While they're not my favorite I think TMP and TFF both capture the two sides of Star Trek better than the more popular entries do. TMP captures the philosophical and cerebral side of TOS, perhaps to an extreme, and TFF captures the campy and Bones-Kirk-Spock trio focused side of TOS, perhaps to an extreme.
While the middle entries are more accessible films, to me they do lack a certain "Trekkiness" for lack of a better word. Wrath of Khan is basically a revenge story set in space...There's nothing really awe-inspiring, spacey or for lack of a better word, "dorky" about that. Search for Spock captures some of that feeling but again it's considered a lesser entry. IV feels more like a parody of the series than anything and VI is a political thriller.
I find that actually, tonally, the films most hated by fans are the ones closest to the TV series. The ones most beloved don't fit at all for me.
Look at the original Star Wars movies, which came out around the same time. They had this awe-inspiring sense of adventure, which I felt TOS captured in its sense of the adventurous, humorous, bizarre and unknown. The TOS movies for the most part lack that, they feel...dry. They're overly dark and serious.
Most of the movies with the exception of the TFF also lack that one magical ingredient which made TOS really work: The trio of Kirk, McCoy and Spock ribbing and playing off of each other allowing for their differing personalities and natural chemistry to work off of, clash with, and complement each other. I find that II-IV is either too Kirk focused or too Spock focused.
While the middle entries are more accessible films, to me they do lack a certain "Trekkiness" for lack of a better word. Wrath of Khan is basically a revenge story set in space...There's nothing really awe-inspiring, spacey or for lack of a better word, "dorky" about that. Search for Spock captures some of that feeling but again it's considered a lesser entry. IV feels more like a parody of the series than anything and VI is a political thriller.
I find that actually, tonally, the films most hated by fans are the ones closest to the TV series. The ones most beloved don't fit at all for me.
Look at the original Star Wars movies, which came out around the same time. They had this awe-inspiring sense of adventure, which I felt TOS captured in its sense of the adventurous, humorous, bizarre and unknown. The TOS movies for the most part lack that, they feel...dry. They're overly dark and serious.
Most of the movies with the exception of the TFF also lack that one magical ingredient which made TOS really work: The trio of Kirk, McCoy and Spock ribbing and playing off of each other allowing for their differing personalities and natural chemistry to work off of, clash with, and complement each other. I find that II-IV is either too Kirk focused or too Spock focused.
