"Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" or "Star Trek: Generations"?

[Warped9]

TFF is like some third season TOS episodes: a noble disappointment. A good idea that needed some rewrites to make it better. GEN is all over the place and none of it pays off.

Kirk simply eclipses Picard. And that is emblematic alone in that the TOS crew has always been more engaging than the TNG crew.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I love them both. I always seem to love unpopular films. Star Trek III is my favorite Trek movie. I adore Alien 3 and Terminator 3 (but not Superman III). Lost in Space 1998 is one of my favorite flicks, I will watch Krull and The Black Hole endlessly and I wish Alec Baldwin had a trilogy of movies as The Shadow. But I digress...

Much as I love 'em both, Star Trek V will still win. Why?

It's a TOS movie.
Kirk doesn't die.
It's FUN.
Kirk doesn't die.
It has something to say.
Kirk doesn't die.
It contains the best performance of De Kelley's Star Trek career.
Kirk doesn't die.
The focus is squarely on the Big Three.
Kirk doesn't die.
The shuttlecraft!
Kirk doesn't die.
Jerry Goddamned Goldsmith
and, finally, Kirk doesn't die.

It's a good time, it moves quickly and, it was well shot. Considering how poorly the effects in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghostbusters 2 and Batman ultimately turned out compared to similar movies released a few years earlier, Star Trek V never would have looked amazing that year. James Cameron seemed to have sucked up all the talent that season.

And come on, if you were there at the time, there was NOTHING more exciting that a Star Trek movie hitting theaters in the 1980's. Good or bad. It was a magical decade all around.

Generations, though, holds a very special place in my heart as well. I'll always love it, but it's ponderous and depressing. However, it does have some amazing moments and Dennis McCarthy's score is woefully underrated. Thankfully he had the nerve to slip some of this music into DS9 to test the waters in The Die is Cast. Nobody said anything and just like that, adventurous music was back in Star Trek.

 

[Phoenix219]

Generations made me angry and soured me on the 24th century for decades. Final frontier is one of the first movies i saw alone in a theater and gave me lots of laughs and joy.

This is a no-brainer.

 

[Humanoid #77]

And come on, if you were there at the time, there was NOTHING more exciting that a Star Trek movie hitting theaters in the 1980's. Good or bad. It was a magical decade all around.

well said

 

[Riley]

I feel this is a comparison that's incredibly unfair to The Final Frontier. There's more heart, humor, and Star Trek spirit in that campfire scene than the entirety of Generations. Meanwhile, Kirk was so useless in Generations that he could have been replaced with anyone else. To me, treating the heart of Star Trek (and the other TOS cast) that way is unforgivable and overrides any good that Generations might have. At the end of the day, Generations was unfair to both "generations," as the TOS had already had the perfect sendoff and the TNG crew was more than ready and capable to carry a film on their own.

 

[Phoenix219]

I feel like the entire movie concept should have changed after VI - any character from any show should have been fair game to write a movie around. Generations should have brought the TOS crew together in the 24th century, and alllowed story possibilities to mix and match the 24th century and TOS crews in any possible way to create drama, comedy and buddy interactions for future stories. Shutting off the entire OG cast for no reason, and guaranteeing every member of the ensemble was used in each TNG movie, was very short sighted and I can't justify that kind of decision making.

 

[Wandering1]

I liked the humor of TFF. The story was weak, but I loved the development of the friendships. Kirk/Spock/Mccoy and Scotty/Uhura.

 

[Commander K]

Generations had some lovely moments, especially showing Picards emotional vulnerability. Again both had some beautiful scenes...execution of FF was down to budget, execution of Generations was a flat script

 

[publiusr]

Generations felt like it transcended trek (a "real" movie I've heard it called.

It, The Voyage Home and 09/Beyond seemed to have wider acceptance.

Generations had a kind of pathos even STII didn't have---a movie about letting go....

 

[Phoenix219]

Generations felt like it transcended trek (a "real" movie I've heard it called.

It, The Voyage Home and 09/Beyond seemed to have wider acceptance.

Generations had a kind of pathos even STII didn't have---a movie about letting go....

And yet the movie had the opposite effect, and pissed me off to the point where I will never let it go.

Although, it did let me .... let go ... of the entire franchise until I found TOS fanfilms.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Generations, easily. Though I’m fond of TFF.

Generations is at least shot, lit and directed like a blockbuster. TFF feels like a cheap TV-Movie and the direction (sorry Bill) is pretty uninspired.

 

[Phoenix219]

I think Bill did a great job considering the budget and front office issues he was dealing with.

I would take a good TV movie over a mediocre blockbuster any day.

On the same note, I consider The Best of Both Worlds to be a TV movie, and I would rank it WAY ahead of Generations in a list of movies.

 

[FederationHistorian]

TFF feels like a cheap TV-Movie and the direction (sorry Bill) is pretty uninspired.

No, its cinema. The issue is that they ran out of money.

 

[SithHappens]

No, its cinema. The issue is that they ran out of money.

but has a bigger budget than the undiscovered country, but that movie looks far more expensive

 

[Richard S. Ta]

No, its cinema. The issue is that they ran out of money.

Good job I said ‘feels like’ then?

As in my subjective opinion.

Try harder.

 

[tomalak301]

In my letterboxd rankings of the movies, I have TFF just slightly ahead of Generations. I enjoy both movies, but I feel like The Final Frontier had more heart.

 

[BillJ]

Generations just kinda breaks, the moment they enter the Nexus and never really recovers.

 

[DonIago]

Generations just kinda breaks, the moment they enter the Nexus and never really recovers.

I kind of agree with this. I think there was at least one occasion where I started watching the movie but stopped after Picard entered the Nexus.

OTOH, I think I've also rewatched just the E-B scenes, or just everything leading up to the away team boarding the observatory.

I may be misremembering. I don't watch GEN very often, though I don't find it as acutely painful as TFF either.

 

[ananta]

They’re both quite weak as films. I’ve come to prefer TFF, however. It captures some of the campy charm of TOS and some genuine warmth between the characters, and I can’t fault it for ambition.

GEN is proficient. That’s about all I can say about it. There are enough plot holes to pilot the Enterprise through, although the cinematography is beautiful and I like the score.

Ultimately, however, I find GEN a depressing watch. Perhaps inevitable when the theme is time, loss and grief. A melancholic pall lingers throughout, and even the triumphant meeting of Kirk and Picard is just…depressing (and incredibly anticlimactic).

So, I’d always rewatch TFF over GEN. I’d take any of the TOS movies over any of the TNG or Kelvin movies, however.

 

[Moviefan2k4]

I like them both for different reasons, but what really gets to me is their deliberate pursuit of spiritual subject matter. Even though the being sought by Sybok proves to be an evil alien, and what happens in the Nexus is revealed as a willing illusion, the fact such concepts were addressed at all is commendable.