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

[Procutus]

My sister, who reads a lot but has seen little of any TREK, finally saw TMP this year and thought it felt like an adaptation of an Arthur Clarke novel.

As a big fan of ACC's work, I can appreciate that comparison. Of all the Trek films, TMP is the only one that can really call itself a science-fiction movie, the closest to various ideas espoused in literary sci-fi.

I often wondered what a Star Trek novel by Clarke would've been like, had he ever chosen to write one. It is a shame that this brilliant mind is no longer with us.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Clarke's books generally tend to be optimistic about humans (before he started writting with Gentry Lee), so they are like TOS in that respect.
I think he would have brought the themes he wanted to explore rather more to the front than TMP does.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Personally, I like this version:

http://www.vimeo.com/1033919

 

[JoeZhang]

Personally, I like this version:

http://www.vimeo.com/1033919

 

[Procutus]

Personally, I like this version:

http://www.vimeo.com/1033919

That was too damn funny!

 

[Cyke101]

McCoy was just great

 

[arch101]

Personally, I like this version:

http://www.vimeo.com/1033919

THANK YOU! That was f***in great!

 

[EEE]

There you go. The whole thread derailed. I had a long post all worked out for this thread, weighing in on the pros and cons, I had parts about the changling, hope, support Gene Roddenberry and all sorts of other issues. They all pale compared to the proper edit of the movie.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Go ahead, EEE. ^^

 

[darkshadow0001]

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.

Vulcans are supposed to be emotionless. He probably hasn't been around humans that much since TOS, so there would be no reason for emotion.

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

People get promoted after time. Maybe it was a mistake, but promotions happen. I don't see a problem here.

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

They did not know who it was at first so why not?

Sticking Rand in there and not really identifying her.

This is unimportant.

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

Also equally as unimportant about Rand.

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.

I beg to differ. TMP had Star Trek quality from the beginning... the Enterprise's mission was to discover what this new alien life was and why it was approaching earth. Same basic concept from the show.

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.

While TMP may not have same same stature as the other Trek films, it is still a good movie none-the-less. I think they pulled off some great special-effects for its time compared to what can be done now. And even though we can make better special effects these days, they still don't always compare to what can be done before CGI came out.

 

[Cyke101]

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

People get promoted after time. Maybe it was a mistake, but promotions happen. I don't see a problem here.

What I love about Kirk in the movies is that it was clearly a mistake to make him Admiral Kirk, but that was Kirk's mistake, not the mistake of the writers. It fleshed out more of Kirk's character that he belonged on a starship, and that even though the character could achieve alot and then some, he had to battle his own regrets while he was battling enemies. It's a recurring theme throughout almost all the TOS movies, and really one of the strongest themes in the franchise. A man who was famed for daming the consequences, finally facing said-consequences in very personal ways. And, really, it was only Kirk who made the mistake of running from his true calling. The other characters either attained it (Spock, Sulu) or stayed with it (Scotty).

Sometimes I hate it when people criticize the hardships their favorite characters face, because they feel their heroes should never suffer. Of course, that means there's no drama and no story to utilize.

 

[MANT!]

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

Yep. We saw the first run of shows like "Batman", "Star Trek", "Star Trek Animated", "H.R. Pufnstuf" and "Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in glorious black and white.

But, IIRC, South Africa didn't have TV at all until about the same time.

I feel rather privileged then..every episode of Star Trek had the following as an intro...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8150201469605286807&ei=05JMSMPbGZTCqAOnsuy1DA&hl=en

In the USA color broadcast TV started up in the 50s...

 

[The Castellan]

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.

I agree with you. It's my fav trek film and I feel it is the most Trek like there is. All the others are more of "Federation Police Shows" and most people who call this film slow, I think are those who fall asleep if they they don't see explosions and battles every 10 minutes. This one did feel most epic to me, plus the idea of an unknown enemy the size of a state is a bit more of a threat than a super human napolian. Plus it was nice to NOT see starships zipping around like TIE fighters for a change.

And it had some actual exploration, and not just another war/battle.

 

[The Castellan]

But it remains one of the few films I can watch and feel I'm actually watching science fiction, and not cowboys in spaceships with laser guns. (I say this as someone who likes cowboys in spaceships with laser guns in measured doses.)

You'd like Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers

 

[Luke Lightsaber]

It's a good first movie. It shows the new ship, reintroduces everyone, and sets up the other movies pretty well. It has a good visual look to it. I really enjoy the first section of the movie right up to when the Enterprise leaves, then it becomes its own weird ass movie with some big cloud thing that is so dumb it thinks the Enterprise is a living thing even though there are tiny living things inside it.

 

[Maurice]

^^^An intelligent being would probably recognize another being of similar makeup as alive, and things that differ as a different category (is DNA a life form?). So, if V'ger is a living machine and intelligent, it might look at the Enterprise as alive, but on the level of a ladybug: tiny and simple. To it, these even tinier things inside it, made of meaty carbon might appear as viruses: microscopic, invasive things that infest.

I doubt you look on the mites that live in your eyelashes as worth much attention, much less expect them to claim to be your creator.

 

[Cyke101]

I doubt you look on the mites that live in your eyelashes as worth much attention, much less expect them to claim to be your creator.

Now I have the image of V'Ger doing the multi-dimensional version of a beer spit-take while yelling out the metaphysical version of "Say WHAAAT?!"

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

^^^An intelligent being would probably recognize another being of similar makeup as alive, and things that differ as a different category (is DNA a life form?). So, if V'ger is a living machine and intelligent, it might look at the Enterprise as alive, but on the level of a ladybug: tiny and simple. To it, these even tinier things inside it, made of meaty carbon might appear as viruses: microscopic, invasive things that infest.

I doubt you look on the mites that live in your eyelashes as worth much attention, much less expect them to claim to be your creator.

But would V'Ger recognise the Enterprise as "alive"? Does the Enterprise appear self-aware?

This was one of the areas of the film I wasn't to sure about - the "carbon unit" crew of the Enterprise recognises V'Ger as a life form (and has very little trouble accepting that), but V'Ger doesn't recognise them as life forms.

This seems particularly strange when it constructs the Ilia Probe which then examines the crew and ship and still claims they are "infesting" the Enterprise.

 

[Luke Lightsaber]

V Ger was smart. It could dematerilize spaceships and store them later. It had to know Ilia was a human. Why couldn't it sense the other humans inside the space station and Klingon Ships it zapped?

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Despite all its perceived failings, TMP did what so few Trek movies did-- have a story and situation that had scope. The ideas and themes were big. It took TOS and tried to transform it from a television series into a high-brow, high-concept science-fiction event. As much as I enjoy the others, the majority of the film series felt little more than two-hour television episodes. It's why it is my favorite TOS film.

I wish Paramount hadn't locked Wise and Roddenberry into the December release date and gave them more time to fix the problems in the script before a single frame was shot. It would've be mar-VA-lous.