Star Trekking - Redux

13. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

12. Star Trek: Insurrection

11. Star Trek: Nemesis

10. Star Trek: Generations

So, this movie and the one after it on this list, I consider to be more okay than bad.

Looking back into the development history for this film, you'll find that the script was intended as the pilot episode for a follow-up TV series to the original until Paramount chose to use it as the screenplay for the movie, and that's the most glaringly obvious thing about The Motion Picture: its story is stretched way thin. It has the basis for some interesting ideas and a plot that could be tightly told in forty-five minutes to an hour, but the problem is that the movie is 130 minutes long. As a result, there's a hell of a lot of padding -- mostly made up of tedious establishing shots/sequences -- but that's not my only real issue with the film. The bigger one I have is that the film lacks any real sense of urgency given the stakes of the plot, and it can start to feel dull a lot of the time. Of course, this could be partly owed to the franchise's more contemplative outlook on science fiction themes, but there really should be more of a balance between philosophy/ideas and excitement, especially if you're bringing this to the big screen, and this is your first time doing so. It's obvious the filmmakers wanted to achieve something along the lines of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and while there's nothing wrong with that, I don't quite think Star Trek: The Motion Picture reaches those heights.

13. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

12. Star Trek: Insurrection

11. Star Trek: Nemesis

10. Star Trek: Generations

9. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

I find myself in an interesting position when it comes to Star Trek Beyond. In terms of the JJ Abrams reboot series or the Kelvin timeline or whatever it's referred to as, this one is considered the best, especially among die hard Trek fans for the most part. And that's great for them. Me, however...I like it less and less the more I watch it. Now, I don't think it's to a degree where I can call it bad, but maybe average or fine or even meh would be the better words. What stands out to me most of all about Beyond is how sort of devoid of any real energy it is, especially when compared against its two predecessors. No, you know what it is? Beyond feels safe, like it was made almost on committee. Sort of like Insurrection before it, the plot here feels like one you'd see in an episode of the TV show, but again stretched out to two hours. And that approach works only slightly better here than it does in Insurrection. This very much has the feel of a course correction after so many bitched and moaned about the two Abrams-helmed films, but you know what? At least those movies had more personality. Here, Justin Lin steps into the director's chair, but forgets to bring any real distinct sense of style with him. His style -- and the movie -- can be summed up in one word: bland. There's nothing about this movie that really makes an effort to go beyond what's required of it. The characters and their interactions with one another remain the strongest aspect, but other than that, Star Trek Beyond is serviceable, certainly watchable, but decidedly just "there."

It's the most vanilla movie in the Star Trek franchise.

Even when I first saw it in theaters, my reaction was still that it was the lesser of the new movies.  It feels like it's written and directed on autopilot, there's barely any energy or sense of fun to it and the visual style/color palette matches that drained energy.  In fact, the more muted colors was another thing that sort of annoyed me and contributed to the film's lack of energy.  It's like Paramount injected this movie with a tranquilizer dart.  The most lively things about it for me came from Bones and Spock's interactions after the big crash.

My ranking it number 8 might be a bit generous now that I think about it.

13. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

12. Star Trek: Insurrection

11. Star Trek: Nemesis

10. Star Trek: Generations

9. Star Trek: The Motion Picture

8. Star Trek Beyond

Now we're in the stretch of movies I think are good or really damn good.

The Search For Spock has a subplot involving a villainous Klingon that feels like it's there solely to give the movie an antagonist and it also just seems like a retread of stuff we've already seen done better in the movie this is a follow-up to.  And overall, the movie isn't as strong as said predecessor.  But you've still got lots of good stuff here, from a tightly-structured plot to the follow-through on the threads left dangling from Wrath of Khan.  The film does quite a few interesting things involving the state of Spock's body and mind that help balance out the human/emotional elements with the more lofty science fiction ones.  This is good stuff, overall.