Since When Is The Motion Picture A Good Trek Film?

[trevanian]

Just like I thought, It seems that the vast majority of those who loved/love it Are Old-School Trekkers who saw it in theaters way back when. Makes sense I suppose.

I think TMP appeals to people that like Science Fiction films, such as "Forbidden Planet", "Planet of the Apes" (the original version), "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Soylent Green", "Alien", "Outland", "Blade Runner", and "The Terminator", not necessarily just "Old-School Trekkers".


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
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I'm very love/hate on TMP, but to compare it with OUTLAND? OUTLAND is most definitely NOT a SF movie. It was sold as a western in space, and it was plotted like a really BAD cop movie.

You oughta find Harlan Ellison's takeout of OUTLAND ... he spent two installments of his column on it, and it is not just gold, it is platinum.

However, OUTLAND does have really nice miniature work, a Connery scene that is so good it belongs in a much better movie (typical of early 80s connery like WRONG IS RIGHT, which also didn't deserve him), and the rarest of commodities, a bad Peter Boyle perfromance.

To me, TMP is like a fuzzy version of ANDROMEDA STRAIN, but with the bonus of space visuals that are so great it is like Wise decided to intercut his earlier film with Corman's THE TRIP.

 

[Similitude]

Just like I thought, It seems that the vast majority of those who loved/love it Are Old-School Trekkers who saw it in theaters way back when. Makes sense I suppose.

I think TMP appeals to people that like Science Fiction films, such as "Forbidden Planet", "Planet of the Apes" (the original version), "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Soylent Green", "Alien", "Outland", "Blade Runner", and "The Terminator", not necessarily just "Old-School Trekkers".


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

Well this isn't necessarily true. I love most of those (Save Outland and Apes) and find myself bored by TMP. If it wasn't Trek I probably wouldn't watch it again.

 

[TheGodBen]

It's perhaps not that interesting for those of you who play video games all day, but to people who aren't retarded it's a thoughtful and interesting film.

I can't stand video games and I think TMP is neither thoughtful nor interesting.

I love video games and I find TMP to be interesting at times. Together we have destroyed smosquito's worldview.

 

[Gepard]

I can't stand video games and I think TMP is neither thoughtful nor interesting.

I love video games and I find TMP to be interesting at times. Together we have destroyed smosquito's worldview.

Well done. We should do lunch.

 

[Warped9]

Um, maybe because it's the only Trek film that is truer in plot to a TOS episode and because it's the only one that comes close to being REAL science fiction and makes you think (kind of the way 2001 did).

It's a "thinking man's" Star Trek...

To compare it to STV is ludicrous...they aren't even close.

You may not like TMP, but it WAS an ambitious film for the time. The beautiful visual effects (completed under an unreasonable deadline), the excellent groundbreaking musical score and the reunion of the cast all come together making it very much worth the effort.

The director's cut particularly is a great film...but, I understand it's not for everyone.

In a nutshell.

Still, I wouldn't say great, but good. That said I still like it better than the others as I've elaborated elsewhere.

 

[QuasarVM]

Just like I thought, It seems that the vast majority of those who loved/love it Are Old-School Trekkers who saw it in theaters way back when. Makes sense I suppose.

I think TMP appeals to people that like Science Fiction films, such as "Forbidden Planet", "Planet of the Apes" (the original version), "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Soylent Green", "Alien", "Outland", "Blade Runner", and "The Terminator", not necessarily just "Old-School Trekkers".


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

I'm very love/hate on TMP, but to compare it with OUTLAND? OUTLAND is most definitely NOT a SF movie. It was sold as a western in space, and it was plotted like a really BAD cop movie.

You oughta find Harlan Ellison's takeout of OUTLAND ... he spent two installments of his column on it, and it is not just gold, it is platinum.

However, OUTLAND does have really nice miniature work, a Connery scene that is so good it belongs in a much better movie (typical of early 80s connery like WRONG IS RIGHT, which also didn't deserve him), and the rarest of commodities, a bad Peter Boyle perfromance.

To me, TMP is like a fuzzy version of ANDROMEDA STRAIN, but with the bonus of space visuals that are so great it is like Wise decided to intercut his earlier film with Corman's THE TRIP.

Ugh...Outland...

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

I love TOS and the TOS movies, except I agree that TMP is excrutiatingly boring. Sometimes, if I'm having trouble falling asleep, I will put in my Director's Edition DVD of TMP and bam!, I'm asleep within 20 minutes. I mean, the first hour or so is assembling the crew and worrying about V'Ger.

I think by today's standards, it tries to be too grand. I get it, that this was the first real, good view of the Big E from the television show of 10 years prior, but still, this scene, at nearly 5 min, is simply too long (although the music is epic).

 

[RyanKCR]

I love TOS and the TOS movies, except I agree that TMP is excrutiatingly boring. Sometimes, if I'm having trouble falling asleep, I will put in my Director's Edition DVD of TMP and bam!, I'm asleep within 20 minutes. I mean, the first hour or so is assembling the crew and worrying about V'Ger.

I think by today's standards, it tries to be too grand. I get it, that this was the first real, good view of the Big E from the television show of 10 years prior, but still, this scene, at nearly 5 min, is simply too long (although the music is epic).

I never understood that complaint. Why do you say it is too long?

 

[Gepard]

I never understood that complaint. Why do you say it is too long?

Because it's five minutes of staring at motion-control miniatures? I mean, I'm an effects nerd, and that's too much even for me.

 

[RyanKCR]

I never understood that complaint. Why do you say it is too long?

Because it's five minutes of staring at motion-control miniatures? I mean, I'm an effects nerd, and that's too much even for me.

That's not how I see it or how the plot sees it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I love TOS and the TOS movies, except I agree that TMP is excrutiatingly boring.

In my impatience to see the movie in December 1979 (everyone I asked to go wasn't enthusiastic, so I eventually went alone - about five times in early 1980), I read the novelization first, and I guess that really helped me in any boring bits. And I've grown to love the music so much that I just bliss out and let the visuals and music consume me. The film was almost like a mood-altering drug to me! (I know people from my old high school say they used to bliss out - with marijuana - watching the end of "2001" in cinemas, so I guess it's a similar effect.)

As I began to meet other diehard fans in the early 80s, I found myself answering people's questions about the film. There's a lot of extra stuff packed into that novelization!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I watched it last night for the first time in years, while it is VERY slow it's a beautiful film. The color and lighting is really amazing.

When my friends and I rediscovered TMP some years back we were struck by how much it really "seemed like a movie" but we couldn't really put our fingers on it. I guess it just seems really cinematic. I watched it too many times when it was on regular rotation on TV for a while (Spike and HBO Family I believe). It was slow but it just felt so big in a way.

I kind of liked the austere sound of the original version with the male computer voice and the lack of filler beeps and bloops.

 

[urbandk]

Love TMP. It was the only Star Trek movie I owned on VHS as a child. I guess I like all the movies that were ambitious in some way, that tried something new. I think that's why I don't care for TSFS or any of the Next Generation Movies; they felt pedestrian and stale. Fans might rip TMP, but it has a couple things in common with the new ST movie: its aesthetics, production, and scope are unlike anything done before or since in Star Trek.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

I am one of the people who love TMP. It's true star trek. It's perhaps not that interesting for those of you who play video games all day, but to people who aren't retarded it's a thoughtful and interesting film.

BTW the best movie ever made was 2001, a Space Oddysey.

Insulting people who don't rave over TMP seems a bit extreme, however perhaps you could expand on what makes it interesting to you?

I find TMP has a certain charm, very much wants to be 2001 but ultimately says less than it thinks it does.

 

[Gepard]

That's not how I see it or how the plot sees it.

Yes, I know, Kirk's in wuv with his ship. I think they could have communicated that as effectively with a shorter scene.

 

[QuasarVM]

That's not how I see it or how the plot sees it.

Yes, I know, Kirk's in wuv with his ship. I think they could have communicated that as effectively with a shorter scene.

ONE scene like that in ALL of Star Trek is not too much to sit through.

I loved the scene. And again, it was not just there because Kirk "loves" his ship, but because it was the first time we the fans had seen the ship on the big screen and in that way...it was a unique moment in Trek history.

Admittedly, the trip through the cloud and the V'Ger flyover were too long. If I were editor, THAT's what I would have trimmed down. I think they did at least trim the trip through the cloud in the Director's Cut.

TMP is a great movie, but I can understand how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

I'd just like to see someone make a similar film (a solid science fiction concept with the Enterprise facing an unknown threat) but with more action to appease the fans who can't sit still for a film that doesn't have a major action piece every fifteen minutes.

 

[Kelso]

I love TOS and the TOS movies, except I agree that TMP is excrutiatingly boring. Sometimes, if I'm having trouble falling asleep, I will put in my Director's Edition DVD of TMP and bam!, I'm asleep within 20 minutes. I mean, the first hour or so is assembling the crew and worrying about V'Ger.

I think by today's standards, it tries to be too grand. I get it, that this was the first real, good view of the Big E from the television show of 10 years prior, but still, this scene, at nearly 5 min, is simply too long (although the music is epic).

I never understood that complaint. Why do you say it is too long?

I've never understood it, either. I mean, where the hell do you need to go so badly that you can't spend a few minutes watching Captain Kirk return to the Enterprise? The movie really isn't that long.

I love TMP.

 

[Cryogenic]

What do I love about "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"?

Gee, I don't know. Could it be the superlative photography, the elegant production design, the gorgeous music, the brilliant effects and the powerful story?

ST:TMP is totally unparalleled in the Star Trek canon. It is beautifully made on every level and an elevated expression of Star Trek's finest attributes. Ex Astris, Scientia.

There is thought behind every frame, import to every shot, a richness to every scene, a profundity to the integrated whole. Star Trek was never this good before and it's never been this good again.

Or ... put another way:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/0Cryogenic0/ent.png

Visual nirvana.

Those who complain that TMP is "slow", "ponderous" and "boring" need to develop a deeper appreciation for art. Because TMP is deep and TMP delivers.

Consider the sequence in which Scotty takes Kirk to the Enterprise, where the above shot is from. It's played as a waltz, with Kirk gently dancing with his lover. It's not just a nice piece of cinema, but essential to the themes of the movie. Speeding it up or cutting it out would utterly cripple TMP. I also find it funny the ire that the look of the Enterprise and the look of the uniforms sometimes receive. I personally love the Earth-tone aesthetic. It immediately instills a sense of calm in my person and reminds me that these people are explorers first and everything else a distant second. I feel I'm watching an evolved TOS, which I'm sure is what Roddenberry was aiming to achieve.

There is a fundamental failure on the part of detractors to grasp what TMP is. In my opinion, it is an examination of desire and a commentary upon the need to temper desire with knowledge and reason. Accordingly, it is also about love. Love between people, love between people and ships, love between people and machines, a love of love itself. The film argues that the capacity to love is what makes us human. That's why Decker tells Kirk he wants to join with Ilia as much as Kirk wanted the Enterprise. In a different film, it might come across as absurd that one character is telling another such a thing by equating it with that other character's love for a piece of equipment, but in TMP, it makes perfect sense. Decker recognises and respects the deep love that Kirk has as identical in intensity to his own and Kirk at once assents. These characters' heightened understanding affords them peace and allows them to move forward, for the good of everyone. That's what Star Trek should always be about.

 

[RyanKCR]

That's not how I see it or how the plot sees it.

Yes, I know, Kirk's in wuv with his ship. I think they could have communicated that as effectively with a shorter scene.

That's not the plot point and it isn't what I got out of it. Watch TMP from the perspective of someone who had never really seen any of the episodes and you'll see how I came at it.

 

[GalaxyX]

The Director's cut of TMP brings it from a 6 out of 10 to an 8 out of 10 in my books. It cut out unnecessary bullshiat (like staring into the V'Ger screensaver cloud for 30mins, now it was only 10 mins lol) and it added stuff in the right places, like the scenes with SF and more exterior shots of the ship (thank you!). I also got to see V'Ger even if it looked like they ran out of money to polish the V'Ger CGI model, something I felt severely hurt the movie.