I'm glad he didn't. TMP stands as a glorious footnote as to when Trek not only stood toe to toe with the competition, but intended to blow them all away.
Had to wait thirty years for that to happen again.
I saw TWOK in the theater when I was 22 and walked out thinking I'd seen one of the best Trek stories, ever. It still holds up fairly well. I'd say it's pace is what shows its age compared to most action-adventure films, today. It's a little slow in places. I could also see how younger folks coming to the movie years later could think of it as "quaint."
I think by quaint most people who would say that means because it doesn't fill up every single minute with some kind of over the top cgi battle sequence or guys fighting, and actually pays attention to things like plot and character development, it doesn't measure up to today's "Standards" of action-sci/fi films.
I used to fell into that trap, of course I was 9. Like I said I used to believe "Return of the Jedi" was way better than "The Empire Strikes Back." and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" was better than "Raiders of the Lost Ark" because they contained more pure actions and Empire and Raiders had the gall to actually take time to have scenes that gave depth and greater understanding to the film and themes in it.
Of course I grew up and realized that because of those scenes, amongst other things, Empire and Raiders are FAR superior films. Apparently on the other hand Rick Berman and George Lucas' had the opposite revelation of mine and decided that films that crammed as much fast paced CGI action and fighting as possible and kept any human elements to a minimum were the way to go to make great sci-fi films and as a result we get scenes like the Enterprise-E and the Scimitar flying around like the Blue Angels and shooting at each other non stop for 30 minutes with no real consequences until they run out of ammo, instead of giant starships like the Enterprise and Reliant moving in a way ships of their size would and where every exchange of fire, although far fewer, actually causes destruction and death and results in future consequences. Or things like whipping out the light sabers every 5 minutes for whatever reason, instead of showing them quickly once or twice on the first 90 mins leading up and building suspense to the point towards the end where they get them out for some serious business.
And it seems many of today's movie goers have adopted that philosophy too and they don't out grow it when they become adults.
I'm not particularly into romance films but I'm one of those crazy people that think "Casablanca" is a better film than say "When Harry met Sally" and it didn't need Ingrid Bergman having a simulated orgasm scene in it to make it a "Classic" by modern standards. And the fact she didn't means it's dated and quaint.
God forbid Berman or Lucas ever decide to make a film about the battleship Bismarck. It would probably be called BISMARCK!!!!! complete with exclmation points. The final battle will be the Bismarck and Hood speeding around like hydrofoils firing their main guns every 5 seconds and never taking any real damage (They'll just drop the Prince of Wales and Prinz Eugen as being superfluous to the scene) until the ships run out of ammo and then the commanders will spend 10 minutes making cute quips at each other before the ships end up besides each other and the crews engage in an all out street brawl and the two captains will end up on the bridge in a fist fight making even more cute quips before the Hood's captain impales the Bismarck's captain on a steam pipe or something, sets the Bismarcks self destruct and sails the Hood away at 100 knots victorious as the Bismarck blows up in a praxis type explosion. And the audience will love it and say how great it was and, if they ever saw "Sink the Bismarck" they say it is so dated and inferior to BISMARCK!!!!! and people unfamiliar with the actual event will ask "Why does that film get it wrong by showing the Hood blowing up in the first 10 minutes after engaging the Bismarck, that's not how it happened in BISMARCK!!!!!. Lucas or Berman certanily wouldn't play fast and loose with something like that just to cram in more CGI action and fights.
