Rate the movies

[black campbellq]

Okay, we did the series, now the movies...which is your fave?

For me, TWOK. Hands down.

The DIRECTORS CUT of the first was good, too; they improved the pacing and character interactions. and the first shot of Big-E still takes my breath away (thank you, Jerry Goldsmith!)

The worst was hands down the fifth. I kept waiting for 'god' to be Gary Mitchell...wouldn't close the circle nicely.

The third was a cop out on the stuff of two; the ol' Trek reset button.

the fourth was too jokey and enviro-happy for me.

[Sea Tyger]

TWOK for me, too. Larger-than-life action. Over-the-top villain. A great sequel to one of the best episodes of the series.

I liked Trek e're I watched re-runs, but I loved Trek after watching TWOK for the first time in theaters.

I was too young to understand TMP, so it didn't really appeal to me until I was in my late-20s. III and IV were good, but not as stunning as TWOK. V was, well, the worst effort of the original cast (and even more disappointing, when I read what Bill Shatner's original intentions were). The Undiscovered Country was a close second, for many of the same reasons I liked TWOK.

Generations was fine, but killing Kirk in such an anomymous and casual way just brought it down a few notches. First Contact and Insurrection were the best of the TNG efforts, and Nemisis was okay, but certainly nowhere the quality of the other TNG films.

The funny thing is, just a little tweaking on both Final Frontier and Nemesis could have made them among the best of the movies.

[black campbellq]

The funny thing is, just a little tweaking on both Final Frontier and Nemesis could have made them among the best of the movies.

I agree. In V, I expected them to find Mitchell at the 'great barrier'. I thought the idea of Enterprise having standard troubles for a new ship was good. I like the "I know I'll die alone" idea. (I always figured Kirk would die in a mundane accident -- like slipping in the tub.) The effects, the unnecessary jokiness killed it.

Nenesis was soooo close. They had a few things to fix it: 1) explain why they're breaking the prime directive at Kolarus, 2) explain Worf -- "Being an ambassador wasn't for me.", 3) leave the Picard-Data conversation in that was in the deleted scenes...only drew all the importnat scenes together. 4) the Romulans should have had some response to the Shinzon coup -- there's a lot of Romulan ships, I would think; there should have been counter-coup forces in play earlier. They didn't need the superweapon crap they've pulled every other movie; a ship that could cloak and fire was impressive enough. That said, I had a great combat sequence.

[Grimace]

Well, I was torn. My top two are Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country. Both had excellent bad guys in Ricardo Montalban and Christopher Plummer, but I think that the old crew really had the PUNCH in the Wrath of Khan. Granted, it's tough to beat Sulu in the Captain's Chair of Excelsior, but TWOK just barely pulled it off.

Beyond the "reset" of the events of TWOK, I liked ST 3. Christopher Lloyd and the klingons in that MADE that movie! ST 4 was a fun show, something that ST 5 tried to do and failed badly. I like ST 4, but not as the absolute epitomy of Trek.

ST 5 was just sad, so even shows like Nemisis and First Contact get a better rating that it. In fact, the only show that rates about equal to ST 5, in my book, was Generations. I have it on laser disc, but I only watch the show until Kirk "dies" saving Enterprise B. After that moment, I turn the movie off. The rest of it is just awful, IMO.

Where do I put The Motion Picture?

It get's put in a stand alone spot. I didn't see it when it first came out, but I'm friends with some that did. TMP was the "HEY, we're back!" show for Trek did little more than to simply get the Trek fans revved for more. A token "bad thing" was sent for the crew to deal with, but it was less what the crew did than it was the crew simply being SEEN ON SCREEN again that made the show a huge success. My friend told me all about it when he saw it. He said that there was actually standing ovations in the theater when EACH cast member was shown when the show first aired in theaters. He said he had to watch it about 5 times before he could actually listen to the whole show. He said that each time Kirk and Spock and Bones (and to some extent Scotty, Uhura, Checkov and Sulu) were shown for the first time, people would stand up, clap, cheer and go on for literally two or three minutes before they'd settle down and sit back down. By then, the show had been going the whole time and a lot had been missed, but those fans didn't care.

So as I watch the show, I can see what the long time Trek-starved fans were raving about. The show it a showcase of the characters, made to simply make the fans happy by being there. And, as black campbellq mentioned, seeing the Enterprise in it's huge, slow, beautiful glory was really quite awe inspiring....even though it was long. So the show doesn't fall into the normal rating system for me, as it's hard to compare the impact for what it was meant to be.

[Cochrane]

See my exdplanations in my poll thread, but as I said there, GIVE ME NEMESIIIIIS!!!!

I don't recall being aware of the Mitchell- God theory, but it sounds like a good one.

Other than TWOK, which other episode of TOS would have been great to have a movie sequel for? Mirror? Keeler? Tholians?

They reeeally should've had C. Plummer sing some sort of Klingon drinking/ fighting song. eiTHL veiSS! eiTHL veiSSS! Maybe the closing music should've been "So Long, Farewell"...

TMP: A probe... bigger than the Solar System. riight...

Some fans can indeed be annoying, like leaving noisily as soon as a Star Wars trailer is over, messing up the feature movie for everyone else. I never experienced this myself though.

[C5]

First Contact. Best cocktail IMHO of humour and suspense. Plus, I'm a sucker for time travel stories and I love the Borg. THe only thing I really hate in this movie is the Borg Queen concept - took away most of the originality of them (and why on Earth has she to wave the Borg away from Data - if they're part of the same Collective she should only have to think it).

[Cochrane]

I should have expected no one would vote for any of the odd ones and all the even ones would be chosen by at least someone. Maybe I need a separate poll just for the odd ones? And have people vote which is worst? I guess that could be done with all ten as options. But we don't need more stinking polls, at least not started by me.