STMP I disliked as a child, but watching as an adult I see how ambitious it was. The production values and attention to detail are a degree above all trek films since. The story is if anything a bit too advanced, showing a future where brains trump phasers. This is the one film I rate higher as an adult than I did as a kid.

TWOK was my childhood favorite,but as an adult it feels like a cheap unpolished production. The editing was horrible, and the actors didn’t seem challenged. Its like the director only took one take of every scene and shot the whole thing in a week. While the overall story is epic, the dialog was more cliche than a Schwartzenhager film.

As for the other original cast shows: 3 was 2 without a good story. 4 was humorous in the 80s but not so much in 08. Five, a train wreck in every category. Six was a decent run but its cold war plot makes less sense a generation after the Berlin wall.

The TNG movies except nemisis are more contemporary and adult friendly however never quite epic. Of them only First Contact had a worthy script, the others had weak scripts. Nemisis is the only film with fewer redeeming qualities than Star Trek 5.

It just seems that at a tender age we sometimes remember things a little better than they were. It still speaks volumes that the stories were so endearing. But its clear when judged critically as films, not stories, these movies are not even close to Oscar material.

So in the end I’ll back up Mr. Wheaton’s statement that not all of the Trek Movies were all of that.

Tell you what: I’ll learn to read between the lines if you’ll learn to write more carefully. Deal? If not, you’ll have to work on your apologies.

Btw, love the moniker (Spock’s Brain). It is one of my favourite eps. It’s so bad it’s good.

Thanks for the note.

kg

I don’t need a copy of the script, or even a TV Guide synopsis of the plot.

Just show me the f#%king ship, the way she looks at the end of the movie. If she looks right, I’m there.”

Iron Man just came out. Trek’s a year away. They have different production teams, directors and media plan. As for IronMan getting more press before it’s release… I disagree. Trek has far more mentions and notice two years before it’s debut.
I don’t see where you think a rant like this does you, or any of us, any good. We are all frustrated and want to see more, but this insulting piece just makes fans look bad. You and I have no idea if this shows drastic change to Enterprise and in what context, but perhaps some patience is in order. Calm a little.. it’ll happen eventually.

IMO

* * * * * * *

One problem we’re having with all the happy talk from JJ is that he’s talking mainly to the mundane press, not us, so his comments are aimed primarily at convincing them to come see this thing, not to keep us on the reservation. It’d probably help a bunch if he’d stop in somewhere and talk directly to us (trekmovie.com, trekbbs.com, wherever).

Another troubling bit is the g*ddamned secrecy. This isn’t Lost or Cloverfield, this is Star Trek, and we like our spoilers fresh and hot off the spies’ cameras and fax machines and we like a lot of ‘em. So far, all we’ve got is a teaser trailer with a bloated monstrosity posing as the Enterprise, that may or may not actually be from a more violent alternate timeline.

Y’see, some of us need certain assurances that this “reinvention” doesn’t result in about forty years’ worth of continuity getting flushed down the crapper just because someone thought the Enterprise needed a pair of big ginormous engines with the tailfins from a ‘58 Cadillac.

We already know who the cast is, so a group photo of them in uniform wouldn’t spoil anything, right?

And this is supposed to respect canon, so by all rights, the ship should look pretty much the same as she did during the run of the series, right?

SO WHY IN THE FLYING F&%K ARE WE NOT GETTING EVEN A TENTH OF THE KIND OF PUBLICITY THAT IRON MAN GOT!?!?!

I don’t need a copy of the script, or even a TV Guide synopsis of the plot.

Just show me the f#%king ship, the way she looks at the end of the movie. If she looks right, I’m there.

* * * * * * *

As a follow up, I’d like to point out that we were getting early concept pictures of the Iron Man suit before Robert Downey, Jr. was even cast. About a year before the movie came out.

SO WHERE THE HELL ARE THOSE PICTURES OF THE ENTERPRISE!?!

I was spoofing the stereotypes of geeks. Remember the SNL skit where Shat told a roomful of Trekkies to ‘Get A Life”? Of course, there’s nothing wrong living with roommates, parents, working at Starbucks, or spending endless hours debating fictional characters (which I share with you all).

And I would’ve bet $$ that Katie G. is attached (I joked about it because who gives a hoot either way?) I DON’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. OMG!

I threw every stereotype, but the kitchen sink, into that long sentence as a humorous apology to Wil.

Try to develop a less literal sense of humor. So I do still recommend some of you read more. And I am not as good a writer as think I am.

Seacrest out!

Wow.

kg

As for which film is great and which is crap on a stick, I offer up my thoughts on each of ‘em (compiled some time back for my webpage, with some revisions):

TMP: When you take out all the side issues associated with this film (the constant rewrites, the last-minute changes in effects houses, the “it’s a tv show, now it’s a movie” waffling, the fact that this was the first new live-action Star Trek in ten years, etc..), and just look at the film itself, especially the Director’s Edition (aka “Wise Finally Gets To Finish The Damn Thing”) what you’re left with is a movie that is probably closer to the feel of the original Star Trek than almost any of the following films. Considering that the plotline is derivative of more than a few original series episodes, most noticably “The Changelling”, “The Corbomite Maneuver”, and “The Doomsday Machine”, this really shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Still, the plotline, and its resolution, are classic Star Trek. The problems lie mainly in the area of execution, especially with regards to pacing, the amount of time devoted to special effects, and the overly somber mood throughout this film (I don’t count characterization since Kirk and Spock not quite being themselves is integral to the plot). After screening the first pilot, William Shatner mentioned to Gene Roddenberry that the characters were taking themselves far too seriously, instead of just doing their jobs like people normally do their jobs, with a bit of a sense of humor. In this film, that piece of advice is, for the most part, ignored. With Gene Roddenberry trying to show just how much in control he was, Star Trek was returned back to the mood of “The Cage” (”We’re in space, and this is serious, serious stuff, kids! Ooooooh, aren’t we so important that we’re in space doing this important work! Can’t you just feel the tension?”).

The bottom line: It’s definitely Star Trek. In fact, it’s pretty good Star Trek (not great, but pretty good, especially the final director’s cut with all those crucial character development scenes put back in!), but as a movie, it’s a little slow in places, puts too much emphasis on special effects over plot and character development, and really needed a bit more color in those sets and costumes.

TWOK: After the budgetary and scriptwriting debacle of the first film, this one had one primary edict: Make it cheap, make it fast, and don’t feel compelled to listen to everything Roddenberry says. And in that respect, it succeeded, and surpassed all expectations. Despite a myriad of techinical blunders (what the heck is an energizer, anyway?), occasionally hackneyed dialogue, and characterization that occasionally missed the mark (the Spock-McCoy arguments struck me as a bit too vicous), ST II continues to be an entertaining romp with characters we know better than our own families. Granted, the uniforms were a bit jarrring at first, but after a while, they kind of grow on you.

Bottom line: As a movie, it’s a great action-adventrure romp, with great characters, from the familiar Enterprise crew and the now revenge-driven Khan to everyone’s favorite Vulcan-Romulan junior officer, Lt. Saavik (Kirstie Alley had just enough of that Romulan passion to show everyone “I’m not a Spock clone in drag!” Now if only the skinflints at Paramount had ponied up with more cash for the next movie…). As Star Trek, it hits more than it misses, and the misses aren’t crucial to the plot anyway, so it still works.

TSFS: In a Phil Foglio comic strip in Starlog, he shows two characters debating how Spock will be brought back, with one of the characters declaring that since Leonard Nimoy directing the next film, then Spock’s resurrection will assuredly be done in a tasteful, thoughful manner. The last frame shows Nimoy flipping the script for ST III, saying to the offscreen producer, “I particulary like the part where I rise again on the third day.”

Thankfully, the final result actually did come in more dignified than that.

In this one, Nimoy gets to show just how much he knows Star Trek, and flex his directorial muscles. In short, Leonard Nimoy knows Star Trek, probably better than Gene Roddenberry ever did. The characterizations are dead-on perfect, the right amount of humor is present, and the plot never, ever drags. The only problem with this movie is the fact that it’s only 90 minutes long, and with a movie as tightly paced as this one, that’s short. However, anything else would be seen as padding, so, in the end, it’s better to have a really good 90 minute film than a two hour film that’s been padded out.

Bottom line: It’s Star Trek, it’s a great movie, and it definitely leaves you wanting more (kind of like having a big meal, then having dessert cancelled).

TVH: This is the dessert. ST IV is a Star Trek story in the classic tradition. Earth, and therefore the Federation, are in dire peril, only the Enterprise crew can save the day (and this time, it’s not because they’re the only ship in the quadrant; actually, because they’re the only ship that wasn’t in the area and didn’t get itself whacked!), and we have a nice social commentary thrown in for good measure (as a result of the high profile of ST IV, especially internationally, whale hunting has finally been revealed as the butchery that it is, and whaling as an industry is finally on its way out).

The story is well-paced, characterizations are letter perfect, and there’s just enough special effects to get the point across, but the story doesn’t depend on them. As Star Trek, it’s a resounding success. As a movie, well, the big box office take speaks for itself.

TFF: Okay, so this wasn’t one of Star Trek’s proudest moments, but there are some good points to this one (not many, but a few).

First off, William Shatner’s directorial style is well showcased in this film. It’s quick paced, never drags, is suspenseful when it’s supposed to be, and, like the director himself, never stops moving..

The characterization is uneven, especially with regard to the supporting characters, but the portrayal of the “big three” of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are as enjoyable as ever, even if they’re not served very well by the storyline (all this craziness and introspection, and the big payoff is that Spock can now play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” with a clear conscience? Puhleeeaze!!).

And this is the biggest problem with the movie, the plot, and is where most of the problems with characterization and continuity are most prevalent. While the earlier drafts were far worse (for instance, originally, the Enterprise really did find God!), the final product is still far from showing our crew in a very favorable light (experienced Starfleet officers, all legends in their own right, being taken in by a charlatan who better belongs in an airport concourse handing out personality tests? I don’t think so…).

The best aspects of this movie are 1) at the end, the crew is all ready for the next event, the ship is intact, and all is right with the universe, and 2) this movie was quickly invalidated by the TNG episode “Sarek” in Picard’s opening log entry in the episode’s teaser, so it doesn’t count anyway.

The best way to watch this film is in the form of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 parody, where we get to see it with Joel, Crow, and Tom Servo (”It’s Super Spock to the rescue!”).

TUC: The Star Trek movie franchise got back into high gear with this one. Basically a commentary on the breakup of the Soviet Union, continuing the long Star Trek tradition of commenting on current events, we get what we’ve become accusomed to getting from Leonard Nimoy, an excellent story that works as both Star Trek and as a movie.

Gene Roddenberry is said to have alternately liked this movie, hated this movie, felt indifferent about this movie, had problems with this movie, and never heard of this movie.

Frankly, the only problem I had with this movie was the use of the term “right standard rudder” when starships don’t have rudders, and this term has never been used, before or since, in the entire history of the Star Trek franchise (just a sniggling problem, since it has nothing to do with the plot). That, and the pinkish Klingon blood (done to avoid an “R” rating for excessive gore; apparently the MPAA doesn’t consider it gory if the buckets of blood are colored like Pepto Bismal…).

All in all, this was the perfect send-off for the original series characters.

GEN: Then we have this one. Suffice it to say, I was not happy.

For example:

The Death of Captain Kirk – With Kirk out of the way, no more adventures with the original crew. Even if the other characters were assembled, Kirk’s absence would be painfully obvious. (Needless to say, I’ve become a big fan of Shatner’s Star Trek novels.)

The Destruction of the Enterprise-D – This was the most visible symbol of Star Trek: The Next Generation, proof that Gene could catch lightning in a bottle twice. With its destruction, the biggest example of his influence also goes up in flames. What makes it worse is that it doesn’t advance the plot one iota. It was done simply because the art department was bored with the E-D and wanted to design a new ship.

The Destruction of Data – And let’s be honest here, with that cockamamie emotion chip, the Data we all knew died. Data was Gene’s window on humanity, his way to view it from outside and comment on it. That window has now been shattered.

The Death of Rene Picard – This is a bit more subtle, but remember the last shot in the episode “Family”, with Rene sitting under the tree looking up at the stars? Once upon a time, that little boy was Gene Roddenberry, dreaming of sailing the stars in some sort of spaceship like an interstellar Horatio Hornblower. Killing Rene (by fire, no less!) seems to be saying “The dream is dead, and we’re now using the corpse to stoke our own fire.”

Couple this with the numerous, and oftentimes blatant, violations in the established continuity throughout the film, which I’ll get into later, and you have the distinct impression that the powers that be, which in this case are frequently identified as Rick Berman and Michael Piller, with Ron Moore and Brannon Braga being identified as coconspirators (I don’t know why Jeri Taylor is generally left off the hook; maybe she’s given fans a better impression than the others) really don’t give a flip about what the fans feel or what their opinions are. They just expect us to be good little Trekkies and accept whatever product they put out, regardless of quality, just because it has the Star Trek name on it. For instance,

1) The Continuity Breaches: Scotty’s presence on the Enterprise-B (dialogue from “Relics”, Act I, when Jimmy Doohan looks at Riker and says,”The Enterprise? I should’a known! I bet Jim Kirk pulled her out of mothballs himself and came lookin’ for me!” pretty clearly established that Scotty knew nothing about what happened to Kirk, or anything about the Enterprise-B; all of this was known to Berman, who hoped that “no one would notice” Shyeah! Right!),

The appearance of the Enterprise-B (remember that sculpture in the observation lounge? That showed the Enterprise-B as a straight Excelsior class vessel)

The appearance of Data’s emotion chip (in the two episodes in which we saw it, “Brothers” and “Descent pt II”, it was depicted as a small c-clip, and was not functional when Data, who was about to destroy it until talked out of it by Geordi, puts it away in what looks like a watch case. When we see it in Generations, it’s grown to a two-inch square contraption suspended in what appears to be some sort of magnetic field, which is generally a bad idea for computer components. Plus, instead of installing it in Data’s neck, as Dr. Soong originally intended to do, Geordi installs it in his head! By the way, shouldn’t one of them have notified the captain before they undertook what amounts to reprogramming the ship’s operations officer?)

The performance of the Enterprise when attacked by the Duras sisters (whatever happened to backup systems? the aft torpedo tubes? rotating the shield frequencies? ejecting the core?)

In my calmer moments, I’ve acknowledged that if you took away the Star Trek elements from Generations, then it was an okay movie.

Unfortunately, we can’t do that. It has all those Star Trek elements, and that includes thirty years of baggage to lug along behind, and several million volunteer sherpas more than happy to point out where you screwed up in Scene 23.

Combine these, and more (I only touched on the highlights) with the credibility gaps (whoever heard of commissioning a ship that only had half her systems installed? And about that bit about how you couldn’t get into the Nexus with a ship. How did Soran first get in there? In a ship. How did Kirk get in there? In a ship. It didn’t matter that the ship was blasted around them, they were in the Nexus, which itself came across as the ultimate desperation device; just throw it up on the screen, and the only explanation of why it does what it does is that it’s a temporal anomaly (an explanation that has been sliced, diced, and turned into fifty-seven different types of pretzel by various posters on AOL and BBS’s across the wonderful land of ours). Even spatial rifts have to follow rules, and the Nexus violated just about every one, with the exception that it was strange. It’s impossible to be a self-respecting viewer and just accept some of this stuff.) and you have thirty years of pretty consistent continuity tied up into a very ugly knot, and a very touching series finale overshadowed by a very confusing, muddled, and sometimes insulting, film. It’s very telling that in the DVD commentary track, Moore and Braga seem to be constantly asking themselves, “Why did we do this scene?”

FC: Okay, I’ll admit I was very doubtful of this one (I got a copy of the synopsis early on, and sent my blow-by-blow dissection to Ron Moore; he never has responded directly to my comments….), but thankfully, the finished product came out much better than that synopsis (a few key changes, namely leaving out the horribly contradictory backstory for the Borg Queen, and scaling back on a few of the “really spectacular” moments that we had in store for us, like the Borg dodecahedron ship, or Data becoming fully human, then being reduced to a “Terminator-ish” metal skeleton in the final fight with the Borg Queen).

A large portion of the credit for this film goes to director Jonathan Frakes, TNG’s version of Leonard Nimoy when it comes to having a basic understanding of the material and a respect for the viewship. I’m convinced that if Paramount had stuck with the promotion of this film a little longer, it would have surpassed ST IV’s box office totals.

We have some excellent character development, at least with regard to Picard, Data, Zefrem Cochrane, and Lily Sloane, no major contradictions in continuity (what does get contradicted is either acknowledged and done is such a way that it leaves open the possibility for an explanation to reconcile it with the established continuity, like the Borg Queen, or the point was conjectural anyway, like the date of Cochrane’s first warp flight, and is close enough in this case; as for why Cochrane looks like James Cromwell instead of more closely resembling Glenn Corbett takes a bit of a stretch, but what can ya do…).

Bottom line: Good Star Trek, good action-adventure movie, and an excellent recovery from Generations.

INS: I’ve stated elsewhere that Insurrection ranks as one of the best of the series. I would like to restate this stance a bit.

Frankly, this is the kind of story Star Trek has always been best at, which is one of the reasons I think this one is possibly the best of the series when you look at it as a Star Trek story.

As a movie, well, it’s okay. Not exactly monumental, but then again, how many of us have been clamoring for them to get back to the lower key stories and lay off the attempted megasuperbombastic blockbusters because they just didn’t measure up?

As a Star Trek story, it hits the mark quite well. This is precisely the type of story that Star Trek was meant to tell, an analogy to events right here on Earth.

Where it falls short is as a movie, a stand-alone film, and too much of the success of the storyline depends on the audience knowing something about the Star Trek mythos, specifically the TNG end of things. The TOS movies had an advantage in that category in that enough of the general public knows about Kirk, Spock, etc., whereas Data, Riker, Troi, etc., are not as well known to the average mundane movie goer.

Bottom line: As another installment of the TNG storyline, it succeeds. It fails in that the story itself isn’t exactly an event (it could very well have been told during the regular run of the series, possibly within a single hour), and with that constantly in the background (in a movie theatre, it’s tough to ignore), it’s just hard to get excited about this one, hence the feeling of being let down.

Eventually, this film will most likely take its place among the best of the movies, and certainly the best of the TNG movies, but so long as the spectre of the poor box office return looms over this film, it will continue to be counted among the turkeys.

(Now some new stuff, since I haven’t updated the site in a while. Oops).

NEM: Oh, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways….

TFF at least had its heart in the right place, GEN was more of a case of the writers being in waaaaaaaaaay over their heads, and INS just wasn’t a big enough story to justify a big budget movie.

Nemesis was just plain dumb, and the director didn’t care. That’s what makes this one particularly noxious.

I’m not going to go into detail on this turkey, aside from pointing out the egregious violation of the Prime Directive committed by none other than Jean-Luc Picard simply because Patrick Stewart wanted to do some off road racing. Snip that whole sequence out, and a lot of the stench clears. There’s still the matter of the hackneyed plotline, but at least the intelligence level of the movie increases by around fifty points.

I’ve also got issues with putting that hideous rubber forehead on a babe like Dina Meyer. Whoever okayed that move should be shot. Twice. Where it really, really hurts. Then pistol whipped for good measure.

And of course, the whole contrivance of a clone of Picard. Putting aside the issue of where the frack they got the genetic material to produce a clone in the first place, wouldn’t you think a clone would at least LOOK a bit more like the donor? If they didn’t want to have Patrick Stewart do a double role, how about Ben Kingsley? He’s an overgrown fanboy, he’d probably have loved to do this one, even with the idiotic script (he did Thunderbirds and Bloodrayne, so why not?). Oh, and it’s a well established fact that Picard had hair when he was a youngster, right up through the time he was commanding the Stargazer. Did anyone bother to point this out to Stuart Baird, the editor who thought he could direct?

Bottom line: While it’s good to make a Star Trek movie where you, the viewer, don’t have to have memorized the Concordance to understand it, it doesn’t do anyone any good if the guy making the movie doesn’t know squat about Star Trek and clearly doesn’t care. In fact, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Here’s hoping JJ and Co. have learned well from the previous examples.