It’s a great work that talks about tons of actual human issues. It’s a unique and solid base for all sorts of space exploration, but furthermore exploration into what humanity really is. And of course, at the time their special effects were pretty sweet for TV.
That said, I just watch the movie Generations and boy was it ever lame! I criticized it at every turn. The plot was just so awful, the writing so lame, the Borg so impotent and uncharacteristically flawed, it was a slap in the face to the franchise, a selling of a basic plot to all other non-uber fans. But I had a laugh trying to place it in the timeline of DS9 and Voyager in relation to the EMH not having command knowledge! That was when I truly knew I have become a Star Trek geek. But it’s well worth being geeky for.
Funniest thing was I hated it when I was a kid (except TNG, that always has a place in my heart), simply cause my pops watched it on TV all the time. Me and my sister would groan and plead when he would stop channel surfing. When I “grew up”, I fell in love with watching it all again, in sequence, all at once (thanks torrents!), and I appreciated it on a much deeper level than I did as a child.
The one thing I’m sad about is that Star Trek takes all the limelight, it seems. I had never heard of Babylon 5 until recently in university when someone mentioned it was great, and sure enough it was an amazing action space opera mystery.
I am really really hoping that the movie is great, and that it spawns a great TV series. The one thing I really want in Trek is believability and continuity. No more of Voyager’s “the anti-proton field around the modulator needs flexitizing!” technobabble, more of TNG’s exploration into humanity’s ventures in Space.