Star Trek - The Motion Picture: The Director's Cut (1979)

What Could (Should) Have Been

Timing is everything.

The snarls and delays in getting the screenplay from paper to film made the journey for this picture very difficult; there was this "little" movie made - Star Wars - that revolutionized the Sci-Fi genre and placed a heavy premium on visual effects.

So, what appeared to be a trade-off with a major part of the Star Trek TV series - the dialogue of the actors - was jettisoned for visuals that looked impressive, but looked to be playing catch-up to Darth and his pals.

The Director's Cut shows what should have been and is a very satisfying mixture of visuals and the personal touch by the cast. This is where the motion picture journey should have began and it was well worth the wait.

October 25, 2008

Star Trek: The Immobile Picture

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" gives motion pictures a bad name. After having enjoyed a brief cult run on the small screen, the crew of Star Trek dared to embark on an adventure on the silver screen. The crew is reunited, considerably paunchier and wearing outfits that look like hospital scrubs with navel protectors. As usual,the crew gets its Assigned Alien. This time it's the beautiful,bald Ilia (the late Persis Khambatta). A young newbie on the crew, Dekker (he was the pastor on WB's Seventh Heaven) is immediately smitten with her,causing Forbidden Love tensions. Will he put duty before love, or will he sacrifice all for his hairless beauty?

Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) get to lovably curmudgeonly when putting the young man to task. It turns out that an Evil Satellite is destroying everything on Earth. It's a device called V'ger (hence the movie could be titled "The V'Ger Monologues"),in search of its creator. The characters are in search of an author... because the movie is plotless. V'ger is collecting data (yawn) Ilia resists the young man's advances,because she's taken a vow of chastity,making her the 40 light-year virgin. Apparently,her sexual prowess is such that she'd make the "little death" a bigger one. V'ger,wanting some love,uses her as its PR woman. Then there's the long journey into the depths of the V'ger,best described as the crew of the Enterprise staring in awe at Christmas lights. One expects to see Santa Claus and a Nativity scene... but no such luck. In the end,Ilia and the young man "merge" in the rainbow light,their union of one man and one woman saving the Earth. For slash fic fans who love the Kirk/Spock 'ship,this ending is a disappointment. For those anti-Prop.8 here in California,it's heterosexist.

"Star Trek: The Motion Picture",with its sappy ending,would make perfect fodder for the marriage amendments on the ballot. The union of one man and one woman not only saves the Earth,but the cosmos as well! For the Star Trek franchise,this was laughably bad and boring. On the brighter side,it has navel protectors and RAINBOWS!!!! October 13, 2008

Has gotten better with time !

When I watched STTMP in 79 I dosed off a couple of times and thought it was very boring.
The acting was stiff and the uniforms looked liked pajamas.

As an adult now, I appreciate the movie a bit more and enjoy the special effects. October 7, 2008

Surprisingly Good After the Re-edit

Like most others, I eagerly anticipated the release of ST:TMP during the late 70s and was disappointed.

No longer.

The Director's Cut restores more even pacing to a story that is rather simple on the surface [think The Changeling Part II] but has multiple layers and a depth of complexity that no other movie in the franchise could hope to touch.

Have no doubts- if you're looking for fast paced action, well-developed characters or chemistry from the Big Three [Kirk, Spock, McCoy] look elsewhere.

But if you want a movie that discusses big issues in a serious way then you won't do better than Star Trek the Motion Picture. Consciousness, the meaning of life, religion and even love are addressed in extremely subtle ways that make this movie the most "adult" franchise science fiction movie out there and is far more in the spirit of 2001: A Space Odyssey than say Star Wars for example.

Highly recommended. September 23, 2008

A below-average Star Trek Film.

I am still amazed that there are people who will give this a 5-star rating. When first released the movie had one main attraction: The reunion of the original series crew. Being a huge Star Trek fan I went to see it in the theater three times. But even then, before any other ST films were released it was obvious there were problems. Even when you take in the "Director's Cut" that has since been released, updating the look and feel of the movie, it still suffers from one major problem: The story sucked! It ended up being nothing more than a rehash of a couple of shows from the original series.

Back in 1979 I listened to a radio interview with Walter Koenig after the movie was released and he basically stated that they started off filming with half a script. Because of the tightness of the shooting schedule there were many times they filmed with only an outline for certain scenes. The film feels that way. There are many scenes that seemed contrived, like the actors were winging it. Some of the acting was horrible (Persis Khambata), some of it was bland (Walter Koenig, George Takei), and some of it was just unecessary (Majel Barrett, Grace Lee Whitney). The best acting on the film was turned in by Stephen Collins (future dad on 7th Heaven - Seasons 1-5). His character was interesting. His constant sparring with Admiral Kirk was one of the highlights of the film, giving the picture a great tension within the plot. Leonard Nimoy's portrayal of Spock was OK for this film but lacked originality. At the beginning he's 100% emotionless but by the end of the film he embraces his emotions. This would have been much more interesting had we not seen it 3 - 4 times in the original series.

One other problem, there were times that the movie drags. Two scenes in particular: When Scott is taking Kirk over to the Enterprize in a shuttle we're treated to a 10 minute dragging "inspection" of the ship. Interesting for the first 5 minutes, it gets old quickly. But that pales in comparrison to the scene showing the Enterprize entering the Vger cloud. That seemed to go on forever. The only good thing about it, you had enough time to get up, go to the restroom, then stand in line to buy another box of Bon Bons, and still get back before it was over.

Are there things to like here? Absolutely! Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack was astounding! No wonder TNG stole it. And, again, the reunion of the cast 10 years after the cancellation of the series was fun to watch. But once you got to see Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition) you really do realize how bad this movie was. Did they improve it when releasing the "Director's Cut" on DVD? Yes, but only the look and feel of the movie. Even with the extended scenes added, it still ends up towards the bottom of the Star Trek Movie list, just a bit above (maybe) Star Trek V - The Final Frontier (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition). July 20, 2008

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