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I thought it was about time we had a thread for all things Star Trek. Classic Doctor Who and Star Wars were my favourite franchises growing up, but the older I get the more I gravitate towards Shatner-era Star Trek for my science fiction fix. I know most fans regard The Next Generation as the best of the Star Trek TV shows, but my preference has always been for the Original Series.

I was introduced to Star Trek at a very young age, back in the late eighties, through seeing the movies, The Next Generation and reruns of the Original Series on television. Like the Indiana Jones and James Bond films, the Star Trek movies and TV shows always seemed to be on in our house. When I was six my mum took my brother and I to see Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) at our local cinema, and I vividly remember watching the first episode of Deep Space Nine when it premiered in the UK. I was less of a fan of Voyager, though I still watched it on a semi-regular basis. The first Star Trek show I didn't bother with was Enterprise, and I've hated pretty much everything else Star Trek related since then.

Rather than explain why modern Trek is so awful, I'd prefer to highlight my favourite corner of the entire Star Trek franchise, and that's the 'Genesis Trilogy' of movies from the eighties. For those who aren't familiar with classic Trek, this is a great place to start. The trilogy consists of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). Most Star Trek films are standalone adventures, but these three flow into one another to form a narrative trilogy.


These three films encapsulate Star Trek at its finest – dramatically compelling space adventure constructed around well-written plots interwoven with thought-provoking themes, memorable characters and imaginative visuals. The story told across this trilogy takes the viewer on an epic interplanetary journey from 23rd century Earth to Ceti Alpha V...


...to Regula I...


...to the Genesis cave...


...to the Mutara Nebula...


...to Earth Spacedock...


...to the Genesis planet...


...to Vulcan...


...to 20th century Earth...


...and finally back to 23rd century Earth.


This is the sort of good quality science fiction adventure we seldom see in modern cinema. Here are my thoughts on each film.

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Simply put, this is one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. It came out the same year as Blade Runner and The Thing and is easily worthy of standing alongside those classics.


Nicholas Meyer, author of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1974), brings a literary sensibility to the narrative that ensures the protagonists and central themes are never eclipsed by the special effects the way they arguably were in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). His direction is confident and the script full of quotable lines and poignant moments that highlight the characters' relatable humanity amid the alienness of their surroundings. The central themes are death and creation, as well as the cyclical relation between the two. We get to see Kirk experience a midlife crisis as he struggles to come to terms with growing older and being an absent father, and we see him confront the inevitability of death in a way he's never before experienced. The film begins with the false death of Spock during the Kobayashi Maru test and concludes with his real death when he saves the Enterprise from the Genesis Device. The themes work in perfect harmony with the human drama element to weave a story that is both intelligent and emotional.


While The Motion Picture was clearly influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), I suspect The Wrath of Khan was influenced more by Alien (1979). Ceti Alpha V looks a bit like LV-426, and the parasitic Ceti eels evoke the invasive body horror of the facehuggers in Scott's film. The script is full of literary allusions to works ranging from Herman Melville's Moby Dick to Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and none of these references feel forced or out of place. The cinematography favours murky oranges and reds – the colours of sand and dried blood – which contributes to the film's dark ambience. This is the most explicitly violent Star Trek movie, though I'd argue the gore is justified by the intensity of the subject matter and never feels excessive.

As well as bringing back the familiar heroes, The Wrath of Khan also does a good job of introducing some younger characters who go on to feature prominently in the trilogy: namely Dr. David Marcus and Lieutenant Saavik. The acting is excellent across the board, and special mention has to be given to Ricardo Montalban as the eponymous villain (I'll come back to him later in this post). Shatner delivers an uncharacteristically subdued performance that is well suited to his character's midlife ennui. I think this is his best acting as Kirk, and the script gives him a lot more dramatic meat to sink his teeth into than the previous film did. The special effects by ILM are great and James Horner's score is magnificent. I'm fairly certain he recycled some of it for James Cameron's Aliens (1986).


As I say, one of the greatest science fiction films ever.

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This film continues the theme of Saṃsāra – the cyclical nature of life – by presenting the viewer with another major death (David) as well as a major rebirth (Spock). A lot of people seem to struggle with the Vulcan mysticism in the film and find the plot difficult to understand, but I never had a problem with it. Kirk has to reunite Spock's regenerated body with his incorporeal soul to fully resurrect him. It's a fairly straightforward quest narrative motivated by the hero's desire to help his two best friends. It works for me.


Another prominent theme in The Search for Spock can be found in its allegorical parallels with the Soviet-American arms race that was topical at the time. The Federation and the Klingon Empire are fighting a cold war, and their struggle to gain control of the Genesis Device presents an interesting metaphor for the race for nuclear supremacy. A major player throughout this battle is the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which makes its screen debut in this movie. In the Original Series cloaking devices were synonymous with the Romulans, and I believe the back story behind the Klingon Bird-of-Prey is that it was designed using technology stolen from the Romulans. This explains why it features the Romulan Bird-of-Prey feather design on its exterior while retaining the overall shape of the earlier Klingon D7-class battle cruiser.


The end result is a superior hybrid of the two designs.


Robin Curtis takes over from Kirstie Alley as Saavik, and when comparing their performances I have to say I do prefer Alley's interpretation. Alley played Saavik with a hint of sass that reflected the Romulan side of the character's mixed heritage, while Curtis plays her more robotically as though she were wholly Vulcan. Curtis isn't bad in the role, but I liked Alley's original take on Saavik better. The scenes of her and David exploring the Genesis planet are among my favourite in the film, as they evoke the 'strange new worlds' aspect of the TV show's premise. On the trivia side, Dean Cain's mother Sharon Thomas also appears in a small role as the waitress who flirts with Bones during the bar scene.


Overall The Search for Spock is not as good as The Wrath of Khan, but I still like it a lot. The plot does delve into mysticism, which might be off-putting for some sci-fi fans, and the recasting of Saavik is a little jarring. But overall, I think it holds up very well. For years there a commonly held attitude that every odd numbered Star Trek film was bad, but as far as I'm concerned Star Trek III disproves that theory (as does The Motion Picture). Its main disadvantage lies in being sandwiched between two superior films. Which brings me to...

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Leonard Nimoy helmed both The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, and I consider the second of these to be his best work as a director. On paper, it sounds terrible – a comedy in which the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to save the whales. And yet somehow it works. I think the key is that it doesn't come off as too preachy and that the fish-out-of-water humour succeeds at being funny. Often the final entries in trilogies simply retread material from the previous two films but on a bigger scale. This can result in underwhelming conclusions that feel repetitive and overblown. But with Star Trek IV, the filmmakers took an entirely different approach to the earlier films and ended the trilogy on a satisfyingly inventive and upbeat note.


I've always loved science fiction with an oceanic feel. My favourite Doctor Who story is The Sea Devils, and I enjoy aquatic sci-fi films like Solaris (1972) and The Abyss (1989) and novels like Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869). I always wanted a Star Wars movie that was set primarily on an ocean planet and which would explore the practicalities of naval warfare in that universe, but sadly we never got to see that. But with The Voyage Home we get an oceanic Star Trek movie full of cetacean imagery and an appropriately maritime atmosphere. The cinematography reflects the oceanic theme and lighter tone, employing a colour palette than emphasises fresh greens, blues and whites over the murkier hues of the previous two films. There's also some great lighting and use of haze during the night scenes and the sequences on board the Bounty. I love how this film looks.

In addition to the obvious ecological themes, The Voyage Home also explores the idea of miscommunication in various forms. The space probe struggles to communicate with an extinct species of whale, the crew of the Enterprise struggle to communicate with the people of the 20th century, Spock struggles to communicate with the human side of his personality, and so forth. Although this is the most nonviolent Star Trek movie to date, it still contains some exciting set pieces, such as the time warp sequence and the final splashdown of the Bounty where Kirk has to swim through the flooded cargo deck to release George and Gracie into the sea. There's plenty of excitement and spectacle sprinkled in among the laughs.


I think the change in tone from the previous two films was a smart move. After all the pain Kirk suffered through in Star Treks II and III, it's nice to see him enjoy a relaxing meal with an attractive woman. Catherine Hicks as Dr. Gillian Taylor makes a likeable foil for Shatner, and the dialogue between them and Nimoy is some of the best in the trilogy. I'd be remiss for not also mentioning the scene with the punk on the bus, which is one of the greatest moments in Star Trek history.


The Voyage Home is an uplifting time travel adventure that provides a perfect ending to the trilogy while offering proof that you don't need violence to make a great sci-fi film. The plot is well paced and makes good use of all the main cast members by giving them each their own little missions to accomplish. I rank this as the second best Star Trek movie after The Wrath of Khan.

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Now on to the subject of the trilogy's main villains.

The mysterious space probe in The Voyage Home is less of a true villain than a plot catalyst, but it exudes a sinister aura and is sufficiently different from the threats posed in the other Star Trek films to make an impression. If nothing else, it looks and sounds very creepy.


Commander Kruge is my favourite evil Klingon. It's funny to think that just one year later Christopher Lloyd would play the loveable Doc Brown in Back to the Future, because here he's downright horrible. The final fight between him and Kirk is what my childhood self envisaged Obi-Wan and Vader's fateful duel to have been like before the Prequel Trilogy came out.


And then there's Khan Noonien Singh, my favourite character in the entire Star Trek mythos. I rank him up there with Darth Vader and Sauron as one of the all-time greatest villains in genre fiction.


Many people say that Ricardo Montalban should have received an Academy Award nomination for his work on The Wrath of Khan, and I wholeheartedly agree. It's a magnificent performance that imbues the character with an inhuman savagery offset by all-too human emotional weaknesses. He's a Nietzschean archetype whose intellectual superiority is compromised by hubris and passion. He manages to be extremely intimidating while still being somewhat sympathetic and relatable, which I think is the mark of a great bad guy. Khan only made two screen appearances, and yet between them he undergoes an interesting character arc. In 'Space Seed' he's a princely and arrogant tyrant, but is also charming and has a sense of honour and fair play.


In The Wrath of Khan he's matured into a grizzled throat-slashing renegade hell-bent on revenge above all other considerations. The older Khan is just as strong and intelligent as he was in 'Space Seed' and ten times more brutal, but prone to irrational judgements his younger self might have risen above. On a purely visual level, Khan's appearance in Star Trek II is his most iconic look. And yes, those were his real muscles. Montalban was in his early sixties when he shot the film, but he was still in amazing physical shape.


Also worth checking out is Khan: Ruling in Hell, a comic book miniseries that explores the fifteen year period between 'Space Seed' and The Wrath of Kahn. It depicts Khan's attempts to tame Ceti Alpha V and build a new civilisation, his struggle to deal with the catastrophe caused by the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI, the emergence of the Ceti eels and a rebellion led by one of his former followers, and his gradual disillusionment with the belief that Captain Kirk will one day come back and help his people. If you didn't already feel some measure of sympathy for Khan, then this comic will instil it in you.


But why is Khan so cool to begin with? For one thing, he's a genetically-engineered superman. He has five times the strength of an ordinary human and is capable of crushing phasers with his bare hands. My one major criticism of 'Space Seed' is the way Kirk beat him during their final fight. There's no way that flimsy plastic pipe should have overpowered a man strong enough to turn Shatner into a bowling ball.


In addition to his physical prowess, he also possesses superhuman intellect. Khan hails from the 20th century, and yet he's able to immediately familiarise himself with 23rd century science and technology. He spends a few minutes examining the Enterprise plans in 'Space Seed', and based on that perusal he was able to figure out how to override its security and anti-intruder devices to take control of it. He later used his knowledge of the Enterprise to devastate the original 1701 model during the Battle of the Mutara Nebula. Granted, it was Commander Kruge who delivered the crippling blow in Star Trek III, and Kirk himself who actually destroyed it, but it was the damage inflicted by Khan in Star Trek II that set the Enterprise on the path to the scrap heap.

Khan is also a well-read man of culture. He knows his Milton from his Melville and his preferred reading materials – Paradise Lost, King Lear, Moby Dick, etc – tend to be works that explore themes of exile and revenge. He also has an incredibly magnetic personality and even Kirk, McCoy and Scotty had to admit that they admired him, despite the fact he was a tyrant who conquered one quarter of the Earth's surface. The gorgeous Lieutenant McGivers, disillusioned with the males of the 23rd century, fell almost instantly in love with him. Khan was one of the few men to out-alpha Kirk, and the way he seduced and manipulated McGivers was at once despicable and awe-inspiring.


Truly one of the greatest villains ever.

Anyway, I just wanted to kick things off by expressing my appreciation for Khan and the Genesis Trilogy as a whole, but feel free to use this thread to talk about anything Star Trek related. Who is your favourite captain? Which is your favourite TV series or film? Are there any specific episodes, characters, storylines, books, novels or games that you particularly like? I'll come back and highlight some of my favourite episodes at a later time, but for now I'll end this ridiculously long post here.

For me Star Wars ended in 2005 with Revenge Of The Sith.

Afterward, I decided to blow the dust off Star Trek and reevaluate it. I grew up watching TNG and really enjoyed it but I wanted to get a clearer picture of what Trek is all about. Where Star Wars is fundamentally a story, Trek is a concept that can be rethought, reimagined and re-presented for modern audiences. It can be. But I'll spare you the rant about post-2005 Trek.

For me, TOS is probably my favorite iteration of Trek. It's a fun series with meat on the bone. In my opinion, Star Trek is at its best when it makes you ponder the world and society. Enjoyable characters are fine in their place (TNG has plenty to choose from) but what sets TOS above the rest is its determination to comment upon the human condition.

The trilogy of ST 2-4 is highly enjoyable. I'm the guy in the room who enjoys all three of them. Star Trek can do plot-oriented stories and those movies demonstrate that.

I'll also defend Star Trek- The Motion Picture until Armageddon. There are tons of movies out there that I absolutely adore but wish would be longer. TMP is basically a really ambitious episode of TOS spread out into a feature length movie. That plays for me. The slower pace, the more cerebral tone, the ponderous nature of the plotting, for me those are features, not bugs.

Prior to the 2009 Trek film I hadn't seen anything Star Trek related. As the hype was gaining for that film I decided to watch Wrath of Khan for the first time. As a teen I thought Wrath of Khan was just fine, but it didn't blow me away. After seeing the 2009 Trek I went back and watched a lot of episodes from the original series. For an outsider Trek came across as deadly serious  sci-fi that's all about tech. When I watched the original series I was surprised by how much fun that series is. It's a good balance of meaningful messages and adventure.

That of course made me want to watch the original films. I started out with the Star Trek trilogy, and Undiscovered Country. Basically all the ones that are heralded as the best of the franchise.

After doing all of that, I must say that I adore Wrath of Khan. I think that it's a film that you gain more appreciation for as you get older. A lot of the themes initially didn't resonate with me as a teenager. However, as an adult I can pick up on what the film is really about. And I love that the conflict between Kirk and Khan is less about fisticuffs and more of a battle of wits.

I also want to say that ILM's special effects in 3 & 4 are outstanding. There are shots in those films that you could put in a modern film and they'd still be just as effective. In the 80's when ILM showed up in the credits you knew you were about to see something special.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sat, 14 Nov  2020, 22:47The trilogy of ST 2-4 is highly enjoyable. I'm the guy in the room who enjoys all three of them. Star Trek can do plot-oriented stories and those movies demonstrate that.

I'll also defend Star Trek- The Motion Picture until Armageddon. There are tons of movies out there that I absolutely adore but wish would be longer. TMP is basically a really ambitious episode of TOS spread out into a feature length movie. That plays for me. The slower pace, the more cerebral tone, the ponderous nature of the plotting, for me those are features, not bugs.

I'm with you on that. I don't like The Motion Picture as much as the Genesis Trilogy, but I do think it's a much better film than people generally give it credit for. As with The Search for Spock, I've never understood the hate it gets. It's got an intelligent script, amazing visuals and an iconic score by Jerry Goldsmith. It is deliberately paced, but I like that about it. It takes its time to properly introduce the characters and concepts its exploring. Compare that to modern Trek, which is practically wall-to-wall action and violence, and I'd argue that The Motion Picture has aged remarkably well.

My main criticism of TMP is the lack of compelling emotional drama. The heart of the film is the relationship between Decker and Ilia, but I've never found that terribly engaging. The subsequent Star Trek films packed more emotional oomph, and in comparison to something like The Wrath of Khan TMP feels a bit dry. Other than that though, it holds up very well and I'd still rank it over any Star Trek film from the past two decades. The editing is overindulgent of the special effects, but much of the imagery is so stunning that I really don't mind. The scenes where the characters are travelling inside V'ger, accompanied by Goldsmith's haunting score, have me entranced every time I watch it.


I'm still not entirely sure what I'm looking at in some of these scenes, but the results are mesmerising.

The plot of the TMP has a number of interesting precedents. There's an episode in the second season of the Original Series titled 'The Changeling' which has a similar premise involving a manmade probe that returns from deep space in search of its creator. There's also an episode in the first season of Space: 1999 – which was basically Britain's answer to Star Trek – called 'Voyager's Return' which features a Voyager space probe bringing an alien menace back from its deep space explorations. I suspect the costumes and production design in Space: 1999 influenced TMP and The Next Generation. Speaking of the The Next Generation, the character of Decker in TMP was meant to be one of the main players in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: Phase II, which ultimately morphed into TNG. With that in mind, I see Will Decker as a precursor to Will Riker. Hair colour aside, they even look somewhat alike. Will Decker is also meant to be the son of Commodore Matt Decker from 'The Doomsday Machine', one of the best episodes from the second season of the Original Series.

The Motion Picture and The Undiscovered Country are my favourite Star Trek films outside of the Genesis Trilogy. I watched Star Treks II-IV again recently, and I'm planning to revisit Star Treks I, V and VI in the near future. I'll probably post more about them after I do. I might even give The Next Generation movies another look. It's been a long time since I last watched those.

Quote from: BatmanFurst on Sat, 14 Nov  2020, 23:16After doing all of that, I must say that I adore Wrath of Khan. I think that it's a film that you gain more appreciation for as you get older. A lot of the themes initially didn't resonate with me as a teenager. However, as an adult I can pick up on what the film is really about. And I love that the conflict between Kirk and Khan is less about fisticuffs and more of a battle of wits.

I remember seeing The Wrath of Khan at a very young age and not really appreciating it either. I found it quite frightening and intense, and I thought Khan himself was a scary villain. But I didn't realise what a great film it was until I saw it again as an adult. It's a bit like The Exorcist insofar as it's one of those classic films that resonates more with adults than youngsters and gets better on repeated viewings.

Quote from: BatmanFurst on Sat, 14 Nov  2020, 23:16I also want to say that ILM's special effects in 3 & 4 are outstanding. There are shots in those films that you could put in a modern film and they'd still be just as effective. In the 80's when ILM showed up in the credits you knew you were about to see something special.

Absolutely. ILM were special effects wizards in the truest sense. I look back on so much of their work from the seventies and eighties and marvel at how they managed to accomplish it. The absence of ILM is frequently cited as one of the main reasons Star Trek V fell below the standards of the other Star Trek films. Apparently ILM had their hands full working on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Ghostbusters 2, so Shatner hired Associates and Ferren to do the special effects instead. The results were noticeably inferior to the previous four films.

Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Sun, 15 Nov  2020, 23:18I'm with you on that. I don't like The Motion Picture as much as the Genesis Trilogy, but I do think it's a much better film than people generally give it credit for. As with The Search for Spock, I've never understood the hate it gets. It's got an intelligent script, amazing visuals and an iconic score by Jerry Goldsmith. It is deliberately paced, but I like that about it. It takes its time to properly introduce the characters and concepts its exploring. Compare that to modern Trek, which is practically wall-to-wall action and violence, and I'd argue that The Motion Picture has aged remarkably well.

My main criticism of TMP is the lack of compelling emotional drama. The heart of the film is the relationship between Decker and Ilia, but I've never found that terribly engaging. The subsequent Star Trek films packed more emotional oomph, and in comparison to something like The Wrath of Khan TMP feels a bit dry. Other than that though, it holds up very well and I'd still rank it over any Star Trek film from the past two decades. The editing is overindulgent of the special effects, but much of the imagery is so stunning that I really don't mind. The scenes where the characters are travelling inside V'ger, accompanied by Goldsmith's haunting score, have me entranced every time I watch it.

This might be a Monday morning quarterback thing to say but I've long maintained that if the severed love story had revolved around Kirk or, perhaps better yet, Spock, the emotional anchor of TMP would probably hit harder for people. Basically, swap either Kirk or Spock in for Decker's role in that story and move it along. I think it might be more effective had it been Spock's story but it could go either way. Point is that asking audiences to invest in Decker when they were probably there for Kirk, Spock and McCoy wasn't a good idea.

The reintroduction of the characters was a necessity since (A) the TV show had been off the air for ten years by that time and (B) the characters had moved on with their lives after the show.

Honestly, I'm hard-pressed to find even one TOS film that I simply cannot abide. The Final Frontier pushes my tolerance to its limits, admittedly, but not beyond my limits. It isn't bad; it's just nowhere near WOK's level of maturity and sophistication. But then, what is?

In the final analysis, I watch Star Wars to be wowed but I watch Star Trek to be inspired. More recent iterations of Trek have been created by people who either don't know or don't care about what makes Trek work. Until that changes, bs like Discovery is probably as good as it gets. Which is sad.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sun, 15 Nov  2020, 23:57This might be a Monday morning quarterback thing to say but I've long maintained that if the severed love story had revolved around Kirk or, perhaps better yet, Spock, the emotional anchor of TMP would probably hit harder for people. Basically, swap either Kirk or Spock in for Decker's role in that story and move it along. I think it might be more effective had it been Spock's story but it could go either way. Point is that asking audiences to invest in Decker when they were probably there for Kirk, Spock and McCoy wasn't a good idea.

Your idea would have been better. The emotional dynamic between Kirk and Carol Marcus worked in The Wrath of Khan, despite the fact she'd never appeared in any earlier films or TV episodes, and using a similar approach to connect Ilia to a character fans already knew and cared about would have made her storyline more accessible. Decker had enough drama on his plate with the power struggle between him and Kirk. The romance storyline could easily have been passed to another character.

I've heard that the Decker-Ilia romance would have featured prominently in the Phase II series, but instead the scripts exploring their relationship ended up being rewritten for Riker and Troi in the first season of TNG. I'm not sure if that's true.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sun, 15 Nov  2020, 23:57Honestly, I'm hard-pressed to find even one TOS film that I simply cannot abide. The Final Frontier pushes me tolerance to its limits, admittedly, but not beyond my limits. It isn't bad; it's just nowhere near WOK's level of maturity and sophistication. But then, what is?

I was very little when I first saw The Final Frontier (it was probably the UK TV premiere back in the early nineties), and back then I enjoyed it just as much as the other Trek movies. It had lots of action and weird aliens and I remember thinking it was funny. But viewed through the lens of adulthood, it's a very different experience. Still, I'm looking forward to watching it again sometime in the next week or so. Even the worst of the original crew films is more entertaining than 90% of most other sci-fi movies. And if nothing else, The Final Frontier gave 1989 cinemagoers the villainous cat-woman that was absent from Burton's first Batman film. Granted, she was a triple-breasted alien cat-woman, but a cat-woman nonetheless.


Shatner's often spoken of wanting to create a director's cut of The Final Frontier in order to fix some of the movie's problems. I say why not? I'd rather Paramount financed an improved version of Star Trek V than waste more money on drivel like Discovery, Picard and Lower Decks.

If one were to regard the original crew films as a self-contained series, then surely it's the most consistently good sci-fi film franchise out there. Six films and only one of them is really poor (but still watchable). I think the Rocky series has the most impressive overall batting average for a film franchise (eight films, and only one dud), but as far as science fiction movies go is there another series with as many consistently good films as Star Trek I-VI? I can't think of one.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sun, 15 Nov  2020, 23:57In the final analysis, I watch Star Wars to be wowed but I watch Star Trek to be inspired. More recent iterations of Trek have been created by people who either don't know or don't care about what makes Trek work. Until that changes, bs like Discovery is probably as good as it gets. Which is sad.

It is very sad, as well as baffling. Classic Star Trek always presented a fundamentally utopian vision of mankind's future that gave viewers something to aspire to. It's shocking how the makers of the most recent shows have inverted that hopeful utopian vision into the cynical nihilistic dystopian nightmare it's become. Classic Trek had its own unique identity that was instantly recognisable. Where Star Wars was more mythical, Star Trek was more literary. It was driven by ideas. It still had plenty of action and special effects, but they served the plot rather than being the basis of it. Modern Trek feels as though it's desperately trying to be anything but classic Trek.


Where classic Trek was intelligent and sophisticated, modern Trek is crude and puerile. The best response is to ignore it altogether and focus on celebrating the wealth of classic real Trek produced between 1966 and 2005.

Ok, so I've finished re-watching Star Treks I, V and VI. Here are my thoughts.

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I've already given my opinion on this film earlier in the thread, but here are a few additional observations following my most recent viewing.


From the pre-title musical overture to Douglas Trumbull's special effects, TMP is clearly trying to evoke 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The film is slow paced, portentous and very dry when it comes to human drama, but to be fair those same criticisms could also be applied to Kubrick's film. Where TMP shines is in its intelligent script, imaginative visuals, high quality production values and superb score. The leisurely pacing really doesn't bother me except in one scene, and that's the drydock sequence where Kirk and Scotty are preparing to board the Enterprise. I understand that they wanted to show off the new Enterprise model – and it is a beautiful model – but that scene drags on for far too long.


A common criticism levelled at The Next Generation films is that they failed to adapt their scope for a different medium and ended up feeling like two-part television stories rather than true cinematic experiences. You can take that criticism one of two ways: either as a compliment to the TV series for feeling so cinematic in the first place, or as an indictment of the films for not capitalising on their increased budget. At any rate, it's not a criticism that applies to The Original Series films. With the exception of Star Trek V, all of the movies based on TOS look great and manage to upgrade the iconography of the television programme to meet the expectations of post-Star Wars cinemagoers. You can see this in the miniatures and sets, as well as in the upgraded costume and makeup effects on the Klingons. It's a significant improvement over how they looked in the TV show.


I'd forgotten until I saw the opening credits that Alan Dean Foster wrote the story. This must have been shortly after he wrote Star Wars: Splinter of the Mind's Eye. The plot he delivers here is probably not the crowd-pleasing rollercoaster Paramount was hoping for, but it has a lot to offer science fiction buffs. I find the most interesting part of the story to be Spock's character arc. At the beginning of the film he's the closest he's ever come to being purely Vulcan, but he gradually embraces the merits of his human side when he witnesses V'Ger's inability to comprehend philosophical concepts that transcend pure logic. In light of this epiphany, his decision to remain on the Enterprise at the end feels plausible. As Spock himself observes in Star Trek VI, "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris, not the end."

That's about all I have to say on TPM. Many viewers will find it boring, but I enjoy it. I don't think it's anywhere near as good as The Wrath of Kahn, or the other two films in the Genesis Trilogy, and it certainly isn't director Robert Wise's best film, but I maintain it's an underrated entry in the series that blows any modern Trek movies or TV shows out of the water.

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Two movies were released in the summer of 1989 concerning a group of friends embarking on an adventure in search of divine illumination. One of them had Sean Connery, the other had Sha Ka Ree. One of them turned out to be one of the greatest movies of all time, the other turned out to be Star Trek V.


Supposedly Paramount wanted The Final Frontier to be funny like The Voyage Home, while Shatner intended for it to be a much darker film, and this conflict inevitably resulted in an uneven tone. You've got goofy scenes like Scotty bumping his head and knocking himself out (I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I found that hilarious as a child), but then you've also got dark scenes like the one where McCoy relives the night he euthanized his father. The film is also thematically unfocused. The opening act highlights themes of brotherhood and camaraderie, the middle act is more preoccupied with ideas of guilt and expiation, the final act touches upon theological themes concerning God and the boundaries of the material universe (these concepts are introduced far too late in the film to be properly explored), and finally the coda returns to the theme of brotherhood. It would have been wiser to have picked just one of these ideas (preferably the brotherhood theme) and develop it in more depth.


The special effects in Star Trek V are noticeably inferior to those of the other films in the series. ILM was reportedly too busy working on Indiana Jones 3 and Ghostbusters 2, so Shatner hired another company. Most of the sets, costumes and makeup effects are fine, but the miniature and composite shots are generally poor. It's not that the film was made on the cheap – it had a budget of $33 million, which is only $2 million less than Batman (1989). The effects just aren't handled very well. They're not Superman IV bad, but considering the money Paramount invested in this they should have been better. One sequence, involving Kirk encountering a rock monster, was cut altogether because the effects were deemed unsatisfactory. The scene did however make it into the comic book adaptation.


Here's some footage of the original unused effects.


On the subject of bad special effects, I must mention the turbo shaft scene where the deck numbers pass by in the wrong order and Spock ends up flying past deck 78, despite the fact the Enterprise-A only has around twenty-something decks to begin with. The physics of the flying scenes are plain baffling. Just look at the shot of Spock holding Kirk upside down after the latter falls from the mountain. How is Spock's body hovering at this angle when the propulsive force keeping him aloft is directed downwards through the soles of his boots?


Overall, I don't hate The Final Frontier. This might be nostalgia talking, but if you think of it as a lame episode of the TV show's third season – a cinematic 'Spock's Brain', so to speak – it makes for a watchable sci-fi adventure flick. I'd never argue it was good, but I liked it as a kid and even now I don't find it to be as excruciatingly bad as something like Attack of the Clones. Many people complain about the campfire scenes, but I never had a problem with them. The friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy was always the emotional core of TOS for me, and having them sing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' together exemplifies their camaraderie in a way that's silly but also rather charming. I also like the location photography in Yosemite National Park. Some of the wide landscape shots are beautiful.


Most of the scenes on Nimbus III are decent too. Uhura's fan dance was clearly ill judged, but I enjoy the following scene where the heroes storm Paradise City only to discover they've walked into a trap. I also like that the Galileo shuttlecraft features so prominently in the action. Much of the humour falls flat, but there are one or two funny moments, like Bones offering to hold Spock while Kirk hits him. On the music front, Jerry Goldsmith is as reliable as ever. The subplot about the Klingon vessel hunting the Enterprise feels too much like a retread of the Kruge storyline from Star Trek III, and I would have preferred it to have been a renegade Romunlan captain instead. The Romulans never got the chance to take centre stage in any of the original crew films, and since there was a Romulan ambassador on Nimbus III this would have been a good opportunity for them to do so.

To conclude, Star Trek V is a nostalgic guilty pleasure. Objectively, it's a 5/10 at best. But while it may be the worst of the original crew films, I'd still rank it over some of the Star Trek films that came later. The Final Frontier also gave us this sublime work of philosophical rumination.


Who knew the rock climbing scene was so layered?

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It would have been tragic if the Star Trek film series had ended with The Final Frontier, but thankfully we have The Undiscovered Country to conclude the saga on a high note. I'd forgotten just how good this one is.

Nicholas Meyer returns as co-writer and director, bringing with him his fondness for literary allusions (this time mostly Shakespearean) as he continues the Cold War themes of the Genesis Trilogy. The central plot about the treaty serves as an allegory for the collapse of the USSR, with the destruction of the Klingon moon Praxis being analogous to the Chernobyl disaster that helped precipitate the collapse of the Soviet economy. The central theme is prejudice and the need to overcome it if the enemies of yesterday are to become the friends of tomorrow. Unlike the modern Trek shows that have taken a clumsily heavy-handed 'woke' approach to the theme of race (divisively grouping people into tribes of oppressors and oppressed instead of uniting them on a basis of equal worth), Star Trek VI takes a more nuanced and intelligent approach to the subject.


Kirk is basically a good man, but the film doesn't shy away from confronting his racism. We've seen him fighting the Klingons for the past 25 years, and we saw how they murdered his son in cold blood, so we can understand the basis of his prejudice. But at the same time we also understand the need for people like Kirk, and indeed the Klingons themselves, to overcome their prejudice and put aside past grievances in order to focus on building a peaceful tomorrow. I only wish modern Trek could handle such themes with the same maturity.


If Star Trek III is a quest narrative and Star Trek IV is a time travel story, then Star Trek VI is a conspiracy thriller mixed with elements of detective fiction. There's no denying the cast were old and out of shape by this point, but I can overlook it in The Undiscovered Country because this is meant to be their final adventure. On that score, it serves as a fitting swansong to a series that began a quarter of a century earlier. Star Trek VI is also a satisfying sequel to the Genesis Trilogy. It revisits plot points from Star Treks II-IV, such as David's death and the USS Excelsior, and it even brings back supporting characters like Admiral Cartwright and the Klingon ambassador from The Voyage Home. However its relationship to the Genesis Trilogy also leads me to my single biggest criticism, which is the character of Valeris. Kim Cattrall gives a good performance, but she should have played Saavik. In the original script her character was Saavik.


The twist where she is revealed to be one of the conspirators would have had so much more impact if this was the character fans had already come to know in Star Treks II-IV, instead of a new character we've only just met. Spock's reaction to her betrayal would also have carried more weight, and her motive for distrusting the Klingons – deriving, at least in part, from having witnessed their murder of David – would have offered an interesting parallel to Kirk's. Instead Cattrall insisted on playing a new character, and so Saavik was replaced with Valeris. This always struck me as a missed opportunity and it remains my biggest gripe with the movie.

On the technical side, ILM make a welcome return. Their work on this film feels like a breath of fresh air after the stale special effects displayed in Star Trek V. The only effect which looks slightly dated now is the CG blood during the scene where the assassins massacre the Klingons in zero gravity, but we have to take into account that the technology used in that scene was still relatively new at the time. The Undiscovered Country came out just a few months after Terminator 2 and only two years after The Abyss. That entire zero gravity sequence is very creative and it blew my mind when I first saw it on the big screen back in the early nineties.


The final voyage of the Enterprise crew takes them from Earth to the penal asteroid of Rura Penthe and finally to Camp Khitomer. I find Rura Penthe, an ice world that feels like a fusion of Hoth and the Temple of Doom, to be the most memorable of these locations. I like how the purple colour scheme reflects the purple of Klingon blood.


Speaking of Rura Penthe, is it just me or does the big alien Kirk fights in the mines look a bit like Doomsday?


I'll end this review by saying that The Undiscovered Country is a terrific send-off for the original crew and probably my favourite Trek film outside of the Genesis Trilogy. It's got a good script, strong production values and a spirited performance from Christopher Plummer as the villainous General Chang. Having the actors' signatures appear on the end credits was also a nice touch.

---

My final ranking for first six movies would be:

1.   The Wrath of Khan
2.   The Voyage Home
3.   The Search for Spock
4.   The Undiscovered Country
5.   The Motion Picture
6.   The Final Frontier

Except for Star Trek V, they're all good.

Regarding TFF, I recognize that it's the lesser work when compared to any other TOS film. And yet, I can still see value in it from the standpoint that it's the TOS cast back in action. That cuts a lot of ice for me. And just for the record, not everybody gets that same amnesty. Insurrection as a film does not rise above a weak story with a patronizing theme simply because I like TNG. Insurrection doesn't suck but it's no exaggeration for me to say I enjoy TFF far more than Insurrection.

There is plenty to criticize TFF for but it doesn't have structural issues. Too little money and too many chefs in the kitchen. And honestly, those same issues have plagued numerous other films. I'm prepared to cut TFF and Shatner some slack here.

As to TUC, that whole Saavik thing has been a source of heartache for me for quite some time. It's fun to imagine Kirstie Alley playing the character in all three films. I guess that was never a possibility but I like the idea of seeing her as a rookie in WOK and her downfall in TUC.

You can extrapolate a plot point from there that it's probably easiest for a rookie to turn than a more seasoned veteran. If anything, Kirk has more reasons to do what Valeris did than Valeris herself. And it would've hit home so much harder if Kirk could've seized that moral victory with a character and actress that audiences were more familiar with. Kirk's ultimate nobility in the film would shine brighter when contrasted against Saavik played by Alley, I think.

The Cold War element of TUC plays for me about as well as you, apparently. It is true that there were Cold Warriors on both sides who were highly reluctant to let it go. First, the Cold War was all they knew. A new geopolitical reality was all but unthinkable. A status quo had existed for over forty years by then and, in their collective mind, change was bad. Second, they didn't want actual war so much as a decisive military victory. The collapse of the USSR was basically a forfeit and the hardliners on both sides found that intolerable.

Where the rubber meets the road on that is Kirk is initially positioned as the Cold Warrior reluctant to let go of the old conflict, probably for personal reasons as well as practical ones. But in the end, he lets it go. (A) He has no choice and (B) he's not Valeris.

I find it interesting that the OG film franchises ended on sort of comparable notes, re: peace with a long time antagonist. In TOS, it was obviously the Klingons. In TNG, it was the Romulans. In both cases, the hardliners won out, aided by assassinations.

I'll criticize Insurrection here, there and everywhere. But I'll fight to the death in my defense of Nemesis, if only for that reaction shot (I can't find it after a quick image search) of Picard right after Shinzon keeled over. Picard's expression is a bewildered mix of emotions, underlined by a sentiment of "If this was always how I was going to die, what the hell was the point of anything?

In its own way, Nemesis is defined just as much by a change in status quo as TUC had been. Senior officers (longtime TNG cast members) were moving on to other ships/commands (or death), peace with the Federation was starting to become mainstream thought among the Romulans, it could be inferred that Picard resigned command of the Enterprise after the showdown with the Scimitar (no, Star Trek: Picard is not canon for me), etc.

But unlike TUC, there wasn't some irl metaphor you can assign to the peace signaled in Nemesis -- which, again, owes back to why I regard TNG as an entertaining but ultimately lesser work than TOS. TNG is fine in its place and I love it. But the real meat of Star Trek for me is TOS and the TOS-related films.

In the final analysis, the Trek film I probably struggle with the most is Generations. Berman has said that Generations had to satisfy a lot of people and he freely admits the final product suffered as a result.  This is the closest the OG franchise came to producing a just plain bad film.

It's been a long time since I watched The Next Generation films. I'd like to revisit them all in the near future and refresh my memory.

It must have been a decade or more since I last saw Generations. I went to see it when it first came out and I have to admit... I actually quite like it. I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't think it's that bad. I find it to be the saddest of all the Star Trek films. It probably does have a lot of flaws that would stand out if I watched it again now, but the simple fact that it moved me emotionally – and not in the blunt JJ Abrams tradition of cheap unearned sentiment (e.g. Threepio bidding a lachrymose farewell to his "friends" that he'd barely spoken to in the previous films) – is deserving of some credit.

Whatever other faults it has, the score by Dennis McCarthy is very stirring. It's up there with James Horner's work on Treks II and III.


The central theme of letting go – of the past, of life, of self-delusion, of our own individual happiness to serve a greater good – has timeless resonance. I suspect it might be even more relevant now, in light of the current pop culture fixation on nostalgia that has led to so many classic film franchises, including Trek, being devalued by lame reboots. On the downside, I think Shatner's larger-than-life presence does somewhat eclipse Stewart (Kirk was always my favourite captain anyway, so I'm biased), and the fact the film has one foot planted firmly in the past tethers it to the older films and prevents it from fully carving out its own identity. The first TNG movie really needed to break free of the older films, and to an extent the TV show, the way The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan did. I don't think that happened until First Contact. There's no denying that Generations is also an unnecessary continuation of Kirk's storyline after the perfect send-off he received in Star Trek VI. But I still like it.

I didn't see First Contact on the big screen in 1996. I can't remember why I skipped it now, but I wish I had gone to see it. The last time I watched it was on TV about seven or eight years ago, so this one's slightly fresher in my memory. I always loved the Borg. Their episodes are among my favourite of the TV series and they possess an eerie biomechanical quality that I find deeply unnerving. They're essentially a cross between the Cybermen from Doctor Who, the Cenobites from Hellraiser, and the baddies from the Michael Jackson film Captain EO (1986), which was written by George Lucas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola of all people.


Did the Supreme Leader played by Anjelica Huston inspire the Borg Queen? Perhaps.


When I was about ten I visited the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry when it was hosting a Star Trek exhibition that was touring the UK. They had lots of costumes and sets for visitors to explore, but what I remember most about it was this one darkly-lit corridor containing some of the scarier alien costumes. Alone in this passageway, I stood face-to-face with a Borg. It stared back at me in the darkness with this lifeless expression while its mechanical eye whirred and twitched with a mind of its own. It was incredibly creepy. Since then, I list the Borg alongside the Xenomorphs as one of the most frightening alien races to haunt the silver screen. I'm still conflicted about the whole idea of them having a queen, since it undermines the premise of them being a collective devoid of individuality. But I suppose the filmmakers felt they needed a villain that could interact with the Enterprise crew on a more personal level, and on that score she serves her purpose. Alice Krige was great in the role and I'm glad she got to reprise the part in Voyager.

I know some TNG fans don't like the way Picard was portrayed in the movies. The films made him more outwardly emotional, as opposed to his typically reserved characterisation in the TV show. You can see this in FC with the aggression and violence he shows towards the Borg. Mr. Plinkett highlighted this in the Red Letter Media review as an example of the dumbing down of the franchise, and I can see where he's coming from. But being an Original Series fan, I was never so emotionally invested in the Picard character that this bothered me much. I think the scenes taking place on Earth with Zefram Cochrane are more interesting than the action sequences on board the Enterprise anyway.

I'm not a fan of how the script references Captain Ahab in relation to Picard's lust for revenge. That particular analogy was already used far more effectively in The Wrath of Khan, and here it just feels like they're echoing Star Trek II. There are plenty of other literary revenge tragedies they could have referenced. Still, from what I recall FC is probably the most entertaining of the Picard-era films. The new uniforms help differentiate it from the TV show in a way Generations failed to do, and the production design and special effects feel suitably cinematic. It's a fun movie.

I went to see Insurrection on the last day of the Christmas holidays back in January 1999, so I have a certain nostalgic fondness for that one and associate it with Christmastime. I've seen it at least once since then on TV, but I'm struggling to remember much about it. I don't recollect it being bad. It's enjoyable enough. Just not terribly memorable. This might be the Next Gen film that feels the most like two TV episodes stitched together. Hopefully if I watch it again soon I'll have some more meaningful observations to contribute, but right now all I can remember is that it took place on a planet that looked vaguely like Naboo, it featured Doctor Octopus' wife, and it continued FC's strategy of trying to turn Picard into an action hero rather than the calm diplomat he was in the TV show.

I'm afraid I can remember even less about Nemesis. I didn't see it on the big screen in 2002, and I don't remember there being any hype surrounding its release. I saw the trailer a few times, and maybe one or two posters, but apart from that it was completely overshadowed by Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I definitely have seen it once or twice on TV, but I can only recall images. I'd very much like to see it again, since Nemesis is probably the last real Star Trek film we'll ever get.

Like you, colors, I'm a TOS fan. The Original Series and movies are my era of Star Trek. But to a much lesser extent I am also a fan of The Next Generation era, and while the Picard movies aren't as good as the earlier films, they're still a damn sight better than modern Trek. I've got a long list of movies I want to re-watch before the end of this year, but I'll try to squeeze the Next Gen films in there somewhere. Then hopefully I'll be able to discuss Insurrection and Nemesis in more depth.

Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Wed, 25 Nov  2020, 17:14

Did the Supreme Leader played by Anjelica Huston inspire the Borg Queen? Perhaps.

(https://i.postimg.cc/8zgyvRbH/borg-queen.png)

Yes, it has been acknowledged that the Supreme Leader from Captain EO was an inspiration for the Borg Queen. Huston along with Angela Bassett were considered for the part until they settled on Alice Krige based on her performance in 1981's Ghost Story. The character came about due to a studio note asking for a more centralized villain instead of the zombie hive of Borg. This was how it played out in the first draft of the screenplay which had Picard on Earth and Riker on the ship.

Not only has William Shatner still got all his marbles at the age of 90 – he's just been into space for real!


Absolute legend.

Overdue. Trek in general and Shatner in particular have done a lot more for the space program(s) than even some government agencies. I'm happy that he got the chance to visit space. We should all be so lucky.

Here's an excellent video from The Critical Drinker decrying the infantilization of modern film and TV audiences. He uses the Star Trek franchise as a case study – contrasting the emotional maturity of classic Trek against the juvenile writing in modern Trek – but the critique is equally applicable to modern commercial entertainment in general. It's well worth a watch if you've fifteen minutes to spare.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of The Wrath of Khan (1982), and director Nicholas Meyer recently tweeted that a new book chronicling its production is being published later in the summer. I might pick up a copy.


In the meantime, I just read Star Trek: Hell's Mirror, a one-shot comic by J. M. DeMatteis that depicts the conflict between the mirror universe versions of Khan and Kirk.


DeMatteis is one of my favourite American comic writers, and there's no one better when it comes to pinning down characters and getting inside their heads. He does a good job here of capturing the ruthless voices of the mirror universe characters, and he presents Khan as something of an Earth-3 heroic counterpart to his more villainous namesake in the prime universe. He's still mostly the same Khan, by and large, but here he's reacting to circumstances in which his ambitions constitute the lesser of two evils when weighed against those of the Terran Empire.

Certain parts of the story reminded me of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, which is fitting since the mirror universe is very much a dystopian counterpoint to the typically utopian prime universe, and it also reminded me of the Star Trek: Khan – Ruling in Hell comic miniseries IDW published between October 2010 and January 2011. The art work and colouring do a great job of capturing the distinctive look of Star Trek TOS, and the character designs accurately reflect the likenesses of the actors. Thankfully the overall tone is very much that of 'Classic Trek' rather than 'NuTrek', and that alone is reason enough to read it. The relationship between Kirk and Khan is one of the greatest hero/villain rivalries in science fiction, and in writing this story DeMatteis has contributed an interesting new chapter to that saga; one which in no way damages or detracts from 'Space Seed' or Star Trek II. As an alternate universe retelling of their conflict, it's infinitely more satisfying than Jar Jar Abrams' atrocious Star Trek Into Darkness.


My one major problem with the story is the obvious plot twist. I could see it coming from the first few pages. It was so obvious in fact that I have a hard time believing Khan, with his superior intellect, would not have foreseen it. I kept expecting there to be another twist right at the end, where we would find out that Khan was one step ahead of Kirk the entire story. But that never happens. That's my one major criticism. I suppose you just have to accept that the mirror universe Khan is more naive than the prime universe version. Aside from that, it's an enjoyable comic that fans of Khan and the mirror universe should appreciate.

On a related note, here's an interesting video analysing the first battle between the Enterprise and the Reliant in Star Trek II, highlighting the various techniques used by the filmmakers to generate suspense.

Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Sun, 12 Jun  2022, 17:58
This month marks the 40th anniversary of The Wrath of Khan (1982), and director Nicholas Meyer recently tweeted that a new book chronicling its production is being published later in the summer. I might pick up a copy.

(https://i.postimg.cc/fLGHq3HQ/st2.png)

Amazon is now saying that this book's been delayed until September 2023. Oh well. On the bright side, there's a new book about the entire Genesis Trilogy coming out in less than a fortnight. I've pre-ordered a copy.


It's good to see more recognition for Star Treks II-IV as a trilogy and not just standalone entries in a thirteen-film series. 'Space Seed' is the prologue to that trilogy, and Star Trek VI is the coda. But Star Treks II, III and IV share a narrative thread that's unique among the franchise's cinematic offerings. I've already made my case for why the Genesis Trilogy is one of the best science fiction film trilogies of all time, and why I think it deserves to be ranked up there with the classic Star Wars and Back to the Future trilogies. Hopefully this new book will encourage others to discover or revisit it.

I just got back from seeing the 40th anniversary theatrical rerelease of The Wrath of Khan (Director's Cut), and all I can say is wow. I love that movie anyway, but seeing it on the big screen was one of the best cinematic experiences I've had in years. The Battle of the Mutara Nebula was particularly impressive, and hearing James Horner's score blasting out of the theatre speakers was incredible. The changes for the Director's Cut are surprisingly innocuous. There are no entirely new scenes, just a few extended exchanges of dialogue. But whether it's the original cut or the DC, it's worth seeing in theatres if you get the chance. Truly one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made.

Apparently Jaws (1975) is getting an IMAX rerelease starting on the 9th of September, so I'm going to try and get tickets for that next. A Batman-Online Jaws thread is long overdue.

Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Sat,  3 Sep  2022, 21:50I just got back from seeing the 40th anniversary theatrical rerelease of The Wrath of Khan (Director's Cut), and all I can say is wow. I love that movie anyway, but seeing it on the big screen was one of the best cinematic experiences I've had in years. The Battle of the Mutara Nebula was particularly impressive, and hearing James Horner's score blasting out of the theatre speakers was incredible. The changes for the Director's Cut are surprisingly innocuous. There are no entirely new scenes, just a few extended exchanges of dialogue. But whether it's the original cut or the DC, it's worth seeing in theatres if you get the chance. Truly one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made.

What I came to eventually realize is that I love Wrath Of Khan for kind of similar reasons for why I love the 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' pilot. In context, they're both great Trek stories.

But out of a Trek context, they're both sterling examples of great pieces of science-fiction that are exemplary of the genre's promises and highest aspirations. Yes, WOK has lots of ships buzzing around shooting lasers at each other. But the core of WOK is a story of accepting old age. That's how sci-fi should be. A common and relatable theme or conflict set against an otherwise completely impossible (for now) backdrop.

I'm recovering from covid at the moment. Otherwise, I would've been very interested in hitting up a WOK screening since I've never seen it on the big screen.

Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Sat,  3 Sep  2022, 21:50Apparently Jaws (1975) is getting an IMAX rerelease starting on the 9th of September, so I'm going to try and get tickets for that next. A Batman-Online Jaws thread is long overdue.

Perhaps it is. If you start that thread, count me in. Because I've spent decades trying to figure out exactly which genre Jaws fits into. And I'm no closer to figuring it out now than when I started.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sat,  3 Sep  2022, 22:19What I came to eventually realize is that I love Wrath Of Khan for kind of similar reasons for why I love the 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' pilot. In context, they're both great Trek stories.

But out of a Trek context, they're both sterling examples of great pieces of science-fiction that are exemplary of the genre's promises and highest aspirations.

I watched 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' a couple of weeks ago, and it's still frightening. Just the other day I was mentally compiling a list of the best Star Trek episodes, and I was trying to decide whether to include WNMHGB or 'Charlie X'. I figured I'd pick just one, since they're quite similar. 'Charlie X' is the slicker of the two, but it's quite derivative of The Twilight Zone episode 'It's a Good Life'. WNMHGB is a bit rougher around the edges, what with it being the pilot, but overall I think it's the more iconic episode. Gary's transformation, from Kirk's trusted friend to a hubristic monster that can no longer empathise with human suffering, still makes for unsettling viewing.


I also revisited 'Space Seed' the night before I went to see TWOK on the cinema. In just one TV episode and one movie, they managed to craft a superb storyline about Kirk and his greatest nemesis. There are other Trek villains who made more appearances, but Khan only needed those two to create one of the best hero-villain narratives in modern fiction. Khan started out as an elegant and honourable prince ruling a substantial percentage of the Earth's surface, and he ended up a deranged, disfigured cutthroat renegade willing to unleash a WMD just to avenge himself against one man. That's one hell of an arc.


And just to reiterate what I've said in earlier posts, Montalban's performance is magnificent. The intensity, charm, simmering fury and physical grandeur he brought to Khan made the character intimidating and likeable at the same time. TWOK might have had the smallest budget of all the Trek movies, but after seeing the theatrical re-release I realise that it's actually one of the most cinematic. The nuances of Montalban's performance were among the qualities that really shone through on the big screen.

In the recently published Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Book there's an interview with Nicholas Meyer in which he's asked if he regrets not having a face-to-face confrontation between Kirk and Khan. Meyer answers no, saying that it would have been "cheesy, stereotyped and familiar" to have them duke it out like gladiators. Fun though it would have been to see Khan and Kirk fight in person again, I agree that it's better they didn't. Kirk shouldn't really be able to compete with Khan in physical terms anyway. The only advantage he has over Khan is his knowledge of 23rd century technology. There's a line to this effect in the Director's Cut, where after surviving their first encounter with the Reliant Kirk says something like, "The only reason we're still alive is because I know more about these ships than he does."

In the same way that you can only use an energy weapon once against the Borg before they adapt to it, you can only exploit knowledge against Khan once. With his superior intellect, he'll quickly assimilate that knowledge and take away your advantage. When he was marooned on Ceti Alpha V he had no way of studying 23rd century science. But if Khan had been granted just a few days to study the Genesis device and the scientific information stored in the Reliant's databanks, he might have become unstoppable. Kirk had to take him down quickly, just like he had to take down Gary Mitchell quickly before he evolved into an even more powerful being.

A major reason for Kirk being the best Star Trek captain is that he had the best villains, and the greatest of those was Khan.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sat,  3 Sep  2022, 22:19Yes, WOK has lots of ships buzzing around shooting lasers at each other. But the core of WOK is a story of accepting old age. That's how sci-fi should be. A common and relatable theme or conflict set against an otherwise completely impossible (for now) backdrop.

Classic Trek was always about ideas. TWOK tackles a lot of themes to do with revenge, exile and no-win scenarios, but you're absolutely correct that at its core it's a film about accepting old age, and about confronting, acknowledging and accepting the inevitability of death. Kirk spends most of the film running away from death – he cheated the simulated death of the Kobayashi Maru test, now he's grappling with a midlife crisis and desperately trying to survive Khan's repeated attempts to kill him – but in the end death catches up with him and claims the life of his best friend. As David says, this is the first time Kirk's had to confront the death of someone truly important in his life. Edith Keeler's death in 'The City on the Edge of Forever' was a matter of historical fact, and he never seemed too broken up about his brother dying in 'Operation -- Annihilate!'. In both of those stories, he simply put their deaths behind him and resumed his adventures. But the death of Spock is not so easily brushed off.

The experience of losing Spock allows him to accept his own mortality, and in doing so also accept the responsibilities of fatherhood. He knows his life is moving on, and that such motion will eventually bring him to death, but he's no longer struggling against life's current or the changes it brings. There's an interesting line towards the end of the film where Kirk says, "And if Genesis is indeed life from death, I must return to this place again." You could interpret this as meaning Kirk knows he'll have to return to the Genesis Planet to recover Spock, although the beginning of Star Trek III makes it clear that he didn't know that. But I interpret the "life from death" line as a reference to Kirk's own mortality, and the undiscovered country into which he knows he will one day have to journey. It's Kirk recognising that he too will eventually die.

It's heavy stuff for a blockbuster film. But while TWOK is certainly a dark movie, it never feels depressing or downbeat. The film isn't saying 'you're going to die, so live in fear of death.' Quite the opposite, it's saying 'death is a necessary part of life, so there's no need to fear or worry about it – just make the most of the time you have and cherish the people you care about while they're still with you.' I actually find it to be an uplifting movie, especially when viewed in the context of the wider trilogy. It's the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Kirk's life, where he accepts his middle age and starts putting it to good use. He loses Spock, but he wins the affection and respect of his son.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Sorry for the overlong post, but I've been thinking about this movie a lot lately. It's got a good deal of substance for thoughtful viewers to contemplate.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sat,  3 Sep  2022, 22:19I'm recovering from covid at the moment. Otherwise, I would've been very interested in hitting up a WOK screening since I've never seen it on the big screen.

I hope you get well soon, colors. I had COVID myself about six weeks ago. It's rotten. But on the upside, your immunity should be boosted once you're over it. Use the isolation time to catch up on your reading and watch plenty of films.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sat,  3 Sep  2022, 22:19Perhaps it is. If you start that thread, count me in. Because I've spent decades trying to figure out exactly which genre Jaws fits into. And I'm no closer to figuring it out now than when I started.

That's going to be a fun thread. I'm keen to mount a defence of Murray Hamilton's character. He gets a bad rap these days, but I reckon he was an underrated mayor who did his best under difficult circumstances.

The 'which genre' question is interesting too. If you count Jaws as a horror movie, as opposed to a thriller or disaster film, then it's technically a Universal monster movie.

QuoteIn the recently published Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Book there's an interview with Nicholas Meyer in which he's asked if he regrets not having a face-to-face confrontation between Kirk and Khan. Meyer answers no, saying that it would have been "cheesy, stereotyped and familiar" to have them duke it out like gladiators. Fun though it would have been to see Khan and Kirk fight in person again, I agree that it's better they didn't. Kirk shouldn't really be able to compete with Khan in physical terms anyway. The only advantage he has over Khan is his knowledge of 23rd century technology. There's a line to this effect in the Director's Cut, where after surviving their first encounter with the Reliant Kirk says something like, "The only reason we're still alive is because I know more about these ships than he does."

Always wondered if the fight between Kirk and Kruge in the subsequent film was added to appease Shatner, who I'm sure was all in for another brawl with Montalban. Judging from Meyer's prior interviews and commentaries, it sounded like he had his work cut out for him to make Shatner play Kirk the way he did in Wrath of Khan so that he didn't come off as his exuberant self, which is not what this Kirk is supposed to be. 

Quote from: Kamdan on Mon,  5 Sep  2022, 21:31
Always wondered if the fight between Kirk and Kruge in the subsequent film was added to appease Shatner, who I'm sure was all in for another brawl with Montalban.

Possibly. Shatner's often said that he would have liked to have shot a scene with Montalban. But from what I've read about their acting styles, it might have proved difficult. Nicholas Meyer said both actors required direction, albeit in different ways. In Montalban's case, he was so used to playing Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island that he initially approached the role in a theatrical manner, projecting his voice loudly as though he were on stage. Meyer pointed this out and helped him scale back his performance to the pitch-perfect level we see in the finished film.

And as you say, Shatner would usually attack each scene with a level of energy inconsistent with the character's midlife ennui. So Meyer would make him do take after take after take, until eventually he was so worn down that his lack of energy would manifest in his performance. The tiredness he expressed was then perfect for the world weariness Kirk was meant to be experiencing at that stage of his life. People can make fun of Shatner's acting all they like, but I think his performance in TWOK is excellent. He'd played that character so many times, and yet still managed to reveal different emotional sides of him that audiences hadn't seen before.

I've read that to get those iconic performances out of them, Meyer had to take a different approach with each actor. Supposedly Montalban would usually get his scenes in the first few takes, while Shatner would require a larger number of takes to hit the right note. For that reason, having them appear together in the same scene might have been tricky. But I don't regret not seeing them slug it out again. We already saw them fight mano a mano in 'Space Seed'. They duel one another at the end of TWOK too, only they use their starships instead of their fists. Elsewhere we get to see a small amount of Kirk-fu during the fight scene in the Regula cave.

I do enjoy the fight in The Search for Spock. Kruge lacked Khan's finesse and superior intellect. Khan was obviously well versed in violence, as evidenced by the way he took down the Enterprise security guards in 'Space Seed' and the way he massacred the crew of Regula One in TWOK, but he typically favoured manipulating others into doing his dirty work for him. Whether it was seducing McGivers to help him hijack the Enterprise or taking control of Terrell and Chekov with the Ceti eels, he wouldn't needlessly endanger himself if he could use manipulation to achieve his aims. By contrast, Kruge would needlessly place himself in harm's way just for the glory of getting blood on his hands. A good example of this is when he stops one of his underlings from shooting the Genesis worm so he can test his strength against it.


It makes sense for someone like that to want to settle his score with Kirk in hand-to-hand combat. Meyer contrasts Khan with General Chang in the Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Book, saying that while Khan is all heart, Chang is all head. If that's so, then Kruge is somewhere in the middle. He's passionate like Khan, but shares Chang's tactical inclination towards realpolitik. He's certainly no diplomat. The final fight between him and Kirk is an expression of pure rage and hatred. Kirk killed most of Kruge's crew, and Kruge killed Kirk's son. They're like two animals going at it as the world disintegrates around them. The bestial nature of that dénouement offers a counterpoint to the more tactical showdown between the Enterprise and the Reliant at the end of TWOK.

One of the strengths of the Genesis Trilogy is that the three films don't just lazily repeat one another. The fact they have very different finales is a good example of this. The Wrath of Kahn ends with a space battle. The Search for Spock ends with a hand-to-hand fight. The Voyage Home ends with the Bounty crashing in the ocean and the sequence where Kirk has to swim through the flooded decks to release the whales. All three finales are exciting in their own way, and they each exemplify a different type of Star Trek story.

In further celebration of TWOK's 40th anniversary, it's been announced that Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek: Khan – Ceti Alpha V audio drama has been given the go ahead. The series, penned by Meyer, takes place during the years of Khan's exile and will be presented as a scripted podcast.


Khan's exile has already been explored in other mediums. First there was Greg Cox's 2005 novel To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh. Then there was the Star Trek: Khan – Ruling in Hell comic book miniseries published by IDW in 2011. I don't need to know more about that part of Khan's story, but since this is Meyer writing I'm willing to give it a listen.

I'm generally not into fan fiction, but for years now I've been seeing recommendations everywhere for Star Trek Continues, a TOS fan series produced between 2013 and 2017. I finally decided to give it a shot, and I'm glad I did. It's by far the best fan production I've seen for any franchise. And it's the first Star Trek production of the past twenty years that I've actually enjoyed. A testament to its quality lies in the fact I can forget it's a fan-made series about a minute into each episode. It's so absorbing, I feel like I'm watching missing episodes of TOS.


The show does a great job of capturing the look and feel of sixties Trek. I've read that the people behind it managed to get hold of the set designs from the original series in order to recreate the Enterprise precisely. It's also lit, shot and edited to look like the classic series, using the original score, and they've applied some kind of digital grain filter to approximate the look of 1960s 35mm film stock. It's uncanny how similar it feels to TOS Trek. The production values are excellent.

The cast is also good. Vic Mignogna manages to capture Kirk's mannerisms well, and from certain camera angles he even resembles a young Shatner. Scottie is played by Chris Doohan, the son of the original Scottie James Doohan. The first episode features Michael Forest reprising his role as Apollo from the original series episode 'Who Mourns for Adonais?' Several TNG actors also make guest appearances (playing new characters), including Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis and John de Lancie.


Jason Isaacs, Lou Ferrigno, Erin Gray and Mark Rolston all guest star in episodes, and Doctor Who actors Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant also make appearances. I mentioned years ago in the Doctor Who thread that I was featured in a newspaper article with Colin Baker when I was 10 years old, where we were photographed and interviewed together, so it was nice for me to see someone I've met in a Star Trek production.

It's not just the cast and production values that are impressive. The quality of the writing is also high and each episode has a central idea at its core, which is a hallmark of classic Trek. I've only watched four of the eleven episodes so far, but I've enjoyed all of them. There's a particularly strong episode titled 'Fairest of Them All' which is a direct continuation of the original series episode 'Mirror, Mirror'. It begins with a recreation of the final conversation between Kirk and the Mirror Universe Spock in 'Mirror, Mirror', and from there we witness what happens when the evil Kirk is returned to his ship, with the entire episode taking place in the Mirror Universe. It's a superb sequel to one of Star Trek's greatest episodes.


I might post more about this series when I've watched the other episodes, but for now I just wanted to recommend it. Gene Roddenberry's son, Rod Roddenberry, has endorsed the show and said that he thinks his father would have considered it canon. I have no problem accepting it as such. If, like me, you've found that official Trek over the past couple of decades has left you cold, then this fan series is the perfect antidote. TOS fans need to see it.

All eleven episodes are available free on YouTube.

I've been watching TNG over the last few months, and I'm nearly finished the third season, and about to watch the two-part episode of Captain Picard getting abducted by the Borg. I grew up watching standalone episodes of this show, but never got the opportunity to watch its entirety till now.

Luckily, Gene Roddenberry didn't his way and turned Patrick Stewart down for Jean-Luc Picard. Stewart, being the accomplished stage actor he is, brings that level of gravitas and power into this show. As much as I enjoy the humourous moments surrounding Picard, it's scenes such as the moment he feels Sarek's overwhelming grief and anger after undergoing that mind-melding spell make you feel the raw emotion. Such a scene could easily be melodramatic and badly acted, but Stewart nails it.

Even putting aside Stewart's acting range and diplomacy, it's how he conveys the dignity and concern for other species that puts him a class above. Whether Picard angrily rejects a recommendation to go along as the god that a primitive Vulcan race perceived him to be because he refuses to undermine their progress and have them return to superstitious thinking, or shows exasperation, concern and fighting for the custody of Data's constructed android daughter, Picard showed integrity and I have a hard time believing anyone other than Stewart would've pulled it off.

I've heard some mixed reactions to the Picard show. I'll get around to seeing at some point in the near future. But no matter what, nothing will undermine my perception of Stewart as Captain Picard in TNG.

Quote from: Silver Nemesis on Sun, 12 Jun  2022, 17:58This month marks the 40th anniversary of The Wrath of Khan (1982), and director Nicholas Meyer recently tweeted that a new book chronicling its production is being published later in the summer. I might pick up a copy.

(https://i.postimg.cc/fLGHq3HQ/st2.png)

This book was delayed by over a year, but it's finally out. I got a copy for my birthday earlier this month and finished reading it a few nights ago. It's a beautiful collectable for fans of TWOK, filled with rare pictures and interesting behind-the-scenes info from a wide variety of sources.

There were several things in the book that I hadn't heard before. For example, an alternate fight scene was shot between Kirk and David. You can see an image from this scene on one of the posters, and there are more images from it in the book.


David would've attacked Kirk and knocked him to the ground before holding a knife to his throat. Carol would then have intervened to reveal that Jim is David's father. In this version of the scene it's made clear that both Kirk and David are unaware of their familial connection until that moment, whereas in the finished film Kirk already knew that David was his son. I like how Kirk casually disarms David in the finished film, so I prefer the reshot version. The reshot scene also better emphasises the theme of middle-aged regret, with Kirk reflecting on his decision to be absent from David's life with a note of sadness and remorse.

Speaking of fight scenes, most of the earlier screenplays featured a one-on-one bout between Kirk and Khan. It would've taken place in the Genesis cave after the scene where the Ceti eel emerges from Chekov's ear. In the finished film Kirk tries baiting Khan into beaming down to Regula and facing him in person, but Khan chooses to remain on the Reliant and leave his nemesis 'buried alive'.

The making of book presents four pages of script from an earlier draft which offers a different turn of events. In this version Kirk would've successfully lured Khan to the Genesis cave with the promise of some information he needed. Khan agrees to duel Kirk ('winner take Genesis') and beams down to Regula accompanied by two seconds. Khan brings swords with him, one of which he gives to Kirk. He then attacks Kirk furiously, and it quickly becomes clear that Jim is 'outclassed' by his superior adversary.

The script describes Khan knocking Kirk off ledges to drive him deeper into the Genesis cave before shattering his weapon. Kirk falls to the ground, bloodied and exhausted, and it's then that Khan deduces he's been tricked. Kirk does not possess the information he wants. Kirk closes his eyes and awaits the coup de grâce, but Khan relents at the last moment and delivers a speech about how he'd rather leave Kirk marooned as his foe once left him. Much of this monologue was reworked into Khan's 'buried alive' speech in the finished film. Kirk doesn't yell 'Khaaaaan!' in this version.

It would've been cool to see Khan and Kirk fight in person, but as the book points out, neither of them actually profits from this bout. They're both in exactly the same position after the fight as they were before it. The only difference is that Khan has the satisfaction of beating Kirk to a bloody pulp. But his decision to deny Kirk the satisfaction of facing him in the finished film feels truer to Khan's character. Kirk exploits Khan's ego and rage to lure him into the Mutara Nebula for the final battle, and that would've seemed less plausible if he'd already lured him into a one-on-one fight earlier in the film. The fact Khan didn't rise to the challenge the first time makes it more believable that he would do so the second time. When he takes the Reliant into the Mutara Nebula it's to make absolutely certain that Kirk is dead. He doesn't want to repeat his earlier mistake of giving Kirk a chance to live. So again, I'd say the finished version is better.

Another interesting thing I learnt from the book is that Montalban's stunt double, and the main stunt coordinator on TWOK, was Bill Couch, Sr., whose brother Chuck Couch had doubled for Montalban in 'Space Seed'.

Montalban's daughter contributed some input to the book prior to her death in 2021. She recalls how her father worked out for three hours every morning from 3 am to 6 am before filming in order to maintain his muscular physique. The book contains pictures of the makeup artists applying the blood and scars to his torso for the film's finale, clearly showing that his physique was real and not prosthetic as some fans have claimed. There's also a quote from Nicholas Meyer in which he definitively lays that rumour to rest and confirms Montalban's muscles were real.

There's an interesting section about the movie's novelisation and how the studio withheld the final chapters from the publisher to prevent spoilers about Spock's death from spreading. They considered various options about how to handle the novelisation, with one idea being to omit the ending of the film from the novel altogether, and another being to allow people who bought the book to collect the missing chapters after the film's release. Ultimately they decided to include the ending of the film in the novelisation, but withheld the relevant chapters from the publisher for as long as possible.

There are lots of other interesting things in the book, such as the deleted subplot about Khan's young son, or the unused idea of bringing back the character Janet Wallace (played by Sarah Marshall) from the TV episode 'The Deadly Years' to be David's mother before Carol Marcus was created. For Wrath of Khan fans it's well worth owning.

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Sat, 14 Nov  2020, 22:47I'll also defend Star Trek- The Motion Picture until Armageddon. There are tons of movies out there that I absolutely adore but wish would be longer. TMP is basically a really ambitious episode of TOS spread out into a feature length movie. That plays for me. The slower pace, the more cerebral tone, the ponderous nature of the plotting, for me those are features, not bugs.

I watched TMP for the first time in twenty-odd years a few weeks ago and I concur with this sentiment. I reckon it got a bad wrap because it was compared unfavourably to Star Wars. It's a lot more artistic and not the kind of film to make action figure merchandise for.

I reckon if TMP had been released in the early seventies, the reaction would've been much more positive. It's a very well-crafted film, not just for the special effects but the context of the film itself. The theme surrounding sentience within the V'Ger satellite is something I'm not really sure how any Star Trek fan could dislike, and the tension between Kirk and Decker shows the former isn't as infallible as one would've thought.

https://youtu.be/9K5fa_C5jnQ

https://youtu.be/bdT9NbqN5tY

When Star Trek is at its best, it can give thought-provoking themes that mirror reality and foreshadow future events, such as Picard fighting for Data's civil rights in a tribunal and arguing his ability to gain sentience is proof he is a living entity in the TNG episode The Measure of a Man. Knowing now AI and androids is a reality, I can easily imagine someone taking a page out of Picard's book.

I give Trekkers massive credit for keeping this franchise alive over the decades, but they were very lucky that studio execs weren't as petty as they are today. If Star Trek was a new show that came out today, the fans would be dismissed as "cultists" and "toxic". I know they may have been dismissed in the past, but in today's climate, the narrative against them would be much worse.

First Contact is streaming for free on YouTube.

Always had a major soft spot for this film. It told a story in Trek canon that needed to be told but hadn't gotten much attention up to that point. Which is strange when you think about what obvious subject matter the episode is. You'd think the story of mankind's first contact with an alien race in the Trek universe would've been done years earlier. But afaik, this is the only telling of that story.

In the main, I enjoy TOS more than TNG. And in my book, Trek TOS films have a stronger batting average than the Next Gen films. What I mean, Wrath Of Khan is amazing and The Final Frontier isn't that bad. Meanwhile, First Contact is very enjoyable but I'd hesitate to call it great and Insurrection is really just a long version of an average episode of TNG.

Still, First Contact is a fun Trek adventure and it puts a bow around a dangling plot thread left over from TNG. For those things alone, it's highly recommended.

Even tho most of you reading this probably saw it in theaters back in 1996. So, hmm.

I enjoyed First Contact when I watched it years ago, even more so now that I've completed watching TNG and everything that Picard had gone through when he was assimilated with the Borg. I do wonder though - if the Borg are destroyed, does that mean Hugh and the others who broke away from the collective are gone too?

Quote from: thecolorsblend on Mon, 25 Dec  2023, 18:11Even tho most of you reading this probably saw it in theaters back in 1996. So, hmm.

I actually missed First Contact during its theatrical run. I can't remember why I didn't go to see it. I saw The Undiscovered Country and Generations when they first came out, and I remember going to see Insurrection with my brother on the final day of the Christmas holidays in early January 1999. But for some reason I didn't see First Contact until it was released on video. Now I wish I had seen it on the big screen, because it's clearly the best of the TNG films.

While Generations had one foot stuck in the past – both in terms of Kirk's role and also the sets and uniforms carried over from The Next Generation TV series – First Contact draws a line of demarcation and establishes a new aesthetic to distinguish the TNG movies from the TV show that preceded them. We get stylish new Starfleet uniforms, the Enterprise E is introduced, and Geordi gets cybernetic implants to replace his iconic visor. If Generations was a transitional movie, then First Contact feels like the first 100% TNG movie. It's a much more confident film, benefiting from a pacy script and slick direction by Jonathan Frakes. First Contact establishes a distinctive look and tone that would continue to characterise the movies throughout the remainder of the Picard era.


If Generations has parallels with The Motion Picture (both are often dismissed as weaker entries in the franchise, both are sometimes said to have created false starts for their respective TV casts transitioning to the big screen, and both movies are IMO underrated), then First Contact mirrors the success of The Wrath of Khan. Like TWOK, it brings back an old foe from the TV series, has more action than its predecessor and a darker tone. Alice Krige gives a menacing performance as the sinister and seductive Borg Queen, probably the most memorable villain of the TNG movie era. The whole idea of a collective like the Borg having a queen who identifies as 'I' rather than 'we' is a little strange, but if we can accept the idea of the Borg singling out an individual to serve as their mouthpiece, as in the case of Picard/Locutus, then it's feasible they might single out an individual to serve as a sort of figurehead for their collective.

First Contact contains several impressive action set pieces, with the two most memorable being the space battle against the Borg cube and the zero-gravity shootout on the Enterprise's deflector dish. The latter scene is particularly creative and well staged. The storyline does a good job of giving each of the main cast members something to do, and it's nice to see Dwight Schultz make an appearance as Barclay, one of my favourite characters from the Next Gen era. Picard is a lot more emotional here than in earlier appearances, and I like the fact the film portrays him in such a flawed way. Usually he's always calm and in control, but here his emotional equanimity is compromised by his PTSD. Some fans have taken issue with his aggressive emotionality in this film, but I'm ok with it. His PTSD, resulting from his de-assimilation, was hinted at in the TV series but never fully resolved. The movie shows that repressed trauma rising to the surface in a way that feels believable.

I don't have too many criticisms of First Contact, but there are a few. I was never sure how the Borg captured Data. One moment he's slapping them all over the place with minimum effort, then we see him get dragged under a door. Then what? The next time we see him he's awakening in the Borg's lair. How did they subdue him? I don't know if there's a deleted scene that fills the gap, but it feels like something's missing from the story there. James Cromwell gives an entertaining performance as Zefram Cochrane, but I prefer the more conventionally heroic version of the character Glenn Corbett played in the TOS episode 'Metamorphosis'. I'm also not keen on the use of Captain Ahab as an analogy for Picard's thirst for revenge. That particular literary allusion was already used very effectively in The Wrath of Khan, and here it feels recycled.

Other than that, First Contact is a really good sci-fi film. I'd rank it as the second best Star Trek movie of the nineties after The Undiscovered Country. Actually scratch that – Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie of the nineties. But if we're talking official entries, then Treks VI and VIII are the best that decade offered.

I re-watched all the TNG movies on Blu-ray back in 2022, and I think they hold up rather well. I'm primarily a TOS fan and I consider the original Kirk films to be peak Trek. Even The Final Frontier, for all its faults, is a really entertaining movie. The Next Gen films aren't on that level for me, but they're still enjoyable and a little underrated these days. Picard's later cinematic stories were overshadowed by trendier franchises when they first came out (The Lord of the Rings, the Star Wars Prequels, The Matrix, Spider-Man and Harry Potter), but they're worth revisiting now.


They're unlikely to convert non-Trekkies, and they don't reach the highs of the TNG TV series, but fans of nineties sci-fi cinema should give them another chance. I'd certainly rank them above the Kelvin Timeline stuff that came afterwards.