The STAR TREK Movies, As Ranked By STAR TREK Con-Goers

[M'Sharak]

LOL. So if Into Darkness wasn't the worst on that list, then The Final Frontier would be the worst, and Shatner would say "Fuck you?" to those who didn't like it? And if TFF wasn't the worst, then Insurrection would be the worst, so Johnathan Frakes would say "Fuck you?" in response?

The Final Frontier was half a decent Trek movie. So was Insurrection. Neither inarguably belongs in the last-place spot.

Perhaps we should stop ranking films altogether because it might hurt the sensibilities of the people who got paid to make them.

I stopped ranking them a long time ago, but not out of concern that anyone's feelings might get hurt. Face it: taking a collection of films—and particularly the collection of Star Trek movies—and arranging them in any particular order other than chronological so as to proclaim that "This movie is better than that one, and that one, and that one. Nyah!" well, it's pretty pointless, and ultimately highly subjective. There is no objectively, infallibly right ranking.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Also, I don't think Pegg's anger was directed so much at the ranking itself as it was the inevitable accompanying vitriol.

 

[Set Harth]

it absolutely isn't the worst "Star Trek" movie. It's asinine, you know? It's ridiculous. And frustrating

"...but other Star Trek movies are even more asinine, ridiculous and frustrating, so that means it can't be the worst!"

 

[AUbricklogic]

Rankings are subject to so many factors, I don't think any "list" should be taken too seriously. Whether its from this convention, contrived from a very few voters and not from the community as a whole, or on a web forum like this one where its 1 person giving their personal list, its all complete garbage.

The way I see it, J.J. was just being paid to make some blockbusters for Hollywood. He himself has stated he's not a fan of Star Trek and has no interest in it or its history. He makes movies that make money and that's enough for the industry to keep him in it. What he did with these 2 new releases is bring in a bunch of new people who are aware of Star Trek and will probably look further into the series now that they've been introduced to it which is something I'm sure most here would agree the scene needed very badly after the drop-off from the 90s.

The movie itself had a huge amount of plot holes and inconsistencies "KHAAAAAN" should've been "MARCUUUUS" since Khan had nothing to do with the circumstances surrounding Kirk's pseudo-death, but quite literally all the Star Trek movies have had inconsistencies to some degree. You can argue that the ones in STID are larger than in some others like STTMP but at that point, you're just grasping at straws.

What we should really take away from all this is that there is now a huge renewed interest in Star Trek as a franchise. The question now is what will we do with it? Personally, I think a new round of TV saturation is necessary to keep the momentum going. The numbers clearly point to a large audience ready to support the series while the studios sit and bicker about franchising rights and cock-blocking the ideas set forth by the previous casts.

Instead of directing hate towards other fans or differences in "what movie was better", perhaps we should direct this hate towards the studios for stifling the momentum being created by the new films and essentially killing off the "New Trek influx" before it can begin to thrive.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It was Khan's attack on the helpless Enterprise after beaming Kirk, Scotty and Carol to the brig ("No ship should go down without her captain!") which damaged the warp core, causing them to fall to Earth. Had Khan not attacked, power wouldn't have failed, so Spock being mad at Khan is very much justified (there's so much going on I Khan's attack too on my first viewing)

 

[AUbricklogic]

The whole reason the Enterprise is anywhere near in that condition in the first place is Marcus and not Khan.

 

[F. King Daniel]

But they'd have never lost power or fallen into the atmosphere if not for Khan breaking his word and attacking once he'd beamed (what he thought were) his people over. They'd have just floated there still with power and Kirk wouldn't have had to sacrifice himself.

 

[AUbricklogic]

Had they not betrayed their deal with Khan and shot him, maybe he wouldn't have turned on them like that once he had control of the ship. "This is a new universe. Things are supposed to be different." is how its been put by fans of the film. The same logic applies.

We can continue to grasp at straws with the gigantic plotholes, or we can agree that the film wasn't perfect just like every other Star Trek film out there. Its like when the community was trying to figure out why old klingons aren't like new klingons. You can come up with all the wild stories trying to explain it all you want, but the truth is it was some decision made during the writing/make-up/production stages that resulted in an inconsistency.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

"Star Trek Into Darkness" is the most successful "Star Trek" movie ever made. It is, in terms of what it took at the box office and how many people went to see it. More people saw that film than any iteration of "Star Trek" that existed before. That is probably slightly annoying to some "Star Trek" fans -- which I totally understand.

His claim that more people saw STID than any other Star Trek movie is true. But it might surprise people that if you take the worldwide grosses of the first Star Trek film in 1979 and the most recent in 2013... and you adjust the gross of TMP for ticket price inflation, you find that roughly the same number of tickets were sold:

ST: TMP: 55,378,486
STID: 55,605,904

So yes, it sold a few hundred thousand more tickets. But when one considers that there are 2.6 billion more people in the world today than in 1979 and there are about 150,000 movie screens in the world, with about 40,000 of those in the United States (STID was on 25% of them), the slightly higher number of tickets sold seems just a tiny bit less impressive.

 

[AUbricklogic]

Maxwell, I was just considering that the other day, but had no idea how to calculate the price inflation or box office numbers to account for the differences in our currency's value from the earlier productions to the new ones. How did you calculate these numbers?

Oftentimes these newer productions are labeled as "vastly more successful" because of a monetary number without considering that the dollar bought a hell of a lot more 50+ years ago. I always thought that might be a fallacy of sorts but didn't know how to go about proving it.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

Maxwell, I was just considering that the other day, but had no idea how to calculate the price inflation or box office numbers to account for the differences in our currency's value from the earlier productions to the new ones. How did you calculate these numbers?

Oftentimes these newer productions are labeled as "vastly more successful" because of a monetary number without considering that the dollar bought a hell of a lot more 50+ years ago. I always thought that might be a fallacy of sorts but didn't know how to go about proving it.

Sure. Here are the wordwide grosses, the average ticket prices and the links where I got the info:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: $139,000,000 gross @ $2.51 average ticket price
Star Trek Into Darkness: $453,744,180 gross @ $8.16 average ticket price

 

[CorporalClegg]

His claim that more people saw STID than any other Star Trek movie is true. But it might surprise people that if you take the worldwide grosses of the first Star Trek film in 1979 and the most recent in 2013... and you adjust the gross of TMP for ticket price inflation, you find that roughly the same number of tickets were sold:

ST: TMP: 55,378,486
STID: 55,605,904

More or less common knowledge around here. It's also common understanding to take that kind of mathematical hocus-pocus with a grain of salt. Stats like that only account for inflation rates (and not all that accurately) and ignore countless other factors that apply.

So yes, it sold a few hundred thousand more tickets. But when one considers that there are 2.6 billion more people in the world today than in 1979 and there are about 150,000 movie screens in the world, with about 40,000 of those in the United States (STID was on 25% of them), the slightly higher number of tickets sold seems just a tiny bit less impressive.

More statistical manipulation incongruent with reality.

 

[BillJ]

So yes, it sold a few hundred thousand more tickets. But when one considers that there are 2.6 billion more people in the world today than in 1979 and there are about 150,000 movie screens in the world, with about 40,000 of those in the United States (STID was on 25% of them), the slightly higher number of tickets sold seems just a tiny bit less impressive.

But I think we'd also all agree that there is far more competition for the customer dollar as well.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

More or less common knowledge around here. It's also common understanding to take that kind of mathematical hocus-pocus with a grain of salt. Stats like that only account for inflation rates (and not all that accurately) and ignore countless other factors that apply.

You make take it with whichever condiment you prefer. You are also welcome to provide your own more accurate figures.

But I think we'd also all agree that there is far more competition for the customer dollar as well.

True. Nevertheless, Paramount does not seem to have grown their Star Trek movie-going audience much in the intervening three decades, whatever way you want to slice it. I think Abrams was smart to jump ship.

 

[BillJ]

True. Nevertheless, Paramount does not seem to have grown their Star Trek movie-going audience much in the intervening three decades, whatever way you want to slice it. I think Abrams was smart to jump ship.

Is he really jumping ship (has it been stated he won't direct?) though if it's his company that is making the third installment and he's a producer?

If he left to direct some no-name film, I'd agree that he may think the franchise doesn't have room for much growth. But he's leaving to direct something that he loves.

 

[Maxwell Everett]

True. Nevertheless, Paramount does not seem to have grown their Star Trek movie-going audience much in the intervening three decades, whatever way you want to slice it. I think Abrams was smart to jump ship.

Is he really jumping ship (has it been stated he won't direct?) though if it's his company that is making the third installment and he's a producer?

If he left to direct some no-name film, I'd agree that he may think the franchise doesn't have room for much growth. But he's leaving to direct something that he loves.

Well, currently the rumors are Star Wars VII is unofficially slated for May or December 2015. And Paramount wants Star Trek 3 out for the 50th Anniversary in 2016, so I don't see how he could possibly direct both. Any way you wish to characterize it, the fact is he left Star Trek for Star Wars which stands to make far more money than the next Star Trek film.

 

[RAMA]

More or less common knowledge around here. It's also common understanding to take that kind of mathematical hocus-pocus with a grain of salt. Stats like that only account for inflation rates (and not all that accurately) and ignore countless other factors that apply.

You make take it with whichever condiment you prefer. You are also welcome to provide your own more accurate figures.

But I think we'd also all agree that there is far more competition for the customer dollar as well.

True. Nevertheless, Paramount does not seem to have grown their Star Trek movie-going audience much in the intervening three decades, whatever way you want to slice it. I think Abrams was smart to jump ship.

The movie audience has shrunk for a myriad of reasons. It's not a reflection on Star Trek as a franchise.

What IS a reflection of ST is that audiences, especially general ones did NOT want to see the ST movies being made after 1996...the BO grosses were tepid to say the least. By this measure, the fact that ST movies have come so far since that more recent history, is a very positive thing.

 

[trevanian]

Maxwell, I was just considering that the other day, but had no idea how to calculate the price inflation or box office numbers to account for the differences in our currency's value from the earlier productions to the new ones. How did you calculate these numbers?

Oftentimes these newer productions are labeled as "vastly more successful" because of a monetary number without considering that the dollar bought a hell of a lot more 50+ years ago. I always thought that might be a fallacy of sorts but didn't know how to go about proving it.

Sure. Here are the wordwide grosses, the average ticket prices and the links where I got the info:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: $139,000,000 gross @ $2.51 average ticket price
Star Trek Into Darkness: $453,744,180 gross @ $8.16 average ticket price

Without getting into incongruencies with reality and other esoteric horseshit, I still gotta interject that the 139 figure for TMP is WAY WAY less than everybody claimed in the early 80s, when the 175 mil worldwide gross figure was bandied about rather handily.

And if you consider that is back when paramount was TRYING to hide big numbers to avoid paying out net points (something they managed to do up until 1985 or 1986), that they'd let the 175mil stand in STARLOG and pretty much any other mag I saw the number in, I'd figure that is the low-end number.

So how it got downgraded to 139 I really don't know. 139 is actually in keeping with what the domestic total should have been, if you figure about a 2.5X multiplier on the film's rentals, which is how it was reported in VARIETY (the general idea is that 2.5 times rental equals gross -- that was also rather commonly reported back then, along with the gross 2.5 times budget to breakeven as a general principle.) TMP generated 39 mil in rentals just in 79, and a total of I believe 55 mil overall theatrical. 137.5 goes into 55 how many times? 2.5

You can look at Gerrold's old column in STARLOG where as I recall he runs figures much like these proving TMP was well into the green (I think this would have been in 1981 or early 1982.)

All this just makes TMP seem more platinum than golden with respect to current earnings of recent films when inflation and common sense are factored in.

 

[Flake]

We went through this till we were green in the face in the box-office thread.

You can't compare a movie released in 1979 to one released in 2013. The end. Inflation and population increases mean jack shit.

 

[Cyrus]

We went through this till we were green in the face in the box-office thread.

You can't compare a movie released in 1979 to one released in 2013. The end. Inflation and population increases mean jack shit.

Yeah, exactly. There is no way to make it apples-to-apples. And a movie matching the theatrical audience of TMP is a major accomplishment (especially considering the much higher home video revenues these days), TMP was a big hit.

So how it got downgraded to 139 I really don't know. 139 is actually in keeping with what the domestic total should have been, if you figure about a 2.5X multiplier on the film's rentals, which is how it was reported in VARIETY (the general idea is that 2.5 times rental equals gross -- that was also rather commonly reported back then, along with the gross 2.5 times budget to breakeven as a general principle.) TMP generated 39 mil in rentals just in 79, and a total of I believe 55 mil overall theatrical. 137.5 goes into 55 how many times? 2.5.

I think the rental multiplier for TMP was much less than 2.5. Subsequent Trek movies had around a 2 multiplier (e.g. TWOK 80M boxoffice, 40M rentals) but there was more interest in TMP among theater owners than other Trek movies so Paramount was able to get better rental deals for it. The final TMP rentals reported by Paramount was 56M. I don't think TMP made 112M domestically but it certainly did better than the 82M that is now assumed to be it's final domestic boxoffice, probably more in the 90M-100M range.