Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

 

The Star Trek-series had come to a stop several years earlier, but near the end of the 70s, there was a massive resurgence in science fiction. Maybe it's a bit much to lay the thanks for this on 'Star Wars' and its massive success, but... 

No, it's thanks to 'Star Wars'.

Anyway...

Bringing back a franchise and this time to the big screen was a pretty big gamble. Yes, 'Star Trek' is sufficiently different from most sci-fi, in that it had always focused more on genuine politics, society and its problems and exploration; things that creator Gene Roddenberry held in high regard. But still, would people still flock to this? 

If you know how many films there have been made since this one, you can bet your sweet backside that Trekkies are loyal and devout. 

Earth is threatened by a massive cloud that is creeping closer and every ship that has engaged it, has been destroyed. So the crew of the Enterprise is brought back, as they have spent several years in the far reaches of the galaxy, searching for new life and new civilizations and boldly went where no one had gone before. But the Enterprise is now refurbished and perhaps not yet ready enough for a massive threat. When they encounter the cloud, some careful manoeuvring gets them inside, where there is a truly massive ship. One of the crew is killed and reconstituted as a sort of interactive probe in order to learn from the 'carbon units' aboard the ship. It turns out the entity controlling everything is called V'Ger and he wants to contact his creator. 

This leads to a fun reveal, by the way. Sure, you can see it coming a mile away, but if you've never seen this film before, it is a nice touch as to who or what V'Ger actually is.

This might not be the best loved entry in the series, but there is much to like about it. For starters: it's a lot of fun to see the original cast back together again, even if some interactions are extremely brief. They made a good choice by making the triangle of Kirk, Bones and Spock the focal point. See, Spock is the logical side, Bones the emotional one and Kirk is somewhere in the middle, but they work well off of each other as characters. It turns out you need both logic and emotions to make inspired choices. 

The film also looks gorgeous and has some scenes that would have been great to see in a theatre. The reveal of the Enterprise in space dock and its departure, the massive cloud that hides V'Ger and the  giant vessel that propels it all: it looks stunning and is very creatively done. This is complimented by the great score by Jerry Goldsmith, which is iconic. This was also the first time I can remember hearing the Klingon theme, and it has stuck with me for all these years as being friggin' awesome, as in 'Imperial March'-levels of awesome. 

But not all is great, alas. The biggest problem this film has, is its pacing. It is slow, painfully, horrendously slow at times and that truly hurts the experience. It is at times said they went for the '2001: A Space Odyssey' speed, but that film justified the slow pace through its visuals and buildup, here it just feels like a massive slog. For example: the approach to the docked Enterprise is cool, and you get why they want to show off the ship as a goosebumps-moment, but it is easily 2 minutes too long. The same goes for their entry into V'Ger's cloud. Yes, it's mysterious, but when it feels as though you could move faster through it on a bicycle instead of with a spaceship, you know someone's timing is a bit off. 

And perhaps the climax is a little underwhelming, but it's actually nice to get a film at times that doesn't rely on "everything goes boom" for a change. Even if on many occasions it's a "boom"-finale that makes for a fun culmination.

In short: this is not a bad film, but a little too slow to be truly engaging. As most of the films are standalone stories, this is not a problem. Sure, it helps if you know a bit about the series and the interplay between the main characters, but you can skip this one of favour of some of the more wellrounded entries should you so desire.