Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #5 - Star Trek Generations

"Whatever you do, Patrick, don't sign a multi-movie deal."

Just as Star Trek: The Next Generation was wrapping up its final season on television, Star Trek took the ideas of nerd porn writers everywhere and did the ultimate crossover. That's right, James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was going to meet and work with Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart). Pretty great what can happen when paychecks are about as girthy as Shatner, am I right? Hey-ho. Thank you, I'll be here all week. When talks of a seventh Star Trek film came about, I'm sure many of the original cast members, very tired and worn out from playing these characters for more than twenty-five years, decided to flip the middle finger, give Star Trek a good ol' fashioned "Live long and suck it" taunt and flee the studio lot before a contract could even be drafted. So now, it was time to make Trek movies out of The Next Generation cast, and the first entry in their series, Star Trek Generations, isn't half bad. Kind of a misstep, but let's dive in and figure out why.

What do you think of Klingonese breasts?

In the year 2293, retired Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (James "Jesus Christ I'm still here" Doohan), and Pavel Chekov (Walter "I really needed the money" Koenig) attend the maiden voyage of the Federation starship USS Enterprise-B, under the command of the unseasoned Captain John Harriman (Alan Ruck). You might remember John Harriman from his days of bouncing around Chicago with his faithful chum Ferris Bueller, before agreeing to join Starfleet. During the voyage, Enterprise-B, having left Earth Spacedock without being fully equipped since it was merely a shakedown cruise and plot requires that they be ill-equipped, is pressed into a rescue mission to save two El-Aurian ships from a strange energy ribbon. As you probably have guessed by this point, the Enterprise-B is the only ship in range. Literally no other ships carrying Federation markings are within even a reputable space distance to come help out. How fitting. Enterprise-B is able to save some of the refugees before their ships are destroyed, but it becomes trapped in the ribbon itself. Kirk goes to deflector control to allow setup some whosits and fire the whatsits, allowing Enterprise-B to escape, but the trailing end of the ribbon rakes across Enterprise-B's hull, exposing the section Kirk is in to space; he is presumed dead by all those on board. James Doohan tried really hard in this scene not to smile at the thought of Shatner being dead.

Seventy-eight years later, we change channels to Star Trek: The Next Generation where the crew of the USS Enterprise-D celebrate the promotion of Worf (Michael Dorn) to Lieutenant Commander. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) receives a message that his brother and nephew were killed in a fire. You don't find out for some time though, he stares at a message, becomes sad, and disappears for a bit. Since Picard never fathered children of his own, the family line will end with him. I don't see what the big deal is. I'm sure the 24th century has some kind of technology that will retroactively assist Picard in fathering children, but I guess that would totally wipe out any emotion necessary for this scene, so fuck it. Enterprise-D receives a distress call--damn, again with the distress call. DON'T TELL ME. They're the only ship in range--from an observatory in orbit of the star Amargosa, where they rescue the El-Aurian Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell), seventy-eight years after the Enterprise-B crew rescued him. The android Data (Brent Spiner) and engineer Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) discover a compound called trilithium in a hidden room of the observatory. Oh, I almost forgot, Data decided to pull a prank on Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) and felt bad about it at Worf's promotion party, so he had Geordi insert an emotion chip. That's right, an emotion chip. Basically life in a microchip. You know, some parts of Star Trek technology (Treknology, if you will) really pisses me off.

Gratuitous trailer line #22

Anywho, Soran appears, knocks La Forge unconscious, and launches a trilithium solar probe at Amargosa. He thinks he's tough for knocking out a blind guy. What a quack. Trouble starts a'brewing as the probe causes the star to implode, sending a shock wave toward the observatory. Soran and La Forge are transported away by a Klingon Bird of Prey belonging to the treacherous Duras sisters, who had stolen the trilithium for Soran in exchange for the designs for a trilithium weapon. Data is rescued just before the station is destroyed by the shock wave. Again, with the Klingons. I swear, you don't even meet the Romulans in these movies until Nemesis, the fucking last one you possibly could meet them in. Luckily JJ Abrams made them the focus of the '09 reboot or I'd be pissed.

Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), the Enterprise-D's bartender, tells Picard more about Soran; they were among the El-Aurians rescued by the Enterprise-B in 2293. Guinan explains that Soran is obsessed with reentering the ribbon, which is a portal to the "Nexus", an extra-dimensional realm where time has no meaning and anyone can experience whatever they desire. Refusing to cave in to what an awesome idea that would be to live forever with the ones you love and have everything you could ever want, Picard and Data do some stargazing in the Enterprise-D and determine that Soran is instead altering the path of the ribbon by destroying stars and that he will attempt to reenter the Nexus on Veridian III by destroying its sun—and, by extension, Veridian IV's quarter-billion inhabitants. 

Brent Spiner showcasing his diversity in the hopes it will
win him future roles.

Upon entering the Veridian system, Enterprise-D makes contact with the Duras sisters' Bird of Prey. Picard offers himself to the sisters in exchange for La Forge, but insists that he be transported to Soran's location first. La Forge is returned to Enterprise-D, but with a small camera implanted in his visor. No one thought to scope him out and make sure he was clean after just having come off an enemy vessel. No wonder they're about to get royally wrecked. This camera causes him to inadvertently reveal Enterprise-D's shield frequency, allowing the Duras sisters to fire weapons directly through the shields and inflict crippling damage. Cmdr William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) deduces with Worf and Data to send some blah-blah to the Bird of Prey's bloomity-blum which will yamina-yadda the shields and give the Enterprise-D the advantage. I don't fucking know, they explained in the movie but it was so jargon'd and jumbled I can't remember. It works though, so who gives a shit? Enterprise-D destroys the Bird of Prey, but since Riker sucks as a commander, it sustained irreversible damage to its warp core. Riker orders an evacuation to the forward saucer section of the ship which separates from the star drive...which I'm not going to lie is a pretty badass scene. The shock wave from the star drive's destruction sends the saucer crashing to the surface of Veridian III, which is just as cool of a scene. They really got this part right.

Picard fails to talk Soran out of his plan and is too late to stop him from launching his missile. The collapse of the Veridian star alters the course of the Nexus ribbon as predicted, and it sweeps Picard and Soran away while the shock wave from the star obliterates everything in the system, including killing the Enterprise-D survivors. If the movie ended there, I would've laughed my ass off, but luckily it didn't. In the Nexus, Picard finds himself surrounded by the family he never had, including a wife and children, but realizes it is an illusion. He is confronted by an "echo" of Guinan, a 'deus ex Guinan-a', if you will. After being told that he may leave whenever he chooses and go wherever and whenever he wishes, Guinan sends him to meet James Kirk, also safe in the Nexus. Though Kirk is at first reluctant to leave, he likewise comes to the eventual realization that nothing in the Nexus is real. Picard convinces Kirk to return to Veridian III, rather than earlier at Amargosa, assuring him that stopping Soran will fulfill his desire to make a difference. Even though there were a million other places that Picard could've gone that would have ensured his success in a much easier way, but I guess I'll let it slide.

"Dammit, Riker. Not again."

The two leave the Nexus, with Picard choosing to have them arrive on Veridian III only minutes before Soran launches the missile. Again, probably Picard's dumbest fucking plan in history. Kirk distracts Soran long enough for Picard to lock the missile in place, causing it to explode on the launchpad and kill Soran, who mugs for the camera like "Yep. I fucked up." Kirk is fatally injured by a fall during the encounter; as he dies, Picard assures him that he made a difference. Picard buries Kirk on a hillside under a bunch of rocks, something that nerds will complain about for years, before a shuttle arrives to transport him to the wreckage of the Enterprise-D saucer, since his time jump in the past undid the Veridian system's destruction of the Enterprise-D and her crew. Three Federation starships enter orbit to retrieve Enterprise's survivors, but the ship itself cannot be salvaged. As Riker laments that he will never sit in the Captain's chair of the ship, which seems like a decent conclusion to come to seeing as how every time he's put in charge, the Enterprise comes under attack and is almost certainly destroyed, Picard muses that given the name's legacy, this won't be the last ship to carry the name Enterprise-D. This doesn't really do much for Riker's confidence, but hey, some kind of ending I guess.

Star Trek Generations is actually pretty good, despite some scenes that drag. It definitely is very cool in the sense of it tells a good story and the characters are all fun and the Picard story arc comes around eventually once he gets swept up into the Nexus, but its downplayed a lot at times. Brent Spiner's overacting with the emotion's chip is okay, but it gets on my nerves in the probe station scene. We get that it's malfunctioning, but lay off, man. Soran's a cool villain, something Malcolm McDowell can play extremely well and Guinan is a welcome presence in the movie. Kirk and Picard teaming together to save the galaxy seems like the ultimate nerd-rotica, but doesn't quite live up to the hype except for how ridiculous some of their dialogue scenes are. Including...making eggs.

Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #6 - Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Everyone thanks the most popular character for returning to save their careers

We continue one with our Trekkie countdown of Trekkie movies. We're just about done with the bottom-five and boy there have been a couple real shit-suckers in our midst. Or as a helmsman would say, "off our starboard bow". See? These movies do teach me something after all. Continuing on, we find ourselves stuck in the middle chapter of a housed trilogy. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan gave us the first chapter while Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home will give us the final chapter. So now, we must nosedive into the middle chapter and review its contents. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock came off the widely successful entry Star Trek II, so it definitely had some big shoes to fill. Ultimately, it couldn't quite live up to the action-packed glory and compelling story that Star Trek II gave us. The only way Leonard Nimoy would continue playing Spock is if the production team let him have director's chair over the film, so they did. Let's dive in and review this silly space story, shall we?

The Excelsior trying to find the drive thru window

So the movie opens as the Federation starship Enterprise returns to Earth following a battle with the superhuman Khan Noonien Singh, whom we'll discuss another time. Who knows, we might touch upon him when we do Star Trek II, but all remains to be seen. Wink. As I said, this is the middle part of a trilogy of one story. A story revolving around the mysterious and powerful terraforming device known as "Genesis", whose detonation at the end of II (Spoiler alert) caused the birth of a new planet. The casualties of the fight include Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner)'s Vulcan friend, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) (Also, Spoiler alert) whose casket was launched into space and eventually landed on the newly terraformed Genesis planet (Triple Spoiler alert). Kirk gives a Captain's Log where he claims he feels uneasy, even after beating Khan. God only knows why. Perhaps its because your best friend died, but it could also be the Jalapeno bean chili dip that you washed down with a gallon of gin at lunch. It's a coin flip. Upon arriving at Earth, Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) begins to act strangely and is detained, believing himself to be Spock. Meanwhile, after disembarking the Enterprise, indiscriminate Starfleet Admiral #247 visits the Enterprise and informs the crew the ship is to be decommissioned; the crew is instructed not to speak about Genesis due to political fallout over the device. Funny, who would've thought such a powerful weapon that could create entire worlds would divide people so politically? You'd think everyone would be behind that kind of power one-hundred percent.

Genesis is what makes time travel possible!

Elsewhere in the galaxy, Kirk's son David Marcus (Merritt Butrick), who was a key scientist in Genesis's development joins Lieutenant Saavik (who underwent plastic surgery to turn from Kirstie Alley into Robin Curtis) as they investigate the Genesis planet on board the science vessel Grissom. "Science vessel" in Star Trek basically means "Expendable as fuck". Discovering an unexpected life form on the surface, Marcus and Saavik transport to the planet to begin searching for it. They find that the Genesis Device has resurrected Spock in the form of a child, although his mind is not present. That may be a bad way of putting it, but it's the movie's fault. "Mind not being present" is like a computer without a hard drive. Spock would just shove sticks in his eyes and shit all over himself without his mind, but I may also be reading into this too much. Oh well, moving on. Marcus admits that he used unstable "protomatter" in the development of the Genesis Device, causing Spock to age rapidly and meaning the planet will be destroyed within hours. So basically, the entirety of the Genesis project is a failure because David was an impatient douchebag. Thanks a lot, adolescent angst. Meanwhile, The Klingons (who else?) and their captain Kruge (Christopher Lloyd), intercept information about Genesis. Believing the device to be potentially useful as a weapon (or a good ingredient for his next time machine, waka waka), Kruge takes his cloaked ship to the Genesis planet, destroys the Grissom (told you) and searches the planet for the survivors.

The Enterprise dies...it doesn't blow up. It dies.

Back on Earth, Spock's father Sarek (Mark "Why the fuck am I still doing this?" Lenard) confronts Kirk about Spock's death. After refusing to believe that Leonard Nimoy didn't want to come back for more brainless sequels and that he demanded Spock be killed, Sarek mind melds with Kirk. After viewing all the dirty thoughts in Kirk's head, the pair learn that before he died, Spock transferred his katra, or living spirit, to someone. Kirk has trouble figuring out who, completely forgetting that, oh gee, I don't know, fucking McCoy thinks he's Spock. So...why not start there? Spock's katra and body are needed to lay him to rest on his homeworld, Vulcan, and without help, McCoy will die from carrying Spock inside him (Giggity). Disobeying orders, Kirk and his B-reel officers Scotty (James "Why the fuck am I still doing this?" Doohan), Sulu (George Takei), Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) spring McCoy from detention, disable the USS Excelsior, and steal the battle-damaged Enterprise from Spacedock to return to the Genesis planet to retrieve Spock's body. Why they didn't just hijack the technologically advanced Excelsior and give the Enterprise the finger on the way out is beyond me. As Tony Stark would say, "Not a great plan".

On Genesis, Saavik discovers that Spock is going through Vulcan puberty (P'on Far, so the nerds don't yell at me) and realizes that in order for Spock to survive, she must mate with him. Imagine if that were true for humans. Like if guys are going through puberty and had to fuck something or else they'd die. There would be sexual harassment suits up the ass, even in high school. Plus, Vulcan mating is bizarre to say the least. I guess I use the term "mate" very loosely here. They just touch fingers and knuckles in a provocatively stupid manner and WHAM! Vulcan mating. I guess that was kind of an erotic scene...but Star Trek and erotica don't go together, so I wouldn't expect anything more. Hell I would hope and pray for nothing more. Anywho, the Klingons and Emmett L. Kruge then surprise and capture Marcus, Saavik and Spock. Poor timing hits them like a freight train as before Kruge can interrogate them their ship signals that the Enterprise has arrived and Kruge immediately beams back to the Bird of Prey.

Shatner, Doohan and Kelley reading the reviews

In orbit, the understaffed Enterprise initially gains the upper hand in battle, but the Klingons return fire and disable the ship. Probably the weakest battle in Star Trek history. Both ships fire one shot at each other, and then both ships sit disabled. The Enterprise automation system overloads and renders it helpless. In the standoff that follows, "Doc" Kruge orders that one of the hostages on the surface be executed, just for Kirk being a pain in his ass. Saavik is chosen, but Marcus is killed defending Saavik and Spock. Kirk mourns his son's death for about thirty seconds, acted out in a very Shatner-style manner, before Kirk and company then feign surrender and activate the Enterprise's self-destruct sequence, killing the Klingon boarding party while the Enterprise crew transports to the planet's surface to find Spock and Saavik. James Kirk, ladies and gentleman. He sacrificed a multi-billion dollar starship to kill six Klingons that he and his crew of middle-aged, typecast actors couldn't subdue if their lives depended on it. On the planet's surface, and promising the secret of Genesis, Kirk lures Kruge to the planet and has him beam his crew to the Klingon vessel. As the Genesis planet disintegrates, Kirk and Kruge engage in a fistfight; Kirk emerges victorious after kicking Kruge off a cliff into a lava flow. Kirk and his officers take control of the Klingon ship and head to Vulcan. 

There, Spock's katra is reunited with his body in a dangerous procedure called fal-tor-pan (You're welcome again, basement dwellers). The Vulcan village elder warns that what they're are trying has not been attempted "since ages past", but Sarek is getting pretty desperate to want to keep Leonard Nimoy in these movies and persists. Since both McCoy and Spock could die in the procedure, it totally works and Spock is resurrected, alive and well, though his memories are fragmented. At Kirk's prompting, Spock remembers he called Kirk "Jim" and recognizes the crew. His friends joyfully gather around him, even as Takei weirdly places his hand on Nimoy's chest for some reason...and that's where the movie ends, with the Enterprise crew stranded on Vulcan in a Klingon starship. Some ending. Now there had to be a sequel just to get them out of this mess.

That's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It's corny at times, it's mundane, and its action moments, while compelling, don't quite follow up what awesomeness that Star Trek II delivered. It continues the Genesis story in an interesting way, even culminating in the theft of the starship Enterprise, something we thought we'd never witness, and even a semi-decent hand-to-hand combat scene between William Shatner and Christopher Lloyd. Kruge makes a great villain, but I'll be damned if I can't watch this movie once without making Back to the Future jokes. Leonard Nimoy's first of two directed Star Trek movies, and it isn't half-bad, it just could've been a hell of a lot more action-packed and a little less droning. Still, if I had to describe it in just one word, I'd say "decent".

Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #7 - Star Trek: Nemesis

I put this one a little higher on the list than a lot of other peoples'. It's the tenth and final Star Trek film of the original series, starting with the original cast in '79 and ending now with the cast of The Next Generation in '02. It's the final voyage of William Riker and Deanna Troi under command of Jean-Luc Picard before they go off on their own ship and their own adventures, and (spoiler warning) it's the final act of kindness from Data himself. That's right, this movie had the balls to kill of Data. That's like having the balls to kill off Spock *snickers incoherently*.

The film opens On Romulus where members of the Romulan Imperial Senate debate whether to accept the terms of peace and alliance with the Reman rebel leader Shinzon. Who is Shinzon? Why should we care at this point? Has he been discussed in any prior Star Trek form of media, or his race of anti-Romulans called "Remans"? (Get it? Romulan and Reman? Do you get it? Wacka wacka). He's Tom Hardy, you'll care in a few scenes and how the shit should I know? I'm not a Trekkie. Anywho. It turns out that the Remans are a slave race of the Romulan Empire, used as miners and as cannon fodder. To me that means that the Romulans load Reman personnel into cannons and fire them at enemy vessels. Wait...that's exactly what that means? OH THE HUMANITY. A faction of the Reman military is in support of Shinzon, but the Praetor and senate are opposed to an alliance. After rejecting the motion, the Praetor and remaining senators are disintegrated by a device left in the room by a military-aligned senator. Probably should've checked that guy's luggage.

Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E are at a wedding shindig for first officer Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). As I said, they are also preparing to depart for greener pastures, which includes not flying on the most fired-upon, politically involved ship in the Starfleet. Kudos to them for signing paperwork to protect their futures. During a routine mission sailing through space, the group discovers a positronic energy reading on a planet in the Kolaran system near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), Lieutenant Commander Worf (Michael Dorn), and Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) land on Kolarus III and discover the remnants of an android resembling Data. When the android is reassembled it introduces itself as B-4 (also Brent Spiner). After all, being identical to Data wouldn't warrant the need of a completely different actor, now would it?

Picard is contacted by Vice-Admiral Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew, a surprising MCU-esque inclusion) and orders the ship on a diplomatic mission to nearby Romulus. Janeway explains that the Romulan Empire has been taken over in a military coup by Shinzon, who says he wants peace with the Federation and to bring freedom to Remus. So...let me get this straight, the Romulan Empire; probably the second-most dangerous regime in the galaxy to oppose the Federation, was taken over and assumed control over by Shinzon and his band of cannon fodder? Just how well are the Romulans equipped to do anything, really? We find out in Star Trek (2009) that they can't even predict a supernova happening with years of "heads up", so this shouldn't even surprise retrospectively speaking. On arrival, the crew of the Enterprise-E learns that Shinzon is a clone of Picard, secretly created by Romulans to plant a high-ranking spy into the Federation. How do they know he's a clone of Picard? Because he's bald. That's it. He doesn't look a single thing like Picard other than the fact that he's bald. How cunning.

After many years, Shinzon became a leader of the Remans, and constructed his heavily armed flagship, the Scimitar. Initially, diplomatic efforts go well, but the Enterprise-E crew discover that the Scimitar is producing low levels of thalaron radiation, which had been used to kill the Imperial Senate and is deadly to nearly all life forms. There are also unexpected attempts to communicate with the Enterprise-E computers, and Shinzon himself violates Troi's mind through the telepathy of his Reman viceroy while she's doing the nasty with Riker, the dirty son-of-a-bitch pervert.

Soon, Dr. Crusher, in her increasingly subsidized role as each movie goes on, discovers that Shinzon is aging rapidly because of the poor process used to clone him, and the only possible means to stop the aging is a transfusion of Picard's own blood. One transfusion of blood will stop Shinzon's problematic genetic makeup. Makes sense to me *cough*. Shinzon kidnaps Picard from the Enterprise-E, as well as B-4, having planted the android on the nearby planet to lure Picard closer to the Border. However, Data reveals he has swapped places with B-4, rescues Picard, and returns with Picard to the Enterprise-E. So that renders the kidnapping of Picard ENTIRELY POINTLESS. They learn that the Scimitar possess the same kind of thalaron radiation in the form of a large-scale weapon, planning to use it on Earth and invade and take over the Federation. You know, that'll ruin some people's weekends.

The Enterprise-E races back to Federation space to unite with a large scale attack fleet (which wouldn't do any good anyway, but I digress) but is ambushed by the Scimitar in the Bassen Rift, a region that prevents any subspace communications. Two Romulan Warbirds come to the aid of the Enterprise-E, as they do not want to comply in Shinzon's genocidal plans (Why I don't know. He seems like such a stand-up guy). They prove to be about as useful as a kick in the balls, as Shinzon destroys one and disables the other within two minutes. Recognizing the need to stop the Scimitar at all costs, Picard orders the Enterprise-E to ram the other ship, in probably the coolest scene in recent Trek films. The collision leaves both ships heavily damaged, the Enterprise-E like somebody tried taking a fucking bite out of it, and destroys the Scimitar's primary weapons. Seeing no alternative, Shinzon activates the thalaron weapon to wipe out both ships. Picard boards the Scimitar to face Shinzon alone, and eventually kills him by impaling him on a metal strut. Data jumps the distance between the two ships (No literally, jumps the fucking distance between the ships through space) armed with a personal transporter (convenient device is convenient) to beam Picard back to the Enterprise-E, and then sacrifices himself when he fires his phaser at the thalaron generator to destroy the Scimitar, saving the Enterprise-E, the Federation and planet Earth in the process. The crew mourn Data, and the surviving Romulan commander offers them her gratitude for saving the Empire. Yeah fuck all that. Data's dead. Screw the Romulans and their wants and needs.

The Enterprise-E now back at Earth for repairs, Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker, who is leaving to command the USS Titan and begin a possible peace-negotiation mission with the Romulans. All we can say is "It's about fucking time, assholes". Picard meets with B-4, discovering that Data had downloaded the engrams of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix before he boarded the Scimitar, thus needlessly keeping the hope for a sequel alive in the fans and literally nobody else who was involved with this turkey.

Star Trek: Nemesis is a tired movie. It runs very much on the franchise's fatigue and even after marathoning all of the movies, you can't help but realize this one doesn't stand out all that well. I rank it above the others because it's got action and at least some interestingly repugnant characters to look at (Looking at you, Ron Pearlman). But it's just so 'meh' that it almost really isn't there. The final battle is epic, but the climax loses momentum when the battle stops and Picard boards the Scimitar. Also, Tom Hardy gave it his all, but the Remans weren't really as awe-inspiring villain as we'd like to think. I liked their warbird and the type of damage it could do, but the Remans themselves look like deceased pigs that got left out in the sun too long. All-in-all, not an awful Star Trek film, but it isn't very memorable.

Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #8 - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Oh man. This is where we're getting to grab the shovel and scrape the bottom of the shit-barrel and dig out the contents for all to see. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier comes to us in 1989, a decade after the debacle of that was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Since then the series saw two great movies and one iffy movie. I'll let you guess which ones are which if you're reading this in order. So, why does Star Trek V suck so much? Well, not only is it hokey, cheesy, ridiculous and every synonym for "ludicrous" in the book, the movie just doesn't feel like your typical Star Trek adventure.

It starts out with a Vulcan on Nimbus III approaching a guy who looks just like Voldemort. I swear to God, it's his doppelganger. The Vulcan dismounts his horse, says the man feels great pain, then offers to let him join him on his quest for "ultimate Star Trek action! Well, back on Nimbus III, the Vulcan who recruited Voldemort, named Sybok, takes over an outpost in "Paradise City" (no copyright intended). This outpost just so happened to be the one selected for a governmental meeting between a human (David Warner), a Klingon (Charles Cooper) and a Romulan (Cynthia Gouw) to discuss diplomatic topics. Sybok's capturing of the diplomats springs Kirk and the others into action as the newly-christened Enterprise-A charges to Nimbus III. The party arrives there and...*Sigh*.
knowledge". About as vague as you could be. Then we find Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Bones (DeForest Kelley) enjoying shore leave. The three of them sit around a campfire reminiscing about being young space adventurers before teaching Spock to sing the lyrics of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". Truly captivating

So basically, to sneak into compound, Kirk and the others require a distraction. The distraction they chose is to have Lieutenant Uhura, played by the (at this point middle-age) Nichelle Nichols, to strip down and sing about "the eyes of love". This placates and distracts the gate guards from their post as they start crawling over to her like horny blockheads. Two officers spring up with phaser rifles and stop them, allowing Kirk, Spock and Bones to ride horseback all the way to Paradise City. Spock attempts to locate the prisoners while inside. After Kirk tries to rush him, Spock tells him to "hold his horse" (Goooood God, that line). They later make it into the bar and locate the three diplomats, now under Sybok's control. Sybok reveals he captured the diplomats to lure the Enterprise-A crew in. He means to capture the vessel and use it to travel to the center of the galaxy, where he hopes to pass through the Great Barrier to the planet of Sha-Ka-Ree. There, he believes he will be able to locate God.

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

So basically, yes. Sybok is looking for God. Not in the sense of "Seeking religious enlightenment" or "Praying for an inner spiritual awakening". No, I mean he means to drive down the galaxy and look for the mailbox that says "God" on it. He's literally trying to physically locate where God is and question why he's been hiding from the Universe this whole time and he believes it's past the Great Barrier at the center of the galaxy on the planet Sha-Ka-Ree. Kirk, Spock and Bones are sent to the brig, but Scotty (James Doohan) busts them out. They use Spock's gravity boots to have a goofy action sequence in the elevator shaft before being captured again. During the scene on the bridge, Sybok uses his powers to bring Bones and Spock to inner and outer emotional pain. After this, the trio agree to allow Sybok to use the Enterprise-A to pass the Great Barrier to Sha-Ka-Ree. On the planet's surface, the trio and Sybok come across a mystical entity in a rock formation who claims to be the Almighty Spirit. Rather than inquiring about their intentions and good will, the entity demands the ship be brought closer so that it can carry him past the Barrier. Kirk ponders why "God needs a starship". The entity attacks both Kirk and Spock, leaving Sybok to sacrifice himself and join with the entity to remove it from existence. Kirk flees as Spock and McCoy are beamed up to the Enterprise-A safely. Kirk, stranded on the surface below, is just about killed by the entity as a Klingon vessel is found to have broken through the unbreakable Great Barrier to find them. I should mention this is the same Klingon vessel that's been hunting them all movie. Why did I just now tell you about this? Well it was so insignificant to the plot just now that it wasn't even worth mentioning. So the diplomats are rescued, Sybok is dead, "God" is destroyed and Kirk gives us some half-assed Disney style explanation that "God maybe isn't out there, maybe he's in our hearts". Goooooood God.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier took a weird turn in terms of storytelling. It was an attempt to cross science with religion and the results are about as clusterfuck-y as you'd expect. On top of that, the executive at Paramount who decided to let William Shatner direct this one should've been fired on the spot. The special effects weren't even all that great. To my knowledge, it was one of the few, if not the only one, whose special effects weren't done by Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects shop founded by guru special effects magi George Lucas. There's too many jokes in the movie, too. It's almost too lighthearted. I get that Star Trek could stand to be much more lighthearted, but even this was pushing it. "Hold your horse, captain". Need I say anything more? Oh yes, the "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" scene...which they actually reprise at the end of the movie. God forbid we didn't get a finish to that story arc. Does Spock learn the song or doesn't he? Just tell me!

Star Trek V is one I can do without. Sybok's a strange villain with a strange power that isn't even given a backstory quality enough to warrant us feeling bad or remorse for him when he dies. We find out he's Spock's half-brother, I guess that's about as close as we're going to get. The whole "God" climax cut much of the special effects cut when Paramount slashed the movie's shooting schedule and effects budget. Ten rock men were going to fight Kirk, making for a much more entertaining finish to the movie, if nothing else. The actors make caricatures out of their legendary characters. Sulu and Chekov are so undermined or have nothing better to do in the entire movie, so either they're comic relief or they're nothing at all. Scotty literally bonks his head on a low hanging pipe and falls backwards like a slapstick routine. It's just plain silly. Skip it.

Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #9 - Star Trek: Insurrection

Next on our Trek-tacular (trademark) countdown is the second-worst Star Trek movie in my opinion and the absolute worst that's come out of the Next Generation camp. Star Trek: Insurrection is the ninth of the original ten movies and by the late 90s, you couldn't look anywhere without seeing Star Trek. It was in the theaters as well as on TV with not one, but two concurrent hit shows airing, Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. With this one, Star Trek: Insurrection, the storytellers thought about taking a lot of their own ideas, both from early production meetings for this movie as well as ideas for The Next Generation TV series that they had established, and just totally undoing or rewriting everything while also incorporating pseudo-political agendas and nonchalant historical references to major American events that caused great heartache and tragedy.

The movie starts, oddly enough, on an alien planet within what the Federation labels "The Briar Patch". Here, we see the Federation in coordination with a race of alien beings known as the "Son'a". Together with the Son'a, the Federation monitors the village of beings on the planet known as the B'aku. The B'aku are the envy of those involved because their planet has rejuvenation radiation that allows the inhabitants to practically live forever. Their cells regenerate and stay young at well above the ability of an average human's, causing many inhabitants to live for a thousand years. On this installation is our trusty goof-bot, Data. He malfunctions, going apeshit with a hand phaser and exposing the Federation-Son'a installation. When Data's schematics are requested by Admiral Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe), Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) ignores his orders to remain away and investigates the matter himself, moving to capture Data before the Federation can seize him. Working with Admiral Dougherty are members of the Son'a, including one played surprisingly enough by F. Murray Abraham, of all people. You know... Salieri from Amadeus. That guy.

During the crew's visit to the Briar Patch planet of the B'aku, they each begin to experience the rejuvenating effects of the planet's rings. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) has his ocular implants removed as his eyes heal themselves, while Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanne Troi (Marina Sirtis) rekindle their love relationship. It is during this time that Picard confronts Admiral Dougherty about a cloaked Federation vessel they discover with a holodeck used to recreate the village, and Dougherty confirms that top Federation officials are working with the Son'a regime to forcibly and deceptively remove the B'aku from the planet and relocate them to a different planet, allowing the decrepit Son'a to inhabit their planet and use its rejuvenation abilities to heal their race, but poison the planet in the process. Picard throws a fit and decides to warn the Federation, informing them of Admiral Dougherty's intention to violate the Prime Directive, the Federation's number one law that no one must break. Ever.

So right now you're probably getting quite a "Trail of Tears" vibe, aren't you? Well, if you are, you're not the only one. Which is weird because there's at least two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the whole "forced relocation" of a race of beings was made perfectly fine and even justified to allow the survival of millions of people, so it's a little strange that the Federation, Picard mainly, would disallow this sort of forced relocation. He did it twice already in the original show, so why does not work here? Oh, is it because he's in love with one of the B'aku villagers? Perhaps it is! Way to think with your prick, Picard. No wonder this time around this story doesn't make any sense. On top of that, let's discuss the B'aku. I failed to mention thus far that the reason that the B'aku receive their regenerative abilities from their planet is because they have opted to reject the use of advanced technology in their lives, in order to simply them. As they say "We believe when you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from that man". Even though they have advanced irrigation and farming systems that surely cut down on the amount of manpower needed to operate their farms. So something is amiss there. I think the B'aku are just stuck up, ignorant jackasses that gloat, rant and rave simply because their planet keeps them alive and sustains them while the S'ona, we come to find out, are formerly B'aku villagers that chose to embrace advanced technology in their lives and utilize it on a daily basis. Hence why the planet does not sustain them and their appearance is that of a mummy, with folded skin flaps and surgically reconstructed faces in an attempt to remain and appear young. WOAH! Mind blown. Okay, not really, but you know. On top of all that, the B'aku are shown to have sort of superhuman abilities when the lead woman, Anij is shown to be able to freeze a waterfall and a dandelion blowing away. When Picard asks her how she can do this, she replies "No more questions". See? Guess you don't get to know anyway. Kind ridiculous for a woman who not an hour ago you found out couldn't even fucking swim.

So to assist the B'aku from being abducted and removed by the Son'a and Admiral Dougherty, Picard, Worf, Data and Crusher escort the B'aku villagers away so that the Son'a ship cannot remove them. During this ordeal, which literally even borrows from pictures of the "Trail of Tears" incident in American history in showcasing the forced relocation of the B'aku people (yikes), F. Murray Son'a-ham demands that the crooked Admiral Dougherty allow the Son'a to dispatch to starships to attack and destroy the Enterprise. A short but fierce space battle takes place where Riker eventually does-in the Son'a ships by operating the entire USS Enterprise-E with a fucking joystick from the bridge. I'm not talking a large command console that happens to have a joystick on it, or a joystick with a lot of buttons and technical readouts; NO a fucking two-button'd joystick you're used to seeing used for an Atari 2600. This powers and operates a large Federation space battle cruiser and destroys two S'ona ships.

Eventually, Picard masterminds a ruse to transport F. Murray Abraham and his bridge crew to the secret Federation holoship and shutdown the harvester. Abraham discovers the deception and transports to the radiation harvester ship to manually restart it. Picard comes in hot pursuit and sets the harvester to self-destruct, which kills Abraham just as Picard is rescued by the Enterprise-E. The remaining Son'a are forgiven and welcomed back by the Ba'ku as Picard and the Enterprise crew take a moment to enjoy their rejuvenated selves before returning to their previous mission.

Star Trek: Insurrection tells an interesting enough story, yes, but it feels moreso like an episode of the show that could've ran for two or three parts rather than a feature motion picture. It drags at times, has some conflicting anecdotes that negate things we were taught in The Next Generation, and tackles way too big of a political agenda with the whole "forced relocation of a species of people" thing. The acting can get a little hokey, some of the dialogue doesn't make any sense, character elements are totally baffling when they're compared to the surroundings in which they live, and on top of it all, the whole movie just feels a little recycled. Granted the idea is an interesting one, but not when you have to borrow from the Next Generation TV series. I like the Son'a as villains, the Briar Patch battle is decent if it didn't end with a freakin' joystick, and Anthony Zerbe is pretty great as Admiral Dougherty. There's a lot of holes, it leaves a lot of questions, doesn't explain a whole lot, and negates a lot of pre-established material. Watch it at your own risk.

Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies: #10 - Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Now, hold the phone. Wait a minute. Stop the presses. Hold the mayonnaise. I believe Star Trek is the first major motion picture franchise that ever existed or that has ever existed where the first dang picture in the franchise is the worst? Is it true? Am I just shitting? No, I'm not. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is probably the single greatest folly Star Trek ever partook in, and this includes Star Trek Discovery.

At the time of its pre-production, Star Wars as tearing theater competition apart and winning Oscars, pretty much making it the biggest film of the time at that time. Paramount Pictures did not want their big-screen Star Trek debut to be seen as "cashing in", so they most likely decreed to director Robert Wise to not make the film feel similar to Star Wars in any way, shape or form. Unfortunately, it bit them in the ass. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is not fun, exciting, thrilling, enthralling or even remotely fast-paced. It's often referred to as "The Slow-Motion Picture" because of the lack of action, events, cuts, or even scenery changes for much of the movie. It's basically like if speed regulations mandated that Space Mountain couldn't go any more than five miles an hour. Sure, you'd finish the ride, but it's going to feel like you're in there an eternity. But honestly, the movie is just over two hours in length, and there are no ship-battles, ship-to-ship confrontations; there are cool spaceship shots, though. They just go on forever and ever with seldom cuts to relieve the lack of fluid motion in an otherwise interesting story narrative.

What is this narrative that carries this stiff-motion tortoise through its journey? There is a quite large alien force descending toward Earth and the crew of the newly refit USS Enterprise are dispatched to stop it. Seems like your typical episode of the original show. The original cast even returns, looking mildly older and pudgier than we remember them from the series finale ten years prior: Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Lt. Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Scott "Scotty" (James Doohan) and Lt. Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). They're joined by two new crew members, Capt. Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) and Ilia (Persis Khambatta). FUN FACT: Movie trivia for Star Trek: The Motion Picture says that Ilia is "Deltan", meaning she comes from the Delta quadrant...I guess. What's funny about that? Well, her race is supposedly incredibly toxic with pheromones and mating hormones, meaning she can make anyone super horny and ready to boink just by looking at her. Supposedly, humans can't survive one round of sexual intercourse with a Deltan. Random tangent, I know, but...weird.

So Decker is in charge of the newly refit USS Enterprise until Kirk comes aboard and usurps him for no reason, other than "I'm the star and it's in my contact." After Kirk takes over commanding an almost totally different Enterprise than the one he commanded in the show, he kills two people in a matter of two minutes. This'll average out to about a death a minute if we keep going at this rate. The Vulcan replacement for Spock is fried in a transporter malfunction, along with a new officer beaming on board with him. Soon after the launch of the Enterprise to intercept the anomaly, an off-balance warp-whatever causes the ship to enter a wormhole. This slows time down, a cool distortion affect that causes laughably delivered slow dialogue. Kirk tries to do something with the phasers to clear an asteroid out of their path to save the ship, but former Captain Decker belays the order to save the ship, later explaining that whatever caused the warp drive mishap rendered the phasers useless for some reason. So that means that just after taking command of the mission, Kirk's killed two people and endangered the entire ship once already. Fun stuff.

The slow pace of the entire movie causes the illusion that the dialogue scenes don't go anywhere. There's important things being discussed in most scenes, but because it feels like that that's all going on, it just feels slow. The Enterprise eventually meets up with and picks up Spock, who was on Vulcan getting his remaining emotions wiped out so that he can become 100% pure Vulcan (I guess). I don't know, isn't this the third time he's tried to have all remaining emotions purged? I feel like that's a regular occurrence. I'm no Trekkie after all, so I guess that's my lack of Trek knowledge poking through. Eventually, the crew comes across the entity, and after a painfully slow process of entering its confines and trying to find the center of the anomaly, called "V'Ger", Ilia is captured as the entity boards the ship and takes her away. She later reappears as V'Ger itself, a probe using Ilia's body as a recreated mechanism to "observe and record the carbon-based units". She demands to know the secret of V'Ger's creation, but Kirk only promises to give the secret to the center of V'Ger herself. With that, the Ilia probe allows the USS Enterprise to the center of V'Ger. Inside the center of V'Ger, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Decker find that V'Ger is actually Voyager 6, the old drone sent into deep space by Earth many years ago, returning to Earth to find its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its mission, and on its journey the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'Ger lacks the ability to give itself a focus other than its original mission; having learned what it could on its journey home, it finds its existence empty and without purpose. Before transmitting all its information, V'Ger insists that the Creator come in person to finish the sequence. Realizing that the machine wants to merge with its creator, Decker offers himself to V'Ger. As Decker merges with V'Ger, the trio escapes back to the Enterprise and leaves as V'Ger, Decker and Ilia probe merge together to create a new form of life that disappears into another dimension. Kirk and the others then direct Enterprise back toward Earth for her next adventures.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is an abysmal start to an otherwise legendary movie franchise. The Motion Picture fails across the board. This movie tried to capitalize on the success of one of the biggest science-fiction/fantasy films of all time in Star Wars and ended up mimicking 2001: A Space Odyssey. The uniforms look cheap, the acting is dry, Shatner is at his Shatner-est with his deliveries and hammy acting, the dialogue scenes go on forever, the non-dialogue scenes go on forever, there's very little action and the action there is, you could blink and miss it. The special effects are pretty good, can't say they aren't. There's just a lot of time to enjoy the visual effects shots. The refit Enterprise is so cool because they give you a near four minute mundane scene of Kirk and Scotty boarding the ship to do final preparations. The movie's pacing is horrible. There are some scenes that are so soft and quietly spoken that you wonder if there was a mic issue in the shot. The movie is boring, mundane, slow, yes, but at least it tries to have a decent ending. The techno-babble that Star Trek is known for can be lost on the average viewer who drifts in and out on their smartphones while the movie is going on. To this average viewer that isn't a Trekkie, like myself, if anything steals your attention during crucial dialogue scenes, you're going to miss something important that won't make the movie make sense later, and because the movie is so long and drags out constantly, you're not going to feel like rewinding it to find out what you missed. Oddly enough, I say skip this one. Blow it off. Forget about it. There's nothing that doesn't happen that isn't important in later films. There's not a whole lot of story content, very little action, and many of its production and story elements are totally omitted from future installments. There's no mention of the V'Ger crisis ever again in the rest of the films. Skip this one and get started right with Star Trek II.

Coming Soon! - Ranking the "Star Trek" Movies

Aren't I just weird? I got burnt out doing my Top 30 favorite movies countdown, so I decided to review some random movies, then I got bored with that so I guess it's time to do another time-consuming ranking! I'm going to be a ranking genius after this. This'll be my third ranking of a franchise's movies that follow either one principal story or a principal character, the first being "Ranking the Batman Movies" and "Ranking the Halloween Movies", both in 2016. Now I give you, for the summer of 2018, "Ranking the Star Trek Movies". That's right, now I get to rub my nerddom all up in your faces. Unlike the Halloween movies, in my opinion the Star Trek films aren't quite split right down the middle of the original ten in terms of quality. There are more good ones (six) than bad ones (four), so at least there'll be some consistency.

Some ground rules first. Number one, first and foremost: My cutoff is going to be Star Trek: Nemesis. That's right, I'm leaving the rebootquels out of this. Why, I hear you cry? Well, because Top 13 isn't a very marketable (nor is it a lucky) number. Besides, those are the ones I've seen the least. Number two, I won't follow a set schedule. I set a schedule for Halloween so that I could get them all out in October and I about wanted to give up on the blog and find a new hobby. So now, it'll be business as usual "whenever I get around to it". You might give five in a week or two in a month. Who the hell knows.

So, that means our criteria for ranking is as follows. Star Trek made its big-screen debut in 1979 hot off the heels of Star Wars's success, with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Yes, that is the full title. Not Star Trek, not Star Trek I, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I guess Star Trek: The Movie sounded a little hokey, so it's "The Motion Picture". We'll get to it, but I'm going to tell you right now there's not very much "motion" in it.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was three years later in '82, and a serious improvement over the previous one. Often considered one of the best by Trekkies and non-Trekkies alike. It was also the start of a housed "trilogy" of films that followed one solid plot outline about a torpedo of life called "The Genesis Device". The second part is Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in '84 and the Genesis story concludes in '86 with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. So far we're following a solid numbering outline, wouldn't you say? Then we have 1989's Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, our first standalone story since the first one. Like the first one, it's notorious for...reasons. That's all we'll say for now.

The original TV show cast gets a magnificent send-off with 1991's Star Trek VI; The Undiscovered Country. They're all noticeably old but it fits the movie and story well and has a fantastic send-off. The torch is the passed to the cast of the hit TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation which had just concluded on television. Hot off the heels of its conclusion is 1994's Star Trek Generations, the seventh film. Notice how the numbers quit coming? Now we're getting out of hand. Generations also was marketed as being the first Trek film to showcase a high-profile team-up of captains, namely Kirk and Picard, but we'll get into that later. The Next Generation cast returned for 1996's Star Trek: First Contact, the movie that made the Borg freaky scary. They probably would've been scarier in The Next Generation if they had a budget to not make them look like discount Halloween costumes. 1998 gave us the ninth of the original ten Trek films, Star Trek: Insurrection and the third to be based around the Next Generation crew. Unlike the original TV series cast, the Next Generation cast didn't get quite a good send-off with 2002's Star Trek Nemesis. For reasons we will very much get into once the ranking starts.

So that was just a preview, hope I already didn't spoil what order I'm going to put them in. Stay tuned...unless you're not a Trekkie and therefore don't give a shit. In which case, sorry.