Star Trek - The Motion Picture (DVD)

After the surprise cancellation of Star Trek in 1969 whilst it was in it's third season, the opportunity to resurrect Star Trek, following the more recent success of a certain science fiction film called Star Wars, was hard to resist. Paramount had a dilemma, how could they bring back the series in such a way that the audiences would take to this. The answer was simple, a follow on series called Star Trek: Phase II. Production designs were drawn ...
...budget film that could rival Star Wars. This allowed all the cast including Nimoy as Spock to once again take their places on board the newly refitted Starship Enterprise.

Originally released in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was just the beginning of a franchise that is still going strong today; the 11th film in the series will be released in 2009. This film will be a reboot of the franchise and covers an era before Kirk held ... more

After the surprise cancellation of Star Trek in 1969 whilst it was in it's third season, the opportunity to resurrect Star Trek, following the more recent success of a certain science fiction film called Star Wars, was hard to resist. Paramount had a dilemma, how could they bring back the series in such a way that the audiences would take to this. The answer was simple, a follow on series called Star Trek: Phase II. Production designs were drawn up, scripts written, new sets were built and the original cast were reunited, well nearly all of them as Leonard Nimoy had originally refused to appear as Spock. At the eleventh hour, Paramount decided that the focus should not be a TV series but a big budget film that could rival Star Wars. This allowed all the cast including Nimoy as Spock to once again take their places on board the newly refitted Starship Enterprise.

Originally released in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was just the beginning of a franchise that is still going strong today; the 11th film in the series will be released in 2009. This film will be a reboot of the franchise and covers an era before Kirk held the rank of Captain.

The film that was released in 1979 was a completely different kettle of fish entirely; the plot of the story circulates around an alien Intruder, a giant cloud that is heading directly to Earth. The mystery and intrugue is why it is heading to Earth. On its path across the galaxy it has destroyed a number of Klingon vessels as well as a Starfleet Scientific Station. To understand and establish what the intruder is and what it wants the only ship that can go is the Enterprise, unfortunately the Starship has not had its refit fully completed. Kirk has been promoted to the rank of Admiral and therefore has to battle with his superiors to re-take command of the Starship from his younger replacement, Captain Will Decker. Another sub plot revolves around Spock, while on Vulcan he has failed in one of the highest disciplines a Vulcan can achieve, and therefore joins Kirk and the crew to face the Intruder.

For a film that is now 30 years old, it doesn't hold up that well. There are some nice ideas that have been added as the story is told, but the bulk of the story in the first half of the film tells how the crew are reunited and how the problems with the ship are fixed, again if this was a TV series then this could easily be a two part story in episode. What make's the film excel to a degree are the special effects. To give some idea, when Star Wars was filmed then the methods for shooting the flypast of models had to be invented from scratch and it is this methodology that has been used here as well, in a number of scenes you can see the shortcuts or deliberate blurriness around an object to centre the eye and distract, painfully obvious in the spacewalk scenes. However the scenes where the Enterprise is caught in a wormhole, due to an anti-matter imbalance in the engines had to thought up from scratch and was eventually filmed with an industrial laser being used to project the wormhole pattern with other effects layered over the top. Overall it is quite impressive for what was done at the time, these days it would be done by computer.

One thing that I have to point out is that the newly redesigned Enterprise is a real dream to look at on-screen and is introduced in such a way that you are teased until you get to see the full picture of how much the iconic ship has been updated. I liked the new design a lot as it was a modern design that the ships following this one have stayed relatively close to. From the size of the dominating saucer section to those angles of the engine nacelles that provide warp drive capability then the whole design works as the design is still faithful. To be honest the ship is really the linchpin and is immediately recognisable to Star Trek, so to change this design to something quite unfitting and unorthodox in flavour, this would truly be a blasphemy. In the film the ship looks amazing and you do get to see the ship close up and see the amazing detail that has gone into giving the Enterprise the look of a huge sized vessel. In fact the detail to attention is never dropped throughout as we get to see more of Starfleet, including the Space Stations and the buildings they use than we ever had before in the TV series. I felt that this helps give a feeling of how time has moved on for the story and how specifically the characters themselves have evolved and grown.

The cast of the film are exactly the same as the TV series, which I think is quite a major achievement on its own. Returning as Captain Kirk is William Shatner, now that Kirk is an Admiral, he is a lot stricter and sometimes tougher than when he was Captain. Shatner portrays Kirk as a determined individual that expects everything to work immediately. In the case of the new Enterprise this is not the case as Kirk has pushed the Admiralty to give him the command, with how the Enterprise has changed this places Kirk in a situation where he may not get the results and he is not used to this, as on occasions throughout the film this situation places him on the edge.

After a legal settlement was agreed with Nimoy and Paramount over the use of the actor's likeness in marketing, the actor returned to the role of Spock. Spock throughout the film appears to be distanced from the rest of the crew and can sense the situation a lot clearer than humans thanks to his Vulcan sixth sense. This makes the character different from what we have seen before and therefore the character has evolved immensely to what we used to see in the TV series. Once Spock has resolved his inner conflicts we start to see the banter between him and McCoy start to rise to the surface again and this is a refreshing trait that is welcomed.

It was never going to be easy to get Dr McCoy back into the story, but quite a clever approach was taken as McCoy ends up being drafted back into service. I have always liked the way that DeForest Kelley played McCoy; he is the comedy relief out the three main characters and also on occasion the catalyst in discussions. Kelley is the only actor who doesn't play their character any different than before, he is a grumpy, outspoken country Doctor who has no problem telling things to his superiors in a direct style. He also acts as Kirk's conscience on occasions as McCoy has to remind him that he has overstepped the mark. Like Spock the character of McCoy also left Starfleet once the five year mission was completed.

As with the sixties series the lower level members of the crew get less screen time than the main three mentioned above, but the time they do get on screen allows the characters of Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekhov to make their presence felt and to show how their characters have changed in rank, stature and personality.

Most notably there are two other characters that have their own sub plot in the film, these are Captain Willard Decker who had the command of the Enterprise until Kirk took it away from him and Lieutenant Ilia. Both the characters have a history as they were romantically involved with one another on the Lietenant's home planet of Delta. Decker is played Stephen Collins who went on to appear, albeit shortly in the cult TV series, Tales of the Golden Monkey, which was really an Indiana Jones rip off for TV. As a character Decker is the complete opposite of Kirk in age and experience, but has overseen the entire refit of the ship from beginning to end. He uses this knowledge against Kirk when Kirk gives a command that could spell potential disaster for the ship. Collins brings youth to the film and a fresh conflict that is very rarely seen in Star Trek.

Ilia is played by Indian actress and model Persis Khambatta, who had her hair shaved off specifically for the part of Ilia. Khambatta is a beautiful woman by any standards, yet I felt this was a positive step for the film to have her included as she does detract from some of the other females in the cast as you tend to forget about them when you see her anyway. As an actress she has an incredible screen presence and good chemistry when sharing a scene with Collins as Decker. Originally she was supposed to be in the Phase II series as the same character and even though I think the best decision was made by making a film, the loss of what could have been will always be a curiosity to me.

Generally speaking the performance of the original cast could be described as cold as in places Kirk and Spock do look uncomfortable, not sure whether this was the script taking its toll or the fact the actors were playing the characters a little differently than before. The dialogue is short and sharp and although there are plenty of 'Trekisms' in place the feeling that does come across on screen sometimes is that you have several actors who could be doing this for the money.

The film is the longest of the Trek films in the series and comes in at 132 minutes in length. In parts the film runs at a snails pace, and in others it speeds up and is exciting, the use of the orchestral score is good, but can tend to add in slowing the pace of the film down, noticeable in the scene where Kirk sees the new Enterprise for the first time when being escorted in a shuttle pod by Scotty around the Spacedock. The music was scored by Jerry Goldsmith, an immensely talented man who has scored the majority of Trek films. His use of music in places sets the tones of the film to the correct level and allows the film to breathe so that the audience can take in what is happening on screen, my issue is that the direction of what is happening is at a snails pace at times.

Director of the film was Robert Wise; his previous films include The Sound of Music and West Side Story, as well as Run Silent Run Deep. He is no stranger to science fiction as he also directed The Day the Earth Stood Still!!! Overall I can see why he has slowed certain aspects of the films pace down. Simply put he wants to give the audience an in-depth view of what is new and what has changed, I have no issues with that, but as I have said before the film does drag in some places. Comparing this to his other films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is a classic by far, I can see why his shots of a scene are quite long with people running from one side to the next without the camera panning across, in actual fact in all his films this takes place, so I think its safe to say that it is his style.

Uniquely Paramount released this as a Directors Cut that involved Wise re-editing and re-shooting certain scenes in the film, to give an example the film has been cleaned and is spotless in appearance, the sound has been remixed with additional CGI scenes that have been added that depicts Vulcan in a better vein that runs better with continuity of the other films, that is not to say that it has been altered to the extent that Lucas did with the Star Wars Trilogy, but overall allows a film to be presented in the manner that it should have been originally including a number of additional scenes added to the film that give it a greater scope and opens up the characters a bit more. I watched this film again the other day for the first time in about two years since I bought the DVD and was happy to see this as a Star Trek film that is unique in the costumes, the surroundings, characters and story. As the films progressed they became more action orientated, which this isn't. This film is not about space battles; it's about self discovery and is true to Gene Roddenbury's vision.

In my opinion it's just a shame that the styles of this film weren't carried over for the remainder of the Kirk, and Spock era as what we get to see on screen is so different to how the other five Kirk films changed and went more to a more military aspect that overused certain alien species in the plot lines. 

...less