Even number movie rule
- Thread starter Hawkeye_90
- Start date
Exactly. I still have, somewhere, a few newspaper movie reviews which favored Trek III over II. Saying TWOK "pads, rather than fills, the wide screen" and that TSFS caught the flavor of the TV series more. "Leave it to Lenoard Nimoy to really understand the characters."
TSFS's fall from grace always felt like "guilt by association" because of the odd-numbered thing.
MM definitely V's.
I remember that our local paper,The Seattle Times,thought that ST III was the best Trek film to date.
True story: I first saw #3 at a special screening hosted by James Doohan and organized by a local Trek fan club. As I recall, a good time was had by all . . . .
Pretty much what I was going to say.
And created its own new rule. I hope they're really careful when they make Star Trek XV!
Once is an incident, twice is a coincidence, and thrice is a pattern. Until Star Trek V came out there weren't enough films to make a pattern.
At the very least, the rule has been relativized through recent events thanks to Mr. Baird and Mr. Abrams. 
But even before that, I'm inclined to say that an odd-numbered movie like TSFS was much closer in terms of quality to the group of "good", even-numbered movies than it was to TFF.
Let's say that an even-numbered Trek movie just had a higher likelihood of being "good", but it was far from being a certainty. And good/bad shouldn't be used as absolutes anyway. Films like TWOK, TVH, or FC were good movies, TSFS and TUC were average movies, and TFF, INS, and NEM are examples for bad movies.
But even before that, I'm inclined to say that an odd-numbered movie like TSFS was much closer in terms of quality to the group of "good", even-numbered movies than it was to TFF.Let's say that an even-numbered Trek movie just had a higher likelihood of being "good", but it was far from being a certainty. And good/bad shouldn't be used as absolutes anyway. Films like TWOK, TVH, or FC were good movies, TSFS and TUC were average movies, and TFF, INS, and NEM are examples for bad movies.
^ It's an easy trick, but it isn't valid. As cool as it is (and it is very, very cool), Galaxy Quest is not a Star Trek movie.
Okay, okay, no Galaxy Quest. How about we look at the films in hex?
1. The Motion Picture
2. The Wrath of Khan
3. The Search For Spock
4. The Voyage Home
5. The Final Frontier
6. The Undiscovered Country
7. Generations
8. First Contact
9. Insurrection
A. Nemesis
B. '09
C. Into Darkness
The odd numbers and odd letters are in bold. It works.
The more times I see TSFS, the sillier it becomes.
This is true. I think the lack of lasting consequences or follow up in the following films was another factor that caused TSFS to fall from favor. When TSFS first came out, it was taking our characters to a place they had never been before. The destruction of the enterprise and exile resulting from insubordination. In terms of the characters, it felt like they were really shaking up the universe, leaving the future with a mixture of hope and uncertainty.
After TVH came out (and especially after the later movies and TNG), all that uncertainty, and the events of TSFS became merely an exercise of "getting the story from point a to point b." I think this was made worse by TFF not even acknowledging the events of the last films aside from McCoy's comment "I liked him better before he died." Though this was five years after the movie, it was only one year tops that had passed for the characters.
What was a grand epic game changer had now become little more than a footnote, a speed-bump in the Enterprise crew, and future Enterprises.
The problem is that while these films were to varying degrees part of a close chronological sequence, they each really were their own film, and while maintaining some continuity of events, brought their own "feeling." This worked for the most part, but the main power of TSFS was the potential for storytelling possibilities and changes it meant for the universe and characters. That the next film didn't follow on that tone, and instead went for a more lighthearted adventure really undermined the impact of TSFS.
Don't get me wrong, I love TVH. I think it was what the franchise needed at the time. But the characters seem more like they are just a crew on an adventure most of the time, and not carrying the weight of having just trashed their careers. Or Kirk having just lost his son. Those elements, while present to some degree, are more of a background, limited to a couple lines of dialogue in the beginning, then the recap at the end (as it needed to so it could be more accessible to people that hadn't seen the previous film).
yeah i understand what you mean about III being a radical depature from the norm and offering all kinds of possibilities for more unconventional Trek adventures.... Kirk & his crew of renegades in the BOP off the grid on the run making do with what they can salvage Blakes 7 style for a couple of movies before things get sorted out with the UFP...
a more Star Warsy approach to the trekverse , which Trek III had anyway, (a good 25 years b4 JJ)
a more Star Warsy approach to the trekverse , which Trek III had anyway, (a good 25 years b4 JJ)
trevanian
Rear Admiral
I think you've really hit on it, though I don't share your love for TVH. When I left SFS opening day, while I was (and remain today) annoyed by so many bits seeming like they were badly recycled from TWOK and absolutely hating the film's 'science' and absurd 'beam down to an exploding planet and THEN try to negotiate' strategy, I felt there was a whole new path for TREK to follow in sequels, one that would have been saved production dollars, streamlined storytelling and really opened things up.
I knocked out a treatment called PRIVATE ENTERPRISE almost instantly along these lines, where they do wind up in a BLAKE'S SEVEN kind of thing, operating independently (though by the end of the film, since they've stopped an interstellar war by exposing a klingon plot to put Roms and Feds at each other's throats, they get a kind of unofficial pass from Starfleet on past offenses), and they are quite happy to continue on their own, actually doing some exploring and adventuring in the BoP.
I thought them staying rogue would save a ton of money since you wouldn't have to keep showing all the extras on a starship and all the token San Francisco Earth stuff that Bennett was going to pile into act 1 on future films, that it would put that much more screen time to focus on the regulars instead of a bunch of ancillaries that have to talk to Kirk to get the Enterprise going again, and that they would be at last free of the Fed/SF dictates (which were going pretty retro by SFS, which at times makes the Federation feel like THE X-FILES of something Mr. Snowden needed to expose, given the Federation Security presence - something David Gerrold touched on in his revised WORLD OF STAR TREK), so they could make tough decisions based on ethics rather than imposed-from-outside rules.
I really thought Star Trek needed to be freed from the whole prime directive aspect (not that this is a factor in the movies anyway), but I also thought it would free up ALL future Trek to see things from different perspectives in the universe (which may explain why I am such a huge Maquis/Eddington fan, and wish that whole part of Trek was handled in a massively different way, from the other end of the telescope so to speak.)
The fact that they went 180 degrees from what I wanted is probably a lot of what fueled my own screenwriting projecvts for over a decade, as I developed a universe that kind of BLUE VELVET'ed the TREKverse (FIREFLY but with better science and admittedly less interesting characters) in terms of showing its impracticalities and how things just couldn't work that way, with a former officer gone independent and just barely squeaking by, then things changing very much over the course of a few years, to the point ... well, you know, a universe that changes.
TREK has been just SO Starfleet-centric it drove me nuts (only really enjoy DS9 as far as followups), and I kind of think it became a kind of singularity, orbiting its own navel closer and closer with each new (?) incarnation on TV.
Now with Abrams Starfleet is again at the center of things, but a Starfleet that is just so contemporary that it might as well not even be STAR TREK.
So I guess SFS (or really TVH) is really where trek lost me in a big way, because they played it all safe instead of trying to explore strange new stories from a cast-specific perspective.
alternative Treks 4-6 if theyd gone the Blake 7 route
Star Trek IV The Quest for Peace. After the successful resurrection of their comrade Captain Spock, the crew of the fallen Enterprise set off back to earth in their stolen Klingon ship with additional crewmembers Savvik and Maltz but are forced into exile by a dangerous secret section of Starfleet who wish to retrieve the BOP to instigate a war with the Klingon empire, leading to a fierce manhunt across the galaxy..
Star Trek V The Final Frontier. Admiral kirk and his renegade crew encounter a romulan plot to invade the Federation and must enlist the help of their enemies the klingons to avert a war that will rip the galaxy apart..
Star Trek VI The Voyage Home - the crew finally decide to face the federation. However on the way back to earth a mysterious alien probe begins to disrupt earths defences...
Star Trek IV The Quest for Peace. After the successful resurrection of their comrade Captain Spock, the crew of the fallen Enterprise set off back to earth in their stolen Klingon ship with additional crewmembers Savvik and Maltz but are forced into exile by a dangerous secret section of Starfleet who wish to retrieve the BOP to instigate a war with the Klingon empire, leading to a fierce manhunt across the galaxy..
Star Trek V The Final Frontier. Admiral kirk and his renegade crew encounter a romulan plot to invade the Federation and must enlist the help of their enemies the klingons to avert a war that will rip the galaxy apart..
Star Trek VI The Voyage Home - the crew finally decide to face the federation. However on the way back to earth a mysterious alien probe begins to disrupt earths defences...
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My pet targ watched all the even ones and enjoyed them, she didn't watch any of the odd ones and didn't enjoy them. The exception proves the rule.
I haven't seen TSFS in a couple years, so maybe this was explained and I just don't remember it, but... why did the Enterprise go to Genesis in the first place? Bones tells Kirk at the beginning of the film to the climb the steps of a Vulcan mountain, Sarek is supposed to meet Kirk and co. on Vulcan, and later on the crew is clearly surprised to find a zombie Spock walking around on Genesis. So what was the plan on Genesis? What exactly did the crew expect to find there before heading to Vulcan? Either there was an explanation I missed (which is entirely possible), or there's a hole in the plot large enough to fly the Excelsior through.
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trevanian
Rear Admiral
The implication is that Spock's body needs to be recovered in order to facilitate whatever afterlife katra stuff to work, but it is not spelled out at all, probably because more words would make a deeper hole.
GRISSOM reported the tube having landed safely, so that is thin support for the idea that the body is intact.
I think the stealing the Enterprise editing may have impacted some of this too ... the sequence of events on Genesis and how they are intercut or placed around the Enterprise theft did get played with some, I'm pretty sure that 7 or 8 minutes used to have intercuts to GRISSOM and/or Genesis.
GRISSOM reported the tube having landed safely, so that is thin support for the idea that the body is intact.
I think the stealing the Enterprise editing may have impacted some of this too ... the sequence of events on Genesis and how they are intercut or placed around the Enterprise theft did get played with some, I'm pretty sure that 7 or 8 minutes used to have intercuts to GRISSOM and/or Genesis.
Yep, the novelization explains it better. The film switched the discovery of the tube till earlier in the chain of events, at the last minute, and the novelization mentions that the ritual Sarek wants for Spock involves the katra being reunited with the body one more time to enable it to pass into the Hall of Ancient Thought. Not all Vulcans get this honor. Without a body, though, the katra - which Sarek assumed was in the head of Spock's best friend, Kirk - will be stuck in McCoy's head forever. Meaning that both Spock and McCoy are lost to the Enterprise forever.
IIRC, in the novelizations, Spock's will had also requested burial in space and disintegration into a sun. Saavik couldn't bear that happening to her mentor, so she reprogrammed the tube to softland on Genesis.
Suddenly the body exists after all, and so begins the mission to retrieve Spock's body.
IIRC, in the novelizations, Spock's will had also requested burial in space and disintegration into a sun. Saavik couldn't bear that happening to her mentor, so she reprogrammed the tube to softland on Genesis.
Suddenly the body exists after all, and so begins the mission to retrieve Spock's body.
But was that simply the author trying to make sense of a story which made no sense, or was this actually what was supposed to have been represented in the film?
There was another factor informing Kirk's decision--Spock himself indicated that Kirk needed to go back and get the body from Genesis, via McCoy. Kirk may have been making a leap of faith based on that.
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