TMP, absolutely. And with nearly every film after that he always sent out memo's pushing his ideas for the Enterprise crew to head back in time to the 1960's and interact with JFK before his assasination. There were reports too that he was especially hurt by the destruction of the original 1701 in ST 3 because that was his baby. It was just an object being destroyed, "she" was being killed, like any other main character.
^Or like planes in WWII. He dealt with people who served in Vietnam whose attitude was that you could always get another plane. True, but it wouldn't be that plane.
Actually, Bennett compared his attitude toward the E to his attitude toward choppers in Korea, not Vietnam.
Which Bennett must have divined second (or, far more likely, eight thousand three hundred and forty seventh) hand from actual veterans considering that he never even saw combat in the Korean theater. TGT
"Eight thousand three hundred and fourty-seventh?" Seriously, I can certainly accept secondhand, obviously, but the idea that he wouldn't even have any contact with somebody that did see combat is a bit unlikely. I mean, my dad's non-combat military, but I'd trust him to know a lot more about combat and war situations than somebody who wasn't in the military. But then, it is an established scientific principal that anyone who got started on Trek after TMP is a scoundrel, so I'm probably wrong. Bennett probably just destroyed the Enterprise specifically to tick off Roddenberry for leaking Spock's death in TWoK (which, itself, was a real admirable, even saintly thing to do).
I wonder what he thought (or thinks, as space/time is not the ridgid thing we percieve it to be) about a lot of things. Fascinating guy, I think I'll see if I can find that authorized biography today.
Cannot recall where I saw this, but after the release of TSFS, I definitely saw a piece wherein Rodenberry commented that he liked it quite a bit and had sent a congratulatory telegram to Nimoy. Proably a newspaper article or Starlog interview. So, perhaps that was his second favorite after TMP. Sir Rhosis
I would guess "ST:TMP" since that was his film. However, I think he would enjoy and appreciate "The Voyage Home" since it has the wonderful message about the importance of life on our planet more specifically "the humpback whales". The fact that the film had little to know violence and it showcased the great "Trek" characters, I don't see how he couldn't have loved that film. Plus it did so well financially, it proved that "Star Trek" was still a vital property and the success of that film along with how well the original series was still doing in syndicated reruns even in the mid 80's is what gave Paramount the green light to do TNG.
TNG was green-lit before STIV premiered. As I recall, mostly because Paramount was becoming concerned with Shatner and Nimoy's salary demands, so they began looking into a way to continue StarTrek at a lower cost.