TMP: Kirk's Journey to the Ship

[Smellmet]

TMP just had that late 70's grandness that was going on then alongside Star Wars and Superman the Movie to name but two. The overture in particular was an old-school thing to have in a movie, even then. My girlfriend watched a good portion of with me (she nodded off!) and even she said it had that feeling of a film that the whole family would settle down to watch at Christmas, an event.

I would love Trek to regain some more of these aspects, as it climbed heights that even the new films struggle to match.

 

[2takesfrakes]

... I still felt a sense of majesty with TMP. ... There is an old-fashioned suit-and-tie formality to the entire thing that is totally lacking in today's popcorn spectacles.

"A sense of magesty" is definitely what the Travel Pod sequence brought to the festivities ...

I don't know that I've ever seen anything like this in a movie, before. Even in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had a smaller pod than this to fly around, it was all just another day at the office to Dave Bowman, even though Discovery was his ship. Being outside and checking things out was just something to do and that really de-energized his excursions, I'm sorry to say. The ENTERPRISE flyby is invested with emotion and interest and the ten minutes or whatever just flies ... they're docked before you know it. In 2001, I've nodded off every single time Dave took his pod for a jaunt and yet, that movie is a revered classic, as boring as it often is ...

 

[EnriqueH]

... I still felt a sense of majesty with TMP. ... There is an old-fashioned suit-and-tie formality to the entire thing that is totally lacking in today's popcorn spectacles.

"A sense of magesty" is definitely what the Travel Pod sequence brought to the festivities ...

I don't know that I've ever seen anything like this in a movie, before. Even in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had a smaller pod than this to fly around, it was all just another day at the office to Dave Bowman, even though Discovery was his ship. Being outside and checking things out was just something to do and that really de-energized his excursions, I'm sorry to say. The ENTERPRISE flyby is invested with emotion and interest and the ten minutes or whatever just flies ... they're docked before you know it. In 2001, I've nodded off every single time Dave took his pod for a jaunt and yet, that movie is a revered classic, as boring as it often is ...

I agree.

Nicely put.

 

[Maurice]

The humans in 2001 are still the dying apes seen at beginning of the movie. That 4 million year match cut from bone to satellite bomb just shows we've figured out how to make bigger clubs, better tools, but we haven't really changed. We're still arguing over watering holes/moonbases and sitting around gnawing on bad food, and generally blase about the most incredible things once the novelty wears off. Bowman's just another ape until he casts off his tools (kills Hal) and his ape self (ages and dies) and is transformed into something new.

Some may find it boring, but that doesn't mean everyone does.

 

[SPCTRE]

The drydock scene is the best thing about TMP.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I agree.

Nicely put.

All of this talk of TMP's "magesty" and fly-bys had me in the mood to watch it, late last night - and watched it, I did! This time, I didn't just lay back and "have it on," I payed close attention and watched with renewed interest. I tried to pretend like I never saw it before. And as it played, I realised I'd forgotten how really good this movie is!

The Travel Pod sequence is great, it really holds up well, even having made such a "meal" of it. The movie itself holds up, very well. The long, loving looks at the V'Ger ship didn't drag on as much, it seemed like, when trying to get into "The Spirit" of the movie. Yet, I still find myself somewhat perplexed by Decker's sudden, out of the blue motivation and enthusiasm for "joining" with V'ger.

Ilia is incredibly beautiful, yes ... but, I don't know, giving up your own identity, your Humanity, even ... that's not something anyone, I should think, would just up and do, like that. I mean ... joining with an "infestation" was NEVER part of V'Ger's plan. So ... if it's got the savvy to reinvent its approach towards this whole "joining" concept last minute and so effectively and effortlessly, then surely it could've reinvented its sense of purpose in other ways.

The Ilia probe really is the key ... not joining with Decker. She's got ALL of the information V'Ger needs, right there at his fingertips. So, again, Decker's sort of "Leap of Faith" here, is a little bit jarring, despite the fact that he's doing it for his country. But then, again ... the final effect was awesome to behold and quite extraordinary. The imagination, artistry and technical know-how on display here, in a pre-CGI arena, is MOST impressive ...

 

[drt]

Decker's reasoning is clearer in the novel, but it was largely as internal dialog so I don't think it made it to any draft of the movie.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Wise tried to talk Paramount into letting him complete the edit after release and then replace the rough cut in the theaters with a more polished cut a few weeks later (since movies generally stayed in release for months back then), but they never let him do that until 22 years later.

Except that the DE most certainly did not "complete the edit" that Wise was arguing for during the first run of the film [link].

the DE of TMP is far closer to the film Robert Wise intended to make than the theatrical cut was

Of some interest, but hardly crucial. And, more accurately, it's closer to the film that in hindsight Wise wished he had made. At best the editors could only work with the film that actually was released as a basis for the revisions, and so much was attempted and abandoned during the production process that by the end of it whatever Wise's "intentions" were was murky at best.

As I've mentioned in the past, I have a 1980 interview with Wise where he contradicts a number of things that were later supposedly his "intent" with the DE. Notably, he says the film could have been easily cut by over 10 minutes, but the DE ends up longer than the original cut.

I think Terry Gilliam had it right: 20 years on you're not the same person who made that movie and you won't make the same decisions that person would have made.

 

[Franklin]

Starting reading this thread, then wanted to see the scene, so I called the scene up on Youtube. For what it's worth, it's 5:40 from the undocking at space port to docking at the Enterprise.

What makes the scene perfect is the sheer joy on the faces of Kirk and Scotty. Scotty provided that bit of starship porn for them. Every self-indulgent minute of it. The audience was merely a voyeur.

Every subsequent reveal of the Enterprise, including Kirk and McCoy seeing it from the shuttle in ST09, pales by comparison.

It makes me wish Abrams had taken another minute or two to let Kirk (and the audience) take in the details of the Enterprise at Riverside in ST09. It would've been as appropriate in its way as it was with Kirk in TMP. There's nothing wrong with a nice linger every now and then.

 

[Smellmet]

I would have loved that. In fact I was hoping for something along those lines before I saw the movie.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Hilarious reviewer the Nostalgia Critic, also thinks the scene goes on too long and did a funny commentary on it. About 5:15 in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYPMU-q9Wn0

 

[dub]

"A sense of magesty" is definitely what the Travel Pod sequence brought to the festivities ...

I'm tellin' ya...

Officiant: Montgomery Scott
Groom: William T. Kirk
Bride: U.S.S. Enterprise
Guests: Audience
Guest throwing rice: dude doing flips in drydock as she gets underway.

 

[gottacook]

The drydock scene is the best thing about TMP.

If so, and it may well be true, the excellence of the scene may be correlated with the lack of dialogue in it.

TMP was on broadcast TV last night (the "This" channel) in a version that included "over 82 AUs in diameter" but not the repeat of "Viewer off!" heard in the theatrical version. After many viewings since 1979 (twice in a big-screen theater, 1983 broadcast version, DE, etc.), more and more of the dialogue seems tin-eared to me each time, so that my appreciation of the music-only scenes has only grown.

 

[Richard Baker]

The TOS Enterprise was a character, something we watched as kids and has been absent for a long time. The Refit is the same character with a lot of changes, as with the rest of the cast, and we needed to be introduced properly. The Motion Picture had a unique look to that universe we knew so well, aside from some general things it was all new technologies being represented.
We never got a good look at the Enterprise close up before and after all those years we finally got the chance. It was reintroducing us to an important character and giving us something we craved since the show first aired. I have no problem with the length of that scene although I wish the V'ger cloud stuff had been shorter- how many different ways can you produce a glowing blue cloud and pan the camera slowly through it?

 

[beamMe]

It makes me wish Abrams had taken another minute or two to let Kirk (and the audience) take in the details of the Enterprise at Riverside in ST09. It would've been as appropriate in its way as it was with Kirk in TMP. There's nothing wrong with a nice linger every now and then.

We got some very nice views of the Enterprise in Star Trek.

The travel-pod sequence in TMP was as much about Kirk's love affair with the Enterprise as it was about showing her off to the audience.

In Star Trek the ship doesn't represent much more than a possible big adventure for him at that point - a big metal-beast that can carry him to the stars.

 

[Spock's Barber]

The sub-sub-sublight speed Klingon attack on V'Ger, the near endless shots of Epsilon 9, Kirk's long journey around the Enterprise, the monotonous views of V'Ger....they all symbolize the sloooooooow pace of TMP. Hell, even when Spock nerve pinches the transporter technician, it takes forever for the dude to collapse. It's no wonder I fell asleep half way through this flick.

 

[Synnöve]

The travel-pod sequence in TMP was as much about Kirk's love affair with the Enterprise as it was about showing her off to the audience.

While it does come from a (patriarchal) tradition, my eyebrow always raises when comparisons are made between brides/women, grooms/men and ships and their captains respectively.

*shudder*

Per the topic of the thread: Aside from a little bit of the Generations opening on TV, this was the first Star Trek film I ever saw. I was staying at a bed and breakfast on the coast, and after searching about I happened upon the basement which'd been stocked with a CRT projector and a wall of VHS tapes. I noticed six tapes said Star Trek on them, though I didn't recognize the ship as I'd only been exposed to TNG at that point. I'm not sure of how much I watched, but the clearest memory I have of the film is the Enterprise in dry-dock, with Kirk and Scotty's pod coming up to meet it (oddly enough, from an angle that isn't present in the movie!). I was transfixed on this awe inducing sight for a long time.

When my mum purchased me the Star Trek films on tape, TMP (the SLV) was the one I turned to most often (when the DE was released the disc didn't last more than a few years). I'd never seen such visuals and I deeply internalized the message of the film, to the point of making a school puppet show about the evolution of the human spirit with little Star Trek puppets!

Anyway, while it does suffer from improper editing & pacing*, it nonetheless holds a dear place in my heart due to the above.


*This is coming from some one who is never board during a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey (seeing it in 70mm helps of course) nor during an audition of Einstein on the Beach.

 

[Ithekro]

The sub-sub-sublight speed Klingon attack on V'Ger, the near endless shots of Epsilon 9, Kirk's long journey around the Enterprise, the monotonous views of V'Ger....they all symbolize the sloooooooow pace of TMP. Hell, even when Spock nerve pinches the transporter technician, it takes forever for the dude to collapse. It's no wonder I fell asleep half way through this flick.

Odd as it might sound, most of those V'Ger passes and the battle the Klingons have with it are at warp speed. There is no reason to believe V'Ger would slow down for the Klingons or Enterprise while in its way to Earth. It preobably didn't even slow down for Epsilon 9, and did a drive by to digitally record it for later. The Cloud originally was I think 82 AU in diameter and later 2 AU in diameter. That much moving at warp speed would still take a tiny while to completely pass the station.

Assume less than warp 7 for the cloud as Enterprise was able to come up on in from behind as an intercept at warp 7.

As for the drydock scenes...we are being introduced to a main character. USS Enterprise in these films and the original series is just as much a character as Kirk or Spock. Later series and films lose that aspect most of the time, but in this series and set of films, Enterprise is a character in its own right.

 

[Timo]

Odd as it might sound, most of those V'Ger passes and the battle the Klingons have with it are at warp speed.

They'd have to be, to show any sort of motion relative to the cloud. After all, it's as wide as an entire star system!

And those Klingon torpedoes really travel fast, in the 82 AU version of the events (modern edits speak of 2 AU only, meaning a fifteen-second torpedo run could be at mere lightspeed)...

However, starships inside V'Ger's vast warp field can probably turn off their engines and still be carried along at warp. They only need their own warp engines for spanning the vast distance from the rim of the cloud to its heart.

I find little fault in the visuals of the movie, be it by dramatic, eye-candy or pseudoscientific criteria. If only the characters involved were as interesting to watch...!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

According to Roddenberry's novelization, the Enterprise's approach to Vejur/V'Ger was at warp.


About the TMP Enterprise flyby: It looks beautiful, but goes on longer than my attention span usually allows. The 20-second version in ST'09 fits me better.