Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Star Trek: The Great Rewatching Marathon Page 14

Star Trek II: Khaaaaaaaaaaaan

Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!

Geoff: When you clicked on this article to read it, I’m positive you thought “I bet ‘Star Trek II’ is the winner.” It is because of course it is. It is, because deserves to be. This is a flat-out fantastic movie.

You learn about the characters, you like them, you care about them, you’re interested in what happens to them and what happens to the world. There’s legitimate drama and urgency. There are consequences.

Just as every ST movie wouldn’t work if they mimicked IV, it’s clear mimicking this movie doesn’t work either. It’s too bad that what Paramount took from the love and success of this movie was the battles and the villain. Sure, those are neat, but that’s more the icing on this delicious cake. If it weren't for all the character stuff, this movie wouldn’t be half as good or as interesting.

I hadn’t watched this movie in years, and watching it again on my big screen, it was better than I remember. So many clever moments. So much great writing. Such an awesome score (even if Horner did plagiarize himself severely a few years later for Aliens).

I don’t even need to oversell this one. It is as good as you remember. It’s a great introduction to the original crew and the movies as a whole. It’s the one I’ve seen the most and it always will be.

Perfection.

Rank: 1st

Carolina: It's not fair having this movie as your sequel because you get to notice even more failures in The Motion Picture. This a far superior movie in every way possible. Or better said, it's an actual movie, there's a plot! An interesting plot!

First off, it does a good job re-introducing old characters and new ones to the franchise, Ricardo Montalbán does a fantastic job as a villain. He's not a mustache twirler per se. You just understand his background and why he's so passionate about defeating Kirk.

Then we have Kirstie Alley, who you can see why her career took off after this movie. Everyone gets their little character moments and we see how they all work together. This movie really sucked me into its universe. It raises a few questions on morals and technology, the way a good sci-fi movie should do, but we don't get stuck on the philosophy because there's plenty of other things to get through. Namely, Khan!

The editing is just so nicely done. It’s understood where it needed to cut, or where should it hold on for a bit longer. The writing is superb and this director knows how to set up a scene and make the story speak for itself without trying crazy shots that sometimes ruin the moment (ahem, TMP.

What else can I say? It's emotional, thrilling, adventurous and makes you root so hard for your heroes, I could not recommend this enough.

Rank: 1st

PQ Not much of a transfer, unfortunately. Some shots detailed, many soft, often lots of grain. The dialog is rather muffled in parts. Oh well.

COMMENTS
hk2000's picture
Submitted by hk2000 on November 23, 2016 - 12:20am

You cannot lump the so-called reboot with the rest of 'em, so they are last and not necessarily 11th, 12th and 13th, but last to anything based on the original timeline upon which all of the series that followed are based.The so called parallel universe or whatever reasoning they use to change the timeline completely destroyed any chance of those movies to be legitimately considered "Star Trek' movies. So there are 10 movies, really That I would order as follows

10- The Motion Picture- I still don't get it.
9- Final frontier- The idea is ridiculous
8- Generations- A great idea that was wasted- on so many levels.
7- Nemesis- Another great poorly done.
6- The Undiscovered Country- Well made and entertaining, but I sort of agreed with the "Villains"!
5- First Contact- Using the Zefram Cochrane character from "Metamorphosis" just worked.
4- The Search for Spock- The hocus-pocus ending had to happen, I guess!
3- Insurrection- Very entertaining, and dare I say, deep.
2- The Journey Home- Lighthearted entertainment.
1- Wrath of Khan- Probably the best sequel to a TV episode ever.

I won't dignify any of the new movies by ranking them here.

mikem's picture
Submitted by mikem on November 23, 2016 - 9:54am

Only one question. Why on earth would you consciously submit yourself to such a fiasco? If you were able to sit through the worst acting performances ever, Hayden Christionsen being the worst, you are indeed a better than I 'Gunga Din.'

sleepyninja's picture
Submitted by sleepyninja on November 23, 2016 - 12:43pm

'Star Trek: Beyond' at the #2 & #4 position? Really? I found it too action-centric, and the humor, dialog, and aliens uninspired, and would place it along with the Shatner-directed 'Final Frontier' travesty near the bottom of the barrel. With that said, I'm certainly not optimisic for the next installment with Justin Lin at the helm again.

Geoffrey Morrison's picture
Submitted by Geoffrey Morrison on November 23, 2016 - 1:09pm
I think I was still suffering from a Nemesis hangover. The lighter tone was so welcome.
David Vaughn's picture
Submitted by David Vaughn on November 24, 2016 - 9:46am
Geoff, I liked it as well. It's a fun movie and I loved all of the humor.
thehun's picture
Submitted by thehun on November 28, 2016 - 1:11am

I guess I'm the only one who likes S.T. 1 despite it's obvious flaws. The long musical scenes and V'ger's exploration is a clear [to me anyway]"wink" at 2001 ASO,in style not thematically, and how Hollywood used to make "epics". Anyway I never found those scenes boring, and in retrospect it fits for the first movie, and to [re]introduce the entire ST world to larger audiences.
As for Beyond, I agree with it's detractors, that is among the worst the franchise has given us so far.

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Boldly went where no moviegoer has gone before. Your detailed setup for the marathon and the collaborative ranking process make this a fun read. I am curious which one took the bottom spot for you both.
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