NakedMoleRat
Master Member
Ok, let’s get back to the fun and not be offended over someone else’s opinions.
Alleged Screen Used Hero TOS Phaser up for auction (now the aftermath)
- Thread starter Anakin Starkiller
- Start date
Axlotl
Master Member
Set phasers for "fun".
That was THE Battle Cry at Trek Cons in the 90’s!
Bigdaddy
Master Member
Ahhh the 90s....back when the 80s sucked and the 60s were cool!That was THE Battle Cry at Trek Cons in the 90’s!
Ahhh the 90s....back when the 80s sucked and the 60s were cool!
I still remember the phrase, "Every odd numbered Trek film sucked".
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
Sir, yes sir!
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
Let’s see.
The Motion Picture.
The search for Spock.
The Voyage Home.
Um, yeah, accurate.
The only difference is with Nu-Trek. They all were pretty bad. I wouldn’t put them on Suck level, but they were no Wrath of Kahn.
AnubisGuard
Master Member
TVH was #4, though. Did you mean Final Frontier?
Correct.
Many people have recently taken the Inglorious Treksperts Podcast to task for lionizing TMP and knocking TSFS (to say nothing of Mark A. Altman obnoxiously and inappropriately jamming his personal politics in at every opportunity), and I’m certainly among them.
Let’s be real, here. TMP has undergone a bit of a reappraisal, over the past few years, but it is NOT some misunderstood and unfinished (at least until Robert Wise did his Director’s Edition) masterpiece. It was the PHANTOM MENACE of its time (and I say that while also saying that film IS underrated and misunderstood)—a huge disappointment for many. While it has certainly grown on me, over the years, it is not a better film than TSFS. It’s smarter and more science-minded than TSFS, the effects are great, the music is great, some of the concepts and moments are great. The first hour is the best, with the large-scale and epic reunion of the crew. But the second half devolves into a rehash of “The Changeling”, and numerous non-action setpieces. And it IS boring. The “sci-fi procedural” elements are smart and well-done, but the film simply lacks the human warmth, interplay, and energy of the TV show. Which seems to be a common element in the productions Gene Roddenberry had the most control over (“The Cage”, TMP, and the first season of TNG).
At the end of the day, TMP is not about the characters. It’s about the ideas and the scope. A riff on 2001 using STAR TREK characters. The criticism that the movie feels “cold” is absolutely correct. Everyone is as serious as a heart attack, and the few jokes there are in the film don’t land particularly well. Kirk comes off as an immature jerk, and his midlife crisis in TWOK feels much more organic and in-character than the one in TMP. The depressed-then-rejuvenated Admiral Kirk of TWOK feels like an older version of the iconic TV character. The TMP version does not.
That all being said, I now actually find myself rewatching and thinking about TMP more often than IV-VI, interestingly enough. I-III are the ones I rewatch most often.
Meanwhile, while TSFS wears its cheapness on its sleeve (outstanding ILM model work aside), and the script is basically just a connect-the-dots job to undo TWOK and bring Spock back, the film has a HEART. It is the most personal of the TOS-era films, and continues the TWOK theme of our heroes grappling with age and mortality. All of the characters have standout moments, the jokes work very well, and there are actual stakes and emotions at play, unlike TMP’s “Earth is in danger” bit, which SHOULD feel epic, but instead comes across as detached and abstract.
There is no moment in TMP which comes close to the theft of the Enterprise, the destruction of the Enterprise, and the touching final scene between Kirk and Spock. TSFS is a film which capitalized on the 20 years of history accrued by both the characters and the audience. I find the Enterprise limping home into spacedock in TSFS to be far more emotional and engaging (and thankfully shorter) than Kirk and Scotty flying around the drydocked ship in TMP. Both scenes try to capitalize on the audience’s love for the ship, but the TSFS scene creates pathos, and actually treats it like a character, rather than an effects sequence to ooh and aah over.
TMP pretended that only a short time had passed since TOS, and set about telling a story about the characters slowly getting back into character…while spending the bulk of the runtime featuring them all grumpy and OUT of character compared to what fans were used to.
Setting aside the fact that growth and change are not usually good things in long-running franchises (I prefer the illusion of change, and then the toys being put back in their box intact, because otherwise these things tend to be painted into a corner or destroyed outright—see Disney’s STAR WARS and pretty much every other legacy franchise that’s been deconstructed into oblivion, lately), I respect the TOS movies (beginning with TWOK) for acknowledging the passage of time while still treating the characters with respect. It may be a unique case in genre history: Setting aside Kirk’s pointless and lame death in GENERATIONS, the TOS crew had a great run with a respectful send-off in TUC. Few iconic franchises get a happy ending like that, nowadays. Instead, they’re milked to death and/or deconstructed in order to “subvert expectations” (code for “bad writing”, of course).
So, to sum up, all of the TOS films are good to varying degrees (yes, even TFF, which is underrated, despite its serious problems), the TNG films are mostly bad, and the Abrams films are all bad.
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1. The Motion Picture
2. The Wrath of Kahn
3. The Search for Spock
4. The Voyage Home
5. The Final Frontier
6. The Undiscovered Country
I tended to like all of them just because I like Star Trek. But #2,#4, and #6 were considered better written or directed,(or just funnier) in some circles.
I loved the antique humor of #4, it was relatable. It reminded me of the Trouble with Tribbles episode, where they intentionally put comedy into it, and did a good job.
"Remember where we parked" [invisible spaceship]
"A Nuclear Wessle" [Chekov of course.]
"Somebody invented transparent aluminum about this time period, how do we know it wasn't THIS guy?" [As Scotty just hands a 20th century guy the specs to CREATE transparent aluminum]
2. The Wrath of Kahn
3. The Search for Spock
4. The Voyage Home
5. The Final Frontier
6. The Undiscovered Country
I tended to like all of them just because I like Star Trek. But #2,#4, and #6 were considered better written or directed,(or just funnier) in some circles.
I loved the antique humor of #4, it was relatable. It reminded me of the Trouble with Tribbles episode, where they intentionally put comedy into it, and did a good job.
"Remember where we parked" [invisible spaceship]
"A Nuclear Wessle" [Chekov of course.]
"Somebody invented transparent aluminum about this time period, how do we know it wasn't THIS guy?" [As Scotty just hands a 20th century guy the specs to CREATE transparent aluminum]
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NakedMoleRat
Master Member
And there were phasers in the movies. We love phasers.
…they cut the one and only use of hand phasers out of TMP!
Wow, we have the 60's hero phasers known.....but where are the phasers from the movies? Did they disappear?
There are FOUR COKES!
USS Endeav
Sr Member
You mean he came off as ...............................................................shatner?
↑ This right here. Damn if I didn't nearly tear up in the theater. As a kid, that was hard to watch.
Agreed. Try as they might, it was like a flat Coke, devoid of body, of substance. Anticlimactic even.
From what I understand most of the movie props disappeared after each movie, which is why you had redressed Richard Coyle TSFS Comms used in The Final Frontier.
...but this forged hero phaser, unfortunately, did not.
NakedMoleRat
Master Member
Diet, low carb, vegan friendly phasers for all.
