Most fans of Star Trek know about the "Odd Movie Curse."  The idea is that the odd-numbered movies--The Motion Picture, The Search for Spock, The Final Frontier, Generations, and Insurrection--are of lower quality than the even-numbered movies--The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country, and First Contact.  Let's take a moment to examine this idea--it it valid?

Star Trek I:  The Motion Picture

Most fans don't consider The Motion Picture to be one of the best Star Trek movies.  It has a simple plot, very little action, and many sequences are drawn out far longer than they need to be.  It also has a rotten title.  It could have been made into a pretty good television episode (which, I believe, it was originally intended to be), but when it's drawn out to movie length it doesn't quite work.  Maybe the director's cut on DVD is better--I don't know; I have yet to see it.  But one thing fans must remember when criticizing The Motion Picture is that it was, after all, the first one.  It is what started to redefine Star Trek, from the low budget TV show of the sixties to a movie franchise in the 70's and 80's.  Considering what it was up against, I think The Motion Picture did a very credible job--and if nothing else, it is something of a nostalgia trip for serious Trekkers.  Nevertheless, in terms of pure Trek quality, it doesn't measure up.  I'd have to say that the "Odd Movie Curse" does indeed apply here.
 

Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khan

The Wrath of Khan is still widely considered to be one of the best Star Trek movies (in fact, there are quite a few who maintain that it's the best of all).  It had everything to make it work:  a good villain, exciting action sequences, nice character interaction, and a good unifying theme to tie it all together.
 

Star Trek III:  The Search for Spock

The Search for Spock was interesting in that the title character was played by actors other than Leonard Nimoy for most of the movie.  This movie has been called slow, plotless, and downright boring.  I respectfully disagree with all of those.  It may be less action-oriented, but sometimes that's Star Trek.  Trek has always been good at capturing the finer points of drama, rather than always sticking to the exciting action sequences.  The plot was somewhat simple, but elegant, and I certainly didn't find it boring.  I understand that after The Wrath of Khan fans were probably expecting more of the same, and the slight change of pace for The Search for Spock may have caught some by surprise.  However, I for one enjoy watching this one.  It has some of the best and most memorable moments in Star Trek, including the destruction of the original Enterprise.  I also like Robin Curtis as Saavik--some disagree with me here, but I think she made a better Vulcan (Vulcan/Romulan hybrid, to be accurate) than Kirstie Alley.  The Pon Farr sequence was tastefully done, with just enough mystery to keep the fans speculating about what really happened.  I also liked Kruge, the Klingon villain; this guy was the prototype for all of the Klingons in the TNG era, as well as the rest of the original cast movies.  I'll have to say that, overall, there is no "Odd Movie Curse" here.
 

Star Trek IV:  The Voyage Home

The Voyage Home is one of those movies that the fans either love or hate.  If you're the kind of Trekker who likes time travel, humor, and environmentalism, you probably enjoyed this movie.  If you don't like one or all of those things, you probably didn't care for it.  Personally, I enjoyed this movie a great deal--again, it's a change of style, but as I said before, there are different kinds of Star Trek movies, and all can be good if they're well executed.  The only thing I didn't really care for was Kirk's love interest, Gillian; I found her to be kind of annoying.  However, the humor in this film more than made up for it, and the message about saving the whales was generally well done.
 

Star Trek V:  The Final Frontier

Ask most fans the primary reason why they believe in the "Odd Movie Curse," and most will have The Final Frontier somewhere in their answer.  The fifth movie had very little going for it, from the stupid premise to the mediocre villain to the cheesy (and I mean cheesy) special effects to the lack-luster conclusion.  They never should have let Shatner direct it.  Besides the silly plot, the whole idea of the whole crew being weak-minded enough to fall for Sybok's psychobabble was insulting--especially when Kirk, Spock, and McCoy resisted it with little effort.  I guess Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov never were of the same caliber, eh?--at least, that's what is being bluntly presented in this film.  I usually like movies that contain David Warner, but he hardly had the opportunity to do anything, did he?  Even the campfire scene at the beginning could have been a lot better.  Oh, but perhaps you're one of those fans who doesn't care about plot or humor--you just want to see great special effects--something Star Trek movies usually deliver.  Not so here; the Enterprise looked awful, especially when it was orbiting Sha Ka Ree at the end, and the shuttles were even worse--they looked like cartoons!  The effects for The Motion Picture, done nearly a decade earlier, were better than this!  This is, without any doubt in my mind, the worst Star Trek movie ever.  The "Odd Movie Curse" is alive and kicking here.
 

Star Trek VI:  The Undiscovered Country

The Undiscovered Country is still a fan favorite, and for good reason.  Despite a few plot holes (and what movie doesn't have those?), this was a quite moving story.  The guest actors (including David Warner, heh heh) did a marvelous job--and Chrisopher Plummer's Shakespeare-spouting Chang was the best villain since Khan.  Overall, The Undiscovered Country was a great send-off to the original cast.
 

Star Trek VII:  Generations

Of course, some people just don't seem to know when to quit.  Kirk and (briefly) Scotty and Chekov were back for the seventh movie, Generations.  This was also the first movie featuring the cast of The Next Generation.  I won't say that Generations was exactly a failure, but it could have been so much better.  A lot of complaints have arisen about Data's emotion chip (remember these remarks? "I liked him better the way he was before" or "They should've killed him off rather than do that to him").  I admit, it was a bit of a jolt, but since they've toned it down in the other TNG movies, I'm not going to gripe about it too much.  The major problem this movie had was Kirk.  He just didn't work well in this situation--he should have stopped with The Undiscovered Country.  I remember at the time hearing that Kirk was put in there to draw the audiences to the theaters.  I personally don't think the TNG cast had any need for Kirk to give them a boost; judging by the popularity of TNG, I think people would have gone just as much if Kirk hadn't been there.  Maybe more, actually (I heard more than one cheer go out in the theater when he died).  Besides Kirk, this movie also had a very messed-up climax.  When I watch this movie, I feel that the real climax is when the Enterprise's drive section blew up, and the movie basically ends for me when the Enterprise saucer section crashes on the planet.  After that, it's just Picard and Kirk in the nexus, then Picard and Kirk fighting the bad guy, then Picard burying Kirk and leaving.  While Picard was in the Nexus, the plot moved at a snail's pace--and the worst part was that there were no other scenes or characters to cut to when it got dull.  If they were going to have the whole Nexus thing at all, it should have been planted in the middle of the film, so we could get a lot more action after Picard and Kirk get out of the Nexus.  Unfortunately, as it is, all we get when they emerge from the Nexus is the fight with Soren, which is not all that exciting or original, and it is a very poor second climax.  Soren had all the right qualities to be another Khan or Chang, but instead they underexploited him as a villain, and he became quite ordinary.  Although I think this movie isn't as cursed as some, and has a few good moments, I think the "Odd Movie Curse" is still at work here.
 

Star Trek VIII:  First Contact

First Contact was a triumph in almost every way, and many count it as their all-time favorite Star Trek film.  It had a good villain, good comic relief (mostly in the form of Zephram Cochrane), and a rivoting plot.  It also had some character drama, particularly for Picard and Data.  Overall, a really fun, action-packed, and entertaining movie.
 

Star Trek IX:  Insurrection

After the thrill ride that was First Contact, Insurrection seemed to be a let-down for many fans.  It was more idea-driven, with a lot of conversation and ethical debate.  It can get slow in places, especially the romantic stuff between Picard and Anish.  However, as I said before when talking about The Search for Spock, there are different kinds of Star Trek movies.  Some are fast-paced, like First Contact, and others are slower, like Insurrection.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  Yes, I found that Insurrection was a little more boring, on a scale of 1 to 10, than First Contact.  But maybe that's the problem:  we're always comparing it to First Contact.  The Undiscovered Country (an even-numbered film) also had a slow pace in places, but it is not criticized for it.  And yes, Insurrection did have a lot of action as well--phaser fights, starship chases through nebulae, and such.  It just wasn't as non-stop as First Contact.  So, I'd have to say that the "Odd Movie Curse" definately does not apply here.
 
 

So, what are our results?  The first, fifth, and seventh films seem to have the "Odd Movie Curse," but the third and ninth, in my opinion, do not.  Consider also that the first and seventh movies were both the beginnings of new Star Trek eras:  The Motion Picture was the first Trek movie ever and Generations was the first movie featuring the TNG cast.  Therefore, I'm prepared to be lenient in judging them, since they were the guinea pigs.  That leaves Star Trek V, which many (including me) rate as the worst Trek movie of all.  Who knows what went wrong in the process of making it--it has so many problems in so many areas, including production values, plot, dialogue, characterization, and acting, that it fair boggles the mind.

I have come to the conclusion that there is an "Odd Movie Curse," in the sense that the average quality of the even-numbered movies seems to be higher than the average quality of the odd-numbered movies.  But that doesn't mean that every odd-numbered movie sucks, and while we're at it, not every even-numbered movie is universally liked.  What I do see very clearly when looking at the progression of movies is a lot of contrast between successive films.  First Contact is very different from Insurrection, just as The Wrath of Khan is from The Search for Spock.  This is on purpose, of course, as the producers and writers very consciously want to distinguish one movie from the next--to give us something different each time.  That's a great way to look at it, and I hope that they keep doing the same, whether they make just one more movie or whether they keep going for ten more.  Just don't give us another Star Trek V.
 

-Commander Illani