I love Star Trek; I somewhat enjoyed Star Trek 2009 but the newest one is such a disappointment on many levels that I won't go into it. I don't have a favourite Star Trek movie, I love them all in some way or another but I will put forth the ones I do like more than the rest.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a great film and a wonderful send-off for the Original crew and actors. The music is also quite fantastic and it lends quite a bit to the weight of this final journey of the TO crew. While the production by today's standards seems quaint, they made due with what they could. I find it an epic film because of the fantastic chemistry between the actors, Kirk, Spock and McCoy in particular. I wish we could have seen the Klingon homeworld in a vista shot or rura penthe from orbit, oh well. Still a fantastic film for a Trek movie.
Star Trek II, III, and IV: These three films make up a trilogy of sorts and a very good one at that IMHO.
Each original film is uniquely different from the other but connected with story tissue left behind by each film; jumping off from one story into the next in a very interesting and satisying ways I believe.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is to blame for what Star Trek has become... the problem is the producers of today fail to realize that TWOK succeeded because it had a backstory, it had Space Seed and many more years of story behind that. The theme of death and rebirth are all over the film. Great performances and an emotional (at the time) scene between two friends.
Star Trek III: Picks up the pieces left behind by TWOK and goes into a different story of searching, of hope. The rebirth of someone lost on a miracle world, McCoy holding Spock's soul and breaking the rules. Sure we have the Klingons in there but they have a motive, they want the power of the Genesis device. Killing Kirk's son and the destruction of the the Enterprise were also quite emotional elements to a wobbly yet worthwhile movie to the series.
Star Trek IV: Continued the thread from III and goes into a different direction which is incidentally more comedic but its still got the great chemistry of the actors there. The story is vastly different from the previous two movies which is nice. It's also a time travel caper, a rescue mission, and a comedic fish out of water story which all works for many reasons.
Its a nice way to round out the evolution of Star Trek up to that point, especially coming from the high concept Motion Picture, the awesome action beats of The Wrath of Khan, to the sentimental Search for Spock, and finally saving the world from an alien probe that only speaks whale in The Voyage Home. Love it, its a must for any fan of Trek to revisit.
Even The Final Frontier is quite interesting if incredibly disappointing in most viewers eyes, the search for God and the use of some on set effects (rear projection screens in the viewing windows) and the emotional scenes between Bones and his father are well done.
The only other Trek film after VI that I thoroughly enjoyed is First Contact; much like TWOK its essentially a sequel movie to ideas or situations which occured within a television series.
You would think that a producer or writer would have latched on to the idea that there might be something to this pattern, especially when considered how successful these were in terms of mainstream society and geek culture.
So current Star Trek producer or writer, look at the vast history of Star Trek and identify any story threads that were left unresolved and create a story from therein. At the very least it'll give you something to write about instead of resorting to a story where half the universe seeks vengence against the Federation for one reason or another.
I mean no one wants to see Star Trek: The Revenge of the Avenging Avenger for the third time do they?
They do?!
Okay... then I submit this storyline for the next movie:
A rogue Tribble was also pulled through time into this new timeline while being assimilated by a Borg cube. Somehow it became master of the vessel due to some wonky time thingy. The Borg cube is now under its control so it begins attacking the Klingon homeworld to seek vengence on the Klingons for pushing its species to the brink of extinction.
The crew of the Enterprise must try to destroy the Borg Tribble and its most powerful cube ship which is 1000 times bigger than the Enterprise, its got incredible weaponry too and the ship has to be black so the audience knows its evil and bad.
The tribble will actually speak in this universe, it shall be voiced by someone very british; like Michael Caine or Helen Mirren.
We'll have a scene where nuSpock has to mind meld with it which leads to some strange mind sex between the two of them...
We'll have Uhura run around the ship wearing nothing but Borat's green mankini thong for no reason other than to show it in 3d and slow-mo.
Kirk will also have space AIDS in the movie... just so you know, for oscar consideration.
Justin Bieber will guest star as an alien singing sensation...
and the rest of the crew will do nothing but run around for no one reason or other down corridors and such with things exploding.
No?!
Okay then... it'll be in 3d though so it'll make fucking millions!
Of course I kid... "smile" people, Star Trek sold out!
It's a wild roller coaster ride of a movie.
