How Would You Rate/Rank the 'Star Trek' Movie Directors?

[TMC1982]

Please note that this isn't basically a ranking of worst to best movies, but how capable or competent said directors were up to the tasks at hand.

*Robert Wise (The Motion Picture)

*Nicholas Meyer (The Wrath of Khan/The Undiscovered Country)

*Leonard Nimoy (The Search for Spock/The Voyage Home)

*William Shatner (The Final Frontier) - I know that it's easy to first and foremost pin the blame on Shatner for what is generally considered to be the worst Star Trek film. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because The Final Frontier already had the deck stacked against it. There was the 1988 writers' strike (which was still going on during production), the unavailability of ILM, who was busy working on Ghostbusters II and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (instead, a small, inexperienced effects house was chosen), and the fact that Paramount insisted that a lot of comedic elements (e.g. Scotty banging his head after claiming he "knew the ship like the back of his hand", Kirk, Spock and McCoy singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", Sulu getting lost in the woods, etc.) be added since the previous film, The Voyage Home was so popular (not taking inflation into count, Star Trek IV is the highest grossing Trek movie ever prior to the 2009 one).

*David Carson (Generations)

*Jonathan Frakes (First Contact/Insurrection)

*Stuart Baird (Nemesis)

*J.J. Abrams (Star Trek (2009))

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

I voted JJ Abrams because he revived the franchise. Robert Wise and Nicholas Meyer also did a great job.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

1. Meyer
2. Frakes
3. Nimoy
4. Carson
5. Wise
6. Shatner
7. Abrams
8. Baird

 

[scifiwolf]

1. Meyer
2. Abrams
3. Frakes
4. Nimoy
5. Carson
6. Shatner
7. Baird
8. Wise

Meyer, Frakes, Abrams, and Nimoy all turned in the best of the franchise. Except for Abrams, all of them did two, and they were all good (Insurrection, while not up to par with First Contact, was still better then everything turned in by my bottom 4). A lot of criticism is heaped upon Generations, but I think it's overly harsh. While the script may not have been the best, what Carson did with it was incredible to make the final product at least as good as it was. The movie just looks fantastic. Shatner, Wise, and Baird turned in the 3 stinkers. I know Shatner had interference, but where he gains points for meddling from the studio, he loses them again for not being able to control things like budget (his own admission). I don't know enough about Wise and Baird and the BTS of their films to comment on anything other than their final products. TMP and Nemesis are the two worst, IMO. TMP was wayyyyy too trippy, nd Nemesis was just downright horrid.

 

[Ipodman]

WoK is definitely the best Trek... but JJ Abrams gets best director from me... he made Start Trek exciting again

 

[TMC1982]

1. Meyer
2. Abrams
3. Frakes
4. Nimoy
5. Carson
6. Shatner
7. Baird
8. Wise

Meyer, Frakes, Abrams, and Nimoy all turned in the best of the franchise. Except for Abrams, all of them did two, and they were all good (Insurrection, while not up to par with First Contact, was still better then everything turned in by my bottom 4). A lot of criticism is heaped upon Generations, but I think it's overly harsh. While the script may not have been the best, what Carson did with it was incredible to make the final product at least as good as it was. The movie just looks fantastic. Shatner, Wise, and Baird turned in the 3 stinkers. I know Shatner had interference, but where he gains points for meddling from the studio, he loses them again for not being able to control things like budget (his own admission). I don't know enough about Wise and Baird and the BTS of their films to comment on anything other than their final products. TMP and Nemesis are the two worst, IMO. TMP was wayyyyy too trippy, nd Nemesis was just downright horrid.

Both The Final Frontier and The Motion Picture were arguably the most troubled Trek movie productions. TMP went overbudget and was a rushed shoot. There's a good reason why there's a lot of "scenery porn" and the movie is so slow movie (one of the biggest complaints about the first movie), they didn't have enough time to polish it up in the editing room. It started off as a television sequel to the original series called Phase II. TMP is pretty much a big budgeted, expanded version of the the TOS episode "The Changeling" (just like The Final Frontier has a plot that resembles the episode "The Way to Eden"). I don't know if that's the fault of Robert Wise or outside sources like Gene Roddenberry, who demanded a lot of rewrites (and was removed from his executive producer position in favor of Harve Bennett from the subsequent movies).

 

[redhawk23]

well nicholas meyer is one of my favorite film makers in general so yeah

 

[Tony Stark]

Meyer and Abrams would be the top two. The Spock death scene still makes me cry even today. Probably one of the top 5 emotional death scenes for a character in a movie.