Star Trek’s famous Prime Directive holds that the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise must never interfere with a developing planet and its scientific and cultural evolution.
The Prime Directive for Star Trek fans: Love the even-numbered films, hate the odd-numbered ones.
At least that was always the belief among Star Trek fans back in the day. The even films, like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, were good. The odd films, like Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, were bad.
Except the even ones weren’t always that great. And the odd ones were sometimes sneakily satisfying. (Related: My “Star Trek: The Motion Picture Is Good, Actually” T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.) And once the films featuring the original Trek cast gave way to the ones featuring the stars of The Next Generation — and then a whole new cast in a new timeline assumed the roles of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the rest of the Enterprise team — all the old numbering rules went out the airlock.
So what truly are the worst Star Trek movies? To find that out, you can’t just glance at the Roman numerals in the subtitle. You’ve got to watch and think about them; learn what they’re about (or, more troublingly, recognize when they’re not about much of anything). While Star Trek has produced some very enjoyable cinematic voyages, these five — ranked from almost okay to akin to torture at the hands of the Vians from the O.G. Trek episode “The Empath” — leave a lot to be desired.
The Worst Star Trek Movies
We love Star Trek, and most of the Trek films produced over the last 40+ years. These, however, were not series highlights.
READ MORE: Why Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Is Not the Best Star Trek Movie
