RETRO REVIEW: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Directed by Robert Wise.

Written By Harold Livingston.

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Stephen Collins and Persis Khambata.

PG, 136 minutes (the Director’s Cut).

The beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is perhaps one of the more surprising moves made by a space adventure based off a kitschy TV series from the sixties. In darkness, stars begin to dot the screen and we find ourselves journeying through the vast expanse of space while a soft, moving, and in many ways haunting overture courtesy of composer Jerry Goldsmith plays over the soundtrack. There are no explosions, no spaceships, and no vast alien entities to take up our attention. No credits, ether.

This isn’t the first time a movie has begun with an overture like this. Far from it. Long before the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, epic adventures like Lawrence of Arabia and The Ten Commandments preceded any on-screen action with usually immobile pictures or even a blank screen while a suite of the various musical themes from the movie play. The purpose of this is clear, making the movie feel like an event rivaling the grandeur of something like great dramatic theater.

So, why make a decision like this for a Star Trek film?

The television show was cancelled for a second time in 1969, even after a letter-writing campaign by fans succeeded in bringing the show back for anther season in 1968. This cancellation proved permanent, but creator Gene Roddenberry made several attempts to get Star Trek back on the air in various forms (one idea involved a prequel series).

Finally, with the massive success of Star Wars in 1977, the space craze hit American cinema in full-force and executives at Paramount gave Star Trek: The Motion Picture the green light. After almost a decade of waiting, the anticipation for the film was massive among fans and even mainstream moviegoers (in its year of release, it topped the domestic box office totals of other 1979 science fiction releases Alien and Moonraker, despite receiving mixed reviews from critics and fans alike).

The film’s budget was immense, between thirty-five and forty-six million dollars depending on the source (it’s amazing to consider how that was considered a lot of money for a movie then). The poster was grand. The tagline, “There Is No Comparison,” promised something magnificent. The teaser trailer, narrated by cinema great Orson Welles, felt sparse and atmospheric enough to incite interest in anyone. The film was shaping up to be an event the likes of which audiences hadn’t seen since 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Unfortunately, the film fails to live up to its lofty ambitions and settles for being merely a fascinating misfire.

For those who don’t remember, the story is as follows: when a mysterious and massive hostile probe is on a collision course for Earth, Captain James T. Kirk assumes control of a refitted Enterprise to figure out its origin and intent before the planet is destroyed.

The main problem with Star Trek: The Motion Picture is that, while watching it, you get the sense that absolutely nothing is going on, even when there’s a great deal of subplots jockeying for our attention.

First, there’s Kirk trying to reclaim his captaincy of Enterprise from Decker (Stephen Collins), a man who’s vastly more qualified for the job given the fact that the Enterprise is more advanced now since Kirk’s five year mission. Kirk’s incompetence in these unfamiliar surroundings is commented upon several times in the first half of the film and forgotten by the time we get to the finale, quite a shame considering a lot of mileage could’ve been generated from this.

Meanwhile, Spock denounces the Vulcan rites of Kolinahr (one of the best scenes in the film), which would purge him of all emotion, when he feels the presence of the probe out in the far-reaches of space. He rejoins the crew of the Enterprise with questions of his own regarding the entity.

Finally, there’s a romance going on between Decker and Ilia (Persis Khambata), the navigator for this voyage. Their relationship serves as a progenitor for a similar romance on The Next Generation television series and it becomes intrinsically tied to the main plot when the probe assumes Ilia as an avatar within the ship to speak to the human interlopers.

Given the film clocks in at 136 minutes, longer than any Star Trek film to date, managing all of these subplots together into one cohesive and satisfying narrative shouldn’t have been out of the question. Most of the running time, however, is devoted to the special effects and set-design. The impulse to do this is obvious. After many years constrained by the budgetary restrictions involved in making a television show, the leash was off and a science-fiction adventure with proper special effects was possible. As a result, the narrative becomes overwhelmed. This is especially apparent in scenes like Kirk standing in a space pod waiting to board the Enterprise for the first time in the film, wherein we slowly cruise around the ship in exterior shots as the music swells. This scene goes on for five minutes. Five minutes! The special effects are all very impressive, yes, but it feels like a waste of time. It so desperately wants to be a visual experience on par with 2001 that the human element of the show, including the characters that everybody loves, is largely sidelined. This is ironic, considering the manner in which the film’s central dilemma is solved.

As a result, there’s a cold, sterile feel to the film, one that’s wholly contrasted by the soulful swashbuckling of its sequel, The Wrath of Khan, which did everything in its power to distance itself from this film. Despite all the negativity surrounding Star Trek: The Motion Picture since its release and in retrospect, I feel that the filmmakers were onto something here. Very few of the twelve and counting Star Trek films deal in exploration and ultimately understanding a potential menace as opposed to space battles and vengeance-fueled antagonists. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was also about a probe and the Enterprise trying to stop it from destroying the Earth as well, sure, but the basic premise was in the service of a comedy with an environmental message. This is really the only time a Star Trek film has been designed to incite the possibility of something provocative, the way good science fiction can pull it off wonderfully.

Despite the disappointing nature in which Star Trek: The Motion Picture unravels, it’s the kind of Star Trek film I wish could be made today, something that aims for science fiction as opposed to an all out action spectacle set in space. Just because someone attempts something and doesn’t quite succeed isn’t enough of a reason to keep going in the opposite direction.

If you enjoyed N. Demmy’s piece, you can find his latest work right HERE and his earlier articles and reviews over HERE.

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