Nice detail. I really appreciate the write up and its a good reminder that TMP really does stand apart in the Star Trek ethos, so much so that efforts to replicate its grandeur are not undertaken, unlike TWOK.
Thank you. TMP remains its own animal, yes. It's almost like the "string theory" installment of the ST film franchise. After that bizarre heavenly augury, where is there to go but down? Although I still think we should push up, up, up (or "in, in, in")...
And, yes, I think Abrams' Trek is more than the surface level read would give it, just like TMP is more than the difficult film I consider it to be. Your post is proof positive of that.
Once again, my thanks. I'm actually not a fan of "JJ Trek" (look at my post history and read what I was saying about it in 2009, and again, briefly, in 2013 when "Into Darkness" came out -- those are still my thoughts today), but I'm not above drawing inferences or taking a slightly more generous view of things when it suits. If you derived something positive, I've done something right.
TMP was a "The Changeling" on quaaludes with a healthy dose of ILM and a beautiful sound track. It's as trek as anything else with the word Star Trek in the opening credits. It's also probably in terms of the effect it had on the franchise one of the most important, for all the wrong reasons.
LOL. I love that description. There's a somnambulant quality to TMP, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I live most of my life caught somewhere between waking and dreaming. I wish there were a few more alpha-wave movies out there for people of my type to glom onto.
After TMP, the big money was gone. No one believed that Star Trek could compete with Star Wars. It was a lower tier franchise. Good for lower budgets sci fi flicks every couple of years with a tried and true (and economical) cast. Essentially they would be appendages to TOS and later TNG for decades until Abrams tried to break the mold and make another attempt at Star Trek being a major franchise.
True. The latter films are basically an adjunct to the first two (now three with "Discovery") TV series, and something of an odd pastiche accordingly: part B-movie action-adventure, part extended television episode, where a viewer gets to hang around with old friends. They are mainly about making money and trying out one or two ideas in the pursuit of semi-intelligent entertainment. They are also an apology (of sorts) for there not being more of a television series, or a better way to handle the characters and the ST format -- although this apology is hardly delicate. Mostly, one could call them Treksploitation.
This touches on something I've said here many times. Too often (maybe? Maybe it's just human nature) we talk about liking or disliking something without defining the conditions or definitions of what we like and why.
Ah, yes. Providing detail and context, without just defining one thing against another -- sometimes, it's harder than we think!
SPOCK: And who is the creator?
ILIA (probe): The creator is that which created V'Ger.
KIRK: Who is V'Ger?
ILIA (probe): V'Ger is that which seeks the creator.
I'm purely paraphrasing here; I didn't take notes or anything like that. The gist of his presentation was that writers have been told, for many years, that a story has to be about characters in conflict. He argued that there was no reason for this to be true, and that a satisfying story could be told without characters at all, let alone conflict, or motivated action/reaction. I'm vague on this part, but he had an example, and I want to say it asomething like "An asteroid is kicked out of its orbit, spends millennia in a highly elliptical orbit, and then falls into the gravity well of a planet, where it impacts the surface, causing a great explosion."
Stories don't have to have obvious conflict -- a lot of it can be subtle and under the surface. I think that's the difference here. Characters don't have to be at loggerheads or pursuing a well-defined goal for some kind of performance piece or dramatised happening to draw you in. Outside of TMP, one of my favourite movies is "Lost In Translation" (I also love Sofia Coppola's unofficial follow-up "Somewhere"), and these are films that have a more silky and ephemeral feel. They have a plot structure, but that structure is much less "in your face" than normal, allowing both films to unfold at their own pace, under their own terms. Situations and experiences take precedence over "events".
41 years later and we're STILL discussing this film in such detail- that says it all for TMP, doesn't it?
Yup! I had an idea to gather up or go through all the threads in the entire "Star Trek Movies I-X" forum, and see how many of them are about TMP. I wouldn't read them all, but just go by their title or their opening post. I think it would be a fun (if long and draining) exercise. By counting up all the threads and all the posts combined, I could then determine the total percentage of forum content devoted to TMP versus "the rest" (since global totals for thread and post counts are already provided on the main page for each forum) -- I bet you it's a significant chunk!
I admit, I love the crisp professionalism of TMP. I'm happy for the warmth to be in asides and off duty moments but we do then need to have some of those scenes included. Snogging, drooling, and arguing while on duty really takes away some of the realism for me. ST Discovery's gurning while in a crisis really gets on my nerves.
I love that "crisp professionalism", too. It's one of the film's primary delights and something Robert Wise excels at. Without him at the helm, it could have gone pear-shaped. I hear you on the "warmth" factor, but TMP at least has a viewpoint on human activity thanks to Wise's exceptional direction and eye for diligence and professional restraint.
In an interview, Nimoy said that he tried to ad lib a line, "If Dr McCoy is to remain on board, my presence will be essential." I managed to lift the line from the interview, slow it down to make it more Spock, and string it together with some TOS/STV dialogue to put at the very end as the ship flies off. It's fun but I'm unconvinced that it fits. It's very TOS, very a hundred people just died but Spock has funny ears kind of thing.
Now, THAT's sneaky! Using Leonard Nimoy complaining about the absence of his "gift" to the filmmakers, to actually give him his wish! Excellent. It'll be interesting to view your cut when it's complete -- or rather: when it finally "escapes"!
