Star Trek The Motion Picture Director’s Cut: Seeing it Again with Fresh Eyes

In December of 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released and the world rejoined the future universe as envisioned by creator, Gene Roddenberry. It had been a decade since the original series went off the air, and due to the popularity of the show in syndication, a huge and loyal fan base had formed. Originally planned as a new series titled Star Trek: Phase II, the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind convinced Paramount studios to cancel the already in production series and convert it to a full-length feature film.  Plagued with delays and script rewrites, the movie premiered with mixed reviews mainly claiming the film lacked action and relied too heavily on special effects.  In 2001, original director, Robert Wise, oversaw a director’s cut for a special DVD with remastered audio, added and tightened scenes, and added some more advanced computer-generated special effects that did not exist in the late 1970s. Now that same directors cut is available exclusively on Paramount + in a 4k edition, heightening the experience.

I had just turned ten when the original movie was released, and although I liked the original series, I didn’t see the film in the theatres.  I remember seeing it on TV, and finding it interesting, but rather slow moving for a youngster, not truly understanding the subtleties in the plot, the relationship of the characters and the motivations behind everyone’s actions.  Throughout the rest of my life, I just sort of trusted what everyone was saying, that the first film wasn’t very good. Never trust critics, including myself.  As I have said before, I don’t like saying whether a movie is good or bad, because those things are subjective.  What speaks to one person, doesn’t necessarily speak to someone else.  Something you believe is the worse thing ever, could be the best thing to the person next to you.

I won’t be able to compare the directors cut that I just watched for the first time to a movie I saw once when I was eleven 40 years ago.  I could to that for Star Trek: II, IV and VI, but not The Motion Picture. Which is unfortunate, as I feel like I have been missing out on something for the last four decades. The film is a type of homage to the fans of the original series, with long extended shots of the exterior of the enterprise, but beyond that, there is quite an interesting story at its core. A being of pure logic with technology so advanced that we would stand no chance in fighting it.  Who or What is V’ger? And how do you stop a being so powerful? How?… You bring together the original crew of the USS Enterprise.  A lone Star Ship and its crew on a dangerous mission to attempt to save all lives on Earth.

The film is beautifully filmed, and the updated special effects makes it feel a bit timelier.  There is a bit too much relying on the visuals.  There is a scene where they are entering into the cloud surrounding V’ger which just seems to go on forever.  As it was recounted to me, this is where you could get up, go to the bathroom, stop at the concession stand, talk to a friend for a while, write that novel you always wanted to, and when you got back to your seat, and they would still be traveling through the cloud.  As beautiful and Oscar nomination worthy as it is, it just goes on a bit to long, but I found this a minor annoyance.  The music is amazing with Jerry Goldsmith’s score garnering him an Oscar nomination as well. The score for STTMP became so iconic it was used for the main title of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The one technical area that has not held up well is the costuming.  Taking too much of a clue from the time period it was filmed in, the uniforms look a bit too 1970s and, although they look a lot more comfortable, remind me of pajamas. It’s as if they raided the costume department from Logan’s Run.

A movie cannot survive on special effects alone, it has to have a good story and likeable characters.  It is the character interactions that create the dynamics and often the drama in a production.  The real fun in Star Trek: The Motion Picture comes with seeing our favorite characters again and meeting new crew members.  William Shatner returns as James T. Kirk, now a Star Fleet Admiral, who uses this emergency to take control of the Enterprise, temporarily demoting newcomer, Captain Will Decker (Stephen Collins) to Commander and making him the executive officer.  This causes some friction as the two compete with each other. We get a peak inside Kirk’s psyche and motivations, and see Decker as a competent Star Fleet officer with his own strength and weaknesses. DeForest Kelley is Dr. McCoy, the gruff medical officer, who’s job it is to keep reminding Kirk that he isn’t a god, and that he has faults. It is is always fun to see the love/hate interaction between Spock and McCoy. Leonard Nimoy reprises his role as Spock who left Star Fleet to attempted to purge himself of all emotion. He does not have the same feeling of joy in seeing his old crewmates, but out of all the characters in the movie, Spock’s journey takes him the farthest.  In dealing with an entity of pure logic, he realizes that to evolve, one must have emotion.  I see this as a turning point for the character and makes him the most interesting to me.  All the other originals return, I do wish they would have been featured more prominently. Finally, joining the cast is Persis Khambatta as Ilia, a Deltan navigator, Persis was originally cast as Ilia for the Phase II series.  Deltan’s are highly advanced sexually, and to prevent them from taking advantage of less advanced civilization, must take a vow of celibacy while in Star Fleet.  Decker and Ilia have a past which adds a dimension to the character and their dynamics.  I think it would have been interesting to see how the two would have evolved and advanced in a series. The first few Star Trek films fell into a pattern of trying to introduce new blood like Ilia, Decker, Lt Savik, and Kirk’s son David only to dispatch the characters and continue focusing on the original crew even as they grew grayer and long in the tooth. The love the fans had for the original crew of the USS Enterprise would keep the actors coming back for six films and McCoy, Scottie and Spock would even turn up in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first of many sequels to The Original Series.