Disappointment with TOS films?

[The Castellan]

Yes, TMP was flawed, but I still admired what they tried to do. On some level I liked that they were going for that classic sense-of-wonder and facing something unknown. After that, though, it seemed as if the Trek universe got smaller and smaller and comprised primarily of the TOS crew and the Klingons..

You got it right there. I been saying pretty much the same thing for years, and Trek seems to be steadily going towards popcorn action.

Picard's last line in Encounter at Farpoint, "Let's see what's out there." is what something that I want to see again.....exploring and discovery.....not another villain of the week.

 

[Andorian Spy]

Yes, I was let down by a bunch of them. I like some, but they're simple not TOS Trek.

I mean, how could they be, anyway? It was so much later in the game, and exactly how to present the TOS concept from one main angle is tough. As a sidenote, it's fairly amazing to me that the cast wasn't re-cast even back then.


TOS Trek is/was: thought-provoking, humanistic stuff presented in a sci-fi format. It was also (much to the chagrin of some), somewhat light, "friends in space" light comedy stuff. It was also straight-up bad guys verses good guys at times, action/adventure.

TMP followed a strict regimen of sci-fi; not much action on the physical front. Today, I love it - but still think that it needed Kirk to throw at least one punch (ha ha). The characters are way to stiff with one another.

It aged better than some of the other ones, though - Khan is still cool, but more a good second season episode, saved from the third by Spock's death.

The most dated by far is IV - yeah, it's good, and my kid likes it, but it's riddled with effort to make Trek mainstream; a cheap trick in my opinion. It worked, too, but that's what doomed V as well.

I submit that no matter what it turned out to be, Trek V would have paled in comparison. Just going back to future space, and not our time was destined to turn off some audiences.

And, Trek V clearly has some of the most TOS moments ever done in the movies - those Kirk, Spock, and McCoy scenes come off as sincere, and the "pain" scenes are cool, too.

As far as TUC, I can't even watch it - it has such a sense of "let's get this over with"!

I'm not sure if this post makes sense (ha ha), but yeah, the TOS films really don't do much for me, overall.

 

[sonak]

I think the lukewarm(at best) reaction to TMP influenced the direction of the films, as it was unlikely after that they would try another straight-up philosophical sci-fi film without much action.


I really don't think there's a truly bad TOS film in the bunch, they just range from really good to mediocre. Each has rewatchability factor for me.

 

[Andorian Spy]

That screen name of "SONAK" is great!

Yeah, I watch most of 'em too, and yes again, after TMP they settled for pushing the action angle a bit.

My faves?

Khan (but the commentary where that Meyer guy subtly knocks Shatner's acting annoys me)

TFF (again, those few heartfelt scenes rise amazingly above some of the murk).

TMP - this has really grown on me, and lambast me, but I LOVE the disco uniforms.

IV - is cool for what it is ... Shatner does a good job!

... and parts of III are cool.

 

[Warped9]

TVH is the one I like least and am most disappointed with. Like it was mentioned upthread I felt the humour was overdone and they went out of their way to make it seem more rooted in the then contemporary times of the 1980s.

 

[Gojira]

I enjoy all six of The Original Series films to varying degrees.

Agreed. I found the humor in TVH to be perfect in tone and execution. The humor in TFF, for the most part, is forced and doesn't flow from the story naturally. TFF's execution in general was disapointing, but the basic idea was great.

I agree with both of you. TFF upped the humor from the previous film and it fell flat. Although in the theater I attended people were really laughing and having a good time. I just don't think the humor has aged well.

But I like the premise and I like the character development and it still is a movie I enjoy watching.

 

[Gojira]

TVH is the one I like least and am most disappointed with. Like it was mentioned upthread I felt the humour was overdone and they went out of their way to make it seem more rooted in the then contemporary times of the 1980s.

Voyage Home is one of my favorites, I like the environmental theme and time travel movies are among my favorite in science fiction. I also think the humor is within the context of the story and the situation and is not as over the top as TFF would be.

 

[Galileo7]

Disappointed? No way. Five of the six TOS films are way better than any film based on a 60’s TV show has any right to be. Even TFF is better than most of the films on that list.

Agreed.

 

[plynch]

I enjoyed all six of the original cast films. Having said that, I was also a little bit disappointed as each one was released. Being feature films, it was felt that the plot had to be bombastic, where our heroes had a climactic struggle w/ an enemy (or enemies). I often wished that the films had an atmosphere similar to some of the best episodes of the series, where they were exploring and discovering something new and wonderous. Surely, in a two-hour film, there would be time for the fisticuffs to be framed by exploration of some other fresh experience. Other than TMP, we never really had that feeling in the features. Instead, we had familiar foes such as Khan or the Klingons.

Doug

agree

I was just posting on a different thread that I'd like a Trek movie without a villain. Other plots exist, I've heard. I know the Trek recipe calls for some danger to exist to lend tension. But still.

2. TFF: When you start with the scruffy post-apocalyptic rock farmer and then Sybok throws off his hood and laughs, laughs, laughs . . . we've entered a more comic-book-ish realm than the other films had gone to before, imo.

 

[sonak]

TVH was the only film after TMP to take the "no villain" approach and it worked out pretty well for that movie.

It can work if the story's good enough.

 

[Greg Cox]

TVH is the one I like least and am most disappointed with. Like it was mentioned upthread I felt the humour was overdone and they went out of their way to make it seem more rooted in the then contemporary times of the 1980s.

Voyage Home is one of my favorites, I like the environmental theme and time travel movies are among my favorite in science fiction. I also think the humor is within the context of the story and the situation and is not as over the top as TFF would be.

Agreed. I was just watching it again a few weeks ago, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

 

[Anji]

To me, most of the movies were okay.

TMP: Good to see the crew back together, but the plot lacked development and the pacing was too slow.

TWOK: One of the best films I ever seen. Excellent directing, acting and a plot line full of twists.

TSOS: Disappointment. Slow direction and a number of plot holes make this movie almost unwatchable up until the ending.

TVH: Great historical/comedic episode. Good direction, placing and acting. I'll never believe Nimoy directed this one all by himself.

TFF: Good direction, acting and reasonable plot but terribly depressing movie. All of the whining about "never having a family" was not necessary. If during the movie the cast was supposed to prove to each other that they were a family, it didn't work. Scenes on the desert planet with Sybok too reminscent of Star Wars.

TUC: Good intro but plot falls apart towards the middle. Direction good. Series begins to look too much like TNG, which if it was intentional it should not have been.

Overall, I was happier with TOS than its movies.

 

[Unicron]

TVH is probably my least favorite, though it's not a bad film. But I think it suffers to a smaller degree from some of the issues I have with TMP. TMP's weakness is that it has a number of story and character elements that aren't properly fleshed out, and too much time is instead spent on the visual effects (which for the most part are great, but still too long).

In TVH, the message is good (conservation of whales and other animals) but the movie is too heavy handed with it much of the time. The actual Star Trek component of the movie - the giant plot device that's threatening Earth, coupled with the crew's follow up with the events of TSFS - are little more than bookends, and we don't even get the luxury of some understanding of what the whales say to the probe. The focus is too centered on having the crew interact in a more amusingly "primitive" time period while they're trying to find the whales, and some of it hits and some misses.

 

[Greg Cox]

The actual Star Trek component of the movie - the giant plot device that's threatening Earth, coupled with the crew's follow up with the events of TSFS - are little more than bookends, and we don't even get the luxury of some understanding of what the whales say to the probe. .

I don't know. I'd argue that TVH isn't really about the probe. That's just a Macguffin to justify to all the delightful time-travel hijinks, which are totally winning. IMHO.

Would the movie really have been more entertaining if we'd gotten a subtitled translation of probe-speak? Or would that have just been a bunch of unnecessary technobabble?

(As I understood it, the probe was just checking to see why the whales had stopped singing a few centuries ago--and turned around once it found out they were okay.)

 

[Too Much Fun]

To me, most of the movies were okay.

TMP: Good to see the crew back together, but the plot lacked development and the pacing was too slow.

TWOK: One of the best films I ever seen. Excellent directing, acting and a plot line full of twists.

TSOS: Disappointment. Slow direction and a number of plot holes make this movie almost unwatchable up until the ending.

TVH: Great historical/comedic episode. Good direction, placing and acting. I'll never believe Nimoy directed this one all by himself.

TFF: Good direction, acting and reasonable plot but terribly depressing movie. All of the whining about "never having a family" was not necessary. If during the movie the cast was supposed to prove to each other that they were a family, it didn't work. Scenes on the desert planet with Sybok too reminscent of Star Wars.

TUC: Good intro but plot falls apart towards the middle. Direction good. Series begins to look too much like TNG, which if it was intentional it should not have been.

Very good evaluation, I think you're mostly spot on. I don't know about the fifth one, though, since I only saw part of it and that was a long time ago.

The sixth movie was the most disappointing one for me because it started and finished so strong and I agree, the plot falls apart in the middle. I just hated the prison part.

I think overall it's impressive how consistent the first six were, especially compared to the TNG movies. As they said on "Futurama": "You know what movies average out to be really good? The first six Star Trek movies!".

 

[23skidoo]

TMP: It's my favorite of the Trek films because it was the only Trek film to be majestic, have scale, and be a piece of cinematic art on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey and Metropolis. I could care less if it remade an episode I've never even seen, or that the pace was too slow. It remains one of the few examples of 1970s-80s SF that was and remains truly immersive. I hate 3-D, but I'd actually make an exception for TMP.

WOK: A more intimate film than TMP, with a stronger storyline and a faster pace. But as critics of the day pointed out, this could have just as easily been a made-for-TV movie. That's not saying it's a bad film by any means. But even back in 1982 I saw it as a step down from TMP. Then again, I never expected to see a Star Trek II come out anyway, so I was just happy to have a sequel. And I didn't mind trading majestic flybys of alien ships for Lt. Saavik.

SFS: Christopher Lloyd was cool, and the idea of killing off David was brave, but I never cared for this one. It seemed a "smaller" movie than even WOK, and there were some continuity issues (i.e. the age of the Enterprise) that even I couldn't ignore. I also didn't care for the recasting of Saavik. "Up your shaft" and the ending made up for a lot of it.

TVH: I love this film, which was the first "comedy" Trek film. They needed one after the rather dark events of the first three. Nimoy made up for the dullness of SFS with a story that was and remains quite timeless. I wish they'd stayed with the "Saavik is pregnant with Spock's child" thread instead of pulling a Chuck Cunningham with the character.

TFF: This was the first Trek film that abandoned any pretense of trying to appeal to non-Trekkie viewers. The overlong sequence around the campfire was fun for longtime Trek fans, but it came off as filmed fanfic. The sudden appearance of Sybok, a hitherto never known brother, was more -inducing than anything else, though I do wonder how it would have played with Sean Connery in the role as originally planned. I frankly find the film unwatchable (how many decks are on the Enterprise, again?) and so it's my big disappointment of the film series - TNG films included.

TUC: Thank god they made TUC. I'd have hated for TFF to have been the finale (which at the time was reported to possibly have been the case). TUC was a timely story, returning to some of the darkness of the first three films, and it revealed layers to the characters that we'd rarely seen. It's certainly the best-written of the TOS films, and pairing old Stratford Festival colleagues Shatner and Christopher Plummer was genius. My only gripe with TUC is that Roddenberry vetoed the plan for Valeris to be Saavik. That would have been incredible and I hope someday someone will create a "fan edit" that changes the character's name so we can see how the story was originally intended to unfold...

As for the TNG films, the only one I really liked was First Contact, for much the same reasons I liked TUC. Problem was Undiscovered Country was the last Trek film made with mainstream audiences in mind. The TNG films pretty much required intimate knowledge of TNG, DS9, etc. I did enjoy Nemesis, but it came out at a time when the franchise was collapsing, so I don't even think another Wrath of Khan would have been fondly remembered from that dark era.

Alex

 

[sonak]

For those who wrote that TUC "falls apart in the middle," what does that mean? Do you mean the "mystery plot" onboard the Ent-A, or the "Rura Penthe" plot or what?

 

[Too Much Fun]

For those who wrote that TUC "falls apart in the middle," what does that mean? Do you mean the "mystery plot" onboard the Ent-A, or the "Rura Penthe" plot or what?

I can't speak for everyone else, but for me the "Rura Penthe" stuff is the problem. I mean, I'm not against changing up the scenery/trying something different plot-wise as a rule, but this detour made me uncomfortable.

I didn't like Kirk and McCoy being separated from the crew that long and I didn't think their surroundings or the characters around them were as interesting as those we've seen them with on other ships and planets. Being stuck with them in that prison just stopped the whole movie dead for me, but once they got out of there it picked up again.

 

[Unicron]

I don't know. I'd argue that TVH isn't really about the probe. That's just a Macguffin to justify to all the delightful time-travel hijinks, which are totally winning. IMHO.

Exactly, the probe was a big plot device, but it had an even smaller role than the specific actions given to V'Ger in TMP (which, if you think about it, weren't that many - it consumed everything on the way to Earth and threatened to destroy the planet if Kirk didn't contact the creator). As I said, some of the hijinks were good and others weren't; Spock's cursing got old for me quickly. And Scotty just hands the formula for transparent aluminum to a fairly random stranger, with the shrug of "well, maybe he invented it." YMMV, of course.

Would the movie really have been more entertaining if we'd gotten a subtitled translation of probe-speak? Or would that have just been a bunch of unnecessary technobabble?

It would depend on who wrote the subtitles. Just watching the whales communicate with the probe for a good minute or longer (I haven't watched the film in ages, so I forget how long it actually is) without having a clue what's being said isn't necessarily any better to me than watching a translation that's poorly written. It'd be like watching ROTJ without being able to understand what Jabba was saying in all his scenes. Without those translations, there's less of a context for some of the other action.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I'm a big fan of the TOS films which is a little ironic since I first discovered Trek through watching TNG. If anything I'm more disappointed with the TNG films when compared with the TOS movies. That being said I have enjoyed all six of the TOS films, with TFF being the least liked but out of sheer execution as mentioned in an earlier post. TOS had the luxury of framing their stories around the Trinity of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy while TNG didn't and chose to have their main emotional drama surrounding Picard and Data while ignoring the rest of the crew mostly. I think the TOS films did a better job of including their fab four compared with TNG. So yeah no I wasn't disappointed with the TOS.