It is the miracle of modern entertainment.
Star Trekturns 50 this year.
Once progressive in vision, the franchise turned conservative in its desperate curation.
There is no simple way to understandStar Trek.
There are high highs and low lows.
Best to focus in, I think.
On July 22, the 13thStar Trekmovie will arrive in theaters.
IfStar Trek Beyondis awful, it still might not be the worstStar Trekmovie.
MaybeStar Trekshould only be a TV show.
(A new one arrives 2017.)
MaybeStarTrekshould only be about anEnterprise.
Maybe it should just end.
Maybe were just beginning.
Hopefully, well understand more at the end.
You want to cry, you dont know why.
There are planetscapes and solaric abstractions and effervescent fugue-core incoherence rippling across electric oceans.
The villain inThe Motion Pictureis one such abstraction: A demi-god vapor-planet of unknown origin and unknowable purpose.
It is the first thing we see in the movie, and we never really see it at all.
In the first scene ofThe Motion Picture, three Klingon ships approach the cloud.
In 1979, aStar Trekfan would have recognized the design of the Klingon ships.
But things would have also looked different, to that diehardTrekfan.
The Klingons are different, too: more alien, with makeup and forehead prosthetics.
The subtext could be understood by a child:Star Trekis now$tar Trek!.
And the first scene is set to Goldsmiths Klingon Battle Theme.
The Motion Pictureneeds you to know that its a movie, by god.
(you might feel an implication: WouldntStar Trekbe evenbetteron the big screen?)
Today, The Motion Picture is a meaningless title.
It runs along another outdated idea: That movies are fundamentally better than television.
Almost four decades on, TV is more like movies, and movies are more like TV.
Your ten-year-old nephew makes motion pictures.
Your ten-year-old nephew films from better angles than Robert Wise.
(The lists overlap.
Gene Roddenberrys on both, at the top.)
An impressive run, and one that maybe Trumbull himself only appreciates as a complimentary prize from fate.
Trumbull only agreed to doThe Motion Pictureout of spite.
Theres a shot in this sequence that may be the single most stunning image ever captured in aStar Trekproject.
We know thats not the real woman; shes back on theEnterprise, or some version of her is.
But Spock is tantalized.
A higher state of consciousness, maybe?
He seems to find it here, in this glowing representation of WOMAN.
An unearthly glow encompasses him, erasing his face from our sight.
He reaches out his hands to mindmeld, toknow.
The mindmeld blasts Spock backwards.
The effect is, no other way of saying this, orgasmic.
Spock describes the strange thoughts he experienced, inside the creatures brain.
Is this all I am?
Is there nothing more?
The Motion Pictures monster is in the midst of an existential crisis, it turns out.
In the stars, it found more computers, which gave it inconceivable power.
It has seen everything now and, in achieving total cosmic awareness, it has also achieved sentience.
It lives: So what?
InThe Motion Picture, the what now is… well, sex.
Or the awareness of other life.
Or the knowledge that we live only so that we can create other things that live.
Its all a bit abstract but dont Zen Buddhists seem pretty happy?
The climactic image of them receiving enlightenment?
ascending to a higher state?
is one of the silliest and most transcendent special effects shots ever.
I think we gave it the ability to create its own sense of purpose, concludes SpockKirk.
How do you put such a vague but universal experience onscreen?
How do you conjure up the fear that thereisno purpose?
Maybe you need a new language, something beyond words.
Cinema, or whatever cinema used to be.
Decades later, Wise worked on a special cut ofThe Motion Picture.
That special cut adds in a few shots that seem to clearly identify what VGer looks like.
This is helpful only if you think that incoherence wasThe Motion Pictures problem, and not its saving grace.
But you could spend a long time pondering the image of theEnterprise, dwarfed and surrounded by VGer.
You wonder what it must have been like, to see that on a big screen.
You wonder what it must have felt like, toonlysee motion pictures on the big screen.
You wonder, above all, what it was like to feel so small in the universe.
(Is Pluto still not a planet?)
SoThe Motion Pictureis beloved by film theorists and special effects nerds and people who treat marijuana as a sacrament.
But in 2016, special effects are too common and marijuana too legal to feel sacred.
(Wrath of Khanis toThe Motion PictureasThe Motion Pictureis toSolaris.)
Kirks returning to the old ship after years behind a desk.
He ascended from the captains chair to become, ahem Chief of Starfleet Operations.
There is a giant killer gas cloud coming towards Earth and the only starship in interception range is theEnterprise.
Isnt Earth, like, the center of Starfleet Operations?
Kirk is out of practice.
You havent logged a single star hour in two years!
declares Commander Decker, the man who would have been in charge of theEnterpriseif Kirk hadnt unretired himself.
Decker is played by Stephen Collins, withretroactively creepy blandness.
Wise had a huge budget, and so he built huge sets, each less compelling than the last.
Everyones an officer in some codified organized military or other.
Everyone wears a uniform.
Wise does not give a shot to bring life to this structure.
Hedoessend a couple characters out into space but they dont fire lasers at anyone.
Late in the long first act, Dr. McCoy arrives on theEnterprise, and Kirk asks him for help.
Maybe the problem was Roddenberry.
The creator ofStar Trekspent the decade afterStar Trektrying to bring backStar Trek.
He would not let it die.
You think of George Miller, returning to create the perfectMad Max30 years later.
Or maybe you think of other people Chris Carter?Roger Kumble?
Anyone onFuller Housewho isnt John Stamos?
returning to the most popular item on a long-dormant IMDb page.
Roddenberry was devoted toStar Trek, but he carried the blame for all the perceived faults ofThe Motion Picture.
This is the onlyTrekfilm Roddenberry really worked on.
The film cant even commit to a lack of emotion.
One of Ilias first terrible lines is, My oath of celibacy is on the record, Captain.
Soon, celibate Ilia is transformed into an emotionless robot two different layers of Spocklike indifference!
But Ilia cant keep her eyes off love interest Decker, and Decker cant stop smiling at her.
but the outcome is never in doubt, the drama never dangerous.
Roddenberry was a utopianist.
He believed in the best ideas about humanity getting along.
Everyone is so… serene.
Everyone is so… peaceful.
Everyone is so… bland.
George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, and Walter Koenig are only in the movie to smile at Kirk.
Kubricks big joke in2001was that the computer was more human than the humans.
Thats another accidental joke inThe Motion Picture.
Shatner, dangerously toned-down, seems more Vulcan than the Vulcan.
TheEnterprisecrew listens patiently to Kirk giving commands, follows orders.
Spock pursues great knowledge, with no ambition or thirst.
The Motion Picturehas a simple problem: Its too goddamn slow.
Every otherStar Trekfilm is, in some way, a reaction against that complaint.
You could argue thatThe Motion Pictureis2001for Dummies, or the misbegotten mash-up of2001andStar Warswith placeholders where characters should be.
ButThe Motion Pictureis reaching for something no otherTrekfilm has even tried to reach for.
It is Head-Trip science fiction, Big Question science fiction.
No one involved can think of a compelling way to dramatize those questions.
Surely there was a way, though!
You think of Balance of Terror, one of the greatest of allStar Trekstories.
Balance of Terror is a bottle episode about people in one set trying to outthink people on another set.
The narrative is Socratic, but theres nothing wrong with that.
Not every fight needs to be choreographed.
CouldThe Motion Picturehave worked like that, as a thoughtful exploration?
It still almost does, even if everyone besides DeForest Kelley looks bored.
Theres no other film like it besides maybeFinal Frontier(more on that in four weeks).
SoThe Motion Pictureis a fascinating curio.
There are betterTreks, but theyre smaller, too, and maybe less ambitious.
This could be the lastStar Trekever.
Will anyone ever even venture to write the lastStar Trek?
The clothes look like furniture, the furniture looks like clothes.
These are the shortest-lived of theTrekuniforms, and the extras all look like theyre wearing pajamas.
But, devils advocate:The Motion Pictureuniforms are the onlyStar Trekcostumes that look made for comfort.
They are loose, turtlenecks and sweatshirts, onesies, shirts that dont ever get tucked in.
Witness the Holy Trinity in slanket-chic.
The grand exception is Ilia, played by Persis Khambatta.
you might see it floating next to Sulus head.
This was almost certainly a mistake brought on by Wises abject love for unnecessary camera trickery.
But penicillin was a mistake, too.
THE ENTIRE MOVIE IN ONE SHOT:
