After the tepid critical reception of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, series creator Gene Roddenberry was pushed out of the sequel's production and given the ceremonial title of executive consultant.

Producer Harve Bennett admitted he found the first film 'really boring' and had never seen the original TV series before being hired; watching episodes convinced him the sequel needed a real villain, leading him to Khan Noonien Singh from the episode 'Space Seed'.

An early script draft had Spock die in the first act (compared by Bennett to Janet Leigh's early death in Psycho), but this was moved later after fans reacted badly to a leaked script.

Director Nicholas Meyer, who had never seen an episode of Star Trek either, wrote the final shooting script uncredited and unpaid in just twelve days to meet the special effects department's deadline.

Meyer conceived the film as 'Hornblower in space' with a nautical, swashbuckling tone, unaware that Horatio Hornblower had actually been an original inspiration for Roddenberry and Shatner when the TV series was created.

Leonard Nimoy had not intended to return for the sequel, but agreed once producers promised Spock a dramatic death scene, reasoning that if this was to be the last Star Trek film, going out 'in a blaze of glory' was fitting.

Ricardo Montalbán played Khan for far less money than he was offered because he enjoyed the role so much, and his only complaint was that he never got to film scenes face-to-face with William Shatner, instead reading lines opposite a script girl.

Contrary to rumors, director Nicholas Meyer confirmed that Montalbán wore no prosthetic chest piece; his muscular physique was entirely his own.

The production was nearly greenlit before anyone thought to check whether Ricardo Montalbán could take time off from filming the TV series Fantasy Island to join the movie.

Kirstie Alley, making her feature film debut as Saavik, was so fond of her Vulcan ear prosthetics that she would take them home with her after each day of filming.

To save costs, the production reused about 65% of its sets from The Motion Picture, including redressing the Enterprise bridge to serve as both the Reliant's bridge and the training simulator bridge.

The Reliant's distinctive ship design exists because producer Harve Bennett accidentally viewed and approved the preliminary blueprints upside-down, prompting the design to be flipped.

The barren Ceti Alpha V desert set was built on Paramount's largest soundstage, elevated 25 feet and covered in tons of colored sand, with industrial fans creating a sandstorm so intense that actors in unventilated spandex suits had to signal by microphone when they needed air.

Spock's death scene was filmed over three days with no visitors allowed on set, and Nimoy had such a positive experience that he asked to have a way written in for Spock's possible return.

Test audiences reacted so negatively to Spock's death and the film's dark ending that producer Harve Bennett had the closing scenes reshot to be more uplifting, adding the shot of Spock's casket on the new planet, over Meyer's objections.

James Doohan came up with the idea for his character Scotty to play 'Amazing Grace' on bagpipes during Spock's funeral.

The Wrath of Khan contains cinema's first entirely computer-generated sequence, created by Lucasfilm's computer graphics group (which later became Pixar) to depict the Genesis Device transforming a barren planet.

The swirling Mutara Nebula effect was created by injecting a latex rubber and ammonia mixture into a water tank and filming it at two frames per second to simulate faster movement.

A shot of a giant model of a Ceti eel emerging from Chekov's ear, including a especially gory 'Fangoria' version, was cut from the theatrical release after it caused strong negative reactions in test audiences.

Composer James Horner, then only 28 and working on his first major film score, was hired after Paramount's music executive was impressed by his demo reel, since more established composers like Jerry Goldsmith and Miklós Rózsa were too expensive for the reduced budget.

Horner was explicitly told not to reuse any of Jerry Goldsmith's score from the first film, so instead he adapted the opening fanfare from Alexander Courage's original Star Trek television theme.

Dying Khan quotes Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, reinforcing the film's recurring nautical and literary motifs.

The film set a world record for its first-day box office gross upon release and eventually earned $97 million worldwide, and in 2024 it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as culturally significant.