Why is Star Trek: The Motion Picture so boring?
Boring
- Thread starter JeffinOakland
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I've always the viewed the biggest appeal of the movie being that it was the return of Star Trek and done in a big theatrical way.
As a kid, I do remember seeing it in the theatre and I was wowed more visually than anything else (the Enterprise going to warp for the first time may look tame now, but it was dazzling on the big screen back then). And the journey inside V'Ger was very much exploring the unknown, seeking out new life, and going where no man has gone before.
I also remember the guy sitting in front of me dozing off a bit halfway through...
As a kid, I do remember seeing it in the theatre and I was wowed more visually than anything else (the Enterprise going to warp for the first time may look tame now, but it was dazzling on the big screen back then). And the journey inside V'Ger was very much exploring the unknown, seeking out new life, and going where no man has gone before.
I also remember the guy sitting in front of me dozing off a bit halfway through...
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Amaris
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^ Agreed. Very big, very theatrical; cinematic, something put on the grand scale. I think part of the execution succeeded, but we got a grand picture with nowhere to really go. The characters felt off, the story felt off, the gaps between anything happened was far too noticeable. I don't mind time in between acts to process what has already been seen, but there were times I could have left the theater, went to the bathroom, grabbed some popcorn at the concession on the way back, and be back in my seat before anything else actually happened.
So it had big BIG ideas, but the execution was a little too poorly timed. A shame, really, because I love the idea, and that Robert Wise was helming the film made it that much more epic in scope, but it still missed the mark, in my opinion.
So it had big BIG ideas, but the execution was a little too poorly timed. A shame, really, because I love the idea, and that Robert Wise was helming the film made it that much more epic in scope, but it still missed the mark, in my opinion.
Why start a thread with a presupposition?
One person's "boring" is another person's 'intriguing'. Just because you personally find it boring doesn't mean that everybody does.
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Amaris
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Why start a thread with a presupposition?
One person's "boring" is another person's 'intriguing'. Just because you personally find it boring doesn't mean that everybody does.
It's an opinion about a Star Trek movie. Sure it's subjective, but then the vast majority of posts on this site are subjective. If you don't agree with him, just tell him so. He won't get mad, I don't think.
Of course disagreeing with me means I pull out the voodoo doll I have. It's not of you (it's Locutus of Bored), but his random, phantom-like bellows of pain will teach you a lesson, I'm sure.
Why start a thread with a presupposition?
One person's "boring" is another person's 'intriguing'. Just because you personally find it boring doesn't mean that everybody does.
It's an opinion about a Star Trek movie. Sure it's subjective, but then the vast majority of posts on this site are subjective. If you don't agree with him, just tell him so. He won't get mad, I don't think.
Of course disagreeing with me means I pull out the voodoo doll I have. It's not of you (it's Locutus of Bored), but his random, phantom-like bellows of pain will teach you a lesson, I'm sure.
Oh, I know it's an opinion.
I'd just like to see more flavor out of a thread's first post than just "Oh, TMP is boring". Where's the discussion in that? Why not tell us why he thinks it's boring, instead of just pre-supposing that everybody here thinks exactly the same about it?
A
Amaris
Guest
Why start a thread with a presupposition?
One person's "boring" is another person's 'intriguing'. Just because you personally find it boring doesn't mean that everybody does.
It's an opinion about a Star Trek movie. Sure it's subjective, but then the vast majority of posts on this site are subjective. If you don't agree with him, just tell him so. He won't get mad, I don't think.
Of course disagreeing with me means I pull out the voodoo doll I have. It's not of you (it's Locutus of Bored), but his random, phantom-like bellows of pain will teach you a lesson, I'm sure.
Oh, I know it's an opinion.
On that I agree. It would be nice if folks would elucidate, somewhat, on why they find something awesome/boring/amazing/gassy. Still...
*poke* *poke* *poke*
I don't think it is. I put among my four top Trek movies. I wish more of them were like it.
Okay, I'll play ball.
I find it slow in places. It has a certain (deliberate) realistic pace. But that doesn't make it "boring".
There's plenty of incident in the movie, from the destruction of the Klingons through the wormhole sequence and right into the bowels of V'Ger and the 'death' of Ilia and replacement by the Ilia probe.
In fact, there's plenty more character interaction (even in the theatrical cut) than it is often given credit for too, particularly among the Big Three. Despite some people's protestations that it lacks the character of the series, I actually don't see that. I see a lot of Star Trek there, a lot of heart.
It's very different to TOS (which was fast-paced action-adventure) and also to the movies that followed it (action-adventures with masses of universe building). The isolated and very 'esoteric' nature of the threat means it can be none of the above things. But the word "boring" has never entered my mind in all the times I've been watching it. And I've watched in hundreds of times in the last 20 years. Never been bored.
Just because it doesn't have fist-fights and Kirk tearing open his shirt while holding a giant plastic rock above Voyger VI's Head-Unit (or something), doesn't make it "boring". It only makes it "different".
I find it slow in places. It has a certain (deliberate) realistic pace. But that doesn't make it "boring".
There's plenty of incident in the movie, from the destruction of the Klingons through the wormhole sequence and right into the bowels of V'Ger and the 'death' of Ilia and replacement by the Ilia probe.
In fact, there's plenty more character interaction (even in the theatrical cut) than it is often given credit for too, particularly among the Big Three. Despite some people's protestations that it lacks the character of the series, I actually don't see that. I see a lot of Star Trek there, a lot of heart.
It's very different to TOS (which was fast-paced action-adventure) and also to the movies that followed it (action-adventures with masses of universe building). The isolated and very 'esoteric' nature of the threat means it can be none of the above things. But the word "boring" has never entered my mind in all the times I've been watching it. And I've watched in hundreds of times in the last 20 years. Never been bored.
Just because it doesn't have fist-fights and Kirk tearing open his shirt while holding a giant plastic rock above Voyger VI's Head-Unit (or something), doesn't make it "boring". It only makes it "different".
Hmm. Not sure it was STAR WARS' fault. TMP was also slowly paced compared to the original TV series, so I think it would have elicited the same response even if STAR WARS had not existed.
The problem was not that people were comparing TMP to STAR WARS. It was that people expected TMP to be like TOS, not "2001." (Imagine that.)
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I wasn't bored so much as underwhelmed. I never had any sense of real danger or suspense throughout the story. The characters were dour. It may have been exploration, but it was dead serious business. No one was having any fun. The payoff at the end wasn't worth it to me, either.
^ 'Serious' isn't a bad way of looking at it.
TOS always had a touch of the kitch about it. It wasn't anything like the Batman TV series, but there was always a flair, a pace, a sense of type. It based itself on plausible theory, but never let that get in the way of explosive action-adventure or even a touch of psychadelica. There were definitely times when it's tongue was planted very firmly in cheek, other times when it let reality fly out the door completely.
TMP is what you get when you run TOS through a reality filter, and force it to adhere to actual plausible projections of what the future space programme might be like (as opposed to being an action-adventure format), and write the characters like sensible future scientists/astronauts (as opposed to cowboys).
It's little wonder that *some* reacted poorly to this change.
TOS always had a touch of the kitch about it. It wasn't anything like the Batman TV series, but there was always a flair, a pace, a sense of type. It based itself on plausible theory, but never let that get in the way of explosive action-adventure or even a touch of psychadelica. There were definitely times when it's tongue was planted very firmly in cheek, other times when it let reality fly out the door completely.
TMP is what you get when you run TOS through a reality filter, and force it to adhere to actual plausible projections of what the future space programme might be like (as opposed to being an action-adventure format), and write the characters like sensible future scientists/astronauts (as opposed to cowboys).
It's little wonder that *some* reacted poorly to this change.
I concur 100%.
It's really it's own thing and doesn't fit in with what was before or after.
This strikes me as a pretty accurate assessment. It's probably fair to say that the folks making TMP (Roddenberry, Wise, etc.) were going for a more "serious" update of the original TV show, while making a deliberate effort to jettison some of the pulpier, action-adventure aspects of the TV version.
As it turned out, this was not necessarily what the audience was expecting . . . or wanted.
I think the film is slow, but I don't think the film is boring. It takes a while, but once they get down to V'Ger to the end where it says "The Human Adventure is Just Beginning", that's a hell of a climax to the movie and something I've learned to appreciate over time.
It also fits with Kirk's preface to Roddenberry's novelization, where Roddenberry writes as Kirk that many of the tales of what went on during the famous five year mission were exaggerated in popular culture. Kirk lets us know he really isn't quite the cowboy (or even hero) he's painted to be. His adventures were largely far more mundane and routine.
So in TMP, we get the "real" version of events. Unfortunately, procedural, mundane, and routine are not words one wants to associate with an adventure movie. We want the cowboy. We want to see him fighting the lion and facing the electric penguin even if he really didn't.
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