The legendary film critic has identified the biggest problem Star Trek has faced in four decades
The legendary film critic has identified the biggest problem Star Trek has faced in four decades
By Chris Snellgrove | Published: 2025-11-04 15:50:00 | Source: GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT
Written by Chris Snellgrove | Published
Star Trek has been known for its mixture of good and bad films, giving rise to the old adage that only even-numbered films are bad. Accordingly, fans love to debate what turns potentially good movies into stinkers, but one legendary film critic has unearthed the biggest problem facing Trek in more than four decades.
In his review of Wrath of KhanRoger Ebert declared that Khan Ricardo Montalban “gives Star Trek what it needed all along…a really colorful and interesting villain.”
Darth Vader from Star Trek
Ebert continued to wax poetic on the character of Montalban, calling him “the Darth Vader of Star Trek” and reiterating that such an over-the-top villain was “just what they needed” to make these films interesting. At the time, the critic was mostly reacting to the fact of that Star Trek: The Motion Picture (which the haters called a “still image”) had no actual villain, just a strange energy cloud that later turned out to be a space probe from Earth. However, all these decades later, Ebert’s thesis has been proven true, and you can generally track how good a Trek movie is by the quality of its villain.
Obviously we can all agree that Khan is a great villain, and… Wrath of Khan It’s great in large part because of how great Montalban is in the role. Ebert’s argument explains why Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Relatively lackluster: Kruge, the Klingon leader played by Christopher Lloyd, is great for sitting back and chewing the scenery, but his menace mostly begins and ends with him directing dysfunctional people. This simply cannot be compared to Khan, the man who hijacked a Federation starship and nearly destroyed the Enterprise. twiceincluding his attempt to kill Kirk and himself out of sheer spite.
admittedly, Star Trek IV: Journey Home It’s an anomaly in that the main villain has no personality and is a giant space probe that wants to bring some whales into the group chat. However, the real appeal of this fourth Trek movie is that it brought our star-traveling characters to the present day. This, combined with the film’s lively sense of humor, was enough to entertain casual audiences who don’t typically enjoy the usual genre trappings of sci-fi films.
The Klingon that saved the franchise
Ebert’s thesis is back in full swing Star Trek V: The Final Frontierwhich suffers from the fact that the villain (Spock’s secret brother, no less) is a campy cult leader with mind-reading powers that make him seem more like a carny con man than a legitimate threat. Fortunately, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country He ended the TOS movies nicely with Christopher Plummer’s General Chang, the coolest Klingon villain in the entire series. Whether he’s exchanging Shakespearean barbs at the dinner table or destroying Kirk’s ship with a ship that can fire while wearing a cape, he’s practically… It exudes hatred.
The TNG movies got off to a weak start Star Trek: Generations Because even a talented actor like Malcolm McDowell couldn’t overcome a bad script. His big tit (Dr. Soran) becomes a mass murderer just to return to his happy place, which is as sad as it is bizarre when it comes to the character’s motivations. Star Trek: First Contact It turned things on their head by giving fan-favorite Borg villains a Killer Queen, a BDSM villain whose sexuality was just one weapon she used to make the galaxy tremble in fear.
The TNG movies start sucking in like the vacuum of space
after First contactAnd that wasn’t surprising Star Trek: Rebellion to fail. How excited are audiences for the plastic surgery-obsessed villain? Later, Star Trek: Nemesis He tried to bite Wrath of Khanstyle by making the villain a scary version of Picard and playing cat and mouse games in space. But this revamp was insanely disappointing, and the only scary thing about the Big Bad in this movie is that the bald Tom Hardy looks so skinny you just want to imitate some hot plates of space fajitas.
This brings us to the Kelvinverse films, the first of which followed Ebert’s advice to the letter. Star Trek (2009) was so captivating because Eric Bana gave his Roman villain Nero the perfect combination of charisma and mania. Although his screen time is minimal, he is perhaps the most memorable part of the film, and is a sure sign of a great villain.
Ironically, Star Trek: Into the Dark They failed to live up to Roger Ebert’s advice on the franchise, although they did bring back Khan. Benedict Cumberbatch is his little British heartthrob here, but he can’t shake the fact that the script turns Khan into a supervillain with no real emotional connection to Kirk or anyone else. Relatively speaking, Idris Elba’s villain Star Trek Beyond He’s so compelling because of his ties to Starfleet, though this movie would have been better if those connections weren’t revealed at the last possible moment.
The real big bad of Star Trek has been revealed
For years, I’ve been one of those Star Trek fans who lamented that the movies always focus on supervillains, and I’ve come to appreciate films like Moving picture And even insurgency For what it is: big-budget TV episodes. But there’s no denying that Ebert was right and that a Trek movie wouldn’t be able to be a huge success unless they had a great villain like Ricardo Montalban’s betrayal. If Paramount can’t pull it off in their next big movie (their first since the merger with Skydance), it’s fair to say that the real villain of the world’s biggest sci-fi franchise isn’t Khan, the Borg Queen, or Nero.
Instead, it’s brainless executives who can’t figure out how to replicate the successful movie blueprint their studio figured out over 40 years ago!
(tags for translation)Movies
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