Opinions on TMP
- Thread starter Infern0
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I used to really like TMP, but recently I've found it to be one of the Trek films I watch the least. I frankly find it hard to sit through at times. That's not to say I don't like it at all - it's just not the most entertaining entry in the series, and I more often than not skip over it straight to TWoK. What I really like about it is that it's really reaching for a grand, big sci-fi idea. In some ways, I think it's kindred to TFF, but their flaws are very different. I also love the score by Jerry Goldsmith, and the visual effects are top notch for the period - even if they take up far too much screen time.
I just feel that TMP is rather, well... pompous. Call me a pleb, call me part of the lowest common denominator, but I get really bored of staring at characters staring at blue screen with blank expressions on their faces. TMP feels less like a good yarn and more of a pseudo-experimental tone poem. Moreover, the film doesn't have much emphasis on the characters, but rather the sci-fi concept - so Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura really have nothing to do but their usual business. Even Kirk seems a bit lethargic, which is exceptional given the fact that this is Shatner we're talking about! TMP also features my least favorite Trek uniforms - I mean, pastel pajamas with little booties sown in? Really?
I guess your enjoyment of TMP really depends on what you expect of a Trek film. I expect (in this order):
#1 - To be entertained.
#2 - To be left with thought-provoking ideas or questions.
It at least hits a mark on number 2, but it's such a chore to get to the end of the movie (with it's rather simple, last minute conclusion) that, for me at least, it fails on the more basic level of #1. To me, the film feels like it's just trying too damn hard to be the next 2001, and not just a good Star Trek movie. And that's all I have to say, folks.
I just feel that TMP is rather, well... pompous. Call me a pleb, call me part of the lowest common denominator, but I get really bored of staring at characters staring at blue screen with blank expressions on their faces. TMP feels less like a good yarn and more of a pseudo-experimental tone poem. Moreover, the film doesn't have much emphasis on the characters, but rather the sci-fi concept - so Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura really have nothing to do but their usual business. Even Kirk seems a bit lethargic, which is exceptional given the fact that this is Shatner we're talking about! TMP also features my least favorite Trek uniforms - I mean, pastel pajamas with little booties sown in? Really?
I guess your enjoyment of TMP really depends on what you expect of a Trek film. I expect (in this order):
#1 - To be entertained.
#2 - To be left with thought-provoking ideas or questions.
It at least hits a mark on number 2, but it's such a chore to get to the end of the movie (with it's rather simple, last minute conclusion) that, for me at least, it fails on the more basic level of #1. To me, the film feels like it's just trying too damn hard to be the next 2001, and not just a good Star Trek movie. And that's all I have to say, folks.
^^^Whereas I have the opposite view. The rest of the films settled for just being "good Star Trek movies" and missed the opportunity to make it something bigger and better. and "entertained" is such a subjective word...some of us are entertained by films that aren't necessarily fast paced and overtly dramatic.
I didn't see this one until ten years after it had come out, by which time I had heard over and over, "the first Star Trek film was bad."
So imagine my surprise when I bought the video, sat down to watch it, and fell in love with the thing! Sure, it's slow and doesn't have a sense of humor. But it never pretends to be any other kind of film, and I kind of like it for being itself. (Just on a sidenote, I had net yet seen the original series episode "The Changeling" which probably would have decreased my enjoyment of the film.)
I think it tells a beautiful story and has a lot of fun things throughout, such as the "getting the band back together" beginning and the getting to know V-Ger part. There are things I don't like too, but not many.
Certainly this isn't a film I'd want to show to my 7 year old nephew to keep him entertained. It's also not one that would break the bank at the box office like Star Trek IV. But for me, it's a winner!
So imagine my surprise when I bought the video, sat down to watch it, and fell in love with the thing! Sure, it's slow and doesn't have a sense of humor. But it never pretends to be any other kind of film, and I kind of like it for being itself. (Just on a sidenote, I had net yet seen the original series episode "The Changeling" which probably would have decreased my enjoyment of the film.)
I think it tells a beautiful story and has a lot of fun things throughout, such as the "getting the band back together" beginning and the getting to know V-Ger part. There are things I don't like too, but not many.
Certainly this isn't a film I'd want to show to my 7 year old nephew to keep him entertained. It's also not one that would break the bank at the box office like Star Trek IV. But for me, it's a winner!
I watch TMP (DE) more then any other Trek movie, its by no means perfect and maybe a little "uneasy" in places but there are so many big and little gems in there the biggest gem of course being the refitted Enterprise, I can't get tired of watching the tour around the ship. 
It made some decent money, and people are quick to attribute that to the fact that Trekkers would have paid to see anything at that point. While there's some truth to that, I think the film made a lot of the money it did because despite its flaws, it's a good film.
Star Trek IV, however, is in another league when it comes to commercial success.
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Initially, I found it fascinating, but not very entertaining in a sense (I saw it after I had already seen ST:V and ST:II). Over time, however, it has slowly rose up the ranks to become one of my favorite Trek movies. I love the look and feel of the movie, that was never in question, and while I didn't like the uniforms at first, over time they grew on me and I am fine with them, now. That said, it does have some extraordinarily dull moments, but I think they are few and far between. Overall, I can say that I do enjoy watching ST:TMP, even if it isn't first or second on my list. I will say this: If I ever get to build my own home theater (with seats, projector, large wall, etc), the first movie I'm throwing on is TMP. I have been itching to see it on the big screen for many years.
I saw Star Wars at around that age and loved it. Then two years later I saw ST:TMP and remember liking it better but didn't see it as often. For years I loved Star Wars but had a memory of this other space movie that really intrigued me. Later I saw it on TV and watching it any time it was on. Then years later I began to get a bit into the fandom and learned that was the movie not to like. I was stunned...it was the best one.
TMP was a flawed film, (Although the one thing I think isn't flawed is the music) but was still quite good, IMHO. However, it needs to be remembered that when this was made there were really only 2 sci-fi films of this magnatitude ever made, both very different in tone: Star Wars and 2001:A Space Odyssey.
I can see how TPTB would have ahd a hard time narrowing down how they wanted to present Trek on the big screen, and which film to use as a model. Yes, I know TOS predates both of these other films, but the studio and film makers were clearly influenced by these other films that were in the theaters before TMP.
TMP's film makers had very few models to emulate, or whose mistakes to consciously avoid. In some ways I feel they tried too hard to emulate 2001, particularly the slow shots of Enterprise flying through Vejur, but they tried. The film has lasted all these years because flaws and all, it's a good film.
Reading fans' opinions on the boards here has shown me one thing: Trek fans will NOT like something just because it's Star Trek. If it was such a bad film, it would have been long forgotten by most.
I can see how TPTB would have ahd a hard time narrowing down how they wanted to present Trek on the big screen, and which film to use as a model. Yes, I know TOS predates both of these other films, but the studio and film makers were clearly influenced by these other films that were in the theaters before TMP.
TMP's film makers had very few models to emulate, or whose mistakes to consciously avoid. In some ways I feel they tried too hard to emulate 2001, particularly the slow shots of Enterprise flying through Vejur, but they tried. The film has lasted all these years because flaws and all, it's a good film.
Reading fans' opinions on the boards here has shown me one thing: Trek fans will NOT like something just because it's Star Trek. If it was such a bad film, it would have been long forgotten by most.
I remember being amazed that they got the whole cast back in reasonably good form after ten years. Given that, I was able to forgive the film being quite slow. They had to indulge the fans who had waited so long.
It helps to think of it as a "1971" film rather than a 1979 one: that is, an epilogue (three years later in screen time) to the TV series rather than a start to the film series (which picked up in "real" time). In that context, all the incongruities are tolerable.
It helps to think of it as a "1971" film rather than a 1979 one: that is, an epilogue (three years later in screen time) to the TV series rather than a start to the film series (which picked up in "real" time). In that context, all the incongruities are tolerable.
All true. I was glad that they changed direction so quickly after this one nearly buried Trek for good.
Still, it's a really good-looking movie. Great visuals.
Absolutely. Many action junkies find it dull while as many others find it fascinating but flawed, and a few absolutely love everything about it. You can adjust the ratios for pretty much every film ever made and this movie is in the upper echelons in terms of its box office performance.
They wanted to to minimise cost to maximise profits in the sequels which accounts for many of the changes.
I don't. It took a very long time for the movie to turn a profit that made the expense and risk worthwhile, and the resulting change in attitude toward the property on the part of the folks who owned it was obvious in the actions they took after the release and the way TMP was received.
In the most literal terms, yeah, one way or another Paramount would eventually have emitted something else titled Star Trek in some venue or another. But if you look, for example, at the early versions of TWOK and give any weight to Bennett's accounts of the process it seems to me that the studio was willing to entertain any kind of proposal to use the property without much regard to its history as long as the project could be done on the cheap and therefore had a reasonable possibility of returning money based on drastically lowered expectations. That TWOK is much good at all owes entirely to the individuals who worked on it and very little to any guidance or requirements on the part of the people who approved and bankrolled it.
"Minimize?" "Maximize?"
It would be a very long time before another Star Trek film produced the kinds of returns that would have justified the risk of anything more than B-movie kind of funding.I don't think many people actually remember, from that time, just how anything-but-inevitable a sequel to TMP seemed in 1980. The first-run domestic return on what was estimated to be a 45 million dollar movie was pegged at about 56 million gross for quite a while. These much larger numbers that everyone throws around now were not showing up in the trades then, believe me.
Yeah but of course the aborted costs of Phase II are folded into the overall costs of the movie. Even if they had mantained the same standards as TMP, the costs of a sequel could have been less (subject to the actors' salary demands). As it was, they shaved off a lot of other expensive stuff, like alien ship designs and make-up and came up with a cracking action-based story. It would be fun to see what a hybrid TMP/TWoK could have looked like.
I'd like to think better writers could have come up with a more subtle line than, "... hours could seem like days."
I'd like to think better writers could have come up with a more subtle line than, "... hours could seem like days."
