Star Trek Movie-Thon: Episode I
Article By: Ryker XL
With the Eleventh movie in the Star Trek series (and a reboot at that) hitting the big screen in May, it’s time for us to take a look at this storied franchise and examine SOME of the work that made it a part of our Entertainment culture. This week we’ll revisit Star Trek the Motion Picture, provide a brief synopses and a forum for discussion.
Movie Background:
When the original television series was canceled in 1969, Gene Roddenberry lobbied hard to continue the franchise on film. Partly due to the success of syndication; Paramount to begin work on a feature film in 1975. After several writers and scripts hit the circular file, Paramount scrapped the film in 1977 and began work on a second television series instead; Star Trek: Phase II. However, with the box-office success of many sci-fi films such a “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, Paramount decided that bringing Trek to the big screen would be a great idea.
Paramount hired Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise to helm the $15 million dollar venture. To speed the film along, writers stole the pilot episode from Star Trek:Phase II “In thy Image” and adapted it for the big screen. There were many revisions to the script and the Enterprise was completely redesigned. It was perhaps these constant revisions and a skimpy effects budget that led to mixed reviews from both critics and fans alike. One lasting acquisition was the hiring of Jerry Goldsmith for the movie’s musical score; a relationship that would last the franchise until 2002.
Movie Synopses:
A fleet of Klingon D-7 cruisers attack an object in a vast cloud. The object in the cloud dispatches the fleet with little trouble. A nearby Starfleet monitoring station detects a powerful alien force hidden inside this cloud of energy and relays the message to Starfleet. Captain James T. Kirk has been promoted to Admiral and is overseeing the retrofit of his former ship, the USS Enterprise. When the Starfleet monitoring station is destroyed by the cloud, the Enterprise is dispatched to intercept and investigate.
Missing the Captain’s Chair, Kirk takes command of the Enterprise, angering the current Captain, Willard Decker. During testing of the transporter system the science officer is killed. And tensions between Kirk and Decker increase when Kirk’s unfamiliarity with the Enterprise’s redesigned weapons nearly destroys the vessel. Finally, Spock arrives as replacement science officer, explaining that while undergoing a ritual to purge all emotion he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the intruder.
The Enterprise intercepts the alien cloud and is heavily damaged. An alien probe appears on the bridge abducting the navigator, Ilia, and replacing her with a robotic probe. Decker is upset because he and Ilia had a romantic history. He proceeds to try and find some resemblance of Ilia within the probe’s memories of her.
Spock takes a spacewalk to the alien vessel’s surface and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V’ger itself, a living machine. At the heart of the vessel, V’ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a twentieth century space probe launched from Earth. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted the probe’s programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned, and return that information to its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill the mission, and on its journey the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness.
Spock realizes that V’ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission; having learned what it could on its journey home, it finds its existence empty and without purpose. Before transmitting all its information, V’ger insists that the Creator come in person to finish the sequence. Realizing that the machine wants to merge with its creator, Decker offers himself to V’ger. The commander and the Ilia probe merge, creating a new form of life. With Earth saved and their mission completed, Kirk directs the Enterprise out to space to continue it’s mission; to boldly go where no one has gone before.
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Tags: leonard nemoy, star trek, the motion picture, william shatner
April 7th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Oh God, the first movie is SO boring!
April 7th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
What? I love the first movie. It’s no Khan, but there’s something about it I love. Must be the presence of a thin Kirsty Alley.
OH! I said it.
April 7th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Before I begin my thoughts, Hilden I’m sorry Kristy Alley was not in this film, she was only in Star Trek 2, the Wrath of Khan. But she was quite fetching in the show…more on that next week.
Ok I’m old enough to remember this movie coming out and how BIG A DEAL that was. Think of it, Trek fans had waited over a decade to see their beloved characters on the big screen and now they had their chance. There were lines at the SouthTown theater similar to the ones for Star Wars and yes, even a few Cos players went to see this show. I grew up on the reruns and LOVED every one of them, so I was kinda jazzed to see this film. My feelings walking out of the theater were kinda ho hum, and that was sad because I so wanted to LOVE this movie.
Over time however, I can appreciate the beauty of this film for what it was, the first retelling of the voyages of my favorite star vessel, the USS Enterprise. For it’s the ship and the relationships of her crew that keep me coming back for more. Perhaps the defining moment for that movie was the Enterprise flyby scene. Simply put, it’s gorgeous. Seeing the new ship and all her glory, put to what would become the anthem for the “Next Generation” gave everyone goosebumps. It’s an ode to nostalgia that we rarely see, and done so very well.
I will say that the film has a very 70s look to it. The uniforms seemed out of place as if Roddenberry said, well what are the hippes wearing today, let’s give them something like that. And the story is, well not so thought out as I would have liked. Sure it had the heady thought provoking ideals that made the series great, but the events that lead up to the end reveal felt flat to me. The action and witty dialogue that we see in later films would have been a welcome addition, but with the rough timelines the writers had, I’m not suprised with what they got.
On a final note, I have a friend who work on the art direction for the film. There are plenty of Easter Eggs in the background paintings that were placed there on purpose. In many cases they wanted to see what Gene would miss, and some got yanked. However, if you have the special edition and you pause it right after Kirk see Engineering, you will see at the end of a long line of reactors….an engineer taking a piss…
April 9th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Oh, right, right! This one has the bald chick in it, right?
I remember seeing this one as a kid and thinking that the end reveal was pretty damn cool. It was one of those very science fiction story lines that captured my imagination. What actually DID happen to those satalites that we sent out into space?
I think the look is pretty unique and I actually enjoy it. The whole Kirk vs. Decker thing was a neat idea as well. It lets time pass and yet still makes Kirk out to be the bad ass he is. Overall, not my favorite Trek film, but I have a pretty big soft spot for it.