Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition Review

In the Beginning.....

It's hard to believe that 2009 - the very same year that will mark the end of analog television broadcasts in the United States - will mark the anniversaries of both the death of Star Trek: The Original Series and its rebirth as a franchise of theatrical films and, eventually, four television spinoffs based on Gene Roddenberry's concept of "Wagon Train to the Stars."

It's fitting to remark that as Star Trek fans look forward in either dread or anticipation to the 2009 release of J.J. Abrams' "reboot" of the Star Trek film series (depicting the "first adventure" of a young, brash Starfleet Academy cadet named James Tiberius Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise bridge crew, it seems logical that the new film will premiere 40 years after NBC canceled Roddenberry's most famous television project and follows the wake of director Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which premiered on December, 7, 1979.

As it happens, I was one of the millions of moviegoers to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture on that first night of its theatrical run. At the time, I wasn't a big fan of the TV show; it made its debut in 1966 when I was all of three and wasn't even living in the States, and even when I saw it in reruns on what was then WCIX Channel Six (then an indie TV channel), I wasn't too enthused by its then-limited special effects and the somewhat cheesy-looking Starfleet uniforms - the Buck Denton ones with the primary color schemes of blue for Life Sciences, red for Security and Engineering, and gold for Command.

But at the same time, I was crazy about space, not just because of Star Wars (which had been released in 1977) but because I'd developed a passion for real-life space exploration when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on the moon in July 1969, and by the time Star Trek made its first big-screen foray, I was ready to give Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and the rest of the crew a chance to take me along and "boldly go where no one has gone before."

The only memories I have from having gone to see Star Trek: The Motion Picture on Opening Day (or Night, as it were) center on how great the redesigned and refit Starship Enterprise looked in comparison to its TV incarnation, that it began with a rare "overture" sequence (a field of stars accompanied by Jerry Goldsmith's "Ilia's Theme") before the main titles, and, unhappily, that I fell asleep halfway through the Enterprise's transit to V'Ger's center. (I woke up sometime during the film's third act, so I saw the finale. But it wasn't till I read Gene Roddenberry's novelization that I knew what I had missed, and it wouldn't be until I bought the "Special Edition" VHS release that I'd see the sections of the movie that I'd slept through.

"The Human Adventure is Just Beginning...."

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, as the "making of" featurettes on Disc 2 make clear, came to be made as a result of various factors, the two biggest being were Paramount's first failed attempt to form a fourth television network and the success of 20th Century-Fox's Star Wars. Desperate to come up with a big SF hit of its own and hoping to recoup some of the money already spent on the aborted Star Trek: Phase II TV series, Paramount approved the making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (ST-TMP).

Written by Harold Livingston and based on a story by noted SF author Alan Dean Foster, ST-TMP is a big-screen rendition of Star Trek: Phase II's pilot episode, In Thy Image. Its story of a mysterious alien object of unbelievable size and power wreaking some havoc as it makes its way to Earth -- and with the USS Enterprise as the only Federation starship within interception range -- is basically a retread of several Original Series episodes ("The Changeling," for one) mixed in with shades of 2001 and other "serious" SF films.

The movie's first half, beginning with the destruction of three Klingon cruisers and culminating with the departure of the redesigned USS Enterprise, is by far the best part of the film. James T. Kirk (Wiiliam Shatner) has been promoted to Admiral and is now Chief of Starfleet Operations, but when the powerful alien "thing" starts heading toward Earth, he somehow manages to convince his boss, Admiral Nogura, to give him command of the Enterprise.

Never mind that Capt. Willard Decker (Seventh Heaven's Stephen Collins) has already been assigned as skipper. Never mind that Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has left Starfleet and is undergoing the "kolinahr" ritual to rid himself of his human emotions (as if that were possible!). Never mind that Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (the late DeForest Kelley) is now a civilian MD (albeit one with a commission in Starfleet's Reserve). Kirk, as Sulu (George Takei) says early in the movie: "He wanted [Enterprise] back, he got her."

For many Star Trek fans, the reunion of the Original Series' crew and the "travel pod" sequence in which Mr. Scott (James Doohan) ferries Kirk to the stunningly redesigned and rebuilt Enterprise is what makes this sometimes ponderous and overly ambitious film worth watching and owning on DVD. The combination of Douglas Trumbull's special effects, Jerry Goldsmith's gorgeous score and the sheer nostalgic power of seeing the major cast from the beloved TV series returning in such a splashy fashion made a favorable impression on Star Trek fans when this film opened in December of 1979.

But even the addition of newcomers Collins and Persis Khambatta (who played Lt. Ilia) and the thrill of seeing Star Trek on the big screen did not hide the fact that Robert Wise's well-intentioned movie had serious flaws. Paramount executives, when looking at 20th Century Fox's Star Wars, thought that movie's appeal lay in special effects, so they spent much of the $35-million budget on effects.

Bad move. Much of the second half of ST:TMP is devoted to the Enterprise's long, slow journey through the alien "thing's" surrounding "cloud" and outer fringes, causing wags to rename the picture as "Star Trek: The Motionless Picture."

To be fair, director Wise was opposed to this overuse of visuals, and the 2001 Director's Edition DVD version does move somewhat faster. It's still somewhat a cold picture; you might say it's a "police procedural" type of movie, but with a few CGI tweaks and some judicious re-editing here and there, ST:TMP is at least more enjoyable, even though it would take the efforts of producer Harve Bennett and director Nicholas Meyer to really put the Star Trek features on a successful track with 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Should you buy or even watch this movie?

Despite its flaws, if you like science fiction movies that tell a story about ideas rather than relying on space battles and zap guns, yes. It is -- despite bearing the burden of one of Roddenberry's pet themes (Kirk and the Enterprise confront and thwart a god-like machine) -- an interesting tale dealing with humanity's strenghths and the need to explore the unknown. On DVD the film looks quite good; the special effects still hold up well, and the new material fits seamlessly into the old without really calling attention to itself. In addition, the text commentary by Mike Okuda (as well as the audio commentary by director Bob Wise and other key creative crew members) provides informative and sometimes humorous insights into the film, its story and its characters.

It must be said, as well, that because Paramount had set a December 1979 deadline for the release, Wise was forced to hand in the first version of ST-TMP with an imperfect sound mix. Luckily, when Paramount approached Wise about its plans to release the Director's/Collector's Editions of the Star Trek movies, the director was given a golden opportunity to re-do certain things that the deadline had not permitted Wise and his creative team to do back in 1979. Thus, not only is the movie a bit tighter without a bunch of "actors reacting to special effects" shots that slow down the story's pace, but it now sounds better, too.