Hi everyone! I recently rewatched all of the original movies and I have to say IMO, I found TFF very enjoyable.
It's
different. Not-unenjoyable, but after II-IV in theaters, audiences were in for a "culture shock" as the culture of the Meyer-era movies vanished. I didn't hate the movie experience in 1989, but did notice the drop in effects quality and some oddball choices regarding humor. It just didn't... have the same feel.
With the passing of time, V and I can be revisited in their own ways. But, in the zeitgeist of the time, II, III, and even IV were definitive for Trek's second wind. (As dated as IV is, it has more in common with the over-arcing themes in II-IV, VI) than I and V ever will.
V feels like a homage to the TOS TV series, while melding in the comedy IV provided.
Audiences wouldn't experience this sort of thing until "Batman Forever" (which I adored at the time, still do, though it also led to the awful (and still largely is) "Batman and Robin"), as Joel Schumacher wanted to recapture the 60s feel, but with a grander scale and budget. But that's another story...
Now for perspective let's briefly talk about the other films in the series. TMP is a polarising entry as it is loved by some, hated by some just like Marmite! It's premise is fine and the vger aspects are completely sufficient to raise the stakes for the crew and provide a decent threat. And of course the Anomaly is completely unknown and 'new' to starfleet. Other than that the film wastes a lot of time to show off the visual effects and budget. The endless journey into vger, pointless wormhole etc.
The fanbase drooling in the theater - enough for the the theater to replace janitors with a bunch of saltwater fish and aquarium maintenance workers to make use of the newly wet area - is what got II commissioned at all. It was said that some of the movie's stars took a nap during the screening. Reviews were mixed. There is a strong plot, or a solid reuse of TOS scripts (as if the makers new what they were reusing would not date too well? I can't even watch "The Changeling" anymore, and "Obsession" had its share of corn and flaws...)
Oh, I enjoyed the wormhole and 70% of exploring VGer. :P
A shame they didn't get at least one exterior shot to put the icing on the "cake of galactic scale" with. But the Director's Edition (DE) did that. The DE also chops out too much, along with replacing a stout and commanding red alert klaxon and voice with... something that makes Droopy Dog look formidable by comparison.
TWOK is TWOK, whatever I would have to say about it has already been said 1000 times but I will simply surmise that indeed it is one of the best films if not the number one. The tone is very serious and militaristic, and the effects are great despite the smaller budget than the previous film. It does what it's meant to do and it does it very well.
I've seen it twice in glorious 4K UHD HDR EIEIO and all the new visual details that pop out thanks to the expanded color and contrast palette just astound. So much blooming and crush that's gone thanks to that detail. Any nitpicks or plot holes that exist are so few and inconsequential, and most can be headcannoned away. Unlike previous versions of the script, that the tautness of the film and all its elements renders said nitpicks moot. Now if the script were rubbish, the nitpicks would stand out more than a sun during supernova. That includes, in particular, how McCoy found the right set of eyeglasses with 300 year-old lenses that perfectly match Kirk's needs. McCoy even alludes to it with his line about "how few there are with the lenses intact".
TSFS is ehhh.. Aside from the crew stealing the Enterprise (the highlight of the film) the rest of the movie feels so slow and a lot of the genesis effects are not explained very well, with stupid excuses for spocks "rebirth" and the planet's instability. The climactic fight with Kruge is also underwhelming. They manage to save this film with several great moments, including the dramatic destruction of the enterprise. Overall though a mediocre entry.
The set pieces do elevate an uneven script and the more I rewatch, the more Saavik's talk of "shame on you David" is such illogical garbage unworthy... no question. It's not a bad movie overall, but it easily could have been better - with even a few small tweaks. I still loved it in the theater, regardless of noticing that Kirk's Klingon accent managed to easily fool everyone (okay, with explosions roaring around them, I can roll with it...)
Moving onto TVH, it's just a great film. The humour does elevate the film and the setting makes it appealing to a wider audience than the hardcore trek community. And I like that Kirk is actually 'punished' for his actions.
The non-20th century scenes have the most meat to them. Including the "you pompous ***" scene yelled by someone in the court, which directly factors into VI but otherwise is used for a cheap gag. The 20th century stuff is waaaaaaay too contrived, plot by numbers, and has dated too poorly.
Now I will skip to TUC! The Soviet/racist allegory is perhaps most on show in this film, especially with the end of the Soviet Union in our world and the Berlin Wall. The cast make a fantastic final performance and while the story is good on its own, its the sentimentality and humour that help the film find a place in the top 3 of many peoples lists. A satisfactory goodbye to the TOS crew.
A shame they had to reuse all the TNG sets and nix the scenes of getting the crew back together, and it does go too far with one-sided stuff with making Starfleet look bad (Gene had a fair point, even if TOS did "bad guest captain of the week" plenty of times, too...) There's just enough dialogue to hint at more points of view from both Federation-side and Klingons, especially as Starfleet has many species and is not humans-only as Azetbur claimed - like Mara from "Day of the Dove" and what she believed, she too fell for anti-Federation propaganda. The outpost's staff were so apathetic that they'd just let anyone through... etc...
Now, let's get to the meaty bit... Star Trek V: The Final Frontier! Right off the bat, to all the Shatner-haters, even if I agreed with you - Shatner is not Kirk. One man is fictional, the other is not. While Shatner might not be the ideal creative lead for the film, his portrayal of kirk in this film is still fantastic. The humour is very on the nose, and yes sometimes silly, but that was only a choice following The Voyage Home.
True, the humor was mandated - Shatner didn't have much control, and even Kirk got one or two
character assassination butt-of-joke moments.
The ship being the only one in range is now a Star Trek Cliché, but TNG didn't help this either.
True, but this ship didn't have enough time to be from the ground-up, less they were working on it during TWOK as a replacement, intending to retire 1701 as it was relegated for training duty. Or it's another newly-made ship of the same class but renamed at the last minute. Seeing 1701-A with way too many "it doesn't work" jokes, right down to log books that would
not be connected directly to the ship... ugh. It's also easy to see why VI redesigns the set; V is the spiritual precursor to "laboratory", "freshly cleaned lavatory", or "the Apple store look" that the 21st century movies got lambasted for. Looked slick at the time, but it hasn't dated well either. The more functional look of I-III is by far the most authentic in
feel.
The concept of finding Eden/Shakarii is a heavy philosophical topic that most trek tries to avoid due to religious tensions and political implications.
"The Way to Eden" did so, albeit in a very narrow way.
This film goes all in though and despite the execution not being the best, the character moments between Spock, Bones and Kirk are some of the best in the Saga.
That's true.
Fun fact: Kelley and Nimoy both balked at the original script and demanded it be changed, so they would not fall victim to Sybok. Not a bad move... only they and Scotty remain unprocessed.
Sybok is an interesting Villain too as his goal is not evil or bad at all. He just wants to know if the idea of paradise is real or not. The way he goes about this though is obviously not great. Kidnapping the crew and hijacking the Enterprise! The actor is given some great dialogue and makes you question his sanity more than once, but he remains extremely passionate and resolute without becoming a mindless fanatic.
Laurence Luckinbill just about steals the show, and wasn't the first choice for the shoehorned-in half-brother of Spock. Critics at the time pounced on this,asking why such a connection was needed as plenty of rogue Vulcans could exist. Especially as there's no dramatic bond or depth between the two. Just a joke uttered by Kirk when Spock refuses to shoot (is his human side to blame for that?)
What hurts more is that the hostages he takes aren't given any depth either and there were deleted scenes that added some badly needed weight to them.
David Warner's casting is another stroke of luck, but he - as with the others - are so underdeveloped that they could have been repurposed store mannequins from K-Mart and it wouldn't have made a difference.
The Klingons have no bearing on the plot but I still like the idea of rogue Klingons ships just flying around trying to find Starships to defeat/destroy.
Don't ask how a Voyager probe got that far out, and a random gaggle of TOS things didn't push it this far into space. That said, I like Captain Klaa and the idea of a rogue faction of Klingons. This movie brings in a fair amount of ideas, but uses too few of them to any great potential.
The budget for this installment left something to be desired and it really shows in the special effects department. All the warping and weapon effects look like stop-motion cardboard cutouts!!
Only because they were... ILM was too busy working on the other movies, so another f/x company had to be found, and fast.
Worse, had the actual movie content been better, the effects would just be a side note nitpick. Some great barrier scenes did look rather good, though.
Syboks abilities should have been expanded upon and fleshed out with the other bridge crew like they did with McCoy, but the idea is very interesting. Star Trek is all about exploring the unknown both externally in space and internally within one's self. This film does both of these things at the same time and TOS was all about Kirk Spock and McCoy, they were the trio that made the show great.
That's true!
And the antics in the brig and infamous turbo lift scene may seem a little cheesy, but why is that such a bad thing? I know this is all a matter of opinion, so I want to know what the rest you have to say... Something I haven't already? Thanks everyone, sincerely a newbie.
Too much cheese isn't gouda. 78 decks, in reverse order, was a bad standout at the time. Count the windows in vertical alignment; the ship doesn't come close to 78 at all. The movie was also made before movies and tv played "the joke's on the viewer" trope as well.
Finally some better effects and then finally STV would be GOOD
