Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan turns 33 today.

Here are some reasons it's the best space opera film.

• The theme music. Holy crap, the theme music.
• Kirk's whole "space cowboy" schtick is deconstructed, he's given a midlife crisis, his overconfidence gets a lot of people - including his best friend - killed. Meanwhile, the best Star Wars was ever able to manage was cutting off the hero's hand and having the villain tell him they were related. No contest.
• They actually killed off a popular regular (yes, they brought him back in the next film, but this is not a post about that).
• They actually damaged the Enterprise model.
• They gave the characters proper uniforms.
• KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
• They seamlessly integrated a new character and let her bounce off Kirk and Spock flawlessly (seriously, try to imagine this film without Saavik. No Kobayashi Maru test, so no discussions of the no-win scenario; nobody willing to second-guess Kirk when he's obviously wrong, etc.)
• The special effects - and especially the nebula battle - still hold up today.
• And at no point is an effect or an explosion gratuitous. Because they were willing to damage the Enterprise model - and because the script conspires to never have either ship get shot at while its shields are up - every shot does damage. Every shot gets people killed.