These days, I sometimes describe myself, only half-jokingly, as a "lapsed Trekkie." But I will never, it seems, lapse anywhere near enough to lose my deep and heartfelt love for The Wrath of Khan. All these decades later, and it's still my all-time favorite movie. I don't care what anybody thinks.

So I was, naturally, very pleased to come across this coffee table-sized book on the making of the film, and I'm even more pleased by its contents. There are lots of pictures, but unlike with many of these kinds of image-heavy books, the text does not come across as something of an afterthought. Instead, there really is quite a lot here about the various behind-the-scenes stuff that went into making the movie (costumes, special effects, etc. etc.), and the people who made that stuff happen. I particularly appreciate the way it acknowledges the work of people who are often overlooked, including camera operators, stunt doubles, and even the hairstylist. And I was very interested to read about the various earlier versions of the script and the huge changes it went through before it become the finished version on our screens. Especially as it seems like every choice that was made about what to change just made it better and better, and, well, how often does that happen? Here I didn't think much of anything could make me appreciate Spock's death scene more, but seeing pieces of earlier versions where it's honestly pretty bad has definitely done it.

Anyway. This one is definitely recommended for fans of the movie! ( )