Which episode would have made the best movie?

[Ssosmcin]

City on the Edge of Forever: larger budget for the New York scenes, longer run time to flesh out Edith as well as making the relationship more real.

Space Seed: more fleshing out for Marla, giving Khan less easy access to technology, making it harder to defeat Khan and legitimately making him "Kirk's greatest adversary" instead of just saying it because he got a good movie in 1982 and franchise won't stop bringing him up all the f'n time. I swear, Khan is the Miles Tellar of Star Trek.

The Doomsday Machine...maybe. Then again, a longer run time would ruin this episode's perfect pacing.

The Cage. I'd like to see more of the pre-Talos arrival Pike crew before we're thrust into this adventure.

Tomorrow is Yesterday.

Turnabout Intruder. I would watch Shatner mince around the Enterprise, filing his nails and throwing fits all day.

 

[Greg Cox]

I've said it before and always encounter resistance, but The Twilight Zone was a big influence on ST's early first season.

Absolutely. I've long argued that TOS owes a lot more to its immediate predecessors, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, than modern fans realize . . . or want to admit it.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Absolutely. I've long argued that TOS owes a lot more to its immediate predecessors, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, than modern fans realize . . . or want to admit it.

Also owes a tip of the hat to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but while fans would agree the connection to the loftier heights of the other two shows are nothing to be ashamed of, pretty much nobody wants to admit an Irwin Allen show may have had some influence.

 

[Farscape One]

The Changeling plot closely mirrored ST:TMP. Neither that episode nor the movie were my favorites.

I would have liked to seen ‘The Doomsday Machine’ filmed in 70mm IMAX 3D Mega Dynamic Dolby Superama Lucasfilm Industrial Light and Magic knock your socks off extravaganza vision.

"THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE"... along with "BALANCE OF TERROR", my two absolute favorites of TOS that always get rewatched if they appear on the screen.

"THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE" could easily be a great movie. It's already a flawless episode! One thing that can be added is actually seeing the battle Decker described. Either as snippets of the flashback while Kirk talks to him, or as flashbacks while Decker took command of the Enterprise and battled the machine. Perhaps both.

For example: right before he tells Spock, "But don't you understand, we've got to destroy that thing", we actually see the planet killer carving into the planet he beamed his crew onto. This would make the audience think he's going Ahab on this, until later when he steals the shuttle and we can see a flashback of his crew calling for help as that planet is being destroyed. Then you fully realize it wasn't Decker being vengeful... he was guilt ridden. (Decker was a big part of why this episode was so memorable: his initial scenes with Kirk, his regulations fight with Spock, his shuttle scene, etc. He was superb.)

Those Constellation scenes can easily add about 10-15 minutes, so we'd only need about 30-40 more minutes to make a movie with a roughly hour and 40 minute runtime. Maybe add about 5 minutes or so of the landing party searching the Constellation... make it a little creepy, since it already feels a bit that way because it's basically a ghost ship. (Greg Cox rightly points out how THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS were also influences for TOS. Hell... let him write those added scenes. He totally gets it. )

The great thing about this episode is that you can add a number of things and the exciting pace still wouldn't suffer. Part of the reason is because the villain is relentless and doesn't negotiate. Like a force of nature.

(Honestly, if this episode ever were shown in a theater, I'd buy tickets to see it.)

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

For once, a problem that isn't "I hate the Federation/Starfleet!" driven, but an impersonal force, with a character antagonist who is not the enemy, just with a different opinion on how to handle the problem.

 

[M'Sharak]

Also owes a tip of the hat to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, but while fans would agree the connection to the loftier heights of the other two shows are nothing to be ashamed of, pretty much nobody wants to admit an Irwin Allen show may have had some influence.

To be fair, the cheesiest half of VttBotS was yet to be seen, when Star Trek first went on the air. Much of the B&W Season 1 was far closer to being in the mold of "Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" than were the color seasons which followed.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Maybe somebody who had a vengeance against the Federation.

Again with the vengeance!!!!

 

[evilchumlee]

I think "Balance of Terror" is probably the most movie-ish.

I think alot could be done with "The Naked Time" in a movie setting, altering the episode quite a bit and leaning more into a horror theme, almost a Star Trek version of Event Horizon.