Synopsis

Starfleet has detected a strange alien presence in the form of a giant energy cloud that’s destroyed three Klingon ships. James T. Kirk (William Shatner), who’s been promoted to Admiral, returns to the USS Enterprise to investigate the cloud. He takes command of the ship from Captain Decker (Stephen Collins), who warns him that he doesn’t know the modifications. Unfortunately, Decker’s proven right as the engines fail while going to warp speed and a malfunctioning teleporter kills two officers. Thankfully, Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy) arrives to help Mr. Scott (James Doohan) get the engines in working order. They intercept the cloud, which abducts the ship’s navigator Ilia (Persis Khambatta) and replaces her with a robot duplicate. The duplicate explains that the presence is known as “V’Ger” and it’s seeking its original creator to fulfill its purpose. Who or what is “V’Ger” and will its purpose be fulfilled?

Review

This film is often referred to as Star Trek: The Motion-LESS Picture, and it’s easy to see why. It seems that director Robert Wise was trying to make his own 2001: A Space Odyssey but it doesn’t work. There are so many scenes where nothing happens and no dialogue is spoken that go on for way too long. Granted, the visuals are impressive and they clearly spent a lot on them, but it gets very dull very fast. The film runs slightly over two hours, and at least 30 minutes could’ve been trimmed of the slower scenes. When there is dialogue, much of it is exposition dumping and going on and on about stuff that doesn’t matter. For the first Star Trek movie, the plot is pretty uninspired, given the big threat being a giant space cloud. This would’ve been better suited for an episode of the show.

That being said, there are plenty of good things here, particularly the impressive visuals and Jerry Goldsmith’s fantastic score. It helps that they had some major talent doing the effects, including John Dykstra, who coincidentally worked on Star Wars. The returning cast from the show, particularly Shatner, Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley, slip back to their roles effortlessly. As problematic as he is today, Stephen Collins isn’t too bad, and he has good chemistry with Persis Khambatta. Also, as silly as a giant space cloud is, once you learn what the entity truly is, it is fascinating. Unfortunately, by the time we get there, it’s been so slow-moving and uninteresting that it’s hard to care. Given how fairly recent the cult following was at the time, the fans deserved a better film than this. Overall, Star Trek: The Motion Picture isn’t terrible, but you’re better off watching the sequel instead.

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