(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!
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