Comments on: Countdown To New Trailer: Look Back To TMP Trailer

By: M33

M33 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:00:32 +0000

This movie rocks. What can I say? Its true sci-fi Star Trek.

By: trekboi

trekboi — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:53:43 +0000

i love Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
u can really settle into it and spend some quality time in the 23rd century- it takes its time telling its story.

i understand fans of the serie wanted a movie leangth episode with a lucas sized budget but instead they got a tscience fiction movie.
oddly enough the one complaint i have heard directed at the last 3 films is that they were just like a long episode.- not a film

as for not enough action- anyone can film some battle scenes put together with mtv editing but where are the ideas and concepts?

By: mikko

mikko — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:20:42 +0000

An addendum to my comment above; hell! a couple of missed points:

- the teaser trailer, in particular, has a certain ‘art film’ element about it, which I find to be very visually appealing.

- the score for the two cinematic trailers, also, reminds me a bit of ‘2001′ and its progressive soundtrack choices.

- i always have been bothered that the ‘director’s edition’ cut from the sequence of Spock flying through V’ger. It created gaps in my favorite portion of Goldsmith’s score… and I actually liked all the dwelling on the V’ger cloud’s various layers and textures.

- to amend my ‘CGI’ remark: I simply prefer actual physical ship models. I thought that the Trek TV series and films after the CGI ship switch in the mid ’90’s was downright ruinous, as it all felt a bit less credible.

By: mikko

mikko — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:10:53 +0000

Unfortunately, TMP was well before my time; however, it has always appealed to me peculiarly.

TMP stands apart from the other Trek films in that it owes so much to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Like ‘2001,’ it ruminates a lot on the special effects and cinematography; it has more of a ‘high art’ creative vision than the others. Also like ‘2001,’ it relies on the visuals and music (or lack thereof, in the Kubrick) to carry the film’s relatively thin plot. The use of music and the visual effects are of the ‘2001′ variety that is of really very high quality, artistically — and I missed that in all the subsequent Trek films. (My apologies… but CGI models still don’t quite convince my probing eyes! Perhaps that’ll change in May.)

The result, in the case of both films, is that it’s really beautiful — but it’s not necessarily entertaining. With the body of films that followed it, I sort of regard it as the ‘overture’ to all that — much like the ‘overture’ portion before the opening credits. In TV terms, it could be regarded as the ‘pilot’ to the film series (fitting, as it is, of course, the reworked pilot to Phase II).

Eager listeners of Bach’s music may want to skip the prelude and get straight to the fugue; and doesn’t TMP serve that ‘prelude’ function?

By: JohnnieF

JohnnieF — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:20:16 +0000

I remember going to see ST:TMP when I was about 12 and being in such awe of the TV show going to the big screen. I “liked” the TV series, but the movie really got me hooked.

By: P Technobabble

P Technobabble — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:01:44 +0000

TMP is one of my favorite Trek films, perhaps even my favorite. This is because it is the most “sci-fi” film of them all (though I think TVH comes close). I am a science-fiction fan, foremost… which is why I appreciate this film. Sure, it has its flaws — though many of those flaws were eliminated with the Director’s Cut. It was a more “thoughtful” film, a la “2001,” and the antagonist was not simply a “bad guy,” but was rather the means, or the catalyst, to exploring the film’s central theme — finding meaning and purpose in one’s life. It’s certainly a bigger, more epic sort of story than you’d find in a single tv episode. I admit it is not a movie for those of short attention span.
I would also like to suggest that Star Trek is not about any single aspect. It is not primarily about action, or intellect, or humor, etc. I think those things really depend on the story, since you wouldn’t typically want characters trying to be funny during an intense battle, for example (although I wouldn’t say such a thing would never be appropriate). So, in the case of TMP, the film tends to weigh on the side of academia, and I don’t think great action sequences or humorous bantering would make it a better film… it would have been a different film, for sure. IMO, what would have made TMP a better film would have been for Kirk to be in a position where he had to choose between saving earth or saving V’Ger, and then having some sort of epiphany or realization which leads to a solution… just a thought……..

By: Spocks Brain

Spocks Brain — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:17:11 +0000

I liked the whale movie.. it had humor, and many TOS episodes had humor in them… and it had more star trek spirit than TMP had! BY FAR!

By: OR Coast Trekkie

OR Coast Trekkie — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:36:09 +0000

Check your discout/dollar theaters to see previous Star Trek movies on the big screen. At the discount theater here, they show Trek movies quite a bit.

By: SteveinSF

SteveinSF — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:50:03 +0000

#47–totally had the same feeling that you did. I was so excited about that movie and was working at my high school job–McDonald’s so I had all the silly happy meal toys and was trying to figure out the plot while building all the cheapo toys. I thought the Klingon ships looked really fake then, but loved the Enterprise.
I just didn’t get the grumpy Spock then laughing Spock ( while recovering from Vger meld) and hated how quiet the Enterprise was–where was the cool main screen sound, the red alert klaxton why change it to that stupid clown horn sound? But being a hard core trek fan, I saw it twice then finally the directors cut which was much better.
Wow, so much time has passed…

By: THX-1138

THX-1138 — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:47:43 +0000

I, too, went to the opening day first showing of TMP. And yes, it was at a SINGLE SCREEN THEATER. Lot’s of Trek fans dressed up like it was a convention and news crews filming all the “zany Trek weirdos”. My friends and I got front row seats in the balcony (yes, the balcony!).

Huge applause as the theater went dark and the film began. Cheers as each character made their first screen appearance. Biggest cheer reserved for the Enterprise flyby, that at the time, seemed to go on forever, but in a very loving way. When Spock finally sets foot on the bridge, the audience could feel the coldness and tension, even to the point of one young lady yelling “Spock!?” in a tone of voice that just sounded like “What the heck is wrong with Spock?”

And then the fly through of V’Ger. It went on forever. Forever and ever. It almost felt like padding. It was so long that I got lost as to what the story was about. And I wanted to see this V’Ger thing. A cloud? What first drew me to Star Trek was the excitement and as a kid, I found that lacking in the theatrical release of TMP.

Years and years later, I obtained the DE. And now I just love TMP. Maybe it took time for me to catch up to the movie. But that was a dangerous start to the movie franchise.