To Boldly Film What No Man Has Filmed Before

Once upon a time a little TV show came and went within three seasons, and that was the end of that. It was on its death bed after two seasons, but the passionate fandom put it on life support for one more season. Life support it was, as it gasped through the whole third season with mostly inferior episodes. A cartoon version came and went, and Star Trek sunk into the same oblivion as other long-ago popular science fiction series like Flash Gordon.

Except it didn’t. Reruns abounded, and the fan base grew and grew and became more and more deserving of the label fans—short for fanatics. Like a hydra head, it refused to die, but sprang up into more and more conventions.

Then Star Wars happened, and the thickheaded suits in power, whoever they might be, got it through their skulls that maybe there was still some life left in that silly old show from the ’60s. So they made a movie.

1. Star Trek the Motion Picture

Star Trek fans swore they died and went to heaven when they learned a movie was coming out. Perhaps some of them thought they’d walk out of the theater and witness the Second Coming of Jesus before they got to their car, it was that transcendent an event in their lives.

(I keep saying “they,” when I should say “we.”)

Then we watched it and witnessed the birth of a new curse: the curse of the odd-numbered movies. We didn’t know it was a curse at the time because we didn’t know if there’d be any other movies. And frankly, it was debatable that it even deserved a sequel.

It turned out to be a glorified TV episode—literally a rip-off of an actual episode: “The Changeling” starring the robot Nomad. “Sterilize. Ster-i-lize!” It was a visual effects bonanza because the budget was finally there to go nutso over it—and nothing more. No warmth, no humanity, no Star Trek soul. And no freaking plot. Endless masturbatory cool images that meant nothing.

We (meaning I) tried to convince ourselves we loved it, and it was sure fun to see the old gang back together again and a way cooler Enterprise than the TV budget allowed. And those Klingons—oh my goodness!—were really aliens now. The movie justifies its existence for the creation of the cool Klingon theme song alone.

But if this was all Star Trek would be, it was truly dead. Just a brief couple-hour reanimated corpse that collapsed under its own weight.

2. Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

Fortunately the fans, bless their hearts (our hearts?), supported the lifeless first movie anyway, enough to show Star Trek could rake in the money after all, and a second film was greenlit. This one was the true rebirth of the soul of Star Trek, not just a mindless reanimated golem. Of course they had to rip off yet another TV episode to do it: “Space Seed” with “Kha-a-a-a-a-a-a-an!” Nunien Singh. (What’s with these Star Trek creative folk, that they can’t come up with un-derivative plots?)

But we can forgive them this time because this film went back to the wonderful Gene Rodenberry storytelling that made Star Trek great to begin with. Action, character interplay, drama. We felt like we’d finally come home. This wasn’t a 19th century wind-up automaton. This was a true divine resurrection.

It was the biggest and the best Star Trek yet, with a Shakespearean or Greek-tragedy-level mythical contest between Kirk and Khan. It was Jean Valjean vs. Javert. It was Julius Caesar vs. Pompey. It was Judah Ben-Hur vs. Messala.

It was epic.

And that death scene! One of the most moving death scenes in cinematic history because of the huge emotional investment we all had in Spock by that time. Wrath of Khan guaranteed that more Star Trek would be on its way, finishing up with that titillating little Spock hint near the end: “Remember.”

3. Star Trek: The Search for Spock

Talk about a spoiler in the title! We crossed our fingers and hoped and prayed that maybe that suggestive hint at the end of the second movie might mean Spock wasn’t gone forever. Then Paramount suddenly blurted, “Yep! Spock’s coming back!” with that title, before we even had a chance to watch a single frame of the film. It was like telling us what we got for Christmas before we could open the package.

That was only the beginning of the disappointment. This is the film where the curse of the odd-numbered films really begins to manifest itself. First of all, we lost Lieutenant Saavik to an adorable but inadequate pod-people replacement when Kirstie Alley didn’t come back. Second of all, we got Reverend Jim Ignatowski from Taxi/Doc Brown from Back to the Future trying to pretend he was a scary Klingon. Now I love Christopher Lloyd as much as the next guy, but come on! Is this a joke?

These things could be overlooked if the story were compelling, but it wasn’t. It was pedestrian, even cockamamie, and a real letdown after the thrill ride of Khan. Sure, it was great to get Spock back, but let’s face it, that pretty much deflated the power of his death scene in #2, and from here on out no Star Trek death scene can ever be taken seriously again. Kirk did lose his only son, but even that was superficial in its impact because the poor fellow was a two-movie flash-in-the-pan. We never got a chance to invest in him and Kirk’s feelings toward him, so Kirk’s grief rang hollow and forced. The movie didn’t earn that moment.

The best thing about the film was the incomparable James Horner’s score.

Now we fans are getting nervous. Was Khan just a fluke? Do we dare hope for future great Star Trek?

4. Star Trek: The Voyage Home

A critical concept in storytelling is to follow an intense, sad, or disturbing scene with comic relief. Perhaps that’s what the Star Trek team was thinking when they came up with the story for #4. We needed some comic relief after the devastation of a crappy #3.

Everybody loves The Voyage Home. For many, it’s their favorite Star Trek film. The reason why can be summed up in one word: hilarity! It truly was a comic-relief change of pace. That’s nothing new to Star Trek. There were several comic episodes in the original series, probably the most popular being “The Trouble with Tribbles.”

So, you bet, everybody loved it, because, like Uncle Albert, everybody loves to laugh. (Now if we could just finagle tea parties on the ceiling.) But!

As a science fiction story, it was appalling. Sloppy. Aggravating. The whole plot was based on an astonishingly absurd premise. A bunch of aliens come to Earth in giant lipstick tubes to commune with whales. All. The. Way. Across. Vast. Interstellar. Space. Because suddenly the whales stopped communicating with them (what the hell?) and they wanted to come see what happened.

So when they come and find out there are no whales left, those aliens just up and decide to commit genocide on all of Earth. Therefore Kirk and company have to go back in time and grab some whales and bring them back. (“Captain, thar be whales!”)

Which begs the question, if it was that easy, why doesn’t the Federation establish a program of going back and collecting all the species man drove to extinction? Why does it take an alien genocide to motivate them?

Once back, the whales sing their song, and the aliens say, “Okay, we’re good,” and take off, never to be seen again. We don’t see them, we don’t learn who they are, we don’t find out why it was so confounded important for them to communicate with, of all the species in the galaxy, terrestrial whales, to the point where they’re willing to wipe out an entire planet.

What the hell?

Nobody else but me seems to care about the utter silliness of the plot. I guess that’s the power of comedy. But as a science fiction storyteller myself, I know they could have come up with a coherent premise if they’d just put a little effort into it. Knowing that, I cannot look upon #4 with an uncritical eye. Yeah, I enjoy watching it, but the best one? My favorite? Not a chance! Not when its plot rises to a level of stupidity worthy of an episode of Lost In Space.

5. Star Trek: The Final Frontier

The ugly duckling of the family. The one everyone loves to hate on. The continuation of the odd-numbered curse.

Ironically, it’s also the opposite side of the coin to #4. Everyone hates it, but I didn’t think it was that bad. Bad to be sure, but not that bad. And while everyone loves to blame poor William Shatner as director for it being bad, Bill got dealt kind of a bad hand with production issues that were not of his doing, so it wasn’t entirely his fault.

There were interesting moments. I had no problem with Sybok, the heretic Vulcan who dared to feel emotions. That was an interesting twist. I certainly had no problem with Uhura doing a fan dance. And the concept of Kirk confronting God is quite intriguing. I mean, this time it was God, not just some poser pretending to be Apollo. What on earth will Star Trek do with that?

I suppose it was a bit cliche and a bit inevitable to have God end up being a deceitful alien. But it was still fun to watch the confrontation and the reveal, especially with McCoy being the faithful believer foil.

But most intriguing was the backstories of our beloved characters. It’s still a haunting  image to me to watch McCoy morally agonize over what to do with his suffering father, enhanced even more when the day came I had to watch my own father die in a dragged out, unpleasant way.

6. Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country

The sixth and final original Star Trek film also proved to be the best and most sophisticated of the entire half dozen—although Khan sure puts in a run for its money. This is Star Trek fulfilling its potential at last with a sweeping plot addressing Events of Great Import. A mystery and a political thriller with galactic repercussions, this is Star Trek grown up.

Its profundity is enhanced with the stellar cast. In addition to the regulars we love, who are international stars in their own right, we have Christopher Plummer. We have David Warner. We have Kim Cattrall. We have Christian Slater. We have Kurtwood Smith, villain in Robocop and dad in That 70s Show. Everybody wants to be in Star Trek now.

We have a plot that explores relevant and intense issues we can relate to that reflect current events in fine Star Trek fashion, continuing in the spirit of Gene Roddenberry whom the film is dedicated to after his death. This is all we could wish from Star Trek films, all they could have and frankly should have been all along instead of extended TV episodes on steroids.

And it’s the last one focusing on the entire original crew and no one else.

It’s a bittersweet moment as the signatures of our beloved cast flash on the screen, driving home the point that this is the end of an era. There will never be another Star Trek original series production again. The franchise had an amazing run, impacting our culture, our society, our politics, even our science, as few things have done throughout history. Film #6 completed the 100% track record of the even-odd phenomenon, closing with an installment worthy of being the swan song for an entertainment franchise that became a cultural phenomenon.

Until the next…