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Which TOS film reminds you most of an episode of TOS?

Which TOS film is closest to the TV series?

  • Star Trek: The Motion Picture

    Votes: 12 21.1%
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

    Votes: 6 10.5%
  • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

    Votes: 4 7.0%
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage of Home

    Votes: 4 7.0%
  • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

    Votes: 30 52.6%
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • Total voters
    57

Commander Kielbasa

Lieutenant Commander
Red Shirt
What I mean is, which do you feel, tone-wise, feels the most like a feature-length episode of TOS? Which captures the tone of the original series the most?
 
Star Trek V is easily the most "TOS episode-like" of the original films. There are elements of TSFS (certainly not the plot...but the character stuff and the "mystery on a planet" stuff) that feel like an episode to me.

The only TNG film that doesn't feel like a 2-part episode is Nemesis.
 
There are moments in TMP that really feel like the TV series. The big one for me is the Captain's Log recap when the ship is inside V'Ger. It feels like we just came back from a commercial break. That's something the later movies got away from.

Overall, TFF feels the most like an episode of TOS. Unfortunately, it's a third season episode, where the budget was slashed and the writing went to hell.
 
TMP feels like "The Cage."
TWOK feels like a first season episode.
TSFS, TVH and TUC feel like second season episodes.
TFF feels like a third season episode. :razz:

Kor
would that would make VI another 3rd season (but a classic like Spectre/Tholian)?
 
Agreed with Kor above, TMP = The Cage.
2-4 and 6 are their own arc, and very much cinematic rather than TV, though 3 has TOS-like moments of Kirk breaking orders. And, yup, Galileo7 brings up a great point about the TOS time travel episodes.

And yet I still feel 5 definitely captures the spirit of the TV show the most, even if it is flawed in some scenes. It's not the cinematic epics 1-4 and 6 have, but it has the action and philosophy TOS had and, let's face it, Sybok is actually way-cool as a villain. ST : V also better than a number of the TOS TV episodes IMHO.
 
TMP is the most TOS-like movie, in my opinion. "The more things change, the more they stay the same" definitely applies, here. TSFS was the last TOS-like movie, as far as I'd be concerned. Once Leonard Nimoy's TVH sanctioned winks at the audience and stubborn self-effacement ... it never left the franchise, which never became the better for it, either. I suppose that it's actually much easier, really, to see Shatner & Co. popping Viagra & washing it down with Metamucil, instead of $aving the Universe. I get that. But the in-references and making light of the fact that they're just milking their Cash Cow aren't selling points to me. That's not what I watch STAR TREK for -- maybe Trekkies, in general, eat that shite up, but it's incredibly annoying to me.

The approach TMP took may not have been STAR WARS exciting, but it was impressive as all hell -- and guess what? The Original Series cast was old in that one, too. TMP downplayed them being old, obviously, and maybe they overdid it, which I won't argue about. But when I see Kirk's shuttle taxiing into STARFLEET Command, I'm like in awe of it. I wish it was in 3D, actually, so I could get all into it and really get a look around, it's so frigging cool and corny, at the same time. I mean, that huge TFP symbol on the floor, given a loving close-up! Come ON!!! But I love it ... it's such a STAR TREKy moment and then Kirk's in the window and it's all good.

The whole movie pays tribute to TOS, really. Like when Scotty's driving Kirk around spacedock and we eyeball the refurbished Enterprise, the first time. The music is swelling, Kirk's about to wet his pants ... and how come? Hmmm? How come? I'll not keep you in suspense: It's because it's evoking TOS. It's the comparisons, the homage and, frankly, the incredible love that Trekkies have for this shite. Even the Rec Room is flled with Trekkies who aren't there because they get to be in a movie. They're there to herald in a new era for TOS. The sequels that followed had lost that lovin' feelin'. "We know it's only STAR TREK ... but we like it." TMP, on the other hand was all, "... THIS is how much we LOVE STAR TREK!!!" And that Grand Old Lady called TOS shined like it never did before, or since. Like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree that just needed to be loved. That's just what it was like ...
 
For me, none of them. The films did not feel like the same Trek as the original series. I always considered them a separate thing but still enjoyed them.
 
Search For Spock feels to me the most like a TOS episode. Although feel The Motion picture captures best the essence of what Trek tried to capture at it's best.
 
On an element by element basis, Star Trek V.

I've always compared The Motion Picture to The Corbomite Manuever (despite it's Changeling plot points) and The Wrath of Khan to Balance of Terror.

But the best episode of TOS I have seen since 1969 is the first ten minutes of Into Darkness. Pity about the rest of the film.
 
Definitely ST V. How many times did TOS do the "Kirk versus an alien God" idea? This is just another of those. Plus elements of The Way To Eden.

But it also just has a similar tone and feel. The camaraderie, seeing the officers on leave together, just the general sense of slightly camp fun about the whole thing.

That's not to say it's a good film, but it always felt like a TOS episode to me.
 
There is a cut on line that turns it into a TOS episode, removes the most annoying scenes, and adds commercial breaks and TOS Sound FX. Its one of the best TOS episodes out there. ;)
 
TUD was the only movie that for me showed The Klingons as a hostile enemy alien race (as they were in the TV series) rather than a group of bounty hunting pirates! With Chancellor Gorkon in power they did appear to be a race of intelligent creatures with an agenda all of their own and an Empire which spanned many star systems!
JB
 
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