Top 10 Favorite Star Trek Movie Villains

A great movie needs many things, including a kick ass and memorable villain that people will love! They need to be cunning, they need to pose a serious threat, and there should be some sort of psychological connection between our hero and villain to raise the stakes and the drama. That is how you make a badass villain,


Why do Star Trek movies have such a hard time with this?


I’ve talked about villains from the old TV show before but have never gotten into the movies. So here are the ten movie villains, in order from lame to badass. And since Star Trek IV had no villain, unless you count a flying Tootsie Roll a villain, that movie will be kept off.




#10.V’Ger (Star Trek-TMP)

So why include V’Ger if I excluded the probe in Star Trek IV? Well, the movies tries to give V’Ger a face and personality. Tries. As with the rest of the boring movie the villain is not only boring, but has been done before. Just called him Nomad and you basically have the TOS episode Changeling. I kind of thought the name was clever. Sort of. I guess the one thing going for it is V’Ger poses a literal threat.




#9.Ahdar Ru’afo (Star Trek Insurrection)

F.Murray Abraham is a fine actor, but he gets stuck in a stupid movie. He could have been a good villain if they had given him a motivation that was, you know, evil! And what was up with that skin stretching nonsense? This villain is so bland I had to look his name up, I didn’t have a clue. So we have a villain who is not evil, has no interaction with out heroes until the final act, and does almost pretty much nothing in the movie. Yay.





#8.Nero (Star Trek 2009)

You’ll hear me say this a lot, but this villain wasn’t the worst. To bad his motivations were stupid as hell! A badass villain can’t just be a menacing guy with a evil look, he has to have a plan that makes sense! Why go back in time to punish Spock for something out of his control, when you could, I don’t know, warn your people! The plot of this was lazy as hell and I still do not like this movie. Again the performance, and Eric Bana, are fine but the motivation and plan is so stupid it literally hurts the character.





#7.Shinzon (Star Trek Nemesis)

While it’s important that villain have a connection to our heroes, making a stupid one up is just…stupid. Shinzon was boring. The idea has been done to death. An imperfect clone of Picard? Please. They try to make this a big emotional thing for Picard, but c’mon! Enough said. Didn’t help that the performer sucked. Tom Hardy tried but, no. And this guy also played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises….really? There was nothing memorable about this guy. At all.





#6.Sybok (Star Trek V)

People always talk about the horrid directing and writing for Star Trek V because Shatner’s name is attached. OK, but how come no one talk about how boring this villain is? Sybok isn’t remotely menacing. Ok, maybe the first scene with the hostages. His plan is idiotic. And what the hell is this magical power he has to probe people’s minds and relieve their pain? Why does that make then his servants? How did Sybok know where “god” was hiding? Laurence Luckibill is a fine actor I’m sure but god was this guy dull as paint. Oh and that family connection to Spock being half brothers? Please. Though it’s not as idiotic as Shinzon being a “Picard clone”.




#5,Chang (Star Trek VI)

This is kind of a fuzzy category, depending how you look at it there are a couple villains in Star Trek VI. And going by my criteria you’d think he would be higher. Chang is an old Klingon General and is so against the idea of peace with The Federation he covertly works with them to stop it. Yeah he is a one note villain, and his quoting of Shakespeare is kind of lame (look how it was parodied in To Boldly Flee). So what puts him so high on the list? Christopher Plummer is awesome. Even appearing in very little make-up, he is still a badass Klingon and sells every line. Making that quoting menacing, rather than goofy. Chang was a stock badguy with no reason for our heroes to care about him but Plummer made him memorable. So memorable that I can ignore the fact that he was a stock bad guy.






#4.Soran (Star Trek Generations)

Yeah I’m surprised to, since Generations sucked. Oh poor Malcolm McDowell. He can be so mean and sinister but he always picks the worst projects. MacDowell is a good actor and is actually really good in the movie. The problem? The villain is boring in terms of motivation. He’s a depressed scientist looking for Eden. Yawn. And of course the rest of the movie is just a mess. I do think McDowell was really trying here, but a bad script is a bad script. Why is he higher than Sybock? or Chang? Because Soran got a backstory and his plan put lives in jeopardy. There was something at stake for Kirk and Picard. Chang was stock and Sybock…just smiled a lot and the “GOD” alien whatever was a bigger villain that he was. Tough call here.










#3.Kruge (Star Trek III)

Hell yeah! There was a time when I thought Christoper Lloyd, this was the role that came to mind. Back to the Future made it something else, but I digress. Kruge is a good villain because he is not motivated by power or greed, he is afraid of what Genesis will do to his people. Linkara did a much better character analysis so watch his Star Trek III review. I think he was spot on. The only problem is that there was nothing psychological about him. Kirk didn’t even know who he was, until he killed David (that may be why they killed him to give Kirk a reason to hate the guy). So he was a good villain but you could put him in any movie and it’d be the same. Why so high then? Because Christophe Lloyd is awesome and did everything he could with this role. I really think he put the modern Trek Klingons on the map.






#2.Borg Queen (Star Trek First Contact)

Suppose The Borg count by themselves, and they pose a real menace in this movie and even have a plan (two actually, one just going back in time and the other the deflector dish). Alice Krige is pretty cool here, selling an idea that really shouldn’t work. From what we know about The Borg before this movie, this idea makes little sense. But if you forget all that, it’s not that bad a notion. There has to be something in charge, right? In a way this is V’Ger fully realized, and it’s not bad. While the Queen would get overused in Voayger here she makes a satisfying antagonist. And the final scene where Picard beats her is probably the best action scene in any TNG movie. And of course not only do we have Picard’s issues with The Borg but even Data questioning his loyalties. This is the only movie where these characters were truly tested. Yeah they tried in Generations with Picard’s family tragedy-to bad that gets forgotten after the second act. And they tried again in Nemesis but Shinzon as Picard’s clone? Not buying it. Insurrection? Yeah right.



So if you gather my main criteria is the hero has to have a personal connection to the villain, and by process of elimination, you know who my #1 is….





#1.Khan (Star Trek II)

I really, really wanted a surprise here. I tend to be predictable. But this villain has it all. We got a grudge against out main hero which isn’t forced.  Ok Khan exaggerates stuff a bit but still Kirk did do what Khan said he did. Kirk has to deal with the fact that Khan is around, it’s his fault! We got a powerful villain who is smart as a whip and can kick your ass without missing a step. We got a plan which, while revenge, is still pretty smart. The way he tricks Kirk by attacking with the Reliant and then when it looks like Kirk has won, Khan turns it around against him. And of course we have the performance of the ages, Ricardo Montalban owns every scene he is in. He is that character. The best Trek movie villain of them all.

So, what about Benedict Cumberbatch?


Into Darkness was pretty good and that Khan wasn’t bad. He was a little dumber, and they didn’t do anything with him, but it was pretty good.





So what do you guys think of my choices? Agree or disagree below.