Karl Urban names TMP his favorite Trek movie. :D

[Lance]

Urban gets it.
And, anyone who thinks the film drags during V'Ger exposition isn't enjoying Maestro Goldsmith's excellent score. Hell, I'd happily watch 3 more hours of V'Ger flyover if his music accompanied it.
You could never make TMP today. No space battle. No fights. No villain. I couldn't imagine any studio buying that kind of concept now.

I have a friend who sat, enraptured, through the whole journey-through-V'Ger sequence. Not bored, but genuinely intrigued about what was coming next, caught up the in the story. I found that fascinating, because it flew in the face of the so-called 'received wisdom' that people get bored by TMP. This experience was completely the opposite.

 

[slappy]

I just became more of an Urban fan. It's always struck me as baffling that Trek fans were so hard on a smart, cerebral sci-fi film like TMP.

 

[Smellmet]

Combined TMP and TWOK encompass all of the pontential of Star Trek stories. From the pure meditative science fiction of TMP that uses outer space to explore the human condition to TWOK that uses a tale of vengeance loaded with melodrama to, again delve deeply into the human condition.
Really, they are the perfect counterpoints to each other.

Last time I watched them both it was back to back, and whilst the overall tone of TWOK is very different, the re-use of sets and effects allowed it to play out as one glorious 4 hour trek movie. I heartily recommend doing it.