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It’s been close to a decade since we last had aStar Trekmovie and we’re long overdue for a good one. The current showrunners of “New Trek” are doing their best to run the brand into the ground and with over budgeted dud after dud, it’s in some dangerous waters these days.
From its humble beginnings as a simple sci-fi show in 1966, to a worldwide and genre-defining franchise that inspired generations Star Trek has quite the legacy. And for a while, we got a lot of pretty good, odd, and awful movies along the way. Here’s how many Star Trek movies there were.
How Many Star Trek Movies Are There?
So over the decades,we’ve got a lot of Trek. There are tons of spin-off shows, books,Star Trek games,and all sorts of ways to enjoyGene Roddenberry’s original visionfor life in the far future. On the movie front, we’re looking at a very eerie, yet respectable 13 Star Trek films.
That may seem like quite a lot to non-Trekkie fans, but it’s really not. There arethree distinct eraswith the movies as they cover Shatner’s run as Kirk, Patrick Stewart as Picard, and Chris Pine as Kirk again in whatever it was thatJ.J. Abrams and Justin Linwere trying to do.
1979
1982
1984
1986
1989
1991
1994
1996
1998
2002
2009
2013
Kirk (Chris Pine)
2016
They’re not all worth watching assome of them are just so awful. But there are a couple classics in there as well that are highly recommended,primarily Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, and First Contact. But we’ll run through them all briefly so you can see howthe series evolvedover the years.
Worth mentioning is Galaxy Quest. Whilst it isn’t a Trek movie, itlampoons everything about Star Trek, especially Shatner’s Era andtakes shots at the manhimself. It’s worth adding to your watch list if you’re blasting through all those classic films.
Warning: Mild Spoilers for every Star Trek movie are below.
Kirk’s Era
First up in our coverage of the feature-length Star Trek Films we have Shatner’s run asthe Captain of the USS Enterprise. We gotsix films in total with Captain Kirk, which is still the most movies we had of a particular Captain and Crew.
The first wasStar Trek: The Motion Picturein 1979. Whilst the last was the now-infamousStar Trek: The Undiscovered Countryin 1991. A film marginally better than the one that came before it (Final Frontier), but still full of flaws. On the positive side, it did at least give anice send-offto the original Enterprise Crew.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Our first outing of Shatner’s crew was back in 1979 for a cool45 million dollar budget. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was directed by Robert Wise with a script by Alan Dean Foster andproduced by Gene Roddenberry. It had a positive reception as it landed aworldwide return of 139 million dollarsand kicked the movie franchise off with a bang.
To summarize the plot,a massive energy cloud appears fromdeep spaceone day and carves a path of destruction as it makes its way to Earth. The Enterprise is sent to intercept and it’s discovered thatthe cloud houses Voyager 6, an old 20th Century NASA Space Probe. After being lost in a black hole it wasdamaged and then repairedand improved by a race of living machines.
There’s a lot of fan theory that implies that this was aversion of the Borg, but space is big and weird so it could have been anyone. The probegained sentienceand after merging with a member of the Enterprise crew known as Decker, itcreates a new form of lifeand vanishes off into deep space again.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture hadnotorious production problemsdue to the intense special effects segments. It brought the filmmassively over budgetand seriously behind schedule. To the point the production team were eventuallygiven a blank chequeand told to just: “Get it done”.
Stark Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Arguably the best, if not at least inthe top three best Star Trek filmsto be made. Wrath Of Khan came out in 1982 and was adeep cut for Roddenberry’s original fansas it brought back an old villain from exile, Khan.
This time around Nicholas Meyer was at the directorial helm and Robert Sallin produced, so no more Gene. He’d been removed from the project and “promoted” to aceremonial position within the studiodue to bad ideas for the movies and meddling in production.
Unlike the previous movie, the team wasseriously handicapped with a budget of just 12 million, substantially smaller than the first film. But they managed to pull it off and saw a return worldwide of 95 million anda place in the heart of Trek fans worldwidefor Ricardo Montalban in his performance as Khan.
It’s a completely unforgettable performance as avengeance-fueled Khan. Who’s returned to kill Kirk after his wife died when the Enterprise crewput Khan and his allies into Exileback in the original TV show.
Wrath Of Khan brought usthe death of Spockand the legendary Shatner yell of: “Khaaaan!”
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Releasedtwo years later in 1984, The Search For Spock hit our screens with a budget of 16 million behind it and for its efforts landed areturn of 87 million worldwideand 76 million at the US and Canadian box offices.
What made this movie so special is that itbrought back Spock after he diedin the last movie. It was an agonizing two year wait for fans, and it wasdirected by Leonard Nimoyhimself. Plus, Harve Bennet was behind the screenwriting, story and production.
So it hadall the hallmarks of classic Trekright out of the gate and boy did it deliver.
Despite a few stuttering moments in the overall plot, it’s a great story withemotional gut punches at the right moments. Plus, itbuilds a bridge between McCoy and Spockafter all these years of being snippy with one another.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Oh where to start on this one. The black sheep of the Star Trek moviesand a bizarre film from top to bottom. Released in 1986, after another two-year wait, The Voyage Home had all the best green flags in the world back then.
It wasdirected by Leonard Nimoy again, we had Harve Bennet and Nimoy writing the story with Harve doing production work again. Plus, there werefour screenwriters, so the story could have some legs.
Then the movie came out and all everyone remembers it for is itsobsession with Whales. And somelore from Scottyabout how starship windows are apparently made from transparent Aluminium.
Boasting a budget of 21 million dollars, it surprisinglyhit 133 million worldwide and 109 million at home. Now on the surface, this may seem like a big win, but I think it was a lot of peopleexpecting what we got in Search For Spock, and instead, we got The Voyage Home.
The following Star Trek film after Voyage Home pulled in just 52 million at the US box office and 70 million worldwide. So it seemsaudiences were cautiousabout going to another Trek film at the time.
To summarize the lunacy briefly,Kirk and the crew are facing a court-martial on Earthfor their reckless actions in saving Spock. But suddenly the Earth is approached by a probe so giganticit dwarves the entire planet. The probe sends out adestructive signalthat’s threatening to destroy the world, and it turns out the intended recipients of this weird wave areHumpback Whales.
However,in this era they’re extinct. So Kirk and the gang go back in time tograb a mating pair,bring them back to the present, and havethe whales talk to the probefor them. See what we mean by it’s an odd one.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
If The Voyage Home wasthe red light warningon Star Trek’s metaphorical dashboard, Final Frontier was the sputtering, leaking cough ofan engine that was on its way outthe door. Star Trek was looking like a brand that waspast its prime and becoming worryingly mismanaged, out of touch, and veering off course.
Even though it had a bigger budget than Voyage Home with 30 million behind it. The Final Frontier only pulled in just70 million at the box office worldwideand a concerning 50 million in the US. What made it perform so dismally is a mix oftrepidation from the audienceafter Space Whales, and the fact that Final Frontier was directed by William Shatner.
By this point,William Shatner’s egowas in full swing and he made working with him an absolute nightmare.
What we got was a very, very Star Trek-feeling film that had somequestionable scenes, some unique and interesting approaches to storytelling, and an overall feeling that this was a bit of anego piece for Shatnerbehind the scenes.
To go into the madness, The Final Frontier hasSpock’s half-brother Sybokturning up and taking control of the Enterprise through a type ofVulcan mind-control. The purpose, togo and meet Godthrough a section of space known as the Great Barrier.
It of course turns out that it’s not God. It’s just somegod-like alien beingwith a very big special effects budget that somehowrequires a Starship to leave the planetit’s trapped on. But that’s revealed after Kirk catches it out with a very good, if kind of obvious question.
To quote the Captain: “What does God need with a Starship?”
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Ourlast outing for all of the Kirk-era crewwas in 1991. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released with a budget of 27 million and it pulled in98 million worldwideand 74 million at the US box office. So it performed relatively well.
Shatner was out of the directing chair this time and instead, we hadNicholas Meyer taking the helmwhilst also screenwriting with Denny Flin. The story waswritten by Nimoy again, but he also had help from Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal.
Harve Bennet was alsono longer in charge of productionand instead, that role went to Ralph Winter and Steven Jaffe. And you can tell, we get a lot ofvery janky and poorly aged CG throughout, with the worst being the shapeshifter and zero-gravity grape juice Klingon blood.
The Undiscovered Country has the Klingons doing something nobody in the universe would have expected,asking for peace. But after Kirk and McCoy are blamed for theassassination of the Klingon Peace Envoys, it’s up to them and the crew of the Enterprise to unearth the conspiracy, preserve the peace treaty, and prove their innocence.
Fun Fact:Kurtwood Smithplays the Federation President. The majority of people may remember him asEric’s DadRed Foreman from That 70’s Show. OrClarence Boddickerin Robocop.
Picard’s Era
Next up we havePatrick Stewart’s run at the helm of the Enterpriseduring Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show proved to be popular with fans after aslightly rocky first season, but there’s many that now prefer it over the Trek of Shatner’s era. Ever since then,Patrick Stewart’s Picard became iconicand a fan favorite for many.
Unfortunately,that success didn’t translate well into the movies,and the crew we got in the films werenot the characters from the show, at all. So many are content to consider the movies to be in its own little universe where“Movie Picard”is the machismo, action-man version of“TV Show Picard”.
If youcompare and contrast the twoyou’ll notice pretty quickly how different they are. Still, we’ll be diving through them anyway as there’s some stuff worth talking about.
Star Trek: Generations
First up in Picard’s outing on the big screen, we gotStar Trek: Generations. A movie that tried to end the fan debate aroundwhich Captain was better, Picard or Kirk, by having the two on the screen at the same time. Turns out the answer was, neither. They’reboth equally uselessin the film.
Firing out the gate with abudget of 38 million dollars, Star Trek: Generations grossed 118 million worldwide, but just75 million at the US and Canadian box offices. A little stumbling start, but they werestill finding their legs with the Picard filmsback then.
The story we got was an attempt tojoin both the old and the new Trekwith a metaphorical torch pass from one Captain to another. Kirk and Picard attempt to stop a scientist known as Soren fromdestroying star systems that host millions of innocent lives, but one of the Captains perishes.
You can probably guess who.
Soren’s goal was to reach an"extra-dimensional wish fulfillment plane"known as The Nexus where he could be with his dead wife and child again.
Generationscanonically killed off Kirkand it was the last time we saw Shatner in the role.
Star Trek: First Contact
After thepoor reception of the somewhat confusing storyin Star Trek: Generations, the studio handed the reins off to more suitable hands that knew what they were doing. In this case,Jonathan Frakes, a.k.a Commander Riker. A decision that went down pretty well with fans asFrakes can be a good Directorwhen he gives a damn.
He was handed a46 million dollar budget, and for his first outing as a director of the Star Trek films First Contact pulled in146 million worldwideand 92 million in the US and Canada. So it did pretty well.
With Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga reprising their roles as screen and story writers for the movie, it seems this time around we had a more concise and coherent plot to follow. Plus,it involved the Borgand they’re always enjoyable.
Encounter At Farpoint wasthe first introduction of the Borgin the Next Generation TV show.
The general outline for First Contact is thatthe Enterprise is sucked back in timewhilst pursuing a Borg Escape ship after a battle with Starfleet. The Borg are defeated in the initial skirmish, but throughtime travel shenanigansthey’re able to stop Earth from makingFirst Contact with the Vulkansand assimilate the entire planet instead.
So the Enterprise crewgoes back in time after the Borg shipto stop it and make sure the events in history surrounding First Contact with the Vulcans play out as they should.
A highlight of First Contact isthe grizzly assimilation sceneswhere the captured crew members of the Enterprise are converted into Borg drones.
Star Trek: Insurrection
On his second outing behind the wheel,Frakes was given a budget of 70 million dollars. A substantial increase from before and at leasta sign that the studio had trust in himto make that back. Which he did as Insurrection landed112 million worldwide, but barely scraped even in the US with 70 million.
The writing and story in Star Trek Insurrection is whatdrags it down for the majority of people. It’s still shot and directed well, so Frakes tried his best at least.
Speaking of the plot, it’s alittle silly and very Star Trekas it follows the Enterprise getting involved in aviolation of the Prime Directiveby Data.
We get introduced to aseemingly immortal race of humansand a plan involving Starfleet and a second alien race that willharvest the planet’s natural rejuvenating radiationfor their own gains. Whilst the Enterprise crewuncover the conspiracyand try to stop it.
Star Trek: Nemesis
After Insurrection’sabysmal performance in the US box office. It seems that investors may have been hesitant as on his final outing as a Star Trek director, Jonathan Frakes had aslightly smaller 60 million dollar budgetfor Star Trek: Nemesis.
Which unfortunately translated into67 million worldwide in returns and an abysmal 43 million in the USmaking it another box office failure.
Tom Hardy was the villain this time around and we also sawthe death of Data, which was handled so hamfistedly that it caused problems for Data’s “return” in Star Trek: Picard. Adreary and grim movie all aroundthat could have been so much more, Star Trek Nemesisslammed the door shuton any future Star Trek: Next Generation movies.
Plus, it was asour note for the franchise to go out on for fansas the movie was a commercial failure, and the overall plot was badly written and not the right tone for Star Trek.
Worth mentioning is that the Picard-era Star Trek filmsall had the same producer, Rick Berman.
To summarize the plot,a clone of Picard(played by Tom Hardy) assassinates the Romulan Senate, takes control, and lures in the Enterprise withthe prospect of peace with the Romulans. But of course, it’s the Romulans,so it’s a ruseand chaos ensues quickly.
The release dates for the Next Generation Star Trek movies were1994, 1996, 1998, and 2002.
J.J Abram’s And Justin Lin Era
Even thoughJ.J. Abrams and Justin Linmeant well. Abrams’s eye-searing lens flares, mystery box plots, retcons, and re-imaginings, plus a general approach of all action all the time brought us avery different kind of Star Trek. You could call it the Joss Whedon effect of making everyone anass-kicking, quip-throwing characterin stories that really didn’t do much overall.
We got anentire timeline retconning in the first film, a rewrite of Wrath Of Khan in the second movie, and an attempt to do classic Trek but through the filter of The Fast And The Furious.
None of it worked, and many are glad they’reconsigned to the ash heap of historyalongside The Voyage Home and Nemesis. But here’s a rundown ofthe last Star Trek filmswe ever got.
Theone silver liningwe got out of Abrams Trek is Karl Urban as McCoy.
Star Trek
J.J. Abrams' first outing behind the wheel of what was considered “New Trek” hadall the red flags in the universe. Abrams at the helm,a script from Alex Kurtzman, plus an eye-watering 150 million dollar budget.
But surprisingly,it landed 385 million worldwideand 257 million at the box office. So it squeaked by on returns, despiteKurtzman’s script dragging it downby the neck with his usual dross-filled dialogue.
For those that missed it, in the 24th Century Spock from the Roddenberry Kirk timelinefails to stop the Romulan sun from going supernova. It wipes out Romulus, possibly a stab by Abrams at Star Trek Nemesis, and Spock along with a 24th Century Romulan Mining Ship aredragged into a black holeand spat back out in the 23rd Century.
It creates a new timeline where there aretwo Spocks, and we follow a young Kirk getting his captaincy and dealing with the new threat of this future tech-filled Romulan ship.
Vulcan is destroyed in the J. J. Abrams timeline and it’s somethingold Spock watches from another planet. Even though heshouldn’t be able to physically seesomething like that.
Star Trek: Into Darkness
After the surprisingly high return of Abrams’s first attempt at Star Trek, the folks funding him decided to toss another, much larger,190 million budget in his directionto see what he would produce. Turns out it was his version of Star Trek: Wrath Of Khan.
Which in turn caused the movie to rake in228 million dollars worldwide, and 467.4 million dollars at the US and Canadian box office. So itdid well financially, but was received abysmally by critics and fansalike for its retreading and retconning of old, and now seemingly sacred ground.
Here’s what I mean, in Into Darkness the Enterprise crew aretasked with hunting down a renegade Starfleet Operative. But surprise, it’s just anew timeline version of Khan that worked for Starfleetbuilding weapons and being a generally eugenic-brained maniac. He rebels and the Enterprise have to clean up the mess.
Star Trek: Beyond
After Star Trek: Into Darkness putthe future of Star Trek movies into a tailspinonce again, it seems after a bit of chaos internally it was decided to boot J.J. to the curb and bring in someone new. Step forward,Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift Director,Justin Lin.
After being handeda budget of 185 million dollars and a script from Simon Pegg and Doug Jung; Lin turned it into 347 million at the worldwide box office, and only 158 million at the US and Canadian box office. So just like Star Trek: Nemesis, this one wasanother box office flop for Star Trekin the States.
It was alsothe last Trek movie we gotas it nailed the coffin shut on any further movies and caused the franchise toreverse courseback to theTV shows and spin-offsto try and survive.
In the plot, we seethe Enterprise ship ambushed and shredded to piecesas it crashes on an unknown, far-flung, and strange new world. Here they meet a new foe and his alien crew that despise the Federation, but surprise, they’re part of anold Federation crewthat crashed on the planet decades ago.
They kept themselves alive withalien-made life-extending suits, but after repeated use, itwarps their DNA, degrades their sanity, and generally is extremely painful each time it’s used. Kirk of course stops them andthe crew gets a new Enterprise built for themin the finale after breaking their last one. Something that theyroutinely seem to do in every movieof the new timeline.
I guess Starfleet have a greatlend-leasepolicy.
J. J. Abrams hasproducer credits on Star Trek: Beyond. So he didn’t go too far after Into Darkness.
