Star Trek: The Motion Picture

[mark_asphodel]

I'd never seen it.  Through a roundabout series of events that included limited exposure to the last three TNG movies[*], all of which I'd previously boycotted based on how astoundingly shitty Generations was,  my husband insisted we play the original Trek film for an impromptu Movie Night before I spoilered myself for it.

I probably wasn't supposed to laugh my head off at the plot twist when we find out what the alien entity V'ger actually is.  Oh man, I howled and howled.  It was a cute twist, though, even if my general knowledge of Trek meant that I'd already predicted exactly what was going to happen to "Captain" Decker once the Enterprise crew got to the heart of the mystery.  It was a pretty good film, though-- not as boring as I'd heard, though all the exterior spaceship pr0n shots were overmuch.  I dunno... it's kind of like Tron for Star Trek fans?  The outfits everyone has on are godawful, but overall it's really one of the better films, and I think it demonstrates just how amazingly far the TNG films and the reboot got away from what the spirit of Star Trek actually was.  Kirk-- the "reckless" captain-- wasn't interested in killing poor lonely V'ger just because V'ger ate a space station, put all Earth in peril, and fucked with the Enterprise.  No, Kirk wanted V'ger to self-actualize!  How Trek is that?  Totally Trek!

I mean, the baseline spirit of the series used to be "Because humans and other sentient beings can be better than this, and we will be."  And that didn't necessarily lead to black/white morality where all the good choices were the easy ones to make.  Hell no.  But then you have this spate of shitty movies wherein the characters are basically rejecting everything they used to be about and, uh, NO.  The reboot was a fun film but Gene Roddenberry's ashes are quivering somewhere from the stupid.

* They look awful.  Even First Contact.  Seriously-- TNG was a great ensemble show, and I have no use for these films featuring Action Hero Picard (what) and Data With Emotions (no) and, oh yeah those other ppl who aren't Data and Picard.

Comments

[xenosynth]

From what I know too, Stewart actually WANTED to be an action hero. It's the same reason why Nemesis had the buggy scene on the planet ~_~ Which... just know. The episode Starship Mine should have proven to Stewart that he should try to adhere to being a captain. That said, First Contact at least didn't try too hard to be cerebral. I will admit, I didn't like TMP all too much. It wasn't bad, but... the introduction took a very long time of just space and music... and the ship shots, like you said, felt... like it was just going 'LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!' Still, I think Star Trek 5 is my least favorite of all (even moreso than Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis).

Insurrection and Generations were wrought with problems though too. In Generations... the 'big event' was so anticlimactic, and in Insurrection... the message was silly. I hate the simplicity anti-technology things in it so much ~_~

As for Nemesis... I pretty much dislike most of it. Especially the fact that the remans who work in the mines and as slaves for the romulans have the technology to make a super ship (that seems so impractical) and is for some reason named after a weapon from earth.

As with Gene (since you mentioned it with the new Star Trek movie)... Gene I have mixed views on. Especially when I began reading about how he treated a lot of the writers, especially Michael Pillar, during TNG. He was... it kinda flabbergasts me how disconnected he was. Like when he was talking about how people don't mourn their dead in the future >_> For one of the TNG episodes, cannot remember the title. We don't just evolve out of having traits though that are natural to us. We still have primitive reactionary traits to this day. And... that he hated how militaristic Starfleet seemed (even in TMP, Wrath of Khan, etc.) even though... they use the exact same ranking system as a navy, they have many of the same functions, and they are pretty much the space military. My main beef with Gene though, was that he believed humans didn't have problems in the future from the self, that problems would come from the outside, not the Federation. Which makes it near impossible to write good character drama, especially when forced into doing a bottle show where they have to cut costs and keep most of the things on the ship. TNG began to improve significantly when the writers were free to write how they wanted. Gene crafted a wonderful universe, just... he seemed a bit antagonistic towards change. The first two seasons of TNG show it pretty well, they feel like they were almost forced into writing the same things as the old series, and reek of human superiority. After the Borg appeared though, it was so different. Overall, I love Gene for what he made but definitely do not agree with his views for how the series 'should' be.

Also, anytime you wanna talk about Trek, please, tell me, because HNNGH I have very few Trekkie friends and it makes it hard to discuss with people ;A;

[samuraiter]

TMP is one of my favorites in this series. (Depending on what I am writing, I frequently pop the OST into ye olde portable CD player, put on my headphones, and go to town; The Wrath of Khan OST is another standby, especially back during One Year.) It is also notable because it is the only Star Trek movie, IMO, that is genuine science fiction, rather than another genre dressed up to look like it. As you have said, too, because of this, it also retains the human-positive attitude of the original series.

Granted, I do not share that attitude, myself, but I do understand the merits of it, and it is enlightening to see it in practice. (I am more of a Battlestar Galactica (2004) sort, these days, as that series portrays humans as more of the selfish, disinterested, fear-directed sorts that I see every day.)

It might be no surprise, either, that I love Tron. The sequel, too. The late '70s and early '80s are a golden period for sci-fi(-ish) movies, though I tend to lean more towards Alien and Blade Runner (and 2001, which is sort of the granddaddy of all of these – speaking of human-negative, nihilistic points of view).