We've only considered ourselves a casual 'Star Trek' fan and never a a rabidly hardcore 'Trekkie'....(whom William Shatner so savagely mocked in that infamous 'get a life' skit on Saturday Night Live.....)....
And we've hardly kept up with all the subsequent 'Star Trek' TV series and films.....and damned if we could remember a single thing about those three overdone, CGI-crammed reboot movies with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.....
But to this day, we still well remember and enjoy the initial batch of 'Star Trek' films featuring the original TV cast......so we took advantage of the long lazy Thanksgiving weekend and went on a Trekkie binge through all of them.....
Here's what he hope serves as an easy, breezy recap for anyone who's considering taking the plunge into Trek-world....
Star Trek The Motion Picture (1979) Everyone's ego got the better of them in this first attempt to turn a Star Trek movie into a bigger-then-big, dazzling visual spectacle....(instigated by the wild success of "Star Ward" two years earlier....) Nobody involved in this seemed to remember that the original series collected its die hard fan base from people who thrilled to the character interaction and the stories......not the special effects wham-bams......
Here's the funny thing about it......we've come to embrace this movie for all of its famously recounted faults......it's studied, pompous self-reverential tone, its funereal pace, its over- reliance on gorgeous near hallucinogenic special effects (which only came after its initial special effects supervisor was fired for his below-par efforts) and the ridiculous costumes inflicted on the actors, which made them all look like spandexed Beverly Hills dentists.
Above all, there was the glorious Jerry Goldsmith score, which the producers were smart enough to install as a permanent part of the ST universe......we'll never stop listening to Goldsmith's rapturous suite that accompanies the endless sequence of Captain Kirk's wondrous introduction to the refitted Enterprise.
Call us crazy, but as bloated and sluggish as it is, we appreciate the massive effort that went into it......and even came to enjoy the pretentiously ambitious '2001'-like story twist to the mission. 3 stars (***)
Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan (1982) Here's the warm, lovable 'Star Trek' everyone adored,, hugged and celebrated as a roaring comeback - especially after the cold, austere remoteness of the first film. It's a continuation of one of the TV episodes, with Ricardo Montalban madly chewing the scenery and puffing up his rippling pectorals as the wrathful intergalactic convict Khan, as obsessed with destroying Kirk as Ahab was with Moby Dick.....(even to the point of quoting Ahab....)
Loads of fun, not to mention way more realistically comfortable uniforms for the crew, which became the standard outfits for the rest of this series of films. And the tragic but somehow promising conclusion stunned the fans. A young James Horner stepped into the composer's spot with a rippling, heroic score. 4 stars (****)
Star Trek III- The Search For Spock (1984) The first 'Trek' directed by one of the cast members with Leonard Nimoy at the helm.......and smoothly slides into a continuation of the Star Trek II storyline.....
A fine decent effort and by now everyone was getting familiar with the sturdy formula set up in Trek II......humorous, expected byplay between the beloved crew characters, a compelling story worth telling and competent but never overbearing special effects (used only in service to the plot and not to call attention to themselves.)
This one featured a wrenching (and unfixable) tragedy for Kirk that follows him into subsequent films and and an oddly cast but hugely entertaining turn by Christopher Lloyd as an evil Klingon captain.......and let's hear it for Dame Judith Anderson showing up as a Vulcan high priestess ( or whatever the hell she's supposed to be.....) 3 stars (***)
Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (1986) Nimoy again directs and this film, more than any of the others, comes close to crossing into borderline 'dramedy' as the crew propels themselves back into modern day San Francisco to save the world from a future threat......
You can think of this as the one 'Trek' with infinite appeal to audiences that wouldn't normally go anywhere near such a film. Loads and loads of comedic fish-out-of-water stuff as the confounded crew navigate their way through a 20th century world they they consider Medieval and hopelessly primitive.
Laughs, suspense, a heartwarming potential love interest for Kirk.....and whales! What more could you ask for? 4 stars (****)
Star Trek V - The Final Frontier (1989) Pardon us if go for the controversy here but we didn't find this one nearly as bad as everyone thinks it is.....a 'Star Trek' movie with the singular honor of being dismissed and reviled by both critics and fans alike.......
Maybe it's because the reliable, proven Nimoy ceded the direction to William Shatner, finally exerting his clout to take over the director's chair as well as the starship captain's center seat. The resulting film did little to repair Shatner's public persona as a preening, egotistical diva.....(which at times the actor himself, in his good natured moments, enjoyed satirizing.....)
True, as an 'actor's actor', maybe Shatner did over emphasize the comedic byplay among the characters.....(and we really could have lived without having James Doohan as beloved engineer 'Scotty' do a dumb Three Stooges pratfall). And yes the script, does play as if retrieved from one of the many tossed out plot ideas considered for "Star Trek The Motion Picture".......(with the starship Enterprise travelling to the outer edges of the universe in an attempt to encounter the big guy himself.....God.)
Call us a heretic to Trek Scripture but we still found plenty to entertain us here. That even includes the solidly talented TV actor Laurence Luckinbill as Spock's problematic half-brother Sybok.........whose jovial, all encompassing messianic fervor to heal pain and bond with God proves his undoing.
Though it felt like a cheesy bad-joke letdown for a finale of a Star Trek adventure.....the film's climax resonated with us, given today's current political climate. When true believer Sybok conspires to hijack the Enterprise and force the crew to bring him face to face with The Creator, he meets, to his everlasting chagrin......well, not God. The entity posing as God turns out to be a raspy-voiced, pissed-off creature (played by veteran character villain George Murdock), a phony deity who's only looking to hijack the Enterprise himself.
Sybok began to remind us all too well of a typical Trump supporter.....worshipping a despicable, malignant liar who's only out for himself......in other words....a con-God.
So to hell with whatever critics and Trekkies thought of this one.....for us, it still came out to a 3 star (***) voyage.
Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country (1991) It's the final film voyage of the original TV series crew and a truly fitting one with a grim storyline that hurls them into as much genuine peril and dramatic conflict than they've ever faced before.....
Once again, as in "The Final Frontier", we found content in here that uncomfortably reminded us of today's world events......where Kirk finds himself a pawn and a fall guy patsy in a nefarious assassination plot jointly concocted by colluding Klingon and Earth generals......(essentially right-wing warhawks hoping to sabotage a peace initiative)
A total Star Trek package unfolds......political intrigue, suspenseful mystery, all the humorous character byplay....and a satisfying final kick-ass space battle against the odious Klingon warrior Gen. Chang (the great Christopher Plummer, growling out lines that consist almost exclusively of Shakespeare quotes, prompting Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly) to mutter, "I'd give real money if he'd shut up".....)
A superb send off for all the familiar gang of Shatner, Nimoy, Kelly, Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei......( as a treat for the fans, autographing their own closing credits at the end....).and throws in one of the best gags of the entire series, a meta joke in which Shatner lampoons his own world famous narcissism. (We won't spoil it for anyone left in the known universe who hasn't yet seen this movie....)
For all these reasons, we bestow this film with a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS rating....and being a satisfying end to a 6 film binge.
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