Tsv-base-zero

Star Trek Reviews

Star Trek: The Movies

The Original Series

Star Trek I: The Movie: airdate, 1988, * * * * *
The Enterprise is recalled to investigate a huge anomaly that has been absorbing entire planets in the neutral zone and is heading on a direct course for Earth. Upon entering the anomaly, they encounter an extremely vast and fascinating structure, which appears to be of an artificial and intelligent design, suggesting an intelligence far superior to any they have ever encountered before. The imagery and special effects in this movie are some of the most amazing ever shown in any science fiction movie ever, reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but far more spectacular. The effects alone make this movie one of the best science fiction movies of all time and certainly the best in the series.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: airdate, 1990, * *
        A Starfleet mission to a planetary system that has experienced extreme cataclysmic changes leads Kirk and his crew back into the vengeful hands of Khan, who blames Kirk for abandoning his people on a savage planet and leaving them to die. Khan's stealth of a science vessel also leads him to a secret Starfleet scientific space research station and two of Kirk's close relatives. This movie is a disappointing departure from the first of the series, being completely dominated by the completely irrational vengeance of Khan, who has no compulsions about mass-murdering people to get back at Kirk.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: airdate, 1991, * * *
       With the Klingons taking the place of Khan in this one, which acts as a sequel to Star Trek II, in which Spock was lost at the end, it wasn't all that much better, but at least the plot was more interesting and the special effects were more spectacular. The Klingons have stolen some information about the secret Genesis device and have jumped to the conclusion that it is a weapon of mass destruction, rather than the planetary creator it was designed to be. It gets interesting after the Enterprise goes in search of Spock's Katra on a planet that was subjected to the Genesis device, and a Klingon crew gets involved.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: airdate, 1992, * * * *
       When a huge alien space probe appears in Earth's orbit and begins draining all the active energy from the planet, the bridge crew of the Enterprise, minus their ship (destroyed at end of ST-III) and in possession of a Klingon ship, hurry home to Earth to help. Analysis of the probe leads them to the conclusion that it is related to a species of whales that went extinct in the late 20th century, and they decide to use time-warp to go back to the 20th century to get some whales and bring them back. While this plot is probably one of the most far-fetched of the movie-series yet, it is much more entertaining than either II or III. The social and business interactions of the Enterprise crew with late 20th century Americans in San Francisco, as they look for a couple of whales and work out a way to take them back to the future, is all the fun.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: airdate, 1993, * * *
       A Vulcan that rejects his people's philosophy of pure logic uses his special charisma to build a force and capture a Starfleet outpost in the neutral zone, after which he hijacks the Enterprise and takes it on a special mission of his own into the central forbidden zone of the galaxy, where he believes he will find some kind of incarnation of the Almighty Creator. Far-fetched and reaching, somewhat amusing, but not all that interesting either. To be honest, I don't know where they get these bad ideas or why they waste so much time and money with them. I can give them at least half a dozen better ideas to work with.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: airdate, 1994, * * *
       After a mining accident on one of the Klingon moons, the empire loses a vast amount of its necessary resources and faces a serious situation in which it must turn to the Federation for help. A Klingon ambassador requests Kirk as a negotiator, because he considers him one of the most honorable warriors of the Federation.
Kirk rejects the offer, with bitter resentment, until Spock talks him into it, and the negotiations, which take place between 2 ships in the neutral zone, are sabotaged. The Klingons blame Kirk for the death of the ambassador, along with Doctor McCoy, and the two are sentenced to life imprisonment at a barbaric Klingon prison on a savage icy planet. This movie was much better than V, but still nothing altogether special or spectacular. It bears a much more interesting future-history plot, centered about the Kitamer Treaty, in which the Klingons and the Federation finally formed an alliance.

The Next Generation

Star Trek: TNG: Generations: airdate, 1995, * * * *
       The Enterprise "D", under the command of Captain Jean Luc Picard, conducts a rescue operation in deep space, and takes aboard an alien scientist (Malcolm McDowel) who insists upon being taken back to his science station where he has been conducting an extremely important experiment. When they discover the nature of the experiment involves the careless destruction of entire planets and civilizations, they pursue the scientist and run into a renegade Klingon ship, which engages them in battle. Meanwhile, Picard has followed the scientist to a desert planet, where the man plans to destroy another planet to change the course of a strange anomaly that he is obsessed with. The anomaly turns out to be another dimension (The Nexus) where space and time are under the direct influence of the conscious and subconscious mind of the individual, where one's wishes become reality. This one was interesting and entertaining, and included some excellent special effects, but the scenes of Picard and Kirk in the Nexus were somewhat mundane and disappointing.

Star Trek: TNG: First Contact: airdate, 1996, * * *
       The Borg launch another attack on Earth, and Captain Picard and the Enterprise "E" (D was destroyed in Generations) rush to the rescue. Picard's experience with the Borg helps them destroy a Borg cube, but it launches a temporal craft which travels back into time and assimilates Earth in the past. The Enterprise is caught in the temporal rift and follows the Borg back to the late 21st century, where it has to stop the Borg from preventing the launch of the Phoenix, with its warp engine, and first contact with the Vulcans. This one was okay, even if it was dominated by Borg violence. The plot was alright, but what really made this movie good was the spectacular effects. Without the effects, the movie would have been much less interesting.

Star Trek: TNG: Insurrection: airdate, 1997, * * *
       A Starfleet admiral sides with a race which claims rites to a planet that is inhabited by another humanoid species and when Data suddenly goes berserk and exposes the "cloaked" science station spying on the colony, Picard and the Enterprise are called in to retrieve him. After doing so, Picard makes contact with the colony and decides to defend their sovereign rites, unable to accept the twisted logic the aliens are using to force the people from their homes and take their land. The plot to this one was interesting enough, but some how the execution of it was mediocre and lacking. It could have been better than it was. Also, there were problems with some of the characters, which I won't go into at this time but may cover in detail later.

Star Trek: TNG: Nemsis: airdate, 1998, * * *
   The plot of Nemsis is grand, as it involves a complete military coup of the Romulan Empire, and all the effects are quite good. One has to wonder, however, why the Romulan military would agree to such a grand plan while usurping all power and authority to a human clone in command of a worker-drone species that has been serving as slave-laborers of the Romulans for centuries. There are things about this plot that are very vague indeed. Getting past that, however, there are some interesting aspects of it also. One aspect of interest is another android that looks like Data, another is the fact that Riker and Troi finally get hitched, and Warf somehow manages to get away from his post at DS9, again, to serve with the Enterprise, for this mission.

Base-Zero	Tsv-01 Tsv-02 Tsv-03 Tsv-04 Tsv-05 Tsv-06 Tsv-07 Tsv-08	Tsv-09
Contents	Lpnet1 Lpnet2 Lpnet3 Sci-shorts-01 Sci-shorts-02 Sci-shorts-03 Sci-shorts-04 Gallery	Animation
Updates Star Trek Reviews Star Trek: The Original Series Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Star Trek: Enterprise Star Trek: The Movies Analog Versus Digital Science Fiction's Most Popular Theme Book Reviews Light Focal Points of Reality	Star Trek Reviews Star Trek: The Movies The Original Series Star Trek I: The Movie: airdate, 1988, * * * * * The Enterprise is recalled to investigate a huge anomaly that has been absorbing entire planets in the neutral zone and is heading on a direct course for Earth. Upon entering the anomaly, they encounter an extremely vast and fascinating structure, which appears to be of an artificial and intelligent design, suggesting an intelligence far superior to any they have ever encountered before. The imagery and special effects in this movie are some of the most amazing ever shown in any science fiction movie ever, reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but far more spectacular. The effects alone make this movie one of the best science fiction movies of all time and certainly the best in the series. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: airdate, 1990, * * A Starfleet mission to a planetary system that has experienced extreme cataclysmic changes leads Kirk and his crew back into the vengeful hands of Khan, who blames Kirk for abandoning his people on a savage planet and leaving them to die. Khan's stealth of a science vessel also leads him to a secret Starfleet scientific space research station and two of Kirk's close relatives. This movie is a disappointing departure from the first of the series, being completely dominated by the completely irrational vengeance of Khan, who has no compulsions about mass-murdering people to get back at Kirk. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: airdate, 1991, * * * With the Klingons taking the place of Khan in this one, which acts as a sequel to Star Trek II, in which Spock was lost at the end, it wasn't all that much better, but at least the plot was more interesting and the special effects were more spectacular. The Klingons have stolen some information about the secret Genesis device and have jumped to the conclusion that it is a weapon of mass destruction, rather than the planetary creator it was designed to be. It gets interesting after the Enterprise goes in search of Spock's Katra on a planet that was subjected to the Genesis device, and a Klingon crew gets involved. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: airdate, 1992, * * * * When a huge alien space probe appears in Earth's orbit and begins draining all the active energy from the planet, the bridge crew of the Enterprise, minus their ship (destroyed at end of ST-III) and in possession of a Klingon ship, hurry home to Earth to help. Analysis of the probe leads them to the conclusion that it is related to a species of whales that went extinct in the late 20th century, and they decide to use time-warp to go back to the 20th century to get some whales and bring them back. While this plot is probably one of the most far-fetched of the movie-series yet, it is much more entertaining than either II or III. The social and business interactions of the Enterprise crew with late 20th century Americans in San Francisco, as they look for a couple of whales and work out a way to take them back to the future, is all the fun. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: airdate, 1993, * * * A Vulcan that rejects his people's philosophy of pure logic uses his special charisma to build a force and capture a Starfleet outpost in the neutral zone, after which he hijacks the Enterprise and takes it on a special mission of his own into the central forbidden zone of the galaxy, where he believes he will find some kind of incarnation of the Almighty Creator. Far-fetched and reaching, somewhat amusing, but not all that interesting either. To be honest, I don't know where they get these bad ideas or why they waste so much time and money with them. I can give them at least half a dozen better ideas to work with. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: airdate, 1994, * * * After a mining accident on one of the Klingon moons, the empire loses a vast amount of its necessary resources and faces a serious situation in which it must turn to the Federation for help. A Klingon ambassador requests Kirk as a negotiator, because he considers him one of the most honorable warriors of the Federation. Kirk rejects the offer, with bitter resentment, until Spock talks him into it, and the negotiations, which take place between 2 ships in the neutral zone, are sabotaged. The Klingons blame Kirk for the death of the ambassador, along with Doctor McCoy, and the two are sentenced to life imprisonment at a barbaric Klingon prison on a savage icy planet. This movie was much better than V, but still nothing altogether special or spectacular. It bears a much more interesting future-history plot, centered about the Kitamer Treaty, in which the Klingons and the Federation finally formed an alliance. The Next Generation Star Trek: TNG: Generations: airdate, 1995, * * * * The Enterprise "D", under the command of Captain Jean Luc Picard, conducts a rescue operation in deep space, and takes aboard an alien scientist (Malcolm McDowel) who insists upon being taken back to his science station where he has been conducting an extremely important experiment. When they discover the nature of the experiment involves the careless destruction of entire planets and civilizations, they pursue the scientist and run into a renegade Klingon ship, which engages them in battle. Meanwhile, Picard has followed the scientist to a desert planet, where the man plans to destroy another planet to change the course of a strange anomaly that he is obsessed with. The anomaly turns out to be another dimension (The Nexus) where space and time are under the direct influence of the conscious and subconscious mind of the individual, where one's wishes become reality. This one was interesting and entertaining, and included some excellent special effects, but the scenes of Picard and Kirk in the Nexus were somewhat mundane and disappointing. Star Trek: TNG: First Contact: airdate, 1996, * * * The Borg launch another attack on Earth, and Captain Picard and the Enterprise "E" (D was destroyed in Generations) rush to the rescue. Picard's experience with the Borg helps them destroy a Borg cube, but it launches a temporal craft which travels back into time and assimilates Earth in the past. The Enterprise is caught in the temporal rift and follows the Borg back to the late 21st century, where it has to stop the Borg from preventing the launch of the Phoenix, with its warp engine, and first contact with the Vulcans. This one was okay, even if it was dominated by Borg violence. The plot was alright, but what really made this movie good was the spectacular effects. Without the effects, the movie would have been much less interesting. Star Trek: TNG: Insurrection: airdate, 1997, * * * A Starfleet admiral sides with a race which claims rites to a planet that is inhabited by another humanoid species and when Data suddenly goes berserk and exposes the "cloaked" science station spying on the colony, Picard and the Enterprise are called in to retrieve him. After doing so, Picard makes contact with the colony and decides to defend their sovereign rites, unable to accept the twisted logic the aliens are using to force the people from their homes and take their land. The plot to this one was interesting enough, but some how the execution of it was mediocre and lacking. It could have been better than it was. Also, there were problems with some of the characters, which I won't go into at this time but may cover in detail later. Star Trek: TNG: Nemsis: airdate, 1998, * * * The plot of Nemsis is grand, as it involves a complete military coup of the Romulan Empire, and all the effects are quite good. One has to wonder, however, why the Romulan military would agree to such a grand plan while usurping all power and authority to a human clone in command of a worker-drone species that has been serving as slave-laborers of the Romulans for centuries. There are things about this plot that are very vague indeed. Getting past that, however, there are some interesting aspects of it also. One aspect of interest is another android that looks like Data, another is the fact that Riker and Troi finally get hitched, and Warf somehow manages to get away from his post at DS9, again, to serve with the Enterprise, for this mission.	Star Trek Novels by Nick Zentor ST:TNG Series Best
Contact	Video Reviews Site-Map Book Reviews	Credits