Best Star Trek Movie?

[Q99]

Inverse of the last thread, just as we have a number of candidates for worst, we have a good number for best as well!


Star Trek 2 is the classic answer, but I enjoy IV more for how fun it was, and I also really dig First Contact for both telling a solid action story and conveying the first warp flight with a real sense of wonder- despite taking place on Earth it has the sense of exploration more than most of the movies.

STVI is an honorable mention for the pro-peace story and being a solid send-off.

[Elheru Aran]

I know the general rule about TOS movies is 'watch the even numbered ones' but I'd say Search for Spock is a worthy exception to the rule. Not only does it connect 2 to 4 pretty well, it also sets up some plot for VI down the road.

Best TOS movie: I actually prefer VI to Khan, truth be told. Part of that is the higher production values (you can really tell sometimes they made TWOK on a shoestring, while TUC was enjoying a boost from TNG having come out recently), but part of that is I honestly like Chang a little better as a bad guy than Khan. They're both scenery-chewers and classics-quoters, but Chang gets the edge for helping engineer a massive conspiracy across *three* competing states and almost getting away with it!

TNG movie: First Contact. Generations was OK, but it's really hard to ignore how poorly it was plotted. If you view it as a TV movie to wind up the series, it's not bad... but at the same time, All Good Things was better. Insurrection was poorly done, and Nemesis was simply bad.

Nu-Trek: Bit of a tie between the first movie and Into Darkness, but Into Darkness takes the edge for me, I think.

[houser2112]

TOS: Wrath Of Khan is the best, followed closely by Undiscovered Country. I like Search For Spock, but I detest The Voyage Home for cracking open Pandora's Box and allowing time travel to escape. I loathe time travel as a plot device.

TNG: First Contact was ok, but the rest of the movies suck. I never really got into the TNG-era shows (including DS9 and VOY here). Someday I'm going to binge-watch them all just so I can get the references in STO.

NuTrek: I'm torn about the NuTrek movies. I like the cast and production, and I like the idea of a reboot, I just wish they ACTUALLY rebooted the universe instead of the alternate timeline/time travel bullshit. Since WOK is my favorite movie, I hate what they did to that movie in Into Darkness. I've only watched the 3rd movie once, so I don't have much of an opinion other than that it doesn't have anything I hate about it, so it "wins" by default.

ENT: I'm one of the few people who actually liked this series, finale notwithstanding. I would very much like to see a movie made with that cast and era.

[Prometheus Unbound]

TOS: Star Trek 5 - It's the one most similar to a TOS episode, followed by TMP.

TNG: Insurrection - It's the one most similar to a TNG episode, followed by Generations. And I don't like Generations. Just STFC and STNEM .. aren't TNG. Same crew, same ship, but that is not the TV series I knew. At least Generations had familiarity about it.

JJ: I was going to say Beyond, but I'll go with 2009. At least Nero had a motivation that was clear. Beyond was great, but ... the villain (can't even remember his name) had... no back story. The Motorbike was ridiculous and ahhh Krall "forgot" he had another starship. k.

[PREDATOR490]

TOS: Undiscoverd Country

TNG: First Contact

NuTrek: Into Darkness

[The Romulan Republic]

Wrath of Kahn is the best at being epic drama.

Voyager Home is the best at humor, but has a rather dumb plot if you put much thought into it (as is usually the case for time travel stories).

Edit: Best TNG film is obviously First Contact (though I don't really hate Generations, and I've never seen the full film for the other two).

Best Abrams film... I still haven't seen Beyond, but I'll take the '09 film over Into Darkness.

[Crazedwraith]

These people who are picking Into Darkness. Why exactly?

It's a movie I found more tolerable the second time though when I knew what was coming but I don't think it's good.

[PREDATOR490]

All of the NuTrek films are bad to me.

Into Darkness - Marginally better because it is a shameful mangled copy and remake of Wrath of Khan devoid of any soul. It has the faintest whiff of actually trying to have a narrative and development.

[Crazedwraith]

I feel more or less that about Beyond. There's a lot of holes and nitpicks and critisms that could be fairly made. But it felt like it was trying both narratively and thematically to be Trek.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Voyager Home is the best at humor, but has a rather dumb plot if you put much thought into it (as is usually the case for time travel stories).

Lampshaded

McCOY: Sure, slingshot around the sun. If you pick up enough speed you're in time warp. If you don't, you fry.
KIRK: Would you prefer to do nothing?
McCOY: I'd prefer a dose of common sense. You are proposing to head backwards in time, find humpback whales, then bring them forward in time, drop them off, and hope to hell they tell this Probe what to do with itself!
KIRK: That's the general idea.
McCOY: That's crazy!
KIRK: You have a better idea? Now's the time.

[Prometheus Unbound]

These people who are picking Into Darkness. Why exactly?

The ONLY bit in STID I like these days is:

"Carol, we're at warp, he can't catch up with us."

"Yes he can."



VVVVVVVVVVVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

PEWPEWPEPWPEWPEPWPEPWE




That was some epic sound design and cinematography. I remember watching it in the cinema and those 3-4 people blown out the hull into the warp stream and... god knows how they died but it seems very painful and "jeeeeeeeeeese". I do remember saying "oh fuck" out loud when I saw it the first time. Imagine being Spagettified across a warp field. It's not just being blown into space, that's one HELL of a nasty way to go.

But it's the only good bit.

[Q99]

Note: It is not necessary to pick a film from each era, if you aren't a fan of a nuTrek movie you can leave them off ^^

[Mange]

It's hard to choose, but in the end I think Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country edges out Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (I also like ST: TMP). As for the TNG movies, First Contact is the only one that's good. Generations had promise, but... As for nuTrek, Star Trek: Beyond is the best of the three even though some things starts to feel old at this point.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

From TOS, I actually liked Voyage Home more than the rest. TUC was very good, but the whole talking to the Klingon outpost bit, instead of being funny was unbelievably, face-palmingly stupid! .

From TNG, none of the others could touch First Contact. But then, none of them featured the Borg, merely mentioning them.

Picking a favourite from NUTrek is more difficult as they all have their plus and minus points. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do we ever actually see a shield impact in any of those. As VFX got better, Nemesis was best at showing those, yet they didn't carry that forward.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Picking a favourite from NUTrek is more difficult as they all have their plus and minus points. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do we ever actually see a shield impact in any of those. As VFX got better, Nemesis was best at showing those, yet they didn't carry that forward.

In all three films, the weapons ignored the shields. Against the Nirada, there's the line "Are our shields even up?". STID it was a surprise attack and ST:B they bypassed them with magic.

That said, I'm not sure we ever saw shields... I think ST6 was the first time we saw shield effects on a TOS vessel?

Not in ST1, ST2 ... I don't think showed it (unless the yellow electric arcs were not explosions but the shields). ST3 the shields weren't up. St4 there was no weapons fire. ST5 no weapons fire managed to hit.

I think it's ST6 where we first see visible shields on a TOS vessel (Connie and Excelsior class). So maybe the JJ ones were actually "canon" in that regard.