Which film had the best opening scene/sequence?
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
True. The opening scene of NEMESIS is really gripping and fun to sit through. But like you said, its just about everything that FOLLOWS the Senate scene that makes the movie blow.
I did like the touch of TOS continuity on the floor of the Senate chamber...the Romulan-style replica of the old "Balance of Terror" star map of the Neutral Zone. Plus it was the first time in TREK history we ever saw the building's interior so that amounts to something cool. But not much beyond that.
Well I'm well known on these boards a MAJOR old-school Trekker and booster of classic stuff, but even I had to admit(even with the umpteen zillion lens flares)that the Narada-Kelvin battle just took my breath away at points and trumped almost every other TREK film opening to date in terms of being memorable and endlessly rewatchable.
I think the thumping, menacing Giacchino score along with the pacing and mood lighting helped make the first ten minutes so damn awesome. When even a one-shot,doomed role like Captain Robau becomes so memorable and sparks its own Internet meme in part because of all the aforementioned things, you know something special happened with the opening of the newest film.
I know, I am just a bitter trekkie, that is hard pressed to change.
I went with TWOK - though to this day I don't know why senior staff were used in a training exercise (other than to pull in the viewer)
Good point. Maybe Admiral Kirk asked and since none of them were actually serving field/space duty at the moment and all seemed to be on Earth at the time, maybe out of a sense of old camaraderie they said yes.
Star Trek XI was my favourite. Totally jawdropping. Honourable nods to TMP, TWOK, and FC. I always loved the V'Ger battle at the beginning of TMP. And that huge pan back from Picard's eyeball in First Contact was pretty awesome, too.
Which is ironic since Goldsmith didn't like that version, which is why you never heard it outside of the theatrical and Special Edition tape of the movie, or the soundtrack album. The DE has the album version which Goldsmith always wanted up front.
This not so cut and dried for me, since each Trek film has brought out different feelings upon first viewing (anticipation, reunion, dread, what-have-you). Once we got past the disorienting angles of the fist pass of the Kelvin and all the shaky crap, the George Kirk death scene was the most emotionally moving on a pure filmic level. It would have been moving in ANY film.
This is why I don't consider it for the top spot. It's not "Trek Centric" in a way that would be special on an "omigod it's Star Trek!" level.
BEST OPENINGS:
TFF is the most effective to me because it sets up something mysterious and reverent, while throwing in the chill of a laughing Vulcan. It made little sense to non-Trekkies, but to the rest of us, it was an upending of expectation. Coupled with Jerry Goldsmith's last truly great Trek score, this opening is a total home run.
TMP is my second favorite: 10 years of waiting, wondering, and then seeing Klingons (those scum) in their amazing new ships, with their new foreheads, speaking not-English, and then being obliterated, sets up an epic mystery. I was gripped. For awhile.
GEN: Because it's Kirk doing great stuff, Shatner showing us he still had the chops to play Kirk (which he forgot to do in the last half of the film), and watching the characters react to his (should have been) death.
TSFS: purely emotional, this opening scene sets the tone for the film to follow, a sad journey of sacrifice and love. It stands out as a very dour, but lovely tone poem to the characters and what they mean to each other. It had the largest heart of any of the films and remains my all-time favorite Star Trek movie.
TWOK: A nice, clever way to deflect death anticipation. Well done.
WORST OPENINGS:
TVH: the sheer disappointment of not hearing James Horner's superior theme made this film a real lead weight. Plus, the opening was just a Federation's Eye View of the first minutes of TMP. Blah
INS: What a real "who cares" opening. Data goes nuts and terrorizes white people making bread. Wheeeeee. "What could make Data go nuts?" Well, he's a machine, it's happened enough times before, YAWN. Now if this were PICARD, it would have been a real shocker.
NEITHER HERE NOR THERE:
TUC: Good explosion, but Sulu? Meh. Didn't care.
FC: Yeah, Borg, big zoom out. Props for the shock of the bit coming out of Picard, but the music telegraphed it.
NEM: Annoying "backward" lettering, crappy actors as Romulans, but the effects of the decaying guys was pretty cool. I really don't get a thrill over seeing non regulars in the beginning, and TFF was the only movie to be a real shot in the arm without seeing a single regular.
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