I just found out a few interesting facts about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
I knew a lot about this film, things like the model of the Reliant is upside down because that’s how the drawing arrived at the art department, and trivia like the re-used models and sets. Space Station Regula 1 was the space office from The Motion Picture [TMP], several beauty shots of the Enterprise (leaving dry-dock for example) were re-used, and some sets from the Klingon battlecruiser were used for Enterprise’s torpedo room and Regula 1’s transporter room console. Have another look at that transporter room sequence. Doesn’t that console just scream Klingon to you now? 
Other things like the original title was Vengence of Khan, but was changed because George Lucas…let’s say he requested (that’ll keep the legal department happy, won’t it? Huh? Yes? Good…)….requested that the title be changed because of his upcoming film Revenge of the Jedi. By the time Wrath’s name had been decided, George had changed his name to Return of the Jedi. (Historians tell me this happens all the time and there’s nothing I can do about it.)
But what I didn’t know was that while TMP was made on a budget of around $43 million, Wrath of Khan was made for $10 million.
Read that again. I’ll wait.
$10 million. It was distributed through Paramount’s film division, but shot and made by their television department. The re-use of shots, sets and models helped keep the costs down enormourly, and Paramount was trying hard to re-coup its losses from TMP which had run way over budget in several departments, notably special effects.
For a more complete list of the trivia, check the IMDB trivia section.
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