Boldly Go

As I mentioned, some of my first memories in life were sitting in front of the television watching Star Trek Next Generation. My father was definitely what you call a "Trekkie", so we went to see all of the movies in theaters and sayings like "live long and prosper" and "make it so" were common household adages.

I loved Star Trek for quite some time but something happened in my teenage years, it seemed like all that information was purged. It could have been being subjected to the first season of Enterprise. Years later, I came to embrace my sci-fi heritage, part of which was the Star Trek series. Memories came flooding back of Jean-Luc Picard and his solemn yet loving authority, Kirk's devil-may-care attitude and of course, all of the great wisdom of Spock. Because the new Star Trek series is on so many people's mind, especially with the sequel coming next year, I think it's about time that I made a trip back, all the way back, even before my time. However, unlike Q I can not travel through time, so I decided that I would commit the next eleven days to watching all eleven of the Star Trek movies, at personal expense to my sanity, to boldly go where plenty of Trekkies have gone before.

Stardate 10-14-2010

In 1969 the final episode of the original Star Trek aired and fans grew quickly hungry for more voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Gene Roddenberry, the series creator persuaded Paramount studios to pick Star Trek as a series of movies. This was at a time when practically the only sci-fi movie that had ever done well in the box-office was Star Wars, and it was obvious that any movie that they would make of Star Trek, really wouldn't capture the same audience.

They started work on a movie in 1977, but it was put aside for a new series, they were going to call it Star Trek: Phase II. They had gotten as far as to line up actors and even write a few episodes when a movie called Close Encounters of a Third Kind came to theaters, and convinced Paramount that they could truly make a sci-fi movie without Jedis and lightsabers that could make money. They began work on it in 1978 with Academy Award winning director Robert Wise, whose career had varied between West Side Story, Sound of Music and The Day The Earth Stood Still. The story was even written by Alan Dean Foster who would go on to write a plethora of sci-fi and fantasy novels. The buzz was great, and the initial box-office returns were astounding. But how does this late 70s movie stand up today?

If you have watched any Star Trek series you are completely aware that there are two different type of episodes: Ones that chronicle war, epic battles against savage foes like the Klingons or Romulans and ones that involve strange creatures that are highly intelligent, nearly all-powerful and indescribable. This movie, is the second kind. Don't let the Klingons in the first 20 seconds of the movie fool you. Over-all, even though the story is about a super-sentient being, it is really a story of Spock and his ever continuing battle between emotions and logic. The movie isn't really even subtle with this theme, as they tell you up front the first time you see Spock, with long hair and ceremonial robes on the planet Vulcan. According to the story, Spock had just spent the last few years, trying to give up the final bit of emotion he has, to complete the Vulcan ritual of Kohlinar, something he gave up to board the Enterprise to begin with. Before the ritual could be complete, Spock senses a consciousness of immense energy heading towards earth, his fellow Vulcans tell him that he can find his answers there.

Meanwhile, on earth they find out that a blue cloud is heading to earth and that it is destroying everything in it's path. Kirk, now an Admiral, uses his pull in Starfleet to get the Enterprise back so that he can investigate this cloud.

But, before he can command the Enterprise, he has to take it back from the new captain, which happens to be the dad from Seventh Heaven.

One of the most interesting parts of the movie is how much detail they put in to all of the model design for the ships. It's fascinating to see this era of movie making, whereas it's after Star Wars, it's before the sci-fi action movie started to really come in to focus in American film making. The difference between the models and film style of this movie and the series is truly astounding.

Another thing worth remarking about is the general aesthetic in the movie. It has a very 70s view of the future, from the pastel interior to the tunic like uniforms. The film exudes and almost parodies the futuristic designs seen in movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris. From the very bright, pristine and almost sterile environments comes a sense of what might have been hinted at from early sci-fi novels.

McCoy doing his best Bee Gees impression.

Throughout the movie there are a lot of references to religion and romance, but everything becomes overshadowed by a sense of bruting indifference from Spock. From the moment he boards the Enterprise, he is met with love and kindness, yet he cuts straight to business, his curiosity about the "blue cloud" becoming his main focus.

In fact, Spock's search for answers makes his intentions come in to question quite a few times, he is kept out of a lot of the more important inner-circles of the movie, kept out of business that doesn't partain to his department, instead for some reason, McCoy becomes a more prominent character as they observe a doppleganger of one of their crewmates, Liutenant Ilia, who happens to be an ex-lover of the former captain Decker. The doppleganger is a messenger of the blue cloud named "V'Ger". The dramatic element is played up during the middle of the movie, but is somewhat shallow and unmeaningful in the scope of the main idea. It isn't until the final part of the movie, when Spock's character becomes more active, Vulcan neck-pinches someone and goes for a quiet stroll outside the Enterprise to get a closer look at this blue cloud, which turns out to be a giant alien vessel housing V'Ger. The vessel allows Spock to enter and shows him centuries worth of data it's been collecting while drifting through space. Upon returning, Spock hypothesizes that the ship, the data inside and the blue cloud all make up what they refer to as V'Ger.


It's worth mentioning that the special effects take a turn for the better in this final part, even though the journey inside of V'Ger looks much like a screensaver from the early 90's, the inside of vessel is full of wonderful, industrial detail. It looks almost like something you would see from a painting by Giger.

V'Ger finally arrives within hours of earth and tells the Enterprise that it is trying to find it's creator and that carbon based lifeforms are in it's way. Because of this V'Ger has no choice but to assimilate all humans in to data packages and continue for his search for creator, destroying the human race. Kirk comes up with a solution, telling V'Ger he knows where his creator is, an away-team consisting of Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Decker and the Doppleganger, are allowed to board the innermost transmitter of V'Ger. They reach the very center of V'Ger which looks much like a satelite and as they approach it they realize that it's a bit more primitive than they could have imagined.

The twist in the story comes when Kirk find an inscription on the satelite that says "VGER" he wipes the inscription clean to realize that it actually says Voyager VI, a lost satelite sent from NASA nearly 300 years ago. Apparently Voyager VI was lost in a blackhole, appeared on the other side of the galaxy and has been traveling back towards earth, trying to collect as much data as possible. On it's way back to earth, it finds a planet made up completely of machines, and they build the vessel around it, allowing it to complete it's mission, collect data, report back to earth. Along the way Voyager starts to gather so much information that it becomes sentient, yet becomes so tethered to logic that it can not truly ascend to the next level of consciousness. Nearly all of this information is revealed within a minute of dialogue between Spock and Decker. Spock then realizes that he too has become to tied up in logic and that he has not embraced his human side. Yet Decker thinks that by making physical contac with V'Ger he can fuse with it, allowing it to evolve and embrace the ability to "jump over logic". Decker and the Doppleganger of his former lover, fuse with V'Ger and the away-team comes back to the Enterprise. The entire cloud and vessel that was V'Ger disapears in to nothingness.

And just when you think it's done, a nice legnthy conversation insues between the three survivors, McCoy, Kirk and Spock. As McCoy likens the evolution of V'Ger to birthing a baby, Spock announces that he will be staying with Enterprise because he has "completed his mission on planet Vulcan" and Kirk gets the last line of the movie.

"Heading Sir?"
"Out there........Thataway."

All things considered, it was an interesting movie. The critical response was very mixed after the movies release. A lot of people said that the movie didn't have enough action in it, because of this Gene Roddenberry's creative control was removed from the rest of the movie series. This movie definitely paved the way for science fiction movies, yet might have had very little to do with it's successors in the Star Trek movie franchise, especially Wrath of Khan which might have been the very antithesis of this movie. What is amazing is how the special effects, cinematography and dialogue really hold up after all this time, the movie was made with an enormous budget and it shows. If you haven't seen this movie, or haven't seen it in a while, I recommend watching it. If nothing else than to oogle the incredible set design.

On that note, I'm moving on to Wrath Of Khan, what most consider to be the crowning achievement of the entire series. We will see if it can really pass the test of time.