My favorite movies are:
1) Star Trek (2009)
J.J. Abrams' film captured everything that I loved about the original series as a kid — loud, colorful and exciting. It was action-adventure or else!
And for the first time in a long while, a Trek motion picture had some movement to it.
There was also emotion and heart to the story, and the characters were people not demigods or icons or legends.
Kirk, Spock, and Uhura were allowed to have faults, and weren't written through rose-colored lenses. Oh, and Uhura was the female lead at long last.
And that opening scene with Kirk's birth was pitch perfect. It was tense, emotional and was visually thrilling to watch.
2) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
This film captured another aspect of Trek I love — Horatio Hornblower in Space. I am a huge Hornblower and Royal Navy (Nelson Era) aficionado, and to see it writ upon Trek like this is satisfying. But the best part of the film is that its plot and character motivations are all deeply rooted in Kirk's own mistakes and flaws.
Kirk abandoned Khan 15 years ago and didn't check up on him — a mistake that comes to bite him in the ass, big time.
Kirk cheated as a midshipman, and his arrogance and audacity has finally caught up with him. Now he has to deal with death in a way he's never had to deal with before. The death of his friend. The death of Spock.
Kirk has been out of the game so long that he's stale, and doesn't raise shields. A mistake he spends the rest of the movie fixing.
"We're only alive because I knew something about these ships that he didn't."
"I don't like to lose."
And Kirk recognizes his faults and mistakes, and freely admits to them.
3) Star Trek: The Motion Picture
This movie aspired to be something greater than the pulp science fiction roots of the original series, but failed miserably. It's failure firmly at the clay foot of its creator, Gene Roddenberry. It's a gorgeous movie from production design to cinematography to music.
But it's story was so overcooked by "the creator" that it failed to be a worthwhile story to tell. The storytellers forgot to add all those overcooked ideas into the story in terms of character motivations (Decker's desire to join with V'Ger, as one example). The potential for good character drama is there in the scenes between Kirk and Decker in the first third of the film, but it's lost in the spectacle.
Unfortunately, the film was pedantic (one of Trek's greatest weaknesses).
But it tried to raise the bar, and for that reason above all it is in my top three.
The only TNG film that I really enjoy watching again is Generations because it feels like a two-part episode with all the seams and creases that were the fabric of that series.
And damnit if there aren't parts of The Final Frontier that I love. Sometimes I wish they were in a better movie, as a good friend said to me.
1) Star Trek (2009)
J.J. Abrams' film captured everything that I loved about the original series as a kid — loud, colorful and exciting. It was action-adventure or else!
And for the first time in a long while, a Trek motion picture had some movement to it.
There was also emotion and heart to the story, and the characters were people not demigods or icons or legends.
Kirk, Spock, and Uhura were allowed to have faults, and weren't written through rose-colored lenses. Oh, and Uhura was the female lead at long last.
And that opening scene with Kirk's birth was pitch perfect. It was tense, emotional and was visually thrilling to watch.
2) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
This film captured another aspect of Trek I love — Horatio Hornblower in Space. I am a huge Hornblower and Royal Navy (Nelson Era) aficionado, and to see it writ upon Trek like this is satisfying. But the best part of the film is that its plot and character motivations are all deeply rooted in Kirk's own mistakes and flaws.
Kirk abandoned Khan 15 years ago and didn't check up on him — a mistake that comes to bite him in the ass, big time.
Kirk cheated as a midshipman, and his arrogance and audacity has finally caught up with him. Now he has to deal with death in a way he's never had to deal with before. The death of his friend. The death of Spock.
Kirk has been out of the game so long that he's stale, and doesn't raise shields. A mistake he spends the rest of the movie fixing.
"We're only alive because I knew something about these ships that he didn't."
"I don't like to lose."
And Kirk recognizes his faults and mistakes, and freely admits to them.
3) Star Trek: The Motion Picture
This movie aspired to be something greater than the pulp science fiction roots of the original series, but failed miserably. It's failure firmly at the clay foot of its creator, Gene Roddenberry. It's a gorgeous movie from production design to cinematography to music.
But it's story was so overcooked by "the creator" that it failed to be a worthwhile story to tell. The storytellers forgot to add all those overcooked ideas into the story in terms of character motivations (Decker's desire to join with V'Ger, as one example). The potential for good character drama is there in the scenes between Kirk and Decker in the first third of the film, but it's lost in the spectacle.
Unfortunately, the film was pedantic (one of Trek's greatest weaknesses).
But it tried to raise the bar, and for that reason above all it is in my top three.
The only TNG film that I really enjoy watching again is Generations because it feels like a two-part episode with all the seams and creases that were the fabric of that series.
And damnit if there aren't parts of The Final Frontier that I love. Sometimes I wish they were in a better movie, as a good friend said to me.
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. My next favourites are "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". The former has the most powerful ending of all the movies (a tearjerker no matter how many times I watch it) and the latter has the best act two of all the movies with the stuff in 80s San Francisco being endlessly delightful. We have a great trilogy of Star Trek movies. The rest are just mediocre or awful.
