Plot

[Lapis Exilis]

The funny thing the most popular of all the Star Trek movies, The Voyage Home, had no villian and less of a present threat than any of the other films. Trek has always done well with the other great form of heroic fiction - the quest story. But I think the action-adventure genre (which in film has long since swallowed up space opera) has forgotten the quest story exists.

Huh? Earth was being destroyed by the probe looking for humpback whales! What more threat can there be?

Less of a present threat - meaning the heroes, for most of the story, were not under threat of life and limb from the probe - something they valued was under threat, and that occurred off camera for the most part. The threat is introduced briefly in the first ten minutes of the story and then not seen again until the last ten minutes. In contrast, the other movies have the heroes in danger of imminent death from the threats for a much greater proportion of the movie.

 

[xortex]

Do we need a villian every single time ? I like complex plots told in simple ways. Villians are just easier for little kids to grasp on to than mysterious ideas (not convoluded ideas) but that is seriously underestimating kids these days whose minds can grasp complex ideas but ones that are told in a meaningful metaphysical way i.e. they can identify with the plot. The action speaks to them. Villians are for james Bond and Star Wars, not Star Trek well not exculsively evil villians but villians who believe they are justified or who have no choice. conflicted villians. But a conflict that resonates with the times or some metaphysical truism about the human condition. Evil to me is not an absolute truism.

Once again, personal conflict seems to be the purvue of Bond films and this forum occasionally. Not even Hitler thought he was a bad guy.