The Star Trek Movie pattern. How true is it really?

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Note, I am not factoring Abrams Star Trek, just from Motion Picture to Nemesis. Basically its like this, The Even-numbered movies are good, the Odd-numbered ones are bad. With Nemesis breaking that pattern by being a bad even numbered movie:

1. Motion Picture = Bad
2. Wrath of Khan = Good
3. The Search for Spock = Bad
4. The Voyage Home = Good
5. The Final Frontier = Bad
6. The Undiscovered Country = Good
7. Generations = Bad
8. First Contact = Good
9. Insurrection = Bad
10. Nemesis = THE WORSE STAR TREK MOVIE EVER, or so they say.

But I have seen all these movies before and really, I liked some of the movies that are deemed bad like the Search for Spock and Motion Picture and Nemesis, while I hated the movies that are deemed good like The Voyage Home.

And some of the bad movies I didn't find that bad at all like Generations.

What do you guys think?

 

[Something Amyss]

I've never understood this one. I get why people hate The Motionless Picture. I mean, it was okay, but I get it. Khan was so great it transcends genre and often makes movie lists even of non sci-fi fans, and Khan is often cited as a top villain for damn good reasons. And yeah, ST3 was a step down, but it was still pretty good. I'd argue better than IV, though I like IV. The Undiscovered Country was not one of my faves, but it was better than the immediate successor.

Also, supposedly it flips for the TNG movies. The odd are supposed to be the good ones. I don't know, I didn't really like them. Generations was fun when I was a kid and I got to see Kirk and Picard together, even if it was less than Stellar.

2 3 and 4 are my top movies, which in no small part likely has to do with them being an arc in themselves. I don't hate most of the TOS movies, though.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah I don't know how much it really holds up. I don't think Search for Spock is all that bad a movie, it's not as good as Wrath of Khan, but it isn't bad. I also like Generations despite a few complaints and nitpicks. Nemesis is a flawed film, but I don't think it's terrible. It certainly has a number of interesting ideas on display.

 

[Satinavian]

I think the only ones really bad are 5,9,7,10 pretty much in this order beginning with the worst.

I find 1 underrated and 2 and 8 overrated but all are still good films.

My favorite is 6.

 

[Hawki]

It's true in as much that if you took those films, sampled a group, and aggregated their rankings, you'd find the even numbered ones near the top, and the odd ones near the bottom. Still, there's some hitches in that in that some people count Galaxy Quest as a Star Trek film of sorts (it would be "good" between Insurrection and Nemesis, thus preserving the system), and also the matter of the Kelvinverse trilogy.

Me personally though, my rankings are a bit all over the place, namely being

12) Generations

11) Nemesis

10) The Search for Spock

9) The Motion Picture

8) The Journey Home

7) Beyond

6) The Final Frontier

5) The Undiscovered Country

4) Star Trek 2009

3) Into Darkness

2) The Wrath of Khan

1) First Contact

 

[Pyrian]

Well, we've long since established that Samtemdo8 has tastes that are not the usual. A quick perusal of Rotten Tomatoes suggests that the description sort of holds, with none of the "good ones" below 80 and none of the "bad ones" above 80. That being said, 3&6 are at 79 and 81 respectively, which doesn't exactly suggest a strong relation.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Honestly, TMP isn't that bad. Paramount wanted to play catch-up with Star Wars and Close Encounters, so they killed Phase II, took the scrapped pilot and put it through some rewrites, and added an hour of pointless special effects and Enterprise money shots. If you can find one of the fan edits floating around the internet that cuts the extraneous crap, what you end up with is actually a pretty tight stand-alone Trek episode that bridges the gap between TOS and the films proper really effectively.

I have a real love-hate relationship with The Final Frontier. In a lot of ways, it's the film truest to the vision and themes of TOS, and had it been a TOS episode it easily would have been recognized among the best. Thematically, it's right there with episodes like "Who Mourns for Adonais?", "Where No Man has Gone Before", and even "Conscience of the King". You can't get any closer to "pure" Trek than "a renegade alien exploits the crew's guilt over the past to manipulate them into searching for God, only to discover "God" is a malevolent entity pretending to be such for its own benefit".

It's just too laden with tangential plot threads, bad special effects, and poor dialogue. It's just...disappointing, and I personally can't feel any sort of ire towards Shatner, Bennett, or Loughery. They were screwed by the WGA and Teamsters strikes and ILM's unavailability, coupled by Paramount's refusal to delay production. Without the Klingons, the Nimbus III story arc, and with better special effects, it really would have worked.

The Search for Spock only gets a bad rap, because it had to follow up TWOK. No hypothetical Trek movie would have followed up TWOK and came out looking good by comparison.

Voyage Home aged worse than I care to admit, but on the other hand it's still a good movie and an excellent palate cleanser after TWOK and SoS. It was the one time they did comedy in a Trek movie right, and for that it has a special place in my heart.

First Contact has lost a lot of its luster with me. It's still fun and really watchable, and I'll admit a lot of its failures aren't attributable to it alone. Those being, it being the movie that signaled Trek's descent into "action sci-fi" hell and being the start of the "instant drama, just add Borg" trope. But still, taken on it's own it's a good movie, and oh my god that theme...

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Well, we've long since established that Samtendo8 has tastes that are not the usual. A quick perusal of Rotten Tomatoes suggests that the description sort of holds, with none of the "good ones" below 80 and none of the "bad ones" above 80. That being said, 3&6 are at 79 and 81 respectively, which doesn't exactly suggest a strong relation.

1. SamteMdo8. Believe it or not, my name has nothing to do with Nintendo.

2. So you know my tastes? Let me give you an examples: I would rather watch the Passion of the Christ, or the Last Temptation of Christ, over Jesus Christ Superstar. I would rather read The Once and Future King then watch Monthy Python and the Holy Grail (even though it was funny)

3. I watched all the movies, after I finished their respective TV shows and let me tell you, There are Star Trek episodes that are even worse then the bad Star Trek movies.

 

[Pyrian]

So you know my tastes?

Posts like this are a substantial portion of your forum output. I get the notion that your tastes are not similar to mainstream tastes from the fact that you are constantly posting that you disagree with what's popular and what's not.

Fixed the misspelling, sorry.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

So you know my tastes?

Posts like this are a substantial portion of your forum output. I get the notion that your tastes are not similar to mainstream tastes from the fact that you are constantly posting that you disagree with what's popular and what's not.

Fixed the misspelling, sorry.

I am also sick and tired of people complaining about Loot Boxes and Microtransations and Season Passes and hating on EA, Activision/Blizzard, and Ubisoft, and what have you in gaming.

Especially in the Youtube sphere. Whole Youtube channels made thier entire careers bitching about gaming and hardly saying anything nice about it all to generate that youtube revenue monies

 

[Trunkage]

Star Trek 4 can fuck off with its whales. I disliked it as a kid and is even stupider now. Give me Final Frontier or Search for Spock.

But then I think TNG is the worst Star Trek series. Which is funny becuase First Contact is my fav movie. Finally, an episode that felt like it had stakes. Something that Voyager and DS9 rectified is some episodes.

Also, Hawki. Into Darkness just behind Khan? I liked Peter Weller and how his story set everything up, but everything after the 'reveal' was lacklustre. I'd put both other Kelvin movie over Into Darkness. But then, I thought Beyond was the best, even with the utter silliness of saboutage

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

First Contact is the best Trek movie. That is all.

 

[Hawki]

I am also sick and tired of people complaining about Loot Boxes and Microtransations and Season Passes and hating on EA, Activision/Blizzard, and Ubisoft, and what have you in gaming.

There's plenty to complain about in regards to those things.

Also, Hawki. Into Darkness just behind Khan? I liked Peter Weller and how his story set everything up, but everything after the 'reveal' was lacklustre. I'd put both other Kelvin movie over Into Darkness. But then, I thought Beyond was the best, even with the utter silliness of saboutage

I've never got a lot of the hate Into Darkness gets.

If you want to point out that everyone saw the Khan 'twist' coming, then yeah, I agree with you. There's no reason for Khan to even be in the movie. But taking it as a whole, I'd say it's quite good. Flows well, action is good, characters are good, and unlike 09 and Beyond, engages in socio-political themes (War on Terror, drone warfare, etc.)

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I am also sick and tired of people complaining about Loot Boxes and Microtransations and Season Passes and hating on EA, Activision/Blizzard, and Ubisoft, and what have you in gaming.

There's plenty to complain about in regards to those things.

Also, Hawki. Into Darkness just behind Khan? I liked Peter Weller and how his story set everything up, but everything after the 'reveal' was lacklustre. I'd put both other Kelvin movie over Into Darkness. But then, I thought Beyond was the best, even with the utter silliness of saboutage

I've never got a lot of the hate Into Darkness gets.

If you want to point out that everyone saw the Khan 'twist' coming, then yeah, I agree with you. There's no reason for Khan to even be in the movie. But taking it as a whole, I'd say it's quite good. Flows well, action is good, characters are good, and unlike 09 and Beyond, engages in socio-political themes (War on Terror, drone warfare, etc.)

Into Darkness has my eternal disdain because it tried to ape via role reversal the iconic death of Spock from Wrath of Khan with Kirk, the only character with even more plot armour than Spock. It was already a dubious notion plot wise but also felt like a desperate plea to the audience that Nu!Kirk and Nu!Spock had the same connection and fuck you JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman because they didn't. Not in a month of the finest fucking Sundays this green Earth can provide was that going to work. Pine and Quinto are fine, though I don't like Pine's Kirk that much, but they did not have the same realised friendship that existed on the screen between Shatner and Nimoy because by the time Khan happened the two actors had been playing the characters for three years, and been friends for the intervening near two decades before the scene was filmed.

 

[Trunkage]

I am also sick and tired of people complaining about Loot Boxes and Microtransations and Season Passes and hating on EA, Activision/Blizzard, and Ubisoft, and what have you in gaming.

There's plenty to complain about in regards to those things.

Also, Hawki. Into Darkness just behind Khan? I liked Peter Weller and how his story set everything up, but everything after the 'reveal' was lacklustre. I'd put both other Kelvin movie over Into Darkness. But then, I thought Beyond was the best, even with the utter silliness of saboutage

I've never got a lot of the hate Into Darkness gets.

If you want to point out that everyone saw the Khan 'twist' coming, then yeah, I agree with you. There's no reason for Khan to even be in the movie. But taking it as a whole, I'd say it's quite good. Flows well, action is good, characters are good, and unlike 09 and Beyond, engages in socio-political themes (War on Terror, drone warfare, etc.)

I didn't get the hate either. The first half was full of intrigue with a great villian. And then they killed him for a less developed and poorly motivated second villian.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Also, supposedly it flips for the TNG movies. .

Iirc the reason it flips for tng movies is because you gotta slot Galaxy Quest, the greatest star trek movie, in there.

By Grabthar's hammer why is this the only comment that brings up Galaxy Quest

 

[Something Amyss]

Also, supposedly it flips for the TNG movies. .

Iirc the reason it flips for tng movies is because you gotta slot Galaxy Quest, the greatest star trek movie, in there.

True. You can't forget Galaxy Quest.

I've never got a lot of the hate Into Darkness gets.

I'm not sure I count as a "hater", but the movie is still kind of a mess.

The Khan twist only gets shit because JJ Abrams tried to be all PT Barnum by insisting it totes wasn't Khan and the bad guy would be the Talosians or Harry Mudd or...I forget the third. It's sort of like when Hideo Kojima tried to pull the "deep shame" card. I would have respected Kojima more if he had said "I like boobies," but he had to do this big thing where he pumped up a major, meaningful reason that doesn't even make sense in context. I wouldn't have minded a Khan reveal if they hadn't tried so hard t hide it while everyone knew. When I saw it in the theaters, people literally laughed at the reveal.

The framing was pretty bad, too. This is Trek for a new generation, but the reveal was framed as though the name should have meant something. It shouldn't to the crew, it shouldn't to the new audience it was courting, so did they seriously make a major plot point out of an easter egg? I guess so, but then...who was the big switch-up at the end for?

There is no reason to care about Kirk v Spock in the warp core and defeating Khan within the movie. It all relies on knowing a better movie's ending and the sacrifice of Spock vs the cunning of Kirk. That ending could have been a pretty powerful moment, if we'd had much of a reason to care. We don't even have a callback t the Kobiyashi Maru, which would have been a great way to frame it. Or, at least, a better way. And calling in older Spock felt...cheap. I only cared abot Khan because of what he did in TOS, and I only cared about Kirk because of what happened in TOS, and I only cared about Spock because...well, I cared about Spock because I like Silar's depiction of him as a conflicted half-human, half-Vulcan. Gabe Quinto is awesome, but it doesn't have much to do with the scene or the movie.

I don't hate the movie, but I liked it less than the first one. I think a lot of it just fell flat, and they couldn't seem to decide whether they were making a Khan remake or not.

I don't even care about the normal complaints that they cured death (which really, they cured a specific type of death) and warp travel was now pointless (because it's really not). But they did let me down.

 

[Natemans]

Honestly they go like this for me.

The Motion Picture - Boring
The Wrath of Khan - Great
The Search For Spock - Decent
The Voyage Home - Really Good
The Final Frontier - Bad
The Undiscovered Country - Great
Generations - Terrible
First Contact - Great
Insurrection - boring and bland
Nemesis - so very tired, out of gas
Star Trek (2009) - Good
Into Darkness - Beautiful looking, but script's a giant mess
Beyond - Really good



They go like this for me in terms of ranking:

1. Wrath of Khan
2. First Contact
3. The Voyage Home
4. Beyond
5. Undiscovered Country
6. Star Trek
7. Search For Spock
8. Generations
9. Into Darkness
10. The Motion Picture
11. Insurrection
12. Final Frontier
13. Nemesis