doubleofive said:
You have to hear Mike's side. I believe he feels that Trek 09 is the best movie, as in general audience movie. He and I just did a commentary on Wrath of Khan this weekend (coming soon), so he's familiar with it. I enjoy the hell out of 09 (see our conversation on "The Whole Pre-Re-Quel Thing"). It's fun and it's getting people interested in the franchise.
I disagree. It doesn't get people interested in Star Trek. It gets people interested in the Star Trek reboots, which really bear little, if any, resemblance to Star Trek.
I've talked to a lot of people during the past couple of years about ST 09 and ST(I)D (har har) and every single one of them felt that even though they liked the reboots, they don't feel like giving the TV series or even the older movies a chance. It's odd, but the Star Trek stigma is still a thing. Kind of funny how people seem to subconsciously realize that this new Star Trek has nothing to do with actual Star Trek, hence why it's OK to enjoy it and even admit that publicly ;)
Here's something else that's funny: I've been recommending Wrath of Khan to a buddy of mine (a programmer and generally speaking a nerd) ever since the first STID trailer came out, but he refuses to watch it. Why? Because it's Star Trek. He loved STID, though, and didn't have any qualms about watching it.
All of the above is even more amusing considering that those old Star Trek movies (aside from the first one) were made with a general audience in mind.
This brings me to the "best general audience movie" part. If by best you (or he) mean it's dumbed down (and thus easy to stomach by non-nerds) and just doesn't require any involvement on the viewer's part, emotional or otherwise, then yeah, it's the best "Star Trek" movie hands down. By that logic Bay's Transformers (shitty script, unsatisfying, downright incomprehensible action scenes etc. Just a badly made expensive piece of crap) is a masterpiece. If by saying "best" he refers to the quality of the movie... consider me baffled.
I haven't listened to the podcast, but I might do that to get some fuel for the inevitable hate mail/post that will follow ;)
Oh, and btw: I enjoyed ST 09 for what it was.
edit: damn typos.