The Only Major Actors Still Alive From Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
More than 40 years ago, in 1982, director Nicholas Meyer's "The Wrath of Khan" revitalized "Star Trek," overcoming its low budget to be the shot in the arm that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" failed to be.
This was the second time that the "Star Trek: The Original Series" cast reunited on the silver screen. With how long it has been, it's sadly unsurprising that most of the original "Star Trek" main cast is no longer with us. Spock's sacrifice and emotional last exchange with Kirk in "The Wrath of Khan" are even sadder and more poignant now with Leonard Nimoy's real-life passing in 2015.
Even most of the film's own supporting cast have passed on. Ricardo Montalbán, who delivered the performance of a lifetime as Khan Noonien Singh himself, died in 2009 at age 88. However, a select few of the movie's cast are still with us.
William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk)
The main character arc in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is Captain Kirk (William Shatner) feeling his age. The movie begins on his 50th birthday and he's hit a midlife crisis. He's stuck in a desk job as a Starfleet admiral and when he has to step back into the front lines, he's plagued with uncertainty about whether he can be the risk-taking adventurer he was in "Star Trek: The Original Series."
There's some (sweet) irony that despite all this worry about growing old, Shatner himself is still alive in 2024, having outlived most of his costars. After "The Wrath of Khan," Shatner returned for the next five "Star Trek" films. Kirk's journey finally ended with him dying in "Star Trek: Generations" after teaming up with Enterprise-D Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart).
Outside of "Star Trek," Shatner found success with the comedy series "Boston Legal" in the early aughts — leaning into his public persona as a ham, he played loud, half-senile lawyer Denny Crane. Off-screen, he became the first "Star Trek" lead actor to actually travel to space in 2021, but the experience wasn't what he expected. "It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered," Shatner later wrote. "The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness."
George Takei (Hikaru Sulu)
Sulu is the navigator aboard the Enterprise. He's an essential part of the crew, but unfortunately, he doesn't get all that much to do in "The Wrath of Khan" — though a deleted scene would've revealed he'd been promoted to captain of the USS Excelsior. That's not to say the films forgot about Sulu or Takei; he returned alongside all his fellow "TOS" alums up to "The Undiscovered Country," where Sulu finally got that captaincy he'd been promised back in "The Wrath of Khan."
Since then, Takei has made one of the more prolific careers for himself outside of "Star Trek." As he's aged, he's become primarily a voice actor; he made guest appearances on children's TV shows such as "Transformers," "Avatar: The Last Airbender," and "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." He was also part of the main cast in Netflix's 2023 animated series, "Blue Eye Samurai."
Takei is also a political activist; he came out as gay in 2005 and is vocal about LGBTQ+ rights. His childhood in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War 2 inspired the Broadway show "Allegiance," and in 2019, Takei co-authored the graphic novel "They Called Us Enemy" about his experience.
Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov)
Chekov isn't part of the Enterprise crew when "The Wrath of Khan" begins — he's the executive officer of the USS Reliant under Captain Terrell (the late Paul Winfield). However, of the returning supporting cast, he probably has the most important role in the film.
It's Chekov and Terrell who free Khan by venturing to what they think is the planet Ceti Alpha VI, but is actually Ceti Alpha V, where Khan and his crew are marooned. Khan implants some indigenous creatures, the Ceti eels, in Chekov and Terrell's ear canals to make them vulnerable to suggestion, effectively brainwashing them. Khan seizes the Reliant, and it's through the ship's power that he stands toe-to-toe with the Enterprise.
Koenig returned again in all the "Original Series" era "Star Trek" films, and also had a cameo in "Generations." In 2023, he even played Federation President Anton Chekov (implicitly a descendant of Pavel) in "Star Trek: Picard." And his science-fiction legacy doesn't end with "Star Trek." In the 1990s, Koenig played the villainous psychic Alfred Bester on "Babylon 5," whose sinister presence is the total opposite of Chekov's pluckiness and comic energy.
Judson Scott (Joachim)
Khan has a remaining crew of about two dozen, but the only one with a name or significant lines is his right hand, Joachim. Judson Scott is uncredited for the part, but it's not because his character lacks presence in the film. No, as Scott remembers, it's because his agent made some bad calls when negotiating. A shame, since Scott definitely deserved the credit; he's Montalbán's main screen partner (Khan and Kirk never physically meet in the movie) and holds his own.
"Wrath of Khan" is filled with allusions to "Moby Dick" (Khan dies quoting Captain Ahab). With that in mind, Joachim is Starbuck, the first officer trying to talk his captain out of a disastrous revenge quest to no avail.
Scott returned to "Star Trek" twice, appearing in "The Next Generation" episode "Symbiosis" and "Voyager" episode "Message in a Bottle" as a Romulan villain. Scott has seemingly retired from acting these days (his last credit is for "Charmed" in 2002), but he's still with us.