Star Trek is apparently considering films II through IV to be part of a “Genesis Trilogy”.
There are iconic movie trilogies out there, like the original Star Wars trilogy, the Godfather franchise, and the Sam Rami Spider-Man films (maybe not the last one…). The point is that some film trilogies are great. Others aren’t. Some aren’t trilogies at all and that’s where Star Trek comes in.
The franchise first launched into theaters in 1979 and over the next decade-plus saw six films get launched under that banner. Each film had slight ties to the next one, some more than others but each film carried over something from the prior film.
So you may be surprised (I know I was) when I found out that there are those in the franchise that consider Star Trek’s II: The Wrath of Khan, III: The Search For Spock, and IV: The Voyage Home to be part of an inter-franchise trilogy, called the “Genesis Trilogy”. Despite the films never being promoted as such until recently.
The first Star Trek film franchise was a six-story arc, not a trilogy
Star Trek is rolling out a new “Genesis Trilogy” book, called Star Trek: The Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Edition. The book reveals behind the scene details of the films many of which fans already know while providing some interesting photos to go alongside them.
Now if you’re confused about why it’s called the “Genesis Trilogy”, good luck there. Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock took place on or near the terraformed planet of Genesis but The Voyage Home saw the crew on Vulcan and then on Earth.
Yes, the events of III carry over to IV but so do the events of IV into V and so on. These aren’t trilogies, and to promote them as such is to do some serious disrespect to the other three films in the series. This isn’t a trio of films, it’s s sextet and it should be promoted as such.
This isn’t like Star Wars, which has nine films in its film franchise. Each of those films was released as trilogies on purpose and promoted as such during and after their conclusion. For Trek, these were just six concurrent films, more akin to the (I’m so sorry) Fast and the Furious franchise.
It’s one long arc, not several smaller ones making up the whole.