Although ive come to appreciate TFF much more these days, it’s still not a great film and doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. While TUC has its flaws, it’s one of my favourites and I can’t think of a better finale for TOS cast. I still get a lump in my throat each time I see the cast on the bridge one last time and literally sign off with their signatures.
Agreed. I'd be just as happy if TUC had followed TVH and TFF had never existed (which is to say, I wouldn't know what I was missing).
OTOH, I'm profusely glad the TOS films didn't end with TFF, which I can barely bring myself to watch.
Thing is, more of TUC depends on people acting out of character (including to an extent the technology of the enterprise — but that is Meyer’s battleships-in-space thing, same as in TWOK) for many bits of the plot to work. It also has fairly little for any of the crew to do as individual characters.
TFF, once you get past the shonky effects and some of — but not all of — the forced post TVH humour, is quite the opposite. Everyone has a scene or two to do something, usually pretty tailored to either the character or the actors strengths.
I also think Shatner is at least *as good* as Meyer when it comes to direction and purely visual storytelling, and may actually be better than Nimoy was on TVH in that regard. It’s close run, but Shatner definitely leans towards the cinematic more often.
Both stories also have elements that make less sense now we aren’t in that era any more — whether it’s the televangelist elements of TFF or the Soviet fall stuff in TUC. But the TUC stuff is easier to have a kind of collective memory for. Look at another film from that year — License To Kill — and you can see there is something in the air being reflected around that Evangelistic corruption stuff.
TFF is definitively more interested in bringing *new* things to the table, and does so pretty well — Nimbus III was ahead of its time in Trek, foreshadowing the “darker” side of things like DS9 and more modern Treks, and Sybok does actually work (much better when they tried a similar trick with Burnham in DSC as well) because they spend enough time to make sure it makes sense.
TUC is more about bringing things to an end. Hopeful for the universe perhaps, but not so much for the crew who are instead separated and retired. Still an approach, but maybe not the best in how it was decided to bring them there.
The performances are just better all around in TFF. Scotty and therefore Doohan are somewhat shortchanged in both, but more so TUC — he should have been modifying that Torpedo. Even Sulu and Chekov get better stuff to do in V as well.
I think in an odd way, TFF gives more to the future of Trek (be it in props alone) than TUC ultimately does. Klingon Peace? TNG was on air, and TFF already showed a glimmer of how that can be brought about. Just not on the galactic scale TUC reached for perhaps, but just as valid.
TFF is a spiritual successor to Who Mourns for Adonais and similar TOS fare, and TUC is more like the same for Journey to Babel or maybe even Conscience of a King and similar. I guess I prefer the first of those too. And much like the second pair, TUC is much more about it’s guest stars and their characters than the Enterprise crew.
(Edit, because I left it off.)
Which is ultimately the same reason why Nemesis doesn’t work in a way. Not only are the Enterprise crew mostly sidelined *again* (esp Crusher) but we spend so long with Shinzon. Then the story closes so many things off, with our heroes sent off. The only new thing we are given is something which ironically was done *better* in V, a brother for lead science guy. Nemesis left a bad taste in the mouth whilst trying to be a TUc-meets-TWOK. Insurrection is like V — better for the characters, for the actors, more cinematic, and maybe just a little too much like the TV show for some people.
