Space…. The Final Frontier….. Camp….. Camp Everywhere…..
I recently got shared access to Paramount Plus trying to find SOMETHING to watch while on vacation for the 4th. After scrolling through a barrage of Yellowstone and South Park options I found that just about every Star Trek movie is on Paramount Plus. Now, I’m no Trekkie, that was for the generation before me. I grew up with all three original STAR WARS films being in theaters after being remastered. That’s the science fantasy space opera I know and love. My father is a Trekkie though, and I grew up with the never ending original series marathons, weekly Voyager and Deep Space Nine tapings, and the monthly trips to BlockBuster Video to get whichever Patrick Stewart led Next Generation movie had just hit VHS shelves. With all my love for all things nerdy, whether it be comic books, kaiju, or science fiction in general, Star Trek is one of the few corners of Nerddom I don’t venture into and know very little about.
So I took a chance and fired up Star Trek: The Motion Picture the first of five theatrical releases staring the original Enterprise crew. I had to keep reminding myself of the ten year gap between the shows end and the beginning of the theatrical movies. The fashion on the 70s really comes through in some of the Star Fleet uniforms, especially towards the end of the film. When McCoy is brought back to Enterprise he looks like he just was teleported straight out of Barry Gibb’s coke party, big medallion and all. It’s a stark contrast from the original series, the vibrant colors of uniforms seems to be cast aside in favor of beige and sky blue uniforms that have little to no flair to them. I wondered if this to try and bring a sense of realism and functionality. Amenities should be as basic as possible hence why some of the fashion and esthetics in space oriented science fiction can often times be very plain. The film itself is extremely campy. The acting is what you’d expect, especially from William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Spock has an ungodly amount of eye shadow which lends more to the unintentional comedy. Kirk is his usual hammy self but not to the degree I remember. Some of Shatner’s facial expressions and line delivery alone made we want to watch the rest of the series to see how far he would go.
Overall the film delivers a solid science fiction story. An alien craft of unknown origin is headed straight towards Earth vaporizing everything in its path. The early computer generated imagery was surprisingly good for 1979, although I later found out I was watching a remaster. James T. Kirk, now an Admiral in Star Fleet, breaks about 100 Star Fleet codes to take control of the newly refurbished Enterprise. I kid you not when I say the first 40 minutes of the film is Kirk walking around the Enterprise pissing off nearly everyone put in command of the ship since his absence before informing the new Captain, Willard Decker, that he is taking command and demoting him to Science Officer. Kirk than manipulates any of the remaining original crew not currently still stationed on the Enterprise back into his service. This includes finding a Star Fleet regulation that brings the long retired Leonard “Bones” McCoy back to the Enterprise effectively drafting the Star Fleet veteran. Kirk than proceeds to almost kill everyone on board, and destroying the ship, due to his unfamiliarity with the Enterprise‘s new capabilities and untested warp core. Luckily that Science Officer he unseated saves everyone from total obliteration. Kirk rewards him by demoting him further once Spock rejoins the crew and takes his place as the ship’s Science Officer. Decker truly has one of the worst days on the job as his love interest from the past winds up being abducted by the unknown alien craft, now calling itself “V’Ger” and sent back as an android to make demands of the Enterprise crew and study them. After some emotion fenagling Kirk, Spock and Decker end up learning V’Ger is actually a lost Voyager Space probe found by a planet of machines a repurposed to find its creator. Decker than gets assimilated by V’Ger and the newly formed life form jets out into the cosmos. With Earth saved, Kirk keeps command of the Enterprise for further missions in space.
Having not seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture in many many years I actually found myself liking the story a lot. Visually if they had gone back to the roots of the series and less into the stripped down bare bones sci-fi aesthetics of other popular works the movie could have been beautiful. Looking forward towards Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan you see this total course correction in visuals. Everything around this movie is incredibly campy. The acting gets hammy, the makeup department goes bananas on the actors and actresses, and there are just some animatronics and set details that are just far too overworked (FLOATING LEGS!). After this I might give Wrath of Khan a watch, only because I know the sky is the limit for “Kirkisms” and further galaxy hopping adventures.
