The Even Numbered Star Trek Movies

Until the 2002 film Star Trek Nemesis, the tenth film in the film franchise that spans more than two decades so far, Trek fans recommending films to the uninitiated had a simple rubric to follow: the even-numbered films were better than their odd-numbered counterparts. Nemesis had the privilege of breaking this rule in spectacular fashion, and in a previous article I examined the odd-numbered films and their shortcomings, but it's easy to criticize poor filmmaking; it's much harder to cast a critical eye on films that we love and whose imperfections are often hidden. Let's take a stab, anyhow.

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982)

If someone says to you, "they went Wrath of Khan on it", he or she means that something was done better than the original. In this case, a bunch of producers and directors who had never watched Star Trek before made a better Star Trek film than the series' creator, Gene Roddenberry--how's that for ironic? Whereas Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) had been a slow-paced special-effects masterpiece with a solid beginning and end that was utterly ruined by a derivative plot and horrible middle section, The Wrath of Khan was cheaper, occasionally tackier, but much truer to the soul of the series. There's a compelling villain, strong character interaction, witty dialogue, a tense climax, and a fitting ending. Whether The Wrath of Khan is the best Star Trek film is a matter of debate, but there's no denying that it saved Star Trek from possible oblivion and made sure that there would actually be a Star Trek III, let alone another eight films (and counting).

That said, there are minor nitpicks. For Trek fans, a serious and glaring fault with the entire film was that the former USS Enterprise crewmember Chekov somehow recognized the villain Khan, and vice versa, despite the fact that Chekov didn't join the crew of the Enterprise until after the television episode "Space Seed", in which Khan was introduced. The slim budget ($11 million, or almost 1/5th of The Motion Picture's) meant that some of the effects were rather poor and seem a bit dated. The film also started the grand Star Trek tradition of recycling effects and footage from previous movies, not to mention props and models. While Star Trek II is perhaps the greatest example of what the series has to offer, it also shows the series' core weaknesses throughout its lifespan; relatively tawdry production values, something Star Wars has always trumped Star Trek with. (Perhaps the new Star Trek film, with its ridiculous budget of $150 million for a Star Trek movie, will change that perception.)

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1986)

The death of Spock in The Wrath of Khan started a story arc which continued to Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and ended with The Voyage Home. Returning to Earth to face charges for stealing the USS Enterprise to rescue a rejuvenated Spock (and blowing the ship up in orbit), the crew finds that Earth is being destroyed by an inscrutable alien probe. Spock realizes that the probe is sending a signal to humpback whales, which are extinct in the 23rd century. Thus, the crew takes their rickety Klingon ship around the sun and back in time to save the future.

Star Trek IV is known to fans as "the one with the whales", but it's also known as the most accessible to non-Trek fans. There's really no villain (unless you count the whalers); rather, stepping away from the action of The Wrath of Khan and the mysticism of The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home is a light-hearted and humorous romp. We see the crew bumble around San Francisco circa the 1980s, confused by "exact change" and punk rockers. It's a simplisticly-themed movie, to be sure, but a highly entertaining one as well.

The biggest flaw with The Voyage Home is its music. Whereas Jerry Goldsmith got his big break with Star Trek II and expanded his themes in scoring Star Trek III, The Voyage Home's music was written by Leonard Rosenman, whose score sounds laughably un-Star Trek and pedestrian. There's no spark and no originality at all to the score; it sounds like any generic movie you've watched before. The irony here is that it's one of the few Star Trek films to be nominated for an Oscar in the best score category. There's also the fact that at some times, the film seems a bit too light-hearted for its own good; only the emerging humanity of Spock helps give the film real emotional grounding.

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991)

Nicholas Meyer, the director of Star Trek II, returned to co-write and direct the final film featuring the original television series cast. Conceived as a story about what would happen if the Berlin Wall came down in space (the Cold War was coming to a close at the time) and how the stand-ins for the Soviets (the Klingons) would make peace with their longtime enemies, the film is part mystery, part prison movie, and part political allegory. Overall, it was a fitting final voyage for the crew of the Enterprise-A.

There's several issues with The Undiscovered Country, in that it juggles many threads and doesn't manage to support them all fully. The mystery element works well, but is resolved too quickly, and feels like a rushed revelation rather than careful deduction. The prison element, where Kirk and Leonard McCoy are sent to a gulag for allegedly assassinating the Klingon ambassador, occasionally becomes overbearing. It would have been better to spend more time on the Enterprise as the crew tries to exonerate their captain rather than constantly cut back and forth from planet to space. Meanwhile, the whole mystery occasionally dragged down the allegorical part of the film; the important and central question of what happens to old men who suddenly have no enemy to fight is unfortunately not given enough screentime. The expanded Director's Cut of the film adds footage which helps reduce the last criticism, but does not remove it entirely.

The main reason for these faults, I believe, is a simple lack of time. The film went into production in February 1991, but had to be released by the end of the year--the 25th anniversary of Star Trek. This time constraint resulted in much less time than Meyer had for Star Trek II, and I think it shows.

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996)

The second film to feature the cast of the 1987-1994 series Star Trek: The Next Generation, First Contact was the first to be any real good. The crew of the Enterprise goes back in time to stop a race of assimilating machines known as the Borg from conquering Earth by altering history. The Borg were given a movie makeover for their silver screen appearance, and are much more terrifying than they ever were on television. For whatever reason, time travel seems to result in great Star Trek, and going back to the roots of where Star Trek begins--the first faster-than-light engine test--was a satisfying way of linking the series to something bigger.

The biggest draw here is Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart. In the television show, Picard was assimilated by the Borg, and his knowledge led to the deaths of thousands of people in the Borg's first attempt at capturing Earth. While Picard was saved by his crew, his lingering mental scars from the experience were only hinted at in the rest of the series; First Contact brings these issues to the fore. This connection to the television series is one of the ways the film succeeds: it elaborates on the characters presented in the television series, but is still accessible to those who have never watched a previous episode. The film functions well as a standalone motion picture but is still able to be enriched by seven years of character development before it. Picard's irrational and near-suicidal desire to make the Borg pay for what they have done to him pays homage to Melville's Moby Dick, and the theme that self-sacrifice is more powerful than vengeance is plain to see without being overbearing.

One thing that's plain about the film is that it's much better than the earlier drafts of the script, in which the first officer Riker fought the Borg on the Enterprise while Picard sat around on Earth. There still are some difficiencies, but these are moderately minor. What is interesting, however, is that First Contact is a very un-Star Trek film. The Borg take over the Enterprise in a very standard monster-horror way, and the film turns into an action movie, albeit a more cerebral one than most. One would wonder if it would be treated the same way if it were a generic sci-fi movie rather than part of a flagship franchise.