FILMS OF THE WEEK

THE BIG MOVIE

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (2013) 12 ◆ Saturday, 6.30pm, Ch4 ★★★★ The sci-fi franchise that made its TV debut in 1966 has thrived, going boldly on to the big screen (from 1979), through a Next Generation on TV (from 1987) – and beyond. Recently, we have seen Picard on a later-life mission (Amazon Prime) and followed Discovery into the future (Netflix), as well as having a laugh on the Lower Decks (Amazon Prime) – and there are at least three new series on the way. Starting in 2009, the original crew – including science officer Spock and Captain Kirk (Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine, above) – were recast and sent off into a new timeline for a total of three films in which the Star Trek spirit of unity and brotherhood lives on. The two sequels are showing today (Star Trek Beyond follows at 9pm).

CLASSIC FILM CHOICE

APOCALYPSE NOW: THE FINAL CUT (1979) 15 ◆ Saturday, 11pm, BBC2 ★★★★★ This Vietnam War epic is full of memorable moments: helicopters flying to the sound of Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyries; Robert Duvall’s Lt Colonel Kilgore musing that he loves ‘the smell of napalm in the morning’; Marlon Brando’s whispering monologue as Colonel Kurtz. Considering the production, in the typhoon-hit Philippines, was so chaotic – cast and crew caught nasty tropical diseases, and leading man Martin Sheen (above) almost died of a heart attack, to name a few of its trials – it’s nothing short of miraculous that the film emerged as such a coherent, profound and poetic force. In 2019, at the age of 80, director Francis Ford Coppola released this reedited definitive cut. It’s a classic film that is always worth revisiting.