To be clear, I'm not looking to debate whether this is the best Trek film. Rather, I'm asking why so many people see it as such.
I enjoy TWoK well enough, and certainly it is a good film overall. But consider: it is much more militaristic than any Trek before and more than most Trek since, and relatively violent compared to TOS; there is no exploration of strange new worlds; tonally, it is quite different from most Trek stories. (To be clear, I'm not suggesting that these qualities are required for a "good" Trek film -- I'm just noting a few obvious ways that TWoK is unusual.)
In terms of TOS episodes, TWoK is probably most like a combination of "The City On The Edge Of Forever" and "Balance of Terror" -- which, to be fair, are beloved classic episodes, in part because they are somewhat exceptional compared to the rest of the series. So perhaps that gives us some clue as to why the film is so beloved.
In general, TWoK is ultimately about mortality. For all that the film professes to be about Khan, he really is just an Act of God (in the natural disaster sense), creating an unstoppable force that Kirk must humble himself against. The film is really about Kirk learning to confront death -- heightened by the contrast of the new life of Genesis and in his newly-rediscovered son. And that is something that the film did which was new: able to plumb the depths of Kirk's emotional journey at greater length thanks to the larger screen and the longer format.
But, again... it's a great film, but I don't know that it's obvious to me that Kirk learning to deal with the no-win scenario particularly epitomizes what "Star Trek" is (whatever the hell Star Trek actually "is"). In that respect, The Voyage Home seems like the most obvious candidate -- whatever Star Trek "is", to me TVH "feels" more like it than does The Wrath of Khan.
So, why has TWoK earned such a place of acclaim?
(PS: I could write a similar post about First Contact, whose popularity also confuses me.)
Wow, what a great mini-essay. I'd love to see it posted such that more ST fans could enjoy it.
Hmm, the idea of 'cockiness' is an interesting one that seems to meet the eye test, but I'm not sure I really agree with. That is-- altho he could indeed bluff, boast and 'exert his personality' here and there in the series, it felt to me like there was almost always a stone-cold, calculating nature behind it.
I'm tempted to agree, altho reading something like Shatner's Toupee, I was impressed by how many strong performances he turned in over the years. For example, I'd never heard of Incubus nor The Defender before, but that amazing blog introduced those and many other interesting acting he'd done.
I also feel that in the series proper, Shatner showed an amazing versatility in terms of ways to react and play various scenes, to the extent that I can't imagine how much more dull the show would have been with Jeffrey Hunter as lead. So I think it's fair to say that while his TWOK performance was great, he also turned in a load of other great performances as Kirk and other characters. Which was 'finest?' I suspect that's a pretty monster and/or nebulous debate, really.