STTMP: Basically a retelling of “The Changeling,” the episode with the probe Nomad, with a different ending. I loved this movie when it came out, because none of the local stations had aired Star Trek in a couple of years, and the Enterprise looked so gorgeous up there on the big screen. Watching it now on videotape, with the 20 minutes of extra footage picked back up off the cutting room floor and spliced back in, I tend to be bored by the incredibly looong shots of V’Ger’s cloud, and I hate the ugly uniforms.
Wrath of Khan: Star Trek at the top of its game here. Tons of action, featuring Ricardo Montalban as the only man ever to chew more scenery than Shatner. Great ship-to-ship combat that we never got to see in the series, with chunks of debris and big burn scars across the ships. Sure beats the hell out of shaking the camera and having the crew flail about! Plus, Kirstie Alley made a rather fetching Saavik as well. Spock’s death was robbed of impact largely because by the time the movie premiered it had become known that he would be back for the next one.
The Search for Spock: Well, the movie was overall fairly dull, but had a few good scenes in it. Of course McCoy’s line-- “That green-blooded son of a bitch! It’s his revenge for all those arguments he lost.”-- is the best one in the whole movie, followed by Kirk’s “I…have had… enough of you!” As he kicks Kruge into the firy abyss. (I still see Kruge as Reverend Jim when I watch though.) Best of all though, was the destruction of the Enterprise. That really got my attention at the time. I was shocked and horrified that they did that. How could they?
The Voyage Home: Good laughs in this one, but overall a pretty thin plot, summed up ably by McCoy: “You mean you’re going to slingshot around the sun to go back in time to try and find some humpbacked whales, so that you can bring them back here and hope they tell that probe what to go do with itself?” The whole save-the-whales theme was really heavy handed I thought. Still, the ineptitude of the crew when faced with our society was pretty hilarious, and the scene at the end when they fly towards the Excelsior and then over it to reveal the new Enterprise is terrific. Made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at the theater.
The Final Frontier: An object lesson. The folks at Paramount have said that they would like to regard this one as apocryphal, and I can understand why. This is the “Spock’s Brain” of Trek movies. I am embarassed to be a fan of the franchise whenever this cinematic turd comes to mind. Jet boots are cool and all, but they can’t turn the Enterprise into a ship with 78 decks for Pete’s sake! Spock had a banished, emotional, half-brother rebel with a secret pain-healing, mind-controlling power? No ship can possibly breach the Great Barrier unless it’s the Enterprise and a tiny Klingon scout ship, both of whom suffer no damage AT ALL? The supposed God that they meet is far inferior in power than awhole bunch of enemies they dealt with in the TV show, yet everybody but Kirk falls for it until he speaks up? Row, Row, Row Your Boat??? Anybody that ever lets Shatner write or direct anything ever again deserves to have “moron” tattooed on their foreheads in neon letters.
The Undiscovered Country: Second only to Wrath of Khan as far as I am concerned. Spock has stopped acting like a dink, which he did during the previous two movies. Big plus right there. Better yet, we’re back to some really great battles between ships, and finally there is a real story going on here. Christopher Plummer makes a great Klingon, and seeing Sulu with his own command is gratifying as well. The movie is paced well, and it delivers a solid story.
Generations: Well, the new guys finally get a crack at the movies, and they start out pretty mediocre. The whole Guinan/Nexus plot is lame. Actually, anything having anything to do with Guinan is lame, as she was the dullest character aboard the Enterprise D. Data’s emotional difficulties are fun as well. The very best thing they did in the whole movie though, was destroy the Enterprise-D! I always thought it was an extremely ugly, wimpy-looking ship, lacking in elegance and charm. Unlike when the original went down, I was actively glad to see that thing eat chunks of the planet. And of course, Data’s uncharacteristic “Oh shit!” was hilarious. Killing off Kirk in the manner they did was very lame as well. Dying from a fall while facing a third-rate villain? C’mon! Kirk has chunks of guys like that in his stool fercryinoutloud! They need to bring him back and send him out in a more appropriate fashion.
First Contact: This shows that the new guys could actually make a halfway decent movie if they wanted to. Plenty of action here-- far more than in the Next Generation series, where Picard’s idea of action is generally writing a stern letter of protest to the Romulan Senate. But then again, this movie had the Borg, which are better villains than the original series ever came up with. Nifty looking new ship was a benefit too.
Insurrection: Yawn. What a snoozer. It isn’t even up to the standards of a decent episode let alone a movie. No huge flaws, but just not very interesting all the way round. By now, we’ve already seen that the Federation and Starfleet Command have some Bad Elements in them. The best part of the whole movie is when Data goes berzerk, and that’s the opening sequence. Oh, and aren’t they stretching the amazing coincidence of Worf’s presence a little thin these days?
I think he’s very good too, though as far as Trek scores go, I prefer James Horner’s for Khan and Search.