This has been a year for re-watching a lot of movies that I've not seen in a long time. Most recently I started on the original Star Trek movies, as they are all on Amazon Prime currently (nevermind that I actually own these on DVD, just too damn lazy to pull that box set off the high shelf they are collecting dust on).
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) - I think I am one of 3 people on planet Earth that actually likes this movie. It's a slow one, yes, and the Starfleet uniforms are God-awful. The opening, with 3 Klingon battlecruisers coming toward the camera to attack this giant cloud we'd later learn is called "V'ger", was very impressive for 12-year-old me. I always loved the science fiction story (as opposed to what would be more rightfully referred to as fantasy IMO of Star Wars) - an entity was on a course for Earth, one that apparently could make pretty much anything just disappear, and Starfleet sends out its newest starship, the completely refitted USS Enterprise, to intercept. Visually, this one holds up very well to now, and its musical score ranks among the very best of all of these movies.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) - I believe this one is regularly regarded as the best Trek movie. I've always enjoyed it but have found a couple of the other movies to be better, and I'll get to that shortly. I don't claim to be an expert on the genesis of this movie's story, but it stands in pretty stark contrast to the first one. This one is definitely more of an action film. I also note the massive change for the better in Starfleet uniforms. Of course, this one draws from the episode "Space Seed" of the original series, with Khan Noonian Singh brought back to exact vengeance upon his captor, now Admiral Kirk. I feel like that was an awesome choice for a story to bring Star Trek fans back to the movies, as the first movie generally didn't wow very many people (myself excluded). One piece of trivia I recall from this - it was originally to be subtitled "The Vengeance of Khan" but that was changed to "The Wrath of Khan" since the title of the next Star Wars movie was believed to be "Revenge of the Jedi" (which of course was later changed to "Return of the Jedi"). The score by James Horner was loud and brassy, which was Horner's style at the time (and if you listen closely to Horner's Aliens score, there are a lot of similarities).
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984) - one of the two that I actually liked more than Khan. The reasons for me enjoying it more was that it told a more personal story of Kirk needing to save his two closest friends, Spock and Dr. McCoy, and the Klingons are the villains. This film also was Leonard Nimoy's directorial debut. I liked the portrayal of Saavik better in this one by an actress who's name I don't recall, which was far more emotionless and cold as befitting Vulcans than was Kirstie Alley's Saavik in Khan. Would a Vulcan have been crying - even during a funeral for a trusted mentor/friend? Christopher Lloyd was the Klingon command Kruge - he could do villains just as well as he could do protagonists (as we'd see the next summer in Back to the Future). TSFS also gave audiences what is now likely the classic Klingon starship, the Bird of Prey, with the cloaking device, that was awesome. I still remember how the audience chuckled when Kruge told Kirk he had 2 minutes to do whatever, when Khan had given him only 1 minute, which still was enough time for Kirk to counter-act the villain's nefarious plans. Horner's score was more reserved in this movie, although that brassy sound remains in the Klingon theme. This entry also gave us the recurring theme that would last through the end of the original series movies, Kirk's hatred of the Klingons for killing his son.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) - this one is generally believed to be the most fun and most un-Star-Trek-like of all these movies. It could also have been rightfully subtitled "Nevermind, We Undid Everything That Preceded This". Do I need to put any of this in spoiler tags? Ah, just in case ... Spock dies, the Enterprise is blown to bits ... All of that is undone in this movie. But of course, you really could not have a Star Trek movie without those elements. What I really enjoy about this movie is the setting in 1980s San Francisco, with the crew of the Enterprise being fish out of water. The scene with Chekov asking the police office in a very clear Russian accent, where are the nuclear wessels ... Spock's "are you sure it isn't time for another colorful metaphor?", Kirk's "I think he did a little too much LDS during the 60s ..." Moments like those made for a truly enjoyable film. What I didn't give a rip about was the "save the whales" thing or the whale biologist character, Jillian. I found her to be an annoying character. I did love the scene of the Bird of Prey uncloaking in front of the whaling ship. Worst musical score of the series.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) - William Shatner directed this one. I don't know if he'd ever done any directing previously, but it was assumed that this movie would lean more on the action side of things than Nimoy's previous two entries to the series. Previews for the movie made it look truly awesome. Then the movie came out, I went and ... it was a steaming pile of dog crap. My opinion has not changed after having watched it again a couple nights ago. Renegade Vulcan was alright, the general idea of commandeering the Enterprise was good, but a search for ... God? When they find what they think is God, he looks more like I'd expect Santa Claus to look like, and then it's revealed that this is just a psycho demon thing that just wants out of its prison. The Klingon characters were cariacatures who I never found convincing. I understand following orders of a superior officer, but "I ... apologize" never felt right coming out of the mouth of a Klingon. The best part of this entry was its musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. The visuals were awful, no better than what one might find in some cheap-ass SyFy show.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) - the other original film that I like more than Khan. This one came out soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, and at that time I had been big into reading all of the Tom Clancy novels. The film opens explosively, literally, as a Klingon moon suffers a cataclysmic explosion. The economic impact of that is devastating, and it is judged that the Klingon empire has only a few years left. The Klingon chancellor then reaches out to Starfleet with an offer of peace. There are those on every front - Starfleet, the Klingons, the Romulans - who oppose peace, enacting a plan to assassinate the Klingon chancellor and maintain the galactic status quo. I suppose the thin parallels I saw between this movie and real-life events is what really drew me into it (much like the thin parallels between Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the depiction of the rise of Palpatine in The Phantom Menace explains why I enjoyed that much derided movie so much). This one had a good musical score and much better visual effects than in V. We finally got to see the USS Excelsior in action, and now we have a Bird of Prey that does not have to decloak to fire its weapons. And the Klingon general Chang was a Shakespeare-quoting bad guy. Which reminds me of one of the best exchanges in any Star Trek movie - during a formal dinner between Starfleet and the Klingons aboard the Enterprise, Chang tells Kirk that the Klingons need "breathing room" for their empire, to which Kirk responds "Earth, 1938"; Chang is not amused. Long before Avengers Endgame, we got a sign-off at the end of The Undiscovered Country of all the original crew, as this movie was the final entry featuring all of them.
Star Trek Generations (1994) - this one opens with the christening of the USS Enterprise-B, and we get to see Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov one final time as they come along during a media event as this new starship gets its initial flight. After an incident during that flight, we don't see any of the original crew any longer, at least not until later in the film. But I don't really consider this one to be part of the original series as it focuses on the crew from The Next Generation series. It was a good movie to start the TNG series of films.
Star Trek First Contact (1996) - again, not an original cast movie, but I'd rank it as equivalent to the best 3 of the original series.
Star Trek Insurrection (1998) - one of the worst I've ever seen
Star Trek Nemesis (2001) - meh
I really enoyed JJ Abrams' Star Trek movie, not so much Into Darkness and even less the Star Trek Beyond film.
Just some thoughts while I am awaiting tonight's debate.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) - I think I am one of 3 people on planet Earth that actually likes this movie. It's a slow one, yes, and the Starfleet uniforms are God-awful. The opening, with 3 Klingon battlecruisers coming toward the camera to attack this giant cloud we'd later learn is called "V'ger", was very impressive for 12-year-old me. I always loved the science fiction story (as opposed to what would be more rightfully referred to as fantasy IMO of Star Wars) - an entity was on a course for Earth, one that apparently could make pretty much anything just disappear, and Starfleet sends out its newest starship, the completely refitted USS Enterprise, to intercept. Visually, this one holds up very well to now, and its musical score ranks among the very best of all of these movies.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) - I believe this one is regularly regarded as the best Trek movie. I've always enjoyed it but have found a couple of the other movies to be better, and I'll get to that shortly. I don't claim to be an expert on the genesis of this movie's story, but it stands in pretty stark contrast to the first one. This one is definitely more of an action film. I also note the massive change for the better in Starfleet uniforms. Of course, this one draws from the episode "Space Seed" of the original series, with Khan Noonian Singh brought back to exact vengeance upon his captor, now Admiral Kirk. I feel like that was an awesome choice for a story to bring Star Trek fans back to the movies, as the first movie generally didn't wow very many people (myself excluded). One piece of trivia I recall from this - it was originally to be subtitled "The Vengeance of Khan" but that was changed to "The Wrath of Khan" since the title of the next Star Wars movie was believed to be "Revenge of the Jedi" (which of course was later changed to "Return of the Jedi"). The score by James Horner was loud and brassy, which was Horner's style at the time (and if you listen closely to Horner's Aliens score, there are a lot of similarities).
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984) - one of the two that I actually liked more than Khan. The reasons for me enjoying it more was that it told a more personal story of Kirk needing to save his two closest friends, Spock and Dr. McCoy, and the Klingons are the villains. This film also was Leonard Nimoy's directorial debut. I liked the portrayal of Saavik better in this one by an actress who's name I don't recall, which was far more emotionless and cold as befitting Vulcans than was Kirstie Alley's Saavik in Khan. Would a Vulcan have been crying - even during a funeral for a trusted mentor/friend? Christopher Lloyd was the Klingon command Kruge - he could do villains just as well as he could do protagonists (as we'd see the next summer in Back to the Future). TSFS also gave audiences what is now likely the classic Klingon starship, the Bird of Prey, with the cloaking device, that was awesome. I still remember how the audience chuckled when Kruge told Kirk he had 2 minutes to do whatever, when Khan had given him only 1 minute, which still was enough time for Kirk to counter-act the villain's nefarious plans. Horner's score was more reserved in this movie, although that brassy sound remains in the Klingon theme. This entry also gave us the recurring theme that would last through the end of the original series movies, Kirk's hatred of the Klingons for killing his son.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) - this one is generally believed to be the most fun and most un-Star-Trek-like of all these movies. It could also have been rightfully subtitled "Nevermind, We Undid Everything That Preceded This". Do I need to put any of this in spoiler tags? Ah, just in case ... Spock dies, the Enterprise is blown to bits ... All of that is undone in this movie. But of course, you really could not have a Star Trek movie without those elements. What I really enjoy about this movie is the setting in 1980s San Francisco, with the crew of the Enterprise being fish out of water. The scene with Chekov asking the police office in a very clear Russian accent, where are the nuclear wessels ... Spock's "are you sure it isn't time for another colorful metaphor?", Kirk's "I think he did a little too much LDS during the 60s ..." Moments like those made for a truly enjoyable film. What I didn't give a rip about was the "save the whales" thing or the whale biologist character, Jillian. I found her to be an annoying character. I did love the scene of the Bird of Prey uncloaking in front of the whaling ship. Worst musical score of the series.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) - William Shatner directed this one. I don't know if he'd ever done any directing previously, but it was assumed that this movie would lean more on the action side of things than Nimoy's previous two entries to the series. Previews for the movie made it look truly awesome. Then the movie came out, I went and ... it was a steaming pile of dog crap. My opinion has not changed after having watched it again a couple nights ago. Renegade Vulcan was alright, the general idea of commandeering the Enterprise was good, but a search for ... God? When they find what they think is God, he looks more like I'd expect Santa Claus to look like, and then it's revealed that this is just a psycho demon thing that just wants out of its prison. The Klingon characters were cariacatures who I never found convincing. I understand following orders of a superior officer, but "I ... apologize" never felt right coming out of the mouth of a Klingon. The best part of this entry was its musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. The visuals were awful, no better than what one might find in some cheap-ass SyFy show.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) - the other original film that I like more than Khan. This one came out soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, and at that time I had been big into reading all of the Tom Clancy novels. The film opens explosively, literally, as a Klingon moon suffers a cataclysmic explosion. The economic impact of that is devastating, and it is judged that the Klingon empire has only a few years left. The Klingon chancellor then reaches out to Starfleet with an offer of peace. There are those on every front - Starfleet, the Klingons, the Romulans - who oppose peace, enacting a plan to assassinate the Klingon chancellor and maintain the galactic status quo. I suppose the thin parallels I saw between this movie and real-life events is what really drew me into it (much like the thin parallels between Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the depiction of the rise of Palpatine in The Phantom Menace explains why I enjoyed that much derided movie so much). This one had a good musical score and much better visual effects than in V. We finally got to see the USS Excelsior in action, and now we have a Bird of Prey that does not have to decloak to fire its weapons. And the Klingon general Chang was a Shakespeare-quoting bad guy. Which reminds me of one of the best exchanges in any Star Trek movie - during a formal dinner between Starfleet and the Klingons aboard the Enterprise, Chang tells Kirk that the Klingons need "breathing room" for their empire, to which Kirk responds "Earth, 1938"; Chang is not amused. Long before Avengers Endgame, we got a sign-off at the end of The Undiscovered Country of all the original crew, as this movie was the final entry featuring all of them.
Star Trek Generations (1994) - this one opens with the christening of the USS Enterprise-B, and we get to see Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov one final time as they come along during a media event as this new starship gets its initial flight. After an incident during that flight, we don't see any of the original crew any longer, at least not until later in the film. But I don't really consider this one to be part of the original series as it focuses on the crew from The Next Generation series. It was a good movie to start the TNG series of films.
Star Trek First Contact (1996) - again, not an original cast movie, but I'd rank it as equivalent to the best 3 of the original series.
Star Trek Insurrection (1998) - one of the worst I've ever seen
Star Trek Nemesis (2001) - meh
I really enoyed JJ Abrams' Star Trek movie, not so much Into Darkness and even less the Star Trek Beyond film.
Just some thoughts while I am awaiting tonight's debate.
