It's hard to argue about your conclusions about Meyer. I agree down the line, plus his direction of Time After Time, an intelligent time travel film(how many of them can you say that about) made it another favorite of mine.

What's to argue? I might quibble about Shatner and Baird being reversed, but they're really so close in horrendousness that it doesn't matter much.

Nah the worst director is Michael Bay. I know he hasn't done a Trek film yet, but it's only a matter of time before he gets to blow some Trek stuff up, so he can be on the list before he starts.

Trek 1 is a very different movie to the rest of the Trek franchise, it's more a concept movie like 2001 than a sci-fi action flick. And it succeeds in the first while failing in the former. Take the Trek name off it and call it something else and you've got a decent movie.

Your placing of Shatner works, only because his "what does god want with a starship?" line saves the entire movie. Lampshade hanging of the series tropes as a plot device in the movies. Inspired.

I was familiar with Nicholas Meyer from his take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos in his book The Seven Percent Solution back in the mid Seventies. In my opinion, his work on the Trek films had much to do with the whole "even numbered films rock" rule.

And Baird abso-friggin-lutely earned last place for the mess that was Nemisis. In fact, I think the only change I would make in the list is to place Abrams above Frakes, red matter notwithstanding...

There really is very little to disagree with here. I might knock Robert Wise down a notch for the 20+ minute look at the Enterprise. I find it very hard to justify that long continuous shot of what can only be described as starship porn. BORING starship porn.

Other than that, I might boost Frakes ahead of Nimoy, but that is because I find myself more and more conflicted about ST:IV. Yeah, it's a lot of fun and it's frequently hilarious. But, you know, all of that humor kind of turns the film into a parody, in a way. The more often I see it, the more often I get the feeling that the shark is being jumped. Of course, this also docks Meyer a bit, but II and VI more than make up for it.

I agree completely with your assessment. Star Trek II is not only the best of the series, but it's really the ONLY of the Trek movies that could stand on its own, without the backing of the franchise.

Having just seen District 9, all I can say is, "Star Trek? What's that?"

Have you seen the Director's Cut of The Motion Picture, John? It's much improved.

I have to agree on at least one point presented by DemetriosX, above. ST:IV, in retrospect, was the moment when I started to lose interest in Star Trek. It is certainly enjoyable, but it seems to have been a catalyst or cause of my waning interest in the characters and setting. I don't know if Abrams's film has really given me back any interest in the setting or characters, though his, too, was enjoyable to watch.

Come on, John. We all know Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie.

Baird's a screamer, too. That set can't have been any fun.

I don't see your problem with red matter, John. Red is clearly a chemical element, as demonstrated by this periodic table:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/series1/periodic.shtml

(Right-hand side, right after Tin.)

Oh, yeah. And the reason no one expected Shatner to direct ST:V competently is not because he's an actor (plenty of actors have turned out to be decent directors), but because he is The Shat.

I'm glad you recognized Frakes' talent in spite of the snoozer that was Insurrection. Baird was an idiot. Nemesis is not the worst Trek movie. I'd love to see him have at with Abrams' version of Trek.

Shatner: I heard George Takei say, after admitting he, Koenig, and Jimmy Doohan gleefully let Shat have it in their own books, turn around and blast Paramount for hamstringing Shatner on ST V. Apparently, they liked the working environment and the original script, but God, they really pared that movie down to the bare bones until it was unrecognizable. Fortunately, for Shatner, there was Priceline, and for the rest of the cast, Shatner bashing.

Baird: Was Kevin Smith not available?

Wise: His director's cut of ST TMP was actually quite good. Probably because he had 15 years to, yanno, edit it?

A great list overall, but I too must quibble about Mr. Nimoy's ranking. Star Trek IV: So Long, and Thanks for all the Plankton is a nearly inexhaustible resource for one-liners, but was little more than a costly cast reunion. I have to third DemetriosX's disdain for the film as parody, not tribute...

Come to think of it, that's how I think of JJ's effort too. A parody of Trek, with even less consideration for continuity or logic than whales in space.

@Jeff: I wouldn't go so far as to say I disdain ST:IV. I actually quite like an enjoy it. It's just that over the years I've come to see it as a little too unserious, almost a self-parody -- but only almost. Like I said, there's a certain amount of shark jumping going on.

But I loved U.S. Marshals! Maybe I should check out Executive Order.

You totally forgot Timo Vuorensola...

Jeff calling Abrams' effort a parody hit the mark exactly. I'll never agree that worked ONCE, but TWICE, not a chance in hell. Hopefully, he'll be laughed out of Hollywood (unlikely, since cartoon movies seem to be all the rage).
So, I'll put Abrams second to last and of course Shatner last, though swapping those two works just as well for me.
Meyer really stands out though, his Seven Percent Solution is still a fine movie to watch. I thought Nemesis was just bland and uninteresting, not positively stupid like the efforts of Shatner and Abrams.

A few weeks ago, a local theater showed The Wrath of Khan on the big screen again. The copy they had wasn't very good quality but I enjoyed it anyway. It's probably no surprise that I agree with your ranking. I think the only thing that made Star Trek the Motion Picture successful was the fan's thirst for anything Star Trek at the time. It was rather slow paced. Shatner has a good sense of humor but I'm sure some fans didn't like a campy version of Star Trek.

On a totally unrelated note, I continue to be amazed at how slow paced I'm finding older movies to be. I watched The Magnificent Seven from the beginning not too long ago and marveled at the comparatively slow pacing. Yet, I still think it's a fine movie and somewhat groundbreaking for its time.

Demetrios X- "that is because I find myself more and more conflicted about ST:IV. Yeah, it's a lot of fun and it's frequently hilarious. But, you know, all of that humor kind of turns the film into a parody, in a way."

There's no way to avoid that, because the movies, except for rare exceptions, ARE a parody of the series. Even Trek II, which I agree is by far the best of the series, has huge gaping holes in its plot and details. ST IV is hilarious, in sort of the same sense that a few of the TV eps were hilarious, it's a lot of fun.

What went wrong with ST I is simple, and the problem is named 'Gene Roddenberry'.

The original ST was never all that overwhelmingly popular, it's real status as popular culture icon came in syndicated rerun. Over the course of the 70s, Roddenberry got steadily more liberal, more egotistical, and started to buy into his own 'legend', so to speak. He also had to subordinate his personal tropes to the necessities of TV and popular mores of the day, which was actually to his benefit, though he didn't realize that.

In the 70s, there was an abortive attempt to create a second Trek series, in which Roddenberry would have had a lot more creative freedom, and the pilot for that series went on to form the core of the ST I movie. Characters like Lt. Ilia (the bald pheromone-emitting navigator) were intended originally for the hypothetical second TV series.

To be fair to Roddenberry, I read his novelization of that movie and it works a LOT better in print than it does on the big screen, since so much of it is cerebral and a lot of the 'action' is internal. But that doesn't get Roddenberry off the hook, since the problem is basic to the nature of the medium, and that should have been recognized. Roddenberry wanted to 'say things', he had bought into his own myth.

One of the things that let Meyer do such an impressive job on ST II is simply that he remembered that Star Trek is _entertainment_, not some kind of social activism or sacred trust, and he acted from that POV.

I remember on the DVD special features for Nemesis that you could tell from the interviews of the actors how they seem to secretly hate Stuart Baird. There was a lot of careful choosing of words. More than one actor said with an eye roll that Baird's unfamiliarity of Trek brought a "fresh take" on the material.

"On a totally unrelated note, I continue to be amazed at how slow paced I'm finding older movies to be. I watched The Magnificent Seven from the beginning not too long ago and marveled at the comparatively slow pacing. Yet, I still think it's a fine movie and somewhat groundbreaking for its time" -- Adelheid

I recently watched an old Bond flick, _Moonraker_ with Roger Moore. Same thing, it's remarkably slow-paced in spots, but I think it actually works better in some ways than the frantic superkinetic movies of today. There was more time to absorb what was happening, and to appreciate the little details.