#its also making me want to rewatch wrath of khan... but i feel like watching that will make into darkness look...

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

It sucks when I'm hyperfixated on something but I have no (legal) way to watch the source material

[star-trek-dumb-comics]

Ranking every Star Trek movies (except Nemesis cause I haven’t watched it yet) bc I need an excuse to procrastinate school work :

12 : Insurrection

This is by far the most BORING star trek film. I literally dosed of at some point while watching it. It feels super cheap, and the plot is recycled from a mix of three tng episodes - only in the movie it doesn’t make any sense. Everyone seems to have forgotten there is a war going on ? Honestly this movie doesn't even deserve to be hated. Its just uninteresting as fuck and imo that’s the worst Star Trek gets.  (Also i learned that apparently at first we were supposed to get a Dominion war themed movie instead of this ? Bitch we were robbed !)

11 : Into Darkness

Unlike insurrection, this movie is not boring. But it makes me angry. I’d love to rant about everything that bothers me in this film but I don’t have time for it. Let’s just say it’s like JJ wiped his ass with a Wrath of Khan dvd, and also nothing makes sense again ? At the end they literally cured death and found a way to travel anywhere in the galaxy instantaneously. This is the highest grossing Trek movie of all time ? wild

10 : Generations

There is a nice TNG episode with a cool Data character arc stuck in there. Unfortunately this was advertised as “Picard and Kirk meet - the movie” and that part was the most underwhelming thing ever. And Do NOT let me get started on Kirk’s death. I’m just trying to pretend this movie doesn't exist and Undiscovered Country was the last we saw of him  

9 : The Final Frontier

What can I say about this movie that hasn’t been said. People like to say its the worst star trek movie and, while it’s true that it’s definitely not good, it’s also entertaining and rewatchable. A good chunk is “so bad its good”, and there are some cool character moments here and there. I was actually going to put it above the 2009 reboot movie but I remembered the uhura fan dance scene so.. no. (Also cursed anecdote : a few month ago I wanted to introduce ST to my brother so I made him watch the tos movies - and this one is now his favourite. Uh.)

8 : 2009 reboot movie

Idk, it’s hard to hate on this movie since it was my introduction to star trek. The soundtrack is also rad as fuck. But it doesnt hold up to being rewatched after watching tos. Everyone is ooc, except Mccoy who’s awesome but not in the movie that much (LOVE his introduction scene tho). I hate JJ’s constant rapid cuts, and the abuse of lens flares and dutch angles. Also Spock/Uhura ??why??????? This is a movie for the cool kids, and that’s not what star trek is !!! star trek is for losers who get bullied at school !! 

7 : Beyond

The best film of the reboot trilogy. This is an okey movie. Idk, its fun, and the characters are way more.. Well... In-character compared to the previous ones. There were spones moments too ! But the plot surrounding the villain -again- doesn't make any sense, and it still feels a bit to action-movie-y. 

6 : The Motion Picture

I like this movie. Yeah I know it has a lot of stupidly long shots, bit it’s still good. I like the plot (it was better exploited in the book adaptation tho). The refitted Entreprise exterior design just looks awesome. Hate the uniforms with a burning passion tho

5 : First Contact

I already talked about what I think of this movie here, so Ill make it bref. I really didn’t like the borg stuff, especially the queen. But everything around Cochrane and actual first contact was awesome. All in all this movie is great, but overrated

4 : Search For Spock

Very cool movie, but poorly paced. Very gay. Plenty of awesome moments like Bones/spock fusion, stealing the enterprise, the enterprise’s destruction (literally made my cry the first time I saw the movie)... Saavik recast was big brain, the actress was very good

3,2,1 : Voyage home, Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country

Okey I literally cannot choose between theses three. They’re all just so fucking classic. Infinite rewatchability. TUC is underrated tho ! I don’t often see it that high on people’s lists ! This movie is just the perfect conclusion to the tos era. I love everything about it, even bad CGI klingon purple blood

[superangsty]

👉🏼👈🏼 ive been fixating on spirk lately and would like to talk abt it, if you were being sincere in your tags

fsdgfh honestly when I want to talk about something it’s mostly just me SCREAMING bc that SCENE man that SCENE. Like, the rest of STID is garbage especially when they brought Kirk back with Khan’s blood like what was that??? Why did they do that?? Also I feel like the first two films of AOS are really missing the whole crew being like a family and made it instead about a bunch of beautiful straight people having awkwardly written personal issues.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: required reading is of course Henry Jenkin's thing about The Glass. I tend to assume everyone has read it but if you haven't. Get on that. Here it is:

When I try to explain slash to non-fans, I often reference that moment in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan where Spock is dying and Kirk stands there, a wall of glass separating the two longtime buddies. Both of them are reaching out towards each other, their hands pressed hard against the glass, trying to establish physical contact. They both have so much they want to say and so little time to say it. Spock calls Kirk his friend, the fullest expression of their feelings anywhere in the series. Almost everyone who watches the scene feels the passion the two men share, the hunger for something more than what they are allowed. And, I tell my nonfan listeners, slash is what happens when you take away the glass.

Anyway all I'm saying is that no matter what JJ Abrams thinks he CAN'T recreate WoK because he doesn't UNDERSTAND WoK at the necessary level.

But with regards to STID so like okay at a very basic level you've got two things which are 1) Spock having Big Feelings and 2) the knowledge that Vulcans kiss with their hands and these two things on their own were enough to make 14 year old me watching it in the cinema for the first time feel ABSOLUTELY INSANE like for real I've been chasing that high ever since. And when Spock starts screaming? That's the Good Shit. 

Also sidenote there's this theme park nearby (ish) called Thorpe Park and I went there on school trips a couple of times and there's a ride there called Rumba Rapids and the music they play in the queue is really not relevant but its fun and when I was 16 I suggested to my friends how much funnier films would be if it was playing during sad scenes so one time we watched STID and when we got to this scene we turned the volume down low and the rumba rapids music up high. Not relevant to this post, but I just Unlocked that memory while I was thinking about this and I wanted to share.

Just gonna preface this by saying that Spock's death in WoK is obviously a lot more compelling than Kirk's in STID because in AOS JJ Abrams has this obsession with making Kirk the big hero who's so amazing and brilliant and is carrying the entire world on his shoulders so of Course he would give up his life to save the ship (and when you think of the parallels w his father doing the same it becomes even more about him trying to live up to his father's reputation and idk! I feel like it cheapens the sentiment!). Meanwhile the original films they'd moved past TOS's kirk-centric vibe and it was about the crew working together bc they're a family and it's about Spock! Who'd run away to try and escape all these feelings that had come from the enterprise! And it's like yes he can explain his decision with the 'needs of the many' logic but at the end of the day he is doing this to save the people he loves and EVERYONE knows it.

One thing I will say in STID's favour is that the lead-up to this scene with the repetition of the "Better get down here. Better hurry." line from WoK is excellent mostly because Quinto is a much better actor than Shatner and you can see how INSTANTLY he understands it's to do w Kirk as opposed to Shatner looking over at Spock's empty chair and being like huh. Wots all this then. Also I like the way Quinto Spock runs I think it's funny :)

The next part when Scotty's like blah blah decontamination whatever after Spock asks him to open the door like sure okay I can get behind Spock being so overwhelmed that his common sense flies out the window but what I DON’T like is that it's only them down there. Where is the Drama of the entire engineering department watching Kirk have a meltdown over his best friend dying? Where's Kirk needing to be held back by three people because he's so desperate to get to Spock? Where's Scotty saying 'he's dead already' and the life just DRAINING out of Kirk? In STID it's just like "open the door." "can't do that." "yeah okay whatever."

NEXT BIT: Their dying conversation. In WoK Kirk and Spock have known each other most of their lives. They don't need to say much bc they just Understand each otherand you see that! When Kirk is finishing Spock's sentence and when Spock says "I have been and always shall be your friend" which seems a lot more meaningful than STID Kirk and Spock going "I want you to know why I went back for you" "Because you are my friend" and yeah it still HURTS but it's like. They don't have the history they don't have that enduring kinda love they just have a couple of years of being vaguely passive aggressive towards each other and it's still nice for Spock to realise like oh this is friends! This is a friendship! But Kirk's death just doesn't seem as tragic!!!

That being said. There ARE some raw lines there like "I'm scared Spock. Help me not to be. How do you choose not to feel?" "I do not know. Right now I am failing." Like that's IT that's the GOOD SHIT it's been nearly 8 years and I still think about it all the time. And again I can't say much for Chris Pine but Zachary Quinto's acting is MILES ahead of Shatner's and the crying! Spock crying! It's So Much!!!!!!!! And I like the music. I like the long shot of their hands meeting between the glass. It's very cinematic which while missing the campiness of WoK has it's own charm.

I like in WoK when Spock dies and Kirk slumps like he's lost every last bit of energy he had, like he's dying too, however I ALSO very much like in STID when Spock just fucking. Screams. And then goes and runs on a train and beats up Benedict Cumberbatch. I feel like it's fitting that Kirk dying kinda untethers him and lets him just absolutely lose his shit. I love seeing men beat each other up.

This has gone on much too long. Sorry I guess it just turns out I have Thoughts and this is probably barely skimming the surface but it's 9am on a Thursday and I have class in an hour but I've been sitting here rewatching the scenes and typing out this rant. As I said I really don't think I have anything original to say but like. Here ya go babe

[titusmoody]

It’s the end of the first quarter of 2021. Here’s a brief review of the things I watched/played/read.

Games

Donut County- pretty charming, very easy, fairly satisfying to play. I’d recommend Untitled Goose Game over this, though.

Heaven’s Vault- If you only have room in your life for one space archaeology game, play Outer Wilds instead. However, you get to translate alien writings yourself (in a simplified game way) in this one, so I’d recommend both. 

Donkey Kong Country 3 103%- so many fun level mechanics in this one. The difficulty of finding and completing everything in the game was spot-on for me.

Donkey Kong Country 2 102%- Each level mechanic in this one is explored and used in far more interesting ways than DKC3, though I honestly had more fun with 3 this time around. This one is the “dark, edgy” one aesthetically which is extremely dumb. Also, there was a lot of guesswork involved in finding some of the hidden stuff, which I didn’t enjoy.

The Room 4- I like escape room games. This one was good. It continued 3′s trend of trying to shake up the format a little, which is fine (better here than in 3, I think) but I wouldn’t have minded if all 4 stayed exactly the same, just with new puzzles.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales- Everything about it was competent. Not only was each gameplay activity fine-tuned to feel good, but the structure of the game also kept kept you experiencing a good variety of each activity. PS5 graphics are good, too. Nothing about it really got me excited to play it, it was just a good after work unwinding thing.

Cyberpunk 2077- Exactly the opposite of Spider-Man in terms of quality consistency. There are aspects of this game that are amazing, horrible, and every step in between. However, I’ve thought about it quite a bit and will probably continue to think about it for both good and bad reasons.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair- Donkey Kong Country has better level design and controls. Well, the best levels of this were every bit as good as the best DKC levels, and maybe I’m just so familiar with DKC levels that I zone out a little during the boring bits, but had to pay attention to every moment of this game. Still, I didn’t have as much of an overall good time as the DKC games I played earlier.

Hue- Good 2D puzzle-platformer. I’m no longer surprised by these, but I still appreciate them, much in the same way as I like playing escape room games. I was under the impression for a few years that because I understood the potential of puzzle platformers, it meant I wouldn’t want to play any more of them, but that’s simply not true. I had a good time with Hue.

Shows

Gravity Falls- It’s fine. Pretty entertaining. I wish there were more low-stakes kinds of episodes, just to get more familiar with different sides of the characters. It would have made the characters and setting feel more rounded.

Cowboy Bepop- I didn’t get the hype for this show when I first watched it at 21, and now I can say that it’s simply not my kind of show. I have much more appreciation for it now than I did the first time, but it doesn’t hit me emotionally the same way that it seems to hit so many people. 

Seinfeld- It’s Seinfeld. There was precisely one episode that I had never seen before, plus confirmation that I didn’t dream the episode that’s told in backwards chunks like Memento and is set in India.

Paranoia Agent- While it was disappointing that this ended up being a more simple morality tale than every Satoshi Kon movie I’ve seen, I still enjoyed watching this a lot.

Aggretsuko- I liked the mundane, every-day storylines like a modern, more empathetic Seinfeld. Unfortunately as the show went on, there were more and more wacky situations that no one actually gets into. I might watch the upcoming season if I hear that it’s less ridiculous.

Over the Garden Wall- This was really cool and I’m glad it exists. It’s ten episodes long, which is perfect for it. I thought it was at its weakest during the more lighthearted or humorous moments--precisely the opposite of Gravity Falls. The word “classy” comes to mind to describe this show. 

Beastars- Really good when it isn’t falling into anime plot and dialog cliches. A lot of this first season is dedicated to introducing characters and the setting, which I thought was very well done. I’m curious to see what Season 2 is like.

Movies

Scott Pilgrim vs the World- It’s a fun movie to watch. It definitely makes many of the characters’ flaws seem like more fun than it probably should, but I’m more bothered by the criticism I hear that boils down to “it’s a bad movie because the characters are bad people” which I suspect is an impression you only get if you lack both empathy and media comprehension.

Big- Kinda bad. It has iconic moments that are only possible with its weird premise, but it’s just not a premise that supports an entire good movie. 

Phantom of the Opera- Way better and way worse than I remember. Has the precise right amount of horses.

Knives Out- Not really a movie I needed to watch a second time, but it sure is good.

District 9- I didn’t remember most of this movie and unfortunately I zoned out for most of this rewatch, so I still feel like I don’t know what it’s about.

From up on Poppy Hill- Not one of the top tier Ghibli movies, but still really good in a down-to-earth way that I like from Ghibli. 

Enter the Dragon- I knew to expect everything to be turned up to 11, which is good because it really is a lot. I liked it, though.

Shutter Island- I have never actually liked this kind of twist-reliant movie. I thought I would for many years, but I was always disappointed. At least now I am aware that it’s not what I’m into.

Soul- The premise is much too convoluted, but it does have an excellent moment near the end.

Onward- I liked this one a lot. Why don’t more people talk about this one? It’s definitely better than Coco, which itself was really good.

A Silent Voice- The kind of movie that reminds me that sometimes Japanese storytelling is more to my taste than Hollywood style, in that scenes can be more emotionally ambiguous. 

Tangled- Good in exactly the same way as Frozen and Moana. I can’t really complain, but this isn’t the same situation as puzzle platformers or escape rooms. In this case, I do get a little sick of being completely unsurprised. This movie was made first, so it’s only by chance that this is the one that I saw last.

Monsters University- A good movie, but it really doesn’t have to be about the same characters as Monsters Inc. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail- Still funny

The Departed- Good if you want an enjoyable crime thriller to watch, bad if you want a Scorcese movie.

Titanic- Getting very drunk and watching this with Brittany might be the best time I had in the past three months. Maybe I won’t think too hard about why a movie about the overdue, violent death of a social order resonates with me right now.

Prince of Egypt- Impressive and grand, but I didn’t really care about the characters or story.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan- A good but not great (by TNG standards) concept for an episode that was made extremely enjoyable by the added budget and longer runtime of a movie.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock- Not as good, but still watchable.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home- The kind of ridiculous concept you’d only make when you’ve already had three successful movies and are confident that you’ll be able to make at least another couple. The gang go back to the 1980s (present day to the original audience) and save the whales. It’s apparently exactly the right movie to watch if this is the third consecutive Star Trek movie you’re watching.

Mamma Mia- A lot of fun, but has weird problems that seem like they would’ve been easy to solve at the script level. Maybe if the conflicts had been introduced early on instead of dragging the whole pace of the movie down for much of the last 20 minutes, I would’ve enjoyed the whole thing.

Books

The Well of Ascension- The second book of a trilogy. Very competent. Introduces a whole lot of minor conflicts that really keep the momentum going and give the characters short-term goals that contribute to the overall plot and their arcs. 

The Hero of Ages- The final book in the same trilogy. Equally competent. I wish there had been more long-term payoffs, which is the trade-off you make by stuffing the books full of those short-term conflicts. Spoilers ahead, but not ones that I think ruin the experience of reading. It’s very odd that of three of the central characters, one dies, one becomes a god and then dies, and one becomes God. 

Check Please- About as pleasant as it gets. Full of the type of minor character that sitcoms end up running into the ground because they’re too one-note (Creed from The Office, for instance) but in a series with a pre-planned length, there’s no chance for it to get stale. Plus, I really liked both of the lead characters.

Milkman- Good book about “The Troubles” in Ireland. Very odd collection of characters, but the narrator had an extremely enjoyable voice to read. 

And Then There Were None- Classic mystery story for a reason. Feels more like a Hitchcock movie than Sherlock Holmes. I read it in one day both because the prose was easy and I wanted to know what happened next. Not much substance to it, unfortunately.

Homegoing- Extremely ambitous book where each chapter is narrated by the descendant of a previous chapter, alternating between two branches of the same family. I liked it quite a bit, though because I only finished it yesterday I don’t have much reflection done yet so my opinion has yet to solidify.

[nonbinaryhatboxghost]

Okay, today has been a quiet Saturday morning so far, I have some time, and I like lists. So here is my random (personal) ranking of Star Trek series and movies, out of what I’ve seen, which is everything but seasons 5-7 of Voyager, all of Enterprise, and all of Picard. I’m only counting shows with three or more seasons because it’s easier. But let the record show that I love Lower Decks so far and The Animated Series is actually a blast.

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

Series Ranking

The Original Series - As influential of a show as it is, I constantly forget how much damn fun the original Trek is. There is an almost Community-like variance in tone and genre throughout the show. And I’m a sucker for a future that embraces primary colors. It is the Trek show I revisit the most so far, and it remains my favorite.

Deep Space Nine - This one comes close, though. It starts out as a solid spinoff with very well-defined characters, and then becomes a big, sprawling epic that had my eyes welling up by the end. It feels more like a sequel to The Original Series than The Next Generation did to me. It dealt with subject matter both different and darker than was expected for the time. It had characters at odds with each other. Religion was explored in a way that balanced brutal honesty with genuine respect. War and the various traumas it induces were acknowledged. And it had “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”. I only finished this one recently but I look forward to watching it again.

Discovery - I was rooting for this show to be good even as it went through so much behind-the-scenes drama during its first two seasons. Even with all of that going on, the show became a fascinating watch as you saw it change from its arguably-too-dark beginnings as a prequel, to the almost Doctor Who-like second season with its joyful embracing of classic Trek, and finally to its current iteration that at long last gives us a Trek show that’s not bound by prequel limitations. Michael Burnham is such a great character and getting to see her arc alone makes this one of my favorite Trek stories. The queer/nonbinary representation also warms my heart.

Voyager - I’m just starting the fifth season, but the show has settled into an interesting groove with its characters. And Voyager’s characters are so damn good that they counterbalance a lot of the show’s early problems. It takes a while for Voyager to realize that the Kazon do not work very well as villains. But once the show realizes that, it begins an upward trajectory in quality that reminds me of Deep Space Nine after it began doing Dominion plots. And Seven of Nine’s effect on the crew dynamic lives up to the hype. Any scene between her and Janeway demonstrates such a unique relationship between captain and crewmate that an episode plot can be meh and still worth it for a scene with those two. Also, Janeway is the best captain character. No other Trek show (that I’ve seen so far) comes close to showing us the weight of leadership like Voyager, and Mulgrew constantly brings it.

The Next Generation - This is my first Trek show. It’s the one that my dad watched. There are several standout episodes to me, but I find myself less drawn to revisiting TNG than the other Trek shows because ultimately it took me too long to understand and care about its cast of characters. If you were to ask me to describe any character from any other Trek show, I would be able to. Ask me to describe a TNG character and I would likely fail to give any good adjectives for any character besides Data and Worf. As iconic as the show is, and as great as it became, it doesn’t have the same pull on me as other Trek shows. But it was the template for the spinoffs that followed, and the portrayal of Picard’s trauma post-Borg assimilation earns its reputation as an all-timer for me.

Movie Ranking

VI: The Undiscovered Country - I’m surprised this one isn’t talked about as much as other Trek movies. It’s a very frank depiction of prejudices and learning to deal with them. It has one of the best Kirk/Spock scenes ever. Christopher Plummer as a Klingon. The ORIGINAL cast credits sign-off (yes, Avengers: Endgame borrowed from this). A score that carefully balances menace with eventual hope. A fun whodunit structure. I could go on and on. It’s just so damn great, and so far the only successful send-off to a Trek crew in any of the movies.

II: The Wrath of Khan - It’s a classic for a reason. I’ve probably rewatched this more than any other Trek movie. You got your great villain, your classic crew beginning to deal with their mortality, an all-timer death scene, a kickass early James Horner score. What more could you want?

The Motion Picture - This is an interesting one. When I first watched it as a teen, I hated it. I agreed with every critique of it being thinly plotted and having an excessive runtime. When I revisited it in my 20s, it became a favorite. It’s Star Trek’s exploration of existential dread, and the struggle to find agency and identity within that dread. It has possibly Jerry Goldsmith’s greatest score. It is the best that the Enterprise has ever looked. This movie envelopes you with eerie and epic imagery, culminating in a finale with interesting philosophical ramifications and a well-earned return to optimism from its crew. This one is criminally underrated.

First Contact - This one is just rock solid all around. The best-ever TNG villains, further exploration of Picard’s trauma from Borg assimilation, Alfre Woodard, Alice Krige, fun action, the genesis of the Federation. It has the best balance of darkness and fun out of all of the Trek movies. It also has a character actually say the words “star trek” in a way that never ceases to make me smile. I don’t know if it’s a good line, but it’s funny regardless.

Beyond - Like The Motion Picture, I initially disliked this upon first viewing. I was still in the middle of watching The Original Series and was in the wrong mindset for this mashup of TOS and Fast & Furious. But it’s one of the most underrated Treks because it’s a perfect balance of the more kinetic action found in the 2010s with a very well-done breakdown of the inherent point and value of Star Trek: learning to be better and move beyond fighting the same battles among ourselves.

IV: The Voyage Home - This one is such a satisfying culmination of the crew’s arc starting in The Wrath of Khan that the joy of the 1980s material is almost just a bonus to me. Nimoy does a good job of keeping things light without disregarding stakes. He gets the best portrayal of the crew’s camaraderie in this and The Search for Spock. And Spock’s reaction to the concept of “exact change” always makes me laugh.

III: The Search for Spock - I revisited this one recently and it held up better than I expected. Seeing the weight of Spock’s death on Kirk in the beginning hits hard. Christopher Lloyd as the Klingon villain is casually one of the best Trek movie villains. And seeing the crew uniting over trying to bring back Spock gives us some of the best on-screen moments of this cast.

Star Trek - One of the reasons I love Beyond so much is that it retroactively makes this one better. I was crazy for this movie when it came out. I was in high school, Star Trek in general was something I was only really aware of because of my dad. But this is the thing that got me into Trek. And as mixed of a bag as it now plays to me, ‘09 Star Trek being a gateway for me to general Trek, combined with the perfect casting of the crew, the excellent Giacchino score, and the emotion of the opening sequence, thankfully makes this one still a blast to revisit.

Nemesis - I have only seen this twice, and both of those times without having seen TNG in its entirety. This was also the very first Trek movie I ever saw. Nostalgia is a factor for why this is higher than the others on the list. Curiosity is another, as I was unaware of Tom Hardy when I watched this, and have no idea what my opinion will be on rewatch. But what I always remembered of this movie was its ending, which even to a novice like myself when I first saw it had an impact.

Generations - There are quite a few great scenes that Stewart gets in this movie. Malcolm McDowell is also great in it. But the whole plot feels too forced for me to get actually swept up in it. And as fun as it is to see Shatner and Stewart share the screen... it ultimately has no impact and leads to a strangely lame death for Kirk.

Insurrection - The idea of Enterprise going rogue against the Federation for forcibly relocating a population for a natural resource is such a good concept... which makes the goofiness and half-baked writing of this entry all the more confusing. All the elements are there, but it feels like the tone was forced to be lighter than the material warranted. It’s frustrating because Frakes’ directing chops that he showed off on First Contact are still visible here. But for whatever reason, this one just falls apart.

Into Darkness - This one is low on the list mainly because it represents almost all the negative traits of the modern blockbuster to me. Darkness without depth, franchise callbacks without substance, and no character development/change by the end. Another reason why Beyond works better as a sequel to ‘09 Star Trek than this one is that Into Darkness feels more like it’s trying to make Star Trek a bigger movie franchise rather than develop this iteration of the Enterprise crew. Nothing and no one is changed by the end of this story.

V: The Final Frontier - It is the most difficult Trek movie to sit through, and yet I can’t call it a disaster. For all of its misfirings on the comedy front (dancing Uhura, for instance), the camping material with Kirk, Spock and McCoy is genuinely great. The premise of its villain being on a quest to find God is ultimately a misfire, but it leads to a very engagingly ridiculous climax centered around the question “What does God need with a starship?” There are far too many undeveloped ideas in this one, but that scene is worth seeing this movie for. At least, now that we know it didn’t kill the franchise, as so many apparently feared when this came out.