If "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" had been the last classic-era film

[Kor]

I think sometimes they find the thread from a Google search and then sign up specifically to respond to the topic of that thread, not realizing there's a rule against reviving old threads.

Kor

 

[dupersuper]

You may be right there. There is definitely a remarkable consistency in Spock's portrayal that seems to suggest that directors (other than himself, of course) largely let him do his own thing.

I'm sure he also let him do his own thing...

 

[plynch]

Well, in TMP he is cold Spock, searching for what to be, then discovers he needs to be human too; WOK he seems "normal." SFS, he's well. . . . y'know. TVH, he's recovering. By TFF he's back to "normal." Then in TUC he mind-rapes Valeris.

To be fair, Spock was different throughout TOS. Shouty, someimes-pissed Sppock of early S1 gives way to "normal", then in S3 he gets real cold again, like playing a stereotypical Berman-era dickish Vulcan. So I'm not sure there was ever a normal. Hey, before those, he sings in an elevator with Una. He's quite a chameleon.

 

[Jadeb]

I know this is a necro thread, but I’d have been very sorry if Trek IV had been the last TOS outing. The final scene works OK for that purpose, but I think the whimsical nature of the film overall would have made it an odd bookend for the much more somber I-III. The movie works great right where it is, mixed in like Shore Leave or the Trouble With Tribbles. It doesn’t need the weight of being the capstone to the TOS legacy.

Also, TFF is a weaker outing, but I treasure many of the character moments and am glad we got those interactions with Bill, Dee and Leonard while we could. Then the cast gets a proper goodbye with TUC. Worked out well, in my book.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

But there is something to be said for VI as the post script to that tale, being of a bit of bookend to II's dynamic of the old among the new to TUC where Kirk and company now effectively do pass the torch to the next generation and/or embrace their roles beyond the Enterprise. I guess for me, the Voyage Home is the conclusion for the characters where as Undiscovered Country is the conclusion to TOS itself, allowing that era, its central themes, and its performers to one final bow to the audience.

Star Trek IV makes an interesting comparison with "All Good Things..." The stories told are very different, yet in their different ways they end up in the same place at the end -- the casts are united in their classic configurations, the ending is open-ended, and it's possible to imagine the two crews boldly going forever. These are hopeful endings, full of promise and dreams.

They're satisfying endings. The stories could have ended there. But I would have been disappointed if they were also the last stories we'd seen of those crews.

 

[Phoenix219]

I wish TVH had led to 7 years of that ship and crew on TV telling versions of the TNG stories with a handful of the TNG crew mixing in with the Magnificent 7. The timing works too well. 1986, the final movie. 1987, the launch of a new show.

Picard could be the demoted Shatner's boss over a viewscreen, maybe. Riker/Troi/Data could fulfil the original Decker/Ilia/Xon roles, and they could still have had a Klingon and a blind pilot.. Could have even gone back to tunics under/instead of the Maroons.

 

[Maurice]

I wish TVH had led to 7 years of that ship and crew on TV telling versions of the TNG stories with a handful of the TNG crew mixing in with the Magnificent 7. The timing works too well. 1986, the final movie. 1987, the launch of a new show.

Picard could be the demoted Shatner's boss over a viewscreen, maybe. Riker/Troi/Data could fulfil the original Decker/Ilia/Xon roles, and they could still have had a Klingon and a blind pilot.. Could have even gone back to tunics under/instead of the Maroons.

No.

 

[Khan 2.0]

I wish TVH had led to 7 years of that ship and crew on TV telling versions of the TNG stories with a handful of the TNG crew mixing in with the Magnificent 7. The timing works too well. 1986, the final movie. 1987, the launch of a new show.

Picard could be the demoted Shatner's boss over a viewscreen, maybe. Riker/Troi/Data could fulfil the original Decker/Ilia/Xon roles, and they could still have had a Klingon and a blind pilot.. Could have even gone back to tunics under/instead of the Maroons.

Nimoy would've most likely had a heart attack at being proposed that at the time. before saying 'bon voyage'. The rest however would've been jumping up and down with joy (including Shatner as TJ Hooker had just been cancelled)

 

[Phoenix219]

Nimoy would've most likely had a heart attack at being proposed that at the time. before saying 'bon voyage'. The rest however would've been jumping up and down with joy (including Shatner as TJ Hooker had just been cancelled)

Nimoy as a recurring guest star for season finales and special episodes may have worked, and still allowed the new characters to develop. I would love to have seen post ressurection Spock having philosophical debates and a form of mentorship with Data. Some comedy gold.

 

[JaxsBrokenHeart]

Honestly I think for Trek's long term vitality TNG had to be its own thing. The show suffered enough from feeling like TOS early on; a mixed crew of old and new casts would have further defined ST as having to be Kirk adjacent to exist rather than a living breathing universe to have different casts in.

Granted, if the Final Frontier had been successful and kept the movies' momentum going into the early 90s, Trek might have been defined as Films=TOS, TV=TNG & others longer than it did.

 

[Amasov]

One of the fascinating things that happened between 1986 and 1991 was that TNG did become incredibly popular. TFF (1989) arguably still marches to the beat of it's own drum, still sure of TOS's stewardship over the universe as the parent program; yes Herman Zimmerman tried to create a kind of 'legacy' visually towards TNG, but narratively it feels like everyone involved was still keeping a certain 'us vs them' separation you know? By TUC (1991) we had TOS characters talking of the Alpha Quadrant, and Worf (or an ancestor) as a guest character. Suddenly, TOS was playing with TNG's toys, rather than the other way around, if that makes sense... TNG had 'broken through' and TOS was in many ways now subconsciously a secondary tier of the franchise compared to the spin off. Interesting.

I get what you're saying.

In a sense, TNG was truly building the world that later became associated with Star Trek, overall. So much of what the other shows and films have done since pull from that and even retroactively apply that sort of sensibility to the shows that are set prior to TOS. And I think as a result of this, it's caused TOS, while the originator of the entire franchise, to look and feel the most separate from all of them.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Leaving this thread open since it seems to have aged well, but please, folks, if it's older than a year, don't post! Open a new thread!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Granted, if the Final Frontier had been successful and kept the movies' momentum going into the early 90s, Trek might have been defined as Films=TOS, TV=TNG & others longer than it did.

I wonder, honestly, how long a Kirk/Spock movie series could have lasted, though. There's no magical reason why Undiscovered Country was the last. Shatner pitched a sequel to it (which became The Ashes of Eden). Almost all of the cast said they would return for another if that's the way the studio went. But DeForrest Kelley was old, frail, and uninsurable. Doohan was getting up there, too. Maybe Paramount could have squeezed one more film out of the old cast before either recasting the original crew with younger actors (as Harve Bennett wanted to do in 1990) or transitioning Picard's crew to film. But I think that's the most that could have happened.

FWIW, I wish I could jump a few universes over and see Bennett's Starfleet Academy movie.

 

[Dukhat]

I wonder, honestly, how long a Kirk/Spock movie series could have lasted, though. There's no magical reason why Undiscovered Country was the last. Shatner pitched a sequel to it (which became The Ashes of Eden). Almost all of the cast said they would return for another if that's the way the studio went. But DeForrest Kelley was old, frail, and uninsurable. Doohan was getting up there, too. Maybe Paramount could have squeezed one more film out of the old cast before either recasting the original crew with younger actors (as Harve Bennett wanted to do in 1990) or transitioning Picard's crew to film. But I think that's the most that could have happened.

I feel the exact opposite. The original intent was to have the TNG crew for the small screen, and the TOS crew for the big screen, and nary the two shall meet. But what Paramount didn't seem to take into consideration was that the TOS crew were aging and were not believable as the space explorers/action heroes that Paramount wanted to market them as. This is painfully evident even in the first post-TNG TOS film, TFF. I firmly believe the TOS films should have ended with TVH, and the fate of the crew left to the imaginations of the audience. (Yes, I'm aware that Paramount was contractually obligated to give Shatner his chance to direct a film, but look how that turned out?)

 

[Smellmet]

I can quite happily go straight from TVH to TUC and the story works just fine.

 

[dupersuper]

I can quite happily go straight from TVH to TUC and the story works just fine.

But...I need my pain.

 

[fireproof78]

I can quite happily go straight from TVH to TUC and the story works just fine.

Same here. I honestly can't recall the last time I watched TFF between those two. TFF is fun outlier, but not as a story between the other two films.

 

[Smellmet]

Same here. I honestly can't recall the last time I watched TFF between those two. TFF is fun outlier, but not as a story between the other two films.

Don't get me wrong it has some great character moments but they're not enough to save the film. I also feel like the trial with the klingons desperately wanting kirk jailed in TVH fits well with the story in TUC also.

TFF, alongside insurrection are the two trek films I rarely watch these days.

 

[STEPhon IT]

1986: Star Trek seemed to be on a roll. A new movie had just come out, and a new TV show was on it's way. As we all know, the original cast would return to do two more films, one critically panned, the other seen as a landmark ending to the adventures of the classic Enterprise crew. But what if those other two films hadn't happened at all?

Say "Star Trek: The Next Generation" began production on season 2, and William Shatner approached Paramount to direct his own new Trek film, but the studio decided, "Y'know, Bill, that's nice and all, but they said it best in the third movie: Your day is over." And with that, the classic crew were never to be seen again after warping off to the final frontier in the brand-new Enterprise-A.

Would it have been a good ending? A fitting conclusion to the voyages of the Enterprise crew? In my opinion, yes, actually. Neither of the films that followed captured the same essence of what made the early four Star Trek motion pictures so, for lack of a better word, magical. You had the family reunion in TMP, then the Genesis Trilogy of films. Did we even need another two films? Let's see what you've got to say!

No, there didn't need to have two more movies because Kirk got his command back and sail off to other future adventures. From understanding TVH was a box office success and another movie was bound to happen, but the movie was uplifting, fun, had a message a general audience loved. Gene Roddenberry gave that movie his blessings where he was critical with most of the movies, this movie could have been a wonderful send off to his characters he created.

 

[bravetwo]

The Voyage Home is the Star Trek film that had the highest box office gross. It captured the imagination of the public who were eager to see Kirk and the crew in present day (1986) San Francisco.