Star Trek: The Motion Picture pretends profundity by throwing around underthought - well, "ideas" probably isn't the right term; the movie throws around underthought phrases as if they're somehow significant.
The most obvious is the central conceit of a "living machine." Now, there are contexts in which that phrase might represent some worthwhile idea, but in terms of how ST:TMP fails to investigate or elaborate upon it, it means no more or less that something like "subatomic waffle iron" or "self-rinsing avocado windshield."
Never mind the fact that *we* are "living machines" -- massive protein synthesisers, to be more exact -- and that V'Ger, in its own massiveness and existential nature, is a mirror for the basic truth of our own origin, functioning, limitations and desires. All of the dialogue and situations in TMP is deeply allegorical. I won't even bother to elaborate on the recurring emphasis of 3's, 6,s, 9's and 12's, seen from the opening sequence on, and what the numerical patterns mean in terms of truth, logic, emotion, balance and wisdom, since no-one on this forum, save perhaps a handful of TMP adherents, has the intellectual equipment to deal with the film, much less its esoterica.
And some of the "deep" messages that some claim to have gotten from TMP, when revealed to us, aren't really deep or anything useful.
In fact, this is one thing that some Trekkies who proclaim that Star Trek should have a message and supposedly "always had one" seem to not get... messages should be useful, at least. This is something that most of Star Trek's "messages" have failed to do. Therefore I am under the very safe assumption that these particular Trekkies simply want anything that they could perceive as "intelligent philosophy" merely for the sake of claiming that Star Trek has them, not because they actually represent anything intelligent or useful that we don't already know about through life experiences (if those messages are even relevant in that respect.)
Have fun with that. One of the cornerstones of speculative fiction is self-examination via extraordinary means; accordingly, there are many human ideas and themes being expressed and explored in TMP, all provoked by the onset of the V'Ger cloud. For those that appreciate the film and understand its workings, that is. To be honest, with your combined emphasis on the value of everyday experience and the need for everything to be immediately apparent and/or useful, you come off as disparaging the human intellect and human imagination. All great art and science exists, by and large, on the periphery of society, precisely because it doesn't satisfy, or even attempt to satisfy, the more pressing wants and needs of the human animal. That isn't what makes it great, per se, but it's usually part of the package nonetheless.
