The Epic Moments of the TOS Movies (11/10)

[Idril Mar]

The movies with the original Series cast continued to be produced until nearly the end of the TNG series had come. The first of these was supposed to be a lead-in for the relaunching of the series, but instead started off an extremely successful series of movies. With the movies running from the Motion Picture in 1979 to the Undiscovered Country in 1991, this span saw a lot of change in the world, up to and including the end of the Cold War. The breath of the films was stunning and included many themes from current events, something that the series was always able to incorporate much to its own and its creator's credit. We see the cuIt was these movies that set the Rule of Evens, where even-numbered Star Trek movies are good, while odd numbered ones are... well... not so much.

While there are too many moments that will live on in popular culture fame or infamy, here are a few of my personal favorites. Come share your own!

[Idril Mar]

My sincere apologies. Our internet crashed at work so I haven't been able to move this until I got home. Here ya go!

[Sal Taybrim]

I gotta vote WoK.

Though being the WoK fangirl that I am, I think the most epic part of the whole darn flick is the part where the Reliant is damaged in the Mutara nebula, and Khan is looking for the Enterprise, only to have it rise like a phoenix from behind the reliant and deal the decisive ending blow.

I could watch that over and over.

[Sivah]

I'm new to the forums and to SB118.

Unfortunately, I can't separate the Wrath of Khan and the Search for Spock into two separate movies. To me, they are two parts of one movie.

My favorite moment is the duel between Kirk and Khan in the nebula near the end of Wrath of Khan. We see Kirk at his best, the ultimate tactician and underdog against the superior intellect and vastly better ship of Khan. He's seen at his best and his worst here. His most arrogant and his most grief stricken, and all within a few short minutes. I think Kirk's performance against Khan, and later his fight against Kruge (which is like my second favorite), is summarized perfectly in The Search for Spock as they are on the Genesis Planet, watching the burning hull of the Enterprise flash across the sky.

Bones and Kirk look up and Kirk asks, "My God, Bones. What have I done?"

Bones replies with a soft tone of a comforting friend, "What you had to do ... What you always do! Turn death into a fighting chance to live."

Edited November 11, 2014 by Sapphira

[Leland Bishop]

Couldn't agree more. I'm a huge fan of the movies but WoK is just everything that Kirk is about. Montalban also rocks and is perilously close to stealing the whole movie.

"From Hells heart... I stab at thee!" - Brilliant.

[+ Johanna MacLaren]

I agree with Leland on that great line. A good actor can't go wrong quoting Melville's monomaniacal Capt. Ahab, and Monteban was great. The whole movie was classic Kirk, indeed.

However despite all the great dramatic moments of the film, one of my favorites is one of the more humorous. It is when Kirk is desperately trying to set some codes and he can't read what he needs and he's fumbling with those antique glasses that Bones gave him. Anyone who has reached that age where he can't do without those darn specs can appreciate and laugh at that moment, including the embarrassment of needing them when one never did before. In the midst of all the super-hero rivalry, it is a wonderfully leveling and human moment especially since the now visually compromised Kirk still manages to best the genetically enhanced Kahn. Kirk is definitely Kahn's Moby [...], maybe just a dumb fish in his mind, but still the one who vanquishes him.

[Hannibal Parker]

WoK is the best of them all. Sapphira is right (and welcome aboard) I always considered them parts One and Two. Ricardo Montalban was robbed of at least an Academy Award nomination. Johanna...long time no see.

Of course, who hasn't uttered the most famous one- liner in Trek history...

KHAAAAHHHH!!!!

Utterly butchered in New Trek, IMHO......

[+ Johanna MacLaren]

Hi Hannibal,

You are so right about the K-A-H-N scream! I cringed when that happened in the movie. Of course, the whole role reversal with Spock did not work for me at all. The touching pathos of Spock's death in the original film was based on years and years of friendship defying impossible odds and surviving until there could be no more survival of both. Having a similar scene so early in the new friendship of Kirk and Spock in the new time line missed the whole point.

[Leland Bishop]

If only the original had more lens flares...

I kid.

[Sal Taybrim]

Leeeeeland... That's not funny, boy...

[Leland Bishop]

Says the poster with a lens flare on their banner...

[Sal Taybrim]

Which was not my choice. *chuckle*

Actually I'm not a picture-in-signature sort, but it's ship solidarity, yanno?

That said, I'm the poster child of the vanguard against New Trek.

[Leland Bishop]

I liked the first one... The second lacked enough Bones for me.

[Leland Bishop]

I'm not sure... But I may also be the only fan of The Undiscovered Country... I really liked seeing some of the politics behind the Federation.

But then I play a diplomat

[Idril Mar]

I enjoyed Undiscovered Country too!

[Sal Taybrim]

I like undiscovered country!

I liked the way the actors portrayed the characters in New Trek. I just hated the overall script >.<

[Ens. T Brei]

Personally, what TOS-TOSM taught us is that no matter how far off this Blue marble third marble from Sol, we travel

from, there will always be those elements that do not learn from the past, therefore they are doomed to repeat it;

and that is when heros have to use extraordinary measures to save the universe from itself, that and that the

Human Adventure Continues.

[Tracey]

Epic: Spock leaves the bridge. Arrives in engineering. Places his hand on Dr McCoy's head. "Remember". Takes the passed out Scottie's gloves and enters the room with the radiation. What happens in that minute or two has remained ingrained ever since I saw it.