I'm not really a Trek fan, though not for lack of trying. I've seen a handful of the OG series, all the original movies, skipped all the Next Gen stuff, seen all the new ones with Pine & co. I generally enjoyed most of them with caveats, with one exception I'll get to later.
See, I wish I loved this movie. I keep revisiting it, hoping to experience the affection and passion that so many others feel for it, and I always leave disappointed, wondering what I missed. On one level, its because, yeah, it looks like a TV movie. On another, its because I find the static revenge cat and mouse game... underwhelming? I keep expecting some level of catharsis or complexity that never comes. Spock's death is great, and absolutely iconic, but the film that precedes it leaves me a bit cold - still on the outside looking in. I wish it were not so. Truly, because it's a lot more fun to love something than shrug and say `it's fine, I guess.' That's actually not a dig at Amy, as I'm with her on the movie's quality and ultimate non-canon-worthiness.
However - Devin's point about the inclusion of a Star Trek movie on purely iconographic terms is undeniable. The crew of the Enterprise NEED to be in The Canon. But here's the thing, I wish this episode had been a versus episode, because I LOVE Star Trek IV The Voyage Home. It's the one Trek movie where I GET IT - all of it - the cheesy goofy fun, the optimism in the face of real world issues, the decades-earned character dynamics, the beautifully walked line between self-parody and genuine ethical enquiry - it's the Trek movie I want to show other non-Trekkies, as a pure fun sci-fi blockbuster with heart and consciousness to burn. Its the movie that most communicates me to me the affection the characters have for each other, and warmly invites me to feel it with them. To me, the stakes feel a lot higher on a save-humanity-from-destroying-the-planet-and-themselves level than any revenge story could. See, I look at the legacy of Khan, and I see a million other hell bent on revenge villains chasing the protagonist for some past sin. I mean even within the series they keep going back to that well (Bana in JJ Trek, Elba in F&F Trek) and it's just. so. boring. Whereas going back in time to the 80s to save humpback whales? I mean, seriously, how many times has THAT storyline been ripped off? Voyage Home is the bomb, and is the movie I wish Devin and Dave were using all their arguments for in this episode. I kept wishing it would come up, but it never did. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this way, but I also remember STIV being the biggest Trek hit when it was released, and the one in the series that everyone seemed to embrace. Doesn't that factor alone at least put it up for discussion?
So here's my dilemma - if Wrath is the only Trek movie to ever go up for Canon consideration, then I'd grudgingly vote for it just to get the crew of the Enterprise their deserved place in movie history. But man, if it had gone up against Voyage Home it would be a no brainer. So I'm gonna abstain, hoping that one day, years from now, Trek VI comes up for the respect its due, because to me, personally, it says Star Trek better, and more completely, than any other of the films I've seen.
