I really dislike Star Trek - The Motion Picture. I like the TV shows and the other movies in the series, but I found the motion picture to be very slow and boring.
What did Trek fans think of the motion picture when it was released. Were they disappointed or did they enjoy it?
I was a bit too young to remember when it was released.
We were delighted to see Star Trek become a movie… and we were appalled that it was THAT movie!
It was nice to see the old cast back.
In a lot of other ways, it was a disappointment.
What the heck was the deal with all the weird gray and white uniforms?
Why did the beloved Enterprise Bridge look like the inside of a Mercedes hubcap?
And what the heck was with all those beauty passes over the outside of the Enterprise and the inside of V’Ger?
And tell me again why Persis Khambatta was in this movie? And why she had more lines than Nichelle Nichols?
This was a movie that got made by committee… a movie EVERYONE wanted his name on, because everyone knew it’d be a hit. All they needed was Shatner and Nimoy to show up and breathe on camera. Furthermore, this was the Age Of Star Wars; durn near anything with spaceships in it was box office gold back then.
We were all frankly happy to see Part II come rolling around. Much better film.
Actually, the “beauty passes” around the new Enterprise were the only part I liked! It was cool to see the Enterprise finally look REAL, rather than like something that had just popped out of a mold.
I don’t have time to scroll through them all now, but do a search on “Rate Star Trek Movies” for many Trek Doper comments.
It might be from a few months ago.
1.) We’d been waiting for a new Star Trek venue for ages – The Original Series went off the air in 1969, and all we’d had since then had been the animated TV series (which actually had some good entries), the novels, and comic books. Rumors of revivals kept floating around, but nothing seemed to materialize. Harlan Ellison even wrote an article circa 1976 saying that Star Trek wouldn’t be back. So when there was a press conference to announce a new movie, fans were overjoyed. If you werre sharp-eyed, you even noticed the new nacelles on the Enterprise they showed.
2.) The trailer was great, and was cheered by fans. Orson Welles narrated it.
3.) Robert Wise was going to direct. Robert Wise!!! The guy who directed The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Ansromeda Strain. The guy who worked under Orson Welles, and who delivered mainstream films from dramas to musicals. Asimov was signed on as a consultant. They got Alan Dean Foster for the screen story, but that could be Okay. Heck, he’d written the Star Trek Logs.
4.) The “pajama” uniforms were supposed to be a way to get away from the garish color used on TOS. For a big movie, you weren’t supposed to need the bright colors and designs that caught your eye on TV. Also, Roddenbery seemed obsessed with playing down the military aspects of Star Fleet for some reason. Big mistake. The PJs looked dumb. When Mad got around to spoofing the film, they showed Kirk holding an hourglass, or with a penguin next to him.
5.) The opening of the film rated a special article in Playboy! Star Trek was a phenomenon that went outside normal fan boundaries. We saw sketches of effects, and heard about V’ger.
6.) The film came out, and was mobbed by rabid fans. We eagerly sat in the theater in the winter of 1979 watching the opening with its Klingon ships looking light-years better than they ever did on TV as they attacked the V’ger cloud. The Klingons looked different than on TV, but that was OK, too. They finally had a budget! Aliens could look like aliens! The threat had real menace to it.
7.) The scene on the Communications Station. Oh, God! The acting! Later, it became clear to me that every time we saw Bad Acting, it was a Fan who was getting blessed with a role in the film. These were the best Actors among the fans. See if you can spot the other Fans in the film.
8.) It was good seeing the Gathering of the Crew. Everyone looked different, but their re-garthering after the end of the Five Year Mission was explained.
9.) The new Enterprise looks GOOD! Having a budget helps. And it’s not self-luminous – it’s got lights, which is a cute touch. The Space Dock actually makes sense in this film, too (unlike the sequels). Goes on a bit long, but it gives them a chance to show off.
10.) Roddenbery still doesn’t like the Transporter.
11.) What’s this with the enterprise speeding up in a “Jupiterscope” spectral separation, then vanishing with a flash of light and a boom into some kinda gateway? Annoying – it seems to suggest that the Star Trek universe is following Star Wars into Hyperspace, rather than simply using FTL drive. Sadly, this becomes the standard for the whole damned franchise from now on.
12.) Wormhole?? Get rid of that damned thing!
13.) Oh, Good, Spock’s back.
14.) The Auditorium scene and speech. All of those crew members are Fans, getting paid back for keeping the franchise alive. They got rid of a lot of obligations by putting all of 'em out there at once. At least we don’t have to hear them try to act.
15.) By now it’s pretty clear that Alan Dean Foster has been cobbling together old TV episodes to make this new script. We’re in “The Immunity Syndrome”, the one with the giant cloud that hides (in the TV show) an amoeba.
16.) OK, I felt apprehension during the Attack scene, even though you know they’re gonna pull through. Spock saves the day by figuring that the sending speed is wrong.
17.) Good and innovative effects going into the cloud (and later, over V’ger).
18.) Ensign Perez is a Fan. (“Carbon-Based Life Forms?” )
19.) Okay, having Ilia be an emmissary of V’Ger is cute, in that it lets us put a human face on the enemy. But couldn’t they make it seem a little less like Nomad in the TOS “The Changeling”?
20.) The Enterprise is trapped in the bowels of V’ger. But does the gateway have to look like a giant anus?
21.) Spock wears a space suit! Nifty! But he extrapolates off the edge. Convenient how he bounces all the way back to the ship after his mind-meld.
22.) They go out into the Magic “Giant’s Causeway” and find Voyager in the V’Ger Pit. It’s clear the whole damned movie is “The Changeling” alll over again, and we Fans are starting to feel cheated. At least Kirk and Spock don’t destrpy it with illogic, like they always seemed to do in the TV show. On the other hand, it’s not clear that the new solution is any better. The Enterprise just happens to have the readoutt codes for old NASA/JPL space probes. Decker reading off the list like a game show emcee (“and the final sequence is…”) He and Ilia step together and get caught in a romantic updraft. with sparkly lights. Well, it’s a better sendoff than that guy got in “The Corbomite Maneuver”. Playing around with V’ger/Ilia has got to beat drinking stale tranya until another Federation ship picks you up.
23.) The V’ger ship disappears in a blaze of special effects and fortunately leaves the Enterprise unscathed and in orbit.
Summing up: Annoyed by the derivative plot, loved the FX. Wise and the actors actually manasged to create some genuine moments of suspense and emotion. A lot of things, though, seemed contrived, so you felt you had to make excuses for it. The clumsy fan acting detracted. (Some said the same about Ms. Khambatta’s, but I liked her in this.) Overall, I liked it. I liked the nexrt three films a lot better, though – Harve Bennett (who woulda thunk it, considering what he’d done before), Nicholas Meyer (who did do great TV movies before this) and Leonard Nimoy brought in tighter, better, and cheaper films, and, I think, saved the series. I liked STMP better than ST V and ST VI, without a doubt.
I like ST:TMP and I’m still bored by it and find it slow going. It’s one of those strange mysteries of life.
I think the thing I like most is that it preserves the 70’s science fiction feel but still has a decent budget (for the time). Of all the movies it captures the feel of the original series the most (for me, at least). Except for the pacing, that’s mostly a good thing in my opinion.
It’s still not my favorite Star Trek movie by a longshot, but I can’t really dislike it either.
I still want my money back.
Worst. Trek Movie. Ever.
Not by a long shot. That honor is reserved for the fifth movie. The seventh and ninth movies are in a close race for second-worst. TMP comes after those two.
What DoubleJ said. You could have a million Enterprise glamor-shots from the first movie run back-to-back, and it’d still be infinitely better than Scotty’s “I know this ship like the back of my hand” bit from STV. :rolleyes:
I live in perpetual fear that the special edition of the Final Frontier will come out. I’ll have to buy it, because I’m obsessive and am collecting all of the se’s as they come out on dvd, but, man…I’m afraid…terribly, terribly afraid…“What does…GOD…need with a…STAR ship?!”
[sub]hold me[/sub]
Nope. The Motion Picture is the worst, followed by Generations. The Final Frontier is only the third worst of the lot.
The Director’s Cut of ST:TMP doesn’t seem to be nearly as long as the original OR the “Special Edition” which added 12-15 minutes of meaningless padding.
Also, Paramount is adamant about NOT releasing a director’s cut of ST:TFF despite Shatner’s whining.
I put forth that Insurrection sucked the most Trek ass.
There was no fifth movie.
Do you hear me?
There. Was. No. Fifth. Movie!
The series just takes an unexplained jump from “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” to “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”.
Mr. Blue Sky, I don’t think I’ve seen the special edition, but I recall that the original had plenty of meaningless padding.
Specifically, they could have done without the long long looooooong padded scenes of the ship flying into the inner sanctum of the cloud-ship-thingy. That voyage just took too long…
Probably would have worked better as a shorter episode (or even a two parter, if needed), but as a movie? Eh. Okay. Nothing special.
But to Trek’s credit, it got much better in the next one. Khaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!!
Was i even born? When did this come out, 1978?
Yeah, but when any guy reached up for something, all us gay boys got a nice shot of his package. Don’t remember, though, whether any of them were expecially nice.
Bob
urban1z – So, you’re saying you have no specific recollection of the Captain’s Log? 
ROFL, Monstre