Star Trek - The Motion Pictures Collection

A box-office smash, Nimoy's The Voyage Home (1986) is the franchise's most accessible adventure--a high point offset by William Shatner's comparatively dreadful Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). Meyer (and his penchant for quoting Shakespeare) returned for The Undiscovered Country (1991), a conspiracy thriller that put the series back on track, inspiring fans to invoke the "even number" rule in rating their franchise favorites. Generations (1994) gracefully passed the torch to TV's The Next Generation, bidding farewell to Captain Kirk with honor and integrity intact. Highlighted by the evolving humanity of Brent Spiner's android Lt. Comdr. Data, First Contact (1996) explored Star Trek history with a logical (hint) surprise encounter, and Insurrection (1998) provided an adequate expansion of the successful TNG series. Taken as a whole, these nine films demonstrate the consistent vitality of Roddenberry's original vision, stoking any Trekker's appetite for "ongoing missions" in Nemesis and beyond. --Jeff Shannon

(Eric, Montalban's chest is real. Meyer says so on one of the featurettes. It's his trainer's fault if it looks cheesy.)


The First 9 -- some extras, but not a lot.   January 3, 2004
J. Prindle (Macon, GA United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This Box set was one of the first DVD sets I got, almost a year ago. It includes all of the Star Trek movies up to and including Insurrection. This set does not have Nemesis.

A NEW BOX SET with that 10th Movie is out now.

Heads Up -- this 9 movie set (which I own and watched) and the other 10 movie collection do not include all of the Special Editions. So you get a little less bonus material, and it is pricey. But hey, it is Star Trek.

The First 3 films in this set have two discs with lots of extras, interviews, trekkie stuff. The other six are single discs only, and honestly they are pretty light on anything "bonus". Like nil.

The Films are old, and it shows. Just look at the trailers on STTMP, and you'll know what I mean. The effects really do look corny by today's standards, but the stories are solid and the acting is decent -- more or less throughout the whole series.

I will skip the review of each film, and sum it up -- this is a solid buy for the first 9 movies, but additional special edition discs will be coming out soon. You might be better off picking and choosing. But I got this and started my DVD collection with a decent beginning.


Captains Log 6/11/03 Star Trek just got better   June 11, 2003
Mikey Myers (San Diego, California)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is the date i wrote my review and got this box set. It is so kool + 9 awesome flicks. I have watched 1,2,3,& 4 so far and let me tell you they are nothing like i imagined. I thought they would be like the star trek TV show. But there not they have the same characters and all but so much more. I would really buy this before it goes out of stock again.


Sci-fi adventure, with mixed results.   January 29, 2003
Eric
3 out of 17 found this review helpful

(Opinions of The Motion Picture and The Undiscovered Country are based on years old memory)
The original Star Trek crew worked solely on the basis of its lead trio. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley made for arguably the most charismatic and enjoyable trio to watch in cinematic history. As for the rest of the crew, I didn't much care for anyone else, though George Takei probably came across the best as Sulu, mostly because he never succumbs to the silliness that pervades the other three (Scotty's prat falls, Chekov's accents and mispronunciations, and Uhura's horrific dance number in Star Trek V).

It's been years since I've seen The Motion Picture, and memory serves that it was an engrossing adventure that was so far off from the camp I'd been used to while watching the original TV series. Basically, I liked it, and this is without having seen the director's cut, which I hope to catch some day. The Motion Picture is decidedly an attempt at the kind of cerebral science fiction that 2001 attempted, and while I'm quite certain it's not in the same league as that film, it holds its own.

Ooh, boy, it's with The Wrath of Khan that I'm sure people will shouting blasphemy when I state that I actually didn't much enjoy the film. Sure, the effects were good and the trio was as entertaining to watch as usual, but Nicholas Meyers' direction is stale, Ricardo Montalban is a cheesy-looking villain (that fake chest can't help, either) who talks tough without actually proving his dangerousness, and the space battles prove to be little different than two submarines stalking each other. The idea of two starships battling each other has never appealed to me, and the case is no different here. I will admit, however, that Spock's death scene is poignant.

Star Trek III is even worse than II. Cheap-looking sets, meaningless blather, and the overall snail pace make this easily the most boring film of the entire franchise. The only highlight is Christopher Lloyd as a Klingon commander.

Star Trek IV is a marked improvement, an enjoyable and funny fish-out-of-water tale. There's little else going on here than seeing our beloved crew interact in the 20th century, but that alone is enough to inspire a barrage of belly laughs, particularly Spock's use of colorful metaphors. Catherine Hicks' rather neurotic performance as a whale specialist is pretty annoying, and a downspot in an otherwise entertaining outing.

Star Trek V is easily the silliest of the lot, but it's also kind of fun and the premise is the most ambitious of them all: it's an all-out quest for God, who is believed to live in the center of the galaxy. The trio is given more screentime together here than in any other film, Jerry Goldsmith's score is marvelous (the best of the series), and there's actually a genuine sense of awe when they reach their destination. Oh, this isn't a good movie, but it's an undeniable watchable and often entertaining one, and I personally liked it more than Star Trek III.

Star Trek VI is the standout, the best movie of the original crew's series. It delivers the most solid plot of the bunch, good and plentiful action scenes, and a healthy dose of witty repartee. The ending is very sentimental, but it's welcome, considering this is the end of the journey for our long-running intrepid heroes.