I think there are some rather objective reasons why the movie is liked. Obviously the score gets mentioned often. It does have a lot of location shooting which the others didn't (with the exception of Voyage Home which is just 20th century Earth big deal.) I think most people agree that Luckenbill gave a good performance and by the way he has more lines than any other guest star in the history of Star Trek movies and had more lines of dialogue than Spock and McCoy in the movie. I think parts of the ship such as the observation room and the bridge looked fantastic. I love the fact the movie has a teaser that doesn't involve the crew. And as far as the other movies having just as many character moments this is probably true but this is the one movie where virtually all of the character moments had Kirk Spock and McCoy in a single group rather than separate pairs as happened in almost all the other movies. In the first movie Spock arrived late and wasn't really himself. In the second Kirk and McCoy went on the landing party for a chunk of the movie without Spock. In the third movie Spock didn't show up till the final scene. In the 4th movie Kirk and Spock spent most of their time together and in the sixth McCoy and Kirk spent a huge chunk away from Spock. Seeing Sulu and Uhura get off the ship and into some action was gratifying and as stated earlier it was nice to see Chekov in the command chair. And then on the other hand --- most of the special effects are garbage and yes it does matter that in a big screen movie that the effects should not look like garbage. The humor involving the ship is unforgivably stupid and the comedy parts of the four supporting character was disgraceful. And once they left Earth the straight up comedy should have completely been over with. So in my opinion quite a lot to like about the movie and quite a bit not to like
I'm not talking about what the studio wanted and I'm talking about the pros and cons of the finished product
Pro: Great cinematography with the desert. Pro: You really feel for the poor miner. Pro: Sybok's reveal to be a Vulcan. Con: The credits in space aren't the best. Pro: Kirk climbing a mountain. Neutral: Spock showing up. I'm with Kirk. Get the Hell out of here. Con: Kirk falling looks fake, even for 1989. Pro: "Hi, Bones! Mind if we drop in for dinner?" Pro: The Paradise City bar looks cool. You can imagine Patrick Swayze showing up any moment, like Roadhouse. Neutral: General Koord is cool, Dar is whatever, and Talbot is kind of eh. This is a movie. If you're smoking, you should be a bad-ass. Talbot's anything but. I thought Koord's burp was funny when I was 10. Now I'm over 40... and I still think it's funny. Neutral: Sybok's troops heading towards the bar. Pro: Sybok's troops once they finally get there. Pro: Talbot's line. "Prisoners? We're already prisoners on this worthless lump of rock!" Ain't that the truth. Neutral: Scotty giving his log. Pro: Like the new look of the Enterprise bridge. Con: Scotty and Uhura? Really? Pro: Chekov and Sulu pretending they're caught in a blizzard. Sorry, but that's just funny. Especially when Uhura catches them in the act. Pro: The entire camp scene with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. They can't sing for shit but that's the whole point. "Bourbon & Beans, an explosive combination, think Spock can handle it?" And of course, the line, "You really piss me off, Jim!" See? They were cussing long before Discovery and Picard. Pro: Kirk's speech about how he's always known he'll die alone. Pro: Klaa and Vixis make their grand appearance. That looks cool. Don't care what anyone says. Neutral: Klaa shooting up a 20th Century Earth probe. I'm not going to get mock-outraged about it, but even he admits shooting something like that is no test of his Metal. Pro: Kirk asking Uhura why she didn't beep Kirk's communicator and Uhura telling him, "You forgot to take it with you." Then Kirk saracstically says, "Oh. Wonder why I did that... " A lot more relatable now than 30 years ago. Pro: The Galileo shuttle approaching the Enterprise. It's not Kirk and Scotty touring the Enterprise in Dry Dock from TMP, but I still like it. Con: The goofiness of the Enterprise not working. I don't think we needed it or that it added anything. Coming off of TVH, they were just trying to see wherever they could throw in a joke. This is one of the most obvious. Pro: But I do like the gag of Kirk greeting the Admiral while out of proper uniform. That's actually funny. Pro: "If you ask me, and you haven't, I think this is a terrible idea. We're bound to bump into the Klingons and they don't exactly like you." "The feeling's mutual." Change Klingons to the Fandom Menace, and Kirk's line speaks for me as well. The feeling's mutual. I'll stop there for now. Number-crunching time. Pros: +17 Cons: -4 Neutral: 5 Net Gain: +13 The highest possible score so far is +26, the lowest possible is -26. If -26 is 0% and +26 is 100%, then +13 is 75%. Or if 75% were converted to a 10-scale, that would mean I'd give the early portion of TFF a 7.5 out of 10.
I just came up with an awesome idea, but I'll need more time (that I don't have right now!) to put it together. Coming Soon to a new thread near you.
I've always wanted to come up with a system of rating films with 10 categories (acting, music, effects etc) all scored out of 10 for a total out of 100 but I've never got round to it.
It was meh before we had meh when I saw it in the theater in 1989 and it's meh now. It's a bunch of notions that are not explored in any substantive way. It has a few charming moments, a number of cringe moments, and whole lot of meh.
TFF is a bit of a strange one. The overall plot is a mess, and it's easily the ugliest Star Trek movie (hell, it's uglier than any TOS episode!). But it does have some very nice scenes. The "I need my pain!" scene is excellent, as is the "what does god need with a starship" one. I'd say it's better than Insurrection and all the reboot movies, but worse than pretty much all others.