All 13 Star Trek Films Ranked From Worst To Best

I'm deliberately using the exact same title used by Nerdist.com for this blog post because I want people to find both these write-ups together.

Nerdist has explained why they've ranked these movies the way they have. I'll explain my ranking in a minute.

At a glance, here's how my ranking differs from theirs.

The red lines indicate movies that I have a worse opinion of than Nerdist does; the green lines indicate the opposite. (Click to expand)

Pop over to their site to read their analysis first, because I'm only going to comment on the differences between our ratings.

13. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

There really isn't too much of an argument here. Nerdist seems to think this is the second-worst movie. I think it's the worst. Not much point splitting hairs, when we essentially agree that it was terrible. I will never watch this movie again.

12. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)

Nerdist seems to think this was not so bad (07). I found it amateurish in the extreme. Spock's return was virtually guaranteed right from the end of The Wrath Of Khan, the whole adventure of stealing the Enterprise was implausible (the Federation must have very poor control systems), the Klingons' perfidy and the death of Kirk's son were a needless tragedy, replacing the actor playing the iconic Lt Saavik was a jolting experience, and the whole movie had the feel of a patch job that was necessary in order to bring Spock back. I don't think I can ever watch this movie again.

11. Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

This had a couple of interesting ideas that made me go "Hmm!". One was that Shinzon was Picard's clone. The other was the side-story of the tension between two Romulan races, and the surprisingly empathetic Remans. There was some voyeuristic and disturbing erotic tension between Shinzon and Deanna Troi. Shinzon ship Scimitar had a bit of cool to it. Next to Vengeance of Into Darkness, it's probably the coolest villain ship.

Shinzon's ship "Scimitar", very different from the standard-issue Romulan warbird

Apart from these, the movie was quite boring. I don't think I will watch this movie again.

10. Star Trek: Generations (1994)

Bringing Kirk and Picard together in one movie was an interesting idea. The Nexus is a cosmically scary concept, like the crack in the Universe that Doctor Who fans may be familiar with. But the rest of the movie was weird and dreamlike. Did they really let Troi pilot the Enterprise? No wonder it crashed. I may watch this movie sometime in the distant future, but I'm not sure.

09. Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Nerdist called this the worst Star Trek film! They owe it to us to explain this extreme rating, but their criticisms just sound like nitpicking. Sure, this wasn't a great movie, but calling it the worst is a stretch.

This movie had an interesting plot twist, in that two warring races were genetically identical, so it was really just a generational conflict, albeit a deadly one. This movie also tackles similar Prime Directive issues as the TNG episode Who Watches The Watchers. Some sequences are cliched, but it's watchable - once. I could watch this again, if I'm showing it to someone who hasn't seen it before, but I probably can't sit through it again alone.

08. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Here, I'm probably being biased in hindsight, since I quite liked this movie when I saw it in the 80s. It's only after seeing it again many years later that I've started to think of it as cheesy. It now seems slow and boring, and many scenes are cringe-worthy. The only "aha" moment was when it was revealed that "Veejur" was actually the fictional "Voyager 6", which I still think was a neat plot twist. Oh, and it had Persis Khambatta. Half a point for that.

I may see this movie again, but I think I will fast-forward many scenes.

07. Star Trek Beyond (2016)

With this, we're getting started on the better movies. The reboot is generally quite good overall, and I've liked all three of them so far. I think the reason I'm ranking this the lowest of the three is that the second was so good this was bound to fall below that standard.

I'll definitely watch this again at some point, but not right away.

06. Star Trek (2009)

The first movie of the rebooted series started with a bang and established itself with class. In moviemaking terms, it was a generation ahead of all the movies that came before it as well as the various TV series. The casting was extremely good. Kirk, Spock, McCoy - all three were very ably played by the replacements to the old trio of Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley. I liked the touch of bringing back Captain Pike from The Original Series (The Cage, The Menagerie). Probably the only weak part of the movie was the villain Nero. Some villains are larger than life. Some fail to impress. Nero fell into the latter category.

I will definitely watch this again, perhaps in a binge-watching session of all the reboot movies.

05. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

The Borg theme in The Next Generation never failed to thrill (Perhaps the best sample was the double-episode The Best Of Both Worlds). Such a deliciously different class of villain!

First Contact was another thrilling time-travel adventure, full of action, suspense, heroism, inspiring speechmaking by Picard, and a nice saving of the day by Data. The high-suspense battle for the deflector shield by Picard, Worf and a "red shirt", with the Borg becoming increasingly aware of their activity, and a zero-G leap by Picard, is a scene for the ages.

The battle of the deflector shield has to be one of the most chilling and thrilling sequences in Star Trek

This is definitely one for my home theatre's rerun schedule.

04. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

This movie could have made it to the bottom of my list instead of the top because of one reason. Its humour could very easily have crossed the line into a lack of seriousness, making the movie a spoof of itself. But thankfully, it managed to be both serious and light at the same time, making it an excellent entertainer even for non-Trekkies.

This is in fact one of my most often played movies at home, especially when I'm introducing newbies to the Trek genre.

03. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Khan with some neat twists. Benedict Cumberbatch. The re-introduction of Carol Marcus from The Wrath of Khan. Heck, the reintroduction of Khan from The Wrath of Khan (I swear, the hairs on my neck stood up when he said, "My name is Khan!"). The Kirk-Spock death scene in reverse. Brilliantly done. I have no idea why Nerdist would consider this a bad movie!

Oh, and Vengeance is the ultimate in cool for a villain's ship.

The Dreadnought-class Vengeance compared to the Enterprise - "Twice the size, three times the speed"

This is one of my all-round favourite movies, and I can watch it again and again.

02. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

I was at my politically aware best during the last days of the Cold War, Chernobyl, and the fall of the Soviet Union. Plus I love allegorical stories. The Undiscovered Country, a movie full of allusions to both Shakespeare and the Cold War, was a work of genius.

This movie was also a classic because of its cynical lesson - that not everyone is happy with the end of a long-running conflict. Some people can be so threatened by peace that they will even team up with their counterparts on the other side to sabotage the chance for peace. This was also the first time I realised that Vulcans could be villains too.

Not only do I watch this movie repeatedly, I inflict it on guests, with frequent pauses to explain the political parallels with the former Soviet Union.

01. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (1982)

I don't think any trekkie will disagree on the choice of this as the best Star Trek movie of all. It was close to perfect. I'd give it a less than perfect score for only one reason.

I'm Indian, and I know that "Khan Noonien Singh" is a nonsense name for a supposed Indian prince. Is the man supposed to be Muslim (Khan) or Hindu/Sikh (Singh)? And what kind of name is "Noonien"? The writers of Star Trek seem to have a thing for this name, since Data's creator is supposed to be a "Dr Noonien Soong". So now Noonien is an East Asian name as well? Aargh!

I have watched The Wrath Of Khan so many times already that I think I'll give it a rest for a while.

Anyway, that's the list.

Review of "John Carter of Mars"

I watched three movies on the flight to NY. One of them was "John Carter of Mars".

Everyone knows Tarzan of course, but I have always been fascinated with Edgar Rice Burroughs's other creation. His series of stories about John Carter and Barsoom (Mars) simply weren't talked about much. I did come across the odd comic when I was a kid, and this only enhanced the air of suspense and mystery about John Carter's Mars. One of my comics ended on a cliff-hanger when the princess Dejah Thoris, having despatched four armour-wearing "instructoresses" in the arena, now faced a much more formidable challenger - a Green Martian. "And she stood with a smile on her lips to face death, as befits the daughter of ten thousand Jeddaks..." I never got to read the sequel.

That's why I could barely suppress my delight when I saw "John Carter of Mars" listed among the movies on Qantas's entertainment system, and that was the very first one I watched.

Well, what can I say? This was a fantastic movie, a real classic. I wonder why it didn't click in the theatres. Perhaps a combination of inadequate promotion and having the oxygen sucked out of the entertainment world by The Avengers contributed to the commercial flop.

But seriously, see it, people. This reviewer shares my enthusiasm.

This movie has everything, - adventure, fantasy, action, romance, a hero with courage and heart but a tragic past, a beautiful and strong warrior-princess (who is also a scientist - ticks all my boxes!), a hyper-cute dog-like monster, and the most chilling set of villains to come along in a while. It's very scary to think there can be a bunch of people older than all our civilisations who can manipulate us (Earthmen or Martians) into destroying ourselves - but gratifying that they too can be beaten.  

This is the second time Mars has re-entered my consciousness in a fortnight. Ray Bradbury's passing made me reflect on The Martian Chronicles, the red dust and the glass cities with their brittle spires. And now Edgar Rice Burroughs has deliciously assaulted my senses with this classic. (Mild spoiler: I simply loved the scene when John Carter first realises that Mars's low gravity effectively gives him super-strength.)

The best tribute to both these writers would be to describe "John Carter of Mars" with the title of one of Ray Bradbury's stories - "Mars is Heaven".

Oh, Barsoom!

Review of The Bext Exotic Marigold Hotel

I saw "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" (TBEMH) today at Castle Hill Megaplex and quite liked it.

There are lots of reviews on the web that will give you the basic plot and a sketch of the main characters, so I won't repeat all that here. I'll talk about some overall impressions and general thoughts.

Having a foot in both worlds (India and the West), I think the film has dealt very sympathetically with the theme of people struggling to adapt to a changing world. Sometimes the audience is meant to empathise (as with the recent widow dealing with an unfeeling, robotic call centre operator) and sometimes meant to look on in vengeful glee (as with the racist patient who insists on being seen only by an "English" (i.e., Caucasian) doctor and doesn't seem to find a single one in modern Britain). The storyline isn't always believable, but even the cliches and the semi-predictable twists have their purpose, to illustrate some idea or the other. As long as we take them in that spirit, we can tolerate the lack of realism.

No Western reviewer is likely to pick up on the following, so I should do so.

* Dev Patel's accent and tortured English phraseology are very unnatural, although mildly amusing.

* Brothers wouldn't be quite as relaxed about their sisters' boyfriends, I would imagine. I'm thinking bash-up posse.

* Indian couples don't kiss in public, and definitely not in a Tier II city like Jaipur, unless India has changed in the 15 years I've been away!

* Pre-marital sex is taken a bit too casually by all concerned, unless India has changed in the 15 years I've been away. I have heard things about call centres...

* Again with the untouchability. I want to know if Indians still fail to even acknowledge Dalits, as the movie seems to say. It was a bit of deliberate irony to show the over-the-top racist character as the only one who treated the Dalit woman as a human being.

* It appears you can't have a British movie without some homosexuality in it. Their version of a masala movie, I guess - something for everyone. And that's another thing that Indians are shown as being unrealistically relaxed about, unless (you know the drill by now) India has changed in the 15 years I've been away.

* Indians don't speak to each other in English as much as this movie shows, and definitely not in a Tier II city like Jaipur. Some Hindi dialogues with subtitles wouldn't have been out of place. But that's a very minor nitpick.

* An Indian in a club brutally exposes a character's attempted masquerade as Princess Margaret. Indians don't confront issues as pointedly as that. That's more of a Western trait.
* I'm sure most educated Indians know what "dunking" a biscuit means.

* This comment is definitely tongue-in-cheek, but after Chalte Chalte and now TBEMH, I wouldn't trust Lilette Dubey around young lovers. She's a known spoiler.

There was an Australian movie a couple of years ago ("The Waiting City") that dealt with a related theme, that of an Australian couple with unresolved relationship issues who travel to Kolkata (Calcutta) to adopt a child. That was nice too, although a bit sad.

All in all, TBEMH wasn't bad as a movie, but I suspect the idea (of elderly and financially hard-up Brits spending their retirement in India) wouldn't really work. India is a hard country to live in, and one needs money, contacts and sharp elbows to survive. For people triply softened by age, vulnerable finances and little prior exposure to chaotic systems, I believe it would be very hard. Heck, I doubt if *I* could survive there anymore. The makers of the movie have been very politically correct, I must say.

The Ascent of Man

I recently bought the BBC series "The Ascent of Man" on DVD. This is a 13-part series on the evolution of human civilisation, presented and narrated by Jacob Bronowski. What brings back a rush of nostalgic memories is the fact that I saw this series when I was a boy, and I'm thankful for the eclectic, science-oriented upbringing I was privileged to have.

My father was a professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, and I grew up on the campus. It was a small, cosy campus and a teenager could walk from one end to the other quite easily. I've done that countless times, climbing over the back walls of departments in the evenings looking for "treasure". My friends and I (all children of faculty) took great pleasure in raiding the dumps outside the chemistry departments (there were three of them, - Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry and Biochemistry, - and Organic Chemistry was our favourite). We would scavenge half-used bottles of benzene and similar chemicals and take them home to do experiments. (Did you know that thermocol dissolves in benzene with a most satisfying fizz?)

My dad was quite indulgent and would chuckle about my "experiments" when he walked into a room reeking of recently-burnt plastic or some such. I doubt if I'd let my son do such dangerous experiments today (we've lost the element of risk-taking in today's world, as I mentioned in another post).

We were a group of nerds, I realise now. I don't know what ambitions normal kids used to have, but my close campus friends and I knew what we were going to do - we were going to become scientists and cure cancer, winning the Nobel Prize for Medicine in the process. And we knew exactly how we were going to do it, too. Just inject cancer cells into squirrels, then extract the cancerous growths, dry them to "weaken" the cells, and inject them into healthy people. Voila! A cancer vaccine! (I think it was better for humanity that the two young geniuses who thought of that ended up in the software industry instead.)

They used to hold educational film shows some evenings in some of the departments, and a whole lot of professors' kids used to turn up at these. One of these educational shows was "Civilisation" by Kenneth Clark, which I found a bit boring at the time, but which I think I would like to see now. Another one was "The Ascent of Man". I remember this series quite vividly. The wireframe computer graphics shown seemed highly advanced in the seventies. Now I have a chance to see the series again, and I'm able to understand it much, much better. Jacob Bronowski is a genius. He can tie together science, technology, history, economics and a bunch of different disciplines and tell a convincing story of how we came about. (He's no more, but I feel like referring to him in the present tense because I'm still watching the series).

I would recommend "The Ascent of Man" to anyone interested in science. And I'm once again grateful for a weird and wonderful childhood spent in the innocence of scientific exploration.