Ranking Star Trek movies

[Vic Sage]

In honor of the 50th anniversary, here's a consensus ranking of the 13 Star Trek feature films (based on Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB), plus the various TV series:

[u:3grop4ca]Best of the lot:[/u:3grop4ca]
STAR TREK (09) - JJ Abrams hugely successful reboot is best reviewed film in the series (by both critics and fans); rescued the franchise
ST: FIRST CONTACT [VIII] (96) - The best (and only good) one of the NEXT GEN movies
ST II: WRATH OF KHAN (82) - Best of The Original Series movies; Nick Meyers brought the franchise back after the disaster that was the first movie
-[TV] TOS - sure, it looks cheesy and overacted now, but it clearly resonated in the culture at the time and, without it, none of the rest happens
-[TV] TNG - a sequel that took the series forward, with better FX, acting and writing

[u:3grop4ca]Good, too:[/u:3grop4ca]
ST INTO DARKNESS (13) - Cumberbatch is great as Khan in the reboot's 1st sequel
ST IV: VOYAGE HOME (86) - Comedy, time travel and environmentalism in fan fave from TOS cast
ST BEYOND (16) - Most recent sequel; another solid chapter
ST VI: UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (91) - Last of TOS movies, with Christopher Plummer terrific as Klingon big baddie
-[TV] DS9 - a different direction; the most philosophically interesting of all the series

[u:3grop4ca]Marginal, but watchable:[/u:3grop4ca]
ST III: RETURN OF SPOCK (84) - was there ever any doubt?
ST: INSURRECTION [iX] (98) - Would have been a decent TNG TV episode
ST: GENERATIONS [VII] (94) - uneven passing of the torch from the TOS cast to TNG cast; broke the odd/even pattern of bad/good movies
-[TV] VOYAGER - Ok, but uneven

[u:3grop4ca]A pox on all their houses:[/u:3grop4ca]
ST, The MOTION PICTURE (79) - After all the years of waiting, the first one was an epic disappointment
ST: NEMESIS [X] (02) - antithesis of ST; the last TNG movie that (along with dreadful ENTERPRISE tv series) sank franchise until JJ rebooted it
ST V: FINAL FRONTIER (89) - Shatner's infamous turkey, he recently apologized for it
-[TV] ANIMATED SERIES - good writing ruined by awful animation
-[TV] ENTERPRISE - there was absolutely nothing worth watching here

Edited September 8, 2016 by Guest

[smg58]

For all the complaints about ST V, I thought it was better than the first one and a lot better than Nemesis.

I still haven't seen the last two reboots (which has a lot more to do with fatherhood than any gripes about the direction of the franchise). The first one was visually cool but kind of dopey script-wise.

The Search for Spock and Insurrection are both underrated. First Contact is overrated -- once you ask why the Borg can't just keep sending probes back in time until one succeeds, the plot crumbles.

And any real list would have to put Galaxy Quest near the top.

Edited September 9, 2016 by Guest

[nymr83]

ENTERPRISE - there was absolutely nothing worth watching here

I think that is true of 3 of the 4 seasons, but the 3rd season was good.

[smg58]

I really liked the first season of Enterprise, but thought it nosedived from there.

The one thing about the original series that I would add was that there was something about the interaction between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy that few shows of any genre have been able to duplicate.

[metsmarathon]

i was surprised that we didn't have a thread for ST Beyond on here...

there's a big dropoff from undiscovered country to the search for spock. it's almost as if you should insert a blank tier in there.

[Fman99]

I liked 'Generations," personally. I thought it was a good bridge from the TOS cast to the TNG. Plus Malcomb McDowell.

[Edgy MD]

You can't find a Sweet song you can tolerate but you like Generations?

[Lefty Specialist]

Fman99 wrote: I liked 'Generations," personally. I thought it was a good bridge from the TOS cast to the TNG. Plus Malcomb McDowell.

Ditto on Generations. The interaction between Kirk and Picard is geek heaven, and played out exactly the way it should have.

[Vic Sage]

My ranking of GENERATIONS was, as i said, my understanding of the critical consensus about the film, but my personal ranking would put it ahead of ST III and INSURRECTION. Still, I'd keep it in the 3rd tier. It has some great nerdgastic moments, but some awful ones too. It's a very inconsistent movie.

[Elster88]

Vic I want to have your babies.

[Vic Sage]

send me a photo.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

The Final Frontier and Generations both were good for about 2/3's of the movie but flopped at the end, both setting themselves up to fail by promising to depict something that would never be as good as the audience imagined it (God and Kirk/Picard working together, respectively).

[nymr83]

Eddie Murphy almost starred in Star Trek IV per a bunch of random internet stories like this one:

http://movieweb.com/star-trek-4-voyage-home-eddie-murphy-character-details/

is this new information, unreliable bullshit, or something that has somehow escaped my attention all along?

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Not new, I've heard about this for a long time. The story I'd heard before is that Paramount decided that it would be better to not have their two cash cows together in the same movie.

[Edgy MD]

I always figured he was the original marine biologist, as that was the only large part besides the regular Enterprise (or in this case, Bounty) crew. But it makes sense that the marine biologist character was written in to replace a different character that was written for Eddie.

[Lefty Specialist]

Not seeing Eddie as a Kirk love interest. That'd be, you know, weird. Sulu's love interest, maybe.