Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, released in 1982, brought back Khan Noonien Singh from the original series to hunt Captain Kirk. Leonard Nimoy agreed to return on the promise of a dramatic death for Spock. Negative test audience reactions to that death led to significant revisions of the ending, over director Nicholas Meyer's objections. The film was also the first feature to contain a sequence created entirely with computer graphics. Its swashbuckling tone led Meyer to describe it as Horatio Hornblower in space.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.