So in celebration of the new Star Trek movie, I thought I’d do a thread in which I review all the past Star Trek movies and TV series. I’ll preface it by saying that I’m a big Trek geek and I’m okay with the label of “Trekkie.” Personally, I don’t get the hubbub about fans being offended by the term “Trekkie” and preferring to be called “Trekkers.” Really? What’s the difference? It’s not like being called a “Trek Whore” or something actually demeaning, although to be honest, I’d probably accept that label as well. Anyway, these are my opinions, but then I’m known to be a bit harsh and demanding in my entertainment. Please feel free to chime in!
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
The first time I saw this movie was in the very early days of VCRs (I’m old). I was a kid and remember being pretty sick with a fever of over 100. I was in and out of consciousness and remember thinking the movie was really long and kinda boring and not much happened. And that was all I remembered about it. That and it had a bald chick and a lot of people wearing drab pajamas.
I finally saw it again about 5 years ago. Can’t say my opinion has changed much. While I don’t hate the movie, it certainly doesn’t do much for me either. It’s just…there. It’s obviously of the “2001” school of cerebral sci-fi, and as such, it’s fine. But it is slow and not much happens. Overall, not something I’m going to go out of my way to watch again.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (AKA Star Trek II: 100% Awesome from Start to Finish)
Not only do I love this movie, but it sits in my personal Top Ten movies of all time. For me it transcends being just a SCI-FI movie or just a STAR TREK story and is just a great HUMAN story. I love that it really fleshes Kirk out beyond just being a space cowboy into being an older, restless shell of himself, doubting his place and usefulness in life. It also has the great recurring concepts of the no-win scenario, the good of the many vs the good of the few, and life and death (both on a personal and planet-level scale).
As a testament, I actually just realized the other week that my appreciation for this movie doesn’t even have anything to do with the original Star Trek TV series. I actually only started watching the original Trek series within the past year on Hulu (more on that later), so I didn’t love this movie because I had any pre-existing attachment to the series or the characters. It stands completely on its own.
One other thing that I find fascinating: everyone seems to concur that Wrath of Khan is the most exhilarating of the Trek movies (and it is), but when you think about it, there is hardly any action in it at all. The two main “action scenes” consist of two big ships doing a couple slow strafing passes on each other and then those same two ships engaged in a very, very slow cat-and-mouse game in a nebula. And yet, those sequences are absolutely gripping in drama and intensity because the movie does an amazing job in getting the audience invested in the characters and situations. I’d argue that those two scenes are more thrilling than every action scene from all three Star Wars prequel movies put together. Because for all the CG wizardry, frenetic overblown action, and nausea-inducing camera moves of the Star Wars prequels, there is no heart whatsoever in them to actually make us care what happens next. At all.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Not a huge fan of this one but I appreciate it as part of the three-part story that is Star Trek II, III, and IV. I think the biggest bummer about the movie is that it lost Kirstie Alley, who was an awesome Saavik, and filled her spaceboots with Robin Curtis, who is completely unmemorable. I really think Kirstie Alley alone would have made me much more interested in everything that happens on Genesis. As it is, all those scenes are kinda blah to me.
For me, the best parts of the movie are the scenes on Starbase, where the crew decides to disobey orders and steal the Enterprise. I think a lot of movies and TV shows try to show military characters faced with the choice of disobeying orders at the risk of jeopardizing their entire military careers, but this movie really captures the gravitas of that decision in a way that most don’t.
And then there’s the destruction of the Enterprise. Holy crap. That is one of the most awe-inspiring events of all the Trek franchise and is heartbreaking to watch. Since then, the Next Generation movies have tried to re-capture that feeling by destroying the Enterprise literally every other movie, and those fail miserably. Unlike Star Trek III, which truly feels like a colossal loss, the TNG attempts feel like shallow, obvious grabs for “holy crap” moments.
Finally, Star Trek III has both Christopher Lloyd AND John Larroquette as the two main Klingons. Weird. I guess Don Rickles and Shemp weren’t available.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
This one gets a lot of flak, but I’ll say right now that I love it. I find the time travel angle to be very fun and entertaining, and in the broader picture, I really like how it wraps up story elements from the previous two movies. I especially love the resolution where their success in saving Earth commutes the charges against the crew for stealing the Enterprise (from Star Trek III), and Kirk’s punishment is to be demoted from admiral to captain (which resolves his storyline from Star Trek II). That is tight writing that resolves things neatly without ever feeling contrived.
The “save the whale” story itself is fun and I appreciate that this movie, more than any others, really gives every single cast member something to do and a moment to shine. That seems to be something no other Trek movie has accomplished until the new J.J. Abrams movie.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
I only saw this once in the theaters when it came out and promptly forgot it. I remember thinking it was generally pretty dull and didn’t feel like a plot worthy of a feature-length movie. And I remember a “Row, row, row your boat” sing-a-long that made me never want to see Trek characters singing ever again. More on this later with Star Trek: Insurrection. Ugh.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Definitely one of the better Trek movies. I love the setup and the first half of the movie a great deal, although I lose a bit of interest during the detective-y scenes on the Enterprise and Kirk and McCoy on the penal colony. The movie just seems to lose a bit of momentum with those scenes. Great villain in General Chang though, who doesn’t seem to get enough props in Trek lore as a cool baddie.
This movie also has one of my favorite McCoy scenes ever, when, during his trial, he’s asked to describe his medical status. Classic. The awkward and tense dinner scene between the Enterprise and Klingon crews is also a highlight, as is seeing Sulu get his own ship.
My biggest beef is that they didn’t kill Kirk. I think I remember there being rumors that he was going to die saving the Klingon ambassador at the end. Whether true or not, that would have been a very fitting resolution to the entire original cast Trek movie series. While a downer, it would have been a SIGNIFICANT death, allowing the Klingons to finally embrace peace with the Federation, having acknowledged the ultimate sacrifice made by their most legendary sworn enemy to protect one of their own. It also would have tied neatly to the line from Star Trek IV, in which a Klingon ambassador states that “there shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives.” Instead we get the inane and utterly pointless Kirk death in Star Trek: Generations.
Next up: My reviews of the Next Generation movies. Brace yourselves. I am not kind.
