Cast:
James T Kirk: William Shatner
Spock: Leonard Nimoy
Dr. McCoy: DeForest Kelley
Scotty: James Doohan
Chekov: Walter Koenig
Sulu: George Takei
Uhura: Nichelle Nichols
Will Decker: Steven Collins
Rand: Grace Lee Whitney
Chapel: Majel Barret
Ilia: Persis Khambatta.
Director:Robert Wise; Story by Alan Dean Foster; Screenplay by: Harold Livingston
Released: December 7th, 1979; Domestic Gross: $82 million
My Rating: **
Plot
Really, there isn't much of one. An unidentified probe of unimaginable
porportions crosses the Klingon border; killing three cruisers in the process.
Then, it takes out a Federation station, and its final destination looks
to be Earth.
Now, enter James Kirk, newly promoted Admiral, and the newly refitted
Enterprise. Skip to the middle of this way too-long movie, and Spock,
fresh from Vulcan and driven back to the stars by the probe, rejoins the
Enterprise crew. Soon, the Enterprise is inside the probe and they have the new
navigator, the Deltan Ilia, is abducted. But, she is returned as an android by
the probe.
Spock then leaves the Enterprise in a space suit, and mind melds with the probe.
Kirk ends up saving him with another space suit. Then, Ilia leads Kirk, McCoy, Spock,
and Captain Will Decker into the heart of the probe. Turns out its a Voyager sattelite send out
in the 20th century. Well, how about that!
Then, Decker melds with Ilia and the probe. Happy ending.
My comments
This movie was, frankly, not good. It dragged along for almost two and a half hours, and really,
nothing happened. It had an 'epic' feel to it, but nothing epic happened. I really hated it.
The character interaction was horrible and stilted. And the dialogue really sucked. It was
amazing that they made another one.
Last year marked the twentieth anniversary of The Motion Picture's debut. Sci-Fi Entertainment magazine
did a kind of tribute to it. In this article, it was mentioned several times that the script was
being written during the filming, that the movie was too FX heavy, and that Gene Roddenberry
was at constant dissagreement with what was being done. None of this helped the film.
I may have spoken too soon about not releasing an anniversary edition. They began releasing all the original Trek movies in 2001. And Robert Wise himself re-cut the film and supervised updating of the effects and soudtrack. As a result, my rating of the film has increased. I watched it again after buying the two-dvd set and have decided that the film had some merit, much more than I previously gave it credit for.
