ST:TMP-Why DID they think it was what fans waited for?

[Mutara Nebula 1967]

Right off the gun let me say I know there ARE fans passionate about this movie.
But the fact remains it was clearly creatively a dissapointment...if not all subsequent TOS movies would feature the Pajama uniforms and the look and feel of TMP. Just as TREK II influenced all the movies to come afterwards. TPTB knew it needed retooling and that's what Meyer and Bennet did.

So I'm just wondering why GR and crew thought that after 10 years of waiting fans would want to see.

A SPOCK trying to be totally emotionless and acting like his friends and crew members meant nothing to him.

KIRK as an Admiral when clearly he belonged as a captain.

A nebulous (no pun intended) "villian" who wasn't really even a villian in the truest since.

Sticking Rand in there and not really identifying her.

Uhura could pull off her fan dance in V but couldn't carry a mini skirt in TMP.

I could go on but the bottom line is that its mystifying how they could make a STAR TREK film that felt almost nothing like the 79 episodes fans had been watching year after year.

P.S. For the record TREK III really pulled off the feeling of Trek and what these characters were all about and how they related to each other. That was a well done movie compared to TMP which was all Flash and litte Substance.

 

[rocketscientist]

Right off the gun let me say I know there ARE fans passionate about this movie.
But the fact remains it was clearly creatively a dissapointment...if not all subsequent TOS movies would feature the Pajama uniforms and the look and feel of TMP. Just as TREK II influenced all the movies to come afterwards. TPTB knew it needed retooling and that's what Meyer and Bennet did.

So I'm just wondering why GR and crew thought that after 10 years of waiting fans would want to see.

A SPOCK trying to be totally emotionless and acting like his friends and crew members meant nothing to him.

KIRK as an Admiral when clearly he belonged as a captain.

A nebulous (no pun intended) "villian" who wasn't really even a villian in the truest since.

Sticking Rand in there and not really identifying her.

Uhura could pull off her fan dance in V but couldn't carry a mini skirt in TMP.

I could go on but the bottom line is that its mystifying how they could make a STAR TREK film that felt almost nothing like the 79 episodes fans had been watching year after year.

P.S. For the record TREK III really pulled off the feeling of Trek and what these characters were all about and how they related to each other. That was a well done movie compared to TMP which was all Flash and litte Substance.

Well, I agree with you about TMP being at least slightly dissapointing. That's how I felt as a kid when I first saw it and that's what I think now. It's a great hard sf movie, but not a great ST movie. I think the best ST films, TWOK, TSFS, TVH, TUC, and FC got it right.

As for why GR got it wrong with this one, why he wanted to go with that story/screenplay, well, he made a mistake. You might as well ask why Berman wanted the GEN, INS, and NEM screenplays. He was raving about NEM before it came and bombed and to this day, doesn't understand why it failed so completely. To sum it up, sometimes the guys in charge don't have a clue.

 

[blockaderunner]

I think that, in the wake of Star Wars, GR wanted to be so stylistically and thematically different from that movie (which, to Lucas' credit, emulated the camradere and spirit of fun and adventure of TOS but with more space battles) so he emulated a film that was the polar opposite, 2001: A Space Oddessy, which resulted in characters who once had incredible chemistry on the small screen, only to be stiff and bland as formica on the large screen, echoing a harbinger of things to come in the first few seasons of TNG. Bennett and Meyer knew that, pop philosophy aside, Trek was always about a great adventure and brought it back to that in TWOK.

 

[Maurice]

First. G.R. didn't pick the story...Mike Eisner did, suggesting turning the Phase II pilot into a film.

Second, nobody knew what people "want" to see. The design esthetic of the 60s would have seemed woefully antiquated in 1979. They decided to go more futuristic and real...they made some bad choices. They made some good choices (Kirk's Admirmal uniform).

Third, the characters are not bland. They are troubled. They're disconnected. The film is about finding yourself. They do by the 3rd act, and they're back to who they were.

That the script could have been more dramatic, that some of the color choices were poor: given.

 

[blockaderunner]

^^^^But no one, especially in the kind of escpaist entertainment that Trek is supposed to be, don't want their heroes disconnected and troubled. I still stand by my words that TMP had ZERO adventure to it and that TWOK brought that back.

 

[Basill]

^^^^But no one, especially in the kind of escpaist entertainment that Trek is supposed to be, don't want their heroes disconnected and troubled. I still stand by my words that TMP had ZERO adventure to it and that TWOK brought that back.

And you think Kirk wasn't disconnected and troubled in TWOK? He was a mid-life crisis with fries in a to-go sack. Having heros that aren't troubled sounds like anti-drama to me. I want a little drama. I wouldn't want to be plagued by it in an ongoing series, but I actually preferred it in TMP when we hadn't seen any of our heros in several years. I thought it had plenty of adventure just a different flavor.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

^^^^But no one, especially in the kind of escpaist entertainment that Trek is supposed to be, don't want their heroes disconnected and troubled. I still stand by my words that TMP had ZERO adventure to it and that TWOK brought that back.

Well, obviously its not true that "no one" likes or wants that since there are fans that like this film, myself included. In fact, having Kirk promoted to Admiral when he wants to be a ship's captain & being troubled and disconnected is one of the things they repeated in TWOK.

And, while TMP isn't an action movie, I strongly disagree that it has no adventure in it.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

KIRK as an Admiral when clearly he belonged as a captain.

How was this a problem of TMP? Kirk WAS captain of the Enterprise in TMP. Decker was demoted to first officer. Kirk was no longer an admiral.

ST-II saw Kirk promoted back to admiral, which he stayed through III and IV.

 

[sbk1234]

So I'm just wondering why GR and crew thought that after 10 years of waiting fans would want to see.

A SPOCK trying to be totally emotionless and acting like his friends and crew members meant nothing to him.

KIRK as an Admiral when clearly he belonged as a captain.

A nebulous (no pun intended) "villian" who wasn't really even a villian in the truest since.

Sticking Rand in there and not really identifying her.

Uhura could pull off her fan dance in V but couldn't carry a mini skirt in TMP.

Personally, I agree that it would have been pretty boring to think that in the intervening years, there were NO changes among the crew. I would have rather seen more changes, such as all of Kirk's crew being spread throughout the Federation, and Kirk having to get them back.

I also feel that they were trying desperately not to look like Star Wars. While they may have gone about it in not a most-successful way, both Lucas and Roddenberry had commented over the years how they each appreciated the other for staying "out of their universe."

Hindsight is 20-20.

 

[RyanKCR]

As someone's who's first real exposure to Star Trek was this movie at age 8 or 9 I found the SLV almost perfect. Just fix the stage visible scene and the bad matte painting of the Enterprise during the Wing Walk. I just came off of Star Wars and then saw this. I always loved Star Wars but always remember this one movie that was great. It stood out as such a great movie that years later when I saw TWOK and liked it but thought it was missing something like a movie I saw years ago. It wasn't till sometime just before TSFS that I realized it was all the same series. Wanted to see more movies like TMP but never got to.

Just my take.

 

[Therin of Andor]

A SPOCK trying to be totally emotionless and acting like his friends and crew members meant nothing to him.

To create a story arc for the most popular character. To have the audience rooting for Spock to accept both his halves by the end of the film. His cold dismissal of Chekov and then Chapel, in their first meetings, was amazing!

KIRK as an Admiral when clearly he belonged as a captain.

Hence his demoting of Decker.

A nebulous (no pun intended) "villian" who wasn't really even a villian in the truest since.

Roddenberry's favourite adversary: one that was not truly evil, just misunderstood/unable to understand. eg. the Talosians, the Horta, the Klingons, the Vians, Khan in "Space Seed", the Romulans, etc.

Sticking Rand in there and not really identifying her.

"There was nothing you could have done, Rand, it wasn't your fault."

The return of Grace Lee Whitney was much heralded in pre-publicity, and at conventions, but they weren't sure in what capacity Rand would serve until the script was finished. Obviously, she couldn't still be a yeoman. In the script of "In Thy Image", Rand had several bridge scenes at Uhura's station, as a relief communications officer.

Uhura could pull off her fan dance in V but couldn't carry a mini skirt in TMP.

The uniforms were actually researched by science advisors as being suitable clothing for a scientific/exploratory starship in the 23rd century. And in 1978, mini-skirts were no longer seen as radical statements about femininity as they were in 1966.

For the record TREK III really pulled off the feeling of Trek and what these characters were all about and how they related to each other. That was a well done movie compared to TMP which was all Flash and litte Substance.

TOS was different things to different people. Tech and "strange new life" fans liked TMP. Action fans loved ST II. Relationship fans loved ST III. Environmentalist and humour fans liked ST IV. Shatner fans loved ST V. Political and Klingon fans loved ST VI. No one film can appeal to every fan.

Being the first, TMP aimed at some very lofty heights. It achieved some of them.

 

[RAMA]

Right off the gun let me say I know there ARE fans passionate about this movie.
But the fact remains it was clearly creatively a dissapointment...if not all subsequent TOS movies would feature the Pajama uniforms and the look and feel of TMP. Just as TREK II influenced all the movies to come afterwards. TPTB knew it needed retooling and that's what Meyer and Bennet did.

So I'm just wondering why GR and crew thought that after 10 years of waiting fans would want to see.

A SPOCK trying to be totally emotionless and acting like his friends and crew members meant nothing to him.

KIRK as an Admiral when clearly he belonged as a captain.

A nebulous (no pun intended) "villian" who wasn't really even a villian in the truest since.

Sticking Rand in there and not really identifying her.

Uhura could pull off her fan dance in V but couldn't carry a mini skirt in TMP.

I could go on but the bottom line is that its mystifying how they could make a STAR TREK film that felt almost nothing like the 79 episodes fans had been watching year after year.

P.S. For the record TREK III really pulled off the feeling of Trek and what these characters were all about and how they related to each other. That was a well done movie compared to TMP which was all Flash and litte Substance.

Most producers or directors in creative control do not make tv or movies just for fans, they make them to satisfy themselves...what THEY want to see. You cannot ask an artist to make a movie by committee involving fans. It will not work. Star Trek is no different. Roddenbery made STTMP into what he had evolved into and what he thought the show he created would too.

RAMA

 

[Cyke101]

I myself am a fan of TMP. I don't think it's perfect by any means, and there's room for a great deal of improvement, but I like it. I appreciate its ambition and scale, and I very much wish that some of the later Trek movies (especially the TNG movies) were as thoughtful and exploratory as TMP was. Yes, it's slow and a bit bland, but the ideas and themes were sound. It probably achieved a more defined sense of sci-fi than all the other films, which tended to be more about action or politics, each one succeeding or failing on their own terms.

Now, with that being said, since TMP is the first, I'd like to think that it generally follows the "First season generally sucks" rule of Trek shows. The Trek movie line as a whole were just starting to dip their feet into the water, and by Star Trek II they found their way.

 

[sbk1234]

^^^Agreed. You always ruin the first pancake.

 

[Cyke101]

^^^Agreed. You always ruin the first pancake.

Good point. But if you find yourself ruining the fifth, ninth, and tenth pancakes, you just might be a Trekkie

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

STTMP came on the heels of Star Wars and all of its sfx.
Paramount changed its mind about a new Trek series and wanted to cash in on the sf movie cash cow. They wanted Trek to be sfx. The suits never knew what they really had in Trek anymore than they did back in the 60s. Gene was writing a movie about God and ideas that the studio kept turning down or asked to be rewritten. Kirk was the ambitious one who felt he deserved the promotion only to find out it was a trap for his spirit. He desperately tries to get back his ship so he can enjoy living again. Spock was seeking total logic and that it was the answer to all his emotional problems. He failed the Kohlinahr and sought out V'Ger for its total logic...only to find that it was a trap for his spirit. Actually, there was some nice character development for both of them BUT this was a sfx movie and Robert Wise directed it as a MOO-VIE and didn't film it like a tv show with all the "talking" stuff. MOO-VIES are supposed to make you feel as if you were there. It's little wonder that the characters got shafted and the sfx got highlighted to the point of ad naseum. The first sfx company turned in some substandard stuff which forced them to hire another company and start over. The studio was committed to making the December 7th deadline come hell or high water and the print was literally shipped "wet" for the premiere. Poor Bob Wise didn't even have the time he usually had with other films to edit and tweak it the way he wanted to. There's a big difference between the original release and the Director's Edition. STTMP ended up the way it was because there was too many cooks in the litchen making this film and each had a different goal in mind. Paramount wanted sfx. Mr. Wise wanted a MOO-VIE. Roddenberry wanted something intellectual. Unfortunately, the fans wanted their old tv show up on the big screen. And when it came on the big screen, a lot of people were disappointed but everyone wanted to love it so they kept going back and it kept making money in spite of its shortcomings. Love really does cover a multitude of sins, didn't it?

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

I think that Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the most Sci-Fi of all of the trek movies though it might not have seemed like it at the beginning. But at the end of the movie when they climb up that crystal staircase and find out the true nature of V'Ger is one of the the best Sci-Fi punchlines I've ever encountered. I'm still impressed whenever I think of it. That little probe we sent out not only went out of the solar system but it had one gigantic adventure and in the end charted a course back for home.

That being said, it was a slow movie and the visuals weren't exactly what anyone was expecting; being dark and broody and what not. I do get a little bored when I watch it, but I usually stay with it because I like the ending.

 

[Therin of Andor]

MOO-VIES are supposed to make you feel as if you were there.

And Robert Wise accomplished this. I was not a Star Trek fan, having only a passing familiarity with Saturday morning TAS, and a few random episodes of TOS I caught in rerun when colour TV came to Australia in 1975.

TMP put me on the USS Enterprise, and it made me an avid ST fan for life.

 

[Procutus]

As one of the biggest TMP fans on this board, I have to say that the comments above sum up all aspects of the movie, both good and bad, in a basically fair manner. Yes, at times the film was slow and ponderous, yet at the same time, it did strive to be grand and larger than its TV origins.

For me, it was the most epic of the ten films to date, and the one that truly felt like science-fiction. It was about ideas, about what we and our machines could evolve into.

After all these years, I think TMP stands up to the test of time fairly well, especially if one is viewing the DE. I can only hope that Abrams version of GR's vision will turn out to feel as epic and create a sense of wonder about the universe.

 

[cardinal biggles]

...when colour TV came to Australia in 1975.

You only had black & white TV until 1975? That's terrible.