Starch Wreck

Epix has been running some of the first-generation Star Trek movies, and during one of the free preview weekends, I had the chance to record the first, 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so I could rewatch it and do a review here.

The movie starts off with a group of Klingon ships coming up against a cloud-like phenomenon. Like any good spacefaring civilization, they send out probes to try to determine what's in the cloud. The cloud responds by engulfing and destroying the ships. The cloud continues on its merry way, reaching an English-speaking United Federation of Planets space staion Epsilon-9. The same fate befalls the station. Worse for mankind, the cloud is heading straight for Earth, and is going to reach the planet in three days!

The only starship in the area that's close enough to intercept the cloud and figure out what danger the cloud presents and neutralize the threat if possible is the Enterprise. So Starfleet, the Federation's military (and probably Earth's dictatorship although what's really going on with Earth's governance is never mentioned anywhere in the Star Trek canon as far as I'm aware) orders the Enterprise to go intercept the cloud, even though the Enterprise is currently undergoing retrofitting and refurbishing.

Since humans get old, Starfleet had planned for a new crew, and some of them are aboard, such as Capt. Decker (Stephen Collins) and Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta). But Starfleet needs experience too, which means all of the crew from the previous incarnation of the Enterprise that we saw on the TV series show up: Capt. Kirk (William Shatner), now a Commander; Dr. "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley); Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy); and the rest, who don't seem to have gotten much in the way of promotions. (And why you need an old, say, communications officer, is beyond me.)

The Enterprise heads off to intercept the cloud, and sure enough, they face as much danger as all the other ships did. The cloud sends out probes that search the various crew members, eventually killing Lt. Ilia because she's not needed for any sequels. Well, that and the fact that the cloud needs some sort of carbon-based interface to communicate more effectively with the carbon life forms on the Enterprise.

Ilia, now in machine form, lets on that she's from something called V'GER, and that V'GER wants information from the carbon-based forms, specifically from its Creator. The Enterprise would be happy to comply, except that they don't know what sort of information V'GER wants or who (or what) the Creator is. V'GER and the cloud have been destroying anybody who can't help it on its information gathering mission, although you can probably guess that Kirk and Co. ultimately figure out what's going on just in time to save mankind.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the first major entry into the franchise in about a decade following the cancellation of the TV series, so the producers and writers apparently believed there would be people who didn't know enough about the TV series that they needed to reintroduce everybody to the cast. This causes the first half of the movie to move at a fairly glacial pace, and I think is one of the reasons why this first movie gets lower ratings than some of the later movies in the series. Once they get into the action, it's really not a bad movie. There are some flaws, especially in the effects which at times look like bad green-screen and no advancement on what had been seen in the old rear-projection days. (They're not just poor compared to today; I'd call them off at times for 1970s standards. The former I can handle.) One particularly apt example comes when the Enterprise enters a wormhole and it's supposed to be shaking the ship or something.

The story isn't bad; in fact, it feels like it would fit right in with the TV series albeit with production values that are appropriately updated. (Except for fashion, which is badly out of date.) The bad news is that it could easily have fit into an hour episode of the TV series, while the movie with all the recharacterization and whatnot runs three times as long as a TV episode (about 130 minutes with all the credits, while an hour TV show of those days ran about 44 minutes after commercials). So while it's a worthy enough movie, it is a bit long.

Still, I can certainly recommend Star Trek: The Motion Picture, even for people who aren't necessarily fans of any of the incarnations of the TV series. It's available on DVD should you wish to watch for yourself.