Star Trek

[ShyViolet]

That’s awesome!

I saw it on VHS at about seven or eight but didn’t understand much. Then bits and pieces over the years. I really need a proper viewing.

(I just love Khan so much that it’s always kind of overshadowed Motion Picture for me.)

[Ben]

Khan overshadowed The Motionless Picture for just about everyone! With the characters back to themselves but the added depth of a big film, this is how it should be done. Had Trek II performed the same way as the first (it wasn’t a flop, but wasn’t a smash, which is why the next few were made on "on a budget"), I think that would have been it for Trek in the movies, and maybe forever everywhere else too (gasp!), but Meyer pulled it out of the bag and got things on track, fortuitously.

However, 1979 was about The Black Hole for me. Not intentionally, but I just got taken to see that over what was known from reviews to be a well-intentioned but fairly "boring" ST film. (Weirdly, I remember some rodeo supporting feature with it that seemed to go on for ages…I never found out what that was, haha!)

Bob Wise was a great director, one of my faves as he’d started as an editor, but he made a grandiose 2001 instead of a Trek popcorn film, or at least a kind of mind-meld between the two. His approach wasn't wrong — this was Trek writ large for the biggest of screens after all — and the story wasn’t all down to hm, but it lost the rough 'n' readiness that the later (cheaper) films would retain.

I'd been watching the BBC's reruns of TOS on television, so knew there was a Trek film because of all the poster ads on the back of the DC comics at the time, but it wasn't until 1983's Spock that I really became "aware" of Trek as a film entity at age ten, since the ad campaigns for that were very aggressive due to wanting to build on Khan's commercial and critical success.

So I must have seen Khan about then, on TV or video, as I don’t remember catching TMP until much later, probably on TV. I eventually saw it "properly" in an all-day six-movie marathon they did when Undiscovered Country came out which, by then, I was naturally totally into the movies, though pretty much saw them all on video before that point. I still need to watch the newer version of the Director’s Cut…!

[droosan]

I realize I'm in the minority .. but I love Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It remains my favorite ST film. Yes; I do rank it above TWoK (but only slightly!)

I'm likewise a huge fan of The Black Hole.

I acknowledge that each is a flawed film, for various reasons .. but I still enjoy 'em as much as I did at 9 years old.

I was working at Foundation Imaging while they were creating VFX for the Director's Cut of TMP. I did not work on it (I actually wasn't fond of the idea of it, at all).

However .. the original 8-foot-long 'refit' Enterprise filming model was provided to Foundation Imaging at that time for the VFX artists to photograph and study, while making their CGI version of the ship. That gave me the opportunity to see the original movie Enterprise for myself -- in person -- from mere inches away!

[Randall]

Very nifty!

I'm a big fan of TMP, too. Yes, the editing wasn't finished yet in the theatrical cut, and it shows; but the film has a real majesty to it and a great look overall. As Ben alluded to, it would take another film before we got the "real" characters back, but it was thrilling to see them in TMP all the same.

[Ben]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I love me some TMP myself, too. The grandiose nature I spoke about is what gives it its majesty and importance, and the actors do rise to the occasion.

I don’t know about the new-new version with all the whizz-bang effects, but I was glad Wise got to shorten his cut originally, since it really wasn’t ever a "finished" film. Complete yes, but not finished, even if the long docking scenes looked fantastic on the biggest screen one could find!