Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

I surprised myself when I decided to work my way through the Star Trek series. As you may know, I am a huge Star Wars freak, and it’s often been said that Star Wars fans and Trekkies don’t mix well. I still think Star Wars is by far the superior series (although the prequel trilogy went a long way towards evening things out) but I can’t look down upon Trekkies anymore, because they’ve got a pretty decent thing going for them.

My first surprise was the opening music, which I recalled as the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme. Evidently the piece was written for this, the first of an ongoing series of films. It’s certainly an improvement upon the goofy theme from the original TV series. However, the film is hurt most by clinging to another aspect of the original series. Apparently this project was supposed to be an extended pilot episode for a new TV series, but it got turned into a motion picture. The TV sensibilities were carried over, hurting the special effects and overall tone of the film. Star Trek seems to use a lot of upper echelon made-for-TV movie effects along with some standard Hollywood magic, resulting in an end product that pales greatly in comparison to Star Wars, which had come out just two years prior.

The story also plays out like an extended TV episode, with very little gripping action and an ending that seemed kind of silly and cheap. Fortunately, the colorful cast of characters made me feel comfortable with the environment. Their familiarity with everything made it easier for me to just sit back and enjoy the ride. You don’t need to have watched the original series to be able to embrace this film, which is an important asset, but its weaknesses end up winning out over its strengths.

RATING: 2.75 out of 5