American television is not overtly controlled by the government as it is in many countries, so in 1961 when the FCC required new televisions to have UHF tuners along with VHF, there were suddenly more available channels than there were large networks. Even the large networks didn't have good content for each day. Local channels filled those gaps and to help populate their channels were syndicators, who sold their own original content, like "The Adventures of Superman" and "Mr. Ed, along with canceled broadcast shows like "Star Trek" and "I Dream of Jeannie."(1)
Syndication kept shows like "Star Trek" in pop culture to such an extent it continue to have toys, and then a cartoon, and eventually it was so popular a film studio did something that had never been done with any success before - they made a big budget movie from a TV show. It was so unheard of it was even named "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
Then they made a better one. And kept making them, with indifferent results.
After 40 years of movies, it can be hard to know the good from the bad but I have watched all the shows, seen all the movies, and played multiple video games. I am basically that character you know from "The Mandalorian" even if you don't know his name (it's Kuill - see how much I know?)
So I am here to help by ranking the Star Trek films.
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" from 1979 had everything going for it; a giant budget, a rabid fanbase and a pedigreed director. That last one may be what causes it to not be better regarded despite being the fourth highest grossing picture of the year ("Superman was number one, and for good reason). It is sometimes the case that a well-known director is wrong for a film (see also Joe Johnston with "Captain America: The First Avenger") and Robert Wise was great for "West Side Story" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still" but the 1970s were not the 1950s, or even the '60s after 1968. And this was very much a modern film. The story was fantastic, the sub-plots were great, but it was just too long with too many wasted shots. A determined editor could have offset a director who falls in love with everything he shoots - George Lucas has to thank his trio of editors for turning his "Star Wars" mess into a great film - but Todd Ramsay didn't have the credibility to pull that off. His later work on "Escape from New York" and "The Thing" shows us what might have been had he gotten his Star Trek film when he had more experience and could stand up to the director of "The Sound of Music."
"Star Trek Beyond." Any time you have to retcon reality to explain why your clearly Indian character - his name is Khan Noonian Singh, a Sikh - is so white he could easily pass as 27th in line for the English throne you have a problem. The problem is that someone clearly wanted to use the 'it' actor of 2012; Benedict Cumberbatch, who had made waves during his run on "Sherlock Holmes."
Their reasoning for the whitewashing; his genetic enhancement had changed everything about him, including his appearance. That's so ridiculous even Non-GMO Project hasn't tried to use it to sell a sticker to gullible consumers.
It was disappointing. Whereas "Star Wars" was clearly space opera for white people - that criticism led to Lando Calrissian in "The Empire Strikes Back" where the joke then became that the Star Wars universe had black people after all, they just weren't cool any more - but "Star Trek" had epitomized diversity. The bridge had an alien, a woman of color, and what were clearly a Japanese and Russian as the navigator and helmsman - 20 years after World War II ended and during the Cold War.
This Khan decision knocks the movie down a bit.(1)
2. "Star Trek". Director JJ Abrams didn't want to make another movie using the same old actors - and no one wanted to see them - so he reset the entire timeline creating an alternative Kelvin Universe. The casting was perfect, the story terrific. The only real plot knock on it is a mis-characterization of Kirk with an important academy test. That's all that keeps it from competing for the top spot. I won't go into more detail because if you have not watched it, you should. Right now.
1. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan". There are times when minor characters become big impact players in pop culture. This Khan is one of them. "Space Seed", where Ricardo Montalban was able to pull off being an Indian(3) was an okay episode of the series, it doesn't hold up all that well compared to things like "Mirror Mirror", but in the sequel to "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" Khan became a true threat to the Enterprise. Every film has wanted to replicate it.
This, despite it being made for just $12 million, a small fraction of its predecessor's budget. Story matters.
That academy test in our number 2 movie gets its mention in this film, and it is entirely fictional but is such a part of the science-fiction lexicon now that some day it may actually exist. Unlike vanity efforts to force respect like naming something The Riker Maneuver, this worked.
It is incredibly quotable and holds up really well. It is arguably "The Godfather" of science-fiction films.
(1) Syndication became so lucrative that producers and stars really reached to get to 5 seasons; as the market matured the standards became higher so a show with 5 seasons had enough content and enough quality it would go into syndication and pay dividends long after the Big Three money dried up.
(1) Strangely, Cumberbatch is also linked to another bit of whitewashing. In his "Doctor Strange" film, the Ancient One, an Asian male in the mountains of Tibet in the comics, became another Brit, but a female - Tilda Swinton. The movie is okay, 30 years from now people will wonder what all the fuss of every superhero film was about just like you might watch a 1950s Western film without seeing what your grandfather sees in it, but she is terrific. Marvel thought they were being inventive and playing against type, but in 2021 that is not allowed. A white director can't even direct black actors, as JJ Abrams just discovered.
"Avengers: Endgame" brought the Ancient One back and her perfomance in that tells you what was weak about the Doctor Strange film; she wasn't Strange. Had she been the lead, it might be up there with movies like "Thor" or "Iron Man" in how they treat the bad guys, and no one will complain that a white guy in the comics is replaced by a white woman.
(3) In the 1960s, most westerners would only have heard of Genghis Khan or his descendants, and the common belief was that Khan meant King.
Comments