Watching the Star Trek Movies (SPOILERS)

[The Baron]

Thought it would be fun to re-watch these, since I finally picked up a copy of Star Trek - Into Darkness from the cheapie bin, which  means I now have copies of all of them.

 

So, on into space, the filmic frontier...

[Richard Willis]

The Baron said:

Star Trek IV - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Too late to change it (unless a Mod can do it), but this is Star Trek V.

"The Klingon Empire has roughly fifty years of life to it." This always kind of bugged me. Granted, having a moon blow up is catastrophic, but is the Empire that fragile that it would be doomed afterwards?

I don't know how many moons the Klingon homeworld had, but a moon blowing up will destabilize a planet to a greater or lesser degree. They might have to relocate to a different planet. In STTNG the Klingon Empire seemed to be doing fine.

This picture is, of course, an extended metaphor for the end of the First Cold War, as well as that dopey "end of history" nonsense that was floating around back then.
"Are we talknin about motballing the Starfleet?" This also bugged me, as though the Klingons were the only potential threat to the Federation.

This is in line with the end of the cold war thinking, like all of the weapons and all of our enemies just evaporated. Wasn't it also an exploratory organization? The original concept was exploration but with the ability to defend the ship.

We meet Valeris, played by Kim Cattrall, who plays her as being somewhat smug and pleased with herself. I've read that the character was originally meant to be Saavik (and much of her dialogue resembles Saavik's), but Roddenberry didn't like the idea of turning Saavik heel, and also Alley was unavailable, and Meyer hadn't liked Curtis' performance and didn't want to re-cast it again. This does sort of make it look as though Spock has a habit of "mentoring" likely young Vulcan lasses. ;)

I don't remember her, but I've blocked out most of the movie since the first (and only) time I saw it.

David Warner return, this time as Gorkon, the doomed Klingon chancellor.

I'm a big fan of David Warner. I've never seen him give a bad performance. He has done a wealth of genre shows and animation voice acting.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Star Trek IV - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Too late to change it (unless a Mod can do it), but this is Star Trek V.

Fixed.

[The Baron]

Richard Willis said:

The Baron said:

Star Trek IV - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Too late to change it (unless a Mod can do it), but this is Star Trek V.

 

Actually, it's Star Trek VI !  I hate when I do that!

[Richard Willis]

Oops. I lost track of which movie we were talking about. Darn Roman numerals.

The Baron said:

Actually, it's Star Trek VI !  I hate when I do that!

[Philip Portelli]

Leonard Nimoy did the two-part "Reunification" on Star Trek the Next Generation to tie in with Star Trek VI.

Actually "Reunification" would have made a pretty good movie!

Also no one has mentioned Spock's obvious romantic intentions for Valeris. Must be that time of the decade again!

But it does mirror fan theory on why Saavik was "recast" in the first place: she was on Vulcan, raising her and Spock's child!

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

The fifth installment is the only one with the original crew I never saw. My friends who are bigger Star Trek fans than me all hated it. I believed them, so I never sought it out.

Heck I barely remember the 6th one either. Pretty much that it exists. I am a terrible nerd.

[Captain Comics]

I remember "VI" pretty well, as it cleansed my palate after the abysmal "V".

One thing about V I hated: The fan dance. Not only was the actress a bit long in the tooth to be attempting that (Put it on!), I felt it  was demeaning to Uhura's character. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I liked the idea Meyer stated in several interviews that he was going old school with this one, with as many throwback elements as he could, rather than super-duper high tech. So you had Shakespeare, and equipment that looked used, and so forth.

On the other hand, isn't this the one that show pots of boiling water in a kitchen? Note to Meyer: Food was being synthesized by transporter technology as far back as the first season or TOS. Further, those pots would be on the floor in any given episode of TOS, and the chefs scalded to death. Idiotic.

But there was other stuff I really liked, like the Klingon blood in zero G. I hadn't thought about it, but that's what it would look like, wouldn't it? Plus, it was purple!

I could well believe the Klingon Empire would collapse after such a devastating economic, cultural and population blow. But as someone has pointed out, the Empire is doing fine in the future. What th-?

I remember Valeris as an obvious stand-in for Saavik, and wondering why. Since I found Curtis unconvincing in the role, I wasn't disappointed by her absence. But I remember being curious. Good to have those questions answered at last.

As to Spock mentoring young girls ... well, maybe that's where Wolverine got it from! :)

[Dave Elyea]

I believe that the reason the Klingon Empire was still doing fine in the future of TNG was because the events of this movie led them to do the unthinkable, and accept aid from the Federation, eventually leading to the alliance that existed between the two former rivals in Picard's time. And wasn't the moon that blew up supposed to be one of their major power sources, so that along with the usual physical effects of losing it, the explosion also caused a serious energy crisis for the Empire?

[Richard Willis]

Dave Elyea said:

I believe that the reason the Klingon Empire was still doing fine in the future of TNG was because the events of this movie led them to do the unthinkable, and accept aid from the Federation, eventually leading to the alliance that existed between the two former rivals in Picard's time. And wasn't the moon that blew up supposed to be one of their major power sources, so that along with the usual physical effects of losing it, the explosion also caused a serious energy crisis for the Empire?

This was quite likely inspired by the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, which led to Western assistance for and cooperation with the Soviet Union. This was also one of the tipping points leading to the dissolution of the USSR.

[The Baron]

Star Trek - Generations (1994)

 

Directed by David Carson

Story by Rick Berman & Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga

Screenplay by Ronald D. Moore & Brannon Braga

1. The score is by Dennis McCarthy. It's OK, but not especially distinctive.
2. We see the Enterprise-B, which is the ugly Excelsior design.
3. We meet Sulu's daughter. Nice to see that one of these guys had a home life.
4. "I was never that young." "No, you were younger." 
5. Scotty seems to have taken Bones' place in being a smartass to Kirk. I gather that both Nimoy and Kelley were approached to be in those, but both turned it down.
6. Yet another "poorly-prepared ship is the only one in range" scenario.  It's only when you watch these night after night that you notice how often they drew from that well.
7. Captain Harriman is not even remotely believable as a starship captain.
8. Always fun to see Malcolm McDowell, although I don't feel we're getting his best work here.
9. I've never liked Guinan as a character.  Nothing against Whoopi Goldberg, just never liked the character.
10. The goofiness surrounding Worf's promotion was mildly amusing. Beverly was asking for it telling Data to be spontaneous.
11. Interesting. Data's emotion chip turns him into an a*******. I'd forgotten how annoying Data could be sometimes.
12. Picard wasn't impossibly old to have kids even by 1994's standards.  You'd think that by the future, guys much older than him might be fathers.
13. The Duras sisters were not my favorite villains.
14. And they wreck another Enterprise.  Even by the 24th Century, they haven't re-invented seatbelts.
15. The meeting between Picard and Kirk was amusing. "Dillweed!"
16. "Who am I to argue with the captain of the Enterprise?
17. I wasn't wild about the way they killed off Kirk. Not necessarily against killing him off, just the way it was done.  I would've liked to see him interact with the crew of the Enterprise-D, especially seeing a Klingon in Starfleet uniform. ("Was your grandfather a lawyer?")  It would have been fun to see him fight the Duras sisters - imagine their reaction when this legendary Klingon-fighter comes back from the dead to fight them!
18. You can tell that the cat playing Spot is not especially thrilled by Spiner at the end.
19. Ah, that was Tim Russ! I thought it was him.  And Jenette Goldstein was in this, too!

 

Overall: This was OK, but it could have been better.  I forgave STTMP alot when I was 16 because it was the first new Star Trek in years.  When Generations came along, there had been alot of Trek around, so I was less forgiving of mediocrity.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Looking through this thread I realize how many of these movies I've just one maybe two times.

Now Generations stuck with me, not because of the quality of the movie, which it was fine. No, this is the first and only movie in which I actually saw someone dressed up in a Federation uniform attend the movie. I still remember it was a couple who came in together, and me any my buddies elbowing each other and pointing it out.

[The Baron]

PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod said:

Star Trek IV - The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Too late to change it (unless a Mod can do it), but this is Star Trek V.

Fixed.

 

Thanks!