The Odd Numbered Star Trek Movies

It is established doctrine to every Star Trek fan worth his or her salt that the general rule for Star Trek feature films is that odd-numbered entries are worse than their even-numbered counterparts. The generally accepted best films--1982's The Wrath of Khan, 1986's The Voyage Home, 1991's The Undiscovered Country, and 1996's First Contact--were the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth films in the series, respectively. 2005's Nemesis, however, fared poorly despite being the tenth film; fans are hoping that the eleventh film currently in production and slated for release in summer 2009 will bring back Star Trek's luster. But before looking forward, let's look back and take each Trek film one by one, and see how they missed and scored.

1. Star Trek The Motion Picture (1979)

The first Star Trek film originally grew out of the enormous cult following the canceled 60's television show developed through syndication. Initially a new television series, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry developed a story about a planet of machines sending an ancient Earth probe back to its creators. That's where the issues began; the plot was in many ways too derivative of previous Star Trek episodes, especially "The Changeling", involving a similar destructive and aware earth probe. To many people, The Motion Picture felt more like a long episode of Star Trek rather than a movie.

Another issue was the special effects. Star Wars had redefined how people saw the future, and the movie's producers changed the look of Star Trek significantly, in addition to adding several large effects sequences. These effects were top-notch, but extremely expensive; the movie's cost ballooned to over $45 million, very expensive for the time and way over-budget. The effects also slowed the pace of the film and overshadowed the characters themselves; watching parts of the film can be summed up as "very long shot of impressive ship. Interior shot of crew looking awed at what they are seeing, perhaps a line of dialogue spoken. Repeat."

All in all, Gene Roddenberry was squarely blamed for the rewrites and other costly issues in production, and following lukewarm reception (albeit fairly high box office gross), Star Trek's creator was removed from production of the film's sequel, The Wrath of Khan, which was not only cheaper, but faster-paced, better received, and a movie that saved Star Trek from oblivion.

3. The Search for Spock (1984)

Cast member Leonard Nimoy, who played the Vulcan Spock, took the director's chair from Wrath of Khan's Nicholas Meyer for the third film, following the second movie's events that had led to Spock's heroic death. As the title suggests, Spock came back from the grave, and that was part of the problem; fan expectation and Nimoy himself had prevented the character from completely leaving the universe (Meyer had wanted the end of The Wrath of Khan to leave Spock dead, but the producer Harve Bennett substantially changed the ending after poor audience reaction). It was a given that Spock would return, and thus much of the point of the movie was spoiled. While a good film, it simply could not match its predecessor; critic Roger Ebert called it "a sort of compromise" between the first two films, a good but not great Trek film.

5. The Final Frontier (1987)

The fourth Star Trek film, The Voyage Home, was also directed by Nimoy, and its light-hearted jokes and accessibility to non-Trek fans made it a great success. This time, however, leading actor William Shatner got his wish to direct for the rather disastrous Final Frontier. Much of the blame lands on Shatner's shoulders, and he deserves a bit of it; he was described as difficult to work with, and given his famed ego, it's not surprising the film occasionally spends too much time with Kirk and not with the other characters.

But Shatner can't be blamed for everything. The villain, a Spock's half-brother Sybock, is presented as not really such a bad guy after all, meaning that the movie lacks a real driving force of conflict. Humor shoehorned into the film only contributes to awkward and forced jokes that do nothing to further the plot. Shatner's original plot for the film was much darker, and the humor only further ruined the narrative; a lack of money to complete the special effects sealed the deal. This film would be considered one of, if not the worst film in the series, until the tenth film rolled along.

7. Generations (1994)

Generations ties together two eras of Star Trek: the 23rd century of the original series and first six movies, and the 24th century setting of the successful Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unfortunately, it did it rather poorly. Kirk is trapped in time after an encounter with a ribbon of energy in which resides the equivalent of nirvana. The villain is a scientist willing to kill and cheat his way back to this ideal world, but he simply isn't menacing enough, even when he's willing to kill millions for his own graticiation. Kirk is conscripted by Captain Picard to help stop the villain, and is killed saving the aforementioned millions, but the death (revised from an original scene which was not well-received), is simply not that special. It would have been better for Kirk to die in a blaze of glory, piloting the damaged Enterprise to the surface, then falling from a great height.

9. Insurrection (1998)

The second The Next Generation-only film, Insurrection is probably the closest to good an odd-numbered film has gotten. It's very much in the spirit of Star Trek (rather than the previous film, which was in many ways an action-horror movie), but once again lacks a truly compelling ending and a strong villain. An unwillingness of the producers to made the Federation bad guys (the crooked Starfleet admiral turns out to be merely misinformed) also contributes to the issue.

10. Nemesis (2002)

The only even-numbered film to truly falter, much of the issue resulted from not one critical flaw, but rather mediocre steps in every direction. The android Data is given a poor subplot which in the proper hands could serve to reinforce the main evil/good duality theme present in the film, but rather serves as a distraction from the main story thread. Add to that the gratuitous car chase scene, and the story seems to stall. Perhaps most damning is that when Data sacrifices himself to save his captain, the emotional impact is rather hollow- a far cry from the truly moving death of Spock in the first film.

So where does that leave us? If one thing can be established from the good movies, it's that using the ensemble cast of Star Trek effectively is a necessity; interchangeable jokes and one-liners do much to ruin the films they appear in. Special effects don't make the movie, the actors and the plot they are taking part in do. So here's to hoping the next Trek goes where these odd-numbered films have never gone before.