Star Trek: The Motion Picture is Star Trek’s version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. From start to finish you can see the influence of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke – from the design, to the pacing, to the visuals, to the final transcendent scenes. And with this film being the highly anticipated reunion of one of the most beloved casts in television history, it would seem to be a good formula for success. Unfortunately, the surface level story is almost entirely ripped from a previous Trek episode – the glacially paced “The Changeling.” What really proves to be a drag on this particular movie is not only its equally monotonous pace, but its inability to morph Star Trek into a kind of science fiction that is, tonally, quite different. The result is a film which is beautiful from a visual and thematic standpoint, but so plodding and obscure from a narrative standpoint that it ends up being, overall, a below average movie.

The story is about how one of the Voyager probes, launched from Earth, found a machine planet, was upgraded, became conscious, and returned to Earth to meet its maker – and in the process devalued all forms of biological life. Similarities to “The Changeling” aside (it too followed a “changed” Earth probe, called Nomad, which had no regard for human life), the story becomes a metaphor for how technology can threaten our basic humanity. This is certainly a worthy concept to explore, particularly for Star Trek. But the decision to follow 2001’s formula proved to be prohibitive to an ensemble cast which is more used to adventurous derring-do than to a deeply cerebral, abstract, and obscure story.

It’s not that the story is “above” the crew of the Enterprise, but rather that the juxtaposition just doesn’t work. I certainly appreciate the decision to try a different approach to Star Trek, but with the film spending an inordinate amount of time depicting people floating around in space suits (seriously, you could make a drinking game out of it), the immediacy and intimacy which made Star Trek so strong a series is lost.

Furthermore, the “guest” characters of Decker (Stephen Collins) and Ilia (Persis Khambatta) feel wholly out of place within this reunion of familiar faces and comrades. And because their characters never truly integrate into the main cast, the impact of their ultimate fates is very much lessened. And that’s a shame because their characters become central to the film’s plot. Additionally, the tacked on melodrama between Decker, Ilia and even Kirk proves to be too much of a distraction. As a result, Decker and Ilia end up being little more than glorified redshirts in an overblown episode.

Is Star Trek: The Motion Picture really that bad? No. In fact, there is quite a bit about it to enjoy, such as Spock’s realization that logic alone is not enough to understand the grand mysteries of the universe. But the whole production is awkwardly presented — as evidenced by the sudden burst of emotion from Spock that is jarringly presented in the film. In the end, much will depend on how viewers choose to view the film. If you want to get something out of it, you can ignore (most of) the inconsistencies and mistakes. If you want to criticize it, there’s plenty of fodder to do so.

Personally, I find its leaden pace and inconsistencies just a bit too distracting for my tastes.

Filed under: Feature Films, Original Series