The other day, while in Los Angeles working on a press junket, I had a few hours to kill and decided to stop by probably my favorite movie theater in the world to catch a matinee. And what a matinee it was — they were showing a vintage 35mm print of The Last Starfighter from Quentin Tarantino’s private collection. Before the film, they played a bunch of trailers, including one that sent my nostalgia into overdrive: the original teaser trailer for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
I was ten when this movie hit theatres and was totally mad about Star Trek. I vividly remember that it was part of a year-long celebration of Star Trek’s 25th anniversary, and having seen the movies on TV, this was my first chance to see the original crew on the big screen. My father promised to take me to see it over the Christmas holidays — which he did, despite having zero interest in Trek.
It got me thinking about how important these movies — and this franchise — were to me as a kid. These days, with the streaming era, we get so much Star Trek content that it feels like the magic has faded a bit. Take the Star Trek streaming movie Section 31 — pretty unwatchable as a movie, in my opinion, though I’ve heard some of the shows are good (I’ve never been able to stick with one).
With Skydance now owning Paramount, my hope is that once the shows run their course, they rest the franchise a bit and maybe focus on making movies again. I’ve always enjoyed Trek on the big screen, and since we’ve gotten so much episodic content from the series, I’m not sure it can stay fresh indefinitely.
With that in mind, I want to know what you folks think is the best big-screen Star Trek movie. For me, The Wrath of Khan is the easy winner, although I’m impossibly fond of the entire Genesis Trilogy. And I’ve never bought into the notion that only the even-numbered Trek movies are good, especially since probably the worst Trek movie ever — Nemesis — is even-numbered.
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