TMP is the best film. It is not 'tedious' at all
- Thread starter Spock's Eyebrow
- Start date
You may think they're done "rather coldly", but that doesn't change the fact that they're there.
TMP is a heightened erotic Passion play -- all its rituals, tinged with a sense of cosmic awe, build toward its dramatic climax: a sensational light-show where two characters (or three including V'Ger as partially distinct from Decker and Ilia: the reunited lover "unit") undergo a gleaming, eroticised transcension. The first Star Trek film is a deeply sexual film. You could say it is engorged with, or penetrated by, a kind of meditative sexuality; it treats the universe as a living canvas on which plays out a finely-articulated sexualism and sensualism. It anticipates a highly-evolved ape-angel future state for human beings; or those daring enough to seek it.
Can I assume that you're an English Lit major?
Ha! Backhanded compliment....??? (They are also accepted!).
I'm "lit" with English, if that's what you mean. I've been "lit", in that way, for years -- which one of us head-in-the-clouds (and head-beyond-the-clouds) space nerds isn't?
I did study English Literature at college, yes.
What good it's done me, however, I don't know...
I don't meant to sound dismissive of education. Get an education, folks! Never stop learning...
(Though, these days, a "proper" education may land one in considerable debt. It's better to try and teach oneself if able. In fact, wherever possible, that's pretty much always the better path).
I think Decker's background in the novelisation as part of a trans-human group that believes humanity can evolve by mating with aliens also adds to the sex quotient.Ha! Backhanded compliment....??? (They are also accepted!).
I'm "lit" with English, if that's what you mean. I've been "lit", in that way, for years -- which one of us head-in-the-clouds (and head-beyond-the-clouds) space nerds isn't?
I did study English Literature at college, yes.
What good it's done me, however, I don't know...
I don't meant to sound dismissive of education. Get an education, folks! Never stop learning...
(Though, these days, a "proper" education may land one in considerable debt. It's better to try and teach oneself if able. In fact, wherever possible, that's pretty much always the better path).
I think sex is used as a transcendental act though. Ilia is too advanced for humans for some vague reasons (expanded in the TWOK novelisation). V'Ger also seeks to transcend but forcibly taking what it wants, even from a Deltan, doesn't hit the mark. So emotional fulfilment is more the key than the sex act.
Ha! Backhanded compliment....??? (They are also accepted!).
Not really backhanded, definitely more sincere. Possibly not a complement, though, depending on your approaches and goals, but I don't know your work well enough to speak to that. More of an informed observation. I spent many years studying and writing about literature (still do on occasion), and the fingerprints of that background are all over your post.
In both of my English programs (BA and MA) I managed to direct a lot of my work toward sf in general and Trek in particular. It was both fun and practical; most of my colleagues, upon learning about a theory and being told to apply it, rushed to find something new to read first. I always though "Why read a new book when I can apply it to something I know like the back of my hand?"
Having an MA has opened a very few doors for me. The fact that it's in English has done nothing practical.
An education can be very valuable, and can just be a lot of fun. Organized education, especially in the Humanities, has ceased to have much value.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
Indeed. In TMP, Decker and Ilia are essentially concluding unfinished business. All our main characters enter the film with a deep feeling of incompleteness, and by the end of the film, they have each found a sense of wholeness.
I'm guessing Ilia's telepathic abilities make her very advanced and overwhelming for those "sexually immature" species: a taxonomic class to which human beings belong.
Decker wasn't prepared to give everything up for Ilia when they first met. This caused an immense tear in the souls of each. At the end of TMP, they fix that tear, allowing V'Ger to ascend.
The funny thing is, when watching TMP and trying to figure out some of its inner workings, I actually get the sense that it's actually the inverse -- i.e., V'Ger is allowing the other characters to ascend. It's all a game, basically. A complex one, to be sure, but just a game. A God object posing as a fragile (if powerful) creature with limits.
Suddenly, those things that seem almost too convenient (Spock hearing the call of V'Ger across space just as he's about to receive the necklace, Kirk rubbing away the gunk to read the name as "VOYAGER") fit together exactly where and when they should, enhancing this underlying plot architecture. Well, it's a fun reading I think you can comfortably make.
Such a remarkable work of cinema.
It is, and I've always wondered where that influence cam from. Overall I think Roddenberry is all over TMP, but his handling of sex is typically far more heavy-handed, like the "Give her three breasts" thing. I don't consider him as advanced enough (possibly read "mature" enough) to have considered the transcendental value.
Well, seriously:
Thank you very much.
It's nice to be appreciated and complimented every once in a while.
Sounds like you unlocked the secret to your personal universe!
A major problem I had when studying literature -- when I was studying literature -- was my relative youth. I hated to be so under-informed and lacking in worldly wisdom, and I found it hard, as a result, connecting to those texts or deriving much pleasure from them. I also questioned myself a lot. I'm just like V'Ger! No, really...
You touch on something rather dispiriting:
What is all this (now-very expensive) education for? We really have to find our own paths in life, and that isn't always easy.
I've probably always envied people who seemed to know what they wanted to do, and where they were going, even if they really didn't or later changed their minds. I've never really had that.
Clarity of purpose would really be something: *is* really something. Or I have to think it is. It does feel good to be working on something. I know that feeling. I just slack and get distracted and don't get it too often.
Yes! And ouch!
I'd rather we move toward Star Trek's enlightened future (the one GR showed) sooner rather than later. For one thing, I'd love for universal basic income to become a thing, and then I could stop worrying about bills and tedious mundanities, and start bearing down on what I want to do with myself -- read a lot of books and write a lot of crap, probably. But at least I know I'd be having fun and less enslaved (except to my desires) than present circumstances.
Okay! LOL. Thanks for the diversion. Diversions are good. Your affinity for my situation is noted and warmly received. If message boards paid money for you to use 'em and add to 'em, I'd probably be a rich fella by now. I guess I'll continue being a poor boy until things change! Or I could really try and find a path. Nah! Message boards. Nothing but message boards.
Going to throw something out for discussion. Once I was aware of roughly what science fiction was, I've never considered the bulk of Star Trek to be sf. For me, it's more of a science fantasy, like Star Wars, although it tends more toward maintaining a facade of being scientifically oriented. The most common definitions of sf I see are along the lines of "it posits some scientific change, and then examines the effects on humanity." I'll add to that "hopefully through its effects on one or more well-drawn compelling characters," although that's far from a requirement (see 2001).
I bring this up because I've always thought that they were trying to make Star Trek more science fictiony with TMP. I think that they succeeded in large part (if that was the goal), but at the expense of many of the things that drew people to the series in the first place: the camaraderie. It does "big picture" stuff pretty well end of humanity, value of free will, etc. On the other hand, even when Spock is grabbing Kirk's hand in sick bay, I don't buy the feeling behind it; it seems like they were maybe trying to capture that camaraderie in a film which just wasn't designed to showcase it. .
I bring this up because I've always thought that they were trying to make Star Trek more science fictiony with TMP. I think that they succeeded in large part (if that was the goal), but at the expense of many of the things that drew people to the series in the first place: the camaraderie. It does "big picture" stuff pretty well end of humanity, value of free will, etc. On the other hand, even when Spock is grabbing Kirk's hand in sick bay, I don't buy the feeling behind it; it seems like they were maybe trying to capture that camaraderie in a film which just wasn't designed to showcase it. .
I see your point. By my standards, however, he just didn't have the tools to express it, whether he felt it consciously or subconsciously, Flatly put, he wasn't much of a writer. He was a good idea guy (I put Lucas in the same category) who had trouble dealing with characters as much more than achetypes for enacting his morality plays, and he lacked any sense of subtlety.
I think it's harsh to say he wasn't smart or advanced enough to have even considered that angle. Roddenberry was a mature, sophisticated thinker by the 1970s. He obviously paid attention to the world around him, and there was a heck of a lot that went down -- politically, socially, economically, culturally, artistically, technologically, and scientifically -- in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. He read a lot. He'd had an interesting life. He was a sensitive man.
The fanbase seems to have it in its collective head that someone displaying a strong interest in animal appetites, or a person imagined to be more sexually-deviant than average (though I don't know if there's such a thing as "average"), can't also be a mature, rounded, or a bold, visionary thinker. That seems, to me, to be a false dichotomy, and not a reasonable heuristic to apply to human beings (especially ones that accomplish what GR did), and all they can accomplish (or think about or imagine or conceive) in their chaotic and discursive lives. Even a man as "refined" as Mozart wasn't above poop humour. The ape and the angel inhabit us all.
I mean, his sexual peccadilloes aside, GR came up with the Star Trek concept in the first place (and yes, yes -- he had a lot of help in realising that concept), did he not? That's a terrifically progressive and pretty far-out thing to bring into human culture, especially at the time he did it. He may have had a thing for T&A, but that shouldn't place him beyond consideration as a serious thinker -- or at least a mighty fine dreamer. Such people help make the only maps or compasses we can ever really trust.
I'd say it's more of an admixture -- more sci-fi than Star Wars, a bit less sci-fi than what typically is considered "hard" science-fiction. Star Trek is defined by the limits of its medium(s) (television and cinema), and the demands of its populist leanings. In TMP, I think a conscious effort was made by various parties (but GR most of all) to elevate the material to something grander -- probably as a joint response to "2001" (we must be more like this) and "Star Wars" (we must be less like this). On the whole, I think you're probably right that ST does maintain a bit of a facade, and there are valid reasons why more serious sci-fi fans and authors might be inclined to bash it.
I think the camaraderie was there, but deliberately suppressed and underplayed, to suit the tone and intent of the film and its particular construction. However, when it's tapped into, it's tapped into very well -- in my opinion. The side characters do get short shrift, but it handles "The Big Three" in a satisfying and intelligent manner -- again, in my opinion.
I love the scene between Kirk and Spock in sickbay. I find it immensely poignant and truly moving. "The Motion Picture" is better called "THEME-MOTION PICTURE". In the sickbay scene, theme and emotion combine beautifully, into a moment of sublime rapture. And credit where it is due: Leonard Nimoy performs the scene brilliantly, and the camera angles are very well-chosen. The way the camera hovers *over* Spock/Nimoy at the beginning there, and the whites of sickbay -- it's like he has died and gone to heaven. I once read that Spock is (quietly) laughing because he has found his peace with the universe: "I should have known..." He gets the joke: he realises the fraud he has perpetrated on himself (chasing "total logic"). He has found enlightenment.
Watching that scene, I can easily become overcome with emotion. I was, in fact, the last time I sat and watched it in the context of a full viewing of the movie. In fact, I began to understand what it means when some people supposedly break down when they see a great painting -- even something famously abstract like a Rothko painting. I get that same feeling when the Enterprise flies over V'Ger. I feel the pronounced loneliness of the vessel: the cathedral-like anguish and ache. It can stir me to deep emotion. I feel for V'Ger and I feel for Spock. They almost become me. Who are the lonely souls of the universe? Is the universe itself somehow lonely? This movie -- for me, at least -- really connects.
My mileage definitely varies
I'll stick with my statement that, as a writer, he did not have the necessary tools. If you look at the body of work that can be attributed to him, it's far more simplistic, thematically speaking, than the work turned out by, say, Gene Coon or Dorothy Fontana. I would add "Don't mistake his ability to formulate or act on a philosophy with the ability to be a top-notch writer."
Agreed, hence my comment that he was a good idea guy, a developer, but nowhere near a great artist, i.e., writer. If you look at his writing body of work aside from and after Trek, you get:
Pretty Maids All in a Row
the Genesis II stuff
The Questor Tapes
Spectre
All stinkers. It's sloppy, puerile and simplistic. An argument can be made for saying that it was 70s TV (aside from Pretty Maids) with pretty low requirements, but he certainly did nothing to stretch the potential of the medium, or even live up to the expression of the potential at the time.
My mileage definitely varies
I would add "Don't mistake his ability to formulate or act on a philosophy with the ability to be a top-notch writer."
I think the term "writer" has gotten arbitrarily introduced somewhere regarding GR in the last few posts. Obviously, he was a writer, but I don't believe I commented specifically on his writing abilities. I think I would agree that he was more of an "ideas person" in many regards. His scripts and TV shows were vehicles for ideas. Without him, Star Trek wouldn't exist -- even if Star Trek was quite possibly the greatest idea he ever had (or that had him).
I know this is a thread on TMP, and I'm not trying to start an argument about TWOK or the other movies here, but I don't think just anyone would have the grounding or the gumption to call out Harve Bennett -- his replacement -- as he did in this scorching nine-page letter released a few years ago, courtesy of Project 366:
https://www.indiewire.com/2016/09/s...-wrath-of-khan-letter-project-366-1201724589/
Of course, on some level, he was just being a thorn in Bennett's side, and to echo a line of Spock's: "As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create."
But he was clearly more in touch with his creation, even if he was acting a touch destructive (and quite self-destructive in his personal habits), than people seem to give him credit for.
He really fought for Star Trek to retain some integrity, even if he had already lost the war. He may not have been the literary equal of Arthur C. Clarke or Philip K. Dick, but he sure had strong convictions and knew his turf.
Well, that wasn't all the stuff he came up with in his life, and some of those items were revisited and scavenged for Star Trek later on. "Robots Return" from "Genesis II" (along with the TOS episode "The Changeling") became the basis for the plot of TMP, while Questor from "The Questor Tapes" was turned into Data in GR's real Phase II: "The Next Generation". Roddenberry even had people fighting him on the name of Data. He really had to stand his ground a lot against meddling and naysaying -- or that's how it seems to me, anyway.
Also, what works well in a book might not work so well in a movie or television format, and if earlier shows or films seem junky or lightweight, it's because television and film are difficult mediums to work in. It's been said before, above all else, GR was a survivor, and there's probably a good deal of truth to that. He hung in there and had a tenacity, a strength of mind, that few of us can probably understand.
He was really on his own vision quest, I think, and maybe he didn't always quite know what he wanted to say; or rather: how to say it. But he knew if he kept going, some things would sneak on through, impact others, and gradually take on a life of their own. BTW, "The Questor Tapes" was made with Gene Coon and arrived to positive critical response. He must have been in love with the concept enough to carry aspects across into Data and seed one of Star Trek's most iconic characters. GR was more driven and deliberate than you're allowing him to be. That's how I see it, anyway.
Probably my fault. I started off by saying that he didn't have the maturity, and that really involved two different things. One was the emotional maturity to approach the subject. The other way is maturity as a writer, the ability to translate his ideas to a quality script. I focused on the latter after that post, but I still think the former is true as well.
I've always interpreted this as fear, not altogether unfounded, that he was losing control. I feel for him, but seeing how things turned out, I'm glad it happened nonetheless. Look at the mess he made of TNG Season 1, and all the quality people to whom he showed the door. I cringe at the idea of Roddenberry running TWOK or trying to impose his will on Meyer.
The missing name here is Rod Serling, who DID have the bonafides to pull of what he was trying to do. Roddenberry seems to have been very jealous of Serling, and with good reason.
I give him a ton of credit for being driven and deliberate. Those can be good or bad qualities.
Well, it's true that Decker and Ilia don't "join" with one another, at the end of the film, in the earlier screenplays. That part was apparently added very late in the process, at the end of principal photography. They were making that film not knowing exactly how they would wrap it up -- and Roddenberry, more than anyone else, is perhaps to blame for that. Although I've always liked the idea that the end was left up in the air, subject to inspiration. It's like writing a three-part play. Acts One and Two are largely in place, but the author is still searching for a satisfactory conclusion. The movie was still emerging from the marble.
I think it takes a certain level of emotional maturity not to use cursing, simple dilemmas, battles, conflict, subterfuge and backbiting between the characters, or heaps of action cliches -- I mean, this was GR's first (and, sadly, only) crack of the whip at turning his creation into a fully-fledged blockbuster film, yet he avoided many things that lesser writers/conceptualists might have been too temped to fall back on. If GR lacked emotional maturity, I wonder how would we describe half the Hollywood product that has come out in the last twenty years? There have to be reasons TMP is so distinguished and graceful, and smart and trusting of its audience by comparison, and I think some of the reasons have to trace to Roddenberry.
I mean, he honestly could have said: "I'm a sci-fi guy, but we have to give our audience plenty of action in the first film, then we can push the boat out and become a little more experimental in the sequels." Perhaps he should have done that, but I'm glad he didn't seem to have that philosophy. He seemed to want to make a statement and use the medium of cinema to its fullest effect from the start; and give people a film, in that classic GR way, based around a puzzle and an enigma. That remains way more than any of the other ST features have achieved or aspired to.
I've never gotten what was so bad about TNG's first season. The show was still finding its feet, and it had some good early episodes -- and the whole idea of Q: ingenious! Plus, that first season, like TMP, was as much about production design and building a mission statement, and I think the show excelled there. It was really beautiful-looking and very much a "bold new Enterprise" in its day. Nothing else from back then can touch it. I've still seen nothing to match the opulent futurism of TNG.
Well, I also cringe at the idea of Roddenberry running TWOK, and not doing his own take on the second movie. Yes, he would never have written a B-movie story around revenge (not as simplistically as that), nor drenched the film in tacky, out-of-place militarism. He was actively trying to save his creation from that crude metamorphosis (or vandalism), and I think he had every right to kick up a stink.
Beyond that, the second film was also being made by Paramount's TV division, immediately signalling a serious drop in production quality from TMP. Though the new people had the audacity to pilfer a lot of effects work and production assets from TMP, and then get away with looking financially responsible and prudent by comparison -- a crooked comparison, because TMP's production costs were never separated from the Phase II production costs, nor were any of TMP's costs folded into TWOK which used those assets, as they should have been.
Roddenberry would obviously have found a director not named Nicholas Meyer. Although, dammit, compared to J.J. Abrams, Meyer's films feel like finely-wrought space-opera character dramas. Yet it was Meyer and Bennett that wrenched Star Trek away from its sci-fi leanings, taking it in the direction of pulpy space adventure. In other words, they sent it spinning off from "2001" and "Forbidden Planet" territory, more into the terrain of "Flash Gordon" and "Star Wars". But without the visual adeptness and smart world-building of the latter.
I guess, if you're going to be envious or jealous, choose a good target: a real competitor. And I guess Rod Serling was that guy.
True. But I think, when you have the odds of success stacked against you, you have to be a bit tough and fierce or you probably won't survive.
I thought Meyer's take on Trek fit with TOS better than TMP.
In some ways, it probably did -- with respect, at least, to the interactions of the characters and the slightly looser performances of the actors, and the movie having a slightly livelier feel. But then, I also think there's an unseemly air of smugness to the performances in TWOK, in particular. I get the impression the actors are showing genuine relief and glad to be rid of Roddenberry and the stuffiness of TMP.
Also, there's nothing wrong with GR wanting to evolve the parameters of his own baby when Star Trek entered its second era with the motion picture franchise. At the same time, it's unlikely a sequel to TMP would have been as ponderous under any other producer/director, even with GR at the helm. Again, that was something TWOK was able to turn to its advantage.
Much like the way it lifted various production assets from TMP, TWOK was able to insinuate itself as "a big improvement" over the uptight, procedural-dominated narrative of TMP. The first film did a lot of the heavy-lifting, then the makers of TWOK were able to swoop in and basically drive around the finished race course -- even if they drove recklessly and opportunistically and damaged the car and the course in the process.
Its funny because TMP gives me the same impression.
Damaged? Interesting.
