Rate Star Trek Movies!

Cafe Society
1

It’s been a while since we’ve done this, I don’t think since before Nemisis was even in the theaters (can’t find the link). I haven’t seen Nemisis yet so, of course, I can’t rate it… but I would be curious to see how others rate it.

For the ones I have seen, I will rate them as follows:

The Motion Picture - 8
The Wrath of Khan - 1
The Search for Spock - 5
The Voyage Home - 4
The Final Frontier - 9
The Undiscovered Country - 3
Generations -7
First Contact - 2
Insurrection - 6

I will note that I *really liked The Wrath of Khan and First Contact, so much that it was a toss up for first. From 3-6 was extremely close too. ST:V however is the gutter, no doubt about it and TMP isn’t much better… although my recently purchased Directors Cut DVD is supposed to improve on it somehat.

Anyone else?

2

The Motion Picture - 7
The Wrath of Khan - 3
The Search for Spock - 5
The Voyage Home - 1
The Final Frontier - 10
The Undiscovered Country - 4
Generations - 8
First Contact - 2
Insurrection - 9
Nemesis - 6

3

I’d put Khan at 1, and Galaxy Quest at 2, myself.

4

The Motion Picture - 7
The Wrath of Khan - 3
The Search for Spock - didn’t see it
The Voyage Home - 4
The Final Frontier - 8
The Undiscovered Country - 1
Generations - 5
First Contact - 2
Insurrection - 6
Nemesis - didn’t see it

5

The Motion Picture-6
The Wrath of Khan-1
Search for Spock-3
Voyage Home-7
Final Frontier-8
Undiscovered Country-2
Generations-10
First Contact-4
Insurrection-9
Nemisis-5

6
  1. II: Wrath of Khan
  2. VII: First Contact
  3. IV: Voyage Home
  4. VI: Undiscovered Country
  5. III: Search for Spock
  6. X: Nemesis
  7. I: The Motion Picture
  8. VII: Generations
  9. IX: Insurrection
  10. V: Final Frontier

1-2: Would watch again in their entirety
3-5: Would watch extended segments if I ran into them on cable
6-8: Would watch bits & pieces if I happened on them at a good moment
9-10: Wouldn’t watch again at all

7

Khan, then Country, then Home, then Spock, then Original, then Generations, then Final. I really grew to dislike TNG so I didn’t bother watching the rest of them (and from inference it sounds like they were everything I didn’t like in TNG anyway).

8

What, nobody else considers Galaxy Quest a Star Trek movie? I was serious, here, it’s better than most of them.

How about Trekkies?

9

The Motion Picture-5
The Wrath of Khan-2
Search for Spock-6
Voyage Home-1
Final Frontier-9
Undiscovered Country-4
Generations-7
First Contact-3
Insurrection-8
Nemisis-10

10

Rating each out of 10:

9/10 - THE WRATH OF KHAN. Just an absolutely terrific yarn. Exciting, well-written, well-directed, well-acted. Not a coincidence that the production team was specifically ordered to ignore Gene Roddenberry. If only they could do the same to George Lucas.

8/10 - FIRST CONTACT. A little overlong at times and the climax isn’t great, but a generally very good space adventure movie. Good supporting turns by James Cromwell and Alfre Woodward.

6/10 - THE VOYAGE HOME. Kind of goofy, but lighthearted and fun. “There be whales here.”

6/10 - GENERATIONS. Better than I remembered it being when I saw it a second time, but still flawed in a lot of ways. Like a lot of Star Trek movies it suffers from having a cheapo, made-up-on-the-spot villian who has absolutely nothing to do with the series. If they wanted to get Kirk and Picard together, wasn’t that a great opportunity to use Q?

5/10 - THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK. Not a bad movie but a little short on story and plot.

5/10 - NEMESIS. Again not a bad movie, but again, just inventing a forgettable villian to be thrown away in two hours isn’t very compelling. Who gives a crap? Bring back someone from the series.

4/10 - THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY. Why people like this I don’t know; maybe it was shock effect from the previous movie. Generally a poor, overlong, boring movie with plot “twists” that are about as unexpected as a sunrise.

3/10 - INSURRECTION. Wake me up when it’s over. Yet another villian-we’re-just- creating-for-this-movie- and-then-forgetting-about.

3/10 - THE MOTION PICTURE. They spent $40 million on this movie; at the time it was one of the most expensive movies ever made. All that money got them uniforms that look like “Sweatin’ The The Oldies” workout garb, but apparently they did not pay to have a story written.

1/10 - THE FINAL FRONTIER. Just a terrible movie from start to finish.

11

I defense of the $$$ spent…

From what I remember from reading 'ol Billy Shatners book, that figure included monies spent (quite substantial) in the aborted resurrection of the series. They included those figures as they did indeed make use of some of that material, but not much. IIRC, that accounted for more than 1/2 of the total amount “spent” for production of the movie.

12

The Motion Picture - 5
The Wrath of Khan - 9.9
The Search for Spock - 4
The Voyage Home - 8
The Final Frontier - 1
The Undiscovered Country - 7
Generations - 2
First Contact - 6
Insurrection - 4
Nemesis - 6

13

  1. The Wrath of Khan – Best villain, solid FX, some real tension, a touching demise.

  2. The Undiscovered Country – Second best villain, great space battle, wonderful chemistry amongst the cast. The Classic Trek cast was so much better on the big screen than those Next Gen poseurs.

  3. The Voyage Home – A bit silly, but a lot of fun. Bonus points for being tied into the Star Trek trilogy (2, 3, 4) and for Scotty being flustered by a Macintosh. “Hello computer?”

  4. The Search for Spock – Quite cheesy, but damn moving when the Enterprise is toasted. Missed Kirstie Alley and wondered why blowing up the Grissom produced no visible debris… maybe it was due to the tacky pink chairs. Uhura got totally sidelined here, but her scene in the transporter room was sweet.

  5. Generations – The least-offensive of the Next Gen movies, mainly because the first 15 minutes or so has the feel and panache of a real Trek film. Stupid time travel storyline limps to an uninspired conclusion, but the crash of the Enterprise was pretty slick.

  6. First Contact – The beginning of the emasculation of the Borg, finalized in the worst TV show ever, Voyager. The Queen was cool, but the action inside the ship fell flat. The scenes on Earth were pointless, and totally mismatched the tone of the space stuff. Lazy filmmaking.

  7. The Final Frontier – Stupid, stupid plot. But Shatner knew the characters, and each of them gets a good moment or two here. Raised by the quality of the endcap camping scenes. In truth, it’s only the last act that’s a real stinker. But damn, does it smell.

  8. Insurrection – Data gets annoyingly non-emotional again, Picard has zero chemistry with the female lead, and the space battle was too damn quick.

  9. The Motion Picture – An alien force invades earth… very slowly. A total mismatch with the other, better Classic Trek films. The characters don’t sound and rarely act like themselves.

  10. Nemesis – “We need a new Star Trek movie.” “Why don’t we just take all the best elements of the second and sixth one, mishmash them together with a lame plot about cloning and try to pass it off as new?” “Okay, but be sure it sucks.”

14

TMP - 5 (only because the director’s cut makes it seem not as long)

TWOK - 9 (Battle of the ham actors)

TSFS - 4 (Chris Lloyd as a Klingon? Uh…no)

TVH - 7 (Spock cussing was worth it)

TFF - 3 (Bill? stop writing. NOW)

TUC - 8 (Christopher Plummer steals the show)

GEN - 4 (Whoopi Goldberg’s in it. 'nuff said)

FC - 8 (I don’t know why, I just liked it)

INS - -10 (sucked long and hard)

NEM - 6 (fair, but not a good way to go out)

15

The Motion Picture-8
The Wrath of Khan-9
Search for Spock-8
Voyage Home-9
Final Frontier-5
Undiscovered Country-7
Generations-7
First Contact-7
Insurrection-8
Nemesis-6

16

On a scale of one-to-ten:

Wrath of Khan: Ten.

All other Trek movies combined: maybe a seven

17

My favorite is First Contact. It was like a really good, extra long episode. Loved it!

I just saw Nemesis yesterday, and was bitterly disapointed. It sucked.

18

The Motion Picture-8
The Wrath of Khan-1
Search for Spock-5
Voyage Home-3
Final Frontier-2
Undiscovered Country-4
Generations-9
First Contact-7
Insurrection-6
Nemisis-10

19

I screwed up, here is my real list. I know you all were waiting for to fix Final Frontier.
The Motion Picture-7
The Wrath of Khan-1
Search for Spock-4
Voyage Home-2
Final Frontier-9
Undiscovered Country-3
Generations-8
First Contact-6
Insurrection-5
Nemisis-10

20

I hate to admit I’ve never seen Trekkies in its entirety, but in my book Galaxy Quest is the wish fulfillment Star Trek movie, only done a lot better than a lot of the original franchise stuff. It’s terrific! Star Trek with a VAST sense of humor about itself, and so thinly disguised it would take a truly non-fan like Mr. Butrscotch to not notice the similarities!