Objective opinion, please. Be logical, not emotional.
Single BEST Trek movie to date (not favourite)
- Thread starter Chrisisall
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None of the ones in your poll, although I would put XI after it.
Star Trek: First Contact
It and Star Trek XI are the only two movies I would show to a non-ST fan. All of the others (except maybe VI and XI) are a little too esoteric. I think it was constructed extremely well, has the best tense moments, soundtrack, visual effects, and design, and it has a story you can appreciate as self-contained even if it helps to have seen BOBW and Q, Who first.
Star Trek: First Contact
It and Star Trek XI are the only two movies I would show to a non-ST fan. All of the others (except maybe VI and XI) are a little too esoteric. I think it was constructed extremely well, has the best tense moments, soundtrack, visual effects, and design, and it has a story you can appreciate as self-contained even if it helps to have seen BOBW and Q, Who first.
I was attempting to ascertain the opinion of the 'best' Trek film as a film, not the 'fan favourite'. This is why I left out other, more pedestrian choices.
My apologies to your love of particular scenes or charactor exchanges.
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Why?
If there were a single objective criterion that made a film the best, then we'd all know what it is already, and it wouldn't be a matter of judgement. Perhaps it's the most acclaimed (probably Khan) or the one that made the most money, but either way, that's a matter of fact and not opinion.
Oh, how silly of me, thinking that what makes a movie good is completely subjective.
What.
Ok, so, we're supposed to vote on which one we think is "best", i.e., which movie was the most well made, not just our personal favorite... but ONLY from the five films in the poll?
Even if one is trying to separate "personal favorite" from "best" (and I do get what you mean with that distinction), it's still a subjective question. Perhaps to a slightly lesser degree than if you simply asked for personal favorites (since it's quite common for someone to recognize serious flaws in a film that is a personal favorite of theirs), but you are still going to get a wide range of responses; there's not going to be any kind of "objective consensus" on which film is the best.
And why only these five, anyway? Just what were your criteria for picking them? And why not just include all of the films? And how the flying fax are these movies less "pedestrian" than the other ones?
I went with TWOK. It accomplished what it set out to achieve better than any other TRek film, even TMP (my personal favorite).
The only thing I can say objectively about this thread is that "Year of Hell" is not a movie. It's not even strictly a telemovie like "The Way of the Warrior" IIRC, it was a two-parter.
Although that might be an interesting thread, rating the Trek movies alongside the two-parters and telefilms ("The Best of Both Worlds" would definitely kick any of the TNG films, anytime, anywhere.)
Though I'd never vote for it as the best, I'm surprised you didn't include First Contact in the poll, considering how much fans love it.
My criteria was that of good film-making. Good script, production, performance, and overall execution.
The Wrath Of Khan worship is tiresome. It IS the best directed, it DOES have the most lively score, it IS well acted & produced, but its story is a simplistic revenge device, and a poorly constructed one at that.
Undiscovered Country has a far superiour PLOT, and almost equal direction, as well as superb performances. It is the "best" trek film (even though my favourite is TMP).
Clearly, objective analysis here is impossible; emotion rules perception- this thread is a waste of time. You will all, no doubt, blast me on this with phasers on maximum. Go for it; my sheilds are up.
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Bravo.
You were right. Forgive me.
My criteria was that of good film-making. Good script, production, performance, and overall execution.
The Wrath Of Khan worship is tiresome. It IS the best directed, it DOES have the most lively score, it IS well acted & produced, but its story is a simplistic revenge device, and a poorly constructed one at that.
Undiscovered Country has a far superiour PLOT, and almost equal direction, as well as superb performances. It is the "best" trek film (even though my favourite is TMP).
Clearly, objective analysis here is impossible; emotion rules perception- this thread is a waste of time. You will all, no doubt, blast me on this with phasers on maximum. Go for it; my sheilds are up.
I can only conclude that you honestly don't realize what a massive fallacy this is based on. You're assuming that your OPINIONS are objective facts. Unless you're talking about things that ARE objective like sales or visual FX, then direction, casting, and to a point even acting etc. are all opinion as far as how well-done they are. I'm not blasting you, but it does baffle me that you don't know the difference between a fact and an opinion, apparently.
In this discussion, they are. It's an equation- like a term paper being graded. "Was it effective?" "Did it hit the marks?" "Did it expand upon the original premise?" "Did the conflict make sense?" ETC.
If we cannot examine something from outside the boundaries of our own subjectiveness, then there are no "facts.' Iraqi WMD both exist and do not. Debbie Does Dallas & Lawrence of Arabia are equally important. Phasers & disruptors are similarly destructive (well, not really, because disruptors interrupt molecular cohesion, while phasers destroy them, but that's a different thread).
That's bunk. Different professors will grade the same paper in different ways. Perhaps not with a HUGE margin of difference (if a paper gets an A, another professor might give it a B, but an F is pretty unlikely), but you can still get variations. Now, a math test... that'd be objective. You either solved the equations correctly or you didn't.
But - as I said upthread - trying to judge which movie is "best" (based not on which one is our favorite, but on which one is simply the most well executed) is less subjective than simply picking which one you found the most entertaining (hence, the ability to recognize that something you didn't like is well-done, just not for you, or the reverse; recognizing that something you really enjoy is heavily flawed), but it's certainly not ENTIRELY objective. Even when discussing things you mentioned - "Was it effective?" "Did it hit the marks?" "Did it expand upon the original premise?" "Did the conflict make sense?" - you are going to get differing opinions. Case in point:
I didn't think so, not at all. The pacing was... well, it didn't really have any pacing.
I personally thought TWOK had one of the worst scores of all the Trek films. And why the heck are you putting that in your list of criteria for things that can supposedly be looked at objectively? Music is one of the MOST subjective qualities when it comes to evaluating a film.
I'll give you acting for the most part, though I thought that Shatner and Montalban hammed it up so much as to be borderline laughable at times. Though that's partly due to the directing and writing, of course.
On this point, I agree with you.
That doesn't make any sense. You are forgetting that there is a difference between things that can (and should) be looked at objectively, and things that can't (and shouldn't). The former: are there WMD's in Iraq? Yes or no. There's no room for creativity, or interpretation, or anything else, unless one is being dishonest. Yes or no. But a movie? (Or a book, or a video game, or a TV show...) That falls squarely in the realm of the latter, something where you have to say "It depends on who you ask." You cannot be completely right or wrong when evaluating quality in these areas. You can cite things that most people tend to agree with, or point out things that are accepted as being good or bad techniques when it comes to directing/music composing/acting/whatever, but that still doesn't make you "right" (or "wrong") about how well executed the final product was.If we cannot examine something from outside the boundaries of our own subjectiveness, then there are no "facts.' Iraqi WMD both exist and do not. Debbie Does Dallas & Lawrence of Arabia are equally important. Phasers & disruptors are similarly destructive (well, not really, because disruptors interrupt molecular cohesion, while phasers destroy them, but that's a different thread).
And you still haven't really explained why you picked only those five movies.
ThePlumsofWrath
Commander
My criteria was that of good film-making. Good script, production, performance, and overall execution.
The Wrath Of Khan worship is tiresome. It IS the best directed, it DOES have the most lively score, it IS well acted & produced, but its story is a simplistic revenge device, and a poorly constructed one at that.
Undiscovered Country has a far superiour PLOT, and almost equal direction, as well as superb performances. It is the "best" trek film (even though my favourite is TMP).
Clearly, objective analysis here is impossible; emotion rules perception- this thread is a waste of time. You will all, no doubt, blast me on this with phasers on maximum. Go for it; my sheilds are up.
Dude, you are getting mugged on this poll. I read it initially and wondered what was the point.
Sorry.
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