OK – so we’ve just gotten our 11th installment of Star Trek on the big screen and I’m ready to give a fairly definitive personal ranking of the entire set to date. The only asterisk I’ll put on this list will be next to JJ Abrams’ film – which I reserve the right to change after a few more viewings. I welcome any comments on this list below (starting from the bottom):
- 11th: The Final Frontier (Movie # 5) – The very premise of injecting an evil-half brother of Spock to go along with the search for God is almost laughable; The fact that the writers would actually put Nichelle Nichols into a fig-leaf costume and expect us to be aroused was silly. Bad line after bad line, numerous consistency flaws and William Shatner as director all added up to a total disappointment. I dare you to watch it again! You too will be screaming for Spock to shoot his half-brother!
- 10th: Insurrection (Movie # 9) – Not a bad story; it would have been an acceptable 2-part tv serial. By this time however, the plot device of making Lt. Cmdr. Data temporarily evil had gotten quite old for me. Throw in a very mediocre antagonist (Ru’afo) and a very forgettable performance by Patrick Stewart and you’ve got something that seemed to have gotten swallowed up by the big-screen format.
- 9th: The Motion Picture (Movie # 1) – A dramtically better film than the previous 2; the major criticism I have with The Motion Picture was that it suffered from long periods of painfully slow story and character exposition. I never quite sympathized with Illea, and never quite grew to like Decker (which I think was Roddenberry’s intention). However, I’ll never forget how I first felt when I saw the Enterprise on the Big Screen for the first time.
Tags: Star Trek
Apparently it isn’t enough for Patrick Stewart to star as Claudius opposite the most recent Doctor Who, David Tennant, in Hamlet. The esteemed Shakespearean actor wants to appear in the long-running British science fiction series, too.
Tags: Doctor Who, Patrick Stewart, Star Trek
Stargate: Atlantis cast member Paul McGillion and Mike Vogel (Poseidon, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) are both in the running to play U.S.S. Enterprise chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott and James T. Kirk in director J.J. Abrams’ big-screen Star Trek revival.
Tags: Star Trek
Zoe Saldana offered the part of Uhura for J.J. Abrams new “Star Trek” film
Tags: Star Trek
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