Which TOS film reminds you most of an episode of TOS?

Problem with TUC is that these villains were so boring and had little-to-no "alien" quality to them. They were basically just angry, scheming humans in prosthetics. TUC ends up being a bloated drag as a result.

 

I loved it! It brought an end to the conflict between The Federation and The Klingon Empire that had been in effect for seventy years and was to have paralleled the end of the cold war! You could imagine that this movie could have fitted onto the end of the TOS timeline without any of the preceding films at all!
JB

 

TMP was an episode twice over. First as "The Changeling" and then the aborted "In Thy Image".

TWOK, I could see as an episode if TOS did sequels. But, they didn't and TWOK Kirk is much further along in his life and career than TOS Kirk and it's integral to the plot. So, not really an episode. It's a film.

TSFS -- Spock is brought back to life but not quite all there, the Enterprise is blown up, Kirk's son is killed. Not stuff you'd see in the show.

TVH could work as an episode if you cut out the 23rd Century frame-work.

TFF plays like third season TOS with a bigger budget.

I can't see TUC as an episode but it's a hodge-podge of elements that would make up TOS episodes. Kirk is sent as an olive branch to the Klingons and it goes wrong? That could work. Kirk/McCoy are captured and they have to do a jail break? That's a TOS episode. Investigating who committed assassination during a diplomatic mission and then investigating who killed the assassins? That could be a TOS episode but it wouldn't be someone so close to Spock. It probably wouldn't even be a crew member unless something had gone horribly wrong with them. So, TUC has the parts but its sum adds up to an Epilogue to The Genesis Trilogy not an actual episode from the '60s.

It's really down to TMP, TVH, and TFF.

I'll have to go with TMP. Saving the Whales is more modern than mid-century and the set-up of searching for God only to find out its no God doesn't add up to enough. A probe that wants to become more and join with its Creator is vintage TOS through and through even with the updated and expanded production values.

 

The reason why I enjoy TFF is because it was the movie that came closest to getting the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship to match what it was in the series.

 

During the films the actors and the characters did seem to have drifted far apart and not just Spock, although his having been back on Vulcan to try purging himself of all emotion during the Kolinhor probably didn't do him any favours!
JB

 

Not only does it "match" but it exceeds and expands in some ways.

 

TOS did ONE sequel - "I Mudd"; and "Kor" would have shown up a few more times as Kirk's Klingon foil/memesis had the scheduling worked; so to imply TOS never did sequels would be inaccurate.
^^^
And I bring it up because STII:TWoK is the one film that feels like a episode of TOS.

 

I think "I, Mudd" is more like another appearance than a sequel per se... buuuut what the heck. Why not? I don't feel too strongly about it.

 

So...they were Klingons?

 

Nope...at least not by TNG or TOS Movie standards. There was very little (virtually nothing) to distinguish the Klingons as a unique or alien culture in TUC. They were painfully bland and boring. Compare the Klingons in TUC to the intimidating and strikingly alien portrayal in TMP or the fierce, driven and aggressive portrayal in TSFS. TUC is just anemic compared to those. Even the TNG Klingons had "honor" and other unique (and admittedly sometimes stupid) characteristics that made them an alien culture. TUC had....well....nothing.

 

I was making a joke about the TOS (TV) Klingons.. But frankly, other than appearance, The TMP and TSFS never struck me as particularly alien.

 

Oh yeah, the TV series never really developed the Klingons very deeply. In that way, the TUC Klingons WERE very reminiscent of the TOS series.

 

The Voyage Home. The shoot was done mostly on location and the tale was practical for any time period, and the story is very Star Trek in nature.