I have always been a Star Wars fan. I guess I just like the epic good vs evil and fantastical worlds and creatures from it. Plus the lightsabers and lore. Is Star Trek like that?
Where should I begin in starting to watch these shows and movies? Looking for suggestions. Thanks!
Id say start at the beginning and work your way forward.
Failing that. Watch the movies starting from 'the wraith of khan' until 'the undiscovered country'. Star trek 5 the final frontier you can body swerve.
After that head to the next generation. Heres a guide of what episodes to watch: https://medium.com/maxistentialism-blog/star-trek-the-next-generation-in-40-hours-c4a6762cbd3
After that head to DS9(the best series). Heres a guide of what episodes to watch: https://medium.com/maxistentialism-blog/star-trek-deep-space-nine-in-82-5-hours-10acde591fd2
There also voyager, but I didnt like that at all. Theres a few good episodes, but over all is mostly junk.
Then theres enterprise, which mostly sucked until season 3. So watch seasons 3 and 4 of that.
After that, watch the TNG movies. Or if you dont really care, just watch first contact and then move on to the alternate reality movies that have come out since 2009. Then jump into discovery. Discovery is pretty hit and miss for a variety of reasons, but season two is better.
sweet thanks! i wonder when the beginning is? i'm thinking the 70s.
Great suggestions. So is this series not an epic action fantasy and more of a procedural? How would you describe it's tone?
It doesnt really have a singular tone. The idea is that its all based in real science, but with just enough splash of fantasy to keep you guessing. Gene was often called a visionary for how he saw the future of humanity. Thats what star trek is, a vision, a wish of/for the future.
As for what to expect, it can be procedural. The bad guy of the week, or the weird alien thing that we have to try to understand of the week. But then it can also be very serial. DS9 is when this started. They took stories and spread them all over the seasons, some plots even going through the whole show. Ds9 is my favourite. Theres no getting away from the the fact that it really expanded the lore of star trek and it really ask the hard questions that are still relevant today. I cant really get into it without spoiling it, but the writing for seasons 3 to 7 are some of the best Ive ever seen on television for any show. If yo watch nothing else, watch DS9. The setting, the characters, the villains, the battles, its got everything.
Oh and the OG star trek was 66 to 69. They remastered it, but it still might be hard to get through if you arent a fan of tv made in that era.
Great advice, the problem with Star Trek is that they made too many episodes a season leading to a ton of bad/mundane episodes but there’s some truly great well written Sci-Fi among them.
Voyager is where I lost interest, too many drab episodes and dull characters.
"There also voyager, but I didnt like that at all. Theres a few good episodes, but over all is mostly junk."
That's interesting. I was aware of Star Trek in the 90's, had seen a few original series episodes, a few TNG episodes and a few movies, but had never really been invested in the Trek world until Voyager came along. Perhaps I was drawn in by the hype of the first female captain, I'm not sure, but I watched from episode one and was immediately hooked. I really liked the premise of the crew having a goal, trying to find their way home from the other side of the galaxy, it gave the series a kind of gravitas. Not to mention Kate Mulgrew is an excellent actor. Of course it wasn't perfect, but it is special to me and actually gave me the impetus to check out other Star Trek shows.
Voyager might not be for everyone, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it entirely.
Different strokes and all that. Kate Mulgrew played the part well, it was the overall ensemble I didnt care for much. The captain, the doctor and later seven were all great.
As for the story itself, it was supposed to be so much better than it was. The original plan was to be even more serialised than DS9 had been up until that point. But the higher ups didnt think that would be popular(eye roll) and wanted to resort back to a bad guy/weird space thing of the week formula.
I think the worst thing for me was the missed opportunity. The original plan would have had voyager being a lot more like what the remake of BSG turned out to be. When they started lifting old TNG bad guys and plots it kind of showed that the writing talent had walked with the higher ups changing the focus of the show. They had some great episodes to be sure, but it should have been so much better IMO.
BBC network has been devoting a day of the week to Voyager, and I've enjoyed many episodes, especially when I don't remember them very well. I don't take it very seriously, but it's colorful and brisk and there's usually a bit of comedy tossed in. I don't see TNG as any sort of pinnacle of entertainment so I don't hold Voyager to any high standard. But I never got into Deep Space Nine. However, if it were featured regularly like Voyager has been, I might try to watch it with a fresh mind. It just seemed rather dark.
shareDS9 gave us what was probably the most realistic look at what life would be like on the ground in the Star Trek universe. Starfleet officers are basically the straight arrows. Idealistic, by the book, not everyone is like that. Plus we have a mix of different cultures and a lot of plotting and scheming going on - which is interesting. It's DS9 that gave us Section 31, a secret and largely autonomous branch of Starfleet that does the dirty work behind the scenes to keep the Federation safe from its enemies. Just one of the things that raises moral issues relevant in any time and place. The Federation represents an attempt at a perfect system run by imperfect people. Shining a spotlight on that makes this future more believable but as you say, sometimes on the darker side than what we're used to.
The running plotlines (and there are lots of them) are what really distinguish it from most other Star Trek series. One minor character in particular in DS9's first couple of seasons becomes critical to the show's biggest running plot after that. Enterprise adopted a serialized format too in seasons 3 and 4, and so the second half of the show's run is better by leaps and bounds than the first half.
Nothing worse than the corporate suits thinking they know best, and telling the writers how to do their jobs. Voyager had plenty of good episodes but it's total pot luck. Some of them were boring or downright awful - one in particular involving Warp 10 travel made no sense whatsoever and was painful to watch. It would've been nice to have a more consistent ongoing story from week to week. I liked the show mostly, but BigWorm is right that it could've been a lot better had the creative team been allowed to do things their way.
Star trek 5 the final frontier you can boldly swerve.
ftfy :)
lol
shareGod is a free floating bust of Homer that shoots lightning out of his eyes, trapped in the center of the galaxy. Was the screenwriter's guild playing a prank on them when they wrote the script for that waste of film?
shareThat's funny because my preferences are almost the opposite of what BigWorm says. Voyager was the best series, I never watched DS9, and Enterprise was great for the first 2 seasons before petering out. And Star Trek V was a very important part of the universe. It shows the mysticism of the Vulcans and the brashness of Kirk.
And don't forget the cartoon series.
At first, I bought you were serious. But then you went there it became obvious you were just bullshittin ;)
shareThe original pilot: https://moviechat.org/tt0059753/The-Cage
shareI thin BigWorm's answer is pretty on point. If you like Star Wars I do think you will greatly benefit from starting with the Original Series era movies, specifically Wrath of Kahn. Don't bother with The Motion Picture until you have seen The Original Series (if you aren't a fan of the style of The Original Series then you likely will not be a fan of The Motion Picture). Watching The Final Frontier is also optional, I think it's the only TOS era film I haven't watched a second time.
In regards to the series it looks like BigWorm provided a very sufficient response. I do disagree about Enterprise though, I do like the series as a whole however I do accept that is a minority opinion. However, I do think you should start withe the beginning, at least the first two episodes (it was a two part episode). And I think there are at least are a few exceptional episodes in the first two seasons worth watching, plus it will help build investment in the characters which may make seasons 3 and 4 more enjoyable.
TNG and the Kelvin timeline movies are both optional. The TNG movies are mainly just generic sci-fi action (I do think First Contact is a must watch though) and the Kelvin timeline films are fairly standard too, I did like Beyond though.
Discovery is also optional, the first season was a real struggle for me and as of right now I am still stuck about halfway through season 2. It's a real effort but I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt it will improve. In terms of style Discovery is your typical generic new grimdark Battlestar Galactica reboot clone. Think of Stargate Universe in comparison to Atlantis or SG-1.
Note: If you are interested in watching the better episodes of the first few seasons of Enterprise just shoot me a response and I'll put together a little list of episodes I enjoyed.
1. Forget the movies. They're just fan-service for people who likes the series. Good fan-service, quality fan-service, but fan-service nonetheless.
2. Shows are independent between them and don't need to be seen in any specific order. Best you can do it's start with the one you'll probably like the most.
• If you like old traditional scifi from 50s-60s, when scifi was less about technology and more like Twilight Zone, go for the original show, the one with Kirk and Spock.
• If you like social/technological scifi stories from the 80s, go for The Next Generation.
• If you like good scifi drama and well developed characters and relationships, go for Deep Space Nine.
• If you like big complex storylines, go for Star Trek Enterprise. Be aware: the two first seasons follow the classical 'each episode a story' and it does it worse than the other ones, but the 3rd and 4th season have big story arcs, and they're very good.
• If you like bad writing, political indoctrination and expensive CGI, go for Star Trek Discovery.
Thanks all for the replies.
and Kuku, I love me some Twilight Zone! Might start there....
Most fans usually like either original Star Trek or The Next Generation as their favorite so I would recommend starting with either one.
The original 60s series had social commentary related to its era (Twilight Zone messaging) and memorable characters who had strong chemistry. But, it could also be a little campy.
The Next Generation has better special effects and acting with some social commentary.
The later series don't have Roddenberry's influence so they lose the optimistic future and social commentary theme. They're OK, but not as good.
Discovery is dreadful and boring. There is nothing canon about that series so I'd avoid it.
I would watch the movies after the series. The even numbered ones are the best like The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home and First Contact. The 2009 reboot was good too.
I dunno - I thought discovery season 1 was very high paced - non-stop action for 10 hours with plenty of suspense - and the acting in season 1 was pretty damn impressive due to some real talent on the cast (the top actors got killed off in season 1 - season 2 was a HUGE letdown and is inferior even to enterprise).
It was very different from any other ST series, but again, as a show, the first season was actually pretty impressive in my eyes.
Too different from the other ST series since they tossed canon out of the window and replaced it with nonsense. Sonequa Martin-Green's acting is another problem. She believes being Vulcan-like means to show no emotion which makes her robotic and boring. Nimoy showed emotion, but it was understated.
I fell a sleep during the the middle of the first episode. I watched a few minutes of other episodes. I hate the black sets, the new Klingons, the "science" re: the engine, and the hostile work environment.
If the OP wants to experience the best of ST or know why it's popular, then ST:Discovery isn't it.
You're welcome. :-)
If you love Twilight Zone, I'd bet you'll like the original Star Trek series. Back then, SciFi and horror were more blended. I'm not talking about horror stories in space, Alien style, but about stories that are in a nowhere land between horror, fantasy and SciFi. The closest thing I've seen in modern days is Black Mirror.
If you never heard of them, I'd suggest the Quatermass movies tpp, though they lend more towards the SciFi side http://www.hammerfilms.com/to-quatermass-and-beyond/ (by the way, they were produced by Hammer, the ones that produced classic horror movies). If you have seen LifeForce, it feels like a tribute to the Quatermass ones.
Think that there was a 20 years gap between the original 60s Star Trek series and the following ones in the 90s. SciFi changed a lot. When people talk about Star Trek, they think mostly about the 90s series (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and so on)... however, I keep thinking that the original series was the best of them all.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I1b2-WxHj2s/T7oA7iJWh1I/AAAAAAAAAH0/wiMUT4EiFkM/s1600/StarTrekDoubleTimeline-Revised2012.jpg
STD season 2 was quite good though, especially Pike and Spock. If only they had time zipped Discovery to some unknown future universe and decided to focus Season 3 on the ongoing Enterprise missions with Pike.
shareStar Trek is a realistic boring nerd show with myriad of future technologies that could possibly, really be invented. Star wars, however is never gonna happen. We will never use lightsabers as weapon when we have big battleships.
Also Star Trek has little to no action. So you probably wouldn't like it
Star Wars happened a long time ago in a galaxy far away. It's the past, not the future.
Star Trek happens (mostly) in our own galaxy, in the near future.
I have also always been a Star Wars fan. That is, however, not an impediment to enjoy also Star Trek movies although SW will always remain my first choice.
I have started with "Next Generation", it took me some time to get used to the Star Trek feeling, but after some time I learnt to enjoy it too with Picard,Number one,Data, the pain in the neck "Q" and company. In the same way I like the last 3 pictures, specially the first one (2009) of the News.
If you haven't started yet, I'm here to give a more cynical guide.
Start: Original 60s show. Watch first 2 seasons. Look up what episodes fans love from S3 and only watch those. (return later for completism if you have turned into a were-trekie)
Then: Watch Wrath of Khan (if you feel like you have turned into a Star Trek geek by this time then proceed to watch ST 1, 3, and 4 as they are decent if flawed. Do not watch the 5th one.)
Then: Begin Next Generation with season 2. Be strong. The episodes are far more subdued. If you don't like it after 3 or 4 episodes then try ONE MORE based on fan recommendations. If that doesn't do it for you then that is all. You are done. Don't watch anything else.
BUT: If you are digging TNG then jump back to season 1 somewhere in S3 if references start mystifying you (if you care/S1 is ultimately skipable) Otherwise watch all of TNG.
THEN: Watch the rest of the TNG movies (6 and up). They aren't great but if you made it through all of TNG then you'll like them well enough.
You can skip Voyager and DS9. Watch only if you have transformed into a full-on Trekkie nerd. They have a decent episode about 1 in 6. Mostly sour. (watch Babylon 5 and Stargate instead)
Skip Enterprise, STD, and the nu-Trek movies.
I'd say just buy a TNG box-set and start with season one. Watch through 'til at least the start of season 4, no matter what.
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