Strictly speaking TMP isn’t an origin story given it was based on a pre-existing work, the original Star Trek series. Fans already knew these characters and their dynamics with each other. Indeed one of the criticisms of many fans was that the characters did not feel right with each other until the latter part of the film.
From a realistic standpoint depicting the characters trying to find their grooves and gel with each again after some years apart makes sense. It’s just that a lot of fans couldn’t seem to grasp or accept that—they wanted what was familiar from the get-go.
Nonetheless the powers-that-be felt compelled to depict the crew getting back together after some years apart rather than show them in their still familiar places. They wanted to acknowledge the passage of time similar to the time that had passed in the real world. That would have worked more effectively if references in the film supported a separation of about ten years rather than only three. That being the case maybe they could have opted for depicting the crew already embarked on a second 5-year voyage at the beginning of the film and gone forward from there. Of course, that would have meant coming up with more than just the Vger mystery as the main story since getting the crew together ate up a fair chunk of the film’s beginning.
On the other hand TMP does sort of serve as an origin story. If one had never seen TOS before TMP then you watched characters coming together that were obviously familiar with each other in the past before embarking on the forthcoming adventure. If you had never seen or heard of TOS before then you had no preconceptions.
In another sense TMP served as a template for all the origin stories we saw in each successive Trek series. Each of them felt compelled to have this “coming together” story. Contrast that with TOS’s first and second pilot episodes as well as the series itself where there were no origin stories. They just established things with the characters already in place and built onward from there.
This is just something I was contemplating today as I looked out the window on a sunny day following a fresh fall of snow overnight.
From a realistic standpoint depicting the characters trying to find their grooves and gel with each again after some years apart makes sense. It’s just that a lot of fans couldn’t seem to grasp or accept that—they wanted what was familiar from the get-go.
Nonetheless the powers-that-be felt compelled to depict the crew getting back together after some years apart rather than show them in their still familiar places. They wanted to acknowledge the passage of time similar to the time that had passed in the real world. That would have worked more effectively if references in the film supported a separation of about ten years rather than only three. That being the case maybe they could have opted for depicting the crew already embarked on a second 5-year voyage at the beginning of the film and gone forward from there. Of course, that would have meant coming up with more than just the Vger mystery as the main story since getting the crew together ate up a fair chunk of the film’s beginning.
On the other hand TMP does sort of serve as an origin story. If one had never seen TOS before TMP then you watched characters coming together that were obviously familiar with each other in the past before embarking on the forthcoming adventure. If you had never seen or heard of TOS before then you had no preconceptions.
In another sense TMP served as a template for all the origin stories we saw in each successive Trek series. Each of them felt compelled to have this “coming together” story. Contrast that with TOS’s first and second pilot episodes as well as the series itself where there were no origin stories. They just established things with the characters already in place and built onward from there.
This is just something I was contemplating today as I looked out the window on a sunny day following a fresh fall of snow overnight.
