Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in December of 1979. It is directed by Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music) and stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Persis Khambatta, and Stephen Collins. In it an enormous alien spacecraft called V'Ger is spotted approaching Earth and Admiral Kirk (Shatner) must take command of the Enterprise, currently under the command of Captain Willard Decker, in order to intercept, examine and stop the intruder.
This quote, from Darren Franich's review of the film, sums up the movie about as well as I ever could. It try's to be 2001: A Space Odyssey but it's storytelling is, ultimately, too neat and straightforward to make that work. While Kubrick was content to leave the monoliths vague and ambiguous the secret behind V'Ger is explicitly given to us. While the former leaves you with a sense of awe and wonder the latter simply leaves thinking, hmm interesting. It's a story that could have worked for a pilot episode of a new series, as it was originally intended to be, but at two and a half hours it just feels stretched too thin.
At the same time 2001 is a work of emotion and feeling not a character piece. Trek may be at it's best when it's dealing with interesting ideas, but it only really works when its character driven. Kirk and Bones are given very little to do here, reportedly Shatner and Kelley lobbied for greater characterization, and it really shows. It's not that there's no character drama in the film, Spock goes through an interesting transformation and Ilia and Decker have relationship drama. The real problem is that, while the film comes alive whenever we're watching the Enterprise travel through space, ironically the scenes involving the crew feel sterile and lifeless. The scenes focusing on Decker and Ilia in particular, feel about as passionate as the Padme/Anakin romance from the Star Wars prequels!
At the same time 2001 is a work of emotion and feeling not a character piece. Trek may be at it's best when it's dealing with interesting ideas, but it only really works when its character driven. Kirk and Bones are given very little to do here, reportedly Shatner and Kelley lobbied for greater characterization, and it really shows. It's not that there's no character drama in the film, Spock goes through an interesting transformation and Ilia and Decker have relationship drama. The real problem is that, while the film comes alive whenever we're watching the Enterprise travel through space, ironically the scenes involving the crew feel sterile and lifeless. The scenes focusing on Decker and Ilia in particular, feel about as passionate as the Padme/Anakin romance from the Star Wars prequels!
With all that said The Motion Picture does have a few things going for it. The special effects are truly spectacular, which is all the more impressive given that the film's production was plagued with all kinds of technical problems. These effects help to make all the outer space sequences in the film truly breathtaking. Of course this would be for not without the sound design by Frank Serefine and the great soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith. As a Trekkie (or Trekker?) I also appreciate that this is the only Star Trek film to feature Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett), who is now a doctor, though the film doesn't do much with her.
In the end Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a rather dull affair. The impressive visuals and awesome score are at the service of a pretty standard sci fi story that is rather devoid of emotional weight. It's worth checking out for Trekkies (though most have probably already seen it) or for fans of cerebral science fiction but I would not recommended it for casual viewers or for those trying to get into Star Trek for the first time.
Score: 6/10
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