I.A.M. Musing About…

As part of the continuing effort to improve the lives of billions–billions, I tells yah! – of the people of the world, let’s have a look at the Star Trek series of films in the same way we looked at the James Bond films (and you can read the summary of those here). This is for the people, you see.

Star Trek I ~ The Motion Picture (1979)

To be honest, why the damned thing got going again in the first place is probably pure opportunism, owing to Star Wars being such an insane run-away hit. In theory, this is the same justification for Mooraker, and we saw how well that worked, didn’t we?

Moving on quickly…

This is the one that starts with Spock not completing the “purge all your emotions” ceremony to make him truly Vulcan, only to return to the Enterprise which has undergone a refit and is destined to go out under a new Captain, but – inevitably – gets taken over by Kirk, which is why we have the film in the first place.

Eventually they arrive at the spot in space where a bunch of people have disappeared, and it turns out that it’s some sort of space probe calling itself “V’Ger”, which is traveling to Earth and wishes to find its Creator, join with him, and become one with it. In order for the thing to talk to people, it steals crewman Ilia and changes her into some sort of intercom system. Somehow upon her return her clothes disappear as well, but then just as inexplicably she’s got some sort of incredibly short gown.

Anyway…

The length of time spent showing the Enterprise in space dock is insanely long, unless you’re some sort of Trekkie who wants to see what, if anything, has been altered in the years betwixt the TV series and the movie. Which I’m not. So I wanted to throw things at someone to make the damned scene end, as well as rid me of the over-romantic gigantic symphonic orgasm which seemed to be going on in the soundtrack. Okay, the ship is kind of a character, but come on!

A good third of this movie is taken-up with re-introducing us to the characters. Had this been a story which was completely fresh and not based on a previously seen TV show, it’s damned unlikely we would have spent a fraction of time getting to hear the gumping of McCoy and everyone, but for some reason they seem to get away with it. Bah.

If you’ve never seen the original series when it aired, or through the interminable and seemingly omnipresent repeats, okay, then watch this. Otherwise… no. Bah.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Century Associates
Paramount Pictures

Directed by
Robert Wise

Writing credits
Gene Roddenberry (television series Star Trek)
story by Alan Dean Foster
screenplay by Harold Livingston

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29th, 2011 at 4:48 pm and is filed under movies, Personal, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.