Star Trek | the m0vie blog

364. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (#—)

Posted on January 27, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, William Shatner’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

The planet Nimbus III was supposed to be “the Planet of Galactic Peace”, but it has descended into a wretched hive of scum and villainy. From the desert comes a stranger, a mysterious Vulcan named Sybok with an incredible gift for recruiting followers. Sybok has a divine mission. He plans to journey to the centre of the galaxy and speak to God. He just needs a starship to do so. And, to get that, Sybok will be reunited with his estranged half-brother: Spock.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250, The Original Series | Tagged: belief, characters, continuity, eighties, faith, god, imdb, kirk, nostalgia, podcast, religion, spock, star trek, sybok, the final frontier, William Shatner | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Performs “Star Trek”…

Posted on June 17, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier this week. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. So we thought we’d take a look at the second season premiere.

There is a fascinating recurring emphasis on the idea of performance within Strange New Worlds. In particular, the idea of performing Star Trek. It is not enough for Strange New Worlds to be Star Trek, or even to engage in the familiar Star Trek tropes. The show has to constantly remind and reassure viewers that it is Star Trek. This is distracting and ultimately undermines the series, which seems to spend more time asserting that it is Star Trek than it does actually being Star Trek.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: continuity, fandom, nostalgia, performance, performativity, references, star trek, star trek: strange new worlds, strange new worlds | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” is a Relic of an Older Form of Television…

Posted on June 13, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist yesterday. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The second season will premiere later this week.

Strange New Worlds is an inherently nostalgic piece of Star Trek, a throwback to a kind of franchise storytelling that was inexoribly rooted in the realities of nineties television. Indeed, given the decline of the franchise during Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise, there is a solid argument to be made that this mode of storytelling was specifically tied to the medium of syndicated mass media broadcast television during the nineties, which makes it an awkward and uncomfortable fit for the modern age of streaming media.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: Broadcast, format, medium, star trek, star trek: strange new worlds, strange new worlds, streaming, televison | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On the Baseline Competence of “Star Trek: Picard”…

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Darren

I am doing weekly reviews of Star Trek: Picard at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Thursday morning while the show is on, looking at the third season as the show progresses. This week, the season’s fourth episode.

No Win Scenario is basically competent, which makes it the best episode of the third season by default. In many ways, No Win Scenario demonstrates the ceiling that this approach places on quality, assembling a variety of familiar elements in such a way that manages to successfully remind the audience of much better films and television shows. It’s disheartening that this is the third season’s best self, that it’s greatest accomplishment is a reminder of things the franchise did better elsewhere.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: changelings, Encounter at Farpoint, no win scenario, nostalgia, Odo, picard, pot, star trek: picard | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On The Meaningless Conflict of the Third Season of “Star Trek: Picard”…

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Darren

There is a longstanding tradition within the Star Trek franchise of avoiding conflict between the primary characters, one rooted in Gene Roddenberry’s conception of Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, many of the franchise’s best stories have come from disregarding that basic rule, most notably a lot of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Seventeen Seconds is a frustrating piece of television because it demonstrates the appeal of Roddenberry’s rule, by generating sets of meaningless conflict between lead characters that have no depth and will inevitably be quickly erased and forgotten.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: changelings, conflict, Dominion War, Federation, gene roddenberry, Riker, star trek, star trek: picard | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Enterprising Individuals – “Star Trek Into Darkness, Part 2”

Posted on December 4, 2022 by Darren

I am always thrilled to get a chance to talk about Star Trek with other fans, so I was thrilled at the invitation to join the wonderful Aaron Coker on Enterprising Individuals to talk about Star Trek Into Darkness. We split the discussion into two parts, and this is the second.

It seems safe to describe Star Trek Into Darkness as perhaps the most polarising and divisive of the Star Trek movies. However, it’s also the most interesting. It represents the culmination of efforts to turn Star Trek into a populist and accessible blockbuster franchise, but it also remains true to the spirit of the franchise. Star Trek Into Darkness is undeniably a blockbuster of the late Obama era, one preoccupied with the legacy of the War on Terror and fascinated by the loss of utopian innocence that seemed promised with the election of Obama. It’s also just a thrilling action spectacle with a broad appeal.

You can listen to the episode here, the first part of the discussion here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts!, Star Trek | Tagged: aarn coker, fandom, into darkness, jj abrams, khan, kirk, spock, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Enterprising Individuals – “Star Trek Into Darkness, Part 1”

Posted on November 24, 2022 by Darren

You can listen to the episode here, back episodes of the podcast here, click the link below or even listen directly.

Filed under: Movies, Podcasts!, Star Trek | Tagged: aaron coker, Benedict Cumberbatch, chris pine, jj abrams, khan, Lucas, spielberg, star trek, Star Trek Into Darkness | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! “The Third Season of Lower Decks is Enjoyable, Old-Fashioned Star Trek”

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be launching movie and television reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a five-minute film review of the third season of Lower Decks, which is on Paramount Plus.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: Lower Decks, nostalgia, star trek, star trek: lower decks, the escapist, work, work culture | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Star Trek: Lower Decks” is Embracing Its Own Continuity…

Posted on October 25, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist last week. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Lower Decks, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+ in the States and on Amazon Prime in the United Kingdom. The penultimate episode of the third season released last week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

With the end of the third season fast approaching, there is an interesting shift taking place in Lower Decks. The animated show is built around Star Trek fan services, driven and shaped by continuity references to earlier shows in the franchise, particularly those from the nineties. As the seasonw raps up, it is interesting to see Lower Decks embrace the idea of continuity itself. Trusted Sources is an episode that explores evolving Star Trek continuity from the early episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation to the final sweeping epic of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and finds continuity within Lower Decks.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: canon, continuity, references, star trek, star trek: lower decks, the escapist, trusted sources | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! Rarely Going – “Star Trek: Lower Decks 3×09 – Trusted Sources”

Posted on October 23, 2022 by Darren

I was delighted to join the wonderful Kurt North for an episode of the animated Star Trek podcast, Rarely Going.

Trusted Sources is the penultimate episode of the third season of Lower Decks. It is an episode that is obviously teeing up the season finale, but it is also an episode that is engaged with the idea of continuity. Lower Decks is a show built around references to past Star Trek shows, but the third season of the show has seen Lower Decks becoming just a little more comfortable in its own skin. Trusted Sources is an episode about how these seemingly episodic adventures can build and escalate to pay off in interesting ways.

You can listen directly to the episode below or by clicking here.