One Movie Series Or Two?

As we all know, when The Motion Picture premiered in 1979 it was the start of a fantastic series of movies that didn't end until number ten, Nemesis in 2002. After that, despite Nimoy being featured, I always viewed 09 as a new start, the first in what I thought would be another long run of connected films. Did anybody else feel that way or was it just film number 11 for you?

 

For me, it has always been three movie series. The TOS films were the Star Trek films for me. Even with ones I don't really enjoy they still stood together as something unique. The TNG films basically broke that with Generations, almost literally so. So, TNG stood apart as a second series of films with less interest for me. The Abrams/Kelvin films were just another film grouping but I warmed up to them despite initial skepticism.

 

I view it as three different film series. The cast (or at least the star) makes the series. If you make enough films, there's going to be turnover behind-the-scenes, so the star is the keeper of the flame.

Waaaaaaaayyyyyy back in 1994, there was an official Star Trek: Generations magazine that came out that was put out by Starlog. I might or might not still have it (probably not), but I remember one of the actors (I think it was Marina Sirtis) saying "This isn't Star Trek VII. It's really Star Trek: The Next Generation I." I think that makes sense.

Calling Generations "Film 7" is like calling an episode of one of the new series "Episode 750". Generations is the seventh film of The Franchise, but it's the first of its particular series. It's common to number the films the same way we number TV series. In 2002, we had the fifth series (ENT) and the 10th film (NEM).

But I think films are more like "seasons". In the '80s and '90s, for instance, Star Trek had a string of long-runs. Six films with the TOS movies, and TNG/DS9/VOY all had seven seasons each. If TOS had seven films centered around their cast, it would look more obvious. Because then it would have the same number of films as the '90s shows had seasons.

 

i just view them as one long film series like Bond or Star Wars - yeh you can split them into sections I-VI/GEN-NEM/09-BEY but just prefer to view them as I-XIII

 

I personally always saw them as eras. Classic Trek movies, Next Gen movies, Kelvin movies.

 

TOS movies, TNG movies, AOS movies. 3 movie series'.

 

I can see where you’re coming from with that to be honest. TMP really is out there on its own in many ways. In fact, in an alternative reality it was made in 1974 and we got a handful sequels in a similar style. And then once the eighties arrived we had TWOK and the next set of movies etc

 

I started a thread years ago along these lines. In fact, I feel that TMP is soooo different from II-VI, I voiced the (very unpopular) opinion that it should be considered non-canon. The other movies do a better job at being a continuation of the TOS universe tham TMP. In fact, I'll wager that Gene himself wanted to erase/reboot TOS with TMP.

 

Pretty sure that's a matter of record.

 

Star Trek films can easily feel like two or three movie series, but if we stop and think about it, technically there’s only one series. TUC retires the original characters in preparation for films like GEN. Star Trek (2009) is a sequel (says Orci!) to Nemesis, only this time introducing an offshoot universe instead of jumping 78 years into the future.

 

“BEY” is wrong, since Beyond is part of the title: star-trekking (to) somewhere beyond (having returned from darkness a few years back). It should be STB, preceded by STID and simply ST (2009).

 

As with all usage/style, it’s supposed to be invisible so as not to distract from the actual content. “BEY” kinda stops you in your tracks for a second, “what’s this, like Turhan Bey, who famously played the Centauri Emperor on B5?” and then you figure out it’s the phantom colon again, but of course we don’t really write IDS instead of STID either. Also, it’s better to have one more argument for why it’s DSC and not “STD” (the colon does exist there).