The first movie to feature the cast of the spinoff TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, plus a brief hello and brief farewell to William Shatner's Capt. Kirk at the beginning and the end. One major difference between the original Star Trek movie and this seventh one, however, is that the first one was a reunion of the TV cast after a hiatus of a decade, and this later one is a direct and uninterrupted continuation, a mere expansion into another medium. The unfortunate upshot of this is that the new team of moviemakers (director David Carson, screenwriters Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga, all veterans of the ongoing TV show) feel less need to reintroduce their characters, to identify them, to characterize them. The installation, for instance, of an "emotion chip" into the circuitry of the green-faced android called Data, and the resultant mood swings, might be more amusing if you had watched him for years being unemotional: when it happens a matter of minutes after his initial appearance on the big screen, it doesn't allow for much contrast. Most of the rest of the cast, outside of Patrick Stewart's Capt. Picard, remains vague and underemployed. And although the action bashes ahead with much melodramatic sound and fury, it lacks a clear and compelling concept to take hold of, and take root in, your imagination. It relies overmuch on glib gibberish. With Malcolm McDowell. (1994) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.