TMP's pacing problems have been evident since the original theatrical release.
Rewatched TMP last night
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What is the "universal meaning" of TMP?
Don't send deep space probes to the Borg planet? Or, it's okay to merge with alien AIs as long as it's a heterosexual relationship?
I believe the meaning of TMP is not in any answer it provides, but rather in the question it poses. Decker says (in one if the many versions of the film) "We all create God in our own image." What does it mean if that is true? The Ilia probe says V'ger only considers other machines to be "true" life forms. Is that what we all do - go through life thinking less and less of others the more unlike us they are? And conversely, revel in the echo chamber of those with whom we find kinship? Why would we make God in our own image, if not to elevate ourselves?
While the execution certainly isn't at Kubrick's level, the ambition exceeded even 2001, in my opinion. It always struck me as kind of cool that Roddenberry turned 2001 on its head in this movie. In 2001, man discovers his Creator is an alien. In TMP, an alien (carrying a probe made by man) discovers its Creator is human. And in so doing, Man takes the place of God.
Wow. That's some Roddenberry on steroids.
This was probably brought up before, but I think the main reason that it made a lot of money was that people (fans and casual fans) were looking for the action sci-fi adventure they got with "Star Wars." Without Google, Facebook, and Youtube you have a lot of moviegoers paying to see a movie and adding to it's boxoffice total....
I recall being a Star Trek fan back in grade school and having people tell me that Star Trek is 'boring.' And, as someone who thought the classic series had its fair share of action....it didn't occur to me that many of these kids figured it was boring based on TMP.
(And, for the longest time, I think Trek was for a niche audience. Still is, in many ways, but I think the 2009 film has brought in various types of fans).
What is the "universal meaning" of TMP?
Don't send deep space probes to the Borg planet? Or, it's okay to merge with alien AIs as long as it's a heterosexual relationship?
I believe the meaning of TMP is not in any answer it provides, but rather in the question it poses. Decker says (in one if the many versions of the film) "We all create God in our own image." What does it mean if that is true? The Ilia probe says V'ger only considers other machines to be "true" life forms. Is that what we all do - go through life thinking less and less of others the more unlike us they are? And conversely, revel in the echo chamber of those with whom we find kinship? Why would we make God in our own image, if not to elevate ourselves?
While the execution certainly isn't at Kubrick's level, the ambition exceeded even 2001, in my opinion. It always struck me as kind of cool that Roddenberry turned 2001 on its head in this movie. In 2001, man discovers his Creator is an alien. In TMP, an alien (carrying a probe made by man) discovers its Creator is human. And in so doing, Man takes the place of God.
Wow. That's some Roddenberry on steroids.
Agree.
In 1979, as a boy I first saw Kubrick's 2001 and Wise/Roddenberry's TMP. I have had nothing but awe and respect for both films ever since.
That's a nice way of contrasting the two films.
I don't believe that TMP goes quite this far, though. Certainly, at no point does the film posit that humanity is the equal of the creator of the universe; V'ger's knowledge and power are understood to exceed human knowledge and power in many respects. Moreover, the final tagline, "The human adventure is just beginning," unambiguously implies that humanity still has a long way to go to achieve actual godhood.
And, about that final tagline, I really wonder if there's a suggestion in it that someday we will meet our creator, not in the afterlife, but in this one, or in other words that someday we will have completed the "adventure" of finding our creator, as V'ger finally found its creator. If that's the intended implication, then it contradicts straight-out the notion of mankind taking the place of God.
edited to add: Two interpretations of final tagline were always pretty obvious to me, along the lines of:
"We've seen only a little of what's out on the final frontier."
"We've only just begun to discover our potential."
"We've only just begun to discover our potential."
The third meaning I've proposed strikes me as much less banal:
"We've only just begun on our journey to discover our creator."
Perhaps the intended meaning is a combination.
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A lot of what we think about Kirk and the other characters has been influenced by TWOK and after. In the Trek that existed in 1979, Kirk could be a cocky action hero type, or a lighthearted con-man, or a serious and uptight commanding officer and so on. There was less of a clear idea of what a Kirk character "should" be like when TMP was made. Plus, it was being made as a movie after a ten year absence with something of a clean-slate attitude: No reason a story can't be told with an older Kirk in a somewhat different place than he was in the series.
That's true of course. But personally I still think a lot of TMP's reputation as terrible, boring etc. was cemented with the ABC TV broadcast of the "special longer version" in early '83. The way it was cut up for commercials made it interminable. You would come back from a commercial, there would be some V'ger scenery, the cast would look at it, maybe a line or two of dialogue, and then another commercial, and nothing had happened! And it went on for hours like that. And of course there wasn't the big-screen visual grandeur or high quality music to weigh on the positive side. The contrast with the melodrama and action of TWOK, still fresh in many memories from less than a year earlier, was immense.
Of course this is anecdotal, and I was barely a teenager at the time, but I did talk a lot about Star Trek to friends and read things like Starlog and the Best of Trek books. It seemed like around that time a lot opinions on TMP changed from "It was OK" to "It sucked!" and lukewarm enthusiasm to hatred. And that became the conventional wisdom. I don't think I heard a positive word about TMP for about 20 years. I remember someone asking Mark Lenard a TMP question at a convention in the late '80s, and people in the audience audibly scoffed, as if TMP was an aberration that wasn't worth discussion and should be forgotten.
It may be that after 30 years of schlocky action sci fi, we can look back and appreciate something that dared to be different more than at the time when schlocky action was new and exciting.
Somebody mentioned the Andromeda Strain earlier. The movie is great but the recent remake mini-series, with a larger and more handsome, more youthful cast being all dynamic and involved in dreary relationship issues, was so derivative that it bored me to tears.
Somebody mentioned the Andromeda Strain earlier. The movie is great but the recent remake mini-series, with a larger and more handsome, more youthful cast being all dynamic and involved in dreary relationship issues, was so derivative that it bored me to tears.
Good post with some interesting interpretations.
I've always liked Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I also like "schlocky action sci-fi", there's room in the universe for both.
"Competent journeyman?" The man who made West Side Story, The Haunting, The Sound of Music, The Sand Pebbles, and Star! all in the same decade?
This may be true, but there were also changes of opinion during TMP's original run. I recall in particular - I still have the clippings somewhere - Desmond Ryan's initial unreservedly glowing review in the Philadelphia Inquirer, followed a few weeks later by backtracking by the same reviewer in the same newspaper.
A while back, I checked out what I could find on the internet with regard to original TMP reviews from 1979. Positive ones, like Roger Ebert's, tended to compare it favorably to 2001, etc. The negative ones usually felt it was over-reliant on special effects or that the plot seemed lifted from old Trek TV episodes, but I don't remember a lot complaining about the pacing - the closest I can remember was one reviewer thinking there was a little too much of watching the crew react to stuff on viewscreens for his liking. Probably because movies (and TV) in general tended to be slower paced forty years ago.
But I'm with J.T.B. that there did seem to be a big backlash towards TMP in the 80s. I'm sort of curious of the demographics of such: was it largely from folks who were introduced to Trek through reruns as kids in the 70s, weaned on Star Wars, and "came of age" (if you will) as adolescents in the era of whiz-bang 80s blockbusters, which made TMP seem like even more of a dinosaur?
But I'm with J.T.B. that there did seem to be a big backlash towards TMP in the 80s. I'm sort of curious of the demographics of such: was it largely from folks who were introduced to Trek through reruns as kids in the 70s, weaned on Star Wars, and "came of age" (if you will) as adolescents in the era of whiz-bang 80s blockbusters, which made TMP seem like even more of a dinosaur?
Roger Ebert's glowing review of TMP is here:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-trek-the-motion-picture-1979
For the other half of Siskel & Ebert, Gene Siskel's mixed review of TMP is here:
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...tar-trek-film-is-ok-but-not-out-of-this-world
There are at least several places that I can point to in Siskel's review that can be fairly interpreted as him having problems with the pacing.
By the way, I'd like to praise the Chicago Tribune for their archive browsing system. That's pretty elegant.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-trek-the-motion-picture-1979
For the other half of Siskel & Ebert, Gene Siskel's mixed review of TMP is here:
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...tar-trek-film-is-ok-but-not-out-of-this-world
There are at least several places that I can point to in Siskel's review that can be fairly interpreted as him having problems with the pacing.
By the way, I'd like to praise the Chicago Tribune for their archive browsing system. That's pretty elegant.
Among my newspaper clippings from 1979-80, someplace downstairs, is a Philadelphia Daily News review of TMP that specifically addressed pacing, headlined "Screen's too big for Trek." This headline accurately reflected what the reviewer perceived as TMP's periodic crises too closely resembling the rhythm of a TV series episode - that is, a crisis before each commercial break, but without the breaks.
I didn't mean "Man becomes God" but rather that by the end, in V'ger's mind, Man is God. V'ger can't imagine a creator unlike itself. When it is confronted with the reality that its creator is a "carbon-based unit" it must change to accomodate the knowledge. The result is seeing Man as God and, as McCoy says, the desire to "touch God".
I don't think the message is so much that Man is God as that Man's own ideas of God have to adapt as a result of the experience of being seen in that way. It is in my view the most profound thing about this story. It is much more profound than the rehash of 2001 that was "The God Thing". It's one thing to come to grips with being the creation of an alien species. It's an entirely different thing to be seen as a creator by the thing you've created.
Just ask any parent. Though parents quickly become disabused of any notions of being infallible.
I agree that TMP compares Man to God strictly in terms of how V'ger sees what it considers to be its creator. Sorry for the confusion.
The notion that our ideas about how we came about change the closer we get to discovering the actual history of creation is a very nice takeaway from the film. It has certainly been born out as religious myth has given way to scientific understanding. If the human adventure is really just beginning, then no doubt our present understanding will ultimately prove wanting in various ways, too.
I think that is exactly what we do and what we've always done.
And let's not forget The Day The Earth Stood Still decades earlier.
(And I'm personally fond of The Body Snatcher and Curse of the Cat People, too.)
The man has several bona fide classics on his resume, and at least two truly great science fiction movies in Andromeda Strain and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Although The Haunting is probably still his best genre film.
He also did Run Silent, Run Deep, a film that had a not insignificant impact on TOS and TMP.
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