I watched TUC last night, for the first time in maybe 10 years. I didn't find it an enjoyable experience. From the over done racism, to several cheesy moments (Scotty nearly messing his incontinence pants when the Enterprise starts her mission), through Valeris making the main characters look stupid. The story itself felt hamfisted and clunky. Even the Shakespeare felt overdone. 20 years ago, this was my favourite Trek movie, now I seriously dislike it. Why has it aged so badly?
I think it hasn't aged as well because in large part, the world grew up a bit in the meantime. Most of us look at that movie, see the obvious racism, and cringe because that's no longer part of the social norms we find acceptable. I get that the movie was intended to be an allegory for then-current events, but it was done so clumsily that it wasn't what I, at least, consider good Star Trek. On my personal ranking of the TOS movies, TUC ranks above TFF, but below all the others. Or it could be argued that this is simply where the social norms of the TOS-universe were at that point. After all, the little bit of 23rd-century stuff we saw in Generations isn't enough to tell us if there was a major shift in society's attitudes (or at least Starfleet's attitudes) toward the negativity we saw in TUC. We don't know if the obvious racist attitudes we saw are ubiquitous at that time or just within Starfleet. Either way, it's not my cup of tea (no tea-related puns intended).
That's not what happens. Scotty's totally comfortable exiting Spacedock at impulse. He thinks it's hilarious that Kirk is giving Starfleet the "one-fingered salute," or, as one might call it, the "Great Bird of the Galaxy." It's Scotty's underlings who are freaked. http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tuchd/tuchd0339.jpg I think the first and last acts of the film are OK. It starts off really well. Kirk's attitudes are fitting for a developing character, for the purposes of drama, even though we know from the outset that he will come around in the end. The dinner scene is where it starts going off the rails. Jokes such as the one about hearing Shakespeare in the original Klingon are downright absurd. And the scenes making the Chekov and Uhura respectively seem incompetent so they can be the butts of jokes were excruciating. The rescue from the prison planet was totally bogus. It's a shame, because I really like the send-off at the end.
I meant messing his pants with pleasure, not pooing himself! The other irritating bit is the constant flow of.tongue-in-cheek one-liners, most of which are far from funny. This was a problem with TFF as well. It's like a concious effort to inject some of the humour from TVH, but it's totally misplaced in a generally serious film.
I actually have no problems with it. I can see what its detractors are saying but none of that stuff bothers me. It's just a fun movie and a decent send off for the original crew. It would easier to list the things I liked about it than the things I disliked. The movies are not where Trek's strength lies in my opinion. Some of them are great but most of them are mindless popcorn flicks.
It used the whole "Federation/Klingon Empire = USA/USSR" analogy from TOS as its basis, which was more of a '60's trope than a mid-'90's trope.
I don't think the world has grown up - just changed. We just like to think we've grown up. The "Greatest Generation," those who live through the world wars, were forced to grow up much more than anyone growing up today. And even then, that was no different, except for scale and weapons development, than our eternal history of war, oppression, crime and willful ignorance. No, I don't see the progress except for the similarly eternal fight against those things and small pockets of wisdom that go largely ignored in an unbounded and increasing narcissistic population. If the movie is not currently relevant to you, it will be again to someone else later. That's the endless cycle of things.
I watched it last last night for the first time in a couple of years. It's of it's time no doubt, and there's some bits that grate now as a result - René Auberjonois whipping out the paper flip chart in particular looks pretty ludicrous today when we all have smartphones and tablets hundreds of years before this film is set, and some of the humour is a bit off - Klingon translating scene I'm looking at you. I defy anyone not to laugh at that look that Bones gives when Martia starts kissing Kirk and the resulting 'what is it with you anyway' line - pure McCoy gold. Some of the racism is a little off too, but it doesn't bother me as much as some folk, I'm happy with Kirk's position in this - Klingons have been a big adversary of his all his career, they murdered his estranged son that he had only just got back, which also resulted in the destruction of the Enterprise - that gets a pass for me, but some of the other bits stood out to me - 'they all look alike' and 'did you see the way they ate' etc but I can see why this was woven into the narrative as it's kind of the whole point of the film that humans have to face any prejudice they have against the Klingons in order to accept them. It's heavy handed but doesn't drag the film down too much. I still think the majority of the visuals hold up pretty well, especially after the disaster of the previous movie, and I loved seeing the TMP Klingon battlecruiser again - It's a shame that ship wasn't involved in the final battle, which I found to be a little lacking compared to the battles in TWOK, but was still pretty decent. Overall it's not the best Trek movie - I put it around 5th or 6th place but it's still a damn entertaining and satisfying film.
Agree. Albeit, I often wonder how the storyline of this film would have been handled if it were made more "serious" like TMP.
+1 Yeah. I used to watch multiple episodes of Speed Racer with intense focus every day when I got home from school. Now I have the DVDs, but I fall asleep when I sit down and try to watch them when I finish work for the day.
Racism was not acceptable in 1991 either, but the films running point: that no matter how much time passes (for Kirk from TV to film) racism (creeping or overt) stills informs perceptions, no matter how rational the troubled person is in every other situation. Adding to that, general "social norms" today accept racism more today than in 1991: from post 9/11 racism on a multi country scale which still runs strong, to the increasing level of general racism online (example: read the comments on any Yahoo news story dealing with African Americans in some political or social sense) and promoted by race-baiting stories (see: Fox News, talk radio, etc.), racism is not only the leading story almost every week, but its big business like never before. It could only remain so strong because of a willing audience, the feeling that through tools such as social media, anonymity allows the power to be as outrageously racist without a single fear of exposure or consequence. As a result, the culture comes to expect it from every corner. If anything, the racism in TUC (especially politically motivated) is more relevant today than in 1991.
+1 People don't like to see their heroes as flawed, but Kirk, especially, was always a highly flawed character.
Yes. And... ...while that is your mindset, and that of the writers of the film, having lived in that era, there is always some new era to apply to the same story. There are certainly some current events that fit it well. It will then age in the minds of today's youth as their own "trope" and the generation following this one will create a new trope to apply that makes the story seem prophetic when it was actually describing the endless cycle of human history or existence...
TUC has various problems which one might not notice when one is younger.. I'm not too familiar with the background of the TOS movies, but was Harve Bennett less involved with the production of TFF and TUC? I wish someone had been there to rein in Meyer's excesses.
Meh, the conversation around here sometimes makes it seem like this is one the Trek movies that has aged especially poorly, which always baffled me because I feel like they all didn't age incredibly well in a lot of ways. Which doesn't make them not enjoyable, of course.
Clearly it's a period piece so it's naturally going to look dated as time passes, so that doesn't bother me. I have 2 reasons why it hasn't aged well: 1. The Valeris as traitor sub plot is passable with one viewing, but upon repeated viewings so many things about it don't make any sense and it has more holes than Swiss cheese. 2. Even though it was the big goodbye, I think it went over the top in constantly reminding the audience it was the big good bye. I don't have a problem with a film of this sort dropping a subtle reference or two and I liked the last scene with Kirk's log entry and the enterprise flying into the sun and the signatures were a nice touch. But there were just so many things in the film that seemed to beat the audience over the head with the fact that this was it so you'd better enjoy this particular moment. Everyone knew the Deathly Hallows was the last Harry Potter film, but the film didn't constantly have scenes and dialogue that were hinting "this is it folks" it just told the story and wrapped it up at the end. I still find TUC enjoyable but it's the ST film that has fallen most in my opinion from initial viewing to current opinion.