Now, I guess this was an inevitable poll and I wonder why it hasn’t appeared earlier.
It’s the age-old question: which one of the ten is your favorite and can there really be any other winner than
[spoiler] The Wrath of Khan? - and while we’re at it, why is it that most people’s favorite Star Trek movie is over 25 years old? A quarter of a century? Why did they never approach that kind of quality again?[/spoiler]
The Final Frontier of course :D. No, seriously for me it’s First Contact. Wrath of Kahn gets a close second.
I have to echo Magnus, First Contact for me, Wrath of Khan was excellent for its time also
well, that’s interesting. most of the time, it seems to come down to a duel between Wrath and Contact, even though whenever you find a list of like, the 30 or so best SciFi movies ever, Wrath is always first.
incidentally, did you know that Wrath of Khan was supposed to be called Revenge of Khan, but they couldn’t do it because Episode VI came out around that time and that was first called Revenge of the Jedi?
I find this comes down to age. Most of the time, people who grew up with Next Gen vote for First Contact and us ol’ folk that grew up with Kirk and crew vote for Wrath of Khan. At times it also comes down to “Kirk vs. Picard”. If you are a Picard person, you’ll vote First Contact. It’s obvious by me avatar who I fancy.
What, no love for IV?
Actually though, I voted for VI. There’s just something dark and operatic about that one that moves me, even though it’s not the most action-packed. I love that’s it not afraid to be a blatant political allegory and yet the allegory works perfectly within the established world of Star Trek. I love that the last original cast movie has them realizing that though they’ve been representing a more highly evolved society of humans all these years, they still have their own prejudices and fears to overcome. I love Spock’s reuse of the phrase “Only Nixon could go to China” for Kirk. And you gotta love Christopher Plummer with an eye-patch nailed to his face.
Here’s the love for IV:
“Everyone remember where we parked.”
“They are not the hell your whales.”
I could go on, but really, this movie had the best lines of any of the ST movies.
That’s why it’s my favorite.
I find it difficult to compare I-VI to VIII-X. I purposely leave out the abomination that was Generations.
I feel vaguely traitorous for the GenLoathing as it was penned by RDM (but I like to blame Braga The Destroyer and–sharing story credit–Berman the Antichrist). /rant off
I voted for Khan, with Voyage a close second.
That seems a little harsh. I hate Rick Berman as much as the next guy, but Generations wasn’t nearly as bad as Final Frontier, Insurrection and Nemesis.
Wrath of Khan
I saw this at the movies when it came out. What a ball. Every character was firing on all cylinders, they seemed to be really enjoying their roles. All the old favorites back, Kirk being the fun, swashbuckling bstard we all were hoping for in the first movie. So much great back story, with Khan, who we already knew was a badss from the series, and what’s this ?? Kirk’s son ?? Even that was cool, his mom was a fairly hot geek.
So many great scenes in this one, Bones and Kirk in Kirk’s residence, lamenting on retirement, Kirk and Spock together, with all the respect and shared experiences so evident as they spoke to each other…Scotty in all his glory…fun fun fun.
And the Enterprise, beautifully filmed, wounded but able to fight back with Kirk at the helm, in the climactic battle of tactics and wills…
And let me say this:
There was cheering at the end of this one. And it was a regular audience, no uniforms, fake ears, or Vulcan hand signs to be seen. Clapping, cheering, and a lot of happy people walking out of the theater. Good moviemaking !!
No, it doesn’t, at least not for me, I was born in '84, I grew up on TNG, heck, I was spoon-fed TNG as soon as I was old enough to watch TV, some of my earliest memories of watching TV are images of the first season episode where Tasha has to fight the duel, but still, as far as ST movies are concerned, I’m totally going STII, with IV a rather close second.
you know what, I finished my master’s thesis last October, it was about the Cold War and I had a very, very beautiful article from the renowned “Journal of Cold War Studies” that dealt almost exclusively with STVI as a political allegory for the last stage of the Cold War. I’m looking through my folders right now … oh, my bad, it wasn’t only about STVI, it was about Star Trek in general, it’s called
“Cold War Pop Culture and the Image of U.S. Foreign policy: The Perspective of the Original Star Trek Series,” by Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, in: Journal of Cold War Studies - Volume 7, Number 4, Fall 2005, pp. 74-103, an abstract can be found here: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/journal_of_cold_war_studies/v007/7.4sarantakes.html
and if you, Glimfeather, or anybody else, is interested in the whole article, I could scan and e-mail it, just let me know.
:eek: you CAN’T say that! :mad:
Generations was the first ST movie I got to see in a theater! I was like 10 years old and that was one of the greatest days of my life! I had to pee after the first half hour and I literally RAN out of the theater to the restroom and back in less than a minute!
you have NO IDEA just how much I envy you. seeing this movie in a theater … you know, I always thought that if there was a theater around here that would show these old movies for people like me who were born too late to enjoy them when they came out, they could really make a lot of money, there’s so many great movies that my generation didn’t get to see on the big screen, I would pay 15 bucks to see Star Trek II in a real movie theater!
and yeah, the filming was excellent, I have the special edition DVD and there’s a making of where they show, you know, how they did the special effects and, gosh, they BUILT REAL MODELS, HUGE MODELS and people actually painted them and were at pains to get all the details right and stuff and make them look rough around the edges and all, it still beats the crap out of CGI!
(we’ll have to admit, though, that some of the shots were recycled from STI)
I love Wrath of Khan. I have my 8 year old cousin yelling: “Khhhaaannn!” whenever she doesn’t get her way.
Get it on video, post it to youtube, and you win teh intertubes!
Yeah, I thought I might ruffle a few feathers with that one…
I’ll give you Nemesis, but Frontier scores points for laughs and nostalgia (though I admit I didn’t think so at the time), and the only thing wrong with Insurrection was that it should’ve been an ep rather than a movie–not grand enough for the big screen.
Generations killed both Kirk and the Enterprise (saddling poor Deanna with the responsibility) and made Picard look wussy by comparison. It used recycled DS9 music themes, and it followed too hard on the Next Gen finale’s heels. We hadn’t even had time to miss it.
What does God need with a starship?
Until they make Star Trek: The Animated Series: The Motion Picture,
I vote Khaaaaaan!
But that vote probably won’t count once I admit that…
(may as well burn my Geek Card before it’s ripped from my hands)
…I stopped going to see the Trek films after IV.
I remember being turned off V when my friend said something about anti-grav flying boots on the begirdled Kirk, and hearing that Kirk and Spock were going to sing camp songs.
And once I lost continuity, I never went back.
I’m actually surprised at the number I’ve missed.
Guess it’s about time to play catch-up, cuz I know I’m gonna make sure to check out JJ’s new one on DVD. (I have a 1-year-old. I don’t get out)
My wife’s a big Next Gen fan, so we’re watching the episodes with the kids… Over the weekend there was the episode where Data meets his father, and Lore shows up and I was thinking how much I’d like to get some resolution on the Data sacrifices himself, and his new retarded brother shows up thing from the last movie.
— Dismal sighs
“Doctor gave me a new kidney!”
"Well, a double dumb ass on you. "
You’re right some of the best line were all in this one.
As much as I love II and First Contact, I voted for VI which is definitively my favorite (I’m happy to see I’m not the only one!). And one of the best soundtrack of the whole movie series.
The soundtrack is great! They used the opening credits music in teaser trailers for First Contact, and the Borg had never sounded so dark and scary.
VI definitely is one of the best not only Star Trek, but SciFi movies. it’s only shortcomings might be that a) they used TNG sets, and b) as it is an allegory for the fall of the Soviet Union, it might become dated eventually, or maybe it already has… whereas II has this operatic, quite Shakespearian timelessness, that clash of willpower between Kirk and Khan will be as just revelant in four hundred years as Hamlet is now.
now, wait … is that the “official” teaser for First Contact? because a) it has the Enterprise-D in it and b) what’s that NCC-31?1? ship at the end of the trailer? is that a Miranda-Class starship? (like the USS Reliant was in II?) those can’t be still around during that time period. they’re just too old.