Entertainment Weekly Reviews The Star Trek Movies

[Smellmet]

Nope. The Search for spock is about friendship, teamwork, sacrifice, and is one of the best TOS movies in my opinion. Is it perfect? Hell no, it's cheap in parts and the final act is weak but the rest of it is pure trek gold. That review spent far too much time ripping the piss out of the film rather than reviewing it too.

 

[Mudd]

I don't know what you think "reviewing a movie" is supposed to consist of - providing a synopsis, congratulating the filmmakers on being awesome and concluding that "if you're a true Trek fan, you'll love this movie"?

Some of the most accurate and observant critiques "rip the piss" of out what they're critiquing. One can have a different opinion about TSFS from that reviewer, but everything he said was observant of the actual movie - much more so than in more fan-friendly reviews of it.

 

[Smellmet]

Fair enough. I just didn't get what I would have liked out of it. I really enjoyed the first two reviews though. When all is said and done I'm a massive fan of TSFS, it contains many of my absolute favourite moments in all of trek. I just didn't dig it, despite it's attempt at an 'alternative' view of the movie.

 

[Shalashaska]

Star Trek III

This one is brilliant, and yes The Search For Spock is that superficial and bad.

Wow.

Way to dissect a film down to its very core. Actually opened my eyes to a lot of the bad that I'd never noticed before.

Nope. The Search for spock is about friendship, teamwork, sacrifice, and is one of the best TOS movies in my opinion. Is it perfect? Hell no, it's cheap in parts and the final act is weak but the rest of it is pure trek gold. That review spent far too much time ripping the piss out of the film rather than reviewing it too.

Did you even read it?

This guy takes up two full pages criticizing the film and providing very valid points, and your response is "nope, it's good because I like it"?

Welp! You have me convinced!

 

[Xotika]

Great review that sums up perfectly why I never liked the III movie.
Still better than Voyage Home though.

 

[BillJ]

I think he's reaching a bit to bash The Search for Spock...

He has no patience for particularity – so this is the Trek movie where the Chief Engineer can be a helmsman, where Chekov double-times as science officer and communications officer. A bit loony, maybe, especially coming from Wrath of Khan, which dramatized the Enterprise as a nuclear space-submarine requiring steady care from a squad of engineers.

We saw Scott take the helm in TOS. Even though Scott was actually sitting at the navigator's station. Also, we saw Chekov work the science station numerous times in TOS.

 

[Mudd]

He sort of doesn't go straight for what I find to be the central weakness/absurdity of the script: everyone in the movie who opposes the Enterprise folks is stupid, as are most other incidental characters in the movie. It's a classic example of "idiot plotting," relying upon people doing dumb things or failing to do simple, sensible things throughout in order for the story to work.

 

[BillJ]

He sort of doesn't go straight for what I find to be the central weakness/absurdity of the script: everyone in the movie who opposes the Enterprise folks is stupid, as are most other incidental characters in the movie. It's a classic example of "idiot plotting," relying upon people doing dumb things or failing to do simple, sensible things throughout in order for the story to work.

You're right that the script does suffer from idiot plotting. But there is something about the characters and pacing that make it a great movie to me. Incredibly fun to watch.

 

[Maurice]

TSFS is a terrible movie and I've thought so since I saw it on the same day as The Temple of Doom, which I also hated.

 

[Khan 2.0]

TSFS is a terrible movie and I've thought so since I saw it on the same day as The Temple of Doom, which I also hated.

the end fight on Genesis felt like something out of Temple of Doom with all the lava etc as did the Vulcan temple

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, that's someone else you're quoting there, not me.

In fact, I quite like TSFS. I like lots of bad movies. I like Rocky IV and Stayin' Alive.

 

[Leto_II]

TSFS is a terrible movie and I've thought so since I saw it on the same day as The Temple of Doom, which I also hated.

 

[Mudd]

Nah, "terrible" is not hyperbole; it's a fair opinion.

 

[jaime]

Gotta say. I never hated TSFS, but I never liked much of it either. And every single thing this review says about the movie is true. Some of the stuff about shatner and Nimoy is a bit...hand wavey and incorrect. But he's right about the film. Saying that... The end scene is Vulcan is the only bit I will shut up and watch if it's on in the background. And not just for the Vulcan Love Slaves in the background.

 

[Leto_II]

Nah, "terrible" is not hyperbole; it's a fair opinion.

It kinda is, when there are, y'know, actual terrible movies released each year by Hollywood; movies more accurately deserving of the term (and/or anything found on MST3K). The Search for Spock comes nowhere even remotely close to objectively meeting those criteria. Perspective, is all I'm saying, here.

 

[jaime]

It kinda is, when there are, y'know, actual terrible movies released each year by Hollywood; movies more accurately deserving of the term (and/or anything found on MST3K). The Search for Spock comes nowhere even remotely close to objectively meeting those criteria. Perspective, is all I'm saying, here.

Yes...but....Chekov's costume.

Let's be honest, that thing is to good costume design as matter is to antimatter.
(I don't think film is terrible btw)

 

[Maurice]

It's not hyperbole to say TSFS is a terrible movie. It is:

• completely illogical
• clumsily plotted
• in some places badly acted
• badly costumed
• blandly photographed
• and inconsistent in tone throughout

There are worse films, sure, there's always a shittier movie, but TSFS is terrible (several of the Trek films are) and I walked out of it hating it. I still hate it.

 

[Marsden]

I read the reviews last night, the first two were good, but the third was twice as long and ten times worse.

 

[jaime]

I read the reviews last night, the first two were good, but the third was twice as long and ten times worse.

I don't think it was any worse...but I think the writer spent a long time explaining how he likes it, how he loves the last one and the next one, how steeped in Tos cast love he is (I have not read a single Trek biography, have heard the two shatner memories ones as audio books, and have owned nichelle Nichols biography for years but never got round to reading it....am not sure they would inform my fandom in any way, though I enjoyed the shatner ones.) in order to soften the blow of dissecting the film (which he does fairly) and finding it wanting. (all the individual parts are as he describes, I think it hangs better together for me than it does him, but I can't say he's wrong.)

 

[Leto_II]

It's not hyperbole to say TSFS is a terrible movie. It is:

• completely illogical
• clumsily plotted
• in some places badly acted
• badly costumed
• blandly photographed
• and inconsistent in tone throughout

There are worse films, sure, there's always a shittier movie, but TSFS is terrible (several of the Trek films are) and I walked out of it hating it. I still hate it.

But seriously, though? Using the term "terrible" here in this context does a disservice to any rational, objective discussion of filmmaking, because, as I said, there are actual "terrible" movies out there that are properly wretched and unwatchable (and which will be forgotten in ten years' time), whereas no matter what one's feelings are on TSFS's quality, it is by no means in that same tier of horribleness. Not by a wide margin.

Saying that is like what's happened on certain other websites I've seen where you have people who parachute in and nominate a major film by someone like Steven Spielberg that they just absolutely hated as "the worst movie ever." It's clearly ludicrous, and doesn't touch base with actual reality at any two contiguous points.

Like I said...perspective.