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It dawned on me that we don't have a Star Trek movie thread here. Star Trek might be the most successful case of a television making the transition to cinema. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is widely regarded as one of the greatest scifi movies of all time. There are currently 13 Star Trek movies. 2 of them are remakes of The Wrath of Khan. I've watched most of these movies over the past year or two. I'm no expert on these movies, so I'll just give my quick two cents of each one. Star Trek: The Motion Picture I've seen this one once, a few years ago. It was super ambitious. It came out on the heels of 2001 A Space Odyssey and really feels like it. I'm due for a rewatch. This was Star Trek's grand return from cancellation, so from what I understand, many of the slow, lingering shots of the Enterprise were welcomed. I'm due for a rewatch. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Wrath of Kahn lives up to it's legacy. I think I first saw this movie before I saw Space Seed, but it does a wonderful job of bringing the audience up to speed. Ricardo Maltoban's performance of Khan was fascinating. It's easy to not realize that Khan and Kirk never meet face to face through the entire movie. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock This is the first one considered to be "bad." I rewatched it a few months ago and liked it better than the first time I saw it. Christopher Lloyd plays a Klingon. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home I've probably seen this one the most. It's incredibly entertaining. A fish out of water story but with whales. You'd be a double dumbass to not like it. At this point, the meme of "even Star Treks good, odd ones bad" begins to creep up. I don't think there's much truth to the meme. That said, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier This one was alright. I enjoyed the finale a lot. Star Trek goes full JRPG when Kirk attacks and dethrones God. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country I haven't seen this one in a few years, but I remember it being a strong finish. A Klingon secures his great grandson Worf a job in Starfleet. I'm also due for a rewatch of this one. Star Trek: Generations I started watching the TNG movies a couple months ago. The RLM Plinkett reviews led me to believe they were really bad. But years later, I would realize that RLM is pretty bad and the TNG movies and Star Wars Prequels are actually pretty good. Star Trek Generations acts as a bridge between The Original Series and The Next Generation. Like Wrath of Khan, it's a movie about coming to grips with aging, but unlike Wrath of Khan, where Kirk finds out he's got a son, Picard finds out his entire family is dead and he's realizing it might be too late to start a family of his own. I think the most fascinating parts of the movie was Data and his coming to grips with having emotions. Jokey Data is super irritating. Really bad. But that's great. Him seizing in total terror after going into combat was also really good. Star Trek: First Contact Another one that was much better than RLM makes it out to be. I'm still not keen on the idea of a Borg Queen, I think it robs the Borg of of their terror if there's one big bad to kill, but whatever, that's the movie they made, and it's an entertaining one. Picard grapples with PTSD. This one gets flack for Picard's inconsistent characterization between the series and movies, but I can't really find a problem with it. Why would anyone complain about seeing Patrick Stewart mow down cybermen with a Tommy Gun? Star Trek: Insurrection It's ok. Star Trek: Nemesis I haven't seen this one since I rented it from Blockbuster in 2001. From what I remember, it's pretty much a TNG remake of Wrath of Khan. It did so badly it killed plans for another movie. Star Trek (2009) Both Star Trek and Mortal Kombat released a new entry in their long running series that acted as a prequel, sequel, remake, and reboot at the same time. This was the first time I got to watch a Star Trek movie in a theater. "Not your father's Star Trek." It's fast, sleek, full of hot actors, and spawned countless of tiresome lensflare jokes. I rewatched it last month and it holds up. It's fine. Star Trek Into Darkness My rewatch from a few weeks ago confirmed to me it's the worst one. It's a super hollow remake of Wrath of Khan. I figured that having some distance between it's original release and now would make it more interesting, but it didn't happen. Even Nimoy had to Skype in, it was so bad. Even Star Trek Enterprise was able to use Peter Weller to greater effect than Into Darkness. Star Trek Beyond I saw it in theaters and thought it was decent, but not really trying. If it were an episode of the show, it would be a middling one. It didn't really feel ambitious in anyway. Probably executive meddled with. I've got the bluray sitting here behind me. I'll probably watch it this weekend if I got nothing else do to. Only TOS and TNG got movies. I don't think it would have made much sense to make one for DS9 or Voyager. Netflix streaming has given DS9 a second wind in popularity, making people appreciate it more than ever. A coda movie or sequel show would have been great. But, with the passing of Aron Eisenberg and Rene Auberjonois last year, that ship has sailed. Check out the excellent DS9 documentary, What We Left Behind for a good pitch by the original team or writers for how a sequel series pilot would go.
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Aug 4, 2020 02:03
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 03:38 |
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I knew I should have looked up the years but I figured it was close enough. 
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Aug 4, 2020 03:16
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I did try my best to give my own opinions on each movie without relying on the general consensus. The Kelvin trilogy was unique since I got to watch them all in real time with the rest of the forums. Beyond seems to have left the least impression on anyone. Into Darkness had all hype surrounding it, as well as Abram's outright lie about the Khan reveal. Beyond is enjoyable, no doubt, but it definitely felt like the Kelvin's equivalent to Insurrection. I like the idea of a Star Trek movie with a completely new crew. It would be pretty bold and the lack any attachments to pre-existing characters would mean they could be riskier with character deaths.
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Aug 4, 2020 16:25
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Jose Oquendo posted:It's not the PTSD that is the issue. It's the clear transformation from Picard the diplomat to Jean-Luc "Die Hard" Picard. It was something that Patrick Stewart specifically wanted. He wanted more action poo poo to do in the movies, which is why you get stuff like Picard driving a space ATV on a space desert. Which is fine, the guy can do what he wants, but it definitely goes contrary to the character. There's that episode where Picard single handedly fights a crew trying to steal the Enterprise while it's about to get space bug bombed that I would exactly call a Die Hard episode of TNG.
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Aug 4, 2020 16:31
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I don't find it that big of a deal. People can change a lot in the span of a few years, and strict devotion to canon stifles storytelling.
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Aug 4, 2020 16:40
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That sounds like it could have gone into Superboy Prime punching reality walls territory and I'm all for that. Remember in the lead up to Into Darkness, how they hyped the big return of the Klingons? And when the movie came out, they were there for only one action set piece and pretty much all but one had helmets obscuring their faces? Detective No. 27 fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Aug 5, 2020 |
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Aug 5, 2020 01:44
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I'd probably say Into Darkness is worse about it since Wrath of Khan was a direct sequel to an episode of the show, so they were locked into using Ricardo Maltobon. There really was no excuse for Into Darkness. They could have righted a wrong made decades ago but they double downed on it long after it was an acceptable practice. They couldn't have cast a whiter actor.
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Aug 5, 2020 17:26
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The Golden Gael posted:Star Trek Beyond I rewatched Beyond yesterday and I think this was the most disappointing part to me. Even though I'd already seen the movie before and knew he was gonna die, there was a brief moment where I believed he was about to help Kirk open up lever and save the day. Having watched through Enterprise, I did enjoy the callbacks to it. They should have sprung for a Scott Bakula cameo. Detective No. 27 fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Aug 5, 2020 |
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Aug 5, 2020 22:35
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Aug 6, 2020 05:30
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I thought long and hard about pluralizing Treks or not and I stand by my decision.
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Aug 7, 2020 15:34
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 03:38 |
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JJ Treks being fast works pretty well for them. But I do like the slowness of the previous movies, and shows. The biggest problem with modern Star Trek TV is that tv lengths are a good 10-15 minutes shorter than they used to be, so there's less time for the characters to just faff about.
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Aug 8, 2020 18:29
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