posted
I was born in 1980, a year after The Motion Picture was released, and it's still my favorite. But as I said in my list post, it's my favorite overall, from a critical perspective. I don't claim that it's my favorite with regards to pure fun.
I don't think the budget or special effects have anything to do with why I like The Motion Picture, either. It's the care that was put into the movie (probably due to the Phase II planning time). With the exception of the extending-into-open-space engineering corridor, just about everything on the refit Enterprise was so thought-out and planned that it felt like a real starship in that film alone.
Under Nicholas Meyer's direction, you had realism sacrificed for the military, nautical feel. Things were added that make no sense at all, like the dilithium room and the engineering wall that cuts through the warp power shaft. By Star Trek III you've got the Excelsior and Oberth, both so poorly thought out that they are rife with inconsistency. Star Trek IV, while certainly fun, had the most contrived plot of any film (like having the crew walk up the bird's ramp after rescuing Chekov but leaving Kirk behind just so that Gillian can jump on him when he gets beamed). The characters give no consideration to protecting the past. Star Trek V is obviously flawed in the realism department.
Now, realism isn't everything. Star Trek II, for example, is a damned entertaining film. But because it didn't have that level of care, it (and all films but TMP) still feels like a two hour widescreen episode with better lighting. The worst perpetrator is Insurrection, while the least episodic (save TMP) is Star Trek VI.
Of course, that's just my opinion.
[ February 03, 2002, 10:08: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]
quote:Originally posted by Ryan McReynolds: I was born in 1980, a year after The Motion Picture was released, and it's still my favorite.
What a coincidence: I was also born in 1980 and, as my list indicates, "The Motion Picture" is also my favorite Star Trek film. Some other members might start wondering what they were feeding newborn babies that year.
At any rate, an excellent defense of your number one pick.
[ February 08, 2002, 08:48: Message edited by: Raw Cadet ]
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EdipisReks
Ex-Member
posted
i was born in 1980, but VI is my favorite. however, i was born on december 31st, so i didn't get fed baby food until 1981 and thus i didn't get TMP baby food additives.
posted
Well, I was not born until December 19th of 1980, but that was still apparently enough time to ingest "'The Motion Picture' baby additives [lol]" in the baby food that year.
[ February 08, 2002, 09:26: Message edited by: Raw Cadet ]
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posted
You are right to think there there has been some sort of chemically-based mind control agent administered to you while you were young...
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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I was born in 1977 and my "first contact" with Star Trek was watching TOS when I was about six years old. From the start I really liked it and that hasn't changed a bit.
Still, now I prefer TNG and therefor my list goes as follows:
1. First Contact 2. The Undiscovered Country 3. The Voyage Home 4. The Wrath of Khan 5. Generations / The search for Spock (a tie) 6. Insurrection (I don't think it was all that bad) 7. The Final Frontier 8. The Motion Picture (any edition)
TMP in my opinion is a total sucker. Boring from start to finish. Stupid plot, horrible script, awful costume design.... I could continue forever.
TFF at least had a great soundtrack and a handful of nice scenes.
****ducks for cover****
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
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Phycro Onyx
Ex-Member
posted
1) First Contact (hell yeah the borg time travel and Zephram Cochran what couldn't you like about it) 2) Wrath of Khan (nice nebula Battle) 3) Voyage Home (just the whole idea of this movie is awesome) 4) Insurrection (nice phaser battles, but it just didnt have any kick to it you know) 5) Undiscovered Country (blood and guts destruction and sorrow) 6) Generations (the trilithium torpedo seqence is awesome, HE'S ALIVE, HE'S ALIVE) 7) The Motion Picture (V'GER Thats a big ship and perhaps of borg origin...hmm) 8) The Search for Spock (no comment) 9) Final Frontier (my "god" what were they thinking)
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"First Contact" no doubt has one of the best-written scenes in the entire Star Trek -- the confrontation between Picard and Lily. It hits me as hard as Delenn's reaction on Dukhat's death, in "In the Beginning." "Star Trek VI" shows what you can do without much technobabble -- the detective/political plot is great, although on another viewing, I can't figure out how the Klingons missed the black tracking device on Kirk's shoulder (it's there in plain sight!).
TMP is well produced, but the script is plain boring and dramatically awful -- the only character in that movie is the Enterprise herself (the inspection scene with Goldsmith's music redefined Star Trek there and then, with the Enterprise showing off her new colors and design that would take us into the TNG era).
I like "Generations" for personal reasons -- it's the first Star Trek movie I saw in theaters and in English as opposed to German, so that was more fun than it probably should've been. Star Trek IV is fun, Star Trek II is too depressing, Star Trek III is better -- it has some nice character moments with David's death and the destruction of the Enterprise. Star Trek V is also fun, despite the bad production. Insurrection: not boring, but nothing impressive.
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III (The Search for Spock) Best score, and best USE of the score. Most sweeping visuals -- I got more of a sense of the size of things in this one than I did in anything else except the final shot of the Excelsior and Enterprise from TUC. Lots of subtlety, like Janice Rand being in the docking lounge as the Enterprise pulled into its slip, and shaking her head at what Kirk had done to her this time -- stuff like that.
V (The Final Frontier) Best character moments of the series, even if the presentation suffered from severe budget cuts. My favorite phasers of all time make their appearance in this movie, as does my favorite bridge, my favorite red alert klaxon, more use of the officers' "bomber jacket", a really cool observation lounge -- even if I can't figure out where the hell it's supposed to be in the ship...
I (The Motion Picture) The orbital office, the new Enterprise, the thoroughly mixed crew -- and evidence of a more tolerant Starfleet (the Native American on the rec deck during the briefing had beads and feathers) than the one that made Ro take off her earring. A kick-ass premise that almost got lost in hasty editing and tumultuous set politics. More really nice visuals, and effective use of music.
II (The Wrath of Kahn) A good concept, with a few continuity errors (Khan's necklace, for example) and annoyingly cut scenes/plot points. Plus, Kyle was in it. I don't like how Khan's presence in the film was given away in the title. I don't like how the Reliant's bridge lighting changed from before the hijack to after. The battle scenes were nice. And I agree with Nick Meyer that the optomistic ending was a letdown.
IX (Insurrection) Beautiful story. I liked the Bak'u a lot. Theirs is a very compelling view of the universe. But the Federation's role in the whole mess was confusing, and uncharacteristic. The whole thing with Data was nice. The Son'a were a little over-the-top. And the joystick was a bad idea.
IV (The Voyage Home) Humour is always good, and I like both the premise and the execution. I just like the others better.
VI (The Undiscovered Country) This is where we start getting to movies I actively don't like. While the premise was sound, there was a lot of sloppiness in the writing that we the fans have had to rationalize (not least of which is Col. West!). The Excelsior was nice to see again, this time in good hands. I didn't like the utilitarian interiors, though. Nope, not at all. And the VFX didn't quite convey the size of the Excelsior when it got smacked by Praxis' explosion.
VIII (First Contact) Neat battle. Nice ships. Okay, that's it for what I liked about this one. The Borg were wrong, nothing of what I liked about them during TNG survived into the movie. They used to feel relentless, to me. In this one, they felt brainless. Cochrane was totally unconvincing, and not at all what we'd come to expect. He almost had an epiphany during the flight, but that went away again once he got back on the ground evidently. Also, I WISH they'd dealt with how the Phoenix got down...
VII (Generations) The Enterprise-B stuff was great. For a follow-on to that sequence, I hit 'STOP' and go read "The Captain's Daughter", by Peter David. I liked what they did to the Enterprise-D -- both the mods and the visuals of its destruction, but that didn't make up for bad storytelling. The BoP taking out the Enterprise was not believable at all, as it was only possible due to Riker and Crusher being idiots, which we know they aren't. All in all, it came across like a really good episode, not a movie. I could even point out where the commercial breaks are supposed to go. Data's make-up looked odd. And the characters did things that weren't consistent with how we knew them to behave based on the series. Also, the E-B-era uniforms were made from a different material than the ones in II-V, and they looked cheap.
Have at... --Jonah
[ March 19, 2002, 10:18: Message edited by: Peregrinus ]
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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Lesse, hmmm, directed by Johnathan Frakes. Big old ridiculous phallic symbol pops up in the middle of the bridge and the ensign navigatrix gasps at its ample girth. I know someone's got to have a screencap. It's probably one of the most preposterous moments in Trek. No. It should never be on a diagram anywhere...
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
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posted
*Remarks at Peregrinus' choices* *angel appears on shoulder* "He's entitled to his opinion." *devil appears* "Peregrinus liked Final Frontier? That's Communist talk!"
posted
Ok, here they are: 1) The Wrath of Khan; (The hunt in the Mutare nebula is just brilliant and I just generally liked it). 2) First Contact ('Assimilate this!'- need I say more?) 3) The Undiscovered Country 4) The Voyage home (It's just fun..) 5) Generations (Despite what some people say, I enjoyed this one and thought it was a good cross over) 6) The Motion Picture (I was born in '86 so no chance of contaminated baby food) 7) The Search for Spock 8) Insurrection (There wasn't anything necessarily bad about it but I felt some of the humour was out of place and as for the joystick *shudder*...) 9) The Final Frontier (This is the only Trek film I would call bad. I don't think I need to remind you of the reasons.)
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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with Star Trek was watching TOS when I was about six years old. From the start I really liked it and that hasn't changed a bit. 
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