Warbler,
All of the elements in the Meyers films come from TOS, I'm not disputing that. Some episodes played on comedy, some played on political intrigue and some played on action and cat-and-mouse space stuff. But in the total package, they never were so overt as the way Meyer presented him. Beginning with WOK, he radically overhauled the Enterprise into a naval battlecruiser, even going as far as totally re-designing the uniforms to be navy uniforms and giving the torpedo way a sort of galleys design. You would have never seen that in TOS because the enterprise was a science vessel in a utupian socialist conception of the world. And while there was comedy in some episodes, and that one where they went back to the 1940s, that's worlds apart from a whole 2 hour film set in 1980s San Francisco with Spock giving the nerve pinch to a punk rocker on a public bus. And, of course, Nimoy directed the film, but the film is what it is because of Meyer's writing and central role in the focus of the film.
Anyway, I love TOS and I'm almost equally fond of TNG, but the approach needed to be more ambitious to bring them to the big screen. ST TMP tried a more heady, 2001-inspired approach that is much more in line with TOS--it really does feel like a big-screen adaptation to me--but for whatever reasons it didn't click, and so they went as far in the opposite direction they could for the sequel, which is a naval action film between two arch nemeses. I would say that STIII and V are actually closer to the spirit of the TV in how they mix action, character, humour, adventure and ideas, but those are the films people hate the most in the series, it was the Meyer films that were always the most popular and beloved because they took chances and re-thought the franchise for what would be best as films, with legacy to the TV show being less important. In the end, this ended up winning more fans, because even though some were put off by being slightly deviant from the formula, more were appreciative that they were simply really good films.
I would compare this with Irvin Kershner and ESB. He took chances, deviated from formula, re-thought the entire style and approach to the series, and while this alienated some (including Lucas) in the end people appreciated it because it was just a really good film.
I would put ST FC in this category as well, although in a slightly lesser way, which was the problem I had with RLM's review. He's reviewing it as a fanboy a lot of the times, instead of as a viewer of a film. That was why I liked his TPM review, because fanboys could explain away some of the holes based on their knowledge of the inner workings of the characters and the worlds, etc. but as a film it just fails, for much simpler reasons (shitty characters, shitty drama--the main thing that FC avoided, which was why it was so successful).