Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

(watched as part of a broadcast-order franchise group-watch)Possibly the cheesiest titles yet with the movie name 'teleporting' onto screen!

Ha, again with the 'clip from previous movie as security footage', this time somehow filmed from space to see the Enterprise self-destruct! Those Federation cameras get everywhere!

Hey, is this Ian Abercrombie as a weaselly Klingon diplomat? (Checks... No, it's not, though he *has* been in Trek, because everyone ever has.)

Oof, I always enjoy a matte painting, but that wide of the Bird Of Prey is is glaringly obvious! Budget constraints?

Ha ha, wow, they put all the Vulcan mechanics in red Smurf hats.

Well, if nothing else, the lesser ensemble all at least got to say "Aye sir" in this one.

Nice to see the Vasquez Rocks get some movie use.

That test scene is cool. I realise now that the Holoship episode of Red Dwarf was probably riffing on it. The "How do you feel" ending is really good too.

Yay, Jane Wyatt returning! Good to have both Spock's parents' original actors come back.

The mysterious drone ship is effectively spooky, and has some nice exterior shots.

So far, the structure of this movie is the same flipping between the introduction of the latest threat and any other plot threads that need introducing or reheating. It feels a bit smoother here, as all of the non-drone threads relate directly to Kirk et al heading back to Earth.

Saavik played by Robin Curtis again (not sure why Gwardinen thought she got recast again in this one!), but as with Search For Spock they really could have just got rid of her offscreen. Her brief appearance here doesn't achieve anything and it seems odd that she hasn't had the chance to spend ten seconds telling Kirk that his son died heroically.

As mentioned previously, could really do without yet another Spock reboot (just give us classic Spock!).

I do like the evolving McCoy-Spock relationship, though - now they've had that extreme mind-meld-soul-carry experience, McCoy suddenly wants to be best mates. Carried off well by Kelley as usual.

I wonder how many of these rando alien species get brought back over the course of the franchise...

I think I just spotted Chapel, but I wouldn't have realised if I hadn't seen her in the titles, I would have just assumed she was an anonymous officer.

Wow, that time-travel sequence was great, I loved the trippy CG morphing sequence. Holding onto a bit of that Space Odyssey flavour.

I think one of the reasons this movie stands out as one of the better Treks is that it feels a little fresh - most of them are out of uniform, they're in a Klingon ship, there's no real antagonistic force, and they spend a lot of time in the 1980s (which feels just as much like a classic sci-fi budget-cutting trick as it does a callback to a handful of the tv episodes).

That arrival scene with the binmen felt very Terminator, which had come out two years prior I think. I felt the transition from future and spaceship interiors to on the ground 1980s business needed a little smoothing over, though - could have done with an opening crane shot or something at least, then maybe seeing the move from park to city streets from the crew's eyes rather than just slamming into an establishing wide.

Anyway, already enjoying the fish out of water stuff, it's great. "Double dumbass on you!" And just casually throwing in a little time loop with the spectacles, the writers feel refreshed here too. Plus they got all the threads tied together and into the main thrust of the movie in record time.

Didn't ever expect to see this much Spock butt.

Uh oh, the instant this Bob guy walks on screen he seems like a classic 80s nice-guy-scumbag.

Smart to pair them off for separate sub-missions, too. Gives them all something to do, keeps the pace up.

Ha, as soon as I wrote that they brought most of them back to twiddle their thumbs on the ship again. Ah well, it worked for as long as it needed to. This stuff with Chekov on the battleship is a bit too goofy, though. Sulu chatting to the pilot takes on a bit of a different tone now that he's canonically queer.

Fuck you, Bob. I fucking knew it.

Wow, what a great ending! That really could have wrapped up the TOS movies and felt perfect.

Those credits are sooo tacky. Not least because they showcase the cheap-feeling score by Leonard Rosenman taking over from James Horner (and Jerry Goldsmith).

To end on a positive, though, a very fun and propulsive movie, and it was nice to have a bit of heart added back into the mix with the whales and Gillian. I felt a lot more affected by them than David's death!

Saltburn (2024)

SPOILERS BELOW

Stylish and confident, but when it's this shallow and derivative that tips into self-indulgence. A movie that's basically The Talented Mr Ripley or Six Degrees Of Separation or Parasite or Down And Out in Beverly Hills (with an admittedly cute reversal that I somehow didn't see coming but doesn't do much except provide a more interesting 'the riches lose their taste for the pov' beat than usual) doesn't need to be over two hours long and it certainly doesn't need a big montage at the end where all the utterly obvious twists are revealed like they're a surprise to anyone.

Rating: okay but, outside of a couple of well-executed shock value moments (the bath and the grave), seen it all before

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

(watched as part of a broadcast-order franchise group-watch)

Down to two years between movies at this point!

I know this one isn't particularly well thought of. Hopefully I'll find stuff to enjoy in it before going onto fan favourite Voyage Home and then returning to episodes and crossing over what I still consider the boundary of modern Trek with TNG.

Started watching!

The titles are even less high-falutin' and perhaps more modern as they play over recap and then stock footage, and then the usual starfield but one pans over to reveal the Enterprise. This feels a lot more like a series now.

Didn't realise they actually recast Saavik, that's frustrating. Not sure there have been any canon recastings up till now in the show or movies? I'd rather they'd just shuffled the character offscreen, but maybe that was unmanageable with how closely the stories are linked, I'll have to see.

Nimoy directing! Is this the first castmember directing? Or at least the first series regular?

Hmm, they've said most trainees were reassigned and sent Saavik down to the planet with David, they easily could have just sent her off with the rest of the trainees. Ah well.

I like the bit with Scotty about the factor of 4. Didn't realise the stuff between him and Geordi about this in TNG was a callback!

Uhura has taken time to get a new hairdo!

The reveal of the Klingon cloaking tech surprised that pirate guy, so I guess it hasn't gone into common use since "The Enterprise Incident".

That Klingon dog is really goofy. And they even do a comedy bit with it! Undercuts the villain immediately.

Still, interesting to see a new Klingon woman design. Shame that they feel the need to make her attractive to human audiences, with minor head-ridging and a cheesecake outfit (and to give them no benefit of the doubt, lighter skin). Iirc the cleavage-framing costumes will persist at least through Generations, though the face make-up will start to align more with the men.

Rand cameo! This non-dialogue moment is all she gets, but still fun to see her shake her head grouchily at the state they brought the Enterprise back in.

These security officer outfits are terrible! I'm guessing they saved money by reusing the costumes from a sports movie and spray-painting them.

Speaking of money, some of the compositing seems a bit worse in this movie. But the Klingon and pirate ship stuff all looked really nice.

Again, the opening to this movie feels too loose, they tend to just set up a bunch of stuff in order and then get around to tying them all together at some point. Like, I don't think we needed to see the Klingon stuff until now, and we could have gotten to this point with Kirk et all a lot quicker.

I liked the scene with McCoy in Spock's quarters, very spooky and Kelley plays it really well.

Wow, they got as much replay value out of that Genesis CG render as they could!

Speaking of CG, that shot of the science ship heading to the Genesis planet felt very CG. I hope I'm not watching some sort of remaster with new fx - if not, it's a very impressive fx shot for the time, even with the compositing artefact of a lighter square of space around the planet.

Interesting to get a (first?) mention of the Klingon Empire negotiating peace with the Federation.

Cool to see Sarek again! Everything's still feeling pretty directionless, though. Hopefully now Kirk's got a mission it'll all get on track.

Very funny that the security video logs of Spock's final moments just happen to exactly match the camera angles and editing of the movie! Complete with celluloid scratches too, which doesn't jibe with the magnetic tape effects we've been seeing on other diegetic footage.

Ahh, McCoy is so good in this! Those terrible attempts at a neck-pinch, and then "revenge for al those arguments he lost". Gold!

They really should have focused on this instead of having like four different plot strands all vaguely going in the same direction anyway.

This gives everyone something to do as well, even if it is just little action comedy moments and it means that suddenly the Federation is full of dickweeds to be humiliated.

Nice use of Kobayashi Maru as their team codename.

And a callback to the 'give the word' dialogue from WoK. It's cool that the movies are starting to build up their own little reference points as well as taking stuff from the show. Makes the whole thing start to feel cohesive.

A shame Uhura isn't coming along with them. Chekov is getting all the comms dialogue she could have had! Especially as they don't have Spock, they really could have streamlined some other stuff and given her a big role in this movie.

Hey, Miguel Ferrer! He's like the ultimate stick-up-the-ass dickweed casting. Plus this preening, smug captain. Very funny how that's the framing of the Federation now and Kirk et al are the Han Solos flying around dodging regs in an old rustbucket. I guess they did often have stuffy Federation diplomats and high ranking officers getting in the way in TOS.

I think Lloyd works quite well as a cold-hearted schemer, more in line with the TOS Klingons than the hulking brutes that would come later. And I guess they didn't want another Khan type right away. He feels more like an 80s Middle Eastern terrorist character, like Art Malik in True Lies or something. But he doesn't really get enough to work with here to be a truly memorable villain, in the way that he would later with Judge Doom for example.

It's probably his voice that's the biggest issue, he just sounds like a human American middle manager, it needs some spice on it. He does do a great "GET OUT!" though.

That entire Enterprise destruction sequence is fantastic, in fact.

Oof, Nimoy doesn't direct physical fights very well, the scuffles on the planet surface are worse than the ones on the show!

The Genesis setting reminds me of LOST a little bit - jungle setting associated with the source of life, a mysteriously empty coffin, a final fight on a disintegrating clifftop. (LOST even planned to have erupting lava for the final fight originally!)

Prosthetic effect of face pulsating as it changes shape - now I know we're in the mid eighties!

Okay, finished now. That ending was cool but real slow, which I wouldn't mind so much if the rest of the film had been a bit more successful. This really did feel like a 'downtime' episode in a modern serialised show where it's just spinning wheels and connecting a couple of dots between two tentpole episodes.

I also vaguely remember that Spock is reset again in Voyage Home to not calling Kirk "Jim", which might wind up being a bit frustrating when they already gave him a reset in TMP and had him remember him as Jim here, but we'll see.

Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan (1982)

(Watched as part of a broadcast-order franchise group-watch. I went with the director's cut as it was easier to get ahold of and apparently the differences are minor.)

Another classy minimalist opening, though the font and the "In the 23rd Century" card make it feel a little less arty. The uniforms and sets feel warmer, too.

I like the Kobayashi Maru sequence. I wonder how fresh the 'psych, it's a holodeck (kinda)!' twist opening was back then, and how many people thought they'd just summarily killed off half the main cast in the first few minutes. It's given away a little by the lack of score.

They're back on the 'Kirk is old' thing from TMP, but I guess there's a twist on it here because rather than fighting to get back in the fight and being unequipped for it, here he's resigning himself to obsolescence. I hope not every one of these films does this for the first twenty minutes!

That first Khan scene is great. Frankly, I think they should have opened with it and either moved or cut the KM stuff. This movie is already feeling a little less focused than TMP. There it was 'there's a threat, Kirk is going out to investigate and pulling everyone along with him'. Here there's training exercises and inspections and fireside chats and clunky cutaways to scientists and stuff.

Also, I do wish they'd found a way to keep at least some part of those classic uniform colours. I guess it might have felt weird with them all being 15 years older, but they still look great in the Kelvin movies, and having everyone wear basically the same outfit is a bit dull.

Maybe I'm imagining it but the Enterprise bridge feels a lot more like a set here than in TMP, even a little cheap. Perhaps the same for the engine rooms as well. I guess the budget was going elsewhere on this one. They do at least take some time for nice exterior shots of the ship and a majestic launch sequence, glad they didn't bin that vibe completely.

Okay, the Marcus call to Kirk got things feeling focused again, I just think the opening was a little too diffuse. Really enjoying the dialogue scenes in this movie - not just the Khan one, but Kirk in the elevator with Saavik and then Bones, and then in Spock's quarters. Sharply written and delivered, amazing how many iconic lines are rapid-fired in that Spock scene.

Fun that Khan had Moby Dick in his book collection and is now going all Ahab on Kirk. Is this the first explicit allusion to that novel in Trek? I know there's a lot of it in First Contact, of course.

Yesss! James Horner puts his four-note danger motif into use once again, was hoping it would show up!

Interesting that they're talking about "the cosmic problems of population and food supply". Ties in with The Mark Of Gideon. I guess even with the entire galaxy at their disposal, civilisations still run up against the problem of most planets being uninhabitable. And the food replicator still isn't a thing? I suppose by TNG food supply is no longer a cosmic problem?

The costuming on the Khan lot all feels very TOS levels of cheese, it's weird to see them all on the Reliant bridge like that. Surprised the filmmakers didn't take advantage of the story to give them slightly more modern 'survivors on a desert planet' costumes.

You can certainly feel an ongoing tension between the original show and contemporary cinema in these first two movies. It's great that TMP redefined the property, but it does then feel a little jarring when it edges back towards the TOS vibe in this one.

It's great watching old movies and seeing everything done with models, all the space ships and stations here look great.

Also fun that the Genesis Cave is like a big-budget version of the 'paradise planets' they'd represent with a location shoot and a couple of shrubs on the show.

Ha, Spock has learnt another goose-based human idiom! What a great callback!

Wow, this really kept up the pace the whole way through once it got started. A very fun movie. I liked the theme of rejuvenation as well, it fit well with this more energetic take on the Trek movie franchise and justified the continued focus on the characters' ages.

The differences between this and TMP reminded me of the Mission Impossible movies, adapting a cheesy tv show by starting off with a classy, almost stately entry taking influence from cinematic auteurs, and then going the other way with a slam-bang second entry. Though Wrath Of Khan doesn't quite make the same swing to the opposite end of the spectrum as MI2 does; it's probably a combination of MI2 and MI3, blending the arty and mainstream modes together and providing a formula for the ongoing franchise.

Some criticisms - it's a shame they still can't find something for everyone to do, Saavik feels less Vulcany than Spock, and the Carol/David storyline barely has an effect on anything, it's quite an odd inclusion. I guess it's part of the rejuvenation theme, the crew are living on in their trainees and Kirk finds a use in old age by gaining a son even as his contemporaries die.

Some points of interest from the Trek fan wiki memory-alpha:
The budget was a third of TMP's
Saavik was referred to in cut dialogue as half-Vulcan, half-Romulan
The bridge uses the same set as TMP but it was repainted to feel warmer
I thought Carol Marcus was played by Dee Wallace! Turns out it was Bibi Besch, whose name I didn't recognise but whom I know from a great performance in a small role in Tremors.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

(watched as part of a broadcast-order franchise group-watch)

Really looking forward to watching this one! I enjoyed the deliberate, reverent pace back when I first watched it even though I hadn't actually watched that much Trek, especially not TOS. Excited to make the jump from TOS and TAS into this!

Nice classy minimalist opening titles, feels a bit like a palette cleanser from the show, inviting us to see the franchise afresh.

Love the long, slow sweeps over the Klingon ships with all their greebles in full view. Like, 'yes, we have a budget and we've seen Star Wars'. (Some of the compositing here feels a little worse overall than Star Wars, but never mind.)

New Klingons! This feels of a piece with the new ships - the foreheads have been greebled just like the ship hulls. Until Trials And Tribbleations forced the issue, this could have just been read as 'this is what they always looked like, you just saw them in low def'.

Feels classy and cinematic to start with an anonymous ship of Klingons, too. They have the self-control to make us wait a little bit for the iconic set-up. I love when movies do this, like Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves starting with a beardy Costner in Jerusalem or whatever. The kind of thing that would get me worried and impatient as a very young viewer before I started to appreciate it.

Similar approach with Spock. Like 'yep, we can do impressive planet exteriors now', showing off costumes and make-up. But withholding Classic Spock a little - he's got lanky hair, we don't hear him speak. Also, interesting that they have the Klingons and Vulcans speak with subtitles here, it feels like a conscious move to make the whole thing feel more adult and sophisticated. Also a nice detail to have the computer read out and display a real-time translation of the Klingon transmission.

Kirk! Don't like his new hair. I wonder what happened there. Did it just go wiry with age, or is this some kind of hairpiece evolution?

Still got the pointy sideburns, though, that's the main thing.

Fun to introduce him being incredibly grumpy. Also love that he's clearly trying to fill his bromance hole with another Vulcan science officer.

Scotty! Boy, I hadn't realised how big the age gap is between TOS and here, you can really feel it in that first Kirk-Scotty scene. Smart move to use Scotty as the character who starts to thaw things out a little, get Kirk joking, start to bring us back to that TOS vibe.

Also enjoying the slimming white hourglass shape they put on Kirk's uniform!

LOVE that docking sequence. All the awe and affection that the Klingon ships didn't get. Plus, thank fuck they didn't greeble up the Enterprise. Kept it slick and clean, like the opening titles. Taking that long over it is such a statement on the movie's part, I love it. The gradual unveiling of pieces of the ship until its full reveal, similar to what Verhoeven did with Robocop.

I still find it really hard to conceptualise the scale of the Enterprise, though - I always think it should be bigger than what it seems to be when you get other ships and stuff next to it.

Really funny joke to go from that sentimental docking sequence straight into chaos on the bridge with a bunch of crew yelling at each other and trying to slap stuff together in time. Then the reunion of Uhura, Sulu and Chekov is only given a second or two of shiny eyes and warm grins before it's replaced with that classic Federation professionalism.

Lots of smart little touches to make the Enterprise feel more dense without overdoing it. Some strong lighting, low angles shots, some simple background and foreground action like the guy pushing the hover-crates. Again, feels like they've taken some tips from Star Wars. Plus, having stuff crapping out in the engine room consoles feels very Millennium Falcon. But then they pivot that to a nastier tone with the teleport accident. Goddamn, that's harsh. Another 'this is more grown-up, the stakes are higher, you're not watching goofy schedule filler now'.

Also awesome to see Rand. She might be the only one who turns away from the horror, but she's transporter chief now, she's wearing trousers, and she still maintains a fairly steely demeanour. No mini-skirt and burying her face in the captain's chest. Again, though, it's a shame we never got more of her and what happened with Grace Lee Whitney.

It's very funny that the big threat in this movie is 'a big space-cloud'. It's so TOS, just perfect.

I like Uhura's late-70s look.

I've been pausing on these panoramic crowd shots, checking out all the aliens tucked away in there. Not getting too showy with it, just another confident display of budget.

I'm mostly enjoying all the redesigns, but it's a shame all the uniforms are beige. Would have been nice to retain a bit of colour at least.

Okay, we've got some whites and blues in there now, thankfully. It's not just Uhura who's gone 70s either, lots of hairy chests, taches and medallions on show. Shatner still looking pretty trim at this point, too.

I like the relationship this movie has with nostalgia for the franchise. it nods at it, indulges it a little, but also keep reminding the characters and the audience that everything has changed, must change. Kirk no longer knows every rivet of the Enterprise, Spock is no longer in the mood for banter with Bones. Kirk's need to hang onto command of the Enterprise could be read (if only through a modern lens) as a metaphor for the fandom wanting everything to stay the same. Even on a surface level, you can see this film's influence in things like the first Mission Impossible or the later Indy movies and how they handle the time gap between the show or the earlier movies, how the actors have aged or how the original optimistic viewpoint interacts with more cynical times.

That journey into the cloud is great, it really underlines the other big influence here alongside Star Wars - 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's probably where a lot of the confident, considered pacing comes from. It's a shame that it basically goes away after this movie, even if the original show was after all 90% goofy hi-jinks.

Wow, then at least another two journey sequences. They're really cool, I love how many disparate elements there are, all somehow tying together, and how the scale keeps redefining itself, but I can see how this might drive some people a bit nuts!

I laughed when the alien probe showed up and Dekker said "it's taken over the computer". Such a classic TOS moment, along with crewmembers getting zapped for interfering, but now beefed up into an throbbing, impactful sequence with layers of sound and visual design. (edited) 

It really has shifted into some classic TOS beats now. The great intelligence sends a (conveniently human-alike) representative onto the ship, which can then hang out in scenes passively until needed, arguments over whether Spock should be allowed to go on a reckless recon expedition, Kirk using basic psychology and bluffs to outfox the antagonist. Again, really cool to see all this filtered through a cinematic approach.

Finished. I really enjoyed it, and I think it was a very smart way to kick off the movie franchise - establishing it as a robust, cerebral, adult, cinematic venture, before getting into scenery-chewing villains and space battles and what have you.

Really the only issue I have with it is that it ends much like any other TOS episode, returning to the status quo. The 2001 'star child evolution' ending doesn't work half so well when it's happening to a new, secondary character. Imagine if that had been Kirk! Or at least, say, Chekov. Perhaps an awareness of this led to them ending the second movie with a main character sacrifice...