Yesterday I talked about Jim Clark's SGI system, and today I want to talk about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) which was the first film ever released to use computer-generated images (CGI). The visual of the Genesis Device's impact on a deserted planet is the first CGI effect ever used in a movie. The Wrath of Khan was released in the United States 35 days before the release of Walt Disney's Tron which was extremely CGI intensive. Ironically enough, George Lucas's company Industrial Light and Magic contributed to both films. I will discuss Tron in more detail tomorrow. According to several people I spoke with, this particular Star Trek film, is refutably the best of all the Star Trek films. Some even said it was one of the best science fiction films of all time. While this point is irrelevant for our purposes, the first computer generated image seen on a big screen must have been a miraculous event to witness. Click here to see a clip from the film. What I am interested to know, is how this film made it out to theatres only a month before Tron to claim credit as the first film to use CGI. Paramount pictures is the company put out the film, and I would not be surprised if this film was a bit rushed in order to beat another film to theatres. Paramount had to have known that this movie would be a huge success for the CGI and more obviously because the film was the sequel of an extremely popular television show.