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MAY 2010

Reviewing masters and getting my parts down for "The Wedding Singer" musical at Stage West in Mississauga. My brain is full of music so I spend my spare time on a Star Trek DVD odyssey. Here, once and for all, is my first TOP TEN list of Star Trek films!


1) Wrath of Khan - The reason we still have Star Trek in the 21st century. What's amazing is the creative team had no experience with the show. Director Nick Myer walks a fine line of pushing the envelope and respecting the tradition. The cast is in top form. After the sleepy pace of the first film this thing moves like a freight train. So much so that you don't notice that the story is a bit of a garb bag of seemingly disparate ideas.. (Spock's death seems to come out of nowhere.) Tying it all together are themes of the past catching up with our heroes. (Kirks relationships, enemies, and his knack for cheating death.) Kirstie Alley is a perfect addition as Saavick, sorely missed in the following episodes.

2) The Search for Spock - While probably not a better film than 'Khan', my personal favourite. Nimoy directs and his absence in the film gives the supporting cast plenty of screen time. The story is character driven and Kirks choice of his friend over his ship and career is huge. Christopher Lloyd is brilliant (as always) as he basically invents the contemporary "next Generation" Klingon. Certain story elements don't bear close scrutiny (several plot points depend on the incompetence of peripheral characters) and Robin Curtis as the new Saavick is a rare casting misstep, but the maverick mission and the Klingon threat move things along pretty swiftly. The payoff of Spock's resurrection makes for a emotional conclusion.

3) The Voyage Home - It's success is often attributed to it's humour and easy to swallow time travel story, but the fact is this is just a great well made film. The story is clean and all the elements pay off. The actors are now comfortable in their 'movie era' characters and everyone has something to do. The message, while sometimes criticized as heavy handed, is really just an extenuation of the Wrath of Khan themes.. now Earth must deal with it's past catching up with it. The inclusion of Spock's parents grounds the film in tradition and John Shuck as the Klingon Ambassador owns the opening sequence. The chemistry between Catherine Hicks' Gillian and Shatner make the whole story work. The introduction of the Enterprise-A gives the film a powerful emotional and concise ending (not always the case in some of these films)

4) The Undiscovered Country - The last of the original cast films again directed by Nick Myer. It hits all the right marks.. a story based on a pivotal time in Star Trek history. Peace negotiations with the Klingons… mixed with a thrilling conspiracy story line to anchor it. Great casting all round. Kim Cattrel is great, but I do wonder how much better it would have played out if Kirstie Alley had come back as Saavick as planned. The supporting cast steps up and delivers performances with vigour. We even learn to love the Excelsior.

5) The Motion Picture - The first film. While it suffers from a slow deliberate pace and lack of action, I have a soft spot for this film. After the Star Trek drought of the 70's, this film was a major event. It took some time to adjust to the new designs (uniforms, the enterprise, klingons) and seems funny to think how much of this we now take for granted. One wouldn't think of a Klingon without a bumpy forehead these days but at the time it was quite controversial. In spite of it's problems, the new characters are great, the story pays off with logical (sorry) climax as we discover the probe actually originated on Earth and has simply come home. The music score is unbelievable and effects are first rate.
For sure this movie benefits the wide screen appearance. Having seen it many times, there were elements I didn't fully get until I saw the new remastered directors cut DVD.

6) The Final Frontier - Okay.. a rotten film.. but my fondness for the original cast puts this ahead of the Next Gen films. Shatner directs and the film is out of luck right out of the gate. An ambitious story about a renegade abducting the ship to find GOD sounds interesting… but difficult to execute. Especially when everyone involved loses energy and interest. At a time when the Next Generation was taking off, a better idea would have been some kind of story that ties these universes together.. as Undiscovered Country does. The story is all over the place and in some spots outright embarrassing. You can almost hear the development meetings… ("It should be funny like the last one… and there should be Klingons.. and make it funny…!") Spock has a brother… (nuff said) And the controversially terrible effects (inexcusable in 1989) don't help. Good points? The music… and the overall character development of Kirk. No longer is he defined by his command… He simply loves his job.

7) Insurrection - My favourite Next Gen film… I take some heat for this one, but I maintain that it has the cleanest, tightest story of any Star Trek film. Air tight. Ultimately it doesn't quite work commercially because a good Star Trek film must break the episodic formula and ground itself in a pivotal experience for one of the cast. (See First Contact) This film is simply a very good episode. The story reveals itself in layers.. elements from the series are used as touchstone… the chemistry between Donna Murphy and Patrick Stewart is stellar. You really think these two are falling for each other. The humour is fun without being corny and the location looks beautiful. It also has the distinction of being the ONLY Star Trek film to not have a scene anywhere on or near Earth.

8) First Contact - The most frustrating of the Star Trek movies… one that appears to be great but is really the old shell game. Most people consider this the best Next Gen movie but I find it an uneven mix of too many idea’s from a group of television writers trying to make a full length film. The Borg story is great. Picard’s Ahab like quest hiding behind his righteousness (before Lilly calls him out) and Data’s seduction. But rather than committing to this story the writers inject a thin time travel story rescuing the first warp mission. Even this would make a good story on its’ own but again the writers fear to commit. The arrogance of Berman and crew is transparent… By ‘96 they seem to feel that if they put it on screen, the audience will swallow it… The Borg Queen, a total departure of the “we are the Borg” premise, the radical presentation of TOS character Zephram Cochrane, crew clumsily stomping around in the past, rock and roll and tequila. (Scotty was the only convincing drunk on Star Trek), and the Vulcans hanging around to make first contact… (this is a whole area of debate, but I always got the impression that Earth had their act together before the Vulcan’s entered the picture. The fact that Spock as a Starfleet officer was so unusual and such an outsider on TOS supports this… whichever way you look at it, it’s a sweeping change of premise carried over to the worst elements of ENTERPRISE… but I digress…)
Should I mention that the Enterprise hovering around ignored by the Vulcans is glossed over big time, as is how they plan to get back to the future….?
What did I like..? The Enterprise - E, Every minute of Patrick Stewart’s performance, no emotion chip, Ensign Hawk, Lilly, Jerry Goldsmith’s score, and the uniforms.

9) Generations - It starts out so great, with Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise B… but maybe they should have made a movie just about this…! Again supporting characters have to be incompetent to make Kirk look good.. and the undermanned, unfit ship is a tired ST cliche…but these are the best scenes in the movie…! The Next Gen crew do their best in their movie debut but the story makes no sense and is full of holes. The emotion chip storyline is annoying and not surprisingly dropped in all following films. Picard and Kirk's meeting is frustratingly mundane and the ending is downright depressing. I mean we need a little pick me up after Kirk falling to his death and the Enterprise crashing into the ground. We don't even get to see the people they save in all this trouble. Malcom McDowell is great though!

10) Nemesis - The end of Star Trek as we knew it. A great looking film with some good ideas but… it just does not work…! John Logan is a great writer (Gladiator, the Aviator) AND Star Trek fan… maybe this combo doesn't work…!? There are too many strange loose ends.. the entire storyline of B4, Data's long lost brother is a red herring and adds nothing to the plot. Picard's clone, Shinzon, is never really clear in his motives.. peace? revenge? destroy earth? Troi? What does this guy want? Add a few stale ST cliches (ei broken transporter) and a car and you've got trouble. And then Data sacrifices his life with hardly a word or one shred of foreshadowing. A missed opportunity to show that he had finally found that human element he'd searched for for so long.

11) The New One - a bonus here. What I feared for years would be a disaster, surprised me as an energetic, thrilling reimagining of the classic Star Trek universe. The casting is great and I can't believe there's ONE (1) other person in the world who can play a Vulcan properly. (After the "Enterprise" debacle, I had my doubts) The liberties taken to get the gang together stretched credibility for me, (I was never under the impression that the crew all began working together over course of one day, or that Kirk began his day as a Stowaway straight out of school, and ended the day as Captain of a starship.) but the film overall is a lot of fun and the end justifies the means (at least it does in the better films.)

If this makes no sense to you, I apologize. If I can stop just ONE person from watching STAR TREK NEMESIS… I have done my job.
Thanks for indulging me.. Now I must check my mixes one last time before heading out to the gig!

NEW MUSIC JUNE 1!!