Chris Pine’s Star Trek Movies Ranked Worst To Best

Chris Pine stars as Captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek movies, leading the all-star crew of the USS Enterprise into perilous and high-octane adventure. Introducing the alternate Kelvin timeline, Star Trek (2009) proved an excellent foundation for the franchise’s new movie series. Failing to heed the lesson of 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, Star Trek Into Darkness attempted a remake of the much-loved Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Sadly, despite initial success and ongoing sequel announcements, this spelled disaster for the Kelvin-verse movies, with the series yet to recover. Star Trek Beyond had the bones to reinvigorate the timeline’s trilogy, but a mistimed release and lack of creative ambition resulted in a fun third installment that didn’t quite deliver at the box office.

With potential new movies on Star Trek’s horizon, it’s worth observing the genuine highlights of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek trilogy. Carefully blending classic Star Trek with the updated and the redesigned, the Kelvin trilogy establishes a multiverse of parallel timelines with a time travel narrative and exceptional cast performances. Emotional connection is measured against high stakes by balancing robust, stimulating energy and fast action with real moments of heartfelt intensity and meaning. Despite the strong start established by Star Trek (2009), over-reliance on previous franchise success, noticeably out-of-character behaviors, and poor creative choices resulted in an unfortunate inability to replicate and convincingly build on this initial success. Here are J.J. Abrams’ 3 Star Trek movies starring Chris Pine ranked worst to best.

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3 Star Trek Into Darkness

Release date: May 9, 2013

The exciting but controversial follow-up to J.J. Abrams’ 2009 reboot, Star Trek Into Darkness reunited the young USS Enterprise crew for a fun, action-packed, thrilling space adventure. The returning Star Trek cast put in strong, skillful performances, complemented by high-quality cinematography and an impressive musical score, collectively crafting an expensive-looking, enjoyable movie that earned positive reviews from critics but didn’t meet audience expectations. Failing to capitalize on the ‘blank slate’ opportunity presented by the previous movie, however, Abrams’ second offering quickly unravels into a disjointed journey of disappointing and creative missteps, resulting in a problematic disconnect from the franchise’s committed fanbase. Even so, Star Trek Into Darkness remains the highest-grossing Star Trek movie, earning $467 million worldwide.

Styled as an alternate timeline ‘remake’ of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the absence of character set-up (and therefore required knowledge of franchise history) results in a film that doesn’t work on its own merits and the movie’s big pay-off moment falling flat. Worse, the movie’s marketing process repeatedly teased and denied the obvious plot twist that John Harrison is Khan Noonien Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch), resulting in an even colder reception upon release. But there were other controversial creative choices – alongside accusations of whitewashing, fans took exception to Dr. Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) stripping to her underwear for no reason, Kirk and Spock’s character inconsistencies, and Kirk’s miraculous resurrection from death moments after his heroic sacrifice.

2 Star Trek Beyond

Release date: July 22, 2016

Star Trek Beyond is the follow-up movie that Star Trek Into Darkness could have been. It’s an exciting, high-stakes, thrilling action-adventure that fondly remembers 1960s Star Trek and pushes creatively into new frontiers. Opening to a more seasoned, slightly more mature crew, the movie quickly establishes a warmer tone alongside a comfortable onboard routine that works well to develop the crew. Justin Lin takes over as director, and Simon Pegg and Doug Jung turn in a solid script that provides ample opportunity for the USS Enterprise command crew’s strong cast to shine, pairing off after the crew scatters on the planet Altamid.

Unfortunately, Star TrekBeyond falls just short of reaching its lofty ambitions, failing to transition from referential into bold, and mislays its energy with a confused villain story that isn’t clarified until the movie’s end. The crew reuniting on the smaller, older USS Franklin is a heartwarming, if bittersweet moment, and introducing the capably skilled Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) is a triumph. However, a too-large budget compounded waning fan interest and a reputation for ‘easy repetition of past success’ established by Star Trek Into Darkness. Star Trek Beyond underperformed and was poorly timed for a summer release instead of aligning with the franchise’s 50th anniversary in September 2016, earning $343 million.

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1 Star Trek (2009)

Release date: May 8, 2009

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) relaunched the franchise’s movie run and rejuvenated the overall franchise with a modern take and a timeline free of established events. While some protective Trekkies were understandably cautionary, Star Trek delivered an exciting and invigorating success and brought together an acclaimed cast of tremendous young actors to take on the risky, difficult task of filling previously established and much-loved roles. The new Star Trek cast led the franchise to a modern, young audience, delivering stunning aesthetics, spectacular visuals, and endless action sequences. Expertly weaving the old with the new alongside the creation of an alternate timeline, Star Trek (2009) is accessible, stimulating, humorous, fresh, and bold. With lens flares.

Opting to focus more on establishing the alternate timeline and the recast crew, the movie’s main story and themes are relatively simple but perhaps miss the opportunity for the characters to delve deeper. The movie also introduces the timeline’s differences from the original (Prime) Star Trek universe. Here, Spock (Zachary Quinto) skews more emotional than Leonard Nimoy’s time-and-reality-traveling logical-leaning counterpart, Kirk had a different start in life, and the USS Enterprise is bigger. Although several of the movie’s creative choices weren’t quite as successful – the Spock/Uhura (Zoe Saldana) romance, the red matter, a slightly confused ending – Abrams’ breakneck and revitalizing space adventure grossed $387 million and paved the way for a wealth of future Star Trek.

J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies successfully rebooted a much-loved franchise struggling to update itself to a modern audience on the big screen. Cleverly navigating character origin stories, the movie’s characters convincingly developed to inhabit the roles of their established counterparts. The inspired casting, led by Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock, provided both gravitas and quality performances that enriched and developed over time. Despite the numerous creative missteps that led to an increasing disconnect with fans and an overly ambitious budget by the studio seeking a Marvel Universe-sized audience, Abrams’ rebooted trilogy successfully established a timeline free of pre-determined events and provided a blank slate for any and all Kelvin-universe-based future Star Trek.