Wouldja look at that, hire some filmmakers who actually give a shit about Star Trek, and poof! you have yourself a perfectly solid Star Trek movie. It only took three tries – and getting J.J. Abrams hired away to direct a film in that other space franchise – but the neo-Trek prequel/reboot series that started […]
Star Trek: Nemesis was built, more or less explicitly, to be the final story to feature the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, trumpeting its overbaked finale-ness in everything from the first scene (excluding a prologue) to the climactic death of a main character which, in best mainstream sci-fi tradition, is implied near the […]
In the month prior to the opening of 2009’s Star Trek, I set myself to the task of re-watching all ten extant Star Trek features. Not to blog about them – a rare movie marathon that I didn’t see fit to document for all time just to prove that I did it – but to […]
In comments recently, reader Brian Malbon forwarded a theory that’s probably been expressed before, somewhere, but I’d never really thought about it, and I hope he’ll permit me to paraphrase: the best Star Trek movies are the ones that are least like Star Trek, but which use the Star Trek universe as a springboard to […]
When I sit down to watch Star Trek: Generations, there are three different people involved: the grown-up version of a young boy who watched the 1987-’94 TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation with awe-inspired, rapt attention bordering on worship; an adult who regards original 1966-’69 Star Trek to be, in all sobriety, one of […]
In this blog’s history, we have sometimes kicked around the question of what movie franchise has witnessed the steepest drop in quality between subsequent episodes, and in that spirit, I’d like to ask the inverse: what is the strongest increase from one film to the next in a series? Since this is a review of […]
You know what I think is probably the single most galling thing about Star Trek V: The Final Frontier? It’s the only time in a dozen Star Trek movies where “to seek out new life, and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before” is an active, driving element of the plot. […]
I shall open with a claim that is non-standard, and probably a bit daft: I think that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is the film out of all 12 Star Trek features that comes closest to the spirit of the TV show it’s based on (okay, so Star Trek: Insurrection probably comes even closer, […]
There used to be a rule, that maybe does not have so much currency with the younger folk, given that it was spectacularly broken in 2002, so I will restate it for those who are unfamiliar with it: Even-numbered Star Trek movies are good. Odd-numbered Star Trek movies are bad. What, exactly, that means depends […]
I genuinely don’t know if Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan saved the Star Trek franchise, or forever condemned it. Hopefully, that doesn’t come across as heresy: like pretty much else willing to concede the existence of Star Trek movies prior to 2009, The Wrath of Khan is my ready pick for the best […]
I weep for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, as I would for a brother. Honestly. Rechristened by audiences as The Motionless Picture almost from the instant it opened in December, 1979, it has never once shaken the reputation of being a joyless slog, neither pleasurable in its own right nor remotely successful as a big-screen […]
There’s not much point at all in discussing Star Trek Into Darkness without employing spoilers, big huge damn spoilers. One of them is a spoiler for something that’s really damn obvious and you’ve almost certainly figured it out already if you’re actually interested in the movie enough to read a blogger’s review of it. One […]
