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Since the last several posts in the Finales thread seem to be talking about the Star Trek Movies and how they fit in with the rest of the shows, I figure maybe there's enough interest to start a whole thread discussing them. I'll start us off by briefly telling my thoughts on them.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: While certainly slower paced than most movies and with very little action at all, it actually fits in well with the themes of Star Trek (exploration and meeting the unknown) and some of the model shots are just gorgeous! Plus we get that awesome Klingon music at the beginning.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: My personal favorite of all of the Star Trek movies. Great action scenes, awesome music, one of the best villains in all of Star Trek, and interesting philosophical discussions all combine to make an amazing movie. Plus, "KHAAAAAAN!"

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Not a fan of this one, personally. The villain was great, but to me this was entirely an unworthy sequel to Wrath of Khan.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: This movie was good to me as it got into the lighter side of Star Trek, with lots of humorous moments and yet still a serious plot and high stakes for the characters.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: No, just no. The worst of the bunch IMO. It's actually very well-made though, but just SO poorly written.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Second best of the movies with the original cast, to me. Great story, a great villain (Christopher Plummer), and a great battle at the end of it. A worthy sendoff for the original cast.

Star Trek: Generations: A mixed bag for me. On one hand, it's got an interesting story, good action, and great character interactions. On the other hand, it's way too stilted as a way to get Kirk and Picard working side by side. Still, overall I do like the movie even though I think the whole Nexus thing was kind of stupid.

Star Trek: First Contact: This is probably the best movie outing for the TNG crew, at least to me. Great story, good tie-ins to the TNG series with revisiting the Borg and Picard's history with them, and I love how they showed that history's record of someone is not necessarily accurate (none of the crew expected Zefram Cochrane to be so rough around the edges). Some of my favorite Star Trek lines come from this movie, like "You're all astronauts, on some kind of star trek!"

Star Trek: Insurrection: I didn't like this movie the first time I saw it, but seeing it a couple more times I appreciate it more. It feels like it fits in with the rest of TNG pretty well. The main thing I don't like is how Riker and Troi are suddenly all over each other, after the series seemed to show them being just friends for most of it (she was more interested in Worf in the later seasons).

Star Trek: Nemesis: Some of the best action scenes in all of Trek, but the story was kind of a mess. It's like the crew suddenly forgot all about Lore (a Soong android? Let's turn him on, what could possibly go wrong?). And don't get me started on the over-the-top villain and how there's suddenly a subject race of the Romulans who are treated as slaves, yet we've never heard of them until now.

Star Trek (2009): I actually like this movie. J.J. Abrams did a pretty good job. The villain was not great, but the story was decent and I like the look of the ships and stuff. The new cast did a pretty good job, with my favorites probably being Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy and Simon Pegg as Scotty.

Star Trek Into Darkness: A fun flick, but too much of it was just a rehash of The Wrath of Khan. We really didn't need a retelling of that story. That said, I did enjoy Benedict Cumberbatch playing the part far more than I thought I would.

Star Trek Beyond: The best of the J.J. Abrams trilogy. I liked Idris Elba as the villain, and the look of the space station was really awesome. The story itself was engaging, too, and the action scenes were well done. I'm actually kind of sad that they quit making the movies after this one.

Anyways, those are my quick thoughts, so I'm interested in hearing other people's.

I agree pretty much entirely with your assessment of the TOS & TNG movies. We part ways with JJTrek however. The first film was a huge disappointment, a generic, dumb, pewpewlazors lensflare-fest, the very definition of a popcorn movie - satisfying in the absolute moment, ultimately empty and unfulfilling, and never as good on subsequent occasions as your memory suggests it should be. Into Darkness was a genuine horror show, almost the anti-Trek, and don't even get me started on the Deus Ex Tribble. Beyond clawed its way back towards being proper Trek in some regards, but it was still far too enamoured of spectacle and the "Shields up, fire Beastie Boys!" thing made me cringe so hard I almost cacked out a kidney.

The only thing I regret about Beyond not getting a sequel is that fact has left the people who made the JJTrek films free to take over the TV side of things and shart all over that as well.

I felt the final frontier was kind of forgettable, just not a very interesting movie. I remember liking the search for spock, but keep in mind it was like a decade ago when I became a ST fan and watched some of these.

I did not like ST beyond, saw it in theaters once and despised it. Maybe I should rewatch, but I only remember liking sofia boutella and the rest I barely remember. I didn't like the motorcycle scene I know that for sure.

In the big scheme of things wrath of khan is probably my favorite. I don't think the JJ movies will hold up as well over time as I initially thought. They are indeed popcorn movies, and there is not enough there for me to go back and rewatch them without feeling like I could be doing something more productive. Like...anything, rather replay mass effect again or something.

The only disagreement I have is with Insurrection. I liked it right from the start. That, and my favorite Picard exchange of all time comes from that movie.

Admiral Dauherty "Jean-Luc, we're only moving 600 people."

Captain Picard "How many does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong? Hmmmm? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?!?!?! HOW MANY DOES IT TAKE?!?!?!?!"

OT movies they used to say that even numbered ones are good. I don't remember enough of I and III to say whether I like them. It's been like 25 years since I saw them.

Of TNG movies, only First Contact is good. Generations has few nice moments, but plot doesn't make sense at all and is laughably contrived. Kirk's death is extremely anticlimatic, almost like he slipped into soap while taking a shower. Last two are just BORING. They have weak plots and uninteresting character work.

Of JJA trilogy, only Beyond passes the mustard. They got rid of Kurtzman so script is actually passable. Reboot Trek is okay as a generic action movie, but does not feel like Trek and plot is quite nonsensical. Into Darkness is awful in every respect. It is likely the worst Trek movie ever made with no redeeming values. Also, I am pissed how they recycle TNG cliches - evil Federation Admirals and Enterprise fighting against gigantic black ship in the end. Beyond is only one of those which feels like Trek, and it feels better than it is because other two are so bad at it.

In general, big problem for the Trek movies, particularly later ones, is that series usually tried to pay attention to internal consistency. They usually at least attempt to make it look like things make sense in-Universe. Movies throw that away and simply come up with whatever weird crap if they think they can get a cool scene out of it. It's particularly notable with two directed by JJA.

The Motion Picture is an interesting idea, but it's a boring drag.

The Wrath of Khan is the standout among the entire series, and works on its own; I'd not seen the Space Seed or much at all of the original series but the film still worked.

The Search for Spock is ... OK. I first saw it as a child, so the dodgy plot didn't bother me much.

The Voyage Home is an oddity, but works despite itself, and is always worth a watch.

The Final Frontier, like The Motion Picture takes a half-decent idea and buries it in nonsense and egotism.

The Undiscovered Country is a close second to The Wrath of Khan, although some of the gags don't really fit.

Generations is poor; what an awful way to send off Kirk.

First Contact is good - third best IMO, but with a bit too much TNG Treknobabble.

Insurrection isn't dreadful, but it's a TV plot stretched out too thin.

Nemesis was just daft. The Romulan coup plot might have worked, but not like this. the action scenes are just there to let Patrick Stewart pretend to be John MacLean and don't make much sense.

I liked Star Trek; the characters all seemed engaging, but the rapid promotion at the end was a bit off-putting.

Into Darkness would have been better with only one plot; Kirk redeeming himself after his cock-up due to inexperience, the attempted military coup or Khan; pick one. And let Carol Marcus keep her clothes on.

Beyond was good, for the spectacle of the Starbase if nothing else. The Beastie Boys was a little cheesy, and it'd have been nice if they'd built up to that more than just once at the beginning of Star Trek.

Between Into Darkness and Beyond, there needs to be some sort of civilian inquest into Starfleet - two murderous officers and the repeated destruction of one of their most famous ships? Surely that gets questions asked in the Senate?

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
And let Carol Marcus keep her clothes on.

Hey, now...

I think when we hit Generations we lose something from Startrek. Whilst the original series had a lot of very questionable and cheap special effects and some rather camp/silly aliens along the way, when they moved up to a big budget film they kept the one big thing that the series had with regard to space - mystery.

I feel that in those films we get a magical sense of the mystery and awe of space, especially in the Motion Picture and Undiscovered Country. We also saw into Vulcan worlds a bit more and they were again REALLY held up well as the mysterious beneficial and yet reserved race working alongside the Federation whilst the Klingons were mighty warriors.



Next Generation films sort of lost that and instead we wound up dealing with things we'd seen before in the series. In fact one thing I disliked was how they focused far too much on Data and Picard's relationship. They had a whole crew to work with and yet they kept going on and on about Data, which honestly I think sapped some interest from fans because we'd seen Data doing these similar plots through the series over and over - and yet the films never really added much gravity to them after First Contact (and I'd argue his story line with Tasha actually manages to trump most of the other attempts that followed).

I just feel that they lost their way and wound up making big episodes and lost the exploration of space aspects.



The JJ films I've only seen the first one and it left a horrible impression. First off they try to have the trio but fail. Spock is great hands down; McCoy is shoehorned in as a side character and rushed (even his nick name is just rushed in within 5 seconds); whilst Kirk is Jarjar binks half the time. By the time we get to the end parts of the film and Kirk is taking over the ship and Spock stepping down everyone is left scratching their heads why - Spock is showing illogical obedience to the rules; whilst Kirk has shown almost no talent, leadership or any qualities that would make others follow him. By the end he's also quite unlikeable whilst the original Kirk was always a likeable rogue.

Thinking of them in phases: indifferent (TOS films), aggressively indifferent (TNG) and 'why did you even bother?' (Retcons).


But if pressed, I'd have to say the Motion Picture is the best of the bunch. Most depth and world building, even with its quirks. (And is definitely the most 'star trek' of all of them). Khan is worth watching, but honestly is over-rated. If you don't see the rest, I don't think you've appreciably missed anything,

Only ones that stick out for me are The Motion Picture and The Voyage Home.

That's not to say they're not enjoyable, just they don't quite feel Trek to me.

I saw most of the OT ones when I was still a nipper - so was able to enjoy them without any amount of wider Trek lore bogging me down. Indeed, it was quite a surprise to learn that Klingon's didn't always look like that.

TNG ones? Generations is good enough. First Contact is amazing. Insurrection and Nemesis? Feel more like two-parters pencilled in for a mystery 8th season later adapted to the Big Screen. Nothing fundamentally wrong with them - just not what we came to expect from Trek movies.

Reboots? Eh. I enjoy them well enough as sci-fi films. But again, as with Disco (a show I do enjoy), the look being so radically different is somewhat jarring. TOS on the big-screen had a distinctly 70's chintzy look. Why ditch that so completely? Unless of course Starfleet's main interior designer was originally aboard the Kelvin? I say that in jest of course, but it's still a reasonable explanation.

I'm just thankful we didn't get a Voyager or Enterprise movie. I mean.......sheesh. That's a bullet dodged.

Overall, my two favourites, tied in equal place? First Contact, and The Undiscovered Country. They just work for me.

From TOS the Motion Picture had some good ideas, let down by absolutely glacial pacing and an almost prescient overuse of CGI. Khan is still the best of the lot. I don't think it's overrated at all. It works both as a self-contained movie and in the context of the series and is the most character-driven of all the films. 3, 5 and Generations are all fairly forgettable, with 5 being straight-up terrible and 3 the best of the trio. 4 and 6 were great, with 6 being my favourite, probably because it was the first one I saw in the cinema.

Insurrection was inoffensively bad - mostly watchable but a bit too close to a TNG 2-parter. Nemesis was terrible. Filled with bad ideas, poorly executed and barely cogent at times. First Contact worked on almost every level for me. It had action, obvious Trek themes and style and probably the best acting overall out of any of the movies. Just like Khan, it was mainly character-driven rather than plot or action-driven.

Which brings us to the JJ Trek. I quite like the cast and think they do a pretty good job overall, but the plots are pretty bad and the look of them and the way they concentrate so much on a forced sense of spectacle makes them all pretty terrible IMO. Cumberbatch was great overacting as Khan and Beyond was at least fun and funny at times but the whole exercise seemed a little too...cynical for me.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Agree the best part is the awesome Klingon music at the beginning. Its kinda dull, overely long film

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Really enjoyable action movie with a great bad guy, nice tie into the show and overall one of the best.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: It was ok,

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: One of the best, very Trek and great fun

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: Just not very good.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: Really enjoyed, very good

Star Trek: Generations: Didn;t make much sense but was ok

Star Trek: First Contact: For me the only good Next gen era movie, all good from start to end

Star Trek: Insurrection: Very poor, dull and tedious and poorly written - seriously we have just fought a war and we haev found a planet that regens people - how many wounded and crippled can we send there now. Yeah there are some selfish people there who won;t share but her feth them.

Star Trek: Nemesis: Awesome space battle, crap film

Star Trek (2009): Good fun, in the top half of films. Great Spock and Mccoy

Star Trek Into Darkness: Not as good as Wrath but some good moments

Star Trek Beyond: Enjoyable romp

For me, First Contact was a superb sequel to Best of Both Worlds.

We know from Generations that Picard lost his family, and in quite horrible circumstances.

When we look back to how bonding with his family helped him overcome the trauma of being Locutus - seeing him go full on Ahab was narratively solid.

He hates The Borg, and everything they represent. And here they are, trying to mess with the future. And how Lily talks him down, when his crew can't or won't? Just magnificent. She absolutely tears into him, without fear.

For some who was a inherently throwaway character, that's pretty impressive. And they even bothered to get someone who's Acting Chops rival Patrick Stewart's. Just wonderful stuff - and far outstrips anything that came before or after in the movies.

TMP was something of an ambitious failure. It felt different from all other Trek in that its roots were planted firmly in 70's science fiction rather than maritime adventure for its look and feel. The film is about half cringe-inducing and half glorious wonder. The score is amazing and the model work incredible. (I love reading about the SFX drama behind the scenes and the over-the-top complexity of the Enterprise's paint job.). This is the Trek film I rewatch (parts of) the most.


TWOK was one of the first movies I saw in the theater and one of my favorites. I slept with my hands over my ears for years. Fun fact: you can pause the film any time Montalban is acting and the resulting image is hilarious.


TSFS gave us the bird of pray, spacedock, and Miguel Farrerr at the helm of the Excelsior. Stealing the Enterprise is a great scene in an otherwise forgettable movie.


TVH is a fun movie but my favorite part of it is the story of Kirk Thatcher, the assistant producer who played the punk rocker on the bus. When he heard the lame music Nimoy had chosen for the scene, he spent 24 hours writing, performing and recording "I Hate You" to give the scene some authenticity. Look him up on YouTube. I consider Thatcher to be a living legend of Star Trek.


TFF just makes me feel bad. The actors who played the Klingons spent months learning the language. Shatner had an entirely different film in mind that died during the rewrites and SFX troubles. His costars had to deal with an egomaniac giving their characters short thrift. Just depressing.

TUC is my second-favorite. I'll never forget the moment my brother and I saw the first trailer for the movie; when we heard "This is Captain Sulu of the USS Excelsior," we looked at each other with our jaws hanging open and tears in our eyes. We grew up with Sulu as a beloved character and knew how much he wanted the Excelsior, so it was our first experience of very satisfying fan service. Also, ST6 and T2 were in theaters at the same time, which lead to our first epic day of theater hopping from T2 to ST6 back to T2. What a time that was to be alive, eh?

Generations: so that's how a saucer section lands.

FC had a great space battle and a lot of fun character interactions. Shame about the Borg.

Insurrection is my least favorite movie. I find the Baku to be an offensive amalgamation of tropes, the moral dilemma poorly crafted and presented, and the plot weak. The evil admiral was right. Only two good things came out of this movie: Berman's I famous book on the making of Insurrection and why it was so bad, and the joystick. A joystick makes much more sense for maneuvering a ship through rapid, large changes in course during evasive maneuvers than typing coordinates into an LCARS.

Nemesis had a great space battle. I guess it was good to see everyone again, even if they were tired and disinterested. *Cough*

ST09 had a great opening....and not a whole lot else going for it. The actors were all extremely talented and likeable, but the film was still borderline unwatchable. The best part of this movie was reading the Ex Astris Scientia guy's increasingly despondent essays about the JJprise.

STID was terrible. It wasn't even interesting terrible like ST5 or Insurrection. This is the kind of film JJ Abrams makes when the talent he surrounds himself with don't save his bacon for once.

Beyond felt more like actual Star Trek than any of the other reboot films, but I doubt I would ever choose to rewatch it when I have any of the better Treks at hand.

Not a massive fan of the films bbut I do enjoy this scene.



An entire Old Worf show please.

I’d watch an Elder Worf series.

That’d be ace.

Regarding Search for Spock, I had a teacher at the time who was a huge Trekkie and I remember her going on about how it was the first Trek film to feel like Star Trek to her. And I believe that opinion was generally out there at the time among Trekkies. I think the feeling was that it was a much warmer film than TMP, and did a better job involving the whole family (bridge crew) than TWOK.

Personally, I like the first and last JJ films better than any TNG film other than First Contact. That one was pretty solid. Otherwise, I think I agree with Overread about the TNG films. They felt like episodes of the show and lost some of the 'bigness' of the OS movies. TWOK was done on a fairly shoestring budget and it still feels more epic. The JJ films -- while a mixed bag -- recaptured some of that epic quality and sense of adventure and danger.

STID was trying to do about 18 things at once...mashing Space Seed together with TWOK and a coup story and...ugh. All it needed to be was an updated Space Seed. And I'm going to disagree with the OP and say that Cumberbatch as Khan was one of the all-time great casting fails. Cumberbatch is a much better actor than Ricardo ever was, but at least RM could exhibit charisma and a sense of menace. "My...name...is...KHAN" actually made me laugh out loud.

See, I had Into Darkness spoiled by a Facebook butthole.

But I vehemently disagree that Bendyditch Custardsplatch was better for the role.

Montalban simply was Khan. And ripped. Like. Seriously ripped.

I do wonder what my reaction would’ve been to the overall movie without the butthole spoiler. And good as Custersditch is an actor, Montalban would remain a singularity in my pantheon of Nerd Greatness.

I agree pretty much with OP, except you forgot the most important film in the franchise after Star Trek II and IV!



Without Galaxy Quest we lose the otherwise consistent pattern of odd-numbered movies being mediocre to bad and even numbered movies being awesome! Insurrection and Nemesis are damn buzz kills that way

And then the JJ films had to invert it, with the odd numbered ones being fairly good while the even numbered one was pretty bad but by that point, the films are so contentious that it's not even the same trend anymore.

EDIT: Though I'd say I didn't find Riker and Troi's hookup at all sudden. While there was a bit of a love triangle there with Worf at the other point, it was pretty obvious (like with most love triangles) who the real winner was. Riker and Troi were being casually flung together from S2 of TNG and it never really stopped. If anything was wrong with it, it's that I never found Sirtis and Franks to have any chemistry together. They weren't convincing as the couple the franchise built them up to be, so come Insurrection it just felt completely awkward when the story really started hammering it home.

Also, Riker and Troi were established as Old Flames, more or less from the get go.

Indeed, Riker’s ‘horny teenager’ thing is an early indication of what’s up in the general point. The abrupt thawing is deliberate?

I didn't mean to say Cumberbatch was better than Montalban as Khan; rather that he was okay for the role. No one could ever beat Montalban's performance; probably the best villain in all of Star Trek!

And you're probably right about Riker and Troi too. But in the series it always seemed like they were just close friends after about the third season, and instead she was starting to get together with Worf. Of course, DS9 happened and set Worf up with someone else in between, so maybe that's part of why they got Riker and Troi back together. I did like how she said "Yuck!" after he kissed her; actually burst out laughing when I first saw that.

And to whoever mentioned that interaction with Picard in Insurrection: I have to agree 100%, that is truly one of the best lines in the whole franchise. By any character.

My friends and I all joke about how ST1 should have been called the Star Trek: The Slow-Motion Picture. While it does have movement continuously throughout the film... it's such SLOW movement it's almost tranquilizing.

Wrath of Khan is hands-down the best ST movie ever, and given what we've seen since then it will likely remain the best forever.

Search for Spock almost feels like the crew was phoning it in. It could have been a good film, but never quite makes it there.

The Voyage Home is better than TSFS, but doesn't even really come close to TWOK.

ST 5? No. Just... no. Again, it felt like the crew was phoning it in.

6 was quite good. Second best of the original series by a comfortable margin. It would have been neat to see a series (or even a movie) following Captain Sulu of the Excelsior; probably would have been better than most of the Next Gen movies.

Generations.... why? There were novels written that would have been better movies. The last episode of the show would have made a better movie. And shoehorning Kirk in was... dumb. No other way to describe it.

First Contact was brilliant. Almost as good as TWOK; it only falls short because the Borg Queen wasn't quite as good a villain as Khan. (At least they had the sense to use a queen instead of a king and dodge that issue. Jokes about the Borger King would have killed the movie...)

And everything past this? Downhill. Insurrection was boring, Nemesis was just an attempt to remake TWOK for the Next Generation, and it failed badly. And the less said about J.J. "Lens Flare" Abrams and his abuse of Star Trek the better.

JJ pissed off a lot of people before Into Darkness even premiered because Cumberpatch playing Khan was all over the rumormill, but JJ was still into his "Mystery Box" and tried (and failed) to stamp the rumors down.

I always felt that it would've been a much better movie if Cumberpatch was "playing" Khan in more ways than one. For much of the movie, Old Spock would be giving New Spock & crew advice on how to beat him based on Old Spock's own experience w/ Khan's hubris, but that advice fails on New Khan at every turn and New Kirk isn't able to trick New Khan the way Old Kirk tricked Old Khan. Old Spock can't figure out why, until in the 3rd act Old Spock finally actually sees Cumberpatch and realizes they aren't facing Khan at all, but Joachim [i]pretending]/i] to be Khan and New Kirk has to figure out how to defeat Joachim using his own wits.

It still would have likely been an awful movie with JJ in charge, but at least Cumberpatch as "Khan" would have made sense

I used to think that "the even ones were the good ones" and then Paramount went and tossed that concept into the shredder when "Nemesis" was released. 2,4, 6 and 8 are worth watching.
Of the "odd" mumbered ones, 1 is a cure for insomnia, 3 is just a continuation of 2 and 5 should never have happened. 7's only redemption is that they killed Kirk TWICE.

The newer JJ Abrams ones? Casting is good. Lens-flare is overdone.

ZergSmasher wrote:I didn't mean to say Cumberbatch was better than Montalban as Khan; rather that he was okay for the role. No one could ever beat Montalban's performance; probably the best villain in all of Star Trek!

And you're probably right about Riker and Troi too. But in the series it always seemed like they were just close friends after about the third season, and instead she was starting to get together with Worf. Of course, DS9 happened and set Worf up with someone else in between, so maybe that's part of why they got Riker and Troi back together. I did like how she said "Yuck!" after he kissed her; actually burst out laughing when I first saw that.

And to whoever mentioned that interaction with Picard in Insurrection: I have to agree 100%, that is truly one of the best lines in the whole franchise. By any character.

Really that entire exchange between Daugherty and Picard is epic. "Who the HELL are WE to decide the next course of evolution for these people?!?!?!"

 LordofHats wrote:

EDIT: Though I'd say I didn't find Riker and Troi's hookup at all sudden. While there was a bit of a love triangle there with Worf at the other point, it was pretty obvious (like with most love triangles) who the real winner was. Riker and Troi were being casually flung together from S2 of TNG and it never really stopped. If anything was wrong with it, it's that I never found Sirtis and Franks to have any chemistry together. They weren't convincing as the couple the franchise built them up to be, so come Insurrection it just felt completely awkward when the story really started hammering it home.

That said, Worf-Troi had even less chemistry together. As I recall, fans mostly hated it. In retrospect, it looked like Troi trying to make Riker jealous, obviously with success.

As for the Cumberbatch-Khan, I don't even care because I am still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Federation space apparently extends to within weapon range of Klingon Homeworld.

ITD has so many WTF plot points. Honestly there was a good movie there I think, it’s just that the film suffered from “this is a cool idea” syndrome.

 LordofHats wrote:
ITD has so many WTF plot points. Honestly there was a good movie there I think, it’s just that the film suffered from “this is a cool idea” syndrome.

I don't know, even the parts which did make sense somehow were still terribly recycled and unoriginal. Like in the end, it was a plot by evil Federation admiral and the end battle was Enterprise fighting much bigger black ship. That was literally seen like 6 times before in TNG and Trek movies. It made TFA look fresh and original in comparison.
I had high expectations going to that as trailers looked cool and menacing, and then...yeah.

Voyage Home is a epic tour de force of a Star Trek film, taking what is a fairly flimsy premise that could come from an episode of andy ST series and letting the crew have huge amounts of fun with it, using the increased runtime to let everying get their time in the spotlight.

I'd watch II, VI and FC again at any time, but the others not so much.

I saw the first two JJ films but never bothered with the third and wouldn't watch any of them again, ever.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was very much Paramount's knee jerk reply to Star Wars. On its face, it was a good film for its time and was the replacement for Star Trek Phase II which was being developed at the time Star Wars was hitting the screens. While STMP took its story lines from the TOS episode The Changeling, its still IMHO watchable.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is just hands down Shakespearean in nature and I think a majority of us can agree it definitely stands as one of the best Star Trek films to date.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was probably the first of the "this could have been a TV episode"-movies for the franchise. Though I really enjoyed Christopher Lloyd as Kruge, and thought he did a wonderful job with it. Also seeing John Larroquette in Klingon custom was amusing.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home gave all the cast members their moments to strut their stuff. Still enjoyable.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier .... I am not sure this was the correct title for the film. I am not sure there was a plot for this film either.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country... of the "Original Crew" films, this is the one I put on par with TWoK... There is a lot of themes going on in the film, not to mention getting some really good acting out of the cast.

Star Trek Generations... if there was a jumping point to pass the torch from one crew to another this was the one. I don't care for the fact they shoe-horned Kirk into the Final act... and could have just left Kirk's disappearance as one of those Galactic mysteries that would never be solved.

Star Trek First Contact ... Great film that is on par with TUC or TWoK... but I am neutral on the Borg Queen concept... not a fan of Alice Krige.

Star Trek Insurrection ... the second film that falls into "this could have been a TV episode".. it had its moments, and was enjoyable. However it could have been done a lot better.

Star Trek Nemesis ... this is one that I still have some qualms with and is the third of the "TV Episode"-movies. I like Tom Hardy. I like Ron Perlman. I don't think the writers really knew what to do with the Romulans throughout the TNG era (they knew what they were doing in DS9 however). I don't like the Remans. They made no sense to me. While the action sequences were well done, and let's face it we still cringe watching the Enterprise ram the Scimitar, it largely felt phoned in by everyone. This one really had a lot of potential.

Now we get to the reboot films... NEVER NEVER NEVER hire a director that say openly and honestly he is more of a Star Wars fan to direct/produce/write a Star Trek film. JJ Abrams should not have been hired period. I have respect for him being honest about where his fandom lies. But they should not have considered him to do the reboot.

Star Trek - Lens flare aside... the look and feel of the reboot universe... this film didn't make any sense at all. Why does the engine room of what is supposed to be the Federations' newest, and most advance, starship resemble the engine room of a Ticonderoga Class Cruiser??? If this is set in the 2250's (when Pike was the CO at the time) Checkov would still be in primary/elementary school. I could go on but there are plot holes that have plot holes. There was some amusing moments, like Simon Pegg's comments about Admiral Archers dog (I felt sorry for the dog)...

Star Trek Into Darkness... OK... this should have been title Star Trek We ran out of ideas... Again plot holes with plot holes... a waste of Benedict Cumberpatch's time and abilities... and gratuitous use of getting Alice Eve in her skivvies for no other reason than to have her get into her skivvies. Just not a good film all around...

Star Trek Beyond... I am going to give Simon Pegg credit for trying to fix this train wreck/dumpster fire/lens flare fest ... but even he screwed up. There is a comment in the film where he, as Scotty, remarks that all Federation ships are made in space. Um... Simon. Did you see the first reboot? The Enterprise was constructed in a corn field in Iowa... ON THE GROUND!! Aside from the hiccup... I really do think there was a concerted effort to try and fix the damage that was done... but alas...

I'd have to be really bored to watch the JJ-universe films again... they do have their moments... but a dumpster fire does not make good entertainment.