Star Trek VI

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

At the end of our previous Star Trek movie review, I made the bold claim that one of the best films in the whole franchise would be up next. And not only will I not walk back that statement. I'm going to amplify it. Though The Wrath of Khan may…
Star Trek V

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

We are now deep into the point in the Star Trek film series when the principle actors started getting behind the camera. The move from starring to directing inevitably led to self-indulgence. We saw the first glaring signs of this trend in Star Trek IV. Today, we examine the series…
Star Trek IV

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

After the two-part tour de force of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, the challenge of producing a fourth film to top the second and third seemed insurmountable. And as things turned out, it was. That's not to hate on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It…
Star Trek III

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

The Star Trek film franchise has a long and storied history. But few installments in this venerable series are as controversial and misunderstood as Star Trek III. In the previous review, we covered how Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer and writer/producer Harve Bennett coaxed Leonard Nimoy into reprising the…
Wrath of Khan

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Following the critical disappointment of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the franchise's fate was up in the air. Legend has it that after attending the premiere, William Shatner said, "That's it. We gave it our best shot, but there'll be no more Star Trek movies." But that was back when…
Star Trek the Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

There's no question about what the best Star Trek movie is. But debate rages over which is the worst. Surprisingly for a long-running Hollywood franchise, a frontrunner for the least enjoyable Star Trek movie also happens to be the series' first. With that rather inflammatory intro out of the way,…
TragedyOfTheAges

Tragedies of the Ages

An important part of being a social commentator is engaging with good-faith arguments that challenge your positions on the topics you cover. That goes double for writers, since it's storytellers who are the new priesthood of our narrative-driven society. That is also why literary critics play a vital if often…
kraken

The Kraken

Kairos is proud to present the debut sci fi-horror story by friend of the blog Martel. Investigator’s Note: Every electronic device in Mr. Gennaro’s apartment was thoroughly smashed with a hammer prior to his death. The Department remained unaware of his final writings until a viral tweet containing only a…
Mulder Aliens

I’m Not Saying It’s Aliens

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm no hard-nosed skeptic. That said, Charles Fort himself warned against being so open-minded that one's brains spilled out. The sudden candidness about UFOs on the part of the military, Congress, and the media raises ample reason for caution, if only because…
Trekonomics

Trekonomics

Robert P. Murphy points out that, not only does the post-scarcity economy portrayed in Star Trek not make sense, it's not really even post-scarcity. In reply to Brad DeLong, an economist on the Trekonomics panel at the New York City Comic Con, Murphy writes: In reality, DeLong is wrong to think…