It’s hard to believe that as of 2024, Star Trek will have been on the silver screen for forty-five years. In that time, the crews of the many and varied starships Enterprise have had no less than thirteen adventures. Here they are in order.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
It’s unfortunate that the first movie in the franchise is also the weakest to feature the original crew. The script was subject to a tug-of-war during production between series creator Gene Roddenberry and principal writer Harold Livingston. The result was a flabby tale about the Enterprise crew’s encounter with an enormous entity threatening Earth – a colossal mishmash that pleased no-one, save for seeing the revamped starship Enterprise looking majestic on a big screen.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
By common consensus, The Wrath of Khan was streets ahead of its predecessor, and, forty years after its release, it still hasn’t been bettered. Ricardo Montalban reprises his role as Khan, Admiral Kirk’s nemesis from the 1966 episode “Space Seed”; the plot sees Khan steal a starship, purloin the Genesis device, and vow revenge for his exile to a distant planet. The battle scenes are breathtaking, and the final act is a tour de force of tension and suspense.
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
The franchise’s third instalment may be a touch less compelling than The Wrath of Khan, but there are still thrills aplenty, as the Enterprise’s crew goes to the Genesis planet created in the previous film, where they make an extraordinary discovery. Christopher Lloyd shows the acting chops that would shortly serve him so well as Doc Brown in Back To The Future as the homicidal Klingon captain whose fistfight with Kirk provides the one moment that really harkens back to the original series.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Time travel – never an easy proposition in the Star Trek universe – seems as easy as pie in this 1986 movie, but that inconsistency aside, viewers are treated to a famous romp. Kirk and company visit 1980s San Francisco in search of humpback whales who, it is surmised, can communicate with a probe in the future that is hellbent on destroying Earth. “But that’s crazy,” mutters Bones at one point. He’s not wrong; but it’s still a rollicking movie.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
William Shatner took the directorial reins for the fifth film in the series, which saw the Enterprise being commandeered by Sybok, a half-brother of Spock, and a mystic in search of God. The intention was to offer commentary on televangelists, but, though it has its moments, the script sags under the weight of slapstick, cheesy one-liners, ropey special effects, and an underwhelming climax.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
The final outing for the original crew sees Kirk and Bones framed for the assassination of the Klingon premier (played with gravitas by David Warner). Normal service is resumed after its predecessor’s misfires, and the plot is worthy, but the cast never quite manage to shake off the sense of an era coming to an end.
Star Trek: Generations (1994)
The first film featuring the Enterprise crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Generations sees Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) battling Sorin (Malcolm McDowell), a stereotypical mad scientist driven to the destruction of an entire planet by grief. The film seems to have suffered in comparison to its successor, which did better at the box office, but it’s a fine film, with a nail-biting final act.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
The best of the Next Generation films, First Contact features the Borg, time travel, and fine turns by James Cromwell and Alfre Woodard as 21st century scientists attempting to build the world’s first warp drive. The stakes are high, the action convincing – and dyed-in-the-wool fans will squee non-stop during the final scene.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
The increasingly sure hand of Jonathan Frakes – Next Generation’s Commander Riker – in the director’s seat is not enough to compensate for a by-the-numbers script which reads more like an extended television episode. The themes of eternal life and a conspiracy within Starfleet fail to disguise a strangely tensionless plot, though Tony Award winner Donna Murphy impresses as Captain Picard’s love interest.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
This underwhelming conclusion to the Next Generation films barely broke even at the box office. Tom Hardy appears in only his third film role as Shinzon, a Romulan rebel created from Captain Picard’s DNA. The hectic climax has dramatic beats in all the wrong places, and, with multiple plot strands competing with one another for attention, it’s unsurprising that cinema audiences voted with their feet.
Star Trek (2009)
J. J. Abrams kicked off the Star Trek reboot films with a new Kirk and Spock in Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto respectively, a nifty new starship Enterprise, a touch of Beastie Boys, and a ton of lens flare. It won an Academy Award for Best Makeup (the only Star Trek film to be so honored), and audiences loved it, though removal of rose-tinted spectacles shows more of a reliance on artifice than strong plotting.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Abrams’ second bite of the cherry was another box office success, but struggles for coherence, relying on misplaced callbacks to previous movie instalments and a laughable final slugfest between Spock and Khan that puts viewers in mind of the similarly batty and sleep-inducing fight sequence in Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith. The usually dependable Benedict Cumberbatch is miscast as Khan.
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
This Simon Pegg and Doug Jung-scripted film improves on its predecessors, thanks in large part to well-judged performances from Idris Elba and Sofia Boutella. But the action is still way too far-fetched even for the Star Trek franchise, and it’s no wonder that a fourth instalment is yet to be ready for launch.
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Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
