Star Trek The Motion Picture - reconsidered

I vividly recall the first time I saw Star Trek The Motion Picture.  I was twelve years old and had been anticipating the movie literally for years – ever since I’d heard that a new Trek television series was in the making and saw the first set construction photos and conceptual drawings in Starlog magazine. But somehow, I’d never learned the premiere date.

In December of 1979, my parents were separated and my father had visitation rights that weekend.  (My parents’ divorce was an ordeal for the entire family, particularly me as I changed schools four times in one year – but that’s a story for another day.)  After picking me up, my dad asked where I wanted to go for dinner, and I chose Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips.  After we ordered, I saw a newspaper laying on a table and immediately looked through the movie listings.  Star Trek was advertised as being shown at the Richmond Theater (long since closed).  I begged my father to take us there and he, wanting eventual custody of me, was more than willing to indulge me.  I wolfed down my Fish & Chips and we headed to the theater.  The movie had already started and we arrived during the wormhole sequence – one of the most dazzling parts of the film, both visually and kinetically.  The auditorium was well filled and we sat near the back.  Several things about that first viewing remain most vivid: the hypnotizing visual effects of the Cloud sequence, the goosebumps I felt when Kirk intoned with astonishment, “Voyager Six!”, and my father complaining that “this film is so slow moving” during the V’ger flyover.  Incidentally, after the film, we waited in the theater to watch the beginning – which was and remains my favorite part: The Klingon sequence, Scotty showing Kirk around the Enterprise, and the ship’s launch seemed much more finished and better paced than the later sequences. 

I saw TMP (as it’s now abbreviated) a few more times during the initial theatrical run, usually dragging along a family member.  My mother didn’t like it at all – she was particularly offended by McCoy’s “capture God” remark – in retrospect I don’t think she understood what the notion behind the line, that “we all create God in our own image” - a line cut from the theatrical version.  More on that later.  And after my father remarried and moved his new wife, her kids and me to California, my stepbrother and I went to see TMP (double billed with Forbidden Planet) at the spectacular Laurel Theatre in San Carlos.  My stepbrother kept imitating Shatner’s over-delivered “Will you…please…sit down” line before falling asleep during, of course, the V’ger flyover.

Most of my new school mates echoed my father’s complaint.  One remarked that “They only fired one laser during the whole movie.”  (Of course, it was a photon torpedo which was actually fired, but I understood his meaning.)  Honestly, I don’t even remember that kid’s name, although I do remember that he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp.  But he touched on one of the film’s weakest points: a lack of action – coupled with a lethargic pace and characters who mostly react to events and situations.  It’s only toward the end of the film, when Spock takes matters into his own hands and goes on a joyride spacewalk through V’ger’s innards, and later when Kirk bluffs the Ilia probe by ordering the bridge cleared, that we see the characters being their usual proactive selves.  Appropriately, Spock’s “V’ger is a child, I suggest we treat it as such” and Kirk’s outwitting the Ilia probe were plot points devised by Nimoy and Shatner to lead toward the film’s climax. 

I saw TMP several times on video as an adult, and got the widescreen theatrical version on Laserdisc when it was introduced.  Each version offered improved visual and audio quality.  But I would invariably watch the opening 45 minutes, and skip past much of the middle to get to the denouement.  My feelings for TMP remained mixed. 

On the positive side, this is the only Trek film that really made me feel like I was actually on a starship.  I spent hours thinking about the Enterprise – studying a cutaway poster showing where the Bridge, Captain’s quarters, Engineering, and the rest were located – and imagined myself walking her corridors.  My musings subconsciously revealed one of the film’s weaknesses: The Enterprise was the lead character in the film.  While I’ve always thought of the Enterprise as a vital part of Trek, it was never at the expense of the characters.  (It’s worth remembering that the most popular Trek film, 1986’s The Voyage Home, featured the crew using a stolen Klingon Bird of Prey “rust-bucket” and only briefly showed the new Enterprise at the end.)  I can understand why Leonard Nimoy, in particular, had a strong distaste for TMP – even though Spock’s character in the film undergoes an epiphany.

The Special Effects were, for the most part, spectacular.  Douglas Trumbull, who was recruited to rescue the effects work from a substandard firm brought on by Paramount’s number-crunchers, obviously sweated the details.  The Enterprise has never looked better than she does in The Motion Picture – not even in subsequent Trek films.  The pearlescent paint scheme and use of complex patterns on the hull helped create a multidimensional look to the eight-foot model.  The lighting scheme for the Enterprise, which made use of reflections from dental mirrors, and the graceful way in which she moved, showed what was possible in model photography in the pre-CGI era.  And the use of tiny space-suited figures helps sell the size of the Enterprise, which in turn helps the viewer understand the immensity of V’ger.  True, there were occasional visible matte lines, particularly when the Enterprise or Klingon ships are shown in front of the V’ger Cloud – but they were not as noticeable on the relatively low contrast movie screen as they would be on television.  The intermixing patterns of the Cloud itself were mesmerizing (and, I later learned, created via multi-planed airbrushed artwork in a surprisingly simple method).  Much of the work is so dazzling that only on repeat viewing does one notice what’s missing – we never see the totality of V’ger itself.  What is visible of V’ger was created by John Dykstra, and stands as a triumph of the imagination.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score was justly nominated for an Oscar.  (The fact that the winner, Georges Delerue’s score for “A Little Romance” is now forgotten – as is the film – demonstrates that AMPAS is as tone deaf as it is predisposed against Science Fiction.)  With most of TMP’s sound effects work incomplete due to the tight post-production schedule, Goldsmith’s score literally carries several scenes.  Not only is Goldsmith’s score grand, it’s innovative, particularly the use of the Blaster Beam which, in a twist that could only happen in Hollywood, was created by Craig Huxley, who appeared in two Trek episodes as a child actor.  I still have the original LP, thoroughly scratched from the number of times I played it.  In nearly 40 years, I’ve only known one person to knock TMP’s score: David Gerrold, who wrote The Trouble with Tribbles, called Goldsmith’s score “dreadful.”  This goes to show that there are indeed contemporary gay men who lack musical taste.

There’s been much fuss over TMP’s uniforms, which make use of muted colors - they admittedly look rather drab in the old standard definition transfers.  But the truth is most uniformed personnel don’t parade around in primary colors – most non-dress, duty uniforms are rather plain.  TMP’s utilitarian take on the uniforms is probably more realistic than those seen between The Wrath of Khan and First Contact.  The long and short sleeve variants of the shirt (or in naval parlance, blouse) are a nice updating of the series look – and the cast (with the exception of James Doohan) were still in good enough shape to pull the form fitting look off.  The only uniforms from TMP I didn’t like were the pajama-type one pieces.  They didn’t work in TMP and didn’t work in the first two seasons of The Next Generation.

But some things about TMP were just “off”.  Tonally, it didn’t feel “right”. 

The opening credits - stylized white text over a plain black background - were especially disappointing in light of the spectacular opening sequence from Superman one year prior.  Not a promising way to begin a film for which the tagline was “There is no comparison.”

The chemistry between the characters was mostly absent, save for a few moments during the last half hour.  There was an utter lack of humor – making an already serious film into a portentous one.  I’ve read that Shatner and Nimoy were both concerned about this, and asked director Robert Wise if they could improvise a few humorous moments, which Wise could either use or not.  They were refused.  That was a big mistake on Wise’s part.

The ABC broadcast version

In 1983, ABC aired an expanded version of the film over two consecutive nights.  There were about 11 minutes of previously unseen footage, most of which, frankly, was padding.  There was an embarrassing scene showing a horny Sulu being flustered by the sexually irresistible Deltan navigator, Ilia.  The V’ger flyover scenes, which were too long to begin with, were expanded with clunky dialog including “It could hold a crew of tens of thousands”, “Or a crew of a thousand ten miles tall.”  The most egregiously inept addition was an unfinished shot of Kirk in a spacesuit exiting the Enterprise airlock, clearly showing studio equipment and rafters where a matte painting should have been.  In addition, Shatner was wearing a different spacesuit than in later shots.  There were only a few added moments which were truly worthy – in particular a scene of Spock with a single tear running down his cheek, explaining he wept for V’ger as he would for a brother.  This version was released on VHS, and became a reference version for some fans – not me.

The Director’s Cut

After the release of the film, Robert Wise largely disavowed himself from Star Trek – complaining that in 40 years of making films, Trek was the only one where he didn’t have a sneak preview.  In the late 1990s, Wise was persuaded to re-watch the film, and became interested in putting together a properly completed version of the film.  Robert Wise’s director’s cut kept the best (mostly) of the footage from the 1983 TV version, ditched some needless exposition from the theatrical cut (“We’re out of it”, “The new screens held”), completed some visual sequences that weren’t ready in 1979, and made the sound mix a bit friendlier.  A number of the sequences were changed so subtly that the differences are only apparent with side-by-side comparison.  Some fans have criticized some of the sonic changes – particularly the removal of the robotic voice which endlessly and tiresomely intoned “malfunction” “Intruder Alert”, and “Emergency Alert – Negative Control at Helm” in the original cut – but I think these changes were to the good.  Truth is, professionals in a work environment do not need a computer telling them what’s wrong – they should be able to ascertain that on their own.  I do believe, however, that the use of sound effects from the original series and the crudely recreated red alert sound effect could have been done better. 

I think that, given the limitations of the script, the Director’s Cut mostly delivers the best experience of all the commercially available versions.  The grandeur of the theatrical cut is still there, but some of the grandiosity has been removed.

But I would make some additional changes:

First, the Overture should be dropped.  Pre-film overtures were already a rarity in 1979 and merely padded an extra three minutes of screen time onto an overly long film.  For anyone who wants to hear the music, it’s on CD.

There are tiny moments which could still be cut, which would subtly improve the film’s pacing.  For example, there is a moment during the wormhole sequence where it appears Shatner is waiting to receive his cue so he can say his line, “Time to impact” and there’s another bit where the ship lurches and Nichelle Nichols looks like she’s about to slap Stephen Collins’ butt – unintentionally funny.  There’s also a flipped shot of Shatner swiveling in his chair that should be corrected. 

Plus, there are some overacted moments, mostly from Shatner, that could be cut – particularly his almost laughable “I need him” during the officer’s lounge scene. 

I would also reinsert one tiny but important moment that has only appeared in the ABC TV version: Decker’s all-important response to McCoy’s line: “Jim, V'ger is saying its Creator is a machine!”  Decker’s reply: “Of course, we all create God in our own image.”   It’s easy to see why this line was cut: it puts Roddenberry’s essentially atheistic philosophy front and center – and Paramount would not have wanted one line to jeopardize the box office of their most expensive film to date.  My mother would most certainly have been offended – although she was hardly a Trek fan.  But many true-blue Trek fans are religious – and generally Christian. 

But now, it appears that the theatrical version of The Motion Picture will remain the best known.  Paramount has issued the theatrical cut on blu-ray, and this is the version that’s available for streaming.   The revised visuals for Robert Wise’s director’s cut were rendered in standard definition – so that on modern 1080p TVs they appear ill-defined. 

I wish Paramount would put the money forward to allow the new effects sequences to be re-rendered in high definition and put it on blu-ray.  But as time marches on, that prospect seems increasingly unlikely.