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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.