherwise he’d probably be looking for excuses to take his shirt off in movies.
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I’ve got a soft spot for Star Trek VI, and Star Trek IV maybe the best film out of the bunch but is broad time travel comedy. The best Star Trek film is Star Trek II so I hope you enjoyed it Jay for more than just Montalban’s chest. 🙂
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