I have never been especially interested in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” or any of the other subsequent series. While each episode of the original “Star Trek” is almost as self-contained as an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” “The Next Generation” strikes me as too hung up on its own dogma and too interested in stringing along stories from week-to-week. Entire episodes seem to revolve around whether or not the flux-capacitor thingy will work, and the solution to every threat is to “reverse the polarity.” With each piece of new technology and “mythology,” the “Star Trek” universe seems to shrink instead of grow. As The Amused puts it over at LiveJournal’s “ArtFilm101: Movie Snobs Unite,” “the tendency of sci-fi buffs to require legitimacy in their absurdity is what limits the genre…sci-fi, which has the potential to be the most adventurous genre, has ended up being shackled to the nitpicking of the plausibility police…a movie that offers an impenetrably consistent world is a bogus one. That’s the world of Trekkies checking their guidebooks to make sure that this new alien species is consistent with what Kirk said in episode #54.”
Ironically, most die-hard fans will wistfully bemoan “Trek’s” internal inconsistencies, as if to say “it may not be perfect, but it’s the best for now.” Similarly, the newer characters never hit me in the gut like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. In many ways “The Next Generation,” the longer-running and more expensive of the two shows, has become a greater landmark in the history of television. But it lacks the “zing” of the original series, with all its campy, overacted, and low-budget zeal, even if can’t be counted on to have special effects guys who can tell the difference between a phaser and a photon torpedo. I’m not even sure the original lasted 54 episodes.
It might be hard to argue that any individual “Star Trek” film qualifies for greatness (except maybe “The Wrath of Khan”). Their inability to stand alone might prevent that. But combined they form that kind of greatness that comes from watching the same characters for so many years, for getting to know them, and for caring about what happens to them despite the fact that, deep down, you know that don’t really exist. Aren’t movies great?
Finished October 13th, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
Smarting from the lukewarm box-office response of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” “The Wrath of Khan” is a tight, engaging, and direct narrative, with better uniforms, on a smaller budget, involving a villain from the original series named Khan (a mullet-headed Ricardo Montalban, sporting an incredible set of pecs). He’s a great thug, probably one of the best in movie history, glowering and over-the-top and soliloquizing like nobody’s business. At one point he seems to have an orgasm while pondering how to torture Kirk. In the original series, the Enterprise found Khan and his crew frozen in deep space since the 20th century. Kirk took them in only to have Khan take over the ship and try to kill everyone. Naturally, Kirk beat the crap out of him, but had a certain respect for the tyrant. He left Khan and his crew on an inhabitable planet rather than take them to trial. In “The Wrath of Khan,” Khan’s back, he’s pissed, and he wants Kirk dead. He has a starship equal to the Enterprise at his disposal, and his wrath is punctuated with two interstellar battles that are as exciting as they are scientifically improbable.
“The Wrath of Khan” is also a surprisingly penetrating meditation on the circle of life—about growing old, about being replaced by the young, and about various attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, to bypass the natural order of birth, life, maturation, and death. The film’s MacGuffin is the Genesis device, a gizmo that, in seven minutes, can transform a barren world into something that looks a lot like Earth. The Enterprise is now packed with trainees instead of a normal crew, and is beset by a man born over 200 years earlier, who has achieved a kind of illicit immortality. Captain Kirk is now Admiral Kirk, feeling old and useless and celebrating his birthday in a way that Dr. McCoy describes as a “goddamn funeral.” Spock and Kirk both develop interesting relationships with a young Vulcan lieutenant (Kirstie Alley) training for a command position. The way Kirk moves from flirting with her as a way to reclaim his youth, to meeting an old flame (Bibi Besch) with a son (Merritt Buttrick) is surprisingly subtle. So is his realization of how embarrassing his flirtations have been and his final acceptance of growing old.
“Star Trek II” is plot-driven moviemaking at its best. There’s not an ounce of fat on it. Every scene serves one of the aforementioned purposes and every thread is connected economically. Unencumbered by “The Motion Picture’s” addiction to special effects, there are also plenty of good bits in which the personalities of the crew are allowed to breathe. The final showdown between Kirk and Khan’s starships is like “Das Boot” in outer space, and while the film ends with explosions and colors, the closing of Kirk’s circle, as well as the sacrifices made by the end of the film, are treated with restraint, even sweetly. This is the best of the “Star Trek” films.
Page one of "Star Trek: The First Six Movies."
Page three of "Star Trek: The First Six Movies."
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“The Search for Spock” continues the theme of aging begun in “The Wrath of Khan,” which will continue through the rest of the series. The Enterprise, in Kirk’s words, is like “a house with all the children grown up.” The ship is old, battered, set to be decommissioned, and missing shipmates to both the grave and new assignments. But Kirk, loyal to his friends of years and years, is charged with a mission that he cannot deny. He and the gang steal the soon-to-be-scrapped Enterprise, flee from their superiors, cross paths with a rogue Klingon warlord (Christopher Lloyd of “Back to the Future,” leaving delightful teethmarks on chairs and walls alike as he exhorts loudly and disintegrates his mildly disobedient underlings), and do battle in the shadow of a dying planet. Why? No discussion of “The Search for Spock” can be complete with spoiling the end of “The Wrath of Khan,” so be warned. Ready? Spock is dead, his life laid down to save the Enterprise from Khan’s wrath, and to protect the lush Planet Genesis, formed by the Genesis device. But, as a Vulcan, he can be kind-of sort-of resurrected.
The Klingons come equipped with a Bird of Prey, a bat-like craft that definitely qualifies as one of the coolest spaceships in the movies. Most of the “Star Trek” films are now available on special edition DVDs, complete with numerous interviews and special effects featurettes, including an early sketch for the Bird of Prey, which is not a spaceship at all, but a mean, buff guy flexing his arms.
The best element of “The Search for Spock” is its tone. With its space battles and gallivanting from planet to planet, it could easily have been a straight continuation of “The Wrath of Khan.” But director Leonard Nimoy has given the movie a melancholy, lonesome quality, of lonely spaceships and a desolate, windy planet where we find Spock’s grave.