Star Trek: The Motion Picture

A brief personal note: There is no good reason I suddenly stopped posting, except, perhaps, no more Left Behind segments to review. Once you get out of the habit of writing, it can be hard to get back in. So why, with the Supreme Court poised to strike down Obamacare in its entirety, am I writing about a movie that is over 30 years old? No good reason, really, except that (1) maybe it will be easier getting back into the habit writing something light and fun, (2) it is hard to keep posting about current events when they bring nothing but despair and, (3) I have come across a site called SF Debris that specializes in reviews of science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular. The review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture struck a cord with me.

Apparently there are people who prefer STTMP (for short) to Wrath of Khan. They say that STTMP is "cerebral," with Wrath of Khan is a simple black-and-white story of good against evil. Well, the author of these reviews and I agree there -- we vastly prefer Wrath of Khan. David Gerrold has said that every TV series has two great villains to deal with -- time and money. There is never enough of either. In a movie, there is plenty of both. STTMP is the perfect refutation of that theory. Its problem was that Gene Roddenberry finally got unlimited time and money and behaved like a kid in a candy store -- he WAY overindulged and made himself (or us) sick. STTMP isn't a story. It is a special effects extravaganza that lets the light show overwhelm details like plot or characters. It would have been a much better movie if its budget had been massively cut to focus on Rodenberry to focus on actually telling a story.

What would have happened in that case we can only speculate on, but but it might have made a good story. There were some promising elements if they had been fully developed instead of overwhelmed by special effects. The movie begins with a cloud of immense destructive power destroying several Klingon warships and headed for earth. Watching it for the first time, I could already see where this was going. Clearly the cloud was not evil, just misunderstood. That can either work or not work, depending on whether it is well done.

Another promising element was Kirk. He had been promoted to Admiral, and now realized it was a mistake. He was cut out to be a captain, not an admiral, and desperately wanted command of a ship back -- to the point of hastily assuming command of the Enterprise without fulling learning of the changes and upgrades made and making reckless decisions resulting from his lack of knowledge. This seems psychologically very plausible. In fact, it is a lot more plausible than the opposite situation shown in Wrath of Khan, which portrays Kirk as an admiral who is clearly better suited to be a captain, but keeps insisting he is too old to command a star ship. In this, and in nothing else, STTMP is better than Wrath. This in turn is even better developed by introducing Will Decker, who is supposed to command the Enterprise, and who does know about the changes and upgrades made. Kirk elbows him aside and assumes command himself and makes mistakes Decker could easily have avoided. This sets them up for conflict.

Another element that works well is Spock. Spock, in a desperate attempt to free himself of his human half, has been studying the Kolinahr, a Vulcan discipline intended to purge the participant of all emotion. Yet he is unable to succeed, at least in part because he feels the telepathic pull of the mysterious cloud. When he makes telepathic contact with it, he at last experiences what he has sought all this time -- a mind of pure logic, pure knowledge, untouched by any emotion -- and sees how empty it is and understands at last the important things that the truly emotionless are missing.

There were other elements that were not so good. McCoy (at least at the start) was one. First there is some sort of transporter accident. According to the novelized version of the movie, two people being transported were hideously mutilated by the transporter and died. In the movie, this was no more than hinted, at, presumably to save its G rating. This incident serves no apparent role other than to reinforce McCoy's general fear of the transporter and allow him to take the role of comic relief. McCoy can offer a little of that at times, but his character is really best when he is offering insight. He gets better as the movie progresses, especially in pointing out why Kirk is overreaching. But he gets off to a poor start.

Then there is Ilia, the bald-headed alien female who is apparently so hot she has to take an oath of celibacy to serve. She and Decker were apparently an item in the past. She is soon vaporized by the cloud, but a robot of her appears naked in the shower (don't ask). Kirk, concerned for the movie's G rating, gives her a robe, but it is so short that G rating remains in peril with the slightest slip. The robot speaks for the cloud and identified it as V'ger and explains its quest to find "the creator." There is a long distraction as Decker tries to awaken Ilia's personality, which ultimately goes nowhere.

Worse yet, V'ger turns out to be short for Voyager VI, an earth probe that fell through a black hole (this was before worm holes were invented) and came out on the other side of the galaxy and had its programming to find knowledge and take it back home upgraded to -- well, V'ger of the movie. When V'ger needs someone to merge with, Decker, for no apparent reason, desperately wants to be the one, and Ilia joins him. Presumably, he volunteers because it is the only way he can be with Ilia again. More plausibly, his motives are (1) it saves the authors having to figure out how to resolve his conflict with Kirk, and (2) it wouldn't do to kill off a regular, after all.

Then you have to figure out what to do about V'ger. We now know that V'ger is, indeed, not evil, but just misunderstood. But it is also true that anything that powerful is too dangerous to have around. So what are you going to do about it? The makers of the movie cop out by showing such a burst of special effects that they hope you won't notice they fail to address this issue. The general consensus appears to be that V'ger disappears. Um, why? No explanation. It has been suggested that it moves on to a higher plane. Whatever. If that is what happened, we need so.

There is another possible way for the movie to end, one that fits far better with the plot trajectory up until the climactic scene. It is my understanding that at that time Leonard Nimoy was tired of being Spock and wanted out. The story provided the obvious vehicle. The logical outcome would be for Spock, the being seeking to escape emotion into pure logic, to merge with V'ger, the being of pure logic needing to learn the meaning of emotion. Each would supply what the other wanted and was missing. It was this that Spock was drawn to from the start. It would also quite decisively have gotten Spock out of the series for good. It is my understanding this was how the movie was originally planned. Of course, that would still have left the question of what to do about V'ger after the merger. And Kirk and Decker would also somehow have to resolve their differences. With special effects toned down to a mere supporting role, this might have made an excellent movie. Or it might not. It is hard to say. All I can say for certain is that the movie, as it was, fell far short.