New STAR TREK rumoured to be set before 'The Next Generation'

I wrote something about recent rumours that have surfaced about Bryan Fuller's 2017 Star Trek TV series, so have a read over at Medium.com! Click here!

Frame Rated: STAR TREK 2017 - Set Phasers to Prediction

Over at Frame Rated yesterday, following the news that Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) has joined Bryan Fuller's Star Trek TV series, I look at everything we know so far, and make some predictions based on that. Click here!

Trailer: STAR TREK BEYOND

Let me restate my 'Trekking' background, for those unaware. I'm a huge Star Trek fan. Not dress-like-a-Klingon huge, or even house-filled-with-merchandise huge, but I've seen all of the shows and films since being introduced to it as a boy in the mid-'80s. The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were formative TV experiences for me. I still tear up over Spock's death scene in Wrath of Khan. And I loved J.J Abrams' Star Trek reboot from 2009. I even enjoyed his sequel from 2013, Into Darkness, which I know rubbed a lot of fans up the wrong way. It made some missteps, sure, but I still think it was very entertaining.

RIP Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)

I had the same birthday as Leonard Nimoy; 26 March. This was the source of great excitement when I was a young boy, growing up watching repeats of Star Trek, as I thought we perhaps share things in common as a result. As crazy as it sounds now, it was a source of pride to believe Mr Spock and I would blow out candles within the same 24-hours. As a lifelong fan of Star Trek, it's a sad day now Mr Nimoy's died—although I've been watching Mr Spock die, repeatedly, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, for over 30 years. A beautifully touching scene, very much an emotional pinnacle of Trek to me, and probably the first on-screen 'death scene' that really moved me and has always lingered in my mind. Sadly, in real life there's no hope of a Genesis planet reviving everyone's favourite Vulcan...

Digital Spy: Life After Cancellation

Over at Digital Spy today, you can read my article about some of television's greatest stories of revival. I look at why each show was axed, what happened while it was off-air, how long each show was gone for, and the circumstances of their unlikely returns. (If you have any others to mention, of which there are many, please leave a comment over there!)

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, 1.1 – 'Encounter at Farpoint'

Stardate: 41153.7 – 41174.2. While travelling to a spaceport called Farpoint, created by the Bandi people of Deneb IV, the USS Enterprise is snared and Captain Picard's forced to stand trial for humanity's crimes by an omnipotent being known as "Q"...

In the late-1980s, Star Trek was in resurgence thanks to the successful feature-films starring the cast of the 1960s TV series. 1986's The Voyage Home had just earned $133m worldwide (making it that year's fifth biggest box-office hit), so it was little wonder that Paramount approached Gene Roddenberry about creating a new TV series. The result was Star Trek: The Next Generation, which moved the story 78-years into the future and populated a new USS Enterprise with a different crew. The feature-length pilot, "Encounter at Farpoint", is far from indicative of what this Emmy-winning sci-fi drama would become in its prime, and most fans regard the first two seasons as especially weak compared to the subsequent five, but in re-watching this opening adventure I was surprised it wasn't awful.

Letterboxd: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

I loved JJ Abrams' bold, colourful and kinetic reboot of the STAR TREK franchise—which wasn't as intellectual as some fans would like, but retained the spirit of the 1960s series in terms of emotion, characterisation, and pure fun. I understand the criticism that Abrams spliced STAR TREK with STAR WARS (his true childhood love) and the subsequent movies are thus a weird cross-breed, but his 2009 reboot was so much fun and cast so brilliantly that I found it impossible to take any criticism too seriously.

However, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is a different matter entirely. There are obvious problems and frustrating moments for fans, although it works perfectly fine as a 'rollercoaster blockbuster' that almost literally doesn't stop moving for more than a few minutes. It's a breathless spectacle with several stand-out sequences and tense action beats, with Abrams exhibiting much greater confidence and clearly enjoying the increased budget ($190m to its predecessor's $150m)--which goes even further now they don't need to develop and design this parallel universe from the ground up.

Trailer: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013)

Why can't I get excited about Star Trek Into Darkness? It's all looks gorgeous and I can't wait to see this universe back on our screens, with this brilliant cast involved, and Benedict Cumberbatch as a sci-fi villain is an amazing choice. And yet... I just don't feel it yet. This theatrical trailer is much better than the "announcement trailer" that was released earlier, but we still don't have a proper sense of the storyline, or even WHO the villain is. It was recently revealed that Cumberbatch is playing a terrorist called John Harrison (so NOT Khan) and Alice Eve's playing Dr Carol Marcus (a character seen in Wrath of Khan, who was the mother of Kirk's son). I wish the trailers were a little more forthcoming about all of this, really. But yeah, it looks expensive and there are some nice shots, together with Cumberbatch's impression of an evil Jean-Luc Picard in the voice-over. What do you think?

Teaser: STAR TREK – INTO DARKNESS (2013)

The long-awaited teaser trailer for JJ Abrams' new Star Trek Into Darkness movie has finally been released, and I'm disappointed by it. The marketing of this rebooted franchise really frustrates me, because they're still so reticent to trumpet the STAR TREK-ness of the whole endeavour! And why is that, considering mass audiences responded so positively to the first movie? I found 2009's Star Trek invigorating, lively and great fun. It serviced the Trekkies, while drawing in a fresh audience thanks to its more aggressive Star Wars-y visuals and scale. I don't think there's any reason to be concerned about marketing this sequel as a Star Trek movie now, so why is the Into Darkness trailer wary about showing us the franchise's iconic imagery and sounds?

Blu-ray Review: STAR TREK - Season One, episode 1-7

To celebrate today's 46th anniversary of Star Trek, I've reviewed the first seven episodes of this 1960s science-fiction classic, from its excellent remastered Blu-ray...

This is where all those famous voyages began. Star Trek isn't the longest-running science-fiction property in the world (that distinction belongs to Doctor Who, which debuted three years earlier in 1963), but it's easily the most diverse and successful; with five cartoons/sequels/spin-offs, eleven feature films (currently), and all manner of tie-in books, toys and merchandise to its name. Gene Roddenberry first developed the idea of a "Wagon Train to the stars" back in 1964, inspired by the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials from his childhood, but wanted to create something less trifling and more optimistic about mankind's future. Gulliver's Travels was another muse of his, as Star Trek would likewise tell extraordinary stories with a moral backbone propping everything up.

STAR TREK: TNG - EXPOsed

The cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation were reunited on-stage for the Calgary Expo in Canada recently: Patrick Stewart (Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Riker), Brent Spiner (Data), LeVar Burton (Geordie), Michael Dorn (Worf), Will Wheaton (Wesley), Gates McFadden (Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Troi) and Denise Crosby (Yar), with a surprise appearance by a fan-favourite.

I'm sure you've seen these kind of convention-style candid videos before. It's an hour of lighthearted banter and chit-chat, plus whooping from the audience. The audio-visual quality's good, so that's a relief. Plus it's obvious that the TNG cast members are all genuinely good friends and don't begrudge their continuing association with the show, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Are you going to buy that sexy new Blu-ray?

Another, enough blather, here's the five-part video. Note the excruciating lack of input from Denise Crosby in her red bobble hat. Although it must be tricky for cast members who weren't along for the whole ride.

SDCC: Visionaries - J.J Abrams & Joss Whedon

Above and below is a six-part video of the San Diego Comic-Con panel "Visionaries" with J.J Abrams (Alias, Lost, Fringe, Star Trek) and Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse). Check it out.

Star Trek Tok

Someone's created a music video to Ke$ha's #1 hit "Tik Tok", using clips from the original Star Trek series. There's always someone willing to put in the hours to create stuff like this, isn't there. Nicely done. As a sidenote, it's been many years since I've seen '60s Trek, and there are quite a few sequences in this video that remind me how psychedelic and plain weird that show got sometimes.

Poll: Which was the best Star Trek series?

As part of the blog's Seven Days Of Star Trek¹, I asked everyone: which was the best Star Trek series? Deep Space Nine got off to a strong start, but was quickly overtaken by the second day, meaning the final results descended in chronological order of when each series was created! First was the original Star Trek (42%, 65 votes), second was The Next Generation (36%, 56 votes), third was Deep Space Nine (10%, 16 votes), fourth was Voyager (8%, 12 votes), and last was Enterprise (4%, 7 votes). Thanks to everyone who voted; a record-breaking 156 people, no less!

1. And the results of this poll consequently puts the lid on 7DOST, so I hope you enjoyed the week's theme -- particularly my retrospectives on Trek I, II, III, IV, V and VI.) Oh, and enjoy the brand new movie -- which is released today, pretty much worldwide, to rock-solid reviews.

Star Trek: A Life At Warp

1979 was the year The Motion Picture was released in the US, but also the year I was born. I know which one was more important to me. Consequently though, I grew up with the Star Trek movies and preferred them to Star Wars (yes, the deified Original Trilogy.) To this day, I'm not sure why. I certainly didn't hate Star Wars, but I just found the characters of Trek more appealing to me. Maybe it was the militaristic overtones? I even had a Kirk action-figure, not Han Solo! Anyway, I didn't exist to see the '60s series when it first aired, or indeed spend the '70s hoping for a revival like some. No, for me, Star Trek has always been part of the pop-culture landscape, and is perhaps the show most responsible for getting me interested in sci-fi, and television in general...

I don't clearly remember which iteration of Star Trek I caught on television first (an early movie or a repeat of the '60s show), but I'm fairly certain it must have been the latter. Even in the '80s, Star Trek was a noticeably "old-fashioned" show in terms of production design and effects, but none of that ever got in the way of a good story. However, as a kid I was primarily drawn to the vibrant colours of the uniforms and the sound-effects (hissing phasers, twinkling teleporters), the stern Spock and his pointy ears, and playing "guess where the Enterprise is going to appear from next?" during the opening credits (where the spaceship would whoosh across the screen from an indeterminate point on a starfield.) You know you played that, too...

I'm not sure why, but I have early memories of finding it oddly cool whenever William Shatner had to rip off his golden top and reveal his bare-chest to fight a rubber monster (please, no latent homosexuality gags, I'm comfortably heterosexual), and the angel-voiced theme tune was almost hypnotic. Essentially, the first Star Trek series was a wonderful, quirky piece of sci-fi that laid a lot of ground for a franchise now into its fourth decade.

I don't think I ever saw The Motion Picture until very late in the '80s, having first devoured The Wrath Of Khan on VHS tape multiple times (where I was always freaked out by the villain putting mind-controlling "ear-worms" into Chekov's helmet) and I believe Spock's death was the first on-screen demise I'd ever seen –- unless you count Peter Davison regenerating in an early-'80s Doctor Who. How can you not cry when Spock intones "you are, and always shall be... my friend"? Beautiful. My memories of Star Trek III are very hazy, but I certainly remember going to see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home very well, because it was the first Trek film I saw at the cinema.

Shortly after, I remember my dad bringing home a video of a brand new Star Trek series called The Next Generation, which we watched together. Again, childhood clouds my memory, and I'm not sure I really understood what "Encounter At Farpoint" was all about, but I do remember being very unimpressed and a little bored. It felt very awkward and clinical compared to the fun of '60s Trek. My abiding memory is feeling disappointed the new Captain was a bald granddad type, and that it was incredibly weird that the saucer-section of the new Enterprise could detach.

Of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation went on to become a phenomenon and is arguably more popular than the original now. Arguably. I wasn't convinced by the first or second season, but it was certainly more appealing to watch TNG than the execrable Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Yuk. By TNG's third year, the characters of TNG had become a great deal more interesting to me -- particularly Data, as every kid loves a childlike robot. It wasn't until 1990 that I really began to adore TNG, though -– perhaps entirely because of "The Best Of Both Worlds" which introduced The Borg as near-unbeatable cybernetic bogeymen. I remember buying a few issues of the Official Magazine on the rare occasion I had enough pocket money, too. These days, Trek-related publications are everywhere, but it was a lot rarer back then!

The Deep Space Nine spin-off in 1993 passed me by to begin with. That was purely because it was only showing on Sky (and not many people had satellite TV back in '93/'94.) Plus the fact my dad claimed it was terrible, for some reason. He would later go back on that premature assessment. However, I was converted by a friend who went ape-shit over DS9's season 2 finale (which introduced the Dominion as an enemy), and found it spoke to a teenage urge for darkness and war-like action. TNG was always pretty spineless and stories reset themselves to the status quo after 45-minutes. Not so DS9.

I ate up season 3 and... well, then things got a bit geeky. Not to the degree that I ever went to a convention, learned Klingon, turned my bedroom into a replica of the bridge, and had my ears surgically pointed, but... well, I'll confess to getting a kick out of making models for about two years. Is that so bad? I had all the Enterprise's, a Klingon Bird of Prey, Deep Space Nine, a (grossly oversized) Runabout, a Romulan Warbird, a Ferenghi Marauder, etc. It was a hobby, I guess. Just not one you'd put on your CV. I was always a terrible model painter, though – so most of the models just stayed white/grey. It was always preferable to ballsing up the Enterprise-D with "duck egg blue".

I also started to collect the VHS videos of DS9, which were released about three months before Sky aired them, I believe. Only two per tape, for around £15 -- quite a rip-off in retrospect! But yeah, from season 3 onwards I eventually got every DS9 on VHS -- all stacked together on a shelf. I loved how the spines were segments of a landscape picture, too. I still have a few tapes even now, despite offloading most of them on Ebay when DVD began to takeover. Anyone want them?

Back to the story. Well, the mid-'90s was a busy time for Star Trek. TNG came to an end in '94, but you couldn't grieve because the cast moved straight into Star Trek: Generations –- which was a total must-see for me. Kirk meets Picard, what's not to like? I still have a fondness for that movie. Of course, DS9's season 4 revamp was excellent (Worf! DS9 has guns! Kira in a spray-on dress!), and that show really came to dominate my attention.

But, then we also had Star Trek: Voyager to contend with; a show I initially embraced, but quickly felt was... well, a half-hearted mess of a potentially brilliant, fresh twist. The crew were meant to be a fusion of straight-laced Federation types and "terrorist" Maquis rebels, but that never felt like part of the tapestry. Imagine if it had been! It was such a missed opportunity for tension and drama. They even set it in new territory (a new, unexplored area of the galaxy), but forgot to populate the Delta Quadrant with interesting aliens races. The Kazon? Crinkle-cut Klingons. And, sorry, I know she has her fans, by husky Captain Janeway was pretty awful. As was Neelix. And Kes (they got rid of her). Chakotay was poor, too. And Kim. Oh, and Paris wasn't much better. Tuvok was okay, though. And The Doctor? Well, Robert Picardo was the main reason to even watch the show.

And anyway, DS9 was in at full stride around that time -- darker, deeper, pushing the frontier of what people considered Trek to be, with morally-conflicted characters, a serialized war story, played out with the best supporting cast of any Trek. Even TNG jumped on the DS9 bandwagon in some respects, as Star Trek: First Contact was an altogether more exciting, darker Trek movie than we'd had in years. You couldn't go wrong with bringing The Borg to the big-screen, though, let's be honest.

Then, around 1998 well... Trek started to slowly die a little. DS9 began to wrap up its story, culminating in a weak last season and a poor finale (truly, a slap in the face for me back then), and TNG's films started to go down the pan with Insurrection, leading to only mild improvement in Star Trek II redux (er, I mean Nemesis.) What was irritating was how Nemesis was billed as the last TNG movie, but they didn't really give us any satisfying end for the characters.

By 1999 Voyager had actually improved a fair bit, but only by grabbing the coattails of First Contact –- by making The Borg into regular villains (slowly devaluing and castrating them, naturally), and injecting some sex appeal with Jeri Ryan's buxom Seven of Nine character. It worked. I still didn't value Voyager that much, but it was certainly a lot more entertaining after its mini-revamp. Shame its finale was also a dud -– although it's oddly popular amongst fans, judging from a few polls I stumble upon. Weird.

This takes us into the millennial transition, where sci-fi began to "mature" for mainstream audiences -- seemingly after The Matrix came out in 1999. A new attitude began to bubble up in pop-culture, leading to the remake of Battlestar Galactica – with TNG/DS9 veteran Ronald D. Moore as its developer (and recycling quite a few DS9 ideas, if you think about it¹) With the dud of Nemesis still stinging in the eyes, Trek unwisely tried to launch another spin-off: Enterprise. It was designed to surf the Star Wars vogue for prequels and it sounded like a good idea to set a show before the time of Kirk with limited technology...

Alas, it quickly became apparent just how outdated Star Trek felt in a post-Matrix world. On TV, BSG was the new space opera behemoth, and Trek felt quite childish, simplistic and preachy in comparison. I stopped watching early into season 2. I hear it got better, and that season 4 was actually pretty decent, but aesthetically and creatively it was behind the curve. It was axed after four years. Even Voyager managed to avoid and reach the TNG/DS9 goal of seven seasons! But at least we didn't have to put up with that awful theme song for any longer. Russell Watson! Singing! Dear me.

And that just about leads us to the present-day of summer 2009, where Star Trek is about to be reborn as a rebooted film franchise with a young cast playing iterations of the '60s crew. It's gone back-to-basics spiritually, but with the verve and vitality of Star Wars aesthetically. The reviews have all been fantastic (seriously, is there a bad one I've yet to see?), and I'm excited to see Trek feel cool again. As great as TNG and DS9 were, Trek has been stuck under a geeks-only umbrella for decades, and even the fans began to lose interest in the past 15 years, with the arrival of fresher sci-fi ideas like Lost. Even now, BSG excepted, space-based sci-fi has an unfortunate stigma attached to its because of Trek...

In some ways JJ Abrams' Star Trek do-over feels influenced by Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who revival, in how it's been tackled; you honour the history, broadly please the fans, but make it to draw new audiences into the fold. You do that by treating the premise with respect, but delivering things non-fans never expected from the title's reputation –- i.e, fun, excitement, epic scale, characters you care about, sexiness and pace.

On the streets of Britain, people think: remember when Doctor Who was all about rubber monsters and Tom Baker in a scarf? Will Trekkies soon be asking: remember when Star Trek was all about boring technobabble and William Shatner's bare chest?²

Prepare to beam up...


1. DS9's the Prophets = BSG's The Lords Of Kobol? President Roslin as a spiritual leader = Captain Sisko as a spiritual emissary? BSG's Cylons infiltrating mankind because they appear humanoid = DS9's Changelings infiltrating mankind as shapechangers, etc.

2. No, seriously. I always had my eye on the Orion Slave Girl, trust me. And Uhura's mini-skirt.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

Let bygones be Klingons?

[SPOILERS] The last Star Trek movie to feature the entire original cast of the '60s series, The Undiscovered Country only happened because Paramount wanted to use the franchise's 25th anniversary to boost interest after the reviled Final Frontier. Director Nicholas Meyer seemed the ideal man for the job, having similarly revived Trek with Wrath Of Khan after The Motion(less) Picture...

Notions of a Starfleet Academy-set prequel were mooted early in the creative process, but ultimately the movie used an idea from Leonard Nimoy as its starting point; "[what would happen if] the Wall came down in space?" -- referring to recent events with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Handed a smaller budget by Paramount, but a potent idea to make Klingons allegorical Russians at the tail-end of a Cold War with the Federation, Star Trek VI started shooting in 1991, with everyone back to reprise their roles, in an intended swansong for the aging stars...

The Klingon moon of Praxis is destroyed, an event witnessed by the USS Excelsior under the captaincy of Sulu (George Takei). The satellite's demise throws the Klingon homeworld into chaos; losing a vital energy-producing facility and their planet's ozone layer in one fell swoop. A warlike footing no longer tenable with their Federation neighbours, the Klingons have no choice but to broker peace with their old enemy.

The USS Enterprise is dispatched to take Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) to peace talks, although Kirk (William Shatner) isn't happy about the burgeoning likelihood of peace with the Klingons, whom he's spent a career fighting and lost a son to. Even knowing the Klingons face extinction without a truce fails to change his mind. "Let them die" is his only thought on the matter.

While hosting Gorkon and other dignitaries, the Enterprise appears to fire photo torpedoes at their guest's vessel, Kronos One, before a pair of men in anti-gravity boots and Federation uniforms beam aboard Gorkon's ship and kill the Chancellor. Suddenly, the Enterprise is at the centre of a tense diplomatic atrocity, with the Klingons outraged by the Federation's cold-blooded attack. Chief of Staff General Chang (Christopher Plummer, in less Klingon make-up at his own request) puts Kirk and McCoy (DeForrest Kelly) on trial for Gorkon's murder, sentencing them to life imprisonment on the icy asteroid of Rura Penthe. It's there that prisoner Kirk beds shape-shifter Marita (David Bowie's wife Iman) -- surprisingly the first sexy alien to fall for Kirk since the '60s TV series -- who agrees to help them escape to clear their names.

Meanwhile, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and Vulcan helmsman Valeris (Kim Cattrall) investigate Gorkon's murder themselves, trying to untangle a despicable plot to frame the Federation, likely masterminded by someone who doesn't want peace between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. Someone not unlike Kirk, of course, although a vital element of this movie is the defrosting of Kirk's prejudices as he comes to realize that peace is worth fighting for, and to let bygones be bygones...

Star Trek VI is a near-perfect send-off for the original cast. The storyline directly feeds into a notion behind The Next Generation series (peace with the Klingon Empire), the main characters all get something worthwhile to play, there's a decent villain in Chang (who likes to quote Shakespeare), the mystery is Scooby Doo calibre but great fun, there's a memorable role for ice-cool Cattrall, strong effects wprk (Stargate even stole the Praxis blast-wave a few years later), a thrilling finale (despite its steals from countless assassination-themed movies), and even the way the majestic score's crescendo leads into the end-title signatures of the cast has a real punch to it.

This wouldn't be the definitive end of the original cast's involvement in Star Trek, but it's most definitely their last hurrah as an iconic collective, before other crews were passed the phasers and inherited the mission: "to boldly go where no man has gone before..."


Paramount Pictures
Budget: $27 million
113 minutes

Director: Nicholas Meyer
Writers: Nicholas Meyer & Denny Martin Flinn (story by Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal)

Cast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelly (Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy), George Takei (Hikaru Sulu), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), James Doohan (Montgomery "Scotty" Scott), Kim Cattrall (Valeris), Christopher Plummer (Chang), David Warner (Gorkon), Iman (Martia), Brock Peters (Admiral Cartwright) & Rene Auberjonois (Colonel West)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Oh, God...

[SPOILERS] Widely regarded as the nadir of big-screen Trek (although Star Trek: Insurrection is very strong competition), The Final Frontier finds William Shatner sharing his captain's chair with the director's chair -- helming Trek V as part of the deal to reprise his role in The Voyage Home. Shatner's fingerprints are all over this movie (he stars, he directs, he developed the story), and it's little wonder he wasn't invited back. Star Trek V sold the least tickets at the box-office than any of the previous four films...

A brand new USS Enterprise (the first destroyed two movies ago) is being built, ready to be helmed by Kirk (gladly demoted to Captain at the end of Trek IV), whose crew are on shore leave while the Enterprise-A is tinkered with at Earth's Spacedock. Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and McCoy (DeForest Kelly) are taking the opportunity to climb a mountain together and sing campfire ditties, before their downtime is rudely interrupted by news of a hostage crisis on Nimbus III...

In turns out that Spock's brother Sybok (Laurence Lickinbill) has captured Klingon, Romulan and Federation representatives, hoping to attract a starship his way for him to steal. Doubtless to say, the Enterprise-A is first on the scene and Sybok duly captures it, intending to travel to a mythical planet called Sha Ka Ree that supposedly lurks beyond a "Great Barrier" (the titular final frontier) that no starship has ever breached...

There are some good elements in Final Frontier; chiefly the idea that Spock's Vulcan brother has embraced emotion and uses the Vulcan mind-meld technique to share, ease and overcome a person's traumatic experiences. But the overriding idea behind Final Frontier (ultimately, a search for God) is a hoary chestnut of sci-fi, and one the film fails to breathe new life into -- with said God proving to be a malevolent alien entity posing as a deity. Naturally.

Admittedly, Shatner's original vision was tarnished by budget constrictions (not helped by the fact ILM were unavailable to work on the film), but it's difficult to see how Shatner's intention to have a rock-creature in the final showdown would have helped matters. Incidentally, the CGI rock-beast in 1999's Galaxy Quest should probably be considered a very subtle in-joke for Trekkies.

Trek V is home to a great many embarrassments for the series: Uhura's (Nichelle Nichols) un-sexy, half-naked dance-of-distraction to some halfwit guards; campfire chats about "explosive" beans; a rendition of "Row Row Row Your Boat"; and occasional slapstick (Scotty braining himself unconscious after claiming he knows "this ship like the back of my hand" -- doink!)

All that is rather frustrating for the movie, as there's certainly a kernel of a good storyline lurking somewhere in the rubble. Kirk's refusal to be treated by Sybok's mind-meld (claiming you need your pain) is an interesting little debate when his colleagues are having their psychological scars healed, Sybok himself is fairly interesting as a flipside-Spock, the search for the divine is definitely cliched but still quite engaging, and the notion of a renegade Klingon called Captain Klaa (Todd Bryant) tracking Kirk to kill him for fame and glory was entertaining enough.

The Final Frontier (while turning a profit at the box-office), received terrible press reviews, the bile of disappointed fans, and the condemnation of Trek's creator Gene Roddenberry himself, who labeled it "apocryphal at best" and was particularly irritated by the decision to give Spock a fully-Vulcan sibling. Shatner himself accepted the blame for a movie that would ordinarily have killed Star Trek's cinematic adventure, were it not for the fact the franchise's 25th anniversary was on the horizon...


Paramount Pictures
Budget: $28 million
107 minutes

Director: William Shatner
Writers: David Loughery (story by William Shatner, Harve Bennett & David Loughery)

Cast: William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelly (Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy), George Takei (Hikaru Sulu), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), James Doohan (Montgomery "Scotty" Scott), David Warner (St. John Talbot), Laurence Lickinbill (Sybok), Todd Bryant (Captain Klaa), Spice Williams-Crosby (Vixis), Charles Cooper (General Korrd) & Cynthia Gouw (Caithlin Dar)

Star Trek: 3D Enterprise; Shatner sings; JJ Abrams interview; The Onion review

Now, this is rather snazzy. "Experience The Enterprise" is a 3D interactive web-application that puts the new USS Enterprise "in the palm of your hand", using "augmented reality". Ooh. Basically, if you have a webcam you can take a five-minute tour of the new ship. The embedded video above explains it better. Check it out!

More videos after the jump...

It's a funny clip of William Shatner at the AFI Lifetime Achievement for George Lucas in 2005, where he serenaded the creator of Trek's "rival" franchise.

And that's JJ Abrams (director of the new Star Trek) in a long interview with Charlie Rose about the movie...

Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Finally, The Onion have this hilarious faux-report where disappointed hardcore Trekkies bash the new movie for being "a fun and watchable action-packed thrillride."

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

Having a whale of a time...

[SPOILERS] While not as well-received as Wrath Of Khan, The Search For Spock was successful enough for Paramount to plough ahead with a fourth movie, once again securing Leonard Nimoy and Harve Bennett as director and writer, respectively. William Shatner threatened to leave the franchise shortly before shooting (prompting studio conversations about a prequel without him), but later agreed to return following a pay increase of $2 million and a deal to direct Star Trek V...

During a pre-production period on Voyage Home that saw Eddie Murphy circle the project, Khan director Nicholas Meyer returned to help Bennet craft a story based on a popular ingredient of many of the old television episodes: time-travel. Nimoy also insisted that Star Trek IV have "no dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, [and] no stereotypical bad guy." His somewhat diluted vision resulted in one of the Trek franchise's biggest moneyspinners, and even today it remains the most accessible movie in the Trek oeuvre for non-fans. The reason is very simple: Trek IV is, at heart, a lighthearted fish-out-of-water movie, tethered to a laudable ecological message.

Set three months after the events of Star Trek III, the crew of the USS Enterprise are returning to Earth from Vulcan (with the recently-resurrected Spock) in their commandeered Klingon Bird Of Prey. Their return coincides with the arrival of a mysterious, cigar-shaped alien probe that is unintentionally causing global destruction in an attempt to communicate with humpbacked whales. Said mammals are sadly extinct in the 23rd-century, meaning Kirk and his crew decide to attempt a dangerous faster-than-light "sling-shot" maneuver around the Sun, to travel back in time and retrieve a whale from the 20th-century to transport back to the present to satisfy this alien craft.

Temporal displacement achieved, the Trekkers find themselves in San Francisco circa 1986, where Kirk quickly locates two humpback whales at the city's Cetacean Institute (named "George" and "Gracie".) To facilitate access to them, he strikes up a friendship with sassy marine biologist Dr. Gillian Taylor (a weak Catherine Hicks) -- intending to steal the whales once their Bird Of Prey (parked and "cloaked" in a local park) is recharged using nuclear power, and Scotty (James Doohan) has built a tank strong enough to store George and Gracie in their cargo hold.

It's easy to see why Voyage Home struck a chord with big audiences, whose attendance catapulted Trek IV to box-office success far above its niche-market predecessors. Indeed, this was the first Trek movie I myself was taken to see in the cinema by my parents. It's primarily a comedy with scant sci-fi, devoid of many Trek tropes to alienate newcomers.

That it works is down to the chemistry of the cast, which will never date like some elements of the film. Nimoy's direction is a little bland, mostly content to steer a course through to the various gags (Spock incapacitating a noisy punk commuter with a Vulcan neck-pinch, Chekov's search for "noocler wessels", Scotty communicating with a computer by talking into the mouse, etc.) They even manage to throw in an element of farce, with a mad rush around a hospital towards the end!

Overall, I can quite understand why The Voyage Home remains a popular movie, despite the fact it essentially reduces Star Trek into little more than a silly romp. After the navel-gazing Trek I, angry Trek II and meandering Trek III, a bit of levity was just what the franchise needed at this point in its history. Some jokes and situations feel dated 23 years later, but Voyage Home is certainly an entertaining way to bring the issue of whaling to commercial audiences, and the cast definitely seem to enjoy its change of pace and temperament...


Paramount Pictures
Budget: $27 million
119 minutes

Director: Leonard Nimoy
Writers: Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Nicholas Meyer & Harve Bennett (story by Leonard Nimoy & Harve Bennett)

Cast: William Shatner (Admiral James T. Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), DeForest Kelly (Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy), George Takei (Hikaru Sulu), Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekov), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), James Doohan (Montgomery "Scotty" Scott), Catherine Hicks (Dr. Gillian Taylor), Majel Barrett (Dr. Christine Chapel), Mark Lenard (Ambassador Spock), Robin Curtis (Lt. Saavik), Grace Lee Whitney (Amanda Grayson), John Schuck (Klingon Amassador), Robert Ellenstein (Federation President) & Brock Peters (Fleet Admiral Cartwright)

Star Trek: bloopers, inspiration, villains, happy meals, maps and home theatre

Seven Days Of Star Trek is at its halfway point here at DMD. My reviews of Star Trek IV-VI will continue daily from tomorrow. I hope you've been reading along with Trek I, II and III. But, in the meantime, here are some choice Trek-related weblinks from around the 'net:

• 10 Innovations Inspired by Star Trek
  
• Top 10 Star Trek Villains
• The Horror of Star Trek Happy Meals
• USS Enterprise vs Battlestar Galactica: Who Would Win?
• Star Trek Quadrant Map
• Homemade Star Trek Theatre