Absolute worst odd-numbered Star Trek movie

[a35362]

(Please note: I'm not going to post these every day. But I know there are a lot of Trek fans here.)

From the 8/31 IMDb daily poll:

"Of the odd-numbered -- and thus doomed -- entries in the Star Trek movie series, which one was the absolute worst?"

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is way, way out in front. Well, duh.

[Sir Rhosis]

I have always hated the sloppy ease that fans fall into by stating "the odd numbered curse" as if it is irrefutable fact.

"Star Trek (I): The Motion Picture" is not a godawful movie. It is overlong and in need of an edit, but is not in the same "bad" category as "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier."

"Star Trek III: The Search For Spock," while having the most godawful science of all the films, at its heart, has a powerful message, i. e. loyalty and friendship are worth risking all for, otherwise "the cost would have been my soul." For those reasons alone, I'd give it a favorable review, but I also love the ending (the sappy part in me).

I know people who despise "the one with those fucking whales" or "the one with Mr. Roarke" in it, etc. Just because most people say there is an odd-numbered curse, doesn't necessarily mean there is. Depends on what your definition of bad and curse "is is."

Sir Rhosis

But to answer the OP, yeah "Final Frontier" (IMHO) had few saving graces, perhaps the scene with McCoy and hs father was the only one. Dee Kelly always said "Goddamned" so well ("Khan" and "Final Frontier")--sort of spat it out in that native Georgian twang of his.

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Definitely Insurrection. Sucked. Really sucked. Really sucked a lot. No redeeming value at all other than to show how NOT to make a Star Trek movie.

[rjung]

Originally posted by a35362
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is way, way out in front. Well, duh.

Doubes on the duh. Scotty knocking himself out cold on the bulkhead sums up everything that was wrong with this movie: bad writing, bad directing, bad slapstick (yes, there's good slapstick), bad comedy, and William Shatner being vindicative just because he was the director (suffice it to say that Shatner and Doohan have a long history of mutual dislike).

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by rjung
Scotty knocking himself out cold...William Shatner being vindicative [/b]

That was Shatner's idea? I thought it was just stupid writing. What a jerk.

[yosemite]

Star Trek V's sole saving graces are the opening scenes in Yosemite National Park (sigh) and the great music by Jerry Goldsmith (sigh). Other than that, it sucked bilge water SO bad!

One of my filmmaker friends made a very good "MST3K" take-off on ST V that was SO good, I was doing spit-takes while watching the tape. That film SO needed to be spoofed, and he did a fabulous job of it.

So, my vote is for ST V. A truly dreadful film. Some of the other films were bad in a way, or had weak spots, but ST V was a true stinker, through and through.

And yes, stories of William Shatner being a shithead abound. I'm sure some of them are true.

[Fern Forest]

Originally posted by a35362
(Please note: I'm not going to post these every day. But I know there are a lot of Trek fans here.)

From the 8/31 IMDb daily poll:

"Of the odd-numbered -- and thus doomed -- entries in the Star Trek movie series, which one was the absolute worst?"

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is way, way out in front. Well, duh.

I'll fifth your duh!

[SPOOFE]

Definitely Insurrection. Sucked. Really sucked. Really sucked a lot. No redeeming value at all other than to show how NOT to make a Star Trek movie.

Am I the only one who saw the whole "Let's have the Enterprise skim the hull of the Giant Ring-Collector Ship as it blows up" thing as a rip-off of the escape from the Death Star II in ROTJ?

Beyond that, the whole movie played like an overlong episode. Several things were pretty cool, but for the most part, it was... just... another episode.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by SPOOFE
Am I the only one ... as a rip-off of ROTJ?
[/b]

Yes.

[LordVor]

Originally posted by Mr. Blue Sky
Definitely Insurrection.

"Deanna, take us out of orbit!" Riker.
<5 minutes>
"I MEANT INTO SPACE, DON'T CRASH US INTO THE BLOODY PLANET!"
(Riker, drowned out by the crashing noises.)

LV

[Pepper Mill]

V

[bafaa]

Originally posted by Sir Rhosis

I know people who despise "the one with those fucking whales" or "the one with Mr. Roarke" in it, etc.

Blasphemy!

The Final Frontier was the only Star Trek movie I actually hated.

[Sir Rhosis]

In general, yes, I would say blasphemy myself, but in the case of The Voyage Home, I've ran across hard-core dress in your Star Fleet uniforms to go to church Trekkies who don't like humor intruding into their vision of what Trek is.

Actually, to be honest, the only slams I've really heard from people IRL about Wrath of Khan is in regard to Montalban's way-over-the-top Shatnereque performance, which I rather liked in a grandiose way. Plus, now, Judson's Scott's early-80s feathered back shag haircut is starting to look rather dated, sort of lke my high school photographs.

Sir Rhosis

[carnivorousplant]

TWOK was the best Trek movie ever made.
It also has the best Trek line, Kirk To Khan, looking over his glasses:

"Here it comes."

Who the Hell is Judson Scott?

[Katisha]

Originally posted by Sir Rhosis
In general, yes, I would say blasphemy myself, but in the case of The Voyage Home, I've ran across hard-core dress in your Star Fleet uniforms to go to church Trekkies who don't like humor intruding into their vision of what Trek is.

Heh. Wonder if they liked "The Trouble With Tribbles," then?

Actually, to be honest, the only slams I've really heard from people IRL about Wrath of Khan is in regard to Montalban's way-over-the-top Shatnereque performance, which I rather liked in a grandiose way.

None about Montalban's cleavage, though?

carnivorousplant, Judson Scott played Khan's sidekick (can't recall the character's name).

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Katisha
[

carnivorousplant, Judson Scott played Khan's sidekick (can't recall the character's name).

"Joachim! I shall avenge you!"

"Avenge my Aunt Sally! 'Don't go into the nebula', I said. 'Shields will be useless,' I said 'He tasks me ! He tasks me!' you said...(croaks)

Actually, I think that guy did die of AIDS. He wasn't bad, but all of Khan's guys were too young to be of his sleeper bunch and to old to be their children.

Montalban's cleavage was real, BTW. A tough guy.

[carnivorousplant]

No, that was the guy who played Kirk's son David who died.

So did the woman who played Carol Marcus. There's an urban legend here.

[bafaa]

Didn't Khan's sidekick play the title character in that very short-lived 80's series The Phoenix?

[Czarcasm]

Kicking this space-puppy over to Cafe Society.

[a35362]

From the IMDb:

Merritt Butrick (David Marcus) died in 1989 of AIDS.
Bibi Besch (Carol Marcus) died in 1996 of breast cancer.
Judson Scott (Joachim) appears to still be with us.

Some great quotes from that movie!

"Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny....Logic clearly dictates that that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"Or the one."
"You are my superior officer. You are also my friend. I have been and always shall be yours."

"Khan, you've got Genesis, but you don't have me. You were going to kill me, Khan. You're gonna have to come down here. You're gonna have to come down here."
"I've done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on...hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet. Buried alive. Buried alive...."
"Khaaaaaaaan! Khaaaaaaaan!"

"The ship...out of danger?"
"Yes!"
"Don't grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh..."
"...the needs of the few."
"Or the one. I never took the Kobayashi Maru test until now. What do you think of my solution?"
"Spock...!"
"I have been, and always shall be, your friend....Live long and prosper."

[Legomancer]

I've heard other complaints about The Wrath of Khan, such as, in the nebula battle, Spock discovers that Khan is only thinking in two dimensions (which is funny because the entire Star Trek Universe is CONSTANTLY treating space as two-dimensional. Their solution? Use the 3-dimensional nature of space - to sneak up on him from behind. Rather than simply firing on him from below or something.

I've always felt that, despite all the "needs of the many" speeches, Spock's death seems very tacked on and pointless at the end. I also felt it was cheap since they wasted very little time getting him back.

That being said, I still think Khan is the best of the bunch, but then, I've never been much of a Trek fan. None of them are that great, IMO.

Also, I don't want this thread to go by without someone mentioning "Generations". Oh my god what a load of stupidity. I remember looking at my watch at one point and saying "Holy crap, this movie is almost over and nothing's happened!"

[hansel]

I would have said V, until I saw Insurrection. I was so horrified that shuttles come equipped with Karaoke machines that I almost walked out. I groaned out loud when Ryker piloted the Enterprise by a joystick. I swore off Star Trek movies altogether when Data said "Lock and Load".

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by hansel
Karaoke machines ...

You sure that wasn't a replicator?

piloted the Enterprise by a joystick.

Stupid but cool. I wouldn't want to fly with buttons.

... Data said "Lock and Load".

Hell, Data is goofy.

[Katisha]

Originally posted by a35362

Judson Scott (Joachim) appears to still be with us.

He is. In fact, he did a guest turn on X-Files last season. Remember that strange guy who lived out in the desert with former alien abductees? That was him.

BTW, Insurrection was generally crummy, although I can forgive them, somewhat, because of the extensive use of G&S (a sequence, I know, which everyone on the entire planet but me detested ).

[Laughing Lagomorph]

Insurrection was indeed a stretched-out regular episode, and not one of the better ones, either. Generations, I thought, was vastly overrated, but I seemed to be in the minority when it came out (although Roger Ebert panned it, too, if I remember correctly). The thing that made #V the worst of all, though, was it also looked cheap. All the scenes looked muddy, as if they didn't even bother cleaning the camera lens. III takes too much unwarranted abuse, I think.

[TheeGrumpy]

Exactly. ST:5 is the worst because, for all its other faults, it looks bad. I read the "making of" book by Shatner's daughter where Big Daddy complains about how little money he has to fulfill his "vision" of the ultimate Trek adventure (particularly the ending). What a whiner!

Generations and Insurrection rank higher than Final Frontier simply because they are nice to look at. John Alonzo's cinematography in ST:G is quite good -- unfortunately, the plot stinks to the edge of the galaxy, which is why I rank Insurrection slightly better. Both are forgettable, however -- a sin which First Contact has the decency to not commit.

ST:TMP is a bad movie, too. In fact, all four of these bad ones are quite unwatchable (Insurrection merely for being pointless). But TMP at least has memorable lines and images. "Spock, transmit now!" to name only one.

[TheeGrumpy]

A little addendum: Voyage Home actually has some chintzy looking photography and staging, but it is redeemed by a worthwhile plot, characters, and dialogue.

[Sir Rhosis]

So, can we agree that Star Trek III: The Search For Spock is the best of the odd-numbered films, great in its own way, despite its flaws (bad science, terrible Saavik, etc.)?

Sir Rhosis

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Sir Rhosis
The Search For Spock is the best of the odd-numbered films
Sir Rhosis

"Then I hope pain is something you enjoy."

[kasuo]

"Wow, that's a great question -- tough one, though. But what does one gauge his response on? Physical prowess? Keen detection skills? The ability to banter well with super villains?"

I would have to say Final Frontier was too high and mighty for itself; seriously.

[Yankee Blue]

Old cast, no contest Final Frontier was so bad that I could have shredded the video cassette in order to fertilize my garden if I'd been out of horse manure.

New cast, Generations -- but ONLY after the new cast put in their appearence. I thought the first 20 or so minutes with the oldsters was great. The mysterious/heroic death/disappearence of Kirk was by far and away a more appropriate way out for a space legend (I'm talking the character here, not Shatner for heaven's sake)than what happened later. As far as I'm concerned it's a great short that should have ended with that sequence.

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

Originally posted by bafaa
Didn't Khan's sidekick play the title character in that very short-lived 80's series The Phoenix?

Yep.

Disclaimer: I take "the Star Trek Films" to mean I through VI inclusive, and that's it. There. Were. No. Movies. After. That. One. Don't even try to tell me otherwise.

That said, I agree it was V. III was actually decent, it only suffered from being compared to its immediate predecessor. I used to think the first one sucked pretty bad too, but on repeat viewing (and, I admit, access to the fast forward button) I have mellowed out on that one.

[DSYoungEsq]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was horribly dissapointing in most every way at the time, as I recall from watching it in 1980 (?) when it came out. It was first and foremost nothing more than a remake of an episode of the original series. Second, it has absolutely no plot to speak of beyond hang around alien life form, do nothing to stop alien life form, watch in wonder as alien life form transforms into even more alien life form. A most un-Trek-like movie. AND, it really could have lasted only about 50 minutes, which is about how long it actually is if you cut out all the stupid time spent surveying the newly rebuilt Enterprise and the grand tour of the alien.

Star Trek: The Search For Spock was the best of the odd-numbered movies. It is still a poor entry, mostly for being over-acted, but you have to love some of the things that happen. My worst memory of that movie is having the drama of the destruction of the Enterprise taken totally away by the premature marketing of Taco Bell's glasses which included one showing "Enterprise Destroyed".

The cross-over movie actually shows quite well the main difference between the original series and the Next Generation. In most original series episodes, you have one main plot. There are no side plots or stories. The whole show revolves around the main plot, usually resolved in some dramatic way by the main characters (with occaisional whimsy thrown in; A Piece of the Action is a great episode, and TTWT is just great TV). TNG, on the other hand, always has an A plot and a B plot, with often a C plot tossed in for good measure. As the show proceeds, you have the crew attempting some resolution of the A plot, during which the B plot results in some character development for someone on the Enterprise. In some cases, the damn show was so wimpy, you were tempted to think the B plot was actually the A plot, and with the notable exception of episodes involving the Borg, there rarely was much drama involved in resolution of the A plot (unless your idea of drama is Denise Crosby battling some alien woman with a metal "claw" on one hand in a cage ... ok, ok, don't get me started).

The cross-over movie shows the difference quite well. The original characters are dealing with a dramatic situation, with no distracting side-plots. Then we switch to the later series, and all of a sudden, bingo, A plot, B plot, relatively benign resolution of the A plot, yadda yadda.

Thank goodness they made First Contact.

[tracer]

It would appear that the IMDb poll linked to in the OP is now:

Of the even-numbered--and usually better--entries in the Star Trek movie series, which was the best one?
The Wrath of Khan is winning by a landslide.

[erislover]

Hmmm... I seem to remember not disliking any of the Star Trek movies, though I've yet to see Insurrection.

Perhaps my tastes are unusually low.

[Dr. Rieux]

So, I take it that I'm the only one who thinks Insurrection is the best of the Next Generation films so far?

But I have to agree with the concensus--Final Frontier is the worst Star Trek movie, of any number.

[RickJay]

Originally posted by tracer
It would appear that the IMDb poll linked to in the OP is now:

Of the even-numbered--and usually better--entries in the Star Trek movie series, which was the best one?
The Wrath of Khan is winning by a landslide.

It's a shame that the only way they could get "The Wrath of Khan" to be as good as it was was to exclude poor old Gene Roddenberry from the entire process. From what I've read, if he'd had his way, there never would have been a ST III, because he would have made such a stinker nobody would ever pay to see a Star Trek movie again.

I thought one of the many neat touches in "The Wrath of Khan" was that Kirk and Khan never met in the film, mano-y-mano. They did all their fighting at a distance. Originally they planned a hand-to-hand battle but decided to keep it the way it ended up being, which is unusual in a space opera and yet seems so appropriate.

IMO, "The Wrath of Khan" is so much better than any other Star Trek movie it's embarassing. But "The Final Frontier" makes the rest all look good anyway...

[pldennison]

I'm not a Trekkie or Trekker by any means, but I've always enjoyed watching the original series and the movies. I haven't seen Insurrection, but I've seen the rest, and would rate them thus:

Wrath of Khan
First Contact
The Voyage Home
The Undiscovered Country
Generations
Search for Spock
TMP
Final Frontier

[Zebra]

Originally posted by LordVor

"Deanna, take us out of orbit!" Riker.
<5 minutes>
"I MEANT INTO SPACE, DON'T CRASH US INTO THE BLOODY PLANET!"
(Riker, drowned out by the crashing noises.)

LV

Deanna crashing the ship the first time she gets to drive happend in Generations.

I hate V and I hate IX. I especailly hate that all the next gen movies end with Picard fighting some old man while on scaffolding. (ok in 8 it was the Borg Queen and it was cool)

Since I like TOS better than Next Gen I'll say Insurrection is the worst.

[Fiver]

Generations was redeemed entirely by the saucer section crash-landing on the planet and the aftermath of that, when Data found his cat alive and burst into tears. There has been no better sequence than that one in all the movies.

Insurrection was utterly pointless, and it undermined all Data's growth as a character by having him "leave behind" his emotion chip when he went off on his assignment.

[Pixellent]

Okay. I swore to myself I wasn't going to let myself get sucked into this thread, but I can't help it. The gravitational pull of Roddenberry Dependency is just too much.

Besides, I think I can spark a lively little debate with the following statement:

Resolved: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was the absolute, undeniable worst of the series. Utter, total, unredeemable smelly crap.

And I can prove it. At length. In detail. Far more detail than any sane person would ask for.

So ask me. Aw, g'wan, ask me. You know you want to....

[Atreyu]

Originally posted by Pixellent
And I can prove it. At length. In detail. Far more detail than any sane person would ask for.

I don't doubt it. There are persons out there who are complete loons about Star Trek.

So, with a certain amount of trepidation, I'll bite.

Explain to me how #6 was worse than #5. I've always regarded the former as an adequate, if unspectacular movie, and the latter as a complete waste of celluoid, a mockery of all things Star Trek, and a thinly disguised attempt to see how fast one can get Gene Roddenberry to spin in his space capsule.

I will grant you that everything about the "Valeris" character makes me cringe.

[jab1]

Best TOS movie: Wrath of Khan
Worst TOS movie: The Final Frontier

Best TNG movie: First Contact
Worst TNG movie: Insurrection

[tracer]

Legomancer wrote:

I've heard other complaints about The Wrath of Khan,

And let me give you three more:

• How the heck did the entire crew of the U.S.S. Reliant fail to notice that Ceti Alpha VI had blown up? And that a totally different planet was now occupying its orbital slot? And conveniently forget that Ceti Alpha was the star system that Khan had been deported to, even though this deportation had not been kept secret from Star Fleet?
  
• How could the explosion of Ceti Alpha VI shift the orbit of Ceti Alpha V?! They're two different planets, millions of miles apart in space, fer cryin' out loud. Shock waves don't travel through a vacuum.
  
• The growing brain creatures are supposed to "wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex." The cerebral cortex is the entire outer layer of the brain. They'd have to be ten or twenty times longer than the critters we see in the film to "wrap themselves" completely around something that large.

[Pixellent]

[quote]Originally posted by Atreyu

Explain to me how #6 was worse than #5. I've always regarded the former as an adequate, if unspectacular movie, and the latter as a complete waste of celluoid, a mockery of all things Star Trek, and a thinly disguised attempt to see how fast one can get Gene Roddenberry to spin in his space capsule.

Okay. I note for the record that you asked for it. There's a lot. This may have to be a multipart post.

On general principles, the reason #6 is, to me, the worst one, is because it seems like a better movie than it really is...until you stop and think about any one part of the movie for more than thirty seconds. it's like a badly-knit sweater: the more you pull at it, the farther it falls apart, until you are left with the remains of one of the laziest, worst-constructed, boneheaded, illogical screenplays I've seen in years.

Let's start with the premise:

The Klingon moon Praxis, the key energy-producing facility for the Klingon Empire, has a catastrophic accident (caused by "over-mining and insufficient safety precautions) that will, in fifty years, result in a deadly pollution of the Klingon Empire's ozone. The Empire hasn't sufficient money to combat this disaster due to its enormous military budget. Therefore, the Klingons have sued for peace with the Federation.

If that paragraph seems like it makes no sense at all, that's because it doesn't -- and it is, by the way, taken directly from several pieces of actual dialogue from the film, slightly paraphrased by me. It's so full of illogical reasoning and gibberish science-fiction I hardly know where to begin, but I'll try:

• Praxis produces most of the energy for the entire Empire. We must assume that a galactic empire is composed of at least one home planet and tens, perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands, of worlds stretched across an uncountable number of light-years. How can the physical resources of a SINGLE MOON support the energy needs of such an entity, to the extent that its destruction would plunge the Empire into a crisis that threatens its very existence? And how, in god's name, is the energy delivered? Broadcast power? Tankers hauling coal?

• How -- just how -- do you make a moon explode by mining it too much?

• The explosion of Praxis, according to Spock, has created "a deadly pollution of their ozone." How in HELL can the explosion of a moon affect the ozone on the moon's primary in the slightest? And even if it did, why don't the Klingons abandon their homeworld and move to one of their tens or hundreds or thousands of annexed planets? It's a GALACTIC EMPIRE, for christ's sake -- they must move entire populations with little more difficulty than you or I change apartments!

You get the idea -- and this is just in the film's first ten minutes. The entire movie is CRAMMED with stuff like this, and for one very simple reason: Nicholas Meyer isn't telling a Star Trek story, or any kind of science-fiction story: he's telling a thinly (VERY thinly) disguised metaphor for the end of the Cold War, and every bit of plotting and psuedoscience is nothing more than the Chernobyl Incident, dressed up in the flimsiest technobabble imaginable. Meyer doesn't even bother to analyze a single one of his premises to see if they hold water. The clear attitude here is, "Fuck it, I'm making a statement about detente, and i want people to know that's what I'm doing, and I don't have time for all this nonsense about scientific accuracy, narrative consistency, or storytelling logic."

It gets worse. Much, much worse. But I'll hold that back for the next post, assuming people want to read it.

[SpoilerVirgin]

Originally posted by carnivorousplant
TWOK was the best Trek movie ever made.

IMHO, The Wrath of Khan was the best movie ever made, period.

Of course, I have been known to cite Gentleman's Agreement as my favorite movie under certain circumstances. But in my heart I know that nothing will ever be better than TWOK.

As for those odd numbers, V is definitely the worst, and III is the best.

Among non-Star Trek fans, The Voyage Home usually wins -- it's the most accessible of the films.

[Lute Skywatcher]

Originally posted by carnivorousplant

That was Shatner's idea? I thought it was just stupid writing. What a jerk. [/b]

Could be both, Baldy has a writing credit.

[Cliffy]

Enh. Upon re-viewing, ST: V isn't as bad as I thought it was. And there are good bits. I actually laughed when Scotty knocked himself out, but it would have been much better as a throwaway gag than as a plot point. (IIRC, the ship later gets into a fix because they can't find Scotty, right?)

--Cliffy

[TheeGrumpy]

Originally posted by Pixellent
On general principles, the reason #6 is, to me, the worst one, is because it seems like a better movie than it really is...until you stop and think about any one part of the movie for more than thirty seconds.

Pardon me for stealing your thunder, but I think I see where you're going. For example, Chancellor Gorkon is killed with an elaborate plot using a prototype Bird of Prey to frame Kirk for the murder. Later, the plot to assassinate the UFP president involves... a guy with a rifle in the window (wearing a rubber mask in the extended version). Granted, the conspirators would still have acheived their goal, but there did seem to lose some imagination.

Thus, it can fairly be said that ST6 benefits from not being an odd-numbered Trek film. I mean, Insurrection is not that much worse than First Contact IMHO, but it has the cachet of a doomed odd-numbered flick.

And since this thread is about the odd-numbered movies, I won't point out that Wrath of Khan also contains a continuity error as Khan is approaching the initial rendezvous with Enterprise with Captain Terrell standing in the background, ostensibly after he was left back at Regula One.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Cliffy
Enh. it would have been much better as a throwaway gag

Ah, but how much better the scene where Scott has the bridge and goes head to head with a Klingon: "Let's see if he has the belly for it."

Friday's Child, I believe.