Does the TOS movies worth watching without watching TOS?

[F. King Daniel]

I saw the TOS movies (I think in the order V, II, I, IV, III, VI) over a couple of years on VHS before I'd seen TOS (although I think I saw the episode "Journey to Babel" somewhere between them) and I loved them.

 

[Paradise City]

The characters are so iconic, you can crack on and watch the movies before TOS, sure. That's what I did. Back in the day, I found that TOS episodes were scarce. The only thing I could readily get my hands on was to rent out the "Charlie X" episode. That VHS video was a bit worn I seem to remember. But the movies where regularly shown on TV on holidays and available in rental stores and they were top-notch, with impressive FX for that era.

 

[Kor]

The appeal of the TOS movies at the time when they were released was that TOS was still in the public consciousness, being played all the time in reruns on TV, and the beloved characters finally got to have spectacular adventures on the big screen. The movies were revisiting something that you grew up with, and giving it the big-budget treatment, and, in some ways, a more mature treatment of themes from the TV show (i.e. the ladies' man of the swinging sixties now having a grown son whom he never acted responsibly toward).

Somebody just coming to the franchise in 2016 may not find the movies as meaningful or appealing without the background of TOS itself. Frankly, who wants to watch some 1980s movies with a bunch of aging TV actors that you don't see in any contemporary productions, and a hammy captain who feels old and worn out, without already knowing these people in the first place?

Kor

 

[J.T.B.]

When the OS movies started coming out, the average US movie-goer had a level of cultural familiarity with TOS (or "Star Track" as it was known among the kids in my neighborhood) as a TV show that was constantly re-run, and knew who Kirk and Spock were broadly as sort of stereotyped characters. But the segment of the audience who was really familiar with the TV series was pretty small, and the moviemakers knew it. There is no more need to watch TOS before seeing the movies now than there was then. If you like watching TV series from the '60s, I'd say give it a try, but it's certainly not necessary.

 

[Longinus]

The appeal of the TOS movies at the time when they were released was that TOS was still in the public consciousness, being played all the time in reruns on TV, and the beloved characters finally got to have spectacular adventures on the big screen. The movies were revisiting something that you grew up with, and giving it the big-budget treatment, and, in some ways, a more mature treatment of themes from the TV show (i.e. the ladies' man of the swinging sixties now having a grown son whom he never acted responsibly toward).

Somebody just coming to the franchise in 2016 may not find the movies as meaningful or appealing without the background of TOS itself. Frankly, who wants to watch some 1980s movies with a bunch of aging TV actors that you don't see in any contemporary productions, and a hammy captain who feels old and worn out, without already knowing these people in the first place?

Eh. I watched these movies in the 90s without seeing a single episode of TOS before that (I had seen some TNG) and I fucking loved them, even FF and TMP. I still do.

 

[Kor]

In a used book store, I saw some kid who was about ten years old, and obviously a fan of NuTrek, bugging his dad to buy him a DVD of "Star Trek: Generations." I kind of wanted to say something, but I didn't.

Kor