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Star Trek Movies I and V

Anonymous Coward

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I'm just kind of curious if anybody in here actually likes installments I and V? I realise that they are not exactly the most beloved films of the trekkies, but I really like watching these two. I guess I would not think of myself as a real "trekkie" since I consider all movies and TV shows outside of TOS and TNG (season 3 and earlier) to be blasphemous. I guess I really like I and V because those are the ones that most closely resemble the TV show.

Like most people I of course enjoyed the Wrath of Khan, but I hate with a passion the two films that followed...it seemed killing off spock was just an excuse to make two lame sequels and make my ass hurt for 4.5 hours watching recycled TOS scripts. I haven't watched III and IV for a good 15 years because they annoy me so much.

I'm interested to know what how people in here feel about Star Trek these days (I'm obviously not happy about it). I know everyone has their opinions, but usually when it comes to Star Trek there are a few categories people fall into...I don't really seem have a "mainstream" point of view on this issue. A good example of this is how I thought season 1 was the best season for TNG, and it seems absolutely no one agrees with that.

Additionally, I don't approve of the the new effects stinking up TOS, and I think this new movie is a terrible idea. Paramount had better not pull a Lucas on us and bogart the original films reels.
 
Honestly, TNG is my favorite, and I have all the DVD's.
Khan has been on a few times the past few weeks, and it's OK.

I like TOS, but for some reason, I REALLY like TNG. Enterprise did nothing for me, neither did Voyager, and DS9 was merely OK.

T
 
(Nerd alert!)

All of the ST:OS movies (1 through 6) are worth watching except for 5. 5 was just terrible and broke canon.

2 (Wrath of Khan) and 6 (Undiscovered Country) are generally considered the best of that series -- they were both written and directed by the same person, who liked Shakespeare, which is why there are Shakespeare references in both.

A lot of people hate 1 but I like it as I look at it from the viewpoint that it's essentially an extended OS episode (because it was envisioned as a pilot to a new Trek series that never got off the ground).

The movies after that were, ahem, curious:

Generations: Kirk dies, cut together awkwardly, not a good film. I highly recommend the fanedit "Kirkless" that completely removes all OS elements from the film -- it makes it watchable!
First Contact: A fantastic film with truly scary Borg, a reluctant hero, conflicted captain, and generally great acting
Insurrection: A boring extended TNG episode, essentially. Forgettable.
Nemesis: This film is even worse than 5 because it insults the fans. Things happen that simply don't make sense to either the characters or story. A plot that isn't worth caring about; Picard+Worf+Data jumping a cliff on a dune buggy; needless Data death and pitiful "wait, here's a copy, maybe we can bring him back" device; offensively lame ending... I could go on and on about how this movie completely killed TNG but I think it's obvious.

As for the other series, I found things to like about all of them except for Enterprise. Enterprise was a train wreck on oh so many levels...

Things to like about all the series:

ST: TOS: Thinly-disguised social commentary
ST: TNG: Ventured into interesting sci-fi, such as cultures whose only method of communication was *ONLY* through storytelling. Also had the sense to do pacing properly (Borg).
ST: DS9: If you're into the long serial (ie. you're a Stargate or Babylon 5 fan), you'll like DS9.
ST: Voy: Many pros and cons. I think Voyager gets a bad rap.
 
I think this new movie is a terrible idea.

After the last two utterly awful and offensive TNG movies (Insurrection and Nemesis), and the excruciatingly bad ST:Enterprise, I **WELCOME** a new Star Trek movie that tries to mix things up. It is a "reboot" of the series, but I would rather see a reboot than dropping it forever.
 
I thought the book verison of Star Trek I was much better then the movie. It cleared up alot of back story of the various new characters.

Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan was ok. I liked the whole story, even the death of Spock worked. Bring back a character like Khan was great. Weakness as always was the acting and I did not like the movie's flow.

Star Trek III, first off I almost never like a dead character brought back to life. There were alot of things that bugged me about this movie and despite the many good pieces they just did not fit well.

Star Trek IV, I hate this movie on so many levels. The whole time travel thing is hard to pull off in a good movie and this movie did not even come close.

Star Trek V, I have a real love hate with this movie. I like the darker tone and the characters are opened up. The Spock's brother thing was a little off and even more so the "great barrier" and the want to be god. In the end this movie fell short of what it chould have been.

Star Trek VI, I think this was a great turning point for the series. It broke the mold of the shoot first ask questions later that series tended to have. It had it short falls but overall the best of the 6. I think it learned a bit from TNG :)
 
Enterprise, I didn't like because it seems like they tried to "replace" Kirk, down to the womanizing, and it was VERY transparent...

Voyager, to me, seemed to try to hard to gain "authenticity," and they seemed to throw in your face the Janeway was a woman, and a captain, and just seemed to try too hard to make it work. Kind of like how 'Eureka' on Sci-Fi works, where the Sheriff solves EVERYTHING, whether intentional or accidental, Voyager seemed to try to focus too much on Janeway, and having her solve every problem.

the movies, like Insurrection and Nemesis, ya gotta remember, there's 3-4 generations of people writing this stuff, and there will be differences in styles and execution. You can't keep insisting on patterns from the 60's, because that was 40 years ago, and I'd venture to guess more than half those original people are gone. Aren't both Doc and Scotty now dead?

Gotta change with the times, boys. it might be good, it might be bad, who knows, but it WILL be different!

T
 
Hmmm, Star Trek I -- BORING!!!! I remember when I bought all of the movies on VHS back in the day and I hated the fact that I had to buy this so that the collection would be complete. And then seeing on the cover that this particular copy had 12 minutes or so of extra footage put back into the movie -- and I'm like, why would this be needed? If anything, trim it down!

Star Trek V -- just plain silly. Very hard to take seriously. I own a fan-created episode on VHS where a group of fans are like the guy & robots from "Mystery Science Theater 3000" but the film they are subjected to watch is Star Trek V. Their comments throughout the film are just hilarious -- if it's available anywhere on the net, I'd recommend downloading it.

As far as TOS, only II and VI are really good, the other ones are pretty much disposable.

Oh boy TNG Season One -- definitely the worst season of the series, IMHO. I think the show was really really struggling to find its own identity and it's evident in that particular season. "Q" was a character I just absolutely couldn't stand either, he was just annoying as hell. I think Wesley Crusher was more likeable, if you can fathom that.

TNG movies -- "Generations" was a movie I actually liked quite a bit, even with the whole goofy Nexus ribbon deal. It had its flaws but I still liked it. And definitely a better ending than the original where Kirk gets shot in the back courtesy of a blast from Dr. Soran's disruptor (I think that's what it was). "First Contact" I liked a lot but I feel I've watched it so many times to the point where I usually don't even watch it anymore. But it is probably the best movie for the TNG cast. "Insurrection" was basically an extended episode, and not a particularly good one at that. "Nemesis" was one that I liked for the most part, although to me it was pretty much a theft of many aspects of Star Trek II. But I still liked it ok, although Data's "death" had little impact considering you had still had "B4" out there.

Never got too much into DS9, it just didn't do too much for me. "Voyager" was just godawful, the whole "Gilligan's Island in Space" concept got old in a hurry. The only episode I liked was that "Scorpion" episode, that was pretty decent. "Enterprise" -- nope, didn't do a thing for me either back in the day, although I did watch an episode on TV a couple of weeks ago and it was actually interesting. Maybe I'll watch one of the seasons of that show on DVD, maybe my opinion will change.

Yeah I'm not a big fan of the "new" special effects shots that have been placed into the original series' episodes. It just looks WRONG. I understand the point of it & all to give it a more up-to-date look, but it's more of an abrupt change than anything. It's like I'm watching TV and someone switches the channel on me, that type of thing. The Star Wars Special Edition shots worked (for the most part) pretty well, but the TOS "enhanced shots" don't, it's not a smooth transition at all.

As far as the upcoming "reboot" is concerned -- I'm understandably curious to see how it turns out. I like JJ Abrams' stuff on "Lost" so I want to see what kind of spin he puts on it. I've seen some of the still shots from the movie, some of it looks good, athough Eric Bana's character kinda reminds me of Shinzon from "Nemesis" a little bit, his general appearance, that is.

Quite honestly, I'm not expecting the Star Trek reboot movie to have much of an impact on the box office. I think it will have a decent first weekend but that'll pretty much be it. As much as I hate to say it, I think Star Trek is dead.
 
I like TNG a lot, but Voyager is on all the time on TV (pretty much every weekday), so that's what I watch the most of.
 
Anonymous Coward wrote:

I'm just kind of curious if anybody in here actually likes installments I and V? I realise that they are not exactly the most beloved films of the trekkies, but I really like watching these two. I guess I would not think of myself as a real "trekkie" since I consider all movies and TV shows outside of TOS and TNG (season 3 and earlier) to be blasphemous. I guess I really like I and V because those are the ones that most closely resemble the TV show.

The Special edition Directors cut of the Motion Picture (released on DVD) is much better than the extended edition released on VHS which is overlong and full of extended clips which makes the film look silly. Sure while this updated edition updates the film (using what we're lead to believe tricks which were possible to create in 1978/9), the original scene on Vulcan (introducing Spock) always had a spot from when I was a kid - I was a little bit disappointed when it was given a paint job! Oh don't get me wrong the update is wonderful, though memories are memories!

I think Star Trek "V" is the weaker of the Star Trek films saga probably because at the end of Star Trek IV we saw what seemed to be a fully functional Enterprise - and in "V" is one totally riddled with problems! True, Scotty does repeat what Kirk said in "IV" - "Lets see what she's got" and then said something to the effect of "and then we found out what she's got", the movie is drawn out and given if the transporters weren't working properly it could have been done in an hour!
And then there's other problems associated with how the film follows on from "IV" - the flow on effect is odd when you see them on Shore Leave - Kirk climbing a sheer mountain - come on! I thought the Kirk character was more in his own element while riding a horse in Star Trek Generations - though it's perhaps a favourite past time which Bill Shatner has! McCoy admits Spock was a lot better before he died - perhaps he was, though it almosts as seems they've reach their darkest hour! It seems a tad unusual that we find out in Star Trek "V" that Spock has a half brother and even more incredible that he remembers him - as we recall Spocks memory was in McCoy from "III" and human minds can be such volatile thing! Sure though I generally take "V" for granted and the movie picks up pace eventually!

Like most people I of course enjoyed the Wrath of Khan, but I hate with a passion the two films that followed...it seemed killing off spock was just an excuse to make two lame sequels and make my ass hurt for 4.5 hours watching recycled TOS scripts. I haven't watched III and IV for a good 15 years because they annoy me so much.

It's funny because I know two people now which hate IV. While you did say you like "I" and "V" because they resemble the TV Show, when I look at "IV" now I see a lot of evidence which ties back to the Original TV series. The Time Travel theme for example was used in Several of the Original TV shows - Tomorrow is Yesterday is perhaps the episode which stands out since it was the same effect they used to go back into time in "IV". And then the theme of the Whales I can relate to the monster from "The Devil in the Dark" where it seemed that what was happening at first wasn't obvious until you found out what the Miners were doing with their Eggs. Yes IV also has a great environmental message to it as well, though the only loose end in it for me was the Marine Biologist - in Tomorrow is Yesterday for example it was explicitly not permitted to take anyone back to the 23rd Century and yet they've thrown the rule book out on this Marine Biologist creating this paradox which was left unanswered in the event they were meant to stay on 20Th Century Earth, sure you could argue all day about them having a role in the 23rd Century - though the argue for me is if someone is born in the 20Th Century, then they -stay- in the 20Th Century!

I thought "III" was appropriate - otherwise if someone can like "V" with Spock in it, after dying in "II"? Just seems illogical! :-D

I'm interested to know what how people in here feel about Star Trek these days (I'm obviously not happy about it). I know everyone has their opinions, but usually when it comes to Star Trek there are a few categories people fall into...I don't really seem have a "mainstream" point of view on this issue. A good example of this is how I thought season 1 was the best season for TNG, and it seems absolutely no one agrees with that.

Devoted to the shows and films and that's it. Yes I've got some ST merchandise which is a Picture of the Enterprise from TNG, a (non-working) clock with the Original Enterprise from the original TV series on, I've got a small plate with the early Enterprise crew (from the original series) on the Transporter, I've got Cards which were given to me and a small glass sculpture with the Enterprise from the Original series in it! And I usually get one Star Trek Calendar! :-o A lot of that was gifts given to me though - if people didn't give me Star Trek merchandise I wouldn't have had it! I did buy some cards though from TNG (may years ago when I was at school) and the odd calendar - since it's become a bit of a collectible for myself! :-D I don't go to Star Trek conventions though - sure it maybe good to meet people from the show though you'd probably get push aside from all people in Klingon outfits! ;-D

Additionally, I don't approve of the the new effects stinking up TOS, and I think this new movie is a terrible idea. Paramount had better not pull a Lucas on us and bogart the original films reels.

Likewise I'm a little concerned this new movie which throw a paradox on the earlier movies - the problem for me is the Kirk Character, if some unhappy Klingon's decided to go back into the past and kill a young Kirk where in the timeline does that fit? Apparently after Star Trek 6 - The Undiscovered Country we've got Generations - where Kirk disappears and Scotty and Chekhov presume Kirk's dead! What's even stranger is Kirk dies in Generations! There's some holes created with that movie as well cause in Star Trek "V" - Kirk clearly states "I've always known I'll die alone!", though at the end of that film he admits "I was wrong!" - perhaps I read too much into what's being said, though continuity is continuity! Having a franchise like this requires a good solid connection between the actor and the character and if this new movie is going to bugger up the first six films, I'll bin my DVD of it! If I wanted to go see a series of trashy films, I'd rather go see Police Academy installments instead! At least it's funny!
 
I though TNG, DS9, and Voyager were all very good.

DS9 went to the darkerside of the federation, life away from the perfect world of earth. A few spots in the story I was not a fan of but on the whole I thought it was very good. Due to the long story line it was a show regular watching was needed.

I enjoyed Voyager. If I had to find a flaw I would say that it lacked a good long term plan. That combine with a ship that was always in good condition seemed a little off at times.

Of the other movies Nemesis was by far the worst mostly because the director had never watched Star Trek at all and even after filming did not know the character names. It did strike a cord because of the loss of a major character. The whole movie felt like cheap thrills that did not work.

Joe
 
the movies, like Insurrection and Nemesis, ya gotta remember, there's 3-4 generations of people writing this stuff, and there will be differences in styles and execution. You can't keep insisting on patterns from the 60's, because that was 40 years ago

They aren't terrible movies because they aren't like the shows; they're terrible movies because THEY'RE TERRIBLE MOVIES.
 
Oh boy TNG Season One -- definitely the worst season of the series, IMHO. I think the show was really really struggling to find its own identity and it's evident in that particular season. "Q" was a character I just absolutely couldn't stand either, he was just annoying as hell. I think Wesley Crusher was more likeable, if you can fathom that.

I agree with you except for Wesley -- I think he got a little better as his character matured and he took on additional responsibility. Q was annoying in the first season but his character was redeemed for me when he got pissed off and introduced them to the Borg. That was a turning point for *everything* and it was finally nice to see what a pissed off Q would do.

Yeah I'm not a big fan of the "new" special effects shots that have been placed into the original series' episodes. It just looks WRONG. I understand the point of it & all to give it a more up-to-date look, but it's more of an abrupt change than anything. It's like I'm watching TV and someone switches the channel on me, that type of thing. The Star Wars Special Edition shots worked (for the most part) pretty well, but the TOS "enhanced shots" don't, it's not a smooth transition at all.

I like the new shots because 1. my kids can watch it now (they're not always pointing out how things look) and 2. much more importantly they have cleaned up the footage itself, it looks much cleaner with better color saturation and hardly any film grain or noise.

Quite honestly, I'm not expecting the Star Trek reboot movie to have much of an impact on the box office. I think it will have a decent first weekend but that'll pretty much be it. As much as I hate to say it, I think Star Trek is dead.

Hopefully the movie itself will be a good movie. Some Star Treks did well at the box office because they were good "fan service" films (The Voyage Home) but the ones that did extremely well were simply well-made films with good acting, story, plot (Wrath of Kahn and Undiscovered Country) -- those were the films people who weren't normally Trekkies went to see.

Since the new Trek film has young modern stars in it, and is headed by Abrams, it has a good chance of being the latter kind of film.
 
If THIS is the future, lookin' a bit bleak:

MV5BMTgzNzAzMDgzNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDY4ODk5MQ@@._V1._SX600_SY255_.jpg


Looks like a bunch of rejects from a TrekCon.

No thanks - I'll keep watching my TNG and TOS, thanks.
Matter of fact, If that's the future, I gotta run out and get some Voyager and DS9 for the ST library...


T
 
I was always trying to find a connection between Star Trek and Columbo & last year found it - Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) was Mrs. Columbo in the 70s TV spin-off show featuring Columbo's wife (minus Columbo of course!)! :-D

For me TNG had good stories through out - though some of the later stories were a bit lacking I felt, while others were very good. Some of them I liked we're where the crew were under some sort of spell and it had to rely on someone to get the job done - that formula goes back to classic 60s Trek. One story I recall being like that was when Wesley Crusher came back on the Enterprise and the whole crew were addicted to this new game - the story was simply called "The Game" as I recall Wesley had to make everyone believe he was playing that game - Data was turned off or busted or something - though fixed in time to fix the rest of the crew! Another great story I always recall was "Cause and Effect" - sure it's a bit repetative, though the story develops and eventually they escape by leaving a simple message from something on the computer! :-D

Personally for me apart from The Original Series, I liked The Next Generation & Deep Space 9. Voyager started off alright, though got off the rails a bit and by the last Season stories were terribly confusing or misleading and it also seemed as if the series was rushed in the end to finally end! Enterprise for me was different though improved once it was felt the series was going to get axed! At least they tried to pull a lot of the explainations in for why things were as they were for the shows set further in the future - what happened to the Klingons faces, though it was strange when they turned Enterprise into a gang of thugs in an alternative universe setting! What was that all about anyway?
 
If THIS is the future, lookin' a bit bleak:

MV5BMTgzNzAzMDgzNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDY4ODk5MQ@@._V1._SX600_SY255_.jpg


Looks like a bunch of rejects from a TrekCon.

No thanks - I'll keep watching my TNG and TOS, thanks.
Matter of fact, If that's the future, I gotta run out and get some Voyager and DS9 for the ST library...


T

It's just so weird seeing John Cho out there playing Sulu. Whenever I see him, I always think of that movie "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle." I'm half-expecting to see a cameo from Kal Penn (Kumar).
 
Hey I think this is one Star Trek series that nobody mentioned - "Star Trek the Animated Series" -- maybe because most people want to forget that it ever existed in the first place. Considering Kirk has reddish-brown hair instead, at certain points his haircolor looks like a shade shy of Ronald McDonald's. Weird things like that. But then again that animation company Filmation handled it so the quality is going to be so-so.

As a kid I loved watching the show -- I have a couple of episodes on VHS and they're ok -- not bad, but certainly not great either.
 

For me TNG had good stories through out - though some of the later stories were a bit lacking I felt, while others were very good. Some of them I liked we're where the crew were under some sort of spell and it had to rely on someone to get the job done - that formula goes back to classic 60s Trek. One story I recall being like that was when Wesley Crusher came back on the Enterprise and the whole crew were addicted to this new game - the story was simply called "The Game" as I recall Wesley had to make everyone believe he was playing that game - Data was turned off or busted or something - though fixed in time to fix the rest of the crew! Another great story I always recall was "Cause and Effect" - sure it's a bit repetative, though the story develops and eventually they escape by leaving a simple message from something on the computer! :-D


"The Game" is one of the few Star Trek episodes of any series that truly creeped me out. Utterly fantastic episode, and extremely scary in a "body snatchers" way. The emergency site-to-site transport was awesome.
 
willowmoon93 wrote:

Hey I think this is one Star Trek series that nobody mentioned - "Star Trek the Animated Series" -- maybe because most people want to forget that it ever existed in the first place. Considering Kirk has reddish-brown hair instead, at certain points his haircolor looks like a shade shy of Ronald McDonald's. Weird things like that. But then again that animation company Filmation handled it so the quality is going to be so-so.

As a kid I loved watching the show -- I have a couple of episodes on VHS and they're ok -- not bad, but certainly not great either.

I vagerally recall seeing one - the only trouble with it was it was shown in one of those children's cartoon variety shows and TV guides were very strict as to what Cartoon Shows were shown! :-x So you tend to forget about those shows! :-(

I would have thought than rather have another movie which is trying to feature the original characters - it would have been nice to do a Serious Animated or a Thunderbirds like send-up of the original show and have more stories about the characters - though having a sub-story within a story is something I'd like to see if something was to be done.
 
Trixter wrote:

"The Game" is one of the few Star Trek episodes of any series that truly creeped me out. Utterly fantastic episode, and extremely scary in a "body snatchers" way. The emergency site-to-site transport was awesome.

I was also trying to figure out another body snatchin' episode where Riker was Kidnapped and was lead to believe he was on a planet - on trial for something he didn't know anything about and had to escape - though was in a hollowdeck or something?

It came late in The Next Generation saga (perhaps the last season?) - any ideas? That for me was strange and I'm unsure how accurate I am in describing the story.
 
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