Boy, did I get turned around on this here motion pitcher. I only saw it once before … I was eight or nine years old, and my dad had – over the course of a few weeks – rented the second, third and fourth motion pictures and watched all three with me. I kept saying I wanted to watch the first one to see how it all began (at the time, my child-brain didn’t understand that the first movie was not actually where “Star Trek” began). My dad warned me over and over that it was very boring, but I insisted.
So he rented it, we watched it together, and he fell asleep. J
Meanwhile, I didn’t know what the heck was going on. I didn’t fall asleep, but I was pretty bored.
So I was a little worried about giving the movie a second try.
But I actually ended up liking it a lot. Part of my turnaround was due to just watching a remastered version on a much nicer TV. (A crummy VHS tape on a tiny TV in the 80s did the film’s cinematography no favors.) Also, in the age of CGI, the practical sets and models built to convey the majestic, labyrinthine hugeness of “V’Ger” seem much cooler than they did in the 80s, back when the computer generated FX seemed much more futuristic and cool to nine-year-old me.
The film has a real cinematic scope and sweep to it in terms of how it’s show, and Jerry Goldsmith’s score is excellent, his new theme so catchy and rousing that it became the “Next Generation” theme song. I had forgotten that Goldsmith’s incidental music actually incorporated both his new theme and occasional snippets of the original theme. That was a happy surprise.
The movie certainly does overly rely on its own visuals keeping the audience wow’d. Quite a lot of the film involves the actors staring in amazement at the SFX shots, whether it’s the Enterprise, or the various shots of V’Ger. I hated that as a kid, but I actually really enjoyed the visuals and the music so much at this time, that I found this aspect of the film pretty easy to forgive.
Back in first viewing, the film “2001” was something I probably had never even heard of, much less was aware of as an influence on this movie. I still haven’t seen the Kubrick film all the way through, but I’m familiar with its visual style and tone enough that I can see its influence here. One criticism I’ve heard of this movie is that it’s not really a cinematic representation of “Trek” so much as just a poor imitation of “2001.” I see the point, but in the year 2018, Trek as a franchise is large, and contains multitudes. The “Star Trek” spectrum is now more than broad enough to contain both the bright-colored utopian sci-fi of the 1960s show and the more somber, slow-paced ruminative sci-fi on display in the 1970s motion picture.
Granted, the story isn’t exactly a textbook film plot. There are literally zero twists and turns. It’s just “Big macguffin is going to destroy earth. Enterprise crew goes out to stop it. They succeed.” It’s essentially “The Doomsday Machine,” with the reveal/solution at the end borrowed from “The Changeling.” The only wrinkle involves the two new officers, First Officer Will __ker, and the exotically beautiful female empath with whom Will shares a romantic past. They’re not too terribly interesting, but I guess Roddenbury liked them enough to import them into “Next Gen” along with that theme song. Riker and Troi were pretty much the two least interesting characters on “Next Gen” for my money, and I would have been perfectly happy to see them go the same way as their proto-versions, dissolving at the end to create their own version of the 2001 space baby.
So, the movie is certainly flawed. It certainly shouldn’t and wouldn’t be any “Trek” fan’s choice if they wanted to show a non-“Trek” fan one single artifact that was emblematic of all the fun, humor and imagination that the franchise is capable of. And the title, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” does kind of employ that it SHOULD capture up the quintessence of “Trek.” So on that level, it fails.
And yet, and yet …
… As just one “Trek” adventure of the myriad that now exist, I found this movie to be fairly compelling. The fact that it’s so different from other “Trek” hit me this time as a large plus. The 1970s were something of a golden age of moviemaking, and while this film will never find itself in the pantheon with “The Godfather” and “Star Wars,” it does still benefit from being born in that time. The movie’s got some amazing shots in it. I’d argue that a lot of the cinematography is wonderful, and the score stands up to my ears as being as good as any of John Williams’ iconic triumphs of that decade.
I also thought the film was noteworthy for inaugurating a new phase of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy friendship. They’re not a trio of young adventurers anymore. (Arguably McCoy wasn’t all THAT young even on the show). They’re old, and somewhat tired, friends. The movie does some interesting things with Spock’s “return” after an apparent self-exile on the planet Vulcan. I’ve read that this element was added at Nimoy’s insistence, as the actor wanted to convey a sense of Spock having progressed as a character from who he was in the series. I don’t know WHEN they added this element, but it does feel somewhat less than smoothly integrated, in that it doesn’t achieve much resolution. But in a way, that gives the film an interesting edge. There’s a melancholy over Spock during most of the film, and – fascinatingly, if you will – it doesn’t really resolve at the end, despite Spock’s decision to remain with the crew. Or perhaps “melancholy” isn’t the right word … alienation? The whole sequence when Spock first boards, and is brusque and emotionally removed from everyone, even Jim … Those scenes were very effective, I thought. I also loved the very hallucinatory/psychedelic “2001” sequence of Spock in a spacesuit, floating by himself through the inner workings of V’Ger – a cool way to externalize this new, more “alien” iteration of Spock.
Meanwhile, the idea of Kirk being a bit old and past his prime is only touched upon in this movie, but the notion is an intriguing one, teased out more in the next movie.
So, while nine-year-old me was wrong in believing that the first movie was “Episode 1” in the saga, there are a few seeds planted in this film that will blossom in the next triad of films, the “Genesis” trilogy.
So, I’m really turned around on this movie. I know it’s been discussed in other IMWAN threads, and somewhere there’s probably a post from me in which I brashly proclaim this one to be the very weakest of the six films to feature the original series crew. I no longer feel that way. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, for all its failings. At this point, crazily, it might even be one of my favorite of the Trek films. (Though we’ll see how that ranking holds as I make my way through a re-watch of the next five movies.)
At last! I come to the movie of movies, the ultimate Star Trek film to beat all Star Trek films! I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid, and my main memory was of those terrifyingly disgusting earwigs.
Gotta say, it’s a darn good Star Trek adventure. It lives up to the hype, proving to be *almost* as good as a JJ Abrams Star Trek movie (but not quite, of course). It does exist a little weirdly uneasily with the first movie. The first film has desk-jockey Admiral Kirk rather dramatically stating at one early point, “They gave her [the Enterprise] back to me, Scotty!” before reassuming command of the ship/ Yet it’s this movie wherein we see Bones and Kirk having a conversation about how Kirk needs to stop sitting behind a desk, and instead get back to captaining a starship, before he wastes away. To some degree, it almost feels like this movie ought to retcon the first film out of existence. Which it almost does, I suppose, canonically speaking, as how many canonical Star Trek movies or shows have ever again referenced the “V’Ger” encounter? (Unfortunately I cannot take it out of Doot Canon, as the V’Ger affair plays heavily into “Debt of Honor,” the greatest Trek graphic novel of all times.)
On the other hand, it could also be argued that this movie pays off the thread of melancholy that the first movie introduces. The uneasy and awkward Kirk/Spock reunion of the first movie gives an added poignancy to the renewed friendship that we see in “Wrath,” adding that much more punch to the tragic ending. And the idea of Kirk getting up there in years is briefly touched on in the first movie, and ends up being a nice foreshadowing of the core theme of the second film.
Also, despite the redesign of the Starfleet uniforms, there’s a lot of aesthetic continuity between the first film and this one, which surprised me. After the motion picture so radically altered the aesthetic that defined the 60s show – and remembering the maroon naval uniforms introduced in this movie – I assumed that 1980s Trek would give us another retooling of the overall look and feel of the sets and FX, breaking away from what was established in Trek’s single 1970s outing. But no … the Enterprise looks the same, both exterior and interior, and the starbase in this movie looks the same as the one we saw in the first movie. Memory-Alpha gave me the reason for this: Star Trek II’s budget was drastically low by Hollywood blockbuster standards (even 1980s blockbusters), much lower than that of the first movie. This forced the production team to re-use as many models, as many sets, and as much stock footage, as was humanly possible. So the aesthetic continuity is actually an accident of budgetary concerns.
That kind of thing is always interesting to me. The story is reminiscent of how the budget for “Jaws” was such that they couldn’t make the shark look cool, so they kept the shark off camera for most of the film. And now everyone agrees that this is what made the film so creepy and effective. As a dyed-in-the-wool theatre guy, I always love stories of how budgetary limitations actually improved the finished product. (‘Cause in the theatre world, we’re dealing with extremely low budgets, don’tcha know. A friend of mine who ran a theatre company called Cornerstone in Milwaukee fifteen years ago was also an actor in Brian Singer’s second “X-Men” movie, and I remember him saying to me that the money that the film spent just on Xeroxing new drafts of the script would have funded Cornerstone for a year.)
Anyways, yeah, the low budget of “Wrath of Khan” seems to have been a definite plus. The movie does have a kind of elegant simplicity to it. While the movie has a neat look to it (particularly the Mutara nebula stuff created by ILM), it’s hardly an FX extravaganza on a par with a George Lucas project, and this really lets the film (or forces the film) to be carried on story – on acting, characterization, inner conflict. There’s something decidedly muted about the entire film (this was arguably true of the first Trek movie as well), and I think it works well. While there are some nifty ‘splosions near the end, none of them are as striking to me as the skillfully integrated semiotics of a pair of eyeglasses. Seriously, I loved every moment that involved the eyeglasses.
(I was surprised to realize, BTW, that one of the iconic bits of Shatner’s “overacting” in the movie – the moment in which Shatner screams “Khaaaannn” – is, in the context of the movie, actually *Kirk* overacting, not Shatner. He’s reacting to Khan leaving him “buried alive,” but at that point in the movie, Kirk is running a “con” (so to speak), letting Khan believe that the war has ended and Khan has won, when in fact, the Enterprise has been repaired and will be rescuing Kirk in short order.)
I can see why this movie has earned the reputation it has among Trek fans. It’s a genuinely good story, true to the characterizations of Kirk and Spock that we’ve seen in the past, while also adding new dimensions. Using a villain who’d first appeared in the show was an inspired choice, creating a sense of continuity and mythology. It’s arguably the point at which Trek goes from a series to a “saga,” wherein a character’s actions from 15 years earlier are relevant in the present. And if this had been the last Trek story ever, it would have made a magnificent capstone to said saga.
But instead, there was still much more to come … In the form of John Byrne’s “New Visions” what what???
And so we (meaning I, Doot) come to the middle chapter of the “Genesis” trilogy.
Interesting. I remember this film seeming almost as interminable as the first movie when I was a kid. Seeing it as an adult, the movie strikes me as being fairly briskly paced. It’s much more plot driven than the first two movies. The original motion picture is so lacking in story and so big on long, lingering FX shots that it’s practically more of a tone-poem than a film, and “Wrath” placed much more emphasis on character and theme than it did on telling an adventure story. (Of course the adventure is in there, but it’s hardly what you’d call involved, being essentially a protracted single battle between two ships. Kirk and Khan never even meet face to face.)
So “Search for Spock” ends up being the first real potboiler of the Star Trek feature films. With its space battles, phaser fire, multiple big ‘splosions, and climactic clash of fisticuffs between Kirk and the Klingon commander, it feels a bit like the “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to the first movie’s “The Cage.” I can see why it’s not as well regarded as “Wrath.” In terms of tightness of narrative and thematic cohesion, “Wrath” is hard to beat when it comes to any other Trek film. That said, this one feels a bit more like “Silver Age” Trek in a lot of ways, with its denser plot, its use of Klingons (albeit of the ridged-brow variety), and the return of the swashbuckling Kirk who breaks the rules and saves the day with his fists.
Also, under Nimoy’s direction, the franchise seems more willing here to go back to the broader comedy of the 1960s efforts. McCoy’s scene in the bar is certainly Lucas-inspired aesthetically (with its cantina atmosphere and its syntactically backward-speaking rogue alien), but the verbal comedy as delivered by DeForest Kelley feels very much in the spirit of a classic 60s episode -- albeit with kind of a punky 1980s edge. McCoy attempting and failing to deliver a Vulcan nerve pinch was one of the things I remembered vividly from watching the movie as a kid, and I was glad to realize it still made me laugh as a grown-up.
There’s such a gap in my own mind between anything TOS-related and anything Next Gen-related (because of how I experienced the two versions as a kid), that it kind of messed with my brain a little bit that the Klingons in this film feel so much more like TNG Klingons than they do like the ones from the original series. But then it was like, “Duh, this movie is only like three years before TNG debuted, so of course.” It is funny though to think that canonically, the Klingons changed so drastically in terms of their aesthetic between the 2260s and the 2280s … but then for the next 100 years of canonical Trek continuity, they didn’t change a thing about their starship or uniform designs, or even their sense of what makes for a good Klingon hairstyle.
Speaking of Klingons, I love Christopher Lloyd. “Back to the Future” is one of my all time favorite movies, and Doc Brown is to my eyes one of the great cinema characters of the 20th century. Also, Jim on “Taxi” was pretty great. And then there’s Judge Doom and Professor Plum, two other icons from the cinematic pantheon. Man, Lloyd is great. I think as a kid, even though I already liked Lloyd from those other movies, his performance here didn’t make much of an impression on me. The fact that he was buried in Klingon accoutrements probably obscured his performance in my young eyes. Another pleasant surprise for adult me: Christopher Lloyd the Klingon is very very Christopher Lloyd indeed. It occurs to me just now as I type, the Klingons of both TOS and TNG are very theatrical, but in different ways. The 60s Klingons are a bit more spritely and impish, like something out of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” whereas the TNG Klingons tend to take themselves much more seriously. They’re always acting out the high dramas, like “Hamlet” or “Othello.” Christopher Lloyd, theatrically trained (or so I’ve heard it said), kind of has a foot in both camps here. He’s very melodramatic, but there’s an undercurrent of comedy in the way he speaks certain lines … I’d have to watch his scenes again to isolate examples, but I think that combo of drama/comedy is there. He’s almost the perfect stylistic hinge between the two phases of Klingons that we saw in “Trek” during the franchise’s first thirty years.
Other things of note: This movie is the most steeped in mythology. The first film had pretty much no references to earlier episodes, somewhat amusingly so. (You’d think Kirk could at least have made a comment about how V’Ger is a lot like Nomad, or something.) I know that the novelization of the movie established the new Decker as the son of the captain from “Doomsday Machine,” but that ain’t in the movie, at least not the cut I watched. Even the Klingons get short shrift. The second movie is a direct sequel to “Space Seed,” but doesn’t really allude to any other episodes, instead adding much of its own material. (Of course, much of what was added in “Star Trek II” has become key mythological touchstones – the Kobayashi Muru and Kirk’s solution to it, for example.)
“Search,” on the other hand, really delves into the 60s canon. The recreation of Vulcan from “Amok Time” at the end is the most obvious (and probably the coolest), but there’s also the reuse of the destruct codes from the Frank Gorshin episode, the return of Mark Lenard’s Sarek from “Journey to Babel,” the allusion to pon far (again from “Amok Time”), the cloaking device (from “The Enterprise Incident” … or, wait … Was there an episode that established that the Romulans had shared the cloaking device with the Klingons?); that whole sequence with the touching of the hands between Saavik and Spock (again from “The Enterprise Incident” … or no?) and the whole plotline about Spock’s intellect having been separated from his body, a clear and obvious reference to the classic “Spock’s Brain.” All of this is very Spock-centric, which I guess is no surprise given Nimoy’s creative control.
I also was aware of how this movie seemed to have a higher FX budget than “Khan” did. At times, this movie seems positively indulgent at times compared to the sparseness of “Wrath.” Probably another point in “Wrath”’s favor, as it forced a sharper focus on theme and narrative. “Search” by contrast is much more lush visually, but feels less artful ultimately. While “Wrath” is laser-focused in its story economy, without a single line of dialogue or dramatic beat that didn’t somehow reinforce the movie’s message … “Search” puts one more in mind of the Homer Simpsonism, “There is no moral! It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened!”
And it was a shrewd narrative decision to take at the end, blowing up the Enterprise. It’s become a cliché now, of course … How many of the feature films have the Enterprise crashing now? … But for this movie, it strikes me as a masterstroke. Kirk and company pull off a miracle, bringing Spock from death back to life, but the cost is huge. For someone like Kirk, it’s the ultimate sacrifice, and it’s a testament to the Kirk/Spock friendship that the one is willing to tear out a piece of his soul to save the other. There’s also a nice little dramatic twist at the end, that after all the sacrifices Kirk has made – his son, his ship, his career -- the resurrected Spock is not exactly the same person that Kirk knew. (Funnily enough, he seems to have reverted to the distant, vaguely more computerized persona that we first saw at the start of “The Motion Picture.”)
So! A fun adventure story that, despite its occasional awkward moments, feels very classically “Trek” in many ways. Action, humor, strong character dynamics, some nice twists at the end. Ultimately a much more entertaining movie than I remembered it being, and certainly better than its reputation, or at least my sense of what its reputation is among Trek fans, being one of the notorious “odd numbered films.”
Two final thoughts:
1.) When I was writing my rave of “Wrath” and how it was much better than “The Motion Picture” (even though I ended up liking the latter movie fairly well) … There is one element where I think the first movie beats the second: Music. Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the first movie is genuinely awesome. James Horner’s score – including his reinvented theme – is weak sauce by comparison. It didn’t bother me so much in “Wrath,” but I will admit I noticed it more here. It seemed odd to me that after ditching Goldsmith’s winning contributions completely, the franchise decided to give Horner’s uninspired Trek theme a second spin for “Search.” Thank goodness at some point wiser heads prevailed, and resurrected the Goldsmith theme for TNG. 2.) Saavik. What’s the deal here? I thought Kirstie Alley was great! I read on Memory-Alpha that when Nicholas Meyer auditioned actresses for the role, he said no one came even close to Alley, that she was really the only possible choice at the end of the day. He said that according to her, she loved “Trek” as a kid and used to want to BE Spock. That’s frickin’ awesome. Meyer also, in the same quote, made the very shrewd observation that Nimoy’s “emotionless” delivery is essentially a form of comedic deadpan, and as such you really need a comedic actor to play a Vulcan, and Kirstie Alley certainly is that. During her stint on “Cheers,” she was possibly the funniest lady on TV. So … wha hoppen? Why she no come back for “Star Trek 3”? The second actress, I thought, was perfectly fine … But it’s just a TAD distracting, the recasting, no? For that matter, where did Carol Marcus go? Lady just up and disappeared between movies. But at least they simply wrote her out, rather than replacing her with Shelly Long, or something.
And so the “Genesis” trilogy concludes, with a swerve into comedy and 1980s-style environmental activism. An intriguing move … One thing that can be said about the Trek film so far … They don’t really repeat themselves. Each one has a different tone, a different theme, different villains (although the Probe is not totally un-V’ger-like, I suppose), a different overall pace …
I’m feeling like these movies kind of get a bad rap, possibly because only one of them (“Wrath”) comes close to really capturing up what made the original TV series so great. None of the films feels like any kind of “ultimate” or “quintessential” illustration of what Trek is. On the other hand, taken in toto, I think one could argue that all of the films (or at least the first four) are a nice illustration of the diversity of stories that are possible to tell within the “Trek” milieu. With “Voyage Home,” we get the first Trek film to incorporate time-travel, specifically a trip back to the present. In the 60s, this meant traveling back to the 60s, which for me, as a child of the 80s, strikes a totally different chord to this movie. Episodes like “Assignment Earth” and “Return to Yesterday” feel like period pieces, recreations of the bygone 1960s, which of course they weren’t. “Voyage Home” on the other hand feels like a Trek movie set in the present. You know, the 1980s. The present.
Anywho, given the precedent set by those aforementioned series installments, a trip to 1986 for this, a Trek film released in 1986, seems like completely fair play. I think the execution is very successful as well, with the comedic moments all landing nicely. Although that said .. the main storyline, with Kirk, Spock and Gillian, is more successful than the side storylines with the other crewmembers. And hey, why did Sulu get such short shrift? Scotty and McCoy get their whole transparent-aluminum bit, and Uhura and Chekov get to engage in some espionage. Meanwhile, Sulu … borrows a helicopter? Man, George Takei really drew the short straw in this movie. Kind of a shame, because he’s probably a better comedic actor than some of the other cast members who got more screen time. He’s certainly funnier than Walter Koenig.
The ending sequence gets a little meandering … Probably a flaw in the screenplay. The whole movie is building toward a climax in which … some whales make some noises and a giant tube flies away. So what could Nimoy do other than film that? Oh well. I will say that while I initially was inclined to roll my eyes at the “Godspell”/”Friends” moment of the cast splashing around in the water and laughing, I kind of came around on it. The characters really went through the ringer in the previous two films, so it actually struck me as psychologically plausible that they would engage in something cathartic at that point in the story. I’m not saying I necessarily *want* to watch 100-year-old McCoy and 1,000-pound Scotty splash around in the ocean … but once it happened, I ultimately figured it was fair enough.
Still, while the climax itself is dubious, the movie is a pretty fun comedy of errors up to that point, and a great showcase for the latter-day comedic chemistry between Shatner and Nimoy. It’s just as funny as what they had going on in the 60s, but … kind of a different thing, somehow, no? Shatner by this point had evolved a much goofier onscreen persona. He always had a playfulness to him, but by 1986 he seems downright foppish. Nimoy, meanwhile, has taken Spock into a different place post-resurrection, although that’s perhaps not so much to do with Nimoy’s evolution as an actor overall, as it is just a conscious decision to change Spock’s nature as a result of what the narrative has put him through up to this point. At any rate, a more foppish Kirk and vaguely slow-witted Spock turn out to be a winning combo as far as the comedy is concerned. Kudos to Nimoy for pulling double-duty as both the director and probably the funniest actor in the movie.
My final takeaway re the triad of films that comprise the “Genesis” trilogy is that they’re ultimately an enjoyable saga, and I’d say time has actually been pretty good to them. I had a vague sense when I was kid that all these films, excepting “Wrath,” were considered failures, and if that’s true, I imagine it’s because there was a sense that the films never recreated the same sense of imagination and innovation that we saw in the best of the 60s series. And it is probably fair to say that the movies generally speaking never come as close to the awesomeness of episodes like “Journey to Babel” or “Amok Time” (despite “Search for Spock” mining both of those episodes for continuity purposes). But several decades on, it’s easier to view the films as being just a continuation of the adventures of Kirk and co. … It feels like it’s all on the same continuum, where at the time there was maybe more an expectation that the 80s films could and should be a recapturing of the glory days of decades earlier.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m way off. I vasn’t dere at the de time, Charlie.
I guess the point I was getting at is that the “Genesis” trilogy now stands to my eyes as a cool slice of Trek history. What I like is that each film really has its own distinct identity, even though there is a continuing plot linking them. “Voyage Home” doesn’t feel like a rehash of “Search for Spock” doesn’t feel like a rehash of “Wrath of Khan.” Each movie tries something new, which makes it a more successful trilogy to me than most others. I’m certainly more inclined to re-watch these three movies again at a future date than I ever will be to try and sit through the 37-hour Lord of the Rings trilogy-that-is-actually-one-movie-I-guess-Director’s-Cut -whatever-who-cares-it’s-just-Elijah-Wood-holding-a-ring-and-making-a-surprised-face-while-dramatic-music-plays-Special-Blu-ray-edition-box-set.
Final questions: 1.) Is this the first time it’s said that Kirk is originally from Iowa? 2.) Was there a plan for the fifth movie to continue the soap opera begun in “Wrath”? ‘Cause as much as I enjoyed “Voyage,” it certainly left some loose ends, with the Klingons proclaiming “There shall be no peace while Kirk lives!” and what-not. They eventually kinda resolved that dangler in the 6th movie, although from what I recall it doesn’t dovetail 100% with how they leave things here. Yes, the Klingons are all angry at Kirk again come Star Trek VI, but as I recall, it’s nothing to do with his actions in “Search for Spock,” and all because of a new situation with Kirk getting caught in a sneaky frame-job by not-Saavik. But I guess that’s a story for another IMWAN post.
This movie has gotten better with the perspective of time. I can see why people were disappointed at first, as the plot is pretty thin for a motion picture. (Which is arguably true of many of the Trek films … certainly it’s true of the first one.) And the reveal of a heretofore-unknown relative is one of those clichés that long-running franchises never seem to get tired of, despite the fact that it starts to become farcical after umpteen iterations within the same fictional universe. I mean it’s a tad farcical even when it happens once. Oh well. At least Star Trek never had a character learn about TWO entirely different heretofore-unknown relatives within the space of a single year *coughWorfcough*
Also there are a couple comedy bits that really fall flat in this one, which is disappointing after Voyage Home’s humor held up pretty well, I thought.
So, a problematic film in many ways.
And yet … and yet …
… I feel like the emotional core of the movie actually works pretty well, honing in on the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate and enjoying those characters and their friendship. There’s a nice sort of simplicity to their scenes together, and while much of the humor in the movie is weak, Leonard Nimoy’s deadpan never really fails.
The ending of the movie is a bit odd, a lot of weird stuff happening without any decent explanation for it. And thematically I am not sure how well the “god” stuff really fits. The movie seems to be along the time-honored notion that friends are the family that we choose: Spock has a brother, but it isn’t Sybok; it’s Kirk.* Kirk says that “lost a brother once,” seeming to refer to George in “Operation Annihilate” but then adds, “I was lucky, I got him back,” and we realize he’s referring to Spock, not George.
Meanwhile, Kirk is convinced he will die alone, but as long as he has Spock and McCoy, he’s never alone. McCoy blames himself for his father’s death and Spock has his own unique daddy issues as well … but they’ve both made peace with those demons, largely through the emotional strength they’ve gained from this tightly-woven three-way friendship.
None of this is particularly deep, but it’s nice, it’s warm, it’s thematically coherent, and it’s not at all an inappropriate story to tell about these characters in 1989 -- characters who have aged in real time since they were first introduced to the public nearly 25 years earlier.
But then suddenly there’s a big giant bearded blue head shooting lasers out of its eyes and claiming to be the supreme being. This is awesome when it happens in Time Bandits, one of the greatest movies ever, but it’s not quite so great Star Trek V, for all that both films feature the magnificent David Warner. But what the hey. There has to be some kind of big CGI climax at the end, and I suppose a giant blue head is better than nothing. And it’s kind of a cool moment to the Klingon ship show up and blow up God. Klingons vs. God, there’s a fight we never thought we’d see. Klingons FTW
Still, much like with The Motion Picture, I feel I’ve done a turnaround on this one. I used to hate both Movie One and Movie Five, the former because it was too boring and this one because it was too jokey and slapsticky. But on recent rewatches, I didn’t actually find The Motion Picture boring at all.
And as for V, while some jokes are still very cringey to me (Chekov blowing into the communicator to make a snowstorm, Uhura’s leaf dance, etc.), I thought the core of the story was a lot stronger than I remembered. And was probably more appealing to me now that I’ve become more of a fan of the original show. (I do recall very vividly watching this movie with my dad on video, about year after its release. While he hated the jokes, he seemed more or less to enjoy the story. When I complained at one point that I thought it wasn’t good, he shrugged and said that it wasn’t too far off in tone from the original show, at least in terms of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy scenes, i.e. the scenes that account for most of the film.)
Another link between I and V, the two “losers” of the Star Trek film franchise (at least within the original six): They’re the two with the best scores, as they’re both by the brilliant Jerry Goldsmith. (This movie brings back the theme from The Motion Picture, which by this time had been co-opted by TNG as its theme music. It’s still probably the best of all the Star Trek themes that exist. Goldsmith is da bomb.)
So yeah, I liked it. Once again, at the end of the day, I think the original Trek films work better in retrospect, and watched in fairly quick succession. They’ve aged well, I think. We live in an era of popular shows revived on Netflix with the original cast, and if you think of the films in that way … episodes of a new Netflix season of a classic show … they work pretty well.
*(Memory Alpha tells me that Spock and McCoy were – in the original draft – going to be brainwashed by Sybok along with the rest of the crew, but both Nimoy and DeForest objected, saying it was out of character. Their objections, and the rewrites thus brought about, both maintained the integrity of the their characters and the thematic integrity of the story, in my opinion.)
My recollections at the time are admittedly maybe not the best. Or rather, my recollections are pretty crystal clear, but I have no idea if what I’m recollecting is actually true, even if it is what I vividly remember thinking was the case at the time.
What I remember thinking at the time was that ST V: The Final Frontier was going to be the last Trek movie (the title certainly implies it), but as it was a bit of a bomb and the consensus was that it was kind of dorky and doofy, someone realized it would be a kind of lame note for the original legends to go out on. Thus, they decided to bring back Nicholas Meyer, writer/director of the triumphant Wrath of Khan, to bring them another tight screenplay to bring a better ending to proceedings.
Thus, The Undiscovered Country, the sixth and final cinematic outing for the original pantheon.
Of course, it should be noted that while the screenplay for Wrath of Khan is tight as a drum (impressive, given that it’s a patchwork of a myriad earlier drafts, or so Memory Alpha tells me) … as an action film, Star Trek II is a bit sedate. Hanzo opined years ago (here, on IMWAN) that it’s boring. I wouldn’t go that far, but certainly if you’re expecting a tense and exciting space adventure, you won’t get it from “Wrath.” The entire affair is rather muted, with even the space battles decidedly lacking in adrenaline.
Still, it’s a beautifully written film, and well acted also (in my opinion), so certainly bringing Meyer back creates high hopes. My sense at the time was that Trek fandom mostly approved of VI, and indeed many seemed to think it was the best Trek movie since Khan. I don’t know what the current fan consensus is, but I must say I do not agree.
In some ways, I actually thought this was the weakest Trek film. It’s somewhat disappointingly a surrender to Trek geekdom, adding a bunch of continuity wonking that the earlier films were free of. Rather than trying to tell one cool, capstone epic for the crew, the movie also tries to build continuity bridges with TNG, which by this point had been on the air for four years and had won its hard-fought battle for legitimacy in the eyes of Trekkies. Granted, on paper, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea, trying to weave the ending of the original crew’s film saga into something resembles a prequel to Next Gen. Nicholas Meyer is shrewd enough at least to recognize that there is material to work with here: A peace conference with the Klingons not only creates a bridge to the 24th century with its Klingon security guard (reliable Michael Dorn, the only TNG cast member to get into an “Original Series” movie, playing Worf’s namesake and grandfather in this movie), but the idea of a “glastnost” between human and Klingons turns out to be incredibly topical, dovetailing with the actual world quite serendipitously. Meanwhile, on a character level, Meyer is able to explore the psychological fallout from Star Trek III, with Kirk’s rage over his son’s death creating a prejudicial blindness to the benefits of attempting to forge a truce with his enemies.
So they actually were on solid ground on all three fronts: Plot, theme, AND character. All of which would seem to be grist for a screenplay whose greatness could easily equal Khan’s. But that’s certainly not what we get. Quite the opposite. It’s a bit all over the place, isn’t it? Plotwise, we get a whodunit with only one suspect; for character arcs, we get one for Kirk that goes from A to B. (“I hate Klingons!” “Oops, I was wrong.”) And the allegorical resonance with the end of the Cold War lasts for about one scene.
The movie has some engaging aspects. I did like the parallel plotlines of Kirk and McCoy having to stage a jailbreak while Spock has to play Sherlock Holmes (with a female Vulcan as his Watson) back on the ship. A neat idea, and cigar-smoking Iman on the prison planet was a more engaging cameo than I had recalled. Although that said, I wish they hadn’t gone totally on-the-nose by saying that Holmes’ iconic “Once you eliminate the impossible” was a coinage of one of Spock’s ancestors. That would have been a funny bit in isolation, but it falls flat after earlier much funnier bits of dialogue (i.e., “Only Nixon could go to China” and the references to Shakespeare in “the original Klingon”). Although arguably they pay off this running motif at the end, with Kirk’s line to Spock, “Everybody’s human.”
Speaking of the supporting actors, the biggest turnaround in my opinion now from when I first saw this in the theater (having not seen any of it in the intervening years) was Kim Cattrall as Valeria. I had recalled her being utterly annoying on first viewing (and frankly, some of her dialogue now still grated on me) … but this time, I thought her performance was incredibly dynamic. She’s utterly watchable. (I was probably annoyed initially as well by the ridiculous predictability of the screenplay. Valeria is so obviously the mole. For cripes sakes, she was THERE when Kirk was recording the personal log that was stolen and given to the Klingons.) Watching it this time, I didn’t concern myself with the predictability of the story, and suddenly Cattrall became very much a high point. She’s incredibly charismatic.
For that matter, Christopher Plummer (also obvious from the moment he’s onscreen that he’ll emerge as the foe of the movie) and David Warner are wonderful as well. They really loaded this film up with some great talent on the guest-star front. (Although Kirkwood Smith is a bit wasted … I wish they’d given him more to do, as he’s a fantastic character actor.)
What else did I like? Sulu in command of the Excelsior, which played a larger role in the story than I had remembered. That was neat, particularly the ending with both Excelsior and Enterprise pummeling the #$%^ out of the Klingon ship. That was good times. Plummer’s endless recitations of Shakespeare at the end seemed a bit desultory to me when I first saw the movie, but I recognized this time that it was meant to be over-the-top, and it actually did work for me, from a comedic standpoint (particularly McCoy’s “I’d pay good money for him to shut up”).
Spock and McCoy teaming up at the end to customize a photon torpedo … I got the sense when this happened that someone involved with the film (perhaps Meyer, perhaps Nimoy and DeKelley), wanted something like this in the movie, where we see these two cooperating in perfect harmony, a nice capstone to their longtime antagonism. If that indeed was the intent, and not just a happy accident, I think the sequence was a bit rushed to me, though I appreciated that they tried to get it in there.
Also interesting to let Scotty have a heroic moment at the end, as he’s the one who dispatches the assassin. Kind of cool. An attempt to redeem his putting himself out of action in the previous movie by conking himself in the head?
I did think the final few moments of the conference were dorky. “You’ve restored my father’s faith.” “You’ve restored my son’s.” Unearned moment, and borderline nonsensical. Wouldn’t “redeemed” or “vindicated” or “justified” be a better word than “restored”? Maybe that’s nitpicky. Either way, it’s corny in the extreme when everybody stands up and applauds, moments after the assassin is phasered and subsequently defenestrated. I know my impulse whenever I see a body come flying out of a window to land smoking and dead on the ground in front of me is to slowly rise from my seat and give a slow clap.
Ugh. Give me a Uhura fan dance any day over forced sentimentality like that. Plus I can’t watch that moment when the crew all stands there and soaks in the applause without thinking of the line from the Red Letter Media review: “… and then they all posed for a picture, that nobody took.”
So, yeah. I didn’t dislike the movie, it was just a little disappointingly all over the place, and the ending didn’t feel earned. And I find myself at least somewhat blaming the fact that they tried to satiate Trek continuity wonks, so that the film could be a “big deal.” The big peace talks with the Klingons! Worf’s grandpa! Oooooo!!! The problem with trying to do this is that it’s apparently tricky to do it well. You wouldn’t think so, but apparently it is. How else do you explain peace with the Klingons happening in Kirk’s time, the era of the Enterprise-A, when the “Yesterday’s Enterprise” episode of TNG implied that that ball didn’t get rolling until after the destruction of the Enterprise-C, decades later? Not irreconcilable, but it means that these earlier peace-talks on Khitomer must have eventually broken down, right? And then sacrifice of the Enterprise-C in defense of the Klingon outpost decades later got the Klingons feeling more warmly again? Which means these earlier peace talks are not as important as the movie wants them to be. The whole thing is much lower-stakes than it is trying for, to anyone steeped in Trek lore. And any movie with Michael Dorn playing his own grandpa clearly is trying to appeal to the guys who love their Trek lore.
The same problem comes up when one tries to cogitate on this whole Klingon prototype. It can fire when cloaked! But 70 years later, Klingon ships can’t do that, so whassup there? Also Kirk figures out way to modify a torpedo so that it can zero in on a cloaked Klingon ship. But 70 years later, Starfleet torpedoes can’t do that, so whassup there?
I dunno. I’m probably being too hard on the movie. I suppose one can’t deny that it makes a better “final adventure” than “Turnabout Intruder.” And certainly a better final adventure for Kirk than his fistfight with Malcolm McDowell in the next movie. Still … it coulda been better. It seems crazy, but I find myself wanting to rank this at the very bottom, #6, on the list of Trek movies. But that’s probably just crazy talk.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a great film, but to be up front, I am talking about the remastered director's cut which did make things better.
Yes, it's true, it has problems – for me, the biggest is it seems to regurgitate the Changeling story both in origin, Earth did it to herself in a way, and the threat, the destruction of the entire Earth. But the final solution is different – instead of just destroying the threat, they help it understand more, gain some essence of humanity, and evolve, which is a happier ending and speaks well of humanity.
The V'Ger story is more realistic than the Nomad story, however. Mostly why an alien probe made to obtain and sterilize soil samples would have that kind of power, was ludicrous. V'Ger was made by a vast alien intelligent machine planet, and given the tools to acquire knowledge and power on its long trip home, so that made more sense, so I forgive the reworking of the old story since he was telling it better.
Spock's evolution, to purge emotions – is depicted well, I thought, but also its resolution seemed complete insofar as he decided he, too, needed to more fully embrace his humanity since, like V'Ger, he found nothing but logic and lack of emotion (the Kolinahr's very goal) wasn't enough. And so, once again, instead of denying his feelings, he embraced them, and unlike before in TOS, he would probably be less embarrassed about displaying them. Unfortunately, he gets a bit of a reset in the movies to come, reacquiring his Vulcan training, so we can't be sure if he stepped back closer to TOS or not.
Many seem to fault the film for being tediously slow. It's Trek, and contrary to Abram's stated belief TOS was too slow and boring to even get through a whole episode when he was a kid, and his solution, making the films more exciting by packing them with almost nothing but flash and action, this works. Trek works when it lacks that high-octane action every minute of the movie and takes time to discuss or ponder matters since that makes it a thinking person's show, IMO. Yes, we love the action, but as a climax, after you've discovered the problem, considered your options, and put it all on the line.
The starting with the 3 Klingon battle cruisers, and the new Klingon theme music, was awesome. No other word for it. And they snuck in Mark Leonard there, too, for those who missed that, as the Klingon Captain. The sound on this clip isn't the best and there are better examples of it, but people have been playing with those visuals, so this is the original. Talk about unprecedented detail! How could anyone not love that? Instantly it suggests that detail was always there, but you just never got close enough to see it, so it almost makes TOS better retroactively.
The reintroduction of the new Enterprise, inspiring. Even though it's not, as you say, the true origins, it's a new beginning, a new chapter, and the slowness of reintroducing everyone is not atypical of an "origins" story, so any slowness for that should be forgiven since the new fans needed and it, and old fans loved seeing their heroes back in the saddle again for another journey of Wagon Train to the stars.
I agree it was obvious Gene loved the Decker/Ilia idea so much he recreated it in the Riker/Troi pairing. If anything, it was so unapologetically close that it had a negative impact on me for TNG that he was just reworking it.
Great visuals, anyway, great story, even if a bit rehashed, good character developments, they laid it all on the line, for all of us, and they won.
If somebody doesn't want to make this their favorite Trek move, I'm fine with that, but I truly don't understand why some really feel it's the worst, or should at least be close the bottom. It deserves to be closer to the top. But that's just my opinion. YMMV.
I wouldn't really compare TMP to 2001 that closely. It has a very different feel. And I still think large segments of 2001 were tedious. The best thing about 2001 was 2010 - ha ha.
Space baby, eh? I guess One seem to encourage peace and cooperation for Humanity, and the other - well, we never heard from them again. Or have you read some stories about V'Ger/Decker/Ilia doing something somewhere?
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The Wrath of Khan definitely changes gears from TMP, probably so much so in large part due to the complaints of TMP and the feeling by many TMP was too slow and boring.
Of course Trek is episodic and on-going, and lends itself quite well to a TV series, but not nearly as well to full length movies, IMO, so they've yet to get it completely right.
Anyway, in Wrath, they jacked up the action and (I know you disagree with me) unlike Abram's attempts, they did it right here.
Oh, I'm never too impressed with bad science, and I don't really get how a planet just explodes, or how the explosion shifts the orbit of another planet and yet people survive. I guess maybe large enough chunks of it flying past the surviving planet yanked it way out of its original orbit via gravity, so maybe that might work, but regardless of how, and whether anyone could survive on a planet being so violently yanked around, Chekov should have known where Khan was instead of it being a total surprise.
At the time I would have also thought it harder to capture a Starship, even with a twisted captain helping, but given how nasty augments are on Enterprise – far nastier than Khan was ever depicted - I guess it could happen. It just seemed unfortunate all his followers were somehow like 30 years younger than Khan was, but I made up a reason for that.
Augments live longer, and retain their youthful appearance for a longer percentage of their whole lives, but past a certain point they show their age, too. Khan was probably much older than his followers, even though they all looked about the same age in TOS, and he had since past the point of youthful appearance, while his followers remained youthful looking yet.
Savik was great, the surprise of her in command, the training scenario, all fantastic and well done. The infamous Kobayashi Maru becomes legendary. So, Kirk cheated. Too bad they didn't leave it at that. The actual depiction of the event in a later movie really, well, sucked, and sucked hard. I can't tell you how much I thought it sucked.
After V'Ger, I'm not sure Kirk retained command of the ship – why would he? - so it makes sense he's back to pushing paper and Spock is captain of the Enterprise. And Kirk is not good as a paper pusher or a bean counter – like Picard seems to be, running a small city in Space.
Anyway, WOW, just wow, Starship vs. Starship, and quite a clever way to strike back at Khan after Kirk ROYALY screwed up. Good thing for Yellow Alert automated defense systems, or Khan would have blasted the Enterprise into nothingness with a few shots.
It should be noted for anyone who thinks Photon Torpedoes are normally that weak and it would take several just to damage a ship, that those were at minimum yield, since if they weren't, the blowback would have destroyed the Enterprise too since neither ship had their shields up. One of the problems while fighting in a nebula.
And Khan's arrogance beats him, and his evil attitude – if I can't win or control it, nobody should! What a shit. And Kirk played him – and Spock's hint, 2D thinking – gave Kirk everything he needed, and their team won.
Still, due to Khan's poor loser attitude, he forced Spock down his own Kobayashi Maru and self-sacrifice, and I have never seen so many people crying during a Trek movie before or since. Spock's death was traumatic. And the funeral – very moving.
Yet, despite that loss, Kirk feels hopeful and . . . young again. The hard truth is, he's lost friends before, lots of crewmen, and it's part of life. They probably all half expect to die in uniform, that job is nasty dangerous. And so it goes.
What a gripping film, good story (mostly) and action packed thrill, and emotional rollercoaster – right? It hits on so many levels it's little wonder it ranks at the top or at least near the top for many, and it should, since it did a very good job, both with the inspired call back of a great villain, and how much it cost the intrepid crew to win. How could one not be moved?
The Search For Spock continues the trilogy, as Doot calls it (and it really is a trilogy), and again, it's a wonderful movie, though the loss isn't as keenly felt. Despite being Kirk's son, we don't know this guy – if anything, he's a bit of jerk – and I'm surprised he didn't land his ass in jail for using illegal materials to make the Genesis Torpedo (or am I remembering that wrong?)
I thought this was wonderful how they stole the Enterprise and escaped the Excelsior. And how they outgunned the Klingon scout ship 10 to 1, normally). This was hardly a space battle, though.
The hostage situation was intense – the brutal and uncaring way Klingons murder hostages just to make a point, kill underlings who screw up, or even kill their wives just to keep a secret, which, apparently, was fine with her. It was interesting.
Good fun in the hand-to-hand, and the clever way he used what he learned from the Klingon to beam aboard.
And a wonderful bit of humor on the call backs on the Vulcan planet and reintegration of Spock. It takes the sting out of our loss, even if we lost Kirk's son since we got Spock back, more or less. Like we got a real good deal on that trade.
However, we lost another character, and one we really cared about. The Enterprise, herself. And wow, that was epic. The call back to the self destruct sequence, and what a way to turn death into a fighting chance to live. The ship was every bit a regular cast member as any of the others, so we cared and felt that loss quite deeply. Maybe not as much as Spock's loss, but we were already getting him back, so . . . It was hard.
But there is a lot less to say about this movie. The genesis torpedo, highly illegal to make planets, they won't hold together so it doesn't work, but it's a decent weapon, however illegal and immoral its use might be, so the Feds won't use it (sure, section 31 probably has a stockpile of them).
So, not as good as TMP or Wrath, IMO, but probably better than TMP in most people's minds. A fine film, nevertheless – but not a great one. And part 3 yet to come.
It's too bad I can't find that Kevin Pollak (I think) bit where he didn't know Christopher Lloyd was the Klingon Captain until he started speaking English, but thereafter all he could hear was Jim from Taxi. (So he did an impersonation if it). Kirk - you don't want to give me the genesis device? Okie Dokie!
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The Voyage Home is a very different kind of movie – an ecological thriller with time travel, made necessary because of another impossibly powerful probe, but this time it really makes little sense.
What is this thing? Is it oblivious to all other life? Who made it? Where has it been? Where did it go? It can do all that but not transplant its own damn whales or just make some more since it's apparently the only life form worth considering? It's stupidly powerful, unbelievably narrow minded, and, why Earth? Trek has pretty much shown there are plenty of planets, lots of oceans, so why hasn't this probe put whales most everywhere since they're so gosh darn important to it?
Lots of Trek leaves you wondering, but one can often come up with plausible explanations. This is just – uggh – a literary excuse for the rest of the story.
Then there's the humor, however stupidly unrealistic – it works for laughs. One gets to wonder about Kirk's glasses – he sells them here so centuries later McCoy can buy them, and transparent aluminum – did he invent it, according to history, or did they change history? Let's not think about it – let's just do it since, well, we're saving the world, so it's all good.
Spock's character seems changed more so back to TOS levels after being speed-computer-taught on Vulcan, but he "feels" fine, so we're good. And Kirk the paper pushing desk jokey gets a command back again, and it's the Enterprise-A (possibly one of the other starships we knew, recommissioned with a new name, which is VERY strange. They certainly wouldn't have made a new one with 40-year-old tech just for him, and in so short a time, but I forget what non-canon story suggested which other ship is used to be. Of course they refurbished it, so it was almost acceptable, but even then, like the original Enterprise NCC-1701, virtually ready to retire that old girl. So they gave Kirk a pretty poor ship compared to what they could have given him – I guess they weren't really as forgiving as it might have looked. Here, Kirk, captain this rust bucket unitl we decommission her in a couple years.
But it was probably what most audience members and Trek fans wanted for him, so he was . . . HOME.
Speaking of which, I guess it was written up in Stephen Whitefield and Gene Roddenberry's the 'Making of Star Trek' that Kirk was born in a small town in Iowa, but nothing more. Later, Riverside Iowa (some council members for that city, IIRC) used that fact to proclaim itself the birthplace of Kirk - to drum up tourists trade – not that Abrams gave a damn – ha ha.
A fun film, a fine film, I like the film, but a lot of stupidity, including such a cheesy way to reenergize dilithium crystals.
Star Trek - The Final Frontier was co-written by Shatner and so bad, according to Roddenberry, he declared it apocryphal. IIRC, it was pretty awful. But truth be told, Roddenberry had a similar story he wrote, so why he disliked it may have had more to do with that than why I disliked it, and since Roddenberry no longer owned the stuff, it wasn't up to him and he had no authority to declare it apocryphal anyway. Pity.
I don't really mind they introduce a family member so late in the game like this, as long as they can't point to past dialogue of Spock saying he was an only child or anything like that. If anything, Vulcans aren't the type to over share their personal stuff, so one could almost believe it, particularly if his brother was an embarrassment to the family. And he was.
I thought Sybok's telepathic abilities were too formidable and well beyond the ability of a Vulcan. He may have alleviated their pain, but why blindly follow him if he wasn't also controlling their minds?
Going the center of the Galaxy is too stupid for words, given how far away it is. (25,000 light years, it may be 1/3rd of how far the Star Ship Voyager was flung, and they were much faster, but should take 75 years to go that far, so Enterprise should take about 25 years to get to the center of the galaxy. Another 25 to get back. Again, just stupid. )
Many attempts at humor just fall flat.
Shooting space junk, an old earth probe, that far out in space is just another stupid thing they did.
Oh, I don't mind the false God bit and the alien entity trying to escape, but it was anticlimactic.
There's some insight into McCoy's past that's interesting, and Spock's, I guess, but I'm just overall unimpressed with the way they hang out and the stupid stuff they were doing. Well, not every moment of their lives can be a winner, right?
All told, and knowing what the 6th film was, I'd say quite clearly Star Trek V was the worst of the 6, but YMMV.
The Undiscovered Country was a better film than Frontier by far, IMO.
The way they meshed TNG in was good, and at Khitomer, no less. I loved how Captain Sulu (and Janice Rand in Uhura's role as com officer) both had the Excelsior, and later helped save the Enterprise; it was marvelous.
I mean, talk about an epic start.
If that can't get you excited and hungry for more, I don't know what would. And later, what a guy, right? Fly her apart then!
And that was a particularly nice space battle, too.
Yes, Kirk's misgivings and eventual change of heart were fine, not that his son has anything to do with his new attitude, so that was werid – just something to say, I guess.
The peace talks went on, and they had peace and a treaty, so I think it worked. They just became much closer after the Enterprise-C incident. Close enough, in fact, that accepting a Klingon into Starfleet was no longer unthinkable, just as later, on DS9, accepting a Ferengi in Starfleet becomes acceptable. These things take time, and are pretty much the goal of the Federation of Planets, so it's nice to see.
Various silliness – including Klingon's claiming Shakespeare was originally theirs, or something, always quoting it, like they don't have enough famous Klingon Playwrights worth quoting or something like that.
Mental rape, too. The worst part of the film, IMO, Spock actually forces himself on Valeris via mind meld, something I think was WAY out of character. But then maybe nobody is thinking she was harmed in the same sort of way, possible worse way, like being physically raped. But during TOS, I don't think Spock would even try to force that on a non-volunteer. In fact, it's dangerous both ways. And was it really needed? I say no.
And wow, what a horribly stupid universal translator scene. Even given Klingons could recognize a UT response, why are they not using the UT to understand the Klingon's questions to them?
Still, more good than bad, and more fun than pain.
Anyway, doing all these movies from memory, I'm sure I missed a lot, or should make comment on more important items, but I forget what at the moment.
For the record, in an arm's race with weapons and shields, each step can make something that could be done before something that can't be done now. There could be a reason. The prototype cloak that allows one to fire while cloaked - maybe only if the weapons are weaker, or maybe it's harmful to the health of the crew. A torpedo that can find them then can't now since they now mask their exhaust better from that method of detection. Who knows? And we can't have characters taking time out to explain things they know all too well to us, the audience, since, well, they wouldn't.
But yeah, mostly it's a product of the current writers not knowing the Trek lore and not bothering to check their facts, or just doing it anyway since it makes their one story work, and they couldn't give a rat's ass about the hundreds of other stories it might invalidate.
I think Trek lore is important. Others think it's the most inconsequential stuff in the universe. YMMV there, too.
Last edited by Jilerb on Tue Sep 11, 2018 4:56 pm, edited 4 times in total.
These movies are my total wheelhouse, and I see much of my own opinions shared by Doot. Except for the critical stuff -- I didn't even hit a bump until VI. And maybe V was a little bit of a downward trend.
I loved 'em all. Star Trek was this show on afternoon reruns when I was a kid. I loved the sound of the show coming on, and the sound effects on the bridge, and Spock. You know, the sound of Spock.
But I saw Star Trek: TMP in clear view of Star Wars. Star Wars had just blown the world away (I was 8), and Star Trek TMP was pitched as kind of "Okay, now you can see this beloved show writ large with Star Wars style special effects and soundtrack." Granted, I was only going on 10 when I saw it at the movies, but other than maybe dozing off during the "drifting" phase of the plot (about an hour of drifting?) I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
Fast forward to Wrath of Khan, and it seemed to be the fulfillment of all the adventure that the original series had banked upon. At that time, I was about 13 -- so I went all in. I started watching the TOS episodes methodically, reading synopses of them, and buying up the Pocket Books Star Trek novels and reading them. (That Pocket Books series started at #1 with the Motion Picture novelization).
Based on these movies and the books I read, I considered myself firmly in the "Star Trek" camp over "Star Wars." It may have influenced me to go in the Air Force.
One of my all time Nerdvanna times was the summer of 1984, right as school was getting out. First of all, that time right as school is ending is the best, and as I recall, both The Search for Spock and Temple of Doom (Indiana Jones) came out in rapid succession. Me and my buddies got our Moms to take us on the opening of each, and I loved both so much. I think part of the reason I was never really on the Ghostbusters wagon is that it came out right around the same time as these two movies, and I didn't much care for it soaking up the sunlight from my Two Favorite Things Evah.
The reason Search for Spock was so high was not its own merits (though I loved it), but timing wise it was at the zenith -- for two years since Khan I had been reading Star Trek novels non-stop and was there with bells on.
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