Worst Star Trek Movie?

[Q99]

What in your view is the worst Star Trek movie?

In another thread STV came up and a poster referred to it as the Worst Trek Movie EVER (tm) ... but that got me thinking. Yes, Star Trek V is bad, no doubt, but it's kind of fun-bad, and has a few good scenes and lines (Row Row Row your boat, and 'What does God need with a Starship?") I find Star Trek Insurrection far less interesting. It's bad too, but more weak-bad rather than funny-bad.


And Nemesis sounded like it had so much stuff I'd dislike that I never got around to watching it (that and it came after Insurrection, so).


So which Trek movie in your view is the worst?

[Iroscato]

Gotta be Nemesis for me, a couple of not-terrible action scenes are in no way able to make up for the defilement of the franchise on display. If we're talking nuTrek, Into Darkness is on reflection an absolute shitshow, despite my enjoying it on a very superficial level upon first viewing.

[Eternal_Freedom]

STV is a bad film, but its bad enough and different enough that I don't count it as a ST film - when I actually watched it, it felt like either an ST parody film or a high-budget fan film.

For the rest, Insurrection is dull, absurd from a moral standpoint, and cliched. Nemesis was just...urgh. Even the big exciting space battle scene was kinda what the hell.

So yes, I'd say it's a toss up between Insurrection and Nemesis.

[Joun_Lord]

I gotta echo Eternal Freedom, its a tossed salad up between Insurrection and Nemesis.

Insurrection is terribly written, insulting, and feels like some episode (some bad episode) idea they stretched into a movie. The plot was just soooooooo stupid, set during the Dominion War and they focus on these space elves squatting on some planet. Perfect white space elves that despite embracing nature and being against technology (except the wheel or an irrigation system) are perfectly clean and did I mention white? I'm not one to harp on racial diversity in movies but when your supposed paradise completely lacks any racial diversity I think you have a problem.

Anyway, the village of White Lives Matters despite hating tech used to be even more advanced then the Federation, can repair the unique positronic brain in Data's head, but gave it all up when they found the magic garden of eden planet. They apparently don't want anyone else on the entire damn planet because they kick their own kids off during some rebellion that made no sense and don't want the Federation setting up shop anywhere else on the ENTIRE GODDAMN PLANET. Picard, who jerks off to the Prime Directive and is willing to let millions and billions die through non-interference, decided to go rogue to save the Keebler elves.

The amount of coke snorted to get that movie greenlit must have sent some Columbian drug lord's kids to college in solid gold Hummers.

Nemesis on the other hand wasn't insultingly bad, I don't feel the need to slap someone after hearing its name, but was very dull and full of missed opportunities. Set in a Federation after the Dominion War, the final hurrah of the Ent-D/E crew, explores the previously little explored Romulans, has Picard's younger clone raised by the Romulans, has the entire TNG cast, has Ron Perlman, has pre-fame Tom Hardy, and even had Kate Mulgrew to maybe throw a bone to Yoyager fans. What do we get? A at best pedestrian story that fails to take advantage of anything it has. We see nothing of the Federation, the crew doesn't do anything interesting except ride dune buggies, the Romulans are killed off and we get to focus on space Orcs, Picard's clone is cartoonishyly evil and incredibly stupid, the cast is certainly showing their age except Patrick Stewart who I'm starting to think might be part of the same immortal Illuminati as Keanu Reeves, Ron Perlman is unrecognizable, Tom Hardy sits around doing jack all, and Janeway has a bit cameo that doesn't tell us what happened to Voyager, did they all die because of Neelix's left over cooking?

The Picard clone in particular was a massive wasted opportunity. The series is supposed to be about humanity evolving beyond its worst aspects, of peace and understanding. Now here's a kid who was raised to be a weapon (a very bad weapon considering trying to replace someone with a clone half their age seems stupid but thats the Romulans for you) and when that doesn't work they put him to work in a mine to be raised as a slave by slaves. It could make him cruel but also caring. He works his way up, from failed experiment to slave to head of the slaves to finally freeing them. He overcomes what he was born to be. Whats he do then? Kills off the Romulan senate so he can rule them, the people who created him apparently for a laugh and then made him a slave, the people that worked his adopted people to death for who knows how long. But decides to attack the Federation for some reason but really takes his time about it. Not like there was a time limit or something, oh wait there was, Mad Picard was dying because of some clone blood disease that required him to get Picard's blood.

Think of what they could have done with him? Show the darker aspects of Picard, show humanities flaws, show Shinzon overcoming them maybe, show some of that peace and understanding the Federation is so famous for, hell make Shinzon have a turn of heart and you can have a idea for a later series if Nemesis didn't bomb. But no, Shinzon is a one dimensional idiot will little in the way of motivations and mind rapes Troi just to show he's evil. What is up with Trek and Troi getting raped in her sleep?

I lean more towards Insurrection being the worst movie but Nemesis is nearly just as bad.

[Flagg]

Umm, has no one seen The Final Frontier where the Enterprise flew to the center of the galaxy, found "god" (who was just a random alien dick) and blew him up with stock footage of the Klingon Bird of Prey? That ties the Enterprise "series finale" for the worst shit with a Star Trek label ever made.

[Joun_Lord]

Final Frontier was atleast entertaining. Stupid as all hell? Only in the Mirror Universe its not. A nonsensical plot I think was made solely to stroke Shatner's ego? You better believe it? Boring? Oh hell nah.

And I don't even think the Enterprise series finale was the worst, I think Voyager finale with its time traveling Janeway giving Voyager Batmobile armor and quantum torpedoes to fuck over the Borg so they could erase 20 years and entire peoples lives to save Seven's sweet ass was worse.

[Crazedwraith]

Voyager's finale was at least about Voyager though.

It wasn't an expansion pack to a TNG episode

[Iroscato]

Umm, has no one seen The Final Frontier where the Enterprise flew to the center of the galaxy, found "god" (who was just a random alien dick) and blew him up with stock footage of the Klingon Bird of Prey? That ties the Enterprise "series finale" for the worst shit with a Star Trek label ever made.

Dude, did you not see the Doctor Who season finale where he reset the entire universe, with one of the changes being STV never actually happened? Fuck sake man, keep up

[Batman]

Nemesis, all the way. Yes, Insurrection was bad, but it was bad because it was a big budget early TNG multiparter. While undeniably a much worse movie than 'first Contact', is felt a lot more TNG while FC was a SciFi action movie that happened to be parked in the Trek universe.
TFF was bad but it had its moments.
Nemesis had absolutely nothing going for it.

[Q99]

Batmobile anti-Borg armor is cool. It's a bit silly but that's not a huge minus. Voy beating the Borg and getting home was something that fit.

And I will note that time alteration likely saved a lot more than Seven!

Umm, has no one seen The Final Frontier where the Enterprise flew to the center of the galaxy, found "god" (who was just a random alien dick) and blew him up with stock footage of the Klingon Bird of Prey? That ties the Enterprise "series finale" for the worst shit with a Star Trek label ever made.

Seen it. Would much rather watch it than Insurrection again (or Nemesis the first time!).

Note that God being some random alien dick is 100% Star Trek, that's happened, like, a half-dozen times. And back in TOS days, they flew to the edge of the galaxy. I mean, sure, it was not well done, but I had some fun, and there were some good moments and scenes.

[Lord Revan]

Star Trek 5 was wierd and poorly written but it did have it's funny moments possibly unintentional ones but they were there. Insurrection was good example of how to make a "message show" the wrong way in many ways having many of the bad aspects of early TNG but it also had some good parts and the action if a bit silly wasn't bad either.

Nemesis on the other end was just a mess and not even an entertaining mess like ST5, Nemesis tried to be both a fun action movie and a serious movie exploring indentity and failed at it so that instead of the different storylines supplementing each other they were in conflict and ended up worse then either of them would have been as seperate stories.

[The Romulan Republic]

Keeping in mind that I have not watched Insurrection, most of Nemesis (just parts of it), or (to my regret) Beyond, I'd say probably Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, of the ones I've watched.

Though the parts of Nemesis I've seen, plus its reputation, make me inclined to vote for it anyway.

[FedRebel]

Nemesis, it just missed the mark by a parsec

The Romulans as primary antagonists, Picard facing his most cunning and deeply motivated enemy yet, Data sacrificing himself to save the Enterprise and the galaxy....

First thing that pops in my head is Sela, added sting is that Denise Crosby tried to lobby reprising the character, Rick Berman refused.


poorly edited, poorly directed. The villains motivations are forced, the finale is an abysmal rip off of Wrath of Khan. There is zero redeeming element.

[FaxModem1]

Nemesis, Star Trek V, the Final Frontier is stupid and silly, but doesn't really hurt anything and is best interpreted as a bad dream due to McCoy's 'baked beans'.

Insurrection is just an okay episode that's not fully thought out.

Nemesis was supposed to end the TNG crew on a high note, and smells of wasted potential and mean spirited bitterness. Instead of the Romulans, we get Nosferatu vampire orcs. instead of Sela, we get a young goth Picard clone. Instead of seeing the crew have one last hurrah and fun, we get things like a wake for Data and Troi getting raped.

It just puts a sour note for the franchise.

That, and the fact that the plot doesn't make sense due to Shinzon being so badly written, and it's a bad experience.

Nemesis, it just missed the mark by a parsec

The Romulans as primary antagonists, Picard facing his most cunning and deeply motivated enemy yet, Data sacrificing himself to save the Enterprise and the galaxy....

First thing that pops in my head is Sela, added sting is that Denise Crosby tried to lobby reprising the character, Rick Berman refused.


poorly edited, poorly directed. The villains motivations are forced, the finale is an abysmal rip off of Wrath of Khan. There is zero redeeming element.

Why did Rick Berman refuse that? It seems like a rather bad move considering how much the character was liked by the fans.

[Lord Revan]

I don't mind the remans and had they been the minions of a proper romulan baddie (like Sela or Tomalak) I dout anyone else would have had issues with them, but tied to the very weak antagonist of Shinzon hurt the remans.

As for Shinzon himself not only was poorly written and couldn't had filled the role he was intended to due to the short time to build his character, he was unneeded as Picard already had a "Khan" analogue in the Borg collective ironically for all its flaws something First Contact did right was to draw on that personal connection Picard had a victim of the Borg.

[Sidewinder]

'Into Darkness'. Not only does the screenwriter (Roberto Orci) waste the audience's time by shoehorning 9/11 Truth Movement conspiracy theories down our throat, he does so in a matter that disregards the consequences of events that occurred in the previous film, insulting our intelligence and breaking our ability to suspend disbelief.

[Q99]

Why did Rick Berman refuse that? It seems like a rather bad move considering how much the character was liked by the fans.

His vision for Trek often isn't my favorite- I gather he's generally not a big fan of stuff that uses more continuity.

[Batman]

Or maybe he just didn't like time travel shenanigans given that's how Sela happened in the first place and time travel tends to mess with continuity something fierce if not done right

[Sidewinder]

Or maybe he just didn't like time travel shenanigans given that's how Sela happened in the first place and time travel tends to mess with continuity something fierce if not done right

Didn't he insist on having time travel be a plot point in 'First Contact'?

[Batman]

I dunno. Did he?

[Q99]

Or maybe he just didn't like time travel shenanigans given that's how Sela happened in the first place and time travel tends to mess with continuity something fierce if not done right

That aspect doesn't even need to be covered in her story, she's an established character now- and besides, they went with 'secret clone' instead, which is not simpler.

[CetaMan]

Nemesis, I just cannot bring myself to watch and enjoy it. The only possible redeeming factor is some other race who likes at least some faction of romulans.

[Sidewinder]

I dunno. Did he?

Yes. See here for details.

[Batman]

Well so much for that theory.

[SolarpunkFan]

It's close for me... but it has to go to Insurrection for me.

The fact that I'm a tech geek just means that movie causes me insult AND injury.