Why Do People Dislike This Movie?

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This movie has my favorite scene in any form of Trek and that is the one at the end about family.
This scene is still impressive to me after all these years.
And as far as Roddenberry and his not considering it official, well it was filmed and shown by Paramount. He made money off of it.
So it's official.

People dislike it because it cartoonizes beloved characters to the point that they become parodies of themselves - we don't laugh with them, we (painfully) laugh at them...and are therefore embarrassed for them, and for ourselves.

I changed my opinion on it: It may not be the best, but it's very, very heartfelt. Shatner didn't fail for me.

I like it, too, but the criticisms are valid. They went way over the top with the comedy, they tried too hard to make Kirk look very macho, and they also tried too hard to be deeper and more philosophical than any other Star Trek that came before it.

Seeing as Shatner wrote and directed it, he really overcompensated, almost as though he was competing with Leonard Nimoy, who directed the previous two films and co-wrote Star Trek IV.

A lot of money went into it, and Shatner was given the opportunity to direct it, but the script was lacking, and in this way bad.

Even so, I don't have any great hate for the film (largely because I didn't stand in line for hours opening day to see the thing), but it should have been a better movie overall.

Sybock is kind of an empty character, the bad-guy is one dimensional and without cause, and there's no real explanation for anything.

On top of that the movie tries to emulate the fast past action-adventure genre with lots of quips uttered by the characters.

In short, there isn't a whole lot of Star Trek in this Star Trek movie. It's like a second rate 3rd season episode with lots of money and a short production schedule.

It's a film that happens to be a Star Trek movie. I think that's the best way to look at it.

Look, I'm a big die hard fan, but even I realize that there are limitations, and Trek was running out of popularity and potential return on the investment. Ergo a script that wasn't well written, and the aforementioned shortcomings.

I hope this helps.

If it was like the 3rd Season of Star Trek. Then it's still plenty Star Trek enough. Its Still more of a Star Trek movie than J.J. Abrams version. Which i would argue is more cartoonish and has no substance at all. At least this movie was trying to say something. Even if its execution wasn't the best. Its still has some great characters moments. Especially the scene were Leonard McCoy euthanize his father. It's probably more deep than anything you will see in Star Trek Beyond.

I had the same thought while watching it. For a while, anyway.

The film starts out really well. The opening scene was great, and the shore leave stuff was enjoyable (if corny). But then Sybok taking over the Enterprise was a bit too easy (and too obvious) to create any real tension. Some of the humor worked, but some of it, like Scotty hitting his head on that pipe and knocking himself out cold, was just painfully bad.

I think it's a combination of budget and script issues. The effects were nowhere near good enough, and a lot of scenes were cut because they simply couldn't afford them. Nowhere was this felt more keenly than in the disappointing finale where Kirk runs away from a face that shoots lightning (a face that despite godlike powers is wasted one shot from a Klingon ship). Creatively, everyone involved with the film had a different idea about what should happen. And lots of those idea were terrible. Harve Bennett's stupid idea to make Sybok and Spock half-brothers - loathed by Roddenberry and Shatner - was inexplicably used and still bothers series fans to this day. An offhand joke about Uhura dancing in the desert turned into a real scene because the producers had no sense of humor (or decency). A lot of potentially good moments were cut due to executive meddling and the like.

The end result is a mixed bag, but it's worth it for the character moments and other high points. You just have to forgive a lot of rough edges.