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Dark Reality

III:TSFS and V:TFF; are fans too hard on these?

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I don't have a single topic or post to point to, but I get the overall impression from the fan base that Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier are disliked, even hated by some. I'm a fan of what I call the "Star Trek saga" which encompasses II-VI, and I don't find a weakness with either film.

 

First, Star Trek III, only because it comes first. Yes, Spock is brought back, but it fits. Genesis had to fail, and as a side result, Spock being reborn and his growth accelerated made sense. I don't think it took anything away from Star Trek II; that Kirk watched his friend die isn't changed by his return. After all, he's a Vulcan, and as Vulcans are so fond of pointing out, they're superior to humans in many ways. That they can come back from death is a little extreme, but so are all their mind powers. I don't see holding Spock's ability to return from the dead against him as making any more sense than holding his telepathic abilities against him. (Vulcans aren't telepaths in the sense Betazoids are, so far as I can tell, but it seems they at least have the ability upon contact.) We see Kirk and crew rebel against Starfleet; they steal the Enterprise, disable the Excelsior, break out of a space station... it's great.

 

Second, Star Trek V, the one people love to hate. Why? OK, the whole premise of a madman searching for God is a bit silly, but aside from that, we've got great interaction between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, from the rock climbing, the campfire, and various scenes throughout the first two thirds of the movie. The focus shifted from the friendship to the main plot, but it didn't stray far from it.

 

Like I said, I like II, III, IV, V, and VI. I can't imagine watching any of them but II on their own, and if I'm going to watch II, I'm gonna watch the others in order, after it... maybe not that day or week, but eventually. I especially look forward to II and IV, and IV is easily my favorite, but I think III is at least on par with VI. If I had to pick a least favorite, V would be the weakest link, but I don't dislike it at all. I just like the other four better for reasons that they are, in my opinion, better films.

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III:TSFS and V:TFF; are fans too hard on these?

 

Well, you don't like ENT correct? Same thing applies to other people when it comes to other Treks; they just don't measure up to the person's standard of what they believe to be good.

 

I always liked 3 & 5; back in the 80's I had Showtime activated just so I could watch III repeatedly and when V hit the theaters, I saw it too multiple times and had a blast each time.

 

Speaking of INS and NEM for a moment; deep-down my initial feelings for both these films ran along the same lines as non-fans of 3 and 5; they felt weak and disappointing. It's only by repeatedly viewing them I eventually began to discover what those films fans saw in them.

 

 

I never understood how TOS fans could slight 3 for it's 'Vulcan mysticisms' aspect; Spocks resurrection made perfect sense to me given the circumstances and expanded the Vulcan mythos in ways often hinted at in TOS but never given full wings till then.

 

Crazy Sybok also worked for me at the time* and has since been even more substantiated with the 1st season ENT episode: Fusion (check it out!)

 

*Ever since I first saw Amok Time, I began to see Vulcans weren't as perfect as Spock always seemed to suggest so 'odd' Vulcans in ST:5 & later ENT were not as far off the mark for me as they were for other fans.

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Well.... to be fair, it's better to say I didn't give ENT much of a chance, and I'm starting to see that. I downloaded "Broken Bow" (the first episode) and got bored about halfway through. Though, reading posts on here, I get the impression that the series offers plenty to like, so maybe I should have put myself through the first five episodes, and judged it on that.

 

But I see your point. I wasn't looking so much for people who generally disliked III and V, I suppose I was looking for a hard argument against them, maybe something I had missed.

 

As for the crazy Vulcan in V, that doesn't confuse me as much. Vulcans aren't machines, they're humanoids who have learned to control their emotions. Teach them differently, or don't teach them about logic and all to begin with, and they'll be just like any other humanoid, or at least so I'd think.

 

I've seen Insurrection so many times it's not funny. I worked in a store for a year and a half, and they had a VCR in the break room hooked up to a TV. Insurrection was one movie I watched over and over and over. That and Stargate. And the original Star Wars trilogy. I had all these tapes, just left them at work... but Insurrection was the one I watched the most. I'm not Native American, but the parallel between what was happening in that movie, to what happened to the Native Americans, just really worked out well for me. And I haven't seen the movie in a few years... I just might watch it again. The scene where Riker flies the Ent-E manually was just amazing... not to mention the banter between Riker and Data about Riker's chin and an android's bottom. I loved Data's character enough with TNG, but after he got that emotion chip, he just took on a whole new dimension. After one season and 5 episodes of TNG, my girlfriend already loves Data, and I want to show her the TNG movies, but I'm making her wait till season 7's over.

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I have always liked Search for Spock. To me it's the middle of a Trilogy movie arc starting with Wrath of Khan and ending with The Voyage Home. Those who overly criticize STIII are ignoring the many classic scenes in this movie including the death of Kirk's son and the destruction of the Enterprise.

 

Star Trek V is a disappointment on many levels. I think William Shatner has his strong points and his weak points. IMO his weak points overwhelmed this movie, especially his ego. His insistence on directing a movie because Nimoy had directed Star Trek movies was a major ego trip imo. Directing T.J. Hooker episodes and directing a major motion picture are two very different things. He admitted in an interview that he did not take the advice of Nimoy to shoot extra footage that he subsequently wished he had shot.

Just as often happened in TOS, he focused almost exclusively on the big three - Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Those scenes were liked by many. IMO the final campfire scene, including the Marshmelon pronunciation by Spock, and the awful Row Row Row your boat, was painful to watch. Focusing on three characters left little for Uhura, Sulu, Scotty and Chechov to do. With so little to do, the choices made for them seemed to diminish their characters imo. Examples: Sulu and Chekov get lost in the woods. The helmsman gets lost -obvious and perhaps disrespectful. Scotty crashes into a pipe and gets knocked out cold, just after saying he knows the Enterprise like the back of his hand - Very disrespectful imo to Scotty. Uhura mostly naked doing a fan dance to distract some bad guys is imo turning her into a sexual object when her role in TOS was so empowering to blacks and women - just Awful.

 

The special effects were not that great imo and special effects in a science fiction movie are crucial. I didn't care that much for the writing. The lack of real danger was annoying to me too. Oh we may die going thru the barrier!!! oh nvm we're through. Oh, God is omnipotant! He's going to kill us all!!! No, wait, torpedoes can slow him down! Very disappointing.

 

While I admit there were some interesting scenes, IMO the negative points made me view this movie as one of the least successful Trek films. I also feared that it might kill the movie franchise at the time it came out and thus felt fairly negatively toward it.

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When I first saw The Final Frontier I hated it. I couldn't believe Paramount wasted money on it. And I felt that way about it for many years. But once I sat down and really watched the film, I started finding little things throughout that I enjoyed. Today, I really like Star Trek V and think it's as good as any of the other TOS-cast films ('cept for Undiscovered Country which blew me away).....

 

Search for Spock is okay. Not great, IMO, not terrible. Just OK. I enjoyed the soundtrack, and the fight between Kirk and Kruge is one of my favorite hand-to-hand battles in sci-fi. I can think of worse films to watch on a lazy afternoon.

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Oh, while we're on about ST3:TSFS and the Kirk/Kruge fight, my girlfriend just saw TSFS this last week, and now believes that Saddam Hussein's death in "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" is taken from TSFS. She says that when Satan hurls him into the fiery pit, he says the same thing to Saddam that Kirk says to Kruge. I can't remember the exact line, but it's something like "I've had enough of you".

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Star Trek V is a disappointment on many levels. I think William Shatner has his strong points and his weak points. IMO his weak points overwhelmed this movie, especially his ego. His insistence on directing a movie because Nimoy had directed Star Trek movies was a major ego trip imo. Directing T.J. Hooker episodes and directing a major motion picture are two very different things. He admitted in an interview that he did not take the advice of Nimoy to shoot extra footage that he subsequently wished he had shot.

Just as often happened in TOS, he focused almost exclusively on the big three - Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Those scenes were liked by many. IMO the final campfire scene, including the Marshmelon pronunciation by Spock, and the awful Row Row Row your boat, was painful to watch. Focusing on three characters left little for Uhura, Sulu, Scotty and Chechov to do. With so little to do, the choices made for them seemed to diminish their characters imo. Examples: Sulu and Chekov get lost in the woods. The helmsman gets lost -obvious and perhaps disrespectful. Scotty crashes into a pipe and gets knocked out cold, just after saying he knows the Enterprise like the back of his hand - Very disrespectful imo to Scotty. Uhura mostly naked doing a fan dance to distract some bad guys is imo turning her into a sexual object when her role in TOS was so empowering to blacks and women - just Awful.

 

The special effects were not that great imo and special effects in a science fiction movie are crucial. I didn't care that much for the writing. The lack of real danger was annoying to me too. Oh we may die going thru the barrier!!! oh nvm we're through. Oh, God is omnipotant! He's going to kill us all!!! No, wait, torpedoes can slow him down! Very disappointing.

 

While I admit there were some interesting scenes, IMO the negative points made me view this movie as one of the least successful Trek films. I also feared that it might kill the movie franchise at the time it came out and thus felt fairly negatively toward it.

 

I share many of your critisisms of ST:TFF. I also have a problem with Sybok. I don't like the fact there was no mention of Sybok prior to ST:TFF (or since). Getting past that, the fact that Kirk and company had no idea Spock had a half brother isn't right. Wouldn't a half brother have at least been mentioned in his Starfleet personnel file? One scene I really don't like because it made no sense to me was the flashback to Spock's birth. It's been a while since I've seen it but from what I recall Sarek is disappointed with Spock from first sight because of his human features (something like that). God gosh, if Sarek didn't want to have a half human child, he shouldn't have procreated with a human woman. That was just dumb.

Edited by Takara_Soong

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The only TOS movie that I didn't care for was ST V, it just had a weak story. ST III was a good movie though, maybe some people didn't like it as much as ST II because II is widely considered that best of any of the Trek movies and it's hard to follow such a great movie.

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Heh... My favorite of the Kirk films is actually IV. I'm a sucker for the time travel episodes, I admit it. The one TOS episode I really know and like had to do with time travel... "The City on the Edge of Forever". Great episode, my father even had it on VHS.

 

I just re-read trekz' post about STV...good points, but... I didn't think anything of Sulu getting lost in the woods. Actually I felt that scene was extra. My girlfriend and I both laughed when Scotty hit his head. It wasn't insulting, it was funny. He was distracted... it's a very cliche comedy scene, really. As for Uhura... I was surprised by that scene, so I won't even try to defend it. But I did like the focus on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy - it was their movie.

 

I do agree that STV is the weakest link, but I enjoyed it enough. I would never say it's a bad movie, at least.

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Heh... My favorite of the Kirk films is actually IV. I'm a sucker for the time travel episodes, I admit it. The one TOS episode I really know and like had to do with time travel... "The City on the Edge of Forever". Great episode, my father even had it on VHS.

 

Then I'm surprised you didn't get more into ENT given it introduced the greatest (well it should have been) time travel arc of all time: The Temporal Cold War. Fantastic arc except for it's conclusion; I still don't understand what Nazi Guy had to do with it.

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Not in the first episode, and that's all I watched of ENT. I fully plan to give it another shot, just as soon as I get high-speed Internet back. I figure ENT ought to be quicker to get being that it's newer than DS9, Voyager, and Next Generation, and I got those easily enough. Actually it's the NX-01's exterior design, mirror episodes, and Vulcans that has me curious, but to hear there are good time-travel episodes is icing on the cake.

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But it was introduced in Broken Bow, you must have stopped watching too soon.

 

Archer eventually meets Sarin, who tells him of a Temporal Cold War in which the Suliban are being used to incite internal strife within the Klingon Empire.

 

We also see and hear a mysterious character in some sort of chamber talking back through time to Silik the Suliban.

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Indeed, I did. I did not watch the entire episode. I stopped somewhere in the first part. I don't remember it at all... just that the Vulcans were a little more condensending towards the humans. And that it didn't really impress me.

 

I think I was expecting too much of it to give it a fair chance.

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I love The Search for Spock and I tolerate The Final Frontier. Hey, it's original cast ... I'd rather sit throught TFF than Insurrection or Nemesis any day of the week and twice on Sunday!

 

I'm going to purchase Enterprise on DVD ... it's the only way to fly. Quite honestly, the show was on at a horrible time in my area ... if they had just pushed it back to 9:00 instead of 8:00 we probably would have stuck with it. Then we just lost the thread of the show and just couldn't get into it midstream. I think I'll really like it if I can sit down and watch it at my own pace and in a timeslot of my choosing.

 

I've always liked Scott Bakula.

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:( I thought you disliked ENT Gul Nodrog, good to hear otherwise. ^_^

 

I think many did the samething Dark Reality, I too had preconceptions dashed but I have allot of practice at adapting to new & different kinds of Trek.

 

Anyway sorry for going off topic... *looks at topic* Oh, I already responded.

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:( I thought you disliked ENT Gul Nodrog, good to hear otherwise. ^_^

 

I think many did the samething Dark Reality, I too had preconceptions dashed but I have allot of practice at adapting to new & different kinds of Trek.

 

Anyway sorry for going off topic... *looks at topic* Oh, I already responded.

 

No, no ... I didn't actively dislike ENT. I just had a hard time getting into it because of its premise (prequels are generally not my cup of tea) and because it was on at a terrible time of the evening around here. I'm so bad about taping shows ... I mean to, but I can never remember to do it.

 

Too many people out here like ENT for it to be all that bad. I'm certainly not militant in my opinion on ENT (unlike some who shall remain nameless in this post!). Now, I do detest that Bragga guy and Rick Berman is pretty much Satan in my book ... Satan started out good, too, remember.

 

Now I'm sure you could dig up some of my more hostile commentary on this particular subject, but anything that came out really nasty was undoubtedly prior to my first cup of joe that morning. Sorry.

 

On the original topic -- I believe that I have only seen STV:TFF once all the way through. Maybe twice. We bought TOS seasons 1-3 on DVD for Christmas and my plan is to watch those, then all six TOS movies ... this time I'll force my husband to watch TFF with me even though he always wants to skip it!

 

I'll have more to say about TFF after we've done that.

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The only TOS movie that I didn't care for was ST V, it just had a weak story. ST III was a good movie though, maybe some people didn't like it as much as ST II because II is widely considered that best of any of the Trek movies and it's hard to follow such a great movie.

 

 

I think III was treated harshly because it came after II. It had a very hard act to follow.

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ST III was not bad. Not ALL stories can be non-stop action. I think Nimoy handled Spocks' return as well as it could have been done. I LIKED Christopher Lloyd as Kruge. Very in-line with Klingon character.

Great special effects, great Klingon warship. Neat to see USS Excelsior besides always seeing constitution class ships.

 

 

ST V was Shatners' comic edge on film. It seemed like a rehash of 'The Way to eden' done on TOS.

I agree with previous Post, Sybok was never mentioned before, seemed like they quickly invented him to make the story.

 

My least fav ST film was ST IV. The 'save the whales' theme was very poor story writing. Time Travel is overdone. So many other ideas could have utilized instead of that babble.

......ST IV will never be in my Video collection.

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I never got the impression that Trek III was considered a substandard movie. I thought it was a wonderful movie. Well written and well acted.

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I love all the movies... and I mean that. However, some were better made than others in the series of 10 movies. But you know... I love them all. Like I said in a post somewhere, getting to watch Star Trek here is so rare that its like an oasis in a desert.

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Now I love 3 love the Klingon uniforms since I'm making one as we speak lol now 5 not bad not great but not bad but from what I have read it's not the movie it was made if they would have let bill do it his way MAYBE it would have been a better movie or... not LOL I love all the movies now is 6 OH MY THOSE horrible Klingon uniform what is the deal with puffy shorder pads LOL I want to pimp slap the costume person who came up with that disign made them look to soft I'm glad they didn't keep that uniform in TNG.

 

 

Brian

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