Reviewing all the classic Star Trek Movies

Recently I’ve decided to knock something off my to do list and watched all of Star Trek. I had already tried this a few years ago but am only now getting around to the other series. Having finished the Original Series very recently.

It’s goofy at times, and some elements of it haven’t aged well in the slightest, but it’s an enjoyable bit of 60’s sci-fi cheese with some episode being some of the best science fiction stories ever made. It was truly ahead of its time in many ways, and I wound up liking it a lot.

But after I had finished TOS and The Animated Series, which is a very weird ride let me tell you; I realised I should probably check out the movies as the next logical step. After all they do come after TOS, and I haven’t actually seen the TNG movies, so it seemed like a good way to check those off the list too.

So, I got myself the Blu-Ray boxset of all ten classic movies and decided to finally give them a watch. And since I’m going through them, I thought it would be fun to do reviews for them like I did for the Dragon Ball Z movies.

I’m going to warn you that this is a long, long post. While there are less films to cover here than the Dragon Ball review, they are considerably more substantial in their content and there’s a bit more to cover in regards to behind the scenes stuff.

I’ll try to keep all of it as brief as possible, but if you just want to skip to particular movie review, I will not blame you for that. And just to be crystal clear, I am only covering the classic Trek movies. I won’t be looking at the reboot trilogy at all, though maybe I could look at those another time. Alright let’s stop wasting time and jump straight into this.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

After Star Trek was cancelled in 1969 following its third season, creator Gene Rodenberry had planned to turn Trek into a film. He had written a script that would see the crew of the Enterprise meeting with God who turns out to be an alien from another dimension.

Due to the heavy religious themes of the movie, and Star Trek itself not being all that popular at the time, the original pitch was around 1968 before the show was cancelled, the executives at Paramount passed on the project.

Although as the 70’s rolled on, Star Trek found a new audience in syndication. To capitalise on this newfound popularity, Paramount decided to resurrect Star Trek with new tv series dubbed Star Trek Phase 2. Which would see most of the original crew reunited to continue their galactic spanning adventures, along with new faces to round out the roster.

The idea was for this show to be the headlining show for a new tv network Paramount were working on at the time. The show made it pretty far into production, with a 2-hour pilot script written and some test footage having already been filmed.

Unfortunately, that television network never materialised, thus the tv series was scrapped. However, around the same time a certain little movie named Star Wars was making bank at the box office. Causing every major film studio to go through their back catalogue to find sci-fi properties to capitalise on it.

And Paramount just so happened to have one that had star in the name. Thus, Gene Rodenberry’s plan to turn Trek into a film ended up happening anyway. Funny how things work out sometimes. And since they had already put a lot into Phase 2 they decided to just repurpose a lot of what they had worked on so it wouldn’t go to waste.

The sets were all touched up to make them have a more cinematic quality, and the two-hour pilot script was reworked to better suit the film format. The latter of which did cause some issues. The script was apparently rewritten multiple times by Gene Rodenberry and the main script writer Harold Livingston, with even more input from various producers, and even the film’s stars William Shatner and Leonard Nemoy due to a clause in their contract giving both script approval.

Everyone had an idea of what they thought Star Trek should be with no consensus on what exactly that was. Thankfully, the film’s director was Robert Wise. Wise is one of the greatest directors of all time and he was able to keep the film together with a consistent vision of what he wanted.

When the film released in 1979 it did very well at the box office. Owing largely to the fandom Star Trek had accrued in its decade since cancellation. The reaction to the film was polarising however, even amongst the people that made.

This Star Trek film seems to be particularly divisive. While it isn’t considered the worst Trek film, it is generally considered one of the weaker entries, though there are some people that defend the film for what it is and what it was attempting to do.

And I can certainly see where those people are coming from. Star Trek: The Motion Picture has a lot of things going for it. For one thing, the film is goddamn gorgeous. The special effects are absolutely jaw dropping with some beautifully realised sequences that look better than a lot of films we have today.

Even the less special effect heavy sequences look great. The set design is fantastic, having a grander look and feel than the show while keeping the same general style you would expect from it. It still feels like Trek only bigger which is what you want when translating something to film.

Really the only thing I’m not a fan of visually is the uniform design. The all-white look isn’t bad, I just miss the more colourful uniforms from the show. Evidently I’m not alone on that one as this was the only Star Trek media that went with this design.

The music is also incredible. Jerry Goldsmith’s score manages to capture the adventurous spirit of Trek, even incorporating the old theme in some parts, while also giving it the kind of grand orchestration expected from a major motion picture. The main theme of the movie is so good in fact that they later reused it as the main theme of The Next Generation.

The story also has a lot of interesting ideas in it. The film is set several years after the show and deals with the Enterprise crew reuniting to deal with a mysterious entity heading towards Earth. The entity is searching for its creator so that it may understand it’s true purpose, with its origins being much closer to home than the crew realises.

I won’t go into more detail so as to avoid spoilers, but the ultimate revelation of what the entity is raises some fascinating questions about the nature of evolution and where it ultimately leads to as well as the inescapable need to find meaning in our existence.

It’s a thinking man’s Star Trek film that tackles a lot of hefty themes and ideas. It takes a lot of cues from fellow 70’s sci-fi fare like 2001: A Space Odyssey in that it’s meant to be a more cerebral, thoughtful movie rather than a big spectacle action film like Star Wars.

To a certain extent I can respect the movie for trying to be a bit more mature sci-fi adventure, but there’s no getting around how plodding the pacing is. One of the downsides of trying to be like 2001 is that you also end up with a lot of the films faults in kind.

For all its deserved classic status, 2001 was also an incredibly slow burn. It was a slow, ponderous affair with more focus on its visuals and themes than its characters or its story. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t anything wrong with that. So long as it’s done well being slower and more thematically focused can make for a great film, but it’s an acquired taste that isn’t going to be for everyone.

And if I’m being honest, I don’t know if Star Trek: The Motion Picture is all that good at being a 2001 style science fiction film. What made 2001 work was that nothing was spelled out for you. A lot of themes and story beats were told via the visuals. You had to really pay attention to everything to understand what was going on, which made it engaging even in the slower moments.

Star Trek doesn’t really get that. Most of the major plot points are conveyed through dialogue, so the visuals don’t have as much narrative substance. This makes the slower moments all the more boring because they come across more as visual white noise. There’s an entire five minute sequence of Kirk and Scotty travelling to the Enterprise that serves no purpose and drags the movie to a screeching halt.

For as good as the special effect sequences are, they go on for way longer than they should. Let me put it like this, when your movie opens with a two-minute sequence that is literally just a black screen with music playing, maybe you can afford to trim the film down a little.

I also don’t think the story is big enough or exciting enough for a movie. The tv show already dealt with God like beings and questions of human evolution before, so it isn’t like this is anything new for Trek.

For as a cinematic as the film is visually, the script still feels like something written as a tv pilot. The attempts to make it work as movie are decent, but there’s no disguising what this was originally meant to be. In some instances, they only make it more obvious.

There are two new characters introduced in the film. Illia played by Persis Khambatta and Willard Decker played by Stephen Collins. Both were characters that were meant to be major players in Phase 2, and both are set up with character traits that were clearly meant to be expanded on more in the series that never do in the film.

The movie ultimately just shoves them to the side because it’s obvious they had no idea what to do with them in future projects now that they had the entire main cast of the show back. it’s especially obvious with the new Vulcan science officer in the movie. Spock wasn’t going to return in Phase 2 due to contractual disagreements with Nimoy, so a new Vulcan was going to be introduced in its place.

That Vulcan isn’t the same one from the pilot, but I think it may have been him in the original script and they just changed the name in the movie. Not sure on that so don’t quote me on it. The point is that with Nimoy back the new Vulcan had no purpose, so rather than completely write them out they just unceremoniously kill them off in a transporter accident. It serves no story purpose whatsoever, and it’s such a needlessly cruel and pointless death that it’s almost comical.

A lot of the script problems were perhaps unavoidable. Trying to adapt a television show to film is a hard enough task on its own, but when trying to take a script written for a tv show pilot and trying to jerry rig it into a film you make the process even harder.

I think it would have been best to just throw out the script and start over from scratch. Sure it would have been a waste of the work done, but it would have probably led to a product more suitable to the silver screen.

That isn’t to say Star Trek: The Motion Picture doesn’t work as a film entirely. As I said, visually and audibly it’s a treat. If you want a good film to zone out to this isn’t a bad one to check out. And I credit the film for at least attempting to be something more thoughtful than most sci-fi adventure movies.

It may not fully work, but I can see why the film has the following that it does. I don’t like the film much, it’s far too slow and plodding for my tastes, but I respect it for what it was trying to do.

I’d say that if you are a fan of Star Trek or cerebral science fiction then this is worth a try at the very least. Even if you don’t end up liking it there are things about it worth experiencing. But if you’re just a casual Star Trek or sci-fi fan, you can skip this one.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Despite it doing well at the box office, it was clear from the critical and fan reaction that the approach they had with The Motion Picture wasn’t going to lead to lasting success. So for the follow up they would need to try something different.

The first thing they did was hire a new producer. Harve Bennet was the new guy they brought in, partially because he had said he found The Motion Picture boring and claimed he could do better. So I guess to test his claim they decided to hire him. Hey, there are worse reasons to hire someone.

The problem was Bennet had never seen a single episode of the original series, so he had no idea what kind of story he wanted to tell with the franchise. So he did the only thing he could do, sat in a dingy projector room and binge watched the entire series. Damn, imagine if modern Hollywood producers did that, the industry might not be in the state that it’s in.

After 3 months of this he came to two conclusions. 1) the film had to centre on Kirk, Spock and Mccoy as that trinity was the very core of the series, and 2) that the villain would be Kahn from the episode Space Seed.

To give a quick summary of the episode, the Enterprise finds a vessel containing genetically engineered super men from the 90’s eugenics war and the leader Kahn tries to take over the Enterprise. After a battle of both wit and fist, irk takes the ship back and maroons Kahn and his followers, along with an enterprise crew member that fell for him, on the planet Ceti Alpha 5.

It’s a great episode with a standout performance by guest star Ricardo Montelban. And given where it ends, there was plenty of story opportunities to take with it. It was a pretty good choice to do the movie as sequel to that episode.

The original cast was set to reprise their roles, though Leonard Nemoy had to be coerced back as he was thinking about removing himself from the franchise. That coercion took the form of a dramatic death scene which he found interesting, and also served Nemoy’s purpose of leaving.

Although considering the premise of the next movie is about bringing Spock back, it was obviously something they went back on to keep the series going. Although William Shatner would admit in an interview on the blu-ray that the plan was to always bring Spock back from the beginning and that everyone but him was in on it. Even claiming Nemoy not wanting to come back was a negotiating tactic. Not sure how true that is, but it does sound like a logical move.

For directing duties, they got Nicholas Meyer. An up-and-coming talent who had previously directed the time travel thriller Time After Time. Meyer would also rewrite the script, adding additional themes and changing the order of certain events to better serve the story.

The story itself saw an aging Kirk struggling with growing old and losing his command of a starship with his new admiral position. While on a training voyage with a crew of new recruits, Kirk discovers that Kahn has escaped from his exile on Ceti Alpha V. The planet itself having become a barren desert hellscape after its neighbouring planet blew up not long after Kahn arrived.

The event killed most of Kahn’s crew, including his wife who never actually gets named in the film. It’s been all but confirmed from original scripts that this was referring to the woman from the Enterprise who joined him at the end of Space Seed. Apparently, the character was supposed to come back, but the actress who played her was suffering from scoliosis and it felt disrespectful to recast her. So the character ended up being cut.

Anyway, Kahn’s back and out for revenge on Kirk for abandoning him. On top of that he’s also after Genesis, a terraforming device capable of creating lush worlds within minutes. While it’s designed to create new inhabitable worlds, it also wipes out all existing life from a planet if used on one sustains it. Making it both a useful tool, and a destructive weapon.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn would release in 1982 and it received a much warmer reception than its predecessor. In fact, it was such a big success both critically and financially that it’s credited for helping revive Star Trek as a brand and helped usher in a sort of golden age for the franchise.

As years have gone by its only grown in people’s estimation. Not only is it considered the best of the Trek films, but also as one of the best sci-fi films of all time. Which puts me in an awkward position. Since, what can I say about the film that hasn’t already been said?

Wrath of Kahn, to be blunt, is a goddamn masterpiece. It’s an elegantly written, expertly crafted film that deals with themes of aging, vengeance, and the inevitability of facing death, while also just being a fun sci-fi adventure story.

Everyone already knows this. There’s a reason why the “KAHN!!!!” scream is one of the most memed movie moments of all time alongside “I am your father”. So, again, what can I really say about it?

Well I guess the only I can do is talk about why I personally liked the film. I mean that is what a review is for right. See what I love about Wrath of Kahn is that it’s one of those rare perfect films that finds the correct balance between being an engaging adventure and having deeper thematic weight.

I feel like a lot of film critics, especially the film essayist types that make 7-hour long diatribes on the themes and darker messages of something like The Care Bears Movies, mistake that themes are what truly make a film good. This isn’t wrong, but I think it misses why films are appealing to an audience.

Themes are the spice that make a film more interesting. They give a film longevity as you can rewatch a film to understand it on a deeper level, but you need to have a good story that’s engaging first and foremost. You need to have good memorable dialogue and likable characters, exciting action and witty comedy. Obviously what you prioritise depends on the kind of film you make, but you get my point.

Entertainment is what people go to movies for, the themes are the extra gift they get out of it. Both of these are important to making a great movie. Screw up the former and the themes will be ignored because no one will care, screw up the latter and a film becomes empty fun that doesn’t hold up over time.

It is very hard to do both perfectly. A lot of films end up prioritising one or the other with varying degrees of success. But then you get those rare gems that do both perfectly, and Wrath of Kahn is one of those films.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn has strong themes. It’s central themes of aging and trying to find purpose as you get older, of vengeance and how it drives men to madness and obsession, and of the inevitability of facing death no matter how hard you avoid it are all handled brilliantly and give the film a lasting appeal that only gets better over time. But it’s also just a straightforward, fun and exciting sci-fi action adventure with great characters, memorable dialogue and exciting action sequences.

That’s why I like Wrath of Kahn. It’s a movie that truly appeals to everyone because it can be enjoyed on multiple levels. You can ruminate and think on the film’s themes on an intellectual level or sit back with a brewski and enjoy it as an action-packed sci-fi romp. It shows that you can have both without making sacrifices for either.

The fact that every part of the film is so masterfully executed helps a lot too. The writing and dialogue are superb with a ton of quotable lines. I’m pretty sure all of Kahn’s lines have been added to memorable movie quotes lexicon because each one is increasingly the best line ever written.

And speaking of Kahn, Ricard Montalbán gives probably the best performance of his storied career. Keeping the same demanding screen presence and charisma he had in the original episode, but with a more insane energy to match how broken and obsessed Kahn has become. His performance is a big reason Kahn is as quotable as he is.

Montalbán isn’t alone, the entire cast gives a stellar performance. Shatner is on top form here. His acting can be a little hammy at times, in a good way I should say, but he tackles the more serious moments with all the weight they deserve, and do I even need to mention the scream. It’s one of the greatest moments in cinema history and Shatner is a huge reason why.

Leonard Nemoy is always great as Spock, and he handles the death scene masterfully. Which is unsurprising considering that’s what drew him to the project to begin with. He even gets to do the famous final frontier speech and he absolutely nails it. One of the best renditions of it in my opinion.

The other original cast also do a great job, and even the newcomers like Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, and Kirstie Alley all give a good showing. Helped by the fact that the new characters are more fleshed out than in the ones in the previous film.

In almost every way that matters, Wrath of Kahn is a much better film than its predecessor. Tighter pacing, more engaging character work and exciting action sequences. This is far more of what I want out of a Star Trek movie.

But if there is one area where The Motion Picture is superior it is in the special effects. The ones in Wrath of Kahn are certainly well done, but they lack the majesty of Motion Picture’s effects. Though it does at least have the benefit of knowing not to drag the sequences on for too long.

One of the criticisms critics had for the film were the special effects and spaceship battles. With some critics like Roger Ebert calling the battles “tepid”. I don’t know what he was smoking back then because the space battles here are some of the best ever done.

They aren’t as fast paced as the ones in Star Wars, but they make up for that by being tense and more strategic. It’s less about seeing what is essentially a dogfight in space, and more watching two skilled tacticians trying to outwit the other. I find it a lot more engaging than the Star Wars battles if I’m honest, though both are great in their own ways.

Really my only complaints of the movie are that I wish the side characters had more to do. They have their moments, especially Chekov who has an unwilling antagonistic role here which is fun to see, but not much in the way of a character arc or storyline.

The one who got screwed over the most was Dr Mccoy. Given that one of Harve Bennet’s goals was to focus on the trinity of Kirk, Spock and Mccoy, Bones feels like he got left out somewhat. He still has his memorable moments, but he doesn’t feel as integral to the story as the other two.

Aside from that and a few minors nitpicks and continuity errors only the sweatiest fedora wearing nerds will care about, there really isn’t much to complain about with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. Forget best Star Trek or sci-fi film, it’s one of the best films period. A wonderfully constructed work that can appeal to any kind audience. So, good luck following this up.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock 

After the first Star Trek movie, nobody really knew if it was going to get a sequel. When Wrath of Kahn came out and did bank at the box office, a sequel was greenlit almost immediately. With Harve Bennet being called up the day after the film opened and being told to start writing the script. Which he completed after six weeks.

Strangely though he wrote the script backwards. Starting from the end and working from there. Seems weird, but since the whole point of the movie was bringing back Spock it kind of made sense. It also allowed Bennet to come up with a great set piece for the finale with the destruction of the Enterprise. Which would be the logical next step after killing the series most recognisable character in the last flick.

But speaking of which, Spock’s death allowed an opportunity for actor Leonard Nemoy to take up directing duties. Something he had great interest in. This also helped fill the directorial role as Rischard Meyer wouldn’t return due to disagreements in how the Wrath of Kahn’s ending had been altered without his consent.

This would also be the first instance of a Star Trek cast member taking up directorial duties on a Star Trek project, something that would become more prevalent in later Trek media. Particularly in the tv shows where cast members would direct certain episodes.

Funny thing is, Nemoy almost didn’t get to direct the movie. The head of Paramount at the time and future Disney overlord Michael Eisner didn’t want to hire Nemoy as he was under the impression that he hated Star Trek, and had it written in his contract that he would only do the last movie if Spock died.

This was, of course, complete bullshit. Eisner had probably just gotten mixed up, which he would do a lot when he later took over Disney but that’s a story for another time.

The production went pretty smoothly. With the only notable issue being the set catching fire on the first day of production. Fortunately, a timely intervention by Shatner meant that they wouldn’t have to delay production. Which was actually why Shatner got involved in that by the way. He was working on T.J Hooker at the time and could only film the movie on one of that shows off periods. He saved the set simply because he didn’t have the time to waste. Oh Shatner, never change.

Search for Spock would release in 1984 and like its predecessor it got good reviews and did well financially, but not to the same extent. The general consensus for Search for Spock is that it’s a good movie, just not as good as the one that came before it or even the one that came after.

There’s actually a bit of a rule when it comes to Star Trek movies. The even numbered entries are generally considered the best, while the odd numbered are considered the weakest. I would argue Star Trek III is probably where that trend started, or at least where it becomes more noticeable.

Not because it’s a bad film, it’s not even close to one, but because it has the unenviable position of being sandwiched between two absolute classics. Which is a shame because on its own merits, Search for Spock is a fun movie.

The story picks up right after the events of Wrath of Kahn. The crew are heading home, beaten and bruised from the ordeal, but things take a turn when Mccoy starts acting strangely. It turns out that right before he died, Spock implanted Mccoy with his Katra, essentially a Vulcans spirit or soul.

This procedure is causing Mccoy to take on a lot of Spock’s memories and mannerisms. In order to get Mccoy back to normal they need to take him and Spock’s body back to Vulcan. The body that they left on the planet created by Genesis at the end of the last movie. Oops.

To make matters worse, they don’t have a ship. The Enterprise is set to be decommissioned after 20 years of service, and Star Fleet aren’t willing to send a ship to Genesis since it’s become a controversial topic. The solution to these problems, hijack the Enterprise and head off to Genesis anyway, job and rank be damned.

Meanwhile, David and Saavik are on Genesis for scientific study where they discover that the regenerating properties of Genesis have resurrected Spock’s body. Albeit as a rapidly aging infant with no soul, but at least he’s alive again.

However, Genesis turns out to be unstable. Turns out they put unstable molecules in the thing and the planet is set to collapse in on itself within hours. If that wasn’t bad enough, the science team is attacked by a group of Klingons led by the villainous Kruge, who is after Genesis to turn its power into a weapon.

Search for Spock doesn’t skimp out on plot. As befitting its space opera affectations, it has a lot going on, but not so much that things become overwhelming or hard to follow. The scope is suitably epic with lots of space battles and interesting locations. In fact, I would argue that Search for Spock has a grander overall adventure than Wrath of Kahn.

That said, it’s not as thematically rich as Wrath of Kahn was. While it still deals with themes of friendship, death and resurrection they aren’t quite as interesting or deep as the one’s from the last movie.

But I suppose that’s the compromise you make when you increase the scope of the movie. It’s hard to have a focus on deeper themes when there’s so much going on. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it just means it’s not as well balanced as Wrath of Kahn.

That being said I do like that this movie gives every character a chance to shine. It isn’t a lot, but most of the characters are given at least one really cool moment which does help make their role more memorable.

It’s also nice to see more of Mccoy. He’s given a much bigger role here and him being the bearer of Spock’s soul does lead to some funny moments. Especially if you watched the show and know about their somewhat tumultuous friendship.

It’s also nice to see more of Saavik and David. The two are fleshed out a bit more, with David being given a lot more of Kirk’s character traits to better showcase their familial connection. It’s a shame that he dies in this movie because I would have liked to have seen more of him.

Saavik is also given more definition here, though she does have a strange scene where she has what is essential psychic intercourse with a young Spock. It makes sense in context but it is a very… interesting creative decision to say the least.

Kruge also makes for an effective villain. He doesn’t have the same presence as Kahn, nor is he as deep, but he is a fun baddie with some subtle character traits that do make him interesting in his own way.

I also will credit Search for Spock for largely making the Klingons what they are today. The Original Series Klingons weren’t that well defined. They were just bronze skinned humanoids with a military dictatorship. The Motion Picture gave them their now iconic ridge head look and their own language, but they were only in the movie for 5 minutes and didn’t look quite right.

Search for Spock polishes up their design and give them a more integral role. It also better defines the Klingons culture, going from a mere military dictatorship to a warrior culture focused on honour and glory. The building blocks for what the Klingons would later become in The Next Generation and beyond largely started here. It makes the TOS Klingons look like a prototype.

The technical aspects of the film are also well done. The sets are nice, with the Genesis planet being suitably weird and imaginative. The special effects are also done well, and are a noticeable improvement over Wrath of Kahn’s, though still not quite on The Motion Picture’s level.

The acting is also top notch as usual. Most of the cast return from the last movie and do as good a job as they did there. The only member who didn’t return is Kirstie Alley as Saavik, who dropped out due to wage issues. She was replaced by Robin Curtis who serves as a suitable replacement.

Robin reportedly had issues adjusting to the role. She’s openly a very emotional person, so she found playing a Vulcan, a race who supress their emotions, very challenging. There are times when you can tell she’s struggling to hold it in, but I think that actually helps the performance in some instances. She does a lot with what little she can show, especially with the eyes.

Christopher Lloyd was also brought in as Kruge. It is weird seeing him play a villain since it’s not something I’ve seen him do often, but I wish he did because he’s awesome here. He brings the same energy he brings to most of his roles and he’s able to be suitably intimidating and threatening.

There’s not a lot of things Search for Spock gets wrong. As I said it just has the unfortunate position of coming between the two most popular films in the franchise. If it was released in a vacuum, it probably would have been considered as a true classic.

All that said it is far from perfect and does come up short when compared to its predecessor. The pacing isn’t quite as tight. It flies by some things a bit too quickly, while some scenes like the ending go on for a tad bit too long.

The story is also, as I mentioned earlier, not quite as deep or interesting as its predecessor. While that movie could be enjoyed on multiple levels, Search for Spock can’t, or at least not to the same extent.

It’s a fun adventure, but there isn’t as much to analyse here which is probably why it isn’t as talked about. Let me put it like this, Wrath of Kahn is like The Empire Strikes Back while Search for Spock is Return of the Jedi. A great film in its own right, but not quite up to its legendary forebearers status.

Still, I really enjoyed this movie and it does have some of the best moments in Star Trek such as the destruction of the Enterprise. It’s absolutely worth a watch, even if it is forever stuck in its predecessors shadow, and it’s successors as it would turn out.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

While Star Trek III may not have been as successful as the second film, it also wasn’t that much of a drop of. It still did extremely well and proved Leonard Nemoy a reliable director. With this new clout and confidence from the studio, Nemoy was given the follow up and basically told he could do whatever he wanted with it.

His decision was to do a time travel story. Something he had always enjoyed and was not a concept unknown to Star Trek. The City on The Edge of Forever, probably the greatest episode of the tv series, was a time travel story.

Nemoy was allowed to do this on the condition that the time travel story took the crew back to the then present day of 1986. This actually worked out well for Nimoy ay it lined up for his vision of the film. Which was to make a more light-hearted sci-fi adventure comedy with a tinge of social commentary. Something that was also desired by Harve Bennet as a fitting end to the story arc that he had kicked off with Wrath of Kahn.

Speaking of the director of said film, Richard Meyer, would return to help write the screenplay along with Bennet. Meyer himself largely focusing on the intro and ending sequences, which were heavier on the sci-fi, while Bennet wrote the majority of the present-day sequences which were where most of the comedy was.

The story would see the Enterprise crew returning home after a 3-month exile on Vulcan after the events of the last film. But rather than be greeted with a court martial as they expected, they discover the Earth is under threat from a mysterious probe that’s wreaking havoc with the environment and disables any technology it comes close to.

Spock discovers the probe isn’t malicious, it’s simply a scout trying to convey a message. Unfortunately, the only ones that can understand the message are Humpback Whales. A species which are now extinct in the future.

This would add a strong environmental theme to the story, while also providing a good reason for the time travel to take place. The crew did experiment with other ideas like violins, oil and a deadly virus but none of those stuck. The latter of those was a particularly bad fit considering the light-hearted tone the movie was aiming for.

Most of the cast returned, though they were initially hesitant. To the point where during production they tossed around the idea of doing a prequel. Fortunately, he came around which I’m sure had nothing to do with the big pay raise each of the actors got.

Fun fact, the increasing cost of the actors was actually a big reason why Star Trek the Next Generation was greenlit. It was becoming expensive for the producers to keep hiring the old guard, so to keep the franchise going they would do a new series with a newer, less famous cast they didn’t have to pay nearly as much.

Speaking of casts, apparently at one point Eddie Murphy was set to appear in the film. Oh you may cringe at that idea, but keep in mind this was 86 Eddie Murphy where he could do no wrong. He was a very popular comedian at the time and was a big box office draw so it made a kind of sense.

But it was still a weird decision. Evidently Nemoy agreed as he felt like the film would be ridiculed despite the obvious draw Murphy would bring. Fortunately, Murphy turned the film down and did The Golden Child instead.

Turns out they didn’t even need Eddie Murphy, as Star Trek IV wound up being the highest grossing film in the franchise at the time. Even when adjusted for inflation it’s still not that far off from the title.

Star Trek IV was a smash hit, and it managed to do so by attracting a wider casual audience that Star Trek had previously had trouble getting. There are people who have never seen an episode of Star Trek that have seen this movie and absolutely love it.

And it deserves all the love it gets. Star Trek IV is an excellent little film. Now it needs to be said that this is a very different film than the previous ones. If you watched those films for the exciting action and darker themes and story, this isn’t the film for you.

This is strictly a family friendly sci-fi comedy film. And on those terms, it succeeds with flying colours. The bulk of the comedy comes from the fish out of water aspect of the story. Seeing these future space utopian commies interact with the less advanced people of the 1980’s.

This isn’t anything you haven’t seen before. Stories like this were a dime a dozen back then, but Star Trek IV is one of the best examples of this type of comedy. Part of that is because these characters are so well established.

One of the problems with these types of films is that you always need to establish the setting these fish out of waters come from. But since we already know Kirk, Spock, Mccoy, Uhura, Scotty, Chekov and Sulu and have seen them go on multiple adventures already they don’t need to do that and can just get straight to the comedy. And seeing them in this new setting makes for a refreshing change of pace.

One of the best parts about the movie are the characters. They all have their own little side adventures that give each a chance to shine while also contributing to the main story. Chekov gets off particularly well. Not only does he have one of the most memorable lines in the movie, you know what it is, but he also gets one of the more exciting set pieces replete with his own theme music.

My only issue regarding the characters is Saavik being left behind on Vulcan. I liked her in the last two films and I’m disappointed to see she got dropped. I would have liked to see more of her. Although I am grateful that they dropped the hint she was pregnant with Spock’s kid from the early scripts. No clue on why they thought that was a good idea.

Thankfully, the new character they introduced, Dr Gillian Taylor, is a very nice addition. She adds a groundedness to the movie as the everyman, or is that everywoman, everyperson? Anyway, she’s the normal character that’s meant to be relatable to the audience, and she serves that role well.

Catherine Hicks is excellent in the role. Adding a more down to earth vibe that serves as a neat contrast to the rest of the cast. Apparently, Hicks wasn’t a big sci-fi fan when she made this, which honestly helped the performance as it made her reactions to the science fiction stuff all the more authentic. It’s a very charming performance.

The whole cast is charming in fact. It should go without saying that the acting is excellent. That’s been a constant in these movies and these guys had been playing these characters for years at this point.

But Star Trek IV shows just how well these guys can handle comedy. They have a good sense of timing, and they play everything straight without yucking it up for the camera, which allows the movies sharp wit and clever dialogue to shine through.

This movie isn’t a laugh out loud riot. This isn’t a movie that throws a joke at you every second like Airplane or Mel Brooks movies, but it is a funny film with sharp writing and smartly written humorous dialogue. There are plenty of moments that got a chuckle out of me and there’s just a very light-hearted charming vibe to the whole thing.

Which is really what makes Star Trek IV so good, it’s charm. The movie is just so likable that it’s hard not to love it. it’s an easy film to watch because of how laid back it is.

That isn’t to say the film is shallow, far from it. The films strong environmental message adds weight to the story, and while the film is light on the sci-fi aspect the unanswered question of the probe adds a thought provoking element to the film as all the best science fiction films do.

It doesn’t compromise on its roots despite the lighter tone and that’s admirable. Especially in modern Hollywood where everything is dumbed down to attract as wide an audience possible. Seeing this film actually attempt comedy while still having depth to its messages and ideas, and pulling both off is something truly worthy of respect.

And to me this film is a perfect example of how versatile Star Trek can be. While Trek certainly has its fair share of action stories, it also has plenty of other stories. Romance, comedy, political thriller, horror, western even. It isn’t just action, some of the series best episodes don’t have any action or killing at all. Look at Inner Light for Q’s sake.

Point is, one of the reasons Star Trek has lasted so long as a brand is because it’s able to juggle all these different genres, yet still remain distinctly Star Trek. And this movie is a prime example of that. Because despite it being very different from its predecessors, it still feels like Star Trek. It still fits in with the rest of the series.

I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. Now that I think about it I might like this more than Wrath of Kahn. While that is still a better film overall, I just enjoyed watching Star Trek IV more. It’s a very likable sci-fi comedy adventure that also makes for a great family film. Which is probably why it did so well.

It isn’t perfect. The opening is a bit slow to get going, and the message can be heavy handed in places, but these are mild blemishes or a superbly made movie. If you want a movie that can ease you into Star Trek, this is the perfect one to watch.

Although I would still recommend the previous two films as the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Trek films all comprise a mini trilogy with one continuous storyline. It wasn’t planned to be a trilogy and yet it became one that wrapped everything up in a satisfying way. It’s like the bizarro version of the Star Wars sequels.

Star Trek was riding high. They had reached a whole new audience and a new tv show was on the way that would lead to greater heights, eventually but that’s for another day. What could possibly go… who am I kidding, you all know what’s next.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier 

Oh boy, I wasn’t looking forward to this one. The Final Frontiers reputation as the worst of the original Trek films precedes itself. After the massive success of The Voyage Home, this movie very nearly killed the franchise.

After Leonard Nemoy’s stint as a director for the past two films, William Shatner took over as director and writer for this one. Why you ask? Well it actually goes all the way back to the original series.

To avoid infighting between the two leads, both Shatner and Nemoy had what was dubbed a “favoured nations clause” in their contracts which meant if one star got something so would the other. If Shatner got a pay rise, Nemoy got one too for example.

So since Nemoy had directed 2 films at this point it made sense to give Shatner a shot. Which I’m sure also had nothing to do with a pay dispute he was having with Paramount at the time. Regardless Shatner jumped at the chance to helm the next production.

And since the arc of the last 3 films had drawn to a close, this gave Shatner the opportunity to do whatever he wanted. The story he came up with ended up being inspired by, of all things, televangelists. Shatner had seen them on tv and became fascinated by how they were able to control the crowd. Finding them interesting but also horrifying in how manipulative they could be.

The story would see Kirk and company deal with a Vulcan searching for God, Said Vulcan having the ability to brainwash people to his cause by showing them their pain and taking it away. The original script was a sweeping epic, featuring big battles, a luscious heavenly planet replete with angels that would turn into a hellish landscape and even a battle with the devil himself.

Unfortunately, the script didn’t exactly go over well. Harve Bennet didn’t like it because he felt the religious nature of the story didn’t work well with Star Trek. While also seeing the quest for God as a flawed concept as it would never have a satisfying answer.

These concerns were echoed by Gene Rodenberry. Though that may have been due to him still being bitter at the rejection of the original script for the first film which dealt with similar themes.

Paramount also took issue with the strong religious themes and ideas. Finding it too complex for a casual audience, as well as having issue with the amount of special effects shots. It was a much grander scaled film than the previous movies, which meant it was going to be a far more expensive movie to produce.

And finally, Nemoy and Deforest Kelley didn’t like it because of how Spock and Mccoy were portrayed. The original script saw them betraying Kirk which both saw as completely out of character for them, and both felt like their characters were sidelined in order to make Kirk look good.

The result was that the script was heavily rewritten to try to satisfy everyone. Which inevitably satisfied no one. Nobody was happy with the final script, but they didn’t have time to fine tune it. Paramount wanted it out asap as it had been sometime since the last film and the franchise was losing momentum. So they had to make do with what they had and hope they work things out during filming.

Filming didn’t exactly go smoothly either. The interior shots went ok, but the outdoor sections were rough. One scene at Yosemite Park had to be reshot due to a background issue and the scenes in the desert were a mess due to the extreme heat, and at one point the bus they were using broke down and stranded them out there. The desert shots apparently got so bad Shatner ended up snapping and going off on the film crew.

But the real issue came with the finale. It was going to involve Kirk facing off against a bunch of flame breathing rock monsters, but Paramount would only give him one due to budget constraints. Unfortunately, the rock monster just didn’t look good. They couldn’t have it breathe fire due to the suit being made of rubber and it just looked like a guy waddling around in a big dumb costume.

The whole thing had to be scrapped which left the film with no finale. Leaving Shatner to shoot a bunch of b-roll footage and hope you can cobble together something in post. Not the most ideal solution, but the time and budget constraints they had meant it was the only option they had left.

The final nail in the coffin came from the special effects. They couldn’t get Industrial Light and Magic like they had in the other films due to them being busy with other projects and being far more expensive.

Instead, the special effects work went to another, cheaper alternative. Said alternative being Bran Ferren’s company, who had previously worked on projects like Altered States and Little Shop of Horrors. So not exactly an amateur company, but not a huge name either.

Oh and those special effects had to completed in 3 months. For reference, it took ILM at least six months to do the effects of the previous movies, which is also the industry standard time for doing special effects. I think you can tell what happened next.

So we have a compromised script that no one was pleased with, a difficult shoot, a scrapped finale being replaced by cobbled up b-roll, and special effects done on the cheap in a rush job. There was no way this thing couldn’t have been a disaster.

As I said this is widely regarded as the worst Trek film of them all, at least with the original cast, and it isn’t hard to see why. Let’s start with the special effects. To be blunt, they’re fucking awful.

While some practical effects on land don’t look too bad, and the sets and make up are still up to the usual standard, the space scenes are universally garbage. Nothing is composited correctly, and the stop-motion is so choppy it makes the animation in Atari games look smooth by comparison.

Even the more ethereal moments of the film like the Great Barrier and Sha Ka Ree just look like big blobs of cosmic energy with no real style to make them visually interesting. They’re a far cry from the intricately beautiful effects of The Motion Picture.

It’s a shame too because the effects are a big part of the movie. It’s meant to be a big spectacle movie, but it lacks any of the actual spectacle required to pull that off. I will say the movie doesn’t entirely look bad. As I said the sets and make-up are still pretty good and the film is at least shot well, and there’s some great lighting in this movie especially in the night time desert scenes.

It’s not a total visual disaster, but when it looks shit it eclipses shit. I can’t blame the guys who worked on them for this since they weren’t given nearly enough time, but that doesn’t mean the work they presented wasn’t below par. Bad work is bad work, circumstances be damned.

It’s a shame the effects ended up the way they did because it needed them to be good, Because, unfortunately, the film doesn’t have the story or writing to back it up. Although I will say the writing isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. There are some things here I liked.

For one thing I love the banter between Kirk, Spock and Mccoy. This is the first film where I feel like they fully realised the dynamic between the three. They genuinely come across as friends as close as brothers and the scenes between them are easily the best parts of the movie. The opening campfire scene being a particular highlight.

The main villain Sybok is also pretty interesting. I like the idea of a Vulcan who is more emotionally driven, and he’s a bit more of an amiable villain which makes him stand out from the ones we’ve had so far. He’s played by Laurence Luckinbill who imbues the character with plenty of charisma, which is vital for a role like this, and enough likability that his final redemption feels earned.

I’ll even give the movie credit for trying to say something about the nature of God, on personal pain and the search for meaning in the universe. But to quote another sci-fi franchise, “do or do not, there is no try”.

The thing is, while the movie is trying to say something I don’t know what exactly it’s trying to say. It tries to juggle a lot of different philosophical and religious ideas without really focusing on one. You’d think the religious element would be a big focus given the literal search for God, but it isn’t.

Outside of a few surface level references to Milton, it doesn’t say anything about the nature of God at all. I guess they couldn’t given what a hot topic it is, but then why try to tackle it at all. Harve Bennet was right it was a bad idea in concept.

A lot of the philosophy in this movie just comes across as half baked. They make a big deal about how our pain makes us who we are, but it never goes beyond the surface level. What I wrote in that last sentence is about how far the film goes. It all just feels hollow and empty at best, and completely muddled and confused at worse.

Maybe there is something here if you squint hard enough, but you’d have to tear the movie apart to get anything profound out of it. Maybe it was going to be more in depth with the original script, Shatner did seem in interviews like he had a core message he wanted to convey, and it’s possible that it got lost in translation as the script was rewritten. It certainly feels that way.

There are good ideas here but none of them congeal together to make a satisfying narrative. It’s pulling in too many directions with no commitment to any of them.

And the tone of the movie doesn’t help matters either. While the movie’s religious themes might make it seem more serious in tone, and it indeed is at time, it also leans heavily into comedy which is about as jarring as it sounds. You got characters talking about pain and God one minute and Scotty walking into a wall the next. The tone is so all over the place you’re liable to get whiplash from it.

And the comedy is not great. Some parts got a laugh out of me, but for the most part a lot of it falls flat. The timing is off, the punchlines too predictable, it all feels very forced. I wouldn’t be surprised if the comedy was a last-minute addition to appeal to the casuals brought in with The Voyage Home.

That said the movie is funny, just not intentionally. Star Trek V may have its legitimately good moments, but they are far outweighed by its dumb ones. From the Enterprise inexplicably having over 70 decks, including 2 deck 52’s, from Scotty literally just walking into a wall he could clearly see, to Kirk being attacked by a half-naked cat girl, to a middle aged Uhura doing a naked fan dance, if you want some good cringe Star Trek V has it in spades.

Some of these scenes are so dumb they’re hard not to laugh at. If you want a fun bad movie to riff on with friends, this is a good one to check out. It’s a bad movie, but it is an enjoyably bad movie.

Star Trek V is not a good movie, but It isn’t offensively awful nor does it have any terrible messages. It’s just a dumb movie trying to be smarter than it is. And say what you want about the quality of the finished product, but there is a passion here. it’s an attempt to make something grand and epic that just never came together.

This is not a lazy movie. The people that made it put their all into it and it backfired on them. I’ll take a thousand of those kinds of failure before I suffer through another soulless corporate cash grab. I can stand a bad movie if there’s effort put into it, I can’t stand a lazy film that just goes through the motions.

I don’t hate Star Trek V, but it is the weakest of the films so far. Ambitious though it may be, that doesn’t excuse sloppy execution. Still if you want the Star Trek film to watch on a bad movie night with your mates, this is the perfect one to go for.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

After Star Trek V very few people thought the series would continue. Even the cast thought that would be it for the franchise. But with Star Trek’s 25th anniversary on the horizon, Paramount wanted to celebrate it in some capacity with another feature film.

Harve Bennet proposed the idea of doing a prequel film featuring new actors as younger versions of the Enterprise crew. That idea was promptly rejected by Paramount after it received a largely negative backlash from both the original cast, and the fanbase once word of it got out. Bennet, being largely burnt out from Trek at that point anyway, took that as his opportunity to exit Trek for good.

The new producer, Ralph Winter, would approach Wrath of Kahn director Richard Meyer to write the next film. Mainly because he was very good at getting scripts done very quickly. The problem was Meyer didn’t have an idea for a story.

Fortunately, Leonard Nemoy did. That idea was, “what if the wall came down in space”. The idea having come from recent events that saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and thawing tensions between the US and Russia.

The story would see the Klingon Empire brought down by a massive disaster. With only 50 some odd years left to live; the empire is forced to make a deal with the Federation to ensure their survival.

Kirk and company are sent to guide the Klingon ambassador to a peace conference despite Kirks known hatred for them after the death of his son. Sending Kirk being Spock’s idea based on the old Vulcan proverb, “only Nixon could go to China”.

Meyer loved the idea because it allowed them to touch on current issue with an allegorical lens. A thing Meyer preferred as it allowed the message to reach more people as it would avoid people’s innate biases.

The main bulk of the plot came to Meyer very naturally based on the idea. Adding in the Chernobyl like disaster of the moon Praxis blowing up and adding a political assassination by a joint conspiracy of Federation and Klingon forces, touching on the dangers diplomatic peacemakers faced from both outside their own nations, and especially from within.

The script came together nicely, and Meyer was asked by Nemoy to direct the movie as well. The thinking being it would help avoid the ire of Shatner if a neutral third party directed the new movie and not Nemoy.

The only stipulations Meyer had from Paramount was the movie would have to be made on a much lower budget, which after the last film I can’t say I blame them, and that the film should be written as a swan song for the original cast.

By this point it was abundantly obvious to everyone that the cast was simply getting too old for this. Hell, they were already middle aged in Star Trek II, they even made aging a major theme of the movie. And in The Final Frontier the actors ages, on top of Scotty’s actor James Doohan’s weight, were becoming outright comical.

Plus, with the Next Generation still being a massively popular hit, the idea of spinning that cast into film was starting to form. Thus, it was decided to end the original crew off with one last adventure, and start making plans to bring the TNG to the silver screen.

This film would serve as a transitional period for the franchise. In more ways than one as it would turn out. Because on October 24 1991, only a month and one week before the film’s release, series creator Gene Roddenberry would tragically pass away. With the sixth film having a small tribute to Roddenberry to commemorate him.

Said sixth film would be dubbed, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Which, fun fact, was Meyer’s original name for Wrath of Kahn, but Paramount liked the final name better as it was a more marketable title. Hey at least Meyer got to use it for this.

The film would release in December 1991, and it was received far better than the previous effort. Both critically and financially it was a huge success, and many fans consider this to be one of the best films in the series next to Wrath of Kahn.

As for my thoughts, I liked it more than I thought I would. I need to get this out of the way right now, I’m generally not a big fan of the more political/allegorical episodes of Star Trek. Not because I disagree with them or because I’m some extreme right wing chud who complains about everything being political, but simply because those aren’t the episodes that appeal to me personally.

When I think of Star Trek I think of big adventure, visiting exotic alien worlds, meeting strange new creature with mysterious powers, big space battles and the witty banter of the crew. In short, I’m more of a fan of the pulpier, adventurous side of Star Trek, not so much the philosophical side.

That said, I recognise the philosophical side is just as important. It wouldn’t be Star Trek if it didn’t have both, and some of the deeper, more thought-provoking episodes are some of the series best.

So I’m not opposed to Star Trek having more allegorical stories. They are a massive part of its identity; they just aren’t my cup of tea. Mind you it doesn’t help that Star Trek is a bit hit and miss when it comes to allegory.

When they work they’re phenomenal, but they can be a bit too dry, and are sometimes so on the nose it ruins the allegorical aspect of the story. And The Undiscovered Country does skirt the line of being a bit too obvious.

If you know even a basic history of the fall of the USSR then some events of the movie are too easy to connect to real world events. I already made some connections myself in this review. However, it manages to avoid being too in your face with what it’s based on.

It is still obvious what events are alluding to what, but not so obvious it detracts from the story. A lot of modern allegorical writing suffers from that. The writing here is just subtle enough to allow the allegory to flow naturally from the story.

Plus, the story isn’t all allegory. The film deals with themes of war, the fear of change, the importance and inevitability of that change, the struggle for peace and need to let go of one’s own prejudices. It’s a movie that tackles a lot of themes, but like Wrath of Kahn they’re handled masterfully and woven into the narrative in a natural way. Nothing feels forced for the sake of a message.

It also manages to avoid being too dry like a lot of allegorical Star Trek can be. While there is still a lot of talking, the dialogue is so good and compelling that you don’t mind the talking parts of the film. There’s lot of tension and intrigue in this movie that it feels more like a political thriller than a sci-fi adventure.

But it still has all the sci-fi adventure stuff. You still get some cool looking aliens, interesting locations, and thrilling space battle sequences. Admittedly the latter isn’t too prevalent, mainly due to the films lower budget, but the few that are there are done very well.

Basically, if you prefer Star Trek as a space adventure then the movie doesn’t leave you out to dry. It has all of those elements; they just aren’t the main focus. This is a more about the political dilemmas and exploring deeper themes. Which it does extremely well.

The technical side of things are also done extremely well. The special effects are done much better here. Granted there aren’t as many special effect heavy sequences, again they had a lower budget, but the few special effects it has are done extremely well.

The acting is also some of the best in the series. Since this is the final adventure of the original cast you can tell they went all out giving some of the best performances they could. George Takei especially shines as Sulu since the character has his own command in this, and we see that as a leader he’s very effective.

The supporting cast is also very strong. David Warner returns, this time as the Klingon ambassador Gorkon a much bigger role that better shows his acting chops. Kim Cattral of all people appears as a new Vulcan, Valeris. I didn’t think Kim Cattral would work as a Vulcan, but she pulls it off. She gets the emotionless side down without appearing cold and logical without being too robotic.

But the actor who steals the show is Christopher Plummer as General Chang. I mean, it’s Christopher Plummer as a Klingon, what more could you ask for. He’s a fantastic actor and he manages to give Chang the kind of charisma and menace a military general should have.

Mind you it helps that half his dialogue is just Shakespeare quotes. The name of the movie is a direct reference to Hamlet so there was always going to be some Shakespeare in this, but apparently when Plummer got cast, they wrote more Shakespeare quotes in just to have him say them. it doesn’t make sense a lot of the time, but there are worse reasons to quote the bard.

And if you’re a TNG fan, you may spot a brief cameo by Michael Dorn. His character isn’t named, but I think it’s supposed to be an ancestor to Worf, the character Dorn played on TNG. That’s pretty cool, especially if you’re a big Worf fan like me.

If I had any complaints with The Undiscovered Country, I’d say I wish the other crew members got a bit more to do. They all have their moments and contribute to the plot in some way, but it still feels more focused on Kirk, Spock, and Mccoy. And for the final film with the original cast, it would have been nice if they had gotten a little bit more.

Still, I can’t fault The Undiscovered Country much. It’s a great film that ends the Original Series on a high note and managed to tackle a contemporary issue of its time in a thoughtful way.

If you want a Star Trek that’s more of a political thriller, this is one you should check out. I can see why some put it up there with Wrath of Kahn even if I personally wouldn’t. I still like Wrath of Kahn and Voyage Home more, but that’s down to personal preferences than the actual quality of the films themselves. It’s an excellent flick no matter what Star Trek fan you are.

Star Trek Generations

With the final film with the original cast now in the rearview mirror, Paramount went ahead with plans to transition The Next Generation into film. Talks for this started around 1992 when the series was in the middle of its fifth season.

This gave the crew time to wrap up the show, it wouldn’t end until it’s seventh season, and gave them time to properly plan out the film. Paramount did have a few rules for them with this new movie though, the chief one being to include the cast of The Original Series as a sort of passing the torch moment.

This baffles me. For one thing, The Next Generation had already been on the air for 5 years at this point and had already proved themselves as a true successor. Another thing, they already had a passing the torch moment in the show. The pilot had a cameo from a super old Dr Mccoy looking over the ship and giving them his blessing.

And that wasn’t the only time an original cast member appeared on TNG. Spock appeared in a two-part episode and even Scotty had an appearance in one of my favourite episodes Relics.

So this whole passing the torch thing was a bit unnecessary in hindsight. But I suppose it made some sense for the film series. After all there were bound to be fans who liked the Trek films but hadn’t seen any of the TV series.

Plus, this let them do the crossover fans had been waiting to see for years at that point, the meeting of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Captain James T. Kirk. Apparently Paramount only wanted the OG crew to appear in the first five minutes as a cameo, but the writers gave Kirk a larger role since it was too juicy a crossover to pass up.

Sadly, only Walter Koening, James Doohan and William Shatner wound up appearing in this. The rest of the cast declined as they felt they had already said their goodbyes with The Undiscovered Country and wanted to move on.

They got work on the film a week after they wrapped up filming the final season, with the film releasing only a few months after the final episode aired in 1994. With a lot of the behind-the-scenes people that worked on the show being involved, including the writers, Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Brags, and the director, David Carson.

The result was Star Trek Generations, which wound up being one of the more divisive films in the series. Most people seem split on whether or not Generations was a good film or not, though most people seem to lean to it being something of a disappointment. With the main complaint being that it feels more like an extended episode of the TV series than a feature film.

And honestly, I agree with that. In hindsight, getting the writers and directors of the series to do this may have been a mistake. While they were talented and knew the series and its characters well, they had also predominately worked in television with very few film credits.

Both mediums have different scopes and feel to them and it’s very difficult to transition from one to the other. I think it would have been better to hire people more seasoned in movies to help give the film a more cinematic flair.

As is, it doesn’t feel big enough for a movie. It’s certainly much bigger than the show, but it never feels like anything more than a big budget episode of the tv show. It’s arguably on par with a lot of modern sci-fi tv shows in terms of how it looks which doesn’t help matters.

The pacing is also off. It’s hard to describe but the editing and overall pace feel way too close to a tv episode. It never feels like I’m watching a film, it feels like I’m watching an extended episode of the show.

Another thing that doesn’t help is the story. It involves the Enterprise crew dealing with Soren, a rogue scientist trying to get into a heaven like rift called the Nexus. Unfortunately, the only way he can get to it is by blowing up a star which would also destroy a nearby planet that has 220 million people on it.

But in order to stop Soren, Picard is going to need help from an unlikely ally. That’s right, James Kirk, who got sucked into the Nexus 80 years ago and agrees to help Picard after he escapes from it.

On the surface it doesn’t seem like a bad plot for a film. It’s got big enough stakes involving planetary destruction, and it does try to deal with themes of death, legacy, the fear of time passing and how it’s best to focus on living the best life we can with what little time we have.

The problem is a lot of the themes are very surface level and the story isn’t that far off from an episode of the tv series. Compare it to the finale of the series which dealt with a threat of universal proportions across time, and it feels subdued by comparison.

It just lacks the scale you would expect from a film. Something that would be fine if the story was well written or engaging, which in my opinion it isn’t. There are some things I liked, Picard dealing with the death of his family is handled well and the opening few minutes with Kirk are a lot of fun, but the rest is a mixed bag.

Soren is a completely forgettable antagonist. Apparently one of the guidelines for the film was to have a Kahn like antagonist and they completely failed at that here. Soren lacks any of the charisma, intrigue or strong screen presence as Kahn, and his motivation and backstory aren’t nearly as interesting. Malcolm Mcdowel is a great actor who does what he can in the role, but he just isn’t given much to work with.

The Nexus itself also isn’t all that well defined. It’s described as a place of pure bliss, almost like being wrapped in a blanket of pure joy, but it’s nature as a place outside of space and time feels more like a clumsy plot device that lets the characters jump to a location at the most convenient time.

It’s also never properly explained why Soren need to blow up the sun to get into the Nexus. They say any ship that flies there gets destroyed, but flying near it is how he got there in the opening, so it clearly something that worked but now doesn’t for some reason. The Nexus is like a physical embodiment of “because the plot says so”, everything around it just seems to be there for the convenience of the story.

There’s also a sub-plot involving Data and the emotion chip that I’m not a fan of. While it is a logical progression of his character, it mostly comprises of him making dumb jokes and laughing profusely which gets annoying very quickly.

But at least Data gets some character development, which is more than I can say for the rest of the cast. Most of the crew aren’t giving much to do at all, which is a shame for two different reasons. For one it’s disappointing for fans to see their favourite characters not do much of anything, but it’s also bad for newcomers since it doesn’t give you an idea of what these characters are like.

Star Trek Generations biggest flaw is how inaccessible it is to newcomers. See the original series was a lot pulpier. It was a series of episodic stories with broad characters that had traits that were easy to recognise.

Even if you had only seen a couple of episodes you knew what they were like. Which is why the original films resonated with people who had not seen the original show. You could jump in right away and still get what everyone is all about.

The Next Generation characters aren’t nearly as defined. Don’t get me wrong, they are great characters with tons of development, but they aren’t nearly as simple to grasp as the characters from the original series. Except for Data and Worf, which probably explains why they were everyone’s favourites.

This makes it much harder for a newcomer to resonate with the characters, because all of the things that made them so beloved happened slowly over multiple episodes. Combine that with references to the show that are never elaborated on, and the film isn’t exactly easy to just jump into.

But ultimately the whole movie is about the crossover between Kirk and Picard, and in that respect, it does a decent enough job. We never see them together on a ship which is disappointing, but Shatner and Stewart both work well off each other, and it’s just innately cool seeing the two interact with each other. It doesn’t make up for the film’s flaws, and it has some flaws itself, but at least the main selling point of the movie is handled well.

But ultimately I find Generations to be a middling film. It’s not completely godawful, the acting is very well done, and there are some cool sequences here that take advantage of the larger budget, but it also doesn’t do anything particularly good either.

It’s a film I can only recommend to fans of TNG, and even that’s a cautious recommendation. They are the only people who will get anything out of this. Unless you watch the series you’re going to be lost, and no film should ever have you do homework to enjoy it.

Star Trek: First Contact

Generations may have received a lukewarm critical reception, but it still did well at the box office, so it was bound to get a sequel. For that sequel both the writers, Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, and the producer, Rick Berman, had their own ideas of what the story should involve. Braga and Moore wanted to include fan favourite villains The Borg, while Berman wanted to do a time travel story.

Their solution was to just do both. They bandied a few ideas around, including a film set in the Renaissance period of all places, before settling on the idea of going back to the first encounter between Earth and Vulcans. Essentially going back to the origins of Star Trek.

The story would see the Borg going back in time to prevent that encounter, while also trying to take over the Enterprise so as to assimilate Earth in the past before the Federation was even a thing. With Riker and company trying to help Zefram Cochrane with his warp engine take off, and Picard trying to save the Enterprise while struggling with his past trauma of being assimilated by The Borg.

For director, Paramount had approached some big names to direct the film. Namely Ridley Scott and Joh Mctiernan who both shot the film down. After a third option was discarded after Patrick Stewart met them and found out they knew nothing about Star Trek, the crew realised they needed a director experienced with Star Trek to helm the production.

That director ended up being William Riker himself, Jonathan Frakes. After all he had been working on Star Trek for nearly a decade, he got along with the rest of the cast, and he had previous directing experience having directed several episodes of TNG and it’s spin off shows, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

Although those were television shows and not movies. So in order to get a good frame of reference ok Frakes went and watched a bunch of classic films to get a better idea on how he wanted the film to look.

Star Trek: First Contact released in 1996 to far better critical acclaim than its predecessor. For both critics and fans this is considered the best of the TNG films, with some outlets even calling it the second-best Star Trek film next to Wrath of Kahn.

While I wouldn’t say this is as good as many of the OG series films, it is still a very good Sci-fi action-adventure film that manages that manages to correct most of the issues that its predecessor had.

For one thing, this actually feels like a film. From the grander story, to the more elaborate sets, to even the pacing and editing, it all feels much more cinematic and no longer feels like an extended episode of the show.

The story is a lot of fun, even if it is derivative of a lot of previous Trek films. One of the main driving forces in the narrative is Picard’s hatred and need for revenge against The Borg. Something the film draws parallels with to Captain Ahab and his hunt for Moby Dick.

This is very similar to Kahn and the writers were well aware of that. They even tried to change the script to remove that element, but realised that it simply worked too well for the story that they decided to keep it in.

Which is a big reason why I think the film works so well. The writers simply had a good story and didn’t try to change it for arbitrary reasons or to add any kind of shoehorned in message. They simply let the story be told and allowed any themes or message to flow naturally from it.

Star Trek: First Contact isn’t a theme or message heavy movie. It has themes of loyalty, revenge and friendship but it doesn’t focus on its themes as heavily as Wrath of Kahn or The Undiscovered Country did. it’s more focused on being a fun action packed sci-fi film and it does that job superbly.

The action is fast paced and intense, though there is less of a focus on space combat, and more on the ground battles. Which does work as a nice change of pace, and the main setting of the Enterprise means they can get creative with the action set pieces. With a big highlight being the battle on the outside of the Enterprise.

Of all the Star Trek movies I find this one to be the most exciting and action packed. This makes this the easiest of the Trek to watch next to Star Trek IV. It’s just a damn fun movie that’s consistently entertaining.

That said it does have some of the more thoughtful elements of Star Trek, particularly in Cochrane’s story arc. The idea that the utopian commie society of Star Trek was started by a flawed man who was just looking to get rich adds an interesting wrinkle to the mythology. It feels very human that a perfect society would be started by someone far from it.

And while derivative, Picard’s vengeance quest against The Borg makes sense based on his history and is handled pretty well. Unlike Kahn’s story which was about a man being consumed by vengeance, this is about a man overcoming it. Both deal with the theme but in different ways, and both are more interesting because of it.

This movie may be more focused on being a fun action sci-fi film, but that doesn’t mean it doesn't have depth. The themes it does have are handled very well and it still leaves you with things to think about.

The characters are also handled much better than the previous film. Each crew member is given something to do, and each have their own moments to shine. Picard and Data still get the lion’s share of the character development, but the others aren’t left out to dry either so it’s fine.

Cochrane and his partner Lili are also nice additions to the cast and their more “primitive” sensibilities play off the Enterprise crew well. It’s mostly played for comedy, but it also works in the more dramatic scenes too.

And the Borg? Far better villains than Soren. I already liked them from the show, but the bigger budget of the show lets them go all out with them in terms of design and scale to show just how frightening they are. They aren’t exactly the most charismatic villains but given their meant to be mindless robots with no sense of individuality that actually fits with them.

My only complaint regarding the Borg is the addition of the Borg Queen. I like her design and think actress Alice Krige played the part well, I’m just not a fan of the concept. I get that they wanted a lead villain for the audience to boo and hiss at, but the whole thing that made the Borg so terrifying and interesting was that they were a faceless hive mind where all sense of individuality is lost. Giving that a face waters down the entire concept. It doesn’t ruin them, Voyager did that, but it does weaken them slightly.

On top of having a much better story, it’s also far more accessible to newcomers. While it does still help to have watched TNG to get most of the characters, the movie does a good enough job of explaining the backstory and setting up the characters that most should be able to follow what’s going on even without prior knowledge. That’s now more of a bonus than a requirement.

Star Trek: First Contact is a much better film than Generations. It’s a fun sci-fi action film with a great story, acting, comedy and special effects. It’s pretty much got everything you could want in a film like this. Next to Star Trek IV this is the one I would recommend to casual fans the most as it’s one of the most easily digestible films in the franchise.

While Undiscovered Country is more for fans of the more thoughtful side of Star Trek, First Contact is more for fans of the pulpier action side of it. If that’s more your style this is an easy recommendation, but it has enough heart and thought-provoking ideas to satisfy the former as well. As I said for Undiscovered Country, it’s a great film no matter what kind of fan you are.

Star Trek: Insurrection

After First Contact the next Trek film saw a bit of a shake-up. Brannon and Braga wouldn’t return, with writing duties being handed off to the late Michael Piller. He had actually pitched a movie idea for the second TNG film around the time of Generations development, but that idea was scrapped in favour of First Contact. I guess this was their way of making it up to him.

Piller idea centred around a fountain of youth style story. He wanted to touch on the idea of plastic surgery and peoples unnatural obsession with maintaining their youth as well as incorporating themes of a simpler rural existence. Which was a philosophy that Piller was interested in.

Piller wanted to do a film with overtones of Heart of Darkness, or Apocalypse Now if you’re a film buff. The problem was this clashed with what Paramount wanted.

See, Paramount had been pushing for a lighter Star Trek movie for a few years by that point. Both as a change of pace, but also probably to try and copy the success Voyage Home had. And after the last three films were darker in tone and theme, they finally put their foot down and demanded this next film be lighter in tone.

So the story ended up being re-written to meet Paramount’s demands.  But that wasn’t the end of the revisions. The script was revised again after Deep Space Nine producer Steven Behr didn’t like it. Saying the new villain race of the film, the Son’a, weren’t effective villains calling them “paper tigers”.

The script had to also deal with demands from Patrick Stewart. Stewart felt like the earlier treatments were a step back in scope from First Contact and thought it only suitable for a TV episode. He wanted to do an Alamo style rescue scene, but that was impossible with the budget and resources they had so that ended up being scrapped.

Basically, Insurrection had some issues with the script. It went through a lot of changes, and even from the get go you could tell there were going to be problems. I mean you had Paramount wanting to have a lighter toned movie and Piller wanting something close to Heart of Darkness.

There were clashes in how the film should be handled from the beginning and it didn’t end with the writing. Jonathan Frakes returned to direct, but he was given significantly less creative freedom this time. He clashed a lot with Berman on the film with the experience being so bad that he wouldn’t direct for Star Trek again until Star Trek Discovery.

The end result of this was Star Trek Insurrection. A film that critics and fans saw as a massive step back from its predecessor, and in my opinion it’s the worst Star Trek film yet. Yes, I said that. I would argue that Insurrection is far worse than even The Final Frontier. I hate this fucking movie.

And it all starts with the story. The plot see’s the crew of the Enterprise getting involved in a dispute between the Federation and the Ba’ku. The Ba’ku are a technologically capable race that have chosen to give up their technology in favour of a more peaceful, naturalistic existence.

However, the planet the Ba’ku are on happens to be rich in a radiation that has regeneration properties and has extended the Ba’ku’s life spans by centuries. The Federation want to remove the particles causing the radiation so they can study it and use its properties to help millions of people. With them teaming up with the Son’a, a race that use technology to unnaturally extend their life spans, to do so.

But the process will leave the planet uninhabitable, so the Federation and the Son’a plan on moving the Ba’ku off world so they can harvest the radiation. Picard views this as the betrayal of the Prime Directive so he goes rogue along with his crew and tries to help the Ba’ku escape.

Alright that doesn’t sound too bad on the surface. Yes, it is a step down in terms of scope from the last movie, but that was intentional. It was meant to be a more light-hearted film, so the lower stakes make sense.

Mind you Voyage Home was also lighter in tone and that didn’t lower the stakes, but I’ll get more into the comparisons between that movie and Insurrection later. Instead let’s talk about the themes and how they completely destroy the film.

Star Trek: Insurrection is a nature vs technology story. The Ba’ku are depicted as a peaceful agrarian society that live in harmony with nature, while the villainous Son’a are depicted as having abused technology to unnaturally prolong their life spans that has made them look like melted cheese. They basically look like if Madonna sat in the sun for too long.

The movie is very clearly trying to make that technology is bad and nature is good. Alright that’s not a bad stance to have, but I have one question. What the fuck is this doing in a Star Trek movie?

This is the core malady that ruins this movie. Its core theme is completely incompatible with Star Trek. Since it’s very inception Star Trek has been staunchly pro-technology and technological progress. It has consistently shown the wonders that such advances can bring, and that the pursuit of such advancements lead to a brighter future as our empathy grows along with it.

Then there’s Insurrection which says the opposite. That we should give up our technology and live in harmony with nature lest we devolve into a plastic surgery version of the Cenobites. It’s the complete opposite philosophy that Star Trek has.

That’s bad enough, but even within the narrative it doesn’t make sense. The Ba’ku hate technology, but are frequently rescued by the Enterprise crew with their technology. Also, for a technologically stunted race, the Ba’ku sure do have a nifty irrigation system and clean cut clothes and well-structured pristine looking houses and structures. They even have a dam, why it’s almost like they’re total fucking hypocrites or something.

I’ve heard people argue the Ba’ku don’t hate technology they just hate automation. Their philosophy being that if you make a machine to do the work of a man you take away from the man. Except that doesn’t make sense within the film. Again, they have an irrigation system which is a form of automation. They could just go down to a river or well and get the water by hand, but I guess that would be too hard for them.

On top of that there’s the fact that the only reason the Ba’ku are on the magical life planet to begin with is due to the invention of warp technology. Yeah, they aren’t even native to the planet, they came there on a spaceship. So the whole anti-technology stance the movie takes is just totally non-sensical.

By the way, I love how in almost every one of these anti-technology pro-nature sci-fi movies like this and Avatar they always have to come up with some bullshit borderline magical reason as to how they can live with nature so peacefully. We don’t have magical regenerating particles or USB cords sticking out of our heads to speak with nature so what the fuck are we supposed to do. Get mauled by wild animals and get butt-fucked by natural disasters and diseases. Yeah, that sounds wonderful thanks.

It isn’t even really explained why the Ba’ku are so anti-technology to begin with. We get a vague statement that their first civilisation was destroyed by war, and that’s it. Which I guess explains why they would be anti-weapons but why discard your other technology. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

I also find this reasoning stupid because in Star Trek lore humans went through a eugenics war and a nuclear war that destroyed their civilisation, but they kept up with their technology to create a utopian society. This movie really feels like the anti-Star Trek.

Ok so the main theme doesn’t work either within the franchise or the narrative, but there’s another major issue with this script. The movie tries to present a moral dilemma with moving the Ba’ku. It sides with the idea that moving them is wrong, but the details around it don’t back the position up.

We already discussed that the Ba’ku aren’t native to the planet so that’s already a major knock against them. This isn’t technically their planet, in fact the planet itself is in Federation space so they’re squatting on land they don’t own. Technically they got there first, but it still ain’t there native home world so they don’t own dick.

And since they aren’t native to the planet and are also a warp capable species the Prime Directive doesn’t really apply to them. Yes, it’s not up to the federation to dictate how a species should evolve, but the Ba’ku also shouldn’t have lived as long as they have in the first place.

Also, the Ba’ku aren’t evolving to begin with. The movie shows us that with their longer live spans the Ba’ku civilisation has slowed to a crawl since there’s no reason to rush anything. Basic apprenticeships take 30 years on their world. The movie tries to frame this as better than the mile a minute way we live nowadays, but it just comes across as the Ba’ku civilisation being stagnant.

But back to the moral dilemma. Another issue the film runs into is largely down to events going on in the wider Star Trek universe at the time. When this movie came out, it released right in the middle of the Dominion War story arc in Deep Space 9.

For those who haven’t seen that show, it was a major war that saw the Federation suffer massive losses. One of the reasons given in Insurrection as to why the Federation are doing what they’re doing is to try to offset many of the losses they had in the war.

The Dominion War was said to risk billions of lives, while the Ba’ku race only numbers 600. So the federation want to move 600 people, to help billions more. And they’re the bad guys in this? It’s like the trolley conundrum only on a more ludicrous scale. There’s no way you can convince me that sacrifing 600 people to save billions is wrong because the numbers just don’t add up. The needs of the many evidently don’t outweigh the needs of the few in this movie.

I think the movie is aware that the moral dilemma doesn’t work, because it makes the Son’a cartoonishly evil to compensate for it. it’s revealed late in the movie that the Son’a are actually Ba’ku themselves. They were young members of them that wanted to explore the stars but were banished for that reason.

Why ban them for simply wanting to leave and explore the stars? Well they wanted to do this by… taking over Ba’ku. Which in no way helps them with their initial goal of wanting to leave. This movie is straining to make you hate the bad guys.

See at the root core of this dilemma is one gaping flaw, the Ba’ku are totally unlikeable. Their philosophy makes no sense, they have a really smug aura about themselves that’s just insufferable, and the fact that they were willing to ban their own young from the planet simply for wanting to explore the stars makes them look intolerant. I hate the Ba’ku, I don’t care if anything bad happens to them.

But here’s the thing, all of that is not the main reason I hate this movies. Oh, the themes are terribly handled for a fact, but that’s not the big reason why this movie sucks. It sucks because even ignoring all we’ve been over the movie is sky splittingly, earth shakingly, galaxy smashingly boring.

This movie is dull. Dull, dull, dull, my god it’s dull. It’s so drab and boring and tediously paced and desperately dull. There is nothing interesting about the movie at all. The action is stock, the characters are uninteresting, the humour isn’t funny in the most boring way possible, and the pacing is unbearably slow.

It’s one thing to make a bad movie thematically, it’s another thing to make it boring. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was boring too but at least it was intellectually interesting. Star Trek V was bad but at least it was funny in how bad it was. This is neither intellectually stimulating nor is it fun bad, it’s just plain old boring bad.

And a big reason for that is the tone is all over the place. One of the reasons Star Trek IV worked as well as it did was because it committed to being lighter in tone. It didn’t have any action sequences and was primarily focused on its comedy. It stuck to a lane and the results were wonderful.

Insurrection does not do this. It’s way of making a lighter toned Star Trek movie is to do it like a typical Star Trek movie with all the action but just throw in some more jokes. The MCU method of filmmaking if you will.

The result is a movie that’s too serious to be fun but too funny to be taken seriously. In an attempt to be both a traditional Star Trek movie and be more light-hearted and fun it fails at both. It didn’t commit to an idea and the movie suffered for it.

Alright if I may be nice to the movie for a second, the technical elements aren’t handled that badly. The acting is still good, the special effects and make-up are mostly still good, though the CGI does look a bit in places and the costume design is beyond bland, wow I can’t even talk about the good stuff without complaining. Goddamn this movie sucks.

I didn’t like Insurrection at all. It’s a movie that fundamentally misunderstands the core tenants of its franchise, its themes are handled awfully and on top of that it’s just not fun to watch. There’s very little value in this thing which is the final nail in the coffin.

Every Star Trek Movie so far, even the weaker ones, have had something about them that at least made them worth watching. Insurrection has nothing going for it. You can totally skip this one and miss very little. What a complete and utter waste this was.

Star Trek: Nemesis 

After Insurrection a lot of the Star Trek cast assumed that would be the final film in the franchise. Not because it did bad financially, it did ok, but simply because everyone’s contracts had expired. That was it, they had done what they obligated to do and were ready to move on.

But Paramount, not wanting to let their biggest cash-cow die decided to keep the series going with a fourth film. Despite everyone being finished with their contractual obligations, they all agreed to come back since by all accounts they all enjoyed working on Star Trek.

That film would end up releasing in 2002, 4 years after Insurrection. This was the longest wait for a Star Trek film at the time and I really can’t find a reason why. Maybe there was some behind the scenes shenanigans or maybe just wanted a break but whatever the reason it took a little bit for this one to come out.

Writing duties this time around were handed off to John Logan who had no prior experience writing for Star Trek, but was apparently a massive fan of the franchise. He also has some pretty good films under his belt like Hugo and Gladiator, but also some utter trash like The Time Machine and Alien: Covenant. So not the best track record when it comes to writing sci-fi.

Directing duties would be handled by Stuart Baird. I won’t blame you if you don’t know who that is. Baird isn’t really a director, he mostly works in film editing, of which he is highly respected and has even won Oscars for. His only directorial credits other Nemesis are the Kurt Russel film Executive Decisions and the sequel to The Fugitive, U.S Marshals. I guarantee you that you don’t remember these movies, which should tell you all you need to know.

I don’t have much to say on the behind the scenes stuff regarding Nemesis. Even Wikipedia which has a lot on the development on the previous films came up empty here. Looking online didn’t ccome up with much either. I did find a behind the scenes documentary, but it’s the typical fluff piece the studio’s put out. You know the ones that try to downplay anything bad that happened.

So yeah, I don’t have much to say on the production of Nemesis. Nothing too interesting anyway. But here’s the thing, I think not being able to find much on the making of this movie shows how little people care about this thing.

See, Nemesis is infamous among Star Trek fans as the worst of the Star Trek films next to The Final Frontier. Critics lambasted the film as the worst one yet, with many calling it tired and played out. With the fan reception being lukewarm at best and scathing at worst.

That’s assuming people bothered to see the film. Nemesis did so bad at the box office that it effectively killed the franchise in film until the 2009 reboot. There were plans to make a fifth TNG film to wrap everything up, but Nemesis did so poorly it but the kibosh on it. TNG wouldn’t get a proper conclusion until Picard season 3 in 2022.

Even the cast have admitted it was bad. Both Levar Burton and Marina Sirtis have said in interviews that it was awful. Sirtis even called Baird out personally, calling him a complete idiot who didn’t understand Star Trek.

Star Trek: Nemesis has one of the worst reputations of any Star Trek film. Everyone says this film sucks, but after watching it for myself I can’t say that I hated it. I didn’t love the movie, I wouldn’t even say I liked it all that much, but I didn’t hate it. To me this is the definition of mid, neither exceptional nor godawful, just a middle of the road mediocre flick.

Let’s start with the things I liked because there are things I enjoyed about the movie. I think the story is interesting. It deals with a coup of the Romulan empire by a neighbouring planet called Remus. The coup being orchestrated by a man named Soren who, as it turns out, is a clone of Picard. Part of a plot to infiltrate Starfleet that wound up being cancelled due to the constant political restructures of the empire.

Soren spent his childhood as part of a Reman slave colony and was basically sent there to die. Now wanting to free his people from oppression, his plan isn’t just to take over Romulus, but to destroy the Federation so as to end any enemies they might have.

On top of that, Soren also wants Picard as he needs a full blood transfusion from him to stay alive due to the cloning process that created him causing cellular degradation. Picard himself also struggles to deal with the fact that he’s essentially fighting a younger version of himself that has all the same desires that he did, but whose experiences wound up creating a dark reflection of him.

The main theme of the movie is the old nature vs nurture argument. It explores the ideas of what could happen if the same person grew up in different circumstances. It’s not the first time Star Trek has dealt with this subject, but I think Nemesis does an interesting job in exploring it.

Soren is a really good antagonist. He’s the only TNG villain that I thought had a good backstory and motivation as to why they did what they did, except for The Borg but those weren’t exclusive to the movies, and Tom Hardy has enough charm and charisma in the role to make him compelling.

The scenes between Soren and Picard are the best parts of the movie. Soren making the point that he is what Picard would have become if he had lived a different life while Picard is trying to put his younger self on a different path. Both are committed to their ideals and seeing the back and forth between the two about those ideals is interesting.

The problem with this big focus on Picard though is that the other crew members, say it with me now, get very little to do. Seriously, how can these movies have such an iconic cast of characters but fail to do anything with them. Data does at least have a b-plot involving a prototype version of himself, but it never really goes anywhere interesting and feels more like a plot device.

I know this wasn’t meant to be the final TNG film, but the fact that it wound up being that doesn’t make this the best finale for the series. it’s a good thing Picard season 3 happened to give them a proper send off. It’s a shame the rest of Picard sucked, but at least season 3 was good.

The movie is also very top heavy. A lot of the more interesting moments and ideas are in the first half, while the second half basically devolves into big action set pieces after big action set pieces. I don’t mind a more action heavy Star Trek, First Contact did that, and it was great, but Nemesis Is way too focused on the action. To the point that a lot of its more interesting ideas feel like they get sidelined.

The action itself is weak too. The choreography isn’t memorable, and the constant barrage of action scenes means the film becomes tiring to watch. Even the best action movies know to take a break in the action, this movie never lets up on it.

There are other elements of the story I wasn’t keen on. Data ultimately sacrificing himself felt like a hollow shock moment. They were clearly trying to do something similar to Spock’s death in Wrath of Kahn, but it lacks all the gravitas and weight that did because it doesn’t tie into the themes of the movie in any kind of significant way. It felt pointless.

There’s also a scene where Diana gets what is essentially mind raped by Soren. It again feels pointless and is just in poor taste. Don’t throw a random rape scene in the middle of a movie, that’s just not cool at all.

But that does speak to the core problem with Nemesis, it’s too dark. And I don’t mean thematically dark like some of the previous films, I mean dark in an early 2000’s way. You know when everything had to be overly edgy, that kind of dark. It’s dark shocking moments don’t add to the story like they did in previous films, they’re just there to have dark shocking moments.

If you want an example of how dark the movie is, the Remans are essentially just space vampires. No really, they hate light and live in darkness, they plan on draining Picard of his blood, and they look like Nosferatu. Don’t believe me, just look at them.

It ends up not feeling like Star Trek at all. Star Trek was always about being optimistic about the future of humanity. It always strived to show the best we could be and the wonders we could achieve through scientific progress. This movie has traces of that here but it’s just too dark and depressing to truly feel like Star Trek.

A lot of that comes down to the directing. I said Baird wasn’t a director and you can tell watching this. Nemesis looks like total ass. The shot composition is dull and uninteresting, the CGI is weak even for the time, there’s way too much green in the movie which makes everything visually blends in together, it’s not a very pleasant film to look at.

ay what you want about Star Trek V’s special effects, at least that movie had some good shots in it. This movie doesn’t even have that. The sequence in the desert is also incredibly grainy but I don’t know if that’s the film or just how the blu-ray came out. Regardless, it looks horrendous.

But the other technical stuff is handled fine. The music is decent, and the acting is still good, but that was stuff this series always got right. At this point saying the acting is good in a Star Trek movie is like giving it a consolation prize.

Look Nemesis isn’t a good movie, but at the same time I can’t call it a godawful mess either. It’s at least more thematically well put together than Insurrection and I wasn’t bored while watching it like Insurrection either. Basically, I think Insurrection is still a much worse movie, but Nemesis is so resoundingly mediocre that I can’t say I’m surprised it has the reputation it has.

I don’t think it’s fair to say it killed the franchise though. Truth be told, Star Trek was already dying down by 2002. TNG had been off the air for years, and Deep Space Nine and Voyager had both wrapped up their runs too. Star Trek had been running for nearly two decades at that point and all the steam had been lost.

The critics were right, Star Trek was starting to feel tired and worn out. Even the next tv series, Enterprise, didn’t do very well. The franchises creative juices were run well dry by this point and it was time for it to take a long break. It would eventually come back with the reboot trilogy, but that’s a story for another day.

And that’s it. We’ve finally reached the end of this entire thing. This is the biggest project I’ve worked on, but I had a lot of fun doing it. I liked seeing all these movies even if not all of them were good and it really gave me a newfound appreciation for this franchise.

Now if you didn’t want to read all of that and just skipped straight to the end just to know which ones are worth watching, here’s the quick TLDR rundown. II, III and IV are the go-to, best films in the series. III is a bit weaker than the other two, but still a really good flick and it is an important part in the trilogy.

Undiscovered Country and First Contact are both excellent films that lean more heavily on one aspect of Star Trek. Not as well rounded but still fantastic. The Motion Picture isn’t great, though it may appeal to certain sci-fi fans. And everything else you can skip.

But with that I’m bringing this to a close. If you did read all of that, or even if you skipped around to specific films thank you very much for reading. Hopefully I’ve gotten you to check these films out, and if not at least I got to talk about a franchise I love when it was at its apex.

I don’t think I’ll be doing this again for a while though. The Dragon Ball movies were an endeavour but this was so much more work. I do have other ideas for the long form, marathon reviews, but that’s not happening for a long, long time. Or maybe I’ll do it in a few months, I don’t know I change my mind a lot.