Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Bald Chick reacts — or, more precisely, doesn’t react, to the Enterprise entering a field of Cheap Special Effects.
A film of staggering, almost monumental tedium, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is practically an oxymoron. Why title something The Motion Picture when motion is the thing most signally lacking?
In the future, everyone on Earth is required to wear a miniskirt. In space, everyone is required to wear pajamas.
In the future, everything takes a very long time. Especially in narrative terms. A gigantic space-thing is heading for Earth, and it takes the movie a full 40 minutes to get the goddamned spaceship launched.
(I have learned from Wikipedia that I am actually watching the new, improved “Director’s Cut” which reportedly flies like the wind. It is my sad duty to inform the public it does not.)
But, oh boy! Now that the ship is launched, I bet we’ll come in contact with the gigantic space-thing, right? Sadly, no. First, the ship must encounter a wormhole, a terrifying outer-space danger that bears a striking resemblance to cheap 1970s special effects.
In fact, I would say that fully half of Star Trek: The Motion Picture consists of the ship encountering cheap 1970s special effects. A typical sequence goes like this:
1. Someone looks at a screen.
2. On the screen is a cheap 1970s special effect.
3. Cut to: exterior of the ship, encountering the cheap 1970s special effect.
4. Cut to: group of people staring.
5. Cut to: another shot of the cheap 1970s special effect.
6. Cut to: someone else staring. Perhaps a jaw falls open.
7. The principles gather to discuss and theorize about the nature of the cheap 1970s special effect.
8. Repeat every ten minutes.
After taking 40 minutes to get started, the movie marks time for another twenty minutes, until we finally make contact with the gigantic space thing. Director Robert Wise brings to Star Trek: The Motion Picture the light, lyrical touch he brought to The Andromeda Strain and the stolid, grim determination he brought to The Sound of Music.
The theme of the movie is desire. Kirk desires command of the Enterprise, Spock desires to be free of emotion, Stephen Collins desires a bald chick. More to the point, everyone on the ship seems to want to have sex with everyone else. There are more meaningful glances, knowing smiles, wistful exchanges and heartfelt handshakes in any given hour of Star Trek: The Motion Picture than in the totality of The Way We Were.
So it is perhaps appropriate that the gigantic space thing has a gigantic space anus (or, as Spock calls it, “the orifice”) through which one must pass in order to gain the thing one desires. Spock, in a fit of passion, steals a spacesuit in order to pass through the space anus, and eventually Kirk pilots the whole spaceship through, sublimating, no doubt, his desire to pilot his spaceship through the anuses of his beloved crew members.
The gigantic space thing snatches a crew member off the ship, the Bald Chick. Why she is snatched is unexplained. Why she is returned, looking like the bald chick but transformed into a dull-witted robot, in a revealing mini-robe, is unexplained. Why the crew spend a good hunk of time trying to awaken her inner Bald-Chick-ness is unexplained.
Eventually, the plot conspires to have the Bald Chick express the desires of the gigantic space thing, which is to “touch the creator,” which in this case means covering Stephen Collins with sparkly blue lights and self-destructing. If this is how machines have sex, I don’t want to live in the future.
So the gigantic space thing disappears, taking the lives of Stephen Collins and Bald Chick, who get mentioned, and the lives of three ships of Klingons and a bunch of people on a space station, who don’t. Then Kirk, appropos of nothing, decides, on no authority whatsoever, to steal the spaceship and leave. In the future, apparently, there is less accountability necessary than today.
Things pick up in the final half-hour or so, as a handful of acceptable, middle-brow sci-fi “ideas” take hold and the tedium momentarily transforms into viewer interest. These ideas, I’m told, were adapted from earlier, cheaper episodes of the Star Trek TV show (which I have , regrettably, never watched) and would be later presented, in compact, exciting, character-driven, 22-minute form, as “The Return,” a tremendous episode of Justice League Unlimited.
Star Trek–the original television series, not the millions of feeble inbred derivations–was hugely important in my life. I had a lonely and difficult childhood and I took much solace in that universe. So trust me when I say that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is unbearably bad. It is grindingly dull and full of every horrible half-baked 1970s middle-aged male swinger free-love hippie notion that a kilo of middling California marijuana and third-rate LSD could inspire. Gene Roddenberry was a talented man, prone to flashes of genius that inspired some of Star Trek‘s most groundbreaking moments. But he was also a notorious womanizer whose sole feature screenwriting credit, on Vadim’s Pretty Maids All In A Row, is pretty freaking disturbing. Gene’s “advanced” ideas regarding seamy-old-man sexuality (not to mention a future where conflict and tension have no place whatsoever in storytelling) fouled up not only Star Trek: The Motion Picture but a significant portion of the first couple of seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which…yes, recycles plot and characters from ST:TMP.
Your information is correct: You are watching a version of this film that is far superior to the theatrical release. Those effects you are seeing are the “improved” effects. The thing went to theatres with many of the effects unfinished and a lot of the best shots you’re seeing weren’t in it at all. And the pacing…oy. I think Robert Wise was so embarrassed by the original that he felt he had to fix it for posterity. It’s practically taut by comparison. Count your blessings.
Honestly, until you said so, I didn’t even recognize that the thing had a theme. But you’re right of course. And they do manage to make “desire” seem tedious, don’t they? Insatiable hunger presented as halfhearted ennui. Fascinating.
Your relative unfamiliarity with the original series is probably a plus. The entire cast is badly out of character, especially Shatner and Nimoy. I was baffled (not to mention disappointed) by the lack of chemistry between the leads and the humorless and dour characterizations (except for the always-reliable DeForest Kelley, who handled his ten lines with the his familiar old-crank wit.)
There’s a dullness to the thing in every conceivable application of the term. The colors are flat, the camera work is static, the audio mix is muddy and monotonous, the orchestral soundtrack is like generic discount night at the Laserium. For people in horrible danger from a murderous alien menace, nobody in the film could care less. Shatner sets the tone in what is almost certainly the most colorless, oxygen-starved performances of his long career. And of all its fatal flaws, I think the worst of it is the “transporter accident” deaths in the early stages of the film. It’s pointless and grim and it sets the tone for the rest of the movie. The masturbatory “reveal” of the “new” 1979 Chrysler Cordoba Enterprise seem to run literally 45 minutes. And Nimoy delivers his lines in this bizarre low croaking voice that only confirms my suspicion about the excess of space bongs in the future. It’s hard to believe that this film and the action-and-plot packed Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan take place in the same universe, much less with the same cast and settings.
The plot is recycled from an episode of the (thankfully never-completed) TV series Star Trek: Phase II, but even that was a ripoff of a far-superior episode of the original series called “The Changeling”. “The Changeling”, shot in four days on probably a hundredth of the budget and with vastly inferior special effects, tells a far more engaging story in half the running time, sans all the “alluring” Bald Girl sex.
When Star Trek works, it works because it keeps action, humor, and big ideas in balance. The thing has been successful for 40-odd years because at its best, it paints a picture of a world that you might want to go visit. Nobody in their right Vulcan mind wants to go visit Star Trek: The Motion Picture. One almost senses that, like the audience, the cast was just glad when it was over.
Star Trek V is worse, but for different reasons.
The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
Also, due to space limitaions I was unable to express my extreme amusement at the “space anus” section, especially Kirk’s “sublimating, no doubt, his desire to pilot his spaceship through the anuses of his beloved crew members.” It’s funny because it’s true. It’s no accident that “slash fiction” was invented for Star Trek.
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the movie is that the sexual innuendo and imagery is entirely intentional, as “desire” is the theme of the script and it ends in what the medical officer describes as a “birth.” That would account for the smug looks of satisfaction on everyone’s faces at the end of the movie as they steal the ship and head off into space in what can only be described as an intergalactic money shot.
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
Here’s a sentence I never thought I would utter: I think I need to rewatch “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”–at least a bit. I’ve really only seen it in its entirety twice: Once in the theatre in ’79 and then when the “Director’s Cut” DVD came out (I received it for Christmas a few years back.) I was oblivious to the sexual imagery when I first saw it, and really didn’t pay much mind to it as an adult (other than making some Beavis v. Butthead “space bung hole” commentary at the appropriate moments…) I was too busy looking for the new effects shots. I do remember an odd amount of homoerotic Kirk/Spock stuff in Roddenberry’s novelization of his own script, but I didn’t really think about all the sex-fertility-birth imagery in the film until you mentioned it. Skeeves me out more than it reasonably should, but nonetheless, I shall investigate. Thanks for another very thought-provoking post. If the movie had been a tenth this interesting…
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
In the movie it’s not just Kirk and Spock, it’s Kirk and Spock, Kirk and Scotty, Kirk and Stephen Collins (who seem to be vying for the favors of Bald Chick, who announces when she walks in the door, appropos of nothing, that she’s taken a vow of celibacy), Kirk and McCoy, Scotty and some slender young trim in the engine room. The Enterprise is, seemingly, a seething hotbed of sexual tension.
I remember actually gasping/laughing when she announced her “vow of celibacy”. “Um, thanks…I’ll keep that in mind should I suddenly get the irresistible urge to make love to a comatose Yul Brynner.”
If I’m not mistaken, the scene goes something like this:
Kirk: Ah, Lieutenant Baldchick, I’m glad you made it.
Lt: Greetings, Admiral. I have just returned from planet Blahdeblah, where I have taken a vow of celibacy.
Kirk: Um — okay…good to know…say, is that the time? I have some cheap 1970s special effects I must go gape at. Perhaps we can pick this up later?
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
who seem to be vying for the favors of Bald Chick, who announces when she walks in the door, appropos of nothing, that she’s taken a vow of celibacy
That’s because she’s a Deltan.
Courtesy of WikiPedia:
“When she reported to Kirk, Ilia stated that her “Oath of Celibacy” was on record. While the original theatrical release does not expand on this, deleted scenes that were later incorporated into the film include dialogue establishing that she is “as safe as any Human” and that she would never take advantage of a “sexually immature species”. Deltan culture is also said to emphasise sexuality heavily: Roddenberry once said that, to a Deltan, sex was like a handshake. Deltans in Starfleet were forbidden from engaging in sexual activity, so as to limit their disruptive influence on other species. Other sources contend that sexual activity with a Deltan is such an intense experience that a non-Deltan who engages in such activity with a Deltan risks insanity.”
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
Oh, and Deltans produce pheromones that provoke a strong sexual reaction in many other species.
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
So what you’re saying is, the movie would make sense if only I were from another planet.
Re: The Anal Adventure is just beginning…
No, just that it would make more sense if you were from another planet.
Or were a diehard Trekkie.
The same thing really.
I did note that Shatner’s performance was Shatnerian in the extreme, to the level self-parody.
That performance made me wish he’d return to acting exclusively in Esperanto.
I don’t fully know my film history…but doesn’t it feel like it really wanted to be 2001: A Space Odyssey for the sake of stealing the Star Wars thunder? I wasn’t yet alive at the time.
The 2001 flavor of the special effects came from Douglass Trumbull, who designed and shot many of the effects for both2001 and Star Trek: TMP, they say, insisted on the ponderous pace of the effects shots in Star Trek. As for Star Wars, both it and The Empire Strikes Back, both of which contain more excitement in any given five minutes than Star Trek contains in 2 1/2 hours, came out by the summer of 1980, and Star Trek came out Xmas of that year.
My memories of 2001 mostly consist of what seemed like 6 solid hours of really awful, nonsensical shots of kalidescopic lights.
That’s too bad, because it’s both one of the most beautiful movies ever made and a milestone in film history.
The miscalculation made by the makers of Star Trek: TMP is, it seems to me, to apply the solemnity and grandeur of 2001 to the juicier, pulpier, human values of the Star Trek TV show.
Bingo!
But I also did appreciate the Kubrickian jokes peppered all over 2001. They tempered somewhat the solemnity and grandeur, and made me enjoy repeated viewings in the 1970s and 1980s.
By the way, has anyone found any kind of sense of humor in ST: TMP? I watched all of the original Star Trek episodes as they were broadcast in the late 60s, and I did find some humor here and there, infrequently, but I found none in ST:TMP
The gigantic space thing snatches a crew member off the ship, the Bald Chick. Why she is snatched is unexplained. Why she is returned, looking like the bald chick but transformed into a dull-witted robot, in a revealing mini-robe, is unexplained. Why the crew spend a good hunk of time trying to awaken her inner Bald-Chick-ness is unexplained.
Actually, they do explain.
* She was snatched because V’Ger takes samples by breaking them down into memory code.
* She was “returned” because V’Ger was curious about the Enterprise and sent an interactive probe in a familiar shape to more easily facilitate interaction.
* They spent time trying to “awaken” her because the probe was sufficiently identical to the real thing that memory engrams were copied as well. They hoped that her previous feelings of loyalty and comradeship might resurface, giving them an edge or insight.
I like this movie more than I ought to.
Aw, that’s what I was going to say.
But why was she snatched instead of anyone else?
That’s what V’Ger says, but it still doesn’t explain why V’Ger chooses to return her with the sexy costume change.
By the same logic, we could “awaken” Albert Einstein by going to Madame Tussaud’s and talking to his wax duplicate until it remembers that it’s a copy of a very intelligent man. While the world is ending.
And I didn’t even get to the part where V’Ger magically allows a bunch of carbon life-forms (which, five minutes earlier, it wanted to kill) to survive in space without space-suits, providing them atmosphere, warmth and gravity, which it magically knows they need, so that one of them can come have hot man-machine sparkly blue-light sex. Well, come to think of it, I’ve gone to similar lengths for sex myself, so I shouldn’t judge.
If this is how machines have sex, I don’t want to live in the future.
Neither do I, man. Neither do I.
Wow. I can honestly say I’ve never even thought about the film that way – I completely missed that whole hot, silvery spaceship of love angle, but with all the threads pulled together, there is a certain horrible fit.
The bit about “it would make sense if I were from another planet” reminded me of some of the weird quirks of the later series(a little off topic, perhaps) where there was this odd sense that the writers both mostly ignored several decades of officially produced material they might have used for stories, plot hooks, and creating a more vivid setting, while simultaneous having a bad habit of pitching some of the dramatic conflicts in terms that wouldn’t have any resonance to someone who isn’t a die-hard trekkie. For example, they had a story line on Deep Space Nine where one of the characters has some terrible secret which turns out to be that he was actually born a train-wreck of heredity and his parents used forbidden technology to fix him(and then some.) Ok, in terms of that setting, that’s a fairly serious gaffe, in terms of the late 20th century viewer watching this story, having a character distraught his parents didn’t “do the right thing” and leave him a drooling idiot seems a pretty lame deep, dark secret. Maybe keeping the details in the future, but keeping in mind they were writing for the present would have helped smooth out some of their cheesier moments.
I’m not claiming that was always a problem, just that it seemed to happen often enough to be kind of creepy.
There’s a similar problem in Michael Winterbottom’s Code 46. In that movie (spoiler) two people fall in love and it turns out one is the clone of the other one’s mother. Now, the thrust of the narrative is that we’re supposed to want these two folks to have their love, damn the stupid system that’s keeping them apart, but on a really primal level, we’re just saying “ick.”
three words: Wrath of Khan! I agree the first Trek movie is really slow, I think they linger on the visual effects probably since it was such a big deal back when it first came out. But the second Trek movie is much better.
That’s my understanding too.
For the record, I have been either the little brother or the swain of a Trekkie all my life, so I’ve been dragged to most of the movies while somehow escaping the TV show. The first one I remember enjoying entirely on its own merits was 1996’s First Contact.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
your an idiot
Foolish and very telling about the writer
I would normally scream “you dullard” right now, but I’ll resist. Is there some reason this film is being reviewed as if it’s a current film? This film was made in the late 70’s, and as such, the special effects are better then most films produced in that period. Lets perhaps compare this to Sci Fi films from even the early and mid 80’s and see what happens. The effects, sound design, and overall sum of it’s parts are pretty damn good. Not overwhelmingly outstanding, of course, but pretty damn good.
Perhaps this inept reviewer might like to show us some examples of other films from this era that show their bleeding edge sensibilities and utterly dominate this genre (OTHER then Alien, that is).