Barry Anderson

This film gave us the opportunity to enjoy being in outer space, and to adore the Enterprise. It presented Kirk as having been promoted to his level of incompetence, hating being an admiral, going through early midlife crisis, desperate to relive his glory days as a captain, and letting his ego and rusting command judgment lead him into bad decisions. For all this movie's faults, it introduced this vision of Kirk, which Wrath of Khan picks up. In fact, many of the TOS episodes (including The Changeling) were largely about cleaning up after Kirk's mistakes, so this was actually a logical development of the character. It also presented a compelling plot premise without resorting to a cliche villain, and it let the audience solve the mystery of the ominous cloud right along with the characters. And it has that Star Trek optimism we all appreciate. The TV show worked because it gave us back the hope that George Orwell and Aldous Huxley had taken away, and this movie honored that. And the music said it all without a word. Jerry Goldsmith nailed another one! So that's good. But it is bad. So bad that even the flawless music couldn't fully salvage it. The pace is far too slow, the uniforms look like Space 1999 leftovers, and if the point is to love the Enterprise, with all the beautiful exterior shots, why did they make the interior so ugly? I like the conflict between Kirk and Decker, but the hammy acting messes it up ...or maybe something else does; I don't know enough about the process of film craft to know exactly what went wrong, but somehow a very interesting subplot manages to fizzle ...to the extent that when Ilia gets zapped, Decker comes across like he's as concerned with one-upping Kirk as he is with losing the love of his life! And the way Spock is appended to the crew does not work. Nothing about Spock's role here works, and he's a pretty important (probably the most admired) character. So that's bad. The mechanical Ilia replica doesn't work either, especially as we never felt like we knew the real Ilia in the first place. And high heels? Really? Bad. As for V'ger itself, it was supposed to have all the knowledge of the galaxy, but it had to wait for Kirk to wipe off its nameplate to learn its own full name??? How is that not just silly? The film is essential for trekkies (they're actually required to see it), and there are things to like in it (especially for those of us who have warm, nostalgic memories of the series), but there are more things to dislike (especially for those of us who remember the series as better than it really was & therefore have unrealistic expectations). And I wonder how viewers unfamiliar with the central characters - and for whom the name Nomad means nothing - could relate to it. For all that, I would love to see a sequel in which V'ger comes back, and we meet the digitized spirits of Ilia and Decker. Maybe V'ger could decide to destroy us carbon-based vermin after all, and these two Star Children could sacrifice themselves to save us, leaving us one last cryptic message about the triumph of love in the human adventure - or something ...kind of like how the spirits of HAL and Bowman save us from the Monolith in Arthur C. Clarke's 3001: The Final Odyssey. After all, they're listed as MIA, not dead. "Star Trek: The Return of V'ger" I think that could work...

This is the only Star Trek movie that sort of works for me. It only makes sense if you know the story of TWOK & TSFS, but there are worse movies to sit through than those. The TNG cast movies, for example, are worse. But this one brings a smile to the face. It has fun with time travel. It manages to combine Star Trek nostalgia with a good dose of self-parody. I love Kirk's response when asked over a beer in the 1980's whether he's from outer space: "No, I'm from Iowa. But I work in outer space." Scottie is as cozy & appealing as ever. Bones is as delightfully grumpy as ever. Lowly Ensign Chekov, with his Russian accent in the Cold War '80's, dreams he's an admiral. Uhura is still beautiful. Sulu gets to see his old hometown San Francisco. Spock is just as brilliant as we know he is, and even more oblivious to human sensibilities. He mind-melds with a whale, and neck-pinches a punk rocker. Awesome! Throw in a pitch to save the whales, and what's not to like? Only, when the self-parody goes this far over the top, that's a sign it's time to move on. This should have been the last TOS cast movie. Actually, make that the last Star Trek movie. But never mind. This one leaves us happy. Save the whales. Jump the shark. And have some laughs along the way.

Time travel usually makes for a pretty compelling story, but here are the problems: - Star Trek had already overused the Captain Ahab theme. Kirk, Decker, Khan, and Marr had already been made analogs of Ahab, and Picard did not need to be added to this list. -The idea that human beings can cooperate to build a better world and to reach for the stars with no outside help - technical or inspirational - is a central theme of the Star Trek vision. But here, we need Vulcans descending from on high to inspire us? No. If we are not supposed to need gods or angels, we definitely should not need Vulcans. Just no. - If the Borg & Picard's conflict with them are to be so central to the story, then Picard should be allowed to make some progress in resolving his Borg issues, or at least, we should get a hint as to how he might resolve them, as this is a central struggle for this character. Kirk had Klingon issues, but was allowed to work through them in Undiscovered Country. But after this movie, Picard has more Borg baggage than he did before, and no more resources for dealing with it. And if the movie laments Picard's lack of progress, or even acknowledges that it is a problem, I guess I missed it. - The Borg Queen is too obviously a cheap way to personify the antagonist so the characters can interact more naturally. Nothing in what we know about the Borg suggests they should have queen. They are a collective. That is essential to their character. That should not have been changed just for a plot convenience. And if it's an analogy with bees, then her role should be purely reproductive - to make more drones & workers, but it's not. She is clearly a political leader, which neither bees nor Borg should need. Again, just no. -How did the Enterprise survive in the altered timeline when the Earth humans as we know them did not? It is not adequately explained. It should have been. For many of us, I think, Star Trek has lots of nostalgia appeal, so we remember the shows as better than they really were. And we want the movies to be good. But while I may be hypercritical, I find the movies - from TMP to Nemesis - disappointing. For me, anyway, they just don't work.

I finally got around to watching this, and I'm not sorry I took so long. Star Trek should be about teamwork, problem-solving, and shedding light on moral & social issues. In a weary world robbed of hope by dystopian visions of the future, it shines a light of humanism, socialism, and optimism - "the human adventure" ...or at least it did for a while. It was at its best when it didn't focus on a villain. But this film is just about defeating a villain we hadn't even met before. That doesn't resolve anything. What's the point? If the point was to kill Data, why didn't we bring back Lore to have that honor? And if the point was to bid farewell to the TNG characters, why didn't we bring back their old gadfly Q to say his farewell? That worked in All Good Things, because it brought us full circle back to Encounter at Farpoint. This film doesn't bring us full circle back to anything. Instead, we get two new & pointless characters:. Shinzon and B4 (if you double B4, do you get BB8?). You don't get resolution by introducing completely new characters. Isn't that obvious? Not to everyone, I guess. And about Shinzon, yes, he must have been partly based off Mordred - especially considering his death scene straight out of Le Morte D'Arthur - but he was also a mini version of Flash Gordon's old nemesis:. Ming the Merciless. Younger, but both bald, somewhat similar outfits (if Shinzon's had been red, it would have been too obvious. It's still too obvious), both want to attack Earth for no reason at all, despite never even having been there, and each tries to force himself on the first Earth woman he ever sees (Dale Arden, Deanna Troi). And both get rammed by spaceships (Ajax, Enterprise). And both have quasi-oriental names despite looking very caucasian. Consider whether that last characteristic of a villain may be a bit racist. Orientalism had been one of Star Trek's blind spots ever since, and I was sad to see it again here.

Nothing in this series is original. It's the Roman planet from Star Trek Bread and Circuses (Children of the Son = Soldiers of The One) and Caprica City is Larousse City from Pokemon Destiny Deoxys (both are Vancouver with added splashes of high tech) with a plot from Pokemon Birth of Mewtwo (Dr Fuji = Daniel Graystone, Team Rocket = HaGaTha, Amber=Zoe, Mewtwo=U-87)! There are whiffs of The Godfather, The Matrix, Law & Order, and the finale is basically Black Sunday until the climax swoops in from Attack of the Clones ...except the cylons look & act more like the Small Soldiers from Toy Story. You even meet the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange in one scene! The STO training camp? Welcome to Hogwarts! The holoband? Star Trek holodeck (and pretty much Arthur C. Clarke's Brain Cap from 3001). Amanda Graystone? Is that name an ill-conceived crossover play on D. C. Fontana's Amanda Grayson? Since Moore wrote for Star Trek, it was no accident. So she dumps Daniel for this stiff but supercute Vulcan guy named Sarek? How absurd can you get; are Zoe and Spock half-siblings??? Even the Caprica Anthem tune is ripped from the old Jerusalem hymn heard in Chariots of Fire. And let's end with Zoe grinning devilishly into the camera when we don't expect her, just like Damien at the end of The Omen. These all stick out like sore thumbs. You can only take so many sore thumbs. If you really like sore thumbs, this series is for you. So is a hammer. Nothing is original, and when the incongruous characters and plot threads come together, they weave a messed up backstory that arguably ruins the whole franchise! Watch it, and the dorkiness will haunt you whenever you watch or think about BSG ever again. This is how humanity's genocidal nemesis began??? Hints of Animatrix or even Terminator we had expected, but Pokemon is going too far. At least we learn that when dealing with cylons, we GOTTA CATCH 'EM ALL. It's clear now. Resurrection Hub is really a PokeBall. "Cavil, Return! Six, I choose you!" Hey, Fatale Types are strong against Baltar. Birth of Mewtwo works in the Incredible World of Pokemon. It does not work here. It seems they just mined old movies and TV shows to see what they could throw in, however awkwardly, brewing up a hodge-podge of Glen Larceny. If BSG was a Star Wars rip-off, Caprica was an EVERYTHING rip-off. One season was more than enough. At least Mark Donnelly is a pretty good singer, and did his best to salvage the asinine Caprica Abides lyrics to the tune of Jerusalem. But isn't Donnelly a devout Catholic? What about that genuflecting cylon who almost makes the sign of the cross: no problem? "This cup is the new covenant in my motor oil, shed for thee for the forgiveness of sin. This do, as oft as ye lubricate, in remembrance of me." As if the darkened parodies of both church and mosque and the suicide bomber screaming a rough translation of "Allah akbar" weren't sufficiently annoying, here's another sore thumb. A hammer would have been less painful. Aren't Christians and Muslims alike troubled by re-imagining monotheistic faith as violent? Haven't we had enough of that hate-speech in the media? On a lighter note, did they get Donnelly to sing O Caprica (why else get "Mr. O Canada") but balk at offending Canadians? "Hey, take off; if you hosers can swipe at religions, like why not nationalities too, eh? Scared we'd send the Royal Caprican Mounted Police after ya? Mounties got cylons now, ya know." At least that rip-off would have been funny, and you see how easy it is, but they didn't have the guts. Caprica. It's a goat. And yes, that did feel good.