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Star Trek: The Motion Picture

You can tell just from the start that this whole film is about feeling triumphant that Star Trek is back. Having Goldsmith's epic score play over a simple list of the main actors is only the start.

Kirk's promotion to admiral and desire to retake his ship is clearly a metaphor for the show being away. Shatner, of course, is as brilliant as always. During the pan around the Enterprise, his absolute joy at seeing the ship isn't just delight that he's got his missus back, it's Shatner himself expressing awe at how his show has grown into something so much more than it was, with all the budget that implies. Even when he's in command, he's practically fondling the captain's chair (and there's one top down shot that feels almost pornographic in how it shows this).

There is also a clear sense that maybe Star Trek has changed too much. Kirk is a stand in for the audience here, with how he gets lost and doesn't fully understand the new ship. His relationships with the other characters are quite interesting. He's visibly hurt and almost scorned that Spock doesn't seem to fully appreciate their friendship anymore. His ruthlessness arguably hits its natural limit with how he straight up drafts McCoy. His little wink to Chekov is delightful, as is the twinkle in his eye when he starts treating V'Ger like a child.

Spock's popularity means that keeping him away from the film for most of the first half (apart from a pretty amazing teaser that revels in the surprising mysticism of Vulcan society) is quite a wise move. He suffers from and has his own metaphor for Star Trek's absence. Given that Nimoy suffered the most from the transition to animation, its hard not to read TAS as playing a role in his more unemotional start. Naturally, his attempts to cast off his human side are doomed to failure and wouldn't be worth much even if they did succeed. After all, he sees the natural, cold and almost nihilistic end point of pure logic with V'Ger. What can you do but laugh when you realise that you're wrong in the most wonderful way. Also, the awkwardness after his reunion scene with the crew is beautiful.

McCoy swaggers back onto stage with his typical curmudgeonly passion. Presumably, he wasn't having a great time of it away from Starfleet judging from his beard. His bickering with Spock is toned down even more, with much less bigotry. His nature as the most human of the bunch is finally used well, as he holds Kirk to account for his more problematic traits. Love that he wastes no time in flopping down when Kirk suggests they all have a seat.

It's great seeing the whole side crew back again. Felt their joy when Kirk arrives on the bridge. Scotty, befitting his status as the honorary fourth member of the main trio, gets an extended sequence with Kirk, and Doohan does wonderfully at conveying Scotty's delight and pride at Kirk's own joy. Uhura is still in the much stronger mode that Nichols created for TAS. Sulu continues to be the most normal. Koenig's Russian accent seems a touch more natural for Chekov. For a character I was mostly ambivalent on in his first appearances, I'm kind of amazed how glad I am to have him back. Even Rand puts in an appearance and is treated with more respect and dignity than ever before.

Decker is interesting. Being Kirk's supposed replacement makes him kind of hateable on principle, but they don't make him unreasonable. His sense of betrayal is kind of justified and he's right about all of his early decisions. McCoy correctly points out that Kirk is in the wrong here. His relationship with Ilia gives him some extra sympathy. Of course, they patch things up before the end.

Speaking of Ilia, it's nice to have another alien main character on this ship. Shutting down Kirk with her vow of celibacy is a nice nod to his, somewhat unfair, reputation. The actress does a great job of subtly showing the various degrees between Ilia and the Probe.

I understand people's complaints about the ponderous nature of the space scenes, but I sort of disagree. The reason, as pointed out, is to show off that they have a budget now, but given the bizarre history of cancellations and revivals, I can't really blame them. Goldsmith's score helps make them more than bearable and it's nice that the main theme, which I recognise from the intro to TNG, is also basically the Enterprise's theme. Following the putting the band back together theme, its quite cool that the first captain's log doesn't occur until after Kirk's command is established. A cool example of directing is after Decker has defended launching the torpedoes and McCoy has chewed out Kirk, the shot lingers on the door closing and framing Kirk in shadow, as though he's becoming increasingly aware of his own darkness. The effects and models are fantastic and more than justify the amount of time the camera spend on them. I like that Klingons and vulcans have an actual language now. The Cloud is beautiful and never seems fully in shot, which only emphasises its size and unknowability. Once they get inside, it becomes even more immense. The inner chamber is shown as being a whole sub universe in its own right. Sound design is mesmerising. The notes involving V'Ger skirt the line between harsh sound effect and actual music and I love the remix of the original them. The transporter malfunction is surprisingly horrifying.

Sure, it's a retread of The Changeling, but I think it does it better. Aside from the idea of Earth's old space technology (and its better to use a real space program for this) coming back to haunt us being the perfect tale for the big, epic movie, the resolution has a beautiful human theme that takes us past logic into something much more mystical and enlightening. It's a literally glowing endorsement of true exploration and a truly glorious ending.

Occasional slowness aside, this is probably the best way to kick off a grand film series. Appropriately epic. Frankly, if this is what passes for a bad film, I'm in for a treat.

The space seeds were sown and tomorrow we reap The Wrath of Khan.