TMP - from hater to avid fan…

[Warped9]

Came across this. Interesting how perspective can drastically change one’s viewpoint.

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My own somewhat parallel experience is in regard to TNG. In the beginning and for years I just couldn’t accept TNG. For me there were just too many things wrong with it. But over time my opinion mellowed as I revisited the series. No, it never became a favourite, but there was a fair amount of it I now liked and respected. But thats another subject.

In terms of the films I initially liked them all (TWOK-TUC), but soured on them to a degree over time. Now TMP is the only one that still works for me. The TNG have never worked for me and still don’t. The JJ films are unmentionable.

 

[Firebird]

Is there a discussion here or is this another excuse to complain about things in the franchise you don't like?

 

[Warped9]

I'm merely sharing this video I came across. If you don't like it then move on.

 

[tomalak301]

I remember not liking TMP for a long time. It was kind of boring but the ending wasn't bad. It was when I went to see it in the movie theater where I could really respect it. Everything was grander in the theater, and while it was still boring for the most part, I could understand it a lot better. It's now ranked 9th in my favorite movie rankings.

 

[publiusr]

It was the perfect movie to end 1979… Alien and Moonraker…The Black Hole towards the end…

 

[Lord Garth]

I always liked TMP. For a long time, I thought I was one of the few who did. It wasn't until 2001, on this very board and in anticipation for the Director's Edition, that I began to see more fans of it. I thought it was a pleasent surprise.

 

[Drumheller]

Today I have Labor Day (holiday here in the United States) off and my son and I watched TMP. I had not seen it in a long, long time. Boy, does this film age well. I really enjoyed it. I'm collecting my thoughts on it and I'll share my thoughts soon.

Great watch on a relaxing day off.

 

[Warped9]

Boy, does this film age well.

I think it has aged very well, better than the others. It seems to get more appreciation than it ever did. That puts it in good company with many films that weren’t received all that well in their day but came to be greatly appreciated as time passes.

 

[korblborp]

i always thought TMP was closest the movies got to what trek was about

 

[Dukhat]

I also think that TMP was really the only Trek film that dealt with an actual science-fiction premise. The rest were just action movies in a futuristic setting.

However, I don't agree that the film has aged well. I recently watched the first episode of a show I had never seen before: Space: 1999. It was clearly a product of its time (the '70's), and I found it to be boring as hell. Which, upon a recent rewatch of TMP, gave me the exact same feeling. The sets, pacing, acting, etc. in TMP was almost a carbon copy of Space: 1999. While this is just my opinion, I feel that these kinds of productions are very dated and hard to hold interest in long-term. Hell, even Harve Bennett found TMP to be boring back in the day.

 

[FredH]

I’ve always liked TMP’s slower pace. There’s more time to “be there and feel it”, so to speak — usually for some emotional reason. The Enterprise flyby is the obvious one, but I’d say that’s just as true of everything from Spock on Vulcan, to intentionally-uncomfortable scenes on the Enterprise (Kirk unfamiliar with the new Enterprise; the transporter aftermath and its cold horror; the new seemingly-aloof Spock; the sheer scale of the cloud and V’Ger; etc). They’re slow, but they sure feel like they’re slow on purpose (even if apparently at least some of them weren’t), the same way a lot of scenes on Once Upon a Time in the West are. It’s less popcorn, more quietly psychological. To me, the story wouldn’t feel the same, or anywhere as good, if the same events were told in the space of an hour. (I recognize that this is a view not universally held.)

 

[BillJ]

TMP is one of my personal favorite movies. Probably will never be other Trek like it.

 

[Maurice]

It doesn't help that the DE doesn't cut the film as sharply as Wise indicated in a 1980 interview, where he said the film could be shortened by at least 6½ minutes. He wanted to trim the precious drydock scenes that some hardcore TMP enthusiasts think is untouchable because of the music. It's not. It shoulda been whacked by over a minute as Wise said in that same interview.

 

[Dukhat]

Honestly, the entire sequence of the Enterprise passing through the cloud and then the interminable flight over V'Ger could have been excised (at least in retrospect; I am in no way denigrating the work of Syd Mead) to shorten the pace even further. Because there was really no need for such an elaborate and time-consuming shot just to say 'wow, that's a really big ship.' It's not like Star Wars spent 15 minutes camera panning through the Death Star.

 

[Uxi]

TWOK and TUC are still supreme and the Motionless Picture is still way back there behind TFF and TVH for me.

 

[FredH]

It doesn't help that the DE doesn't cut the film as sharply as Wise indicated in a 1980 interview, where he said the film could be shortened by at least 6½ minutes. He wanted to trim the precious drydock scenes that some hardcore TMP enthusiasts think is untouchable because of the music. It's not. It shoulda been whacked by over a minute as Wise said in that same interview.

Eh — he has his opinion, we have ours. It’s not untouchable, nor untouchable specifically because of the music, but I’ve always felt the length of that sequence matters to get how Kirk (and Scotty) feel about the ship. It’s not just a day at the office.

 

[FredH]

Honestly, the entire sequence of the Enterprise passing through the cloud and then the interminable flight over V'Ger could have been excised (at least in retrospect; I am in no way denigrating the work of Syd Mead) to shorten the pace even further. Because there was really no need for such an elaborate and time-consuming shot just to say 'wow, that's a really big ship.' It's not like Star Wars spent 15 minutes camera panning through the Death Star.

See, for me the example you use at the end there is exactly demonstrative of what different sorts of films they are.

Star Wars is a fast-paced adventure movie; nobody has important, character-identifying “feels” about the Death Star. (Except Tarkin — if the film were about him and he was the hero, him having a slow, loving external tour of the station would be entirely appropriate!)

TMP very much isn’t that; it’s about its protagonists (Kirk, Spock, arguably even V’Ger) slowly reintegrating themselves into a world that’s become unfamiliar to them. In that context, not only are the various “moments” taking their time appropriate, it would be thematically weird (or dramatically cheap) if the pace were TWOK-like.

 

[Maurice]

Eh — he has his opinion, we have ours. It’s not untouchable, nor untouchable specifically because of the music, but I’ve always felt the length of that sequence matters to get how Kirk (and Scotty) feel about the ship. It’s not just a day at the office.

I've watched a fair number of TMP first-time reaction vidoes and the "this goes on too long" sentiment remains as strong as it did in 1979, and people also comment on how overlong the cloud fly-through and V'ger flyover are, despite being trimmed for the DE, and they're right.

There's nothing wrong with the Enterprise flyaround being slow, but it's too damned slow, and virtually every shot in it could be trimmed by 20% and do no harm.

 

[Iamnotspock]

It doesn't help that the DE doesn't cut the film as sharply as Wise indicated in a 1980 interview, where he said the film could be shortened by at least 6½ minutes. He wanted to trim the precious drydock scenes that some hardcore TMP enthusiasts think is untouchable because of the music. It's not.

I'm not a hardcore TMP enthusiast but I unashamedly think the drydock flyover is untouchable because of the music being among the greatest film music cues ever written, yes.

 

[Maurice]

I'm not a hardcore TMP enthusiast but I unashamedly think the drydock flyover is untouchable because of the music being among the greatest film music cues ever written, yes.

The music exists in full form even were it edited for use in the film. Lots of amazing cues were edited to service changes in the picture. The tail oughtn't wag the dog.