INDIANA SKYWALKER MEETS SON OF STAR TREK
Movie reviewers, television reviewers, and Star Trek fans seem to be in general agreement: STAR TREK successfully translated Star Trek to the big screen, just as its precedessor (sic) failed to do so. In conventional terms, STAR TREK is certainly a better "movie" tha STTMP. But the spirit of Star Trek has always been to keep ahead of convention (suffering a bit for doing so, if necessary) and to pave the way for new and better standards. If one follows such logic, that Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a more authentic contribution to the shaping of Star Trek than was STAR TREK.
STAR TREK has a dramatic structure calculated to please the masses. An insane, bloodthirsty menace of a man has vowed his vengeance, and you may be sure that there will be plenty of torpedoes and flying guts before Good triumphs. STTMP offered no such dramatic handle to the viewer. If you weren't content to experience the journey toward, near annihilation by, and ultimate reconciliation with V'Ger, you didn't get you money's worth. This is why so many have commented that STTMP improves with multiple viewings: You watch it for a second time (or more) only if you are willing to experience it. You are open in a way that few who watch the film for the first time are.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture can best be appreciated by repeated viewings. STAR TREK, on the other hand, is a shoot-'em-up in the style of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark--very thrilling the first time you see it, but not much left for a second viewing. In essence STAR TREK is indeed a "movie," relying on suspense, which is exhausted once the action is run through. STTMP, on the other hand, is a film novel, revealing new patterns and nuances, new poetry, as it becomes more familiar.
If, as the Star Trek constituency, we claim to cultivate a sense of the future, we _must_ recognize STAR TREK as part of a contemporary phenomenon--the one-time, pay-for-thrill motion-picure show--that cannot last. . .
Beyond the sheer commercialism it embodies, the structure of STAR TREK raises philosophical questions to which we should be sensitive. The format is ironclad: Nero is evil, pure evil, and cannot be redeemed. Now just think back over all seventy-eight television episodes, and even the professional and fan fiction. When did you see a villain like this? An antagonist with whom meaningful communication is impossible, whose viewpoint cannot be comprehended by the Enterprise crew (or vice versa), an antagonist who can never by enlightened and with whom there can be no rapprochment, or even a truce? There was no villain like this in the series, but Nero is like this in the movie, because the premise of the plot would collapse if he were not. This is the first Star Trek in which there is a real alien: Nero himself.
The dramatic structure of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is purely within the developmental trends established by the series--so much so that many have repudiated it as a rehash of "The Changeling." Decrying the allusiveness of the film is something like giving demerits to Tolstoy or Faulkner because some of their novels depended upon characters or plot lines (or even whole passages) from earlier short stories. The themes of mistaken indentities and intentions, evolution in both human and nonhuman spectra, and the longing for identity through confrontation with one's creator are central Star Trek themes and we should consider them seriously whenever they are offered to us. "The Changeling" was indeed the sketch upon which the "novel" Star Trek: The Motion Picture was based, and that sums up the relationship between the two.
Many, many people (including Leonard Nimoy) have said that there is more of "the character" in STAR TREK. . . Much of this was ultimately edited out, since as an action film STAR TREK could not afford to linger over the development of characters who should, ideally, be interchangable with Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones. What about the movei to which we now have access: In peculiar ways, real violence was done to the characters. As the old proverb says, you should be wary of wiches, for they may come true. . . . If you want a lot of "the characters" in a movie, you should be prepared for things to happen to them.
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A movie, even a Star Trek movie, cannot consist of two hours of injuries, rescues, fistfights, resurrections, and counterlogical assaults on arrogant computers; and if you want something to "happen" to the characters, it has to be something that will not wear off in five minutes, and--one hopes--that is consistent with the characterization itself.
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THE ENTERPRISE
The transformation of an inanimate (in fact, nonexistent inanimate) object into a living presence was a special achievement of STTMP. The long approach of Scott and Kirk to the ship in the shuttle was a crucial step in this transformation, and this sequence may be taken as a study in the creative application of modern special-effects technology: The intent is not to startle, frighten, or thrill the viewer, but to creat a reality that did not exist before. . . Indeed, like a living entity (the _very_ "living machine" that V'Ger considers it to be), the Enterprise has a mood of its own, a patient, contmplative yet inquiring spirit.
In STAR TREK, the Enterprise has become, for all practical purposes, a battleship. . . And in its visual representation, the Enterprise has no independent existence. It is merely a part of the battle panorama, dodging, shooting, and rolling.
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KIRK
. . . This Kirk is marvelously blase and mature. He doesn't stop himself on the verge of temper outbursts, he doesn't muse aloud about how much wiser he is now than an hour ago. He doesn't have any eyeballing sessions with McCoy.
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SPOCK
Think of creating a scene in which Spock is supposed to squeeze Kirk's hand, profess that this "simple feeling" is superior to anything else in the whole universe. . .this scene works, against all odds. It is something that happens to Spock: and if you didn't think it showed, you missed the warm, meaningful looks he was giving his friend, the wisdoms he was speaking avbout V'Ger (himself), the new directness of his speech.
You probably missed them in STAR TREK, bcause they weren't there. . . For the first time, Nimoy has been miscast as Spock.
McCOY
Supporting actors can hardly be inconsistent, and since the doctor is only allowed to support, we recognize him always and everywhere. But as support, his role fluctuates according to what is happening to Kirk and Spock. In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the man shines. He has left the Federation--that sounds right--and he has been "drafted" back. His objectons are all authentic; we don't have to hear the explanations to believe it. . .
For Spock, the doctor does as much as he ever could--a little effusion, a little sarcasm, a little huffing and puffing, and a lot of waiting. If things are "happening" to Kirk and Spock, as they are in STTMP, McCoy must be there.
Only the artifical and ridiculous happens to the two in STAR TREK; inside them there are no events, and so the doctor is just hanging around. . Why is he standing around on the bridge. . . hands behind his back? Nothing to do. Nobody to talk to. When the doctor has nothing to say, you know you are far from the heart of Star Trek.
STAR TREK is an entertaining movie masquerading as a Star Trek adventure. . . The Star Trek figures, as scripted are unrecognizable. How did this happen?
One could point to individuals: producers and writers with other than the best integrity of the entire Star Trek phenomenon at heart; a director who has been doing for years . . . what he is commencing to do to Star Trek, and so on. But these people are only doing what they are suppposed to do: make popular movies--and STAR TREK was a _very_ popular movie.
The real problem, perhaps, is that we have not recognized that Star Trek has taken on a bilevel existence, and we must develop bilevel standards of appreciation. Space movies and action movies are the current trend. What smarter mover could there be than to make a popular space movie base upon culd heroes who have a broad and enduring constituencey? You'll grab the best from both worlds. If, in the process, you maul, disort, and kill those very heroes--so what? The object is to sell tickets. It will never be in the spirit of star Trek to wish for a closed, esoteric stratum into which popular and commercial values do not enter: on the other han, let's recognize the cynicism of STAR TREK for what it is. It is a kind of parallel universe, not our own.
The final arument for this point is the overall visual treatment of the figures in the two films. . . In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the pale hues of the ship and the uniforms serve to emphasize the human presence . . .
Compare this to the brutal lighting schemes of STAR TREK. The bridge of the Enterprise is bathed in and ugly haze (a cheap and convenient solution to the perennial problems of screen visibility). . .
STAR TREK not withstanding, the human adventure is still just beginning.
