Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The month of July will be an exciting one because I will look at a very popular sci-fi franchise that has a huge fan base. In case you don’t know which franchise I’m referring to, it is none other than “Star Trek.” I will not do a full out “Trek-a-thon” where I review every single part of the franchise, like the shows and everything else. Instead, I will solely focus on each film entry leading up to the new one that will be released in a couple of weeks. Now let’s not waste any time, let’s dive in with the first entry, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” released in 1979.

“Star Trek,” the popular television series that ended 10 years prior to the release of this film is a classic, has, according to Vincent Canby, “like Lazarus, come back to haunt the skeptical and reassure all those who have kept the faith. It's called "Star Trek — the Motion Picture," rather superfluously, I think, because I doubt anyone who sees it could possibly confuse this film with those shards of an earlier, simpler, cheaper television era.”

Canby described, “Watching "Star Trek — the Motion Picture," which opens today at Loews Orpheum and other theaters, is like attending your high-school class's 10th reunion at Caesar's Palace.” Most of the characters are familiar, but the design has little familiarity to anything you’ve seen before. Among the crew are Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner), commanding officer of the Starship Enterprise, Vulcan Mr. Spock (the late Leonard Nimoy), whose emotions have been stripped after achieving “kolinahr,” the state of grace on his home planet Vulcan, Dr. McCoy (the late DeForest Kelley), the Enterprise’s general doctor, nicknamed “Bones” just like he would have been on H.M.S. Bounty, and other friends including Scotty (the late James Doohan), the engineering officer, Sulu (George Takei), the ship’s helmsman, Chekov (Walter Koenig), the navigator, and Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), the communications officer.

The newcomers are Stephen Collins (who would go on to play the father on the horrible long-running show, “7^th Heaven”), who plays Commander Decker, the Enterprise’s determined young executive officer, and Perris Khambatta, an actress from India who plays Ilia, a surprisingly beautiful young woman whose head was shaved completely clean in the fashion of her home-planet, Delta Four.

This time around the mission of the Enterprise is to interrupt a mysterious cloud, which is evidently light years in diameter and is heading toward earth for reasons that not even Mr. Spock can deduce. It’s no secret to let you know that the cloud contains what is normally called under such circumstances as “a superior intelligence,” though just what that intelligence is must be one of the film’s few surprises.

Canby stated, “I suspect that wit is not what "Star Trek" fans are looking for. Instead they want to see favorite characters who are as ageless and multidimensional as characters in a comic strip, and not at all ashamed of those origins.” The dialogue – at least what dialogue you could hear over Jerry Goldsmith’s music and the sounds of rockets being shot – is of a dullness that calms the tired mind, like, how Canby described, “Magic Fingers that work on a tired brain.” Unlike “Star Wars,” which was full of conscious reminders to other literature, “Star Trek” only refers to itself, with the possible allowance of the climactic series that borrows easily from Christian mythology.

The film’s vision of the future, which is a bit messy at the beginning, becomes increasingly fascinating as the movie goes on, or maybe it just seems that way as you might become entranced of endless patterns of light and color, made to mimic the experiences of the members of the Enterprise crew as they pass through a handful of dimensions of time and space.

“Star Trek” is yet another film that owes more to Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra, who did the special photographic effects, and to Harold Michelson, the production designer, than it does to the director, the writers or even the producer, Gene Roddenberry, who also created and produced the television series.

Canby mentioned, “The formidable Robert Wise, who once directed a good, pacifist sci-fi film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), a film with very few special effects, directed "Star Trek," but I can't imagine what there was for him to do after telling the actors where to stand.” Because most of the drama in this kind of movie is created in the laboratories, the actors are limited to the trading of meaningful looks or staring closely at television monitors, usually in disbelief.

In the end, I don’t think this movie holds up at all. Instead, it’s a "Star Trek" movie that I don't recommend anyone to start the series out with. The reason why I say that is because not all the characters are developed in an interesting way, the movie drags at a surprisingly slow pace and you will be instantly bored by it. The effects look great, given the time period, but when you have to look at them for what looks like hours, you probably will be put to sleep. After seeing it (which I hope you don’t), you will realize why this is called “the slow motion picture.” If you do, by any chance, watch this movie, I advise you to keep your finger on the Fast Forward button. My brother says this is the worst "Star Trek" movie, but there's one that I think is "far" worse, which we will get to later in the month. I agree with both James Rolfe and the Nostalgia Critic where they stated that this film was copying what "2001: A Space Odyssey" did, but it failed because there can only be one "2001: A Space Odyssey." Thank goodness I'm done with this review.

In fact, you will realize that almost all the odd number “Star Trek” movies get the hate but the even numbered ones get the praise. If you want to know what I mean, keep checking in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of this month to find out.

Speaking of which, check in on Monday for not only my yearly Independence Day movie reviews, but for the second entry in “Star Trek Month.”