Entertainment Weekly Reviews The Star Trek Movies

[Harvey]

Star Trek III

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

Whatever you think of the movie or not — I like it, despite some obvious shortcomings compared to its predecessor — the fact that this article doesn't mention Harve Bennett a single time seems like a rather glaring omission. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Star Trek III the only film in the series to have only one credited writer (beyond Roddenberry's credit for the source material, obviously)?

 

[plynch]

"To feel “fine” in The Voyage Home is to be aware of your place in the great scheme of existence, content in your place among your fellow creatures."

How nice. That was a big part of the show.
Maybe that's why IV is so many people's favorite. II and IV are very life-affirming aren't they? TMP tries, but the reviewer nails it, that the people are all wooden or grand.
By the way, I hope you feel fine.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

By the way, I hope you feel fine.

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[Khan 2.0]

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/27/star-trek-v-final-frontier-shatner-geekly

 

[Greg Cox]

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/27/star-trek-v-final-frontier-shatner-geekly

Oh, this should be interesting . . .

 

[JonnyQuest037]

God, that "Hero Kirk" summary of the movie is tougher to get through than the actual film.

I did like this passage:

But the books feel very Final Frontier-y. Like, if Final Frontier is the Hobbit, the nine books that comprise the so-called Shatner-verse form the freaking Silmarillion.

TFF feels like the first Star Trek film where Shatner was playing himself more than he was playing Captain Kirk (see also: Generations).

The screencaps do show that there are a number of very striking shots in TFF, though. Kudos to Shatner and his cinematographer.

 

[Khan 2.0]

He he 'Hero Kirk' and his epic adventure with his funny friends! never clicked Kirk points to himself after bones asked is God really out there..

TFF feels like the first Star Trek film where Shatner was playing himself more than he was playing Captain Kirk (see also: Generations).

Yes in I-4/6 Shatner playing an older wiser subdued mature Kirk. In 5/GEN its like hes playing jovial running and jumping Captain 'hero' Shatner

The screencaps do show that there are a number of very striking shots in TFF, though. Kudos to Shatner and his cinematographer.

Yep. Like the way the writer pointed that out with the homage to 50s pulp novels

One thing he didn't mention was the score which is one of the best of the series (the best imho)

 

[RAMA]

The review was rather kind I think.

I still can't get over how some trekkies think the campfire scenes are so great. They're a plodding, unfunny realization of the long expressed interaction between the TOS "triad". Talk about stating the bloody obvious..and badly.

I wish there was some suitable punishment for Shatner for this film..like forced watching of comparison pictures of himself at 30 and 75 for 24 hours. Hmm


RAMA

 

[BillJ]

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/27/star-trek-v-final-frontier-shatner-geekly

That was bad. Worse than just watching The Final Frontier.

 

[Vger23]

The review captures a lot of how I feel about Star Trek V (which I adore):

Is it a crap movie by almost every objective measure possible? Yes, absolutely. Does the fun, carefree part of myself still love this movie for all its warts and bumps anyway? Yup. You bet I do... quite a bit actually! In totality, I actually find it more satisfying as a Star Trek film than a great number of the other films. I enjoy Trek V more than:

TUC
TVH
GEN
INS
NEM
2009
ID

Is it a better FILM than all these movies?? My God, no! But, I find it more personally interesting and engaging than each of these films.

I've never taken Star Trek so seriously (despite 40 years of intense fandom and uncounted thousands of dollars of expenditures) that I can't enjoy things like TFF, Harry Mudd, Spock's Brain, etc.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yes in I-4/6 Shatner playing an older wiser subdued mature Kirk. In 5/GEN its like hes playing jovial running and jumping Captain 'hero' Shatner

Agreed. And Shatner is obviously not the best judge of his own acting work. He's very hammy in TFF. Nicholas Meyer had the right idea to tire him out with multiple takes to get a more subdued, naturalistic performance out of him. TWOK and TUC remain Shatner's best movie performances as Kirk.

 

[Greg Cox]

Agreed. And Shatner is obviously not the best judge of his own acting work. He's very hammy in TFF. Nicholas Meyer had the right idea to tire him out with multiple takes to get a more subdued, naturalistic performance out of him. TWOK and TUC remain Shatner's best movie performances as Kirk.

Nothing to do with STAR TREK but I was just reading this morning about a director (Rene Clair) who employed exactly the opposite strategy with 1940s movie starlet Veronica Lake. Apparently, her first take was almost always her best one, with her performances losing zest and spontaneity with each successive take, so he eventually took to secretly filming her when she thought was just rehearsing . . . before she got bored with doing the same scene over and over.

 

[Vger23]

Agreed. And Shatner is obviously not the best judge of his own acting work. He's very hammy in TFF. Nicholas Meyer had the right idea to tire him out with multiple takes to get a more subdued, naturalistic performance out of him. TWOK and TUC remain Shatner's best movie performances as Kirk.

Agree with TWOK...but totally disagree with TUC being Shatner's other best movie performance. It was very wink-wink and tongue-in-cheek in my opinion, as was the rest of the film. Nothing Shatner did in TUC portrayed the weight that we saw in TWOK or TSFS (which are the two I qualify as his best performances). For the situation they were in, it all seemed very "nostalgic" and throw-away. Nothing about Shatner's performances in TWOK or TSFS were hammy or light-touch like TUC and TFF were.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Nothing to do with STAR TREK but I was just reading this morning about a director (Rene Clair) who employed exactly the opposite strategy with 1940s movie starlet Veronica Lake. Apparently, her first take was almost always her best one, with her performances losing zest and spontaneity with each successive take, so he eventually took to secretly filming her when she thought was just rehearsing . . . before she got bored with doing the same scene over and over.

Nicholas Meyer said that Ricardo Montalban was like that -- best on the first take, increasingly stale on the subsequent ones. Meyer said that he was lucky that he didn't have Shatner and Montalban together in the same scene!

 

[Greg Cox]

Rene Clair said he had that problem on I MARRIED A WITCH (1942). Lake was best on her first takes, but her co-star, Fredric March, got better on each take. This posed a challenge . . . ..

 

[Leto_II]

Agreed. And Shatner is obviously not the best judge of his own acting work. He's very hammy in TFF. Nicholas Meyer had the right idea to tire him out with multiple takes to get a more subdued, naturalistic performance out of him. TWOK and TUC remain Shatner's best movie performances as Kirk.

Also, TSFS, particularly in the latter half of the movie, but even prior to this, he's very reined-in and sudued (probably as the rather somber material calls for, considering what just happened), which works greatly to the film's benefit.

 

[Shalashaska]

I don't hate The Final Frontier.

It was ambitious, it had heart, it went where no man has gone before.

I like to think of it as the lovable retarded child of the Star Trek franchise. Sure it's bad, it's a mess, but it's not the worst film as some make it out to be.

 

[Warped9]

TFF makes me thing of an extended fan film. It the core is a worthy story, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

TFF makes me thing of an extended fan film. It the core is a worthy story, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

I tend to look at it as the big screen version of a third season episode. Yeah, it's cheesy and goofy and the budget is lacking in some places, but it's still fun.

 

[Maurice]

Nothing to do with STAR TREK but I was just reading this morning about a director (Rene Clair) who employed exactly the opposite strategy with 1940s movie starlet Veronica Lake. Apparently, her first take was almost always her best one, with her performances losing zest and spontaneity with each successive take, so he eventually took to secretly filming her when she thought was just rehearsing . . . before she got bored with doing the same scene over and over.

Nicholas Meyer said that Ricardo Montalban was like that -- best on the first take, increasingly stale on the subsequent ones. Meyer said that he was lucky that he didn't have Shatner and Montalban together in the same scene!

Rene Clair said he had that problem on I MARRIED A WITCH (1942). Lake was best on her first takes, but her co-star, Fredric March, got better on each take. This posed a challenge . . . ..

I've run into this on a short film I did. One actor was a seasoned improviser and take 1 was almost always his most energetic and alive, whereas the actor he was playing against "built" his performance over a series of takes. So I took to getting the closeups of the improv actor first, then the other actor, which played to both their strengths. tricker to do in a 2-shot or a master, tho!