How does the Kelvin Universe movies stack up with the various shows and movie series of Trek?

[Jayson1]

I love the Kelvin Universe quite abit and here is how I rate them up against the entire body of "Star Trek."

Things I rank higher than the Kelvin Universe movies are TOS,DS9,TOS movies.
Things I rank as even are TNG season 3-6, and "First Contact" the movie. Sometimes I do rank these higher, which means that is is still a opinion I haven't fully settled on.
Things I rank lower are Voyager, Enterprise and the rest of the TNG movies. At times I think I would rank Voyager season 1,2,4 and 5 a little higher but that is also a somewhat unsettled opinion.

I haven't seen the TOS cartoons, or most of them, as of yet so I didn't rank it.

As for the characters of the Kelvin Universe I would put them behind Kirk,Spock,McCoy,Scotty,Picard,Data,Geordi,Worf, entire DS9 cast,Janeway,Seven,Emh,Torres,Paris,Tuvok,Phlox and Trip. Which seems kind of low but since were talking about movie characters that you can't explore every week I think that isn't much of a problem.

The ship though is behind just about all the other ships,plus DS9 the station, except for the NX-01.

Jason

 

[F. King Daniel]

As a whole, I'd put them below TOS and it's movies (since they're based so closely on them and are always very conscious of themselves as sideways continuations), but above everything else in Trek.

They're hugely enjoyable movies with characters that are great updates of the originals.

 

[Relayer1]

I think the Kelvinverse movies started off O.K. but have got progressively worse.

Overall, nowhere near as good as the TOS movies (with the exception of V), and not as good as the somewhat poor Next Gen movies.

I can't really compare them to TV shows, but it would take a fairly duff episode of Enterprise or Voyager to lose out to watching a Kelvinverse film.

 

[Smoked Salmon]

It depends on what basis you assess them. In terms of the spirit and intelligence of Roddenberry style Trek I would say the movies are inferior to everything else.

In terms of general non-Trek entertainment value and strength of characters I would likely put them after TOS, TNG and DS9 but before the rest.

 

[a thousand-yard stare]

O tempora, o mores...

 

[somebuddyX]

As with all of Trek, some are alright, some aren't. I feel they should really only be judged against the Trek films because the films have to try to make big piles of cash, the shows are able to do completely different things each week, they either have the benefit of much more screentime or they have the disadvantage of much more screen time.

 

[Timewalker]

To answer the question asked in the thread title: Poorly.

 

[Vger23]

More entertaining than most, if not all, of the spin-offs, but not as good as the original series or first 6 movies.

 

[Galileo7]

More entertaining than most, if not all, of the spin-offs, but not as good as the original series or first 6 movies.

Agree, the Kirk era of the Kelvin timeline films makes them only below the original TOS/TAS/TOS Films Kirk era.

 

[Andy Hong]

Hmm....varies.
1: TV vs movies. Borrowing some thoughts from redlettermedia (Mr. Plinkett - note: his vids are NSFW), he said (I think) the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars, was one was Science Fiction and the other Science Fantasy. In the former, you get a detailed explanation of how the warp drive works, in the latter, hyperdrives just "work". Though I think this had more to do with Trek being mostly (initially) TV series and Wars being initially movies. In the former, they had time each week to spend 5-10 mins explaining how stuff worked, but you can't do that in movies. Only "it's working" or "it's not working! Fix it!". ALSO Plinkett mentioned that, for example, movie Picard has little in common with TV Picard, who tended to be more diplomatic and less actiony/violent.
2: Modern movies vs older movies - again from Plinkett, modern ones tend to be aimed mainly at a wider audience, in order to maximise money/profits.
3: Trek movies like an extended episode, involving discovery or exploration, vs ones with action, combat, struggle, intrigue and/or character focus, possibly with a darker tone. TMP, Search for Spock, Voyage Home, Final Frontier, seem in the former. Generations leans that way, Insurrection is actually somewhat in the middle, since it feels like an extended episode with a lot of action and struggle. Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, First Contact, Nemesis, and the Kelvin timeline seem the latter.

It would help if all Trek movies had fewer plot holes or things which don't make sense (ONLY AVAILABLE SHIP IN THE QUADRANT?! How big is a quadrant anyway?!)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

They made one good movie, one crappy movie, and another pretty good movie that underperformed. So about par for the course for Trek.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

(ONLY AVAILABLE SHIP IN THE QUADRANT?! How big is a quadrant anyway?!)

It's one-fourth the size of four quadrants.

 

[Andy Hong]

It's one-fourth the size of four quadrants.

But how many ships can you fit in that?!

 

[The Old Mixer]

I've seen offscreen sources that postulate sectors also being divided into quadrants, to explain the smaller-scale uses of the term that go back to TOS.

 

[-Brett-]

They don't have any of the good parts of old school Trek, but they don't have the cringe either, so that's good I guess. Overall kind of bland and forgettable.

 

[CorporalClegg]

All three films are better than any Trek (WoK maybe being the exception) since season 1 of TOS.

 

[Andy Hong]

They made one good movie, one crappy movie, and another pretty good movie that underperformed. So about par for the course for Trek.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I thought I could do better (maybe) so I wrote a Kelvin universe screenplay. It's in the fanfic section.
"Star Trek: M-5". Maybe it would work as the 5th Kelvin timeline movie?

 

[Lance]

They capture the spirit of the original Star Trek, better than a lot of what else has come out under the franchise's name over the years. Including maybe even the TOS movies. That was my first instinct back in 2009, and it still holds today.

I find it almost impossible to play this game of 'best and worst' with anything Star Trek. The Kelvin-verse movies are another worthy bow to the franchise, and they have their good and bad individual instalments, just like all of the rest do.

 

[Voth commando1]

awesome cgi and acting isn't bad at all.

Gaila-hot green women

Cumberbatch did awesome as Khan

Beyond had a lot of heartfelt Easter eggs and the scene where Spock looks at the picture of the original TOS crew-I liked that.

Problems-they pander too much still to the general public,

They aren't as terrible as they are made out to be and they aren't the best either.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

A shadow of what Trek is and should be, focusing more on style than substance.