My nerdiness is going to be showing on this one… I will freely admit to being a recently developed “trekkie”. After growing up an avid Star Wars fan then enduring the prequels (which were great when I was in middle school but not so great once I hit high school), I was a prime target for a new franchise. Cue J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek, which was a great action movie and had an engaging storyline. My dad was a fan of the original series, and I new enough about the franchise from pop culture for me to get some of the references, but that movie was the gateway for me to the Star Trek universe. Since initially watching 2009’s Star Trek, I have seen all the movies (except the one I am watching tonight), seen all of The Next Generation & Deep Space Nine, and watched a select number of episodes from the Original Series, Enterprise, and Voyager. To hard core Trekkies, my lack of experience with this film, the original series, or the other TV shows (which now have to include the 2 streaming shows on CBS), I am not a “true fan”, but to most of the world I am a huge geek. Basically, I love this concept, but I do have other interests and goals in life so i havent consumed everything.
There, now that my history with Star Trek is out there, lets talk about the movie tonight. “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, is the only Star Trek film I’ve not seen all the way through. As i understand, it was the only film directed by Roddenberry himself, and it was not very well received. Roddenberry wasn’t a fan of interconnected storylines, so this had no direct connection to the original series or the movies that preceded it, so therefore it seemed pretty easy to just skip the thing. As i understand, it has to do with the Voyager satellite becoming sentient and wanting to destroy earth, which doesn’t sound too half-baked for a Trek story if we are talking TOS. Let me watch this one, and I’ll come back and let you know what I think. Here is the trailer.
As a fan of Star Trek, I don’t think this movie is horrible. It came out in 1979, so if you compare it to Star Wars, this movie is pretty boring, but Star Trek is absolutely a different thing; whereas star wars has dog-fighting and force power magic, Star Trek tries to be a bit more sci-fi friendly. No sword-wielding wizard-warrior-monks in this franchise; here, the action lends itself more to naval exploration/warfare than a fantasy epic. It seems pretty clear this movie’s existence was a response to Star Wars, but the story is completely different. Also, it seems to not understand that one of the biggest factors to Star War’s success was graphics; this one seems like they skimped on the special effects.
It really seems like Gene Roddenberry decided to make an extended episode of the show, where the first act is “getting the gang back together”, the second act is “figuring out what the trouble is”, and the third is “saving the day”. No problem with that, it just seems more like a television experience as opposed to a cinematic one. Even the set designs seem “groovy”, with technicolor docking bays and bright white officer uniforms. The acting is also indicative of a mid-60s television show instead of late 70’s cinema. That makes sense given the experience of the cast, but i don’t understand what Paramount was thinking putting this one out unless it had a TV budget and they thought they could turn a profit. I suppose this film might’ve been a shot-in-the-dark; was there enough desire for this sort of franchise to warrant future films? If that was the case, i think it is a pretty clear “yes”.
One thing i think is pretty entertaining about this one is that you can pretty clearly see the source material for this plot. Voyager is launched in September of 1977, this movie comes out in 1979. My guess is that they didn’t have a plot, so they took whatever was going on in the news at the time and expounded upon that. They took a LOT of liberties with what Voyager was capable of, especially since I’m pretty sure the technology would pale in comparison to a modern cell phone.
Lets go into the cast a bit. William Shatner play James T. Kirk, and actually does a pretty good job. William Shatner generally provides fairly campy performances, but in this medium i really think it works. He definitely isn’t an action hero, but he definitely plays the 70’s stoic hero-type pretty well. Leonard Nimoy plays the logical Vulcan science officer in Spock. Probably the most iconic character from this franchise, and Leonard Nimoy might be the GOAT. The rest of the cast is pretty great filling the various roles of the crew from the original series. Shocking that none of the characters had any advancement in the time since the series, but I guess it is what it is. I don’t think I’d classify any performance here as “strong”, but they are definitely effective.
I will say, it does bum me out a bit to not be able to watch this and figure out the V’ger was actually the Voyager probe launched in 1977. That sees like a fairly classic reveal, and it seems that this reveal was stolen for Tim Burton’s awful Planet of the Apes films (“Ca Li Ma”). I do like how we get a crap-load of exposition within the last 20 minutes that explains how Voyager can become sentient. It’s not violent, its just misunderstod!
So we come to the point where I advise what i think of this film and who i recommend it for… Honestly, i give it a B. It’s an extended TV episode, and the graphics arent great… If you think of it as a knock-off Star Wars, ou will certainly be disappointed. If you think of it within the scope of Star Trek, its not bad. I recommend watching this after you’ve connected with out Star Trek content, though. Watch the Abrams films, watch the other films, and watch some TOS or TNG… Then, this movie is pretty enjoyable.
Next week we get to move on to what is largely considered one of the better films in the franchise… The Wrath of Khan!
Ain't That Bad - Movie Blog 