Entertainment Weekly Reviews The Star Trek Movies

[Xotika]

Yes...but....Chekov's costume.

Let's be honest, that thing is to good costume design as matter is to antimatter.
(I don't think film is terrible btw)

Chekov's costume is the worst but everyone who is not in uniform is dressed horribly. And at least Chekov will be dressed marginally better in nex movie unlike Kirk who gets to wear this monstrosity for another 100+ minutes.
That greatly reduced the watchability of both movies.

 

[jaime]

Chekov's costume is the worst but everyone who is not in uniform is dressed horribly. And at least Chekov will be dressed marginally better in nex movie unlike Kirk who gets to wear this monstrosity for another 100+ minutes.
That greatly reduced the watchability of both movies.

I think the colour ran in the wash on Kirk's civvies. And please note, his civvies are still the same damn palette as his uniform. He must have taken up orbital skydiving just to get away from all the maroon.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

but everything he said was observant of the actual movie

Well, except for the first page, where he spent more time discussing Shatner & Nimoy's biographies than he did the actual film.

Interesting reading again, but this was the least and most scattered of his reviews so far.

 

[Mudd]

The analysis of their books was some of the best stuff, and directly relevant to his meditations on the movie.

 

[cardinal biggles]

But seriously, though? Using the term "terrible" here in this context does a disservice to any rational, objective discussion of filmmaking, because, as I said, there are actual "terrible" movies out there that are properly wretched and unwatchable (and which will be forgotten in ten years' time), whereas no matter what one's feelings are on TSFS's quality, it is by no means in that same tier of horribleness. Not by a wide margin.

Except that with media franchises like Star Trek and James Bond, those films never get forgotten. Even the shittiest Roger Moore pics get packaged in the anniversary box set along with Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me. So wtihin the context of the series, I think it's fair to throw around terms like "terrible."

By that same token, if a terrible Trek movie isn't terrible enough to rate amongst truly terrible movies, then it should go without saying that a great Trek movie isn't great enough to rate amongst truly great movies. Fans would be the only ones delusional enough to rend their garments and gnash their teeth over Wrath of Khan not making any of the AFI's "100 Years..." lists.

 

[DonIago]

How does a terrible Trek movie not being objectively terrible automatically mean that a great Trek movie can't be objectively great?

 

[gottacook]

Certainly I understand how the reviewer can write at greater length about TSFS than about a movie he loves (i.e., TWoK), and I was glad that he tried to justify everything he wrote by reference to the Shatner and Nimoy books, even though he treated them perhaps a tad too respectfully.

I think anyone's dissatisfaction with TSFS comes down to the fact that any possible story that resurrects Spock will necessarily have to undertake a particular series of contortions of the plot, the philosophical and action-adventure elements of which can't help but compare poorly to the analogous elements ofTWoK.

I was glad to see Sarek, though. He is the one who really kicks off the story proper, by showing and telling Kirk what he must do, and he's there at the end for the resurrection of his only son (I disregard that nutjob played by Mr. Luckinbill 5 years later).

I see that the reviewer thinks TVH is "sublime"; gee, I can't wait to find out why. How can something with such a bumptious central section (constituting some 70% of the movie) be sublime?

 

[Khan 2.0]

Chekov's costume is the worst but everyone who is not in uniform is dressed horribly. And at least Chekov will be dressed marginally better in nex movie unlike Kirk who gets to wear this monstrosity for another 100+ minutes.
That greatly reduced the watchability of both movies.

I quite liked Kirks 'uniform' in III/IV. was like a off duty version of the standard movie uniform (they obviously wanted Shatner in something vaguely similar looking to the movie uniform despite Kirk being in his off duty clothes - unless it was still Starfleet approved dress?)

 

[Leto_II]

Except that with media franchises like Star Trek and James Bond, those films never get forgotten. Even the shittiest Roger Moore pics get packaged in the anniversary box set along with Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me. So wtihin the context of the series, I think it's fair to throw around terms like "terrible."

Funnily enough, in my earlier post, I almost added in something similar to what you just mentioned (how it might probably be acceptable to use a more qualifying term like, "terrible for a Star Trek movie," strictly in the context of the franchise itself, as opposed to greater cinema), but was afraid I was running too long-winded as it was. But agreed -- absolutely a fair point.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Great observation. Nimoy was always the first one to admit that Shatner's performance informed his as Spock. That Spock is more successful when he has Kirk to play off of.

Funny, I made that same observation and stated with the same exact diction and syntax in the Reddit discussion of this article.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/c...ii_the_wrath_of_khan_is_a_movie_about/d2wst2s

 

[Vger23]

It never ceases to amaze me how, after almost 40 years as a fan, I see the TOS franchise so differently than the majority of others.

I for one love TSFS. But, I also love TMP and TFF...and could really care less about TVH and TUC. But, I also love most of the 3rd season of TOS and the 1st season of TNG.

So, yeah...I guess I'm way weird.

 

[Mudd]

Funny, I made that same observation and stated with the same exact diction and syntax in the Reddit discussion of this article.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/c...ii_the_wrath_of_khan_is_a_movie_about/d2wst2s

D'oh!

 

[BillJ]

It never ceases to amaze me how, after almost 40 years as a fan, I see the TOS franchise so differently than the majority of others.

I for one love TSFS. But, I also love TMP and TFF...and could really care less about TVH and TUC. But, I also love most of the 3rd season of TOS and the 1st season of TNG.

So, yeah...I guess I'm way weird.

Don't worry about it. One of my favorite TOS episodes is "The Omega Glory".

Taste is relative.

 

[Cicero]

Fans would be the only ones delusional enough to rend their garments and gnash their teeth over Wrath of Khan not making any of the AFI's "100 Years..." lists.

I agree with the general argument, but I think Khan himself probably should have been on the "100 Heroes & Villains" list.



(As a complete aside, having been introduced to Harry Lime by the later Orson Welles radio series, but not having seen more than a few clips from The Third Man, or anything from the novel, I was a little shocked to find him listed as a villain.)

 

[Maurice]

None of the Trek movies belongs on a top 100 feature films of all time list. None of them are that good.

 

[Vger23]

Don't worry about it. One of my favorite TOS episodes is "The Omega Glory".

Taste is relative.

Ha! I love Omega Glory. I'm actually of the opinion that Ron Tracey was one of the best TOS villains of all time.

 

[Nebusj]

As a complete aside, having been introduced to Harry Lime by the later Orson Welles radio series, but not having seen more than a few clips from The Third Man, or anything from the novel, I was a little shocked to find him listed as a villain.)

Yeah, he's so charming in the radio series, and he has the comic bumbling to fail in all his on-screen schemes, that you never suspect how much Lime deserves what he got in The Third Man. It's an astounding bit of prequel-building.

 

[jaime]

None of the Trek movies belongs on a top 100 feature films of all time list. None of them are that good.

TMP is actually fairly important in the history of film....one of the first if not the first TV show jumps to film/remake popular TV series for cinema (though us Brits had knocked out Steptoe and Son and Dads Army 'the movie' by that point) It's one a few films that cements the new special effects 'revolution' that was happening back then. It's also a hand over between 'old Hollywood' represented by a lot of people who had been working in the studio systems for a long time (wise of course, that guy whose name I forget who worked for Chaplin, the westmore dynasty of make up guys...who as we know stick with trek as it go's back to TV) and the new Hollywood (the Fx team, the people at Paramount who went off to do interesting things afterwards) It leads to what were at one point the longest standing sets in Hollywood, with segments lasting right through to the end of Voyager (I don't think anything went through to enterprise)
There's quite a lot of stuff that makes it part of film History, despite a chunk of fans not rating it as high as it's sequels. As to whether it's worthy of a spot on a top 100....I suspect it may be, more than any if the others. You can give Khan a footnote for its cgi. I would certainly be hard pressed to think of 99 other films with more of a historical weight or that are outright better than it by a large enough margin to discount it appearing on a list somewhere (it's also the first in a film franchise that is probably only beaten by the bond films in number and longevity, not counting crazy things that fudge things a little.) like that.

 

[Trekkin]

TMP is actually fairly important in the history of film....one of the first if not the first TV show jumps to film/remake popular TV series for cinema

That doesn't sound right to me. For eg. House of Dark Shadows came out in the early '70's, plus Adam West's Batman: The Movie and McHales Navy came out in the 60's. I'm also pretty certain work was being done towards a (eventually The) Twilight Zone movie well before TMP was even a rumour.

If we here in little-old Australia made a freaking Number 96 movie in the 70's, I kinda doubt 'The Film of the Series' were some sort of scary, new frontier to the US by 1979.

EDIT: Heh, whaddaya know - The Nude Bomb (Get Smart) was a theatrical release. And H.R Pufnstuf got a full-blown movie. How did I avoid knowing about these things?

 

[Maurice]

TMP was (maybe) the first revival of a dead TV show as a movie, but films like The Line Up and Batman were made concurrent with their spawning series.

I'm not conflating historical weight and firsts with film quality. I'm specifically referencing the Trek films in terms of their quality as regards the best films ever made. To my mind there's not a single Trek film that is in the league of M or The Manchurian Candidate (original) or The French Connection or The Third Man or Chinatown or On the Waterfront or West Side Story or Vertigo or Dog Day Afternoon or Unforgiven or Raiders of the Lost Ark. I could keep going but it's 2 am and it's zzzzz time.