2019 marks the 40th anniversary of Star Trek on the big screen. After a landmark live-action television series in the late 1960s and an animated series in 1973, Star Wars' unprecedented success in 1977 made every space story a hot prospect for the theatrical treatment. Both Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Alien capitalised on the newfound popularity of the interstellar epic in 1979 -- one year before Star Wars built on its own achievement with a sequel. Four decades later, Star Trek has 13 feature films to its credit, with another in development as we speak. The past 40 years haven't been all smooth-sailing for Starfleet's flagship but the USS Enterprise has had some pretty stellar adventures through the years. We decided to take a look at all of them and then rank them from the bottom-of-the-barrel to the cream-of-the-crop.
13. Generations
The ridiculous gimmick of bringing the USS Enterprise's two most popular captains together in the same movie was a disaster. And even Jean-Luc Picard himself, star Patrick Stewart, complained that Generations seemed more like an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation than an actual film.
12. First Contact
Like most Trek movies featuring The Next Generation crew, First Contact seems -- and looks -- more like an extended episode of the show than an actual film. Worse, it's also boring.
11. The Undiscovered Country
This sixth Star Trek film completely obliterated the long-running theory that the series' even-numbered installments are the good ones -- Star Trek VI proved to be just as cruddy as Star Trek V.
10. The Final Frontier
Befitting its entertainment value, The Final Frontier is the first Star Trek movie to lose money. Ineptly poaching aspects of the first Star Trek film's story (the galactic search for the Creator) and careening into soap opera territory (Spock has a long-lost brother), Star Trek V very nearly ended the entire series.
9. Insurrection
8. Star Trek Beyond
Star Trek Beyond's ill-advised return to camp brought the series' spectacular resurgence to a screeching halt -- and on the 50th anniversary of the entire franchise.
7. Nemesis
6. The Voyage Home
As the Batman Returns of Star Trek, The Voyage Home hints at the the headlong dive into shameful camp that would plague the series until an eventual reboot. After outliving its only rival, the Star Wars saga (which ended as a trilogy in 1983) Star Trek IV also represents the franchise's first foray into time-heists.
In a scenario reminiscent of the one in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Admiral Kirk and his crew fly a Klingon Bird of Prey 300 years into the past in order to find a humpback whale, extinct by 2286, because the species' songs match the language of a mysterious and destructive entity that endangers the Earth.
5. The Search for Spock
After the finality of The Wrath of Khan, the Star Trek folks realized that they'd not only killed Spock, they'd executed the golden goose. So they gave him a rebirth -- literally -- in the sequel. This third entry in the series features James T. Kirk's first big screen run-in with Klingons and, sadly, the complete destruction of the USS Enterprise. But the crew's stolen Bird of Prey is a pretty decent consolation prize.
4. Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Though Star Trek hit television screens 11 years before Star Wars flew into movie theaters, the latter's eye-popping box office and cultural dominance undoubtedly prompted the Star Trek folks to take their show -- which was cancelled in 1969 -- to the big screen.
3. The Wrath of Khan
The Wrath of Khan is essentially about time. Now-Admiral Kirk is struggling with coming to grips with getting older -- he feels that his time is running out. And his past catches up with him, in more ways than one: an old enemy resurfaces (Khan); he meets the son he never knew for the first time (a grown man who hates him); and he's confronted by said son's mother, Dr. Carol Marcus (literally, Kirk's baby mama).
Spock's sacrifice and its effect on Kirk in The Wrath of Khan achieve a poignancy unmatched in any other 80s Trek movie.
The Wrath of Khan was the best Trek film for decades but unfortunately, its special effects haven't aged well. On the plus side, the emotional aspects of the story hit as hard as ever. After Khan Noonien Singh disables the Enterprise, Spock makes the ultimate sacrifice in order to help get the fabled vessel moving again as "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of...the one."
2. Star Trek
A decade after the release of the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace, Star Trek followed suit with infinitely more successful results. Captain Kirk and the gang came back from the dead at a great time seeing as how Star Wars, Star Trek's only real competition in the space epic game, had supposedly wrapped up for good four years earlier. The new look Trek benefited from an infusion of Star Wars-esque action, which immediately earned it the title of the absolute best of the then 11 Star Trek movies (and better than half of the then six Star Wars movies). Director J.J. Abrams would resurrect Star Wars as well six years later.
This origin story goes back further than any other Trek movie -- to the birth of James T. Kirk. Years later, while Kirk rebels against his stepfather, stealing his vintage 1965 Corvette Stingray for a joyride that ends with him in police custody and the car at the bottom of a gorge, a young Spock stands up to racist bullies on the planet Vulcan. The two are set on a collision course when Kirk is challenged to live up to his dead father's legacy by joining Starfleet, while Spock declines an invitation to
attend the Vulcan Science Academy in favor of enlisting in the famed spacefaring fleet himself. When they finally meet it does not go well. After Spock accuses Kirk of cheating, the latter is ordered to appear at a disciplinary hearing. However, a distress call from Vulcan interrupts the proceedings and the unavailability of the fleet necessitates the ordering of Kirk's fellow cadets into action in order to aid in the rescue of the planet's inhabitants from a catastrophic storm.
Having grown up hearing his mother's first-hand account of the attack that cost his father's life, Kirk recognizes the atmospheric disturbance for what it is: a Romulan assault. After conning his way onto Starfleet's newest and most advanced ship, the USS Enterprise, with the help of his friend, medical officer Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Kirk relays his suspicions to the vessel's commander. And upon their arrival at Vulcan, the Enterprise crew witnesses a Romulan mining ship, the Narada, drilling into the planet's core. Though the previous incident occurred 20 years earlier, the Narada is indeed the same vessel that attacked Kirk's father's ship, the USS Kelvin. In an attempt to negotiate peace, Captain Pike surrenders to the Narada's commander, Captain Nero, leaving the Enterprise under Spock's command and naming Kirk the first officer. Though Kirk and helmsman Hikaru Sulu head down to the drilling platform in order to thwart Nero's plan to create a black hole at Vulcan's center by depositing red matter in the global core, they're ultimately too late and the planet implodes. Spock, who'd beamed down to the surface, is unable to save his mother, though his father and the Vulcan high council survive.
Back aboard the Enterprise, Kirk and Spock clash, resulting in the former's being marooned on a desolate Starfleet outpost, where he meets an older Spock from 129 years in the future who involuntarily traveled to the past along with the crew of the Narada via a black hole (their arrival in the past, on the day of Kirk's birth, resulted in the destruction of George Kirk's ship). Kirk also encounters disgraced Starfleet engineer Montgomery Scott, who manages to get them back aboard the Enterprise. After provoking the younger Spock into a violent rage, Kirk becomes the ship's acting captain. The duo subsequently travels to the Narada to both rescue Captain Pike and to prevent Nero from destroying Earth in the same manner that he obliterated Vulcan.
1. Into Darkness
Contrary to popular misconception, Into Darkness is not a remake of The Wrath of Khan. Yes, both films feature Khan, but the two depictions are markedly different. So different, in fact, that neither is inferior to the other.
While Khan Noonien Singh features heavily in Darkness, he acts alone without the support of his cadre of genetically-engineered acolytes, and because he and Kirk have no history, he is not driven by a pathological obsession to murder the good Captain. What's more, Khan is not the main villain this time around. Nor is there any mention of Ceti Alpha V nor VI.
The Wrath of Khan is essentially about time. Now-Admiral Kirk is struggling with coming to grips with getting older -- he feels that his time is running out. And his past catches up with him, in more ways than one: an old enemy resurfaces (Khan); he meets the son he never knew for the first time (a grown man who hates him); and he's confronted by said son's mother, Dr. Carol Marcus (literally, Kirk's baby mama).
Spock's sacrifice and its effect on Kirk in The Wrath of Khan achieve a poignancy unmatched in Darkness' role reversal imitation. However, one scene does not trump an entire film.
Though it proved to be highly controversial, writer J.J. Abrams decided to remix Star Trek's most popular film for his second stint in the Trek director's chair. As highly regarded as The Wrath of Khan is, its dated visual effects made it ripe for a 21st century upgrade. And though certain aspects are altered (namely altering Khan's characterization and switching Spock's fatal sacrifice for Kirk's), let's be honest: If changes hadn't been made, the same fans who cried foul about said alterations would've complained that the movie was unnecessary if they hadn't been.
Darkness, however, is not without its faults. Future-Spock's presence in this film is jarringly out of place. And if Captain Kirk had to die, he shouldn't have been resurrected until the next film -- at the very earliest. Mr. Scott's new court jester persona is still annoying. He's become the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek (not to mention Mission: Impossible). Khan could have benefited from more muscle mass, but that last one is just quibbling.
While Khan Noonien Singh features heavily in Darkness, he acts alone without the support of his cadre of genetically-engineered acolytes, and because he and Kirk have no history, he is not driven by a pathological obsession to murder the good Captain. What's more, Khan is not the main villain this time around. Nor is there any mention of Ceti Alpha V nor VI.
The Wrath of Khan is essentially about time. Now-Admiral Kirk is struggling with coming to grips with getting older -- he feels that his time is running out. And his past catches up with him, in more ways than one: an old enemy resurfaces (Khan); he meets the son he never knew for the first time (a grown man who hates him); and he's confronted by said son's mother, Dr. Carol Marcus (literally, Kirk's baby mama).
Spock's sacrifice and its effect on Kirk in The Wrath of Khan achieve a poignancy unmatched in Darkness' role reversal imitation. However, one scene does not trump an entire film.
Though it proved to be highly controversial, writer J.J. Abrams decided to remix Star Trek's most popular film for his second stint in the Trek director's chair. As highly regarded as The Wrath of Khan is, its dated visual effects made it ripe for a 21st century upgrade. And though certain aspects are altered (namely altering Khan's characterization and switching Spock's fatal sacrifice for Kirk's), let's be honest: If changes hadn't been made, the same fans who cried foul about said alterations would've complained that the movie was unnecessary if they hadn't been.
Darkness, however, is not without its faults. Future-Spock's presence in this film is jarringly out of place. And if Captain Kirk had to die, he shouldn't have been resurrected until the next film -- at the very earliest. Mr. Scott's new court jester persona is still annoying. He's become the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek (not to mention Mission: Impossible). Khan could have benefited from more muscle mass, but that last one is just quibbling.
Otherwise, Into Darkness is superb. The best Star Trek film ever made. Yep. If you prefer one of the 80s movies or 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, that's understandable. They're pretty good. However, if you put nostalgia aside for a moment and go back and watch those movies, they don't hold up in comparison to this one.
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