Does anyone think TMP was a great movie for its first half?

[srombomb]

I remember as a kid, when my parents recorded TMP off of ABC Sunday Night at the movies, that TMP was a riveting movie from start to about halfway through. From there came all the film's issues.

The first half features great drama, action, and tension. You have the amazing opening scene of 3 klingon cruisers getting their ass handed to them. From there you get the interesting visuals of Vulcan, and seeing Spock for the first time. Then you get the great introduction of Kirk flying into Starfleet command, and then onto the memorable shuttle scenes as he and Scotty see the Enterprise for the first time. There is the tension established between Decker and Kirk when Kirk takes his command over without warning. The transporter incident was shocking, and scary at the same time. The wormhole mess, along with Mccoy's ass chewing of Kirk after that was great. However, right at about the point where the Enterprise endured its first attack from the cloud, this is where the film turns into an all out snoozer.

Too much dialogue, not enough movements or things for the characters to do when on screen except talk talk talk.

Even the ending felt very anticlimactic. Seeing Decker get turned into a laser light show from Disney just didn't do it for me. The music was amazing, but wasn't backed up by something super on the screen.

I think if Bob Wise had 6 more months to work the script issues out, we may have had a much better first film. The other thing that hurt was them giving up on the Kirk Memory wall spacewalk, as well as cutting out a security guard from firing a phaser at the probe that eventually swallowed ilia whole. Just a lack of punchy, edge of your seat scenes plagued the second half of this movie.

I also think the fact we never got to see where the Klingon ships went, and got some kind of payoff with them hurt the films final act. This is Star Trek, kids went to this movie, they wanted to see Klingons fighting in the end in my opinion. To include them at the very beginning of the movie, and then not revist by the end was a waste in my opinion.

Does anyone else feel the same way about the movie being very viewable the first half but not beyond?

 

[Data Holmes]

I agree it fell apart in the second half of the film.

 

[Middle Earther]

I think it came up in a few reviews when it first came out that the problem was that the characters were spending too much time staring at the screen. Whenever I get around to the seeing the movie again I fast forward through the entering V'Ger scene. What a yawn fest that part was!

 

[Grant]

It's fair until they meet the Vejur cloud and then it becomes a total bore.
This business about it being either great trek or great sci-fi is revisionist BS---it was considered neither in 1979.

Oh by the way I saw it an embarrassing 7 times in the theater !!!

It was trek fanatics like myself who supported it in 1979 even though we thought it was below par who made it possible for there be a trek 2 etc and the spin-offs.

We somply thought it would be the last new trek we'd ever see in our lifetimes and it was before the age of home video.

Paramount gave it one more shot and Bennett & Meyer saved it by going back to its roots. Action/adventure and character interaction.

 

[Data Holmes]

It's fair until they meet the Vejur cloud and then it becomes a total bore.
This business about it being either great trek or great sci-fi is revisionist BS---it was considered neither in 1979.

It was great effects work... that wasn't what failed. It was the story which failed and the in ability of Wise to direct his way out of that bag.

Had the story pulled out even a little at that point, or had Wise been able to work something up, then we'd be viewing it very differently.

I think that wise's problem was he was very much a script director. He never shoot from the hip. He shot what was on the page... Problem here being that there wasn't any pages to shoot at this point in the film beyond reaction shots and a few exposition moments.

So he fell back on the amazing effects. But effects alone will never help a movie, as so many find now a days with the over use and abuse of CGI in an attempt to make a shitty movie better...

No, TMP's failure at the second half was directly because of it's lack of a story.

 

[Freman]

Yes, sometime around the halfway point is usually when my brain starts to shut itself off.

 

[Grant]

Yes, it was salvagable at the halfway point but then it stops and we stare at the FX for what seems like forever. It then goes nowhere.

 

[JustKate]

There are people who love this movie all the way through - we just had a thread about this a few days ago: http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=92881

I don't love TMP, but I do like it. So neener neener neener neener!

 

[trevanian]

The thing is, they had FOREVER to fix the script, even before Wise was involved. There are memos from the IN THY IMAGE era of the script where Shatner has told them that the second half of act 3 is a serious drag that needs fixing, and that's without even knowing they were going to have all that out-the-window stuff.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

TMP was a pretty good movie up until half-way through the Enterprise-in-drydock-fly-around. At that point, folks started squirming and hitting the concession counter and restrooms.

 

[Kelso]

The only part that bores me is probe-Ilia wandering around the ship. Though, she did have nice legs.

 

[VulcanJedi]

Great concepts in the first half. The music for the Klingons. The terror of space and the Klingons out there in the deep hearts of fearful cosmos. And then... the way the Klingon ship was destroyed...each part of the ship dissapearing...scary!

The transport problems---terrifying! The rainbow warp? Was that in that movie? I like that effect. The shaky blurry problems when they have trouble warping---ALL GOOD.

Then boring after that.

 

[Stardate]

for me it had strong start and the ending was also strong. However in the middle it could have been done better. Apparently hey starting shooting before the script was finish. Also Wise didn't have time
to screen test the movie before realize it. I would have liked to see Kirk Memory wall spacewalk.
Paramount wanted movie out Christmas 79 however they should have postponed either to 21 December or 28 December. This would have given Wise a least couple of weeks to fix that could be fixed within time frame.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

This business about it being either great trek or great sci-fi is revisionist BS---it was considered neither in 1979.

That's odd, I seem to recall considering it such in 79.. and today as well. Great movie from start to finish

 

[Captain Mike]

Being 12 years old at the time and sitting in the front row after watching all the syndicated episodes, I was in awe of the film. I liked the story as well as the SPFX and never thought any different of it even to this day. Watching it now I still disagree that the movie is boring in any way.

 

[Gepard]

The thing is, they had FOREVER to fix the script, even before Wise was involved. There are memos from the IN THY IMAGE era of the script where Shatner has told them that the second half of act 3 is a serious drag that needs fixing, and that's without even knowing they were going to have all that out-the-window stuff.

I'd wondered about that; it's interesting that memos reprinted in the Reeves-Stevens' Phase II book address issues that survived into the final film: Decker being a stick in the mud for most of the story until the end when he "suddenly mellows into a team player," McCoy not really doing anything except wandering into scenes and snarking inappropriately about stuff, the last act concerns you mentioned...

Is there anyone here who has more information on why nobody took a serious look at the structural problems with the In Thy Image/Motion Picture screenplay?

 

[Firebird]

TMP definitely had a strong beginning and end, but the endless revisions definitely showed towards the last 1/4 of the movie.

Looking back at the scripts that I've got for TMP, there are at least FIVE different concepts for ending the movie... and FOUR of those were after the shooting script was "locked down". They really were having one hell of a time with the story!

 

[trevanian]

The thing is, they had FOREVER to fix the script, even before Wise was involved. There are memos from the IN THY IMAGE era of the script where Shatner has told them that the second half of act 3 is a serious drag that needs fixing, and that's without even knowing they were going to have all that out-the-window stuff.

I'd wondered about that; it's interesting that memos reprinted in the Reeves-Stevens' Phase II book address issues that survived into the final film: Decker being a stick in the mud for most of the story until the end when he "suddenly mellows into a team player," McCoy not really doing anything except wandering into scenes and snarking inappropriately about stuff, the last act concerns you mentioned...

Is there anyone here who has more information on why nobody took a serious look at the structural problems with the In Thy Image/Motion Picture screenplay?

I don't remember if they talk to livingston for the phase II book, but I remember he is interviewed in the unauthorized TREK THE LOST YEARS book, and I'm pretty sure he said he just didn't know how to solve the act 3 issues, but that he felt pretty good about the rest of it in terms of making the character seem more mature.

The guy who gave the feedback that you quoted on IN THY was from ParamountTV,wasn't he? Cuz he seemed to have his head on straighter than all the rest of the execs involved.

 

[Penhall99]

I've always liked TMP, especially the Director's Edition. But yeah, I think the movie's problems begin when the Enterprise reaches V'ger.

I do think that the movie picks up a bit more when Spock zips through V'Ger in his thruster suit, though.

 

[trevanian]

Jon Povill didn't think much of it, but director Bob Collins did make a try at the script after HL and GR and HL again. The Collins version has the original 'big finish' ... the one that after I heard it described, sounds like the one that would have worked best (Povill disagrees strongly on this point), the one where the light show triggered off is a giant series of visuals and sounds derived from the info within voyager6's onboard laserdisk.

NOBODY seems to have seen the Collins draft outside of production way back when ... I read the GR version (they used to sell copies) and the HL version (in the p2 book) and neither of them have much of an ending, while both have the 'movie stops dead halfway through' problem.

I don't think anybody has seen the Dennis Clark version either, but that was the first writer Wise had on after he signed to direct, before he got desperate and had paramount bring HL back. The only Clark interview I recall has him not remember much of anything about the script, just about having to duck Nimoy and Shatner because their input was not wanted.

I keep thinking somebody has a drawer with the Clark and the Collins and maybe even PLANET OF THE TITANS (which to me would be a lot more interesting to read, especially the Kaufman treatment), but even so, they'll probably go on ebay for a mint and a half.

The second half of act 2 is where most movies go to Hell for me, so it isn't just TMP that has the problem. Shoot, the biggest lag -- i.e., smoke break -- in TWOK for me is the Kirk/Carol scene inside Regula, but they bounce right back with "I don't like to lose."

Usually the second half of act 2 needs to do with escalating the danger and deepening the relationships ... in TMP, they just keep pushing scale issues and escalating the 'who is vger?' mystery, which is a guaranteed buildup-to-disappoint for most.

Ideally the Kirk/Decker issue would have continued to escalate, or McCoy would have had to step in to do something authoritative. But wouldn't all of this take away from the main story? Maybe, maybe not. If you made the second half of act 2 a matter of sorting out the command situation (so they were presenting a unified front in which everybody contributed) WHILE Spock went off and did his meld, then maybe things would have seemed more active.

Or here's another thought ... toss out the wormhole completely. That gets you to vger a bit quicker, since you hold back on the mccoy lecture too. Don't have Kirk seem to make a mistake until the vger approach ... and then have him make a command that would have them miss the intercept, and have Decker correct for it.

That way, WHILE they make their approach through the cloud, you have the kirk mccoy debates, maybe in the lounge so you see the great views outside WHILE there is character stuff going on in the foreground. You bring up the Spock reliability issues here as well, or bring them up AFTER the flyover, after Ilia gets pinched and right before she is returned.

Yeah, getting to vger faster and then having more issues to deal with then just looking out the window and asking what are you? seems to work better, but I'm just typing this off the top of my head.