Space. It seems to go on forever...
Then you get to the monkey and the en---
Hey, waitaminute, this is #wenchwatches !
Tonight: #starTrekTMP
Hilariously, Star Trek The Motion Picture is the *last* film I watched from VHS recordings I saw as a kid. We had recordings of Star Trek 2, 3, and 4. It was only after watching all of these that I finally was able to watch TMP...during a thunderstorm. My copy had several minutes missing for intercut tornado warnings.
The midwest experience, everyone!
Tonight, we're watching the 2022 Director's Edition, clocking in over 2 hours long. We've also seen this film on Wenchwatches as least twice before, but I just can't stay away.
Blame my Dad. I do.
Let's watch!
Coming from a broadcast VHS recording of the television cut still colors my expectations of this film. One thing that is striking compared to later Star Trek films (particularly 3) is how much more dark the film is. I don't mean in tone, I mean visually. The dark visuals, particularly during the V'Ger scenes resulted in significant graininess due to most of the screen being blues and blacks. As a result, any reasonable modern transfer looks spectacular, but the Blu-Ray edition is a particular treat.
In addition to several compete remakes of scenes and effects, I can only imagine a new transfer from the original film. When compared to my recollections, the initial battle with the klingons is gasp inducing.
Scotty: "The crew...hasn't had nearly enough transition time with all the new equipment..."
Me: [laughing in trans]
TMP has a reputation for being excruciatingly slow, and it's one I certainly can understand. Many even call it The (Stop) Motion Picture, or The Motionless Picture. It's not an undeserved reputation. Film reviewers the Internet-wide to Rifftrax have mocked it's languid and fraught pacing.
We can see this right when we first see the new Enterprise. To modern eyes, the eye-wateringly long shots of the refit craft seem to go one far, far too long. It's important to put these in context. Star Trek The Original Series ended in 1969. This film is a decade later, in a period where rebroadcasts were less common, and home recording was unknown. Effectively, these loving, close up shots of the new ship model feel almost justified. Having never seen the famous craft for a decade, a few minutes of lingering pans feels warranted. In addition, no one had seen detailed models of the ship before -- ever. The original TV model was good, but often rudimentary and only seen in NTSC resolutions. It simply doesn't compare to the experience of seeing it in Cinemascope.
I'm sure my gasps as a "mere" Blu-ray seem tame by comparison.
The pacing is only fraught in comparison to the film's *production*. Being a colossal nerd, I knew some of the production details, but a friend of mine gave me a deep dive into the complexity of the production.
Originally...there was not going to be a movie. Instead, there was going to be a follow up TV series, "Star Trek II", sometimes called "Phase 2" to distinguish it from the this film's much more popular successor. TMP combines elements from that show's episode "In Thy Image", expanding upon it and including the original cast rather than new characters. I was fortunate to read some of the scripts for both these episodes and some early shooting drafts for TMP.
But you don't need to take my word for it. Go see my friend's site instead: http://dolari.net/startrek/tmp/index.html
The need to reintroduce and get the cast back together in TMP introduces significant overhead in getting the plot in gear. We now have some unknown number of years between the end of TOS and the beginning of TMP to account for. The result feels like a Peter Jackson film in reverse. Instead of 5 or 6 endings we get 5 or 6 *beginnings*. Anyone who's played a JRPG knows how tiring and tedious it gets having to reassemble your party after the whims of the plot gods fling them across the planet. We need to see the film's plot, then where Spock has been, then where Kirk has been, then....actually, we don't get to see whatever amazing disco shenanigans McCoy had got up into.
Pity. I hope McCoy raised so much hell it'd make Dr. T'ana blush.
The result of all these beginnings means we're almost an hour into the film before we actually get back to the plot proper. When accustomed to a 43 minute television episode, the glacial pacing becomes pronounced. This is helped in no small means by the fact that the very *idea* of Star Trek -- the triad of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy -- has been since been so popularized that it's become a cultural conceit. Audiences may wonder why in the hell we're taking so long...just get them back together already!
@socketwench - That work got me a credit on the 4K BluRay Special Features and an invite to see the premiere of the movie with the creators in Hollywood.
