After finishing the Strange New Worlds finale, my wife found herself inspired to watch Star Trek from beginning to end. That means all of it, from TOS to everything in the present day. And it’s been experiencing things beside her.
Last week we watched the TOS movies together. Most of these films were frequently watched in my household when I was younger. Turns out that wasn’t the case for her despite her having also grown up with a Star Trek parent. She didn’t know that the TNG theme was from The Motion Picture, and she was also unaware that the punk’s showing up in Picard was a call-back. It’s been great. And, honestly, I wish I could be watching them for the first time as well.
Having finished the films, we find ourselves differing from the common shorthand for recommendations that the odd films are bad and the even ones are good. I think most of the films are enjoyable but middling at best, but she honestly finds The Search for Spock and The Final Frontier to be fairly good – and probably better than The Voyage Home because that one basically saw no consequences for the crew’s actions. Stealing whales from the past absolves them of their crimes. Then Kirk gets demoted to his preferred position. The movie is funny but meaningless.
For me, I just end up so disappointed with the original film. Not just because it’s bad. It’s disappointing because it clearly has the most interesting scifi concept of the entire series and botched the execution so badly that they just didn’t bother with that level of ambition again. I really wish they could have another crack at it. I’ll have to watch the director’s cut sometime, but I doubt that comes close to what could have been.
[/Squeaky voice] 
