Entertainment Weekly Reviews The Star Trek Movies

[Mudd]

Here at the MacArthur in DC - not the "gala premiere" with the actors, but the public opening on the 7th - the audience was very loud for the first twenty minutes or so. Cheers for the Klingons, cheers for the first appearance of Spock, Kirk, and so forth.

It settled down. The big flight around the Enterprise was obviously too long and slow (not that fans didn't appreciate it), the V'Ger flyover was interminable. That the movie was neither dramatic or exciting enough to be a "hey, everybody, you have to go see this!" thing like Star Wars had been in the spring of 1977 was painfully obvious.

Harlan Ellison wrote a review of the movie in 1980 for Starlog or Future Life - I don't remember which, they were almost interchangeable in terms of format and style - in which he described the audience response to the movie when he saw it in terms that were very familiar to me - big initial excitement, ending with the audience filing out of the theater kind of talking low among one another and telling the folks in line out front "it's good...yeah, it's pretty good..." in tones that carried about as much concern as conviction.

The eventual numbers on the thing were supposedly something like 170 million, but at the time Variety reported its domestic gross in first run at about 56 million dollars - good, but not Star Wars numbers.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'm pretty sure that Ellison article was in STARLOG.

What I also remember is that the similarity to "The Changeling" did not go unnoticed by the fan crowd. "Where Nomad Has Gone before" jokes, etc.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'm pretty sure that Ellison article was in STARLOG.

What I also remember is that the similarity to "The Changeling" did not go unnoticed by the fan crowd. "Where Nomad Has Gone before" jokes, etc.

I remember making that joke.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

A nice, thoughtful article, although some of the "it's impossible to imagine what audiences made of the movie way back then" stuff made me raise an eyebrow or two.

Excuse me? It's not like we're talking about Birth of a Nation here. Many of us who first saw the movie back in in 1979 are still very much alive . . .

I do remember feeling rather odd when the KKK came in at the very end and rescued the Enterprise crew from V'Ger.

IMO, TMP is ultimately a pretty bad film, but it has some great aspects, and I certainly would never fault its ambition.

This is more or less how I feel about the film as well. Yeah, it doesn't accomplish a lot of what it's going for, but at least it's trying. I have to give it credit for trying to be as thoughtful and ambitious as it was when they could've easily just done a simple shoot 'em up in space. It's a 2/5 for me. 3/5 if you catch me on a generous day.

 

[RAMA]

I had the issue of Starlog where Harlan wrote the review and it was scathing. Problem is, even if you were entertained by the movie, it was really hard to disagree with him.

http://mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/2014/10/harlan-ellison-reviews-sttmp.html

RAMA

 

[thumbtack]

Well, it does fit in with a mentality that if you're over thirty your opinion doesn't matter anymore.

Thirty-four, under most scenarios. But not all.

Even though I'm well aware that I'm aging along with everyone else, I did get a giggle from the author's assumption that 1979 is shrouded in antiquity. I can't wait until he gets to the TNG movies... "One wonders what those ancient barbarians of the 90's must have thought seeing Kirk die".

 

[Greg Cox]

At the risk of channeling my inner curmudgeon, there is a tendency in modern entertainment journalism to assume that they're writing solely for people for whom BACK TO THE FUTURE is a beloved childhood classic, as opposed to those of us who grew up on old Ray Harryhausen movies and still regard BACK TO THE FUTURE as a "modern" film.

Just the other day, there was an article on a popular website about "Classic SF and Fantasy Movies We Loved as Kids."

Dare I mention that every one of the movies was from from the eighties?

 

[RAMA]

If you grew up with 50s movies as being 20 years behind and "ancient", you're not just one, but 3 generations of movie fans behind.

I am now subject to people telling me the 90s movies and music were classics or old. My nephew told me yesterday any music before the 2000s is old(2000 WAS 16 years ago).

 

[Greg Cox]

It's funny. A friend and I were griping a while back about the fact that kids these days don't watch classic movies on TV the way we did when when we were growing up. Then we realized that, no, people do still watch old movies on cable--except that now those classic oldies are JAWS and THE TERMINATOR and the like, as opposed to say FORBIDDEN PLANET or THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

It was sobering to realized that STAR WARS is older now than FORBIDDEN PLANET was back in the day. Which I guess makes FORBIDDEN PLANET positively prehistoric to modern journalists, while THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN or THE WOLF MAN might as well be cave drawings of mastodons . . ..

 

[Maurice]

Just to play devil's advocate, though... that was almost 40 years ago. Do you actually remember your reactions *from the time*, or have your recollections been coloured by the experiences of almost forty intervening years, along with a hearty mix of nostalgia?

I remember my first reaction very clearly. I loved it. I remember loving it for its scale and scope and its more serious treatment of space than the series. BUT I was 16, and the more times I saw it the more flawed I realized it was, ultimately realizing that most of what I was responding to was the world and the visuals (many of which remain awesome to this day) but not the story or characters (Bones' zingers aside).

 

[Trekfan12]

Here at the MacArthur in DC - not the "gala premiere" with the actors, but the public opening on the 7th - the audience was very loud for the first twenty minutes or so. Cheers for the Klingons, cheers for the first appearance of Spock, Kirk, and so forth.

It settled down. The big flight around the Enterprise was obviously too long and slow (not that fans didn't appreciate it), the V'Ger flyover was interminable. That the movie was neither dramatic or exciting enough to be a "hey, everybody, you have to go see this!" thing like Star Wars had been in the spring of 1977 was painfully obvious.

Harlan Ellison wrote a review of the movie in 1980 for Starlog or Future Life - I don't remember which, they were almost interchangeable in terms of format and style - in which he described the audience response to the movie when he saw it in terms that were very familiar to me - big initial excitement, ending with the audience filing out of the theater kind of talking low among one another and telling the folks in line out front "it's good...yeah, it's pretty good..." in tones that carried about as much concern as conviction.

The eventual numbers on the thing were supposedly something like 170 million, but at the time Variety reported its domestic gross in first run at about 56 million dollars - good, but not Star Wars numbers.

where is the Macarthur?

 

[Mudd]

On MacArthur Boulevard in Washington DC. The public world premiere of ST:TMP was held there on December 7th, 1979 - there had been an invitation-only gala on the 5th or 6th with the producers, cast and a lot of Washington types.

I had a one-inch square piece of the red carpet from that in my wallet for years until I was mugged and lost the whole thing.

 

[RAMA]

I remember seeing it after it had been out for a while at a gathering with a film projector on a good size screen...not a movie theater. I was probably 11 years old or so, before I considered myself a Trekkie. I recall excitement, a fairly large audience, and slowly people started disappearing until there were less than half the original audience left. I started to get bored part of the way through. I didn't see the movie again till the late 80s, when I bought the extended edition VHS.

 

[Greg Cox]

More memories: I remember they were actually handing out (selling?) program books for the movie on opening night . . ..

There's something you don't see much anymore.

 

[Warped9]

I saw the film twice. The first time on opening weekend in a standard theatre. The second twice was sometime later on an IMAX screen at Ontario Place.

Seeing the Klingon ships and then the Enterprise on an IMAX screen was stunning. We understand those ships are supposed to be big, but seeing them on an IMAX screen really gets that idea across.

 

[Khan 2.0]

I had the issue of Starlog where Harlan wrote the review and it was scathing. Problem is, even if you were entertained by the movie, it was really hard to disagree with him.

http://mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/2014/10/harlan-ellison-reviews-sttmp.html

RAMA

on that third page of Ellisons review he mentions how TMP was a synthesis of at least 4 eps (Corbomite, Changeling, Immunity, Doomsday). for years the last 3 were obvious to me but never realised about Corbomite until now and yes its quite similar when thinking about it

maybe TMP needed some 'City on The Edge' magic worked in somehow (Kirk and Spock go back in time upon entering Vger )

 

[Khan 2.0]

More memories: I remember they were actually handing out (selling?) program books for the movie on opening night . . ..

There's something you don't see much anymore.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture_(program) .

 

[Greg Cox]

"Local printings were available internationally throughout its initial run."

Yep, I certainly didn't attend the gala premiere in D.C., but I remember the programs being available on opening night at some theater in Bellevue, WA . . . or maybe Everett, WA? My memory is a little fuzzy there.

 

[Khan 2.0]

there was also the same glossy 20page programs for STII and III as well as a bunch of other movies Superman II etc. I remember there was an advert in starlog (probably) showing all the movie programs you could order and wanting various ones but couldn't send for them as was in UK

but they were available at the cinemas. I remember desperately wanting the Superman II one but didnt get it (until ebay in 99) I remember my much older bro coming back with the STIII one after hed seen it opening day and was looking through it and was fascinated by the big photo on the 2nd page of the little people standing ontop the hill looking at the falling star/comet and wondering what it was and my bro blurted out 'that's the Enterprise!' to my and everyone elses dismay. he ruined it lol )

 

[Kor]

I had the issue of Starlog where Harlan wrote the review and it was scathing. Problem is, even if you were entertained by the movie, it was really hard to disagree with him.

http://mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/2014/10/harlan-ellison-reviews-sttmp.html

RAMA

The duty jacket in the ad is pretty sweet.

Kor