Star Trek The Motion Picture: 10 Reasons It’s Underrated

[TMC]

http://whatculture.com/film/star-tre...underrated.php

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is one of the most underrated films in the entire franchise. It’s the first one, and is almost instantly overshadowed by the second. It’s a severely flawed movie in many ways, with long, dull stretches of not really very much happening. But it’s also got some amazingly good things going for it; things that make it, in many ways, one of the best of the Trek films and arguably one of the best pure sci-fi films ever made.

First, some background. The movie was made because of Star Wars. That’s it. That’s the only reason. Star Wars happened and Paramount said, “Holy crap, look at the buckets of cash that’s making! We want in on that!” Star Trek was already in development to be a new series called Star Trek: Phase Two, something I think in retrospect we can be thankful never happened.

The movie was quickly cobbled together, an amazing director was hired, and filming began. Then said amazing director, Robert Wise, who had worked as an editor on a little indie film called Citizen Kane, was given about three weeks to edit the movie. The end result was something less than perfect, but later he was given a chance to reedit it, and turned out something far better, and very much worth seeing.

The following is ten reasons why it’s under-rated;

Read more at http://whatculture.com/film/star-tre...ZdPqU6T0cel.99

[king of comedy]

It could have been better. I'm glad that The Wrath of Khan put the series into warp speed. It had a great plot and a villian worth remembering.

[TMC]

CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE

Animated Intro sequence designed by Christopher Stratton

To gain access to reviews and commentaries early you can donate through Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/oliverharper

New intro artwork produced by comic book artist Jack Davis
http://www.jackdaviesart.com

website address - http://www.olivers-retrospectives.com

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by king of comedy

It could have been better. I'm glad that The Wrath of Khan put the series into warp speed. It had a great plot and a villian worth remembering.

I think the first one is excellent!!

[Mace Dolex]

It feels more like an extended Star Trek episode than a movie, but about the one thing that saves this from becoming dull is the fantastic score by Jerry Goldsmith, hell I watch it just to hear the music.

[Dude111]

I found an excellent star trek site the other day (Also VBB (3.8.6))

www.trekbbs.com/index.php?styleid=2

I registered straight away

[Flying Dutchman]

I do love the score to this movie. Especially the opening theme, which eventually went to The Next Generation series. It get's me that many people think that the original cast movies ripped this off from TNG. lol. Nice link, BTW Dude. Thanks for posting.

[Dude111]

More than welcome my friend

I already have 70 something posts there..

[TMC]

Originally Posted by king of comedy

It could have been better. I'm glad that The Wrath of Khan put the series into warp speed. It had a great plot and a villian worth remembering.

TMP suffers from wanting to be 2001 with big ideas, engaging atmosphere, and a serious character study when their ideas are not particular big, their set pieces eventually tedious and their character work inconsistent at best.

TMP would be fine with a good edit. It's clearly a one hour TV episode stretched to movie length. TMP aims to be sweeping and epic, and is instead just tedious.

The reveal of the seemingly powerful V'ger being in fact a child (insert your own Stephen Collins joke here) was not only old hat even for TOS at that point, but also still feels like it covers less interesting ground than either the Changeling or Ultimate Computer did in the original show. The use of Ilia as a representation of V'Ger has potential but its limited by how little we know about her and that the relationship between her and Decker is hardly the most engaging stuff by itself.

Kirk's big character arc of his obsession with captaining the Enterprise in spite of Decker's obvious competence is resolved... when Will merges with V'Ger and thus is no longer in the Admiral's way. Hardly the stuff of epic character journeys. In the grand scheme of things its only Spock's realization of the value of emotion which amounts to anything to the point where if one jumped from the last episode of TOS to Wrath of Khan, Spock's development is the only real story of value they'd miss in terms of character work.

And as far as the atmospheric effects, its impressive in a vacuum, but there's a difference between its use in 2001 and TMP. Kubrick's film deliberately painted a picture of space as simultaneously cold, wondrous, monotonous, claustrophobic, mysterious, and neverending. The long almost boring shots of ships and stations in space were deliberate to demonstrate both the tedious normality of contemporary space travel and to contrast with the fast and inexplicable nature of the monolith. Same with how the cold logic of Hal is illustrated via the bleak and sterile environments of various parts of the Discovery. 2001 often feels pretentious, but its pretensions at least felt like it had a point other than beating viewers over the head about how deep it was.

TOS's human environments were distinctly warm and comfortable in its feel, with all the occasional hits pf garishness one would expect from a late 60s sci fi TV series. TMP for all its colorful wonder in its external set pieces, its beset in beige and grays for its character scenes. It reduces the organic energy of discovery which so often ran through the series to some wide eyed reactions of the crew to V'Ger, creating a glorified music video of special effects, people reacting to the special effects, and then back and forth.

Just my opinion, but it feels like TOS without the heart and 2001 without the brain.

[TMC]

That Moment In Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

[Dude111]

Thank you for that!!


I love the first movie..... I HAVE IT BEAUTIFUL ANALOG and I love it