Are Star Trek I and Star Trek V essentially irrelevant?

[gottacook]

...without TMP, there wouldn't have been a Trek movie franchise at all.

Yes, but it's also correct to say that TWOK was produced as a reaction to TMP - that is, as an example of what would be called today a film series rebooting after only one film (as in the case of, say, Superman Returns/Man of Steel, or Hulk/The Incredible Hulk) - and that its much more favorable reception (irrespective of a few TMP effects shots that were reused) is what led to the film series and thereby the various later TV series.

 

[Agenda]

I think there's an argument to be made that no matter how bad TMP was, it was still going to make money. Star Wars had just ended and the public was craving for more space adventure films with realistic effects. Star Trek had an advantage because it had tremendous name value, unlike anything out there at the time. Whatever success it achieved wasn't because it was a really good movie... it was because it was in the right place, offering the right type of product, at the right time.

I know that many Trekkies love this movie, but let's face it, almost everyone else is bored to shit by it.

TWOK, on the other hand, had to succeed on its own merits, despite not having a budget, despite not having any hype. If it doesn't succeed, it's likely the end of Star Trek for a while, at least on film. But it did. Also the following movies are based much more on the events of TWOK than on TMP. That too is due to TWOK's influence and success.

So I give much more credit to TWOK than TMP for rebooting the franchise.

 

[BillJ]

TWOK, on the other hand, had to succeed on its own merits, despite not having a budget, despite not having any hype. If it doesn't succeed, it's likely the end of Star Trek for a while, at least on film. But it did. Also the following movies are based much more on the events of TWOK than on TMP. That too is due to TWOK's influence and success.

So I give much more credit to TWOK than TMP for rebooting the franchise.

But TWOK benefited from the same name recognition and the fact that Star Wars was still the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Quite frankly, I don't think TWOK ever gets made without TMP.

 

[Captrek]

Star Trek VI - the second best of the films - actually makes more sense if you skip over V, because of Kirk's continued prejudice against Klingons, which seemed to be cured in V.

What do you see in TFF that makes you think Kirk’s antiklingonism is cured?

Even after the Klingons save his life, he refers to them as “Klingon bastards.” He accuses them of saving him only to hurt him, he clenches his fists and yells, ready to take them on. It’s not clear if anybody (besides the movie audience) sees that outburst, so I let him slide without apologizing... but a word of thanks for saving his life might have been appropriate, don’t you think? He looks at Kordd, Klaa, and the other Klingons with suspicion and obvious distaste, and then when he realizes they really did save him and aren’t harming him, he begins ignoring them rather than addressing any of them in any way that’s not overtly hostile. He never thanks the Klingons, acknowledges their role in saving his life, or acknowledges Klaa’s apology to him.

During the cocktail party, Klaa salutes Kirk from across the room and Kirk politely and briefly returns the salute before turning and walking in the other direction. Is that your basis for inferring that he’s “cured”? Because he actually made eye contact with a Klingon who just helped save his life and didn’t lunge at him?

You could skip TMP without sensing any loss of continuity.

I don't agree at all. The Spock of TWOK is a serene, balanced individual who's clearly surmounted his younger self's struggle with his emotional side. He has no problem engaging in the sentimental act of giving Kirk a birthday present, something his younger self would've scorned as a pointless ritual, and openly professes his friendship, something his younger self did occasionally but never so casually.

Sure, maybe you could assume that he just somehow loosened up in the intervening 15 years or so, but TMP actually shows you how it happened. The Spock that Nimoy plays in TWOK and in everything since then is directly informed by what Spock went through in TMP. It may be subtextual, but it's there.

You could also figure it’s a reasonable extrapolation from development we saw in TV.

You’re right that TV Spock wouldn’t have given Kirk a birthday present, and he would have scorned the pointless ritual.

Season One Spock would have said it and meant it.

Season Three Spock would have said it, then it would have been discovered that he had done something nice for Kirk’s birthday. He would claim some other, more logical, reason for having done it, and nobody would believe him.

That being said, I’m a big fan of both movies, I agree that the V’ger encounter, though perhaps not necessary, does add something to the journey, and surely influenced the way Nimoy portrayed the character in TWOK.



I think TFF works as a companion piece to TMP. Sybok’s journey in TFF is in a thematic sense the mirror image of his brother’s journey in TMP. I posted about it [thread=137506]here[/thread].

TMP tells us that “Logic and knowledge are not enough” — we need the human traits of “Other dimensions, higher levels of being,” which we might identify as emotion or spirituality. TFF depicts the folly of someone who allows “I know in my heart that it’s true” to trump his powers of reason.

Taken together they tell the story of two brothers who see two paths ahead of them: the path of logic and the path of emotion.

One brother, Spock, follows the path of logic. He seeks Kolinahr, which would completely separate him from the other path. He does not find his answers there. His encounter with a great consciousness calling to him from space teaches him that he needs something from the “emotion” path.

The other brother, Sybok, follows the path of emotion. He praises his Vulcan ancestors saying they “were ruled by their emotions.... They believed with their hearts.” His encounter with a great consciousness calling to him from space leads him to religious belief in the name of which he does terrible things despite being at heart a good person. His mistake is not taking what he should take from the “logic” path.

The composite theme is about how our “higher levels of being” can give purpose and meaning to our logic but should not supplant it. We need both paths, logic/knowledge and intuition/emotion/spirituality. We should not jump back and forth between them arbitrarily, but rather recognize the necessary role of each. It’s a more complete and interesting theme than either of the two films has without the other.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, but it's also correct to say that TWOK was produced as a reaction to TMP - that is, as an example of what would be called today a film series rebooting after only one film (as in the case of, say, Superman Returns/Man of Steel, or Hulk/The Incredible Hulk) - and that its much more favorable reception (irrespective of a few TMP effects shots that were reused) is what led to the film series and thereby the various later TV series.

Which only further proves my point. Even if TWOK was a reaction against TMP, it happened because of TMP. Impact is impact, even if it's negative. And while TWOK salvaged the film series, it was obviously TMP that started it. Because, duh, it was a motion picture. Says so right there in the title.

Take away TMP and what do you have? Maybe you have a Phase II television series that's a moderate success, in which case TWOK never exists. Maybe you have a Phase II TV series that flops quickly in the ratings, in which case Paramount loses interest in making any further Star Trek productions and again TWOK never exists. Maybe you have an abortive Phase II project that never got anywhere, in which case maybe something resembling TWOK gets made as a TV movie with a limited budget, maybe recycling some of the sets and costumes created for Phase II. Without a theatrical release or ILM effects, it's probably far less influential; maybe it does well enough to spawn a series of TV movies like the Perry Mason and Columbo revivals. Maybe Nimoy comes back for the TWOK-lite film, but maybe a series of TV movies can't offer him enough money to compete with his stage and film pursuits, so Spock stays dead. In any case, the past three decades of Trek history would've been profoundly different without TMP. It's absurd to say you can erase it without changing anything else.

 

[Captrek]

Yes, but it's also correct to say that TWOK was produced as a reaction to TMP - that is, as an example of what would be called today a film series rebooting after only one film (as in the case of, say, Superman Returns/Man of Steel, or Hulk/The Incredible Hulk) - and that its much more favorable reception (irrespective of a few TMP effects shots that were reused) is what led to the film series and thereby the various later TV series.

Which only further proves my point. Even if TWOK was a reaction against TMP, it happened because of TMP. Impact is impact, even if it's negative. And while TWOK salvaged the film series, it was obviously TMP that started it. Because, duh, it was a motion picture. Says so right there in the title.

Take away TMP and what do you have? Maybe you have a Phase II television series that's a moderate success, in which case TWOK never exists. Maybe you have a Phase II TV series that flops quickly in the ratings, in which case Paramount loses interest in making any further Star Trek productions and again TWOK never exists. Maybe you have an abortive Phase II project that never got anywhere, in which case maybe something resembling TWOK gets made as a TV movie with a limited budget, maybe recycling some of the sets and costumes created for Phase II. Without a theatrical release or ILM effects, it's probably far less influential; maybe it does well enough to spawn a series of TV movies like the Perry Mason and Columbo revivals. Maybe Nimoy comes back for the TWOK-lite film, but maybe a series of TV movies can't offer him enough money to compete with his stage and film pursuits, so Spock stays dead. In any case, the past three decades of Trek history would've been profoundly different without TMP. It's absurd to say you can erase it without changing anything else.

Christopher, I think you and gottacook are talking past each other. The thesis proposed is that we can remove TMP from canon without changing much, not remove it from history.

Without the failed pilot in 1964, there never would have been a second pilot, or The Menagerie and The Menagerie Part II, and Trek in general. I do not, however, consider that first pilot (except the parts that appear in The Menagerie) to be at all “relevant” in the sense the word is used in this thread.

 

[gottacook]

With all respect, why would a (moderately or otherwise) successful Phase II series have precluded a later Star Trek theatrical film? I was not a fan of The X-Files but I know that two different theatrical films, one during the run of the series and one much later, resulted. There may be other examples.

Of course there's no way to take this speculation far enough to hazard a guess as to whether Nimoy would have returned in a guest role in Phase II or in any movies (TV or theatrical) that might have resulted; it seems to me that a TWOK-like film could never have existed without Spock.

 

[BillJ]

Christopher, I think you and gottacook are talking past each other. The thesis proposed is that we can remove TMP from canon without changing much, not remove it from history.

But why would it need to be removed from canon? It's not like there's anything in either TMP or TFF that keep stories from being told. Neither film presents franchise changing events.

I'm confused by the whole "thesis".

 

[Agenda]

A Phase II series without Spock would have been death. He was the most interesting - and compelling - character in the entire show (sorry Jim).

 

[Mage]

It's no coincidence that they're also the weakest of the TOS films. .

You'll find that there are legions of fans out there that find The Motion Picture amazing! In your opinion it's a weak movie, but opinion isn't fact.

Personally (and this is an opinion) I find the first Trek movie fantastic, and somehow still reminds me of Christmas as a young kid, when I saw it for the first time on Boxing Day on the BBC. It's also very much a movie of it's era, I feel, making it somehow iconic to me.

 

[YARN]

I don't agree at all. The Spock of TWOK is a serene, balanced individual who's clearly surmounted his younger self's struggle with his emotional side. He has no problem engaging in the sentimental act of giving Kirk a birthday present, something his younger self would've scorned as a pointless ritual, and openly professes his friendship, something his younger self did occasionally but never so casually.

Sure, maybe you could assume that he just somehow loosened up in the intervening 15 years or so, but TMP actually shows you how it happened. The Spock that Nimoy plays in TWOK and in everything since then is directly informed by what Spock went through in TMP. It may be subtextual, but it's there.

You could also figure it’s a reasonable extrapolation from development we saw in TV.

You’re right that TV Spock wouldn’t have given Kirk a birthday present, and he would have scorned the pointless ritual.

Season One Spock would have said it and meant it.

Season Three Spock would have said it, then it would have been discovered that he had done something nice for Kirk’s birthday. He would claim some other, more logical, reason for having done it, and nobody would believe him.

That being said, I’m a big fan of both movies, I agree that the V’ger encounter, though perhaps not necessary, does add something to the journey, and surely influenced the way Nimoy portrayed the character in TWOK.

I agree.

 

[Christopher]

Christopher, I think you and gottacook are talking past each other. The thesis proposed is that we can remove TMP from canon without changing much, not remove it from history.

Well, first of all, that's not a thesis, that's a question. A thesis would be the statement of a proposed answer to that question.

And second, The Overlord's original question was this:

Star Trek 2, 3, 4 and 6 seemed to have running themes and an ongoing story, which Star Trek 1 and 5 don't really fit into. It seems like you skip those two films because don't really fit with the other 4 films. So are Star Trek 1 and 5 essentially irrelevant?

So the question was about whether their independence from the story arc of the other films made them "irrelevant." Asking whether they can be "removed from canon" without significant impact is a similar but still distinct question. It's certainly not the only valid way of evaluating the films' relevance. In fact, it strikes me as going off on a tangent from the core question.

To address The Overlord's question purely at face value, leaving aside any of the tangential issues, I would disagree with the implied premise that a story is only relevant if it connects to a larger arc. There is room in an ongoing series for standalone stories as well as arc-based stories. Both can be worthwhile. Every story, even if it is part of an arc, should be strong enough to have value as an individual unit. Does "The City on the Edge of Forever"'s relevance lie in the fact that it got an animated sequel in "Yesteryear," or in the fact that it was a hell of a good story strictly on its own merits? Would it have been less worthwhile if it had never been followed up on?

With all respect, why would a (moderately or otherwise) successful Phase II series have precluded a later Star Trek theatrical film?

It might not have, but the point I'm trying to make is that first there had to be the will on Paramount's part to make ST in movie form at all. It wasn't a given that that would happen. Paramount went back and forth for years between wanting to do a movie and wanting to do a new TV series. So I'm not just talking about the film itself, I'm talking about the underlying mentality at the studio that Star Trek was viable as a cinematic entity rather than strictly a television entity. It seems to me that a hypothetical reality in which TMP didn't get made would be a hypothetical reality in which Paramount decided in the end that Star Trek was meant for television rather than film. Conversely, if Paramount did think that ST was film-worthy at all, it follows that they would've made TMP.

I'll grant the possibility that this hypothetical Paramount regime could've been replaced by a later one that decided to give ST another try on the big screen, but then with different people in charge, they probably would've hired someone other than Harve Bennett to produce the film -- indeed, without the reaction against the huge budget of TMP, they wouldn't have gone to a TV producer like Bennett to save them bucks. So if there had been a movie, it would be impossible to imagine what it might've been like. There are just too many variables.

I was not a fan of The X-Files but I know that two different theatrical films, one during the run of the series and one much later, resulted. There may be other examples.

Actually it was fairly common in the '60s for TV shows to have feature film versions with their original casts while the shows were in production -- McHale's Navy, The Munsters, etc. But it was no longer happening by the '70s, until the Trek franchise came along and proved it viable again -- and even so, it remained unusual ever since, with the X-Files films not having a lot of company. Paramount was already developing a Trek revival, but they weren't convinced it should be done as a movie until Star Wars came along and changed everything. But if they'd still, for whatever reason, decided not to turn Phase II's pilot into TMP as a reaction to Star Wars, then that would imply it was unlikely they'd ever see ST as a movie property (unless, again, some new regime came in at Paramount). Maybe this is a universe where they decided to develop some other genre property to compete with Star Wars. Maybe it's a universe where Star Wars never existed, in which case science fiction might never have come to be seen as blockbuster-movie material at all and would've just stayed in the vein of Soylent Green and Silent Running.

Of course there's no way to take this speculation far enough to hazard a guess as to whether Nimoy would have returned in a guest role in Phase II or in any movies (TV or theatrical) that might have resulted; it seems to me that a TWOK-like film could never have existed without Spock.

According to a letter Roddenberry sent to Trek fans on October 22, 1977 (reprinted on pp. 46-7 of The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture), Nimoy "might consider long form television specials" but was unwilling to return to the weekly television grind, since it would detract too much from his stage and screen work.

 

[doubleohfive]

I like to think that Saavik was Sybok's illegitimate lovechild with some Romulan he met while in exile and that *that* is why Spock looks after her/is her mentor -- she's his niece.

Yeah yeah, I know -- its not canon that she's half-Romulan. Or, blah blah Spock gets her pregnant on Genesis and latter marries him in the books.

I think it adds a little more character to it all if Saavik and Spock are related this way, and it brings a little more value to TFF which is mostly not so good.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

No. IMHO both TMP and TFF are important parts of the narrative continuity of the Kirk era Star Trek movies.

I think you mistake what BillJ and I mean when we say "No." We're answering the OP's question: "Are Star Trek I and Star Trek V essentially irrelevant?"

We're saying no to that question and asserting that indeed they are very very relevant.

Sir Rhosis

 

[Gojira]

TMP is a big favorite of mine but yeah, it is a stand alone movie and in light of the rest of the original series movies it doesn't seem to fit. But I assure you it is relevant. It shows how are crew was reestablished for further adventures.

But knowing some time has passed between I and II in the Trek universe does make sense and covers the gaps.

Trek V is a guilty pleasure of mine but as someone said it would have been better if this had been a Klingon/Federation war movie setting up the peace they achieved in Trek VI.

The fact that Trek V does show them using the Enterprise A that they were assigned to at the end of IV and that they're using the same uniforms as the other 3 movies along with the references to Spock's death does make it fit into the continuity more than the First movie.

But I like all of Trek's movies even the "weak" ones.

 

[Galileo7]

In a word -- "No."

Agreed.

Agree.

No. IMHO both TMP and TFF are important parts of the narrative continuity of the Kirk era Star Trek movies.

I think you mistake what BillJ and I mean when we say "No." We're answering the OP's question: "Are Star Trek I and Star Trek V essentially irrelevant?"

We're saying no to that question and asserting that indeed they are very very relevant.

Sir Rhosis

I agree with you both. Sorry about the misunderstanding. I should have posted "Agree" because my "No" was also answering the thread question too and not directed at your post.

 

[ClayinCA]

According to a letter Roddenberry sent to Trek fans on October 22, 1977 (reprinted on pp. 46-7 of The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture), Nimoy "might consider long form television specials" but was unwilling to return to the weekly television grind, since it would detract too much from his stage and screen work.

Nimoy later claimed that Roddenberry didn't want him back on a regular basis for Phase II and that he was never even asked if he would come back as a regular. Apparently, Roddenberry's claims to the contrary can be filed under the same category as saying the network didn't believe a woman as second in command (after "The Cage"), when in point of fact what they didn't like was the casting of Majel Barrett.

 

[gottacook]

The fact that Trek V does show them using the Enterprise A that they were assigned to at the end of IV and that they're using the same uniforms as the other 3 movies along with the references to Spock's death does make it fit into the continuity more than the First movie.

Or it could be simply a matter of the costumes still being usable from II-III-IV, or, at the very least, cheap to recreate (versus designing new ones).

ALL Trek continuity in the six movies was ad hoc, all the way back to TMP's antecedent, the Phase II pilot. Despite this, we are impelled, for various unknown reasons of brain chemistry and evolution, to retrospectively try to fit the movie-to-movie changes into a pattern that does not in fact exist.

Of course, this is something that people do in non-fandom contexts as well.

 

[RyanKCR]

The Spock we meet in ST II is a very different person to the one we knew in TOS. He became that person during TMP, following both his attempted Kolinahr and his mind meld with V'ger.

Not really. Spock in the series is more balanced than the Spock in TMP. Spock dies in part II, so when we get to part IV with Spock coming to terms with his emotions "Tell her I feel fine" we know that he has been through a lot.

You could skip TMP without sensing any loss of continuity.

Then how would you explain Spock pulling a joke on Kirk and having a bit of fun with Saavik with the lines: "I exaggerated" and "remind me to explain to you the concept of the human ego?"

 

[Santaman]

TMP has its flaws but come on, there were some exceptional moments too, the tour around the refitted Enterprise, the visuals, the music.. TMP is the best SF movie of them all..

ST-5 I don't care about its damn flaws! its the best character momen t movie of them all!


Row row row your boat..

Nope they're very much not irrelevant, a little different, mwah maybe, so what?