THE HIGHS AND LOWS OF CELLULOID STAR TREK

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
(1979)

HIGHs
* Eye candy like seldomly seen before - great special effects
* Bones' speech when commandeered for duty and told: "Bones, there is a thing out there . . ."
* Cool seeing the old Trek crew being reunited
* Persis Khambatta without hair

LOWs
* Slow moving, talky
* The Starship Enterprise encounters the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor - oh, that's the Gary Larson cartoon - they actually encounter a "thing"
* Persis Khambatta without hair

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
(1982)

HIGHs
* You score bonus brownie points with fellow trekkies for not only knowing which episode bad guy Khan first appeared in - add additional points for other details such us date first screened, cast and crew members, etc.
* Those squiggly ear worm thingies put into Checkov's ear to control his mind
* A villain who has a good reason to hate Kirk & Co. - and that's just not because he's actually a Babylon 5 fan
* Spock dies at the end (as if you didn't already know that)

LOWs
* Flat camera work and sets
* Not really all that exciting - although most trekkies would disagree

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
(1984)

HIGHs
* Spock lives - can you imagine the show without him?!
* A logical continuation from the previous film and not just an attempt to rehash stuff

LOWs
* Why is the character played by Kirstie Alley (Saavik) now played by somebody else?
* Not very memorable

STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME
(1986)

HIGHs
* Time travel!
* The whale
* San Francisco
* It's really good

LOWs
* Can't think of anything

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STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER
(1989)

HIGHs
* Can't think of anything

LOWs
* Kirk, Spock & Co. singing campfire songs and eating marshmallows
* The crew encounters a "thing"
*Lots of "emotionalising"
* They are really getting too old for this

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STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
(1991)

HIGHs
* Klingons using a piece of Earth space junk for target practice - it happens to be the Voyager space probe!
* Checkov coming into his own as a wannabe Agatha Christie - "So these are your boots?"
* The zero gravity scenes with globules of fluid floating around eerily
* The Shakespeare quotes

LOWs
* Ending a bit of an anti-climax
* Klingons using a piece of Earth space junk for target practice - it happens to be the Voyager space probe - which was the "thing" the crew encountered in the first movie - so much for continuity!
* The last time we get to see the "old" crew

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STAR TREK: GENERATIONS
(1994)

HIGHs
* The champagne bottle flying through space opening sequence
* The "new" crew - they're much younger
* Whoopi Goldberg!
* Data!

LOWs
* Seeing Captain Kirk and Captain Picard gang up together in a fistfight against the bad guy played by Malcolm McDowell - two against one doesn't seem very fair to me!
* After all these movies and they still haven't thought of putting seatbelts on the Starship Enterprise!
* Stupid way for Kirk to die

STAR TREK - FIRST CONTACT
(1996)

HIGHs
* The Borg are great baddies
* It's really exciting
* Time travel!
* Picard listening to Berlioz on maximum volume while staring out into space
* Alice Krige as the Borg queen

LOWs
* None that I can think of really