Star Trek: The Motion Picture
It took me a while to get started on this project. Admittedly I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it, but in my defense there were plenty of other things that needed to be done; I was getting more hours at my job, the house needed to be winter-proofed, the neighbour’s hamster needed to be babysat and breast-fed. My cat needed to be painted. I had video games to play, e-mails to respond to, toenails to cut, snacks to eat, evidence to be burned. Not only that but I needed to prepare, not just mentally, but physically, to watch these things. I needed to acquire the movies. I had to make sure I had a comfortable place to view them. I had to have my testicles removed.
Anyway, after the laborious process of preparation, I was finally ready. I procured a copy of the first movie from my brother, who happens to own most or all of the Star Trek movies, thus proving that we are in no way related (or at least that he’d been dropped on his head a few times as an infant). I cooked myself a nice dinner (in retrospect a bad idea) and sat down in front of the TV.
I was nervous slipping the disc into the DVD player. My palms were sweaty. What if someone came in and found me watching it? That’d be worse than being caught masturbating. I wanted to keep the volume down and just sit close to the TV, but I feared it might stir up some epilepsy or put me in a Trekkie-induced coma. Now, I don’t have epilepsy, but I wanted to keep my distance from the trekness anyway, you know, so I wouldn’t get any on me. When the movie started…well, how shall I put this…I wasn’t even sure the movie HAD started. I was treated to a nice view of the stars zooming away from me. And…they kept going…away. And away…and away. After about thirty seconds of this I clicked MENU on my remote, thinking perhaps I’d hit the wrong button and set it on some relaxing space-themed screen saver. I clicked, most certainly this time, on PLAY, but was returned to the very scene I’d just left. This was a two-disc set, and I checked to make sure that the other disc was indeed the special features disc, so that wasn’t the problem. I waited for another thirty seconds, thinking that maybe my DVD player simply refused to play the movie, letting its self-preservation instincts kick in after I’d apparently lost my mind. At that point I began forwarding the movie until some words came onto the screen. I then let it play – we were now a full three minutes and thirteen seconds in, and it was finally getting started. Credits went by, looking very much like the end of a movie. The familiar Star Trek theme played. Was it over? If that was the case then maybe it wasn’t so bad. On second thought, three minutes of stars would indeed make for a shitty movie. But at least I didn’t suffer long.
Stuff other than stars appeared on the screen once the credits ended. Now we were getting somewhere. Those guys with the wrinkly foreheads (Klingons, I think) were attacking this big blue stuff. The big blue stuff, in what was surely self-defense, fired back, and they disappeared. Well, I’m sure they’ll be missed. As it turns out, this big blue stuff is a dangerous threat and was heading straight for Earth. Then we’re shown what’s going on back on Earth. It is the future, and they have flying cars now (and yet still have bridges over water), one of which is taking William Shatner back to headquarters, where he’s going to have a briefing or something, and will then be going back to the Enterprise. The Enterprise, which is the all-important spaceship, is currently undergoing repairs, or upgrades or something, according to Scotty, and really isn’t all that ready for a test drive.
Scotty was the first person that I’d become familiar with in my long years of not being a fan. Somewhere in my childhood I learned of Scotty, and then of Star Trek, and then I’d avoided most of the rest of it until now. Anyway, the ship needed to be broken in.
We’re then treated to a nearly seven minute journey to the ship, ninety percent of which involved no talking. I’m guessing the audience was supposed to be taking in the majesty that was the Enterprise, but all I noticed were random people free-floating to their deaths. Once they arrive Kirk (played by Shatner, my hero) zips straight to the bridge, where all is in chaos. He calms them down, and they seem to be quite happy he’s there. Then he zips down to find the other captain (who has had or is trying to have an affair with a bald woman), and informs him that he’s taking over. The former captain is now going to be the science advisor or something. The rest of the crew is then brought on board, including Bones McCoy, a friend of Kirk’s. He apparently had to be kidnapped and brought kicking and screaming to the Enterprise, and was not at all happy to be there. Now assembled, the crew is all told about the big blue gasey messy thing, and they watch it kill some more people (just to get them all in the mood, I assume).
Meanwhile Spock, one of the few characters I know just by looking at them, was on his home planet of Vulcan and was about to receive a medal proving his manhood, or vulcanhood, as it were. But he refuses it for some reason, so they told him he wasn’t ready to receive it. They drop it on the ground and leave, so he picks it up and takes it anyway. Good for him.
Probably too soon for the ship’s own good, Kirk takes it out and heads for the big blue mess, nearly tearing it apart in the process. The former captain saves the day, and tells Kirk, who had been away from the Starfleet for over two years, that maybe he wasn’t the best man for the job anymore – a sentiment that seems to grow in popularity amongst the ship’s crew.
In an interestingly illogical move, the always cheerful Spock happens to show up from out of nowhere (literally – he didn’t have a shuttle and they were deep in space). He settles into his old post as science advisor, which is now the ex-captain’s ex-position. Displaying his charm and wit, Spock gets the ship in proper working order, and shows everyone that he’s really not all that happy to be there (seems like no one is). Spock explains that his reason for spontaneously appearing on the Enterprise was because he wanted a piece of that big blue ass Kirk was going after.
With the ship now at one-hundred percent, the trip to the big blue thing only took about three minutes. Having watched other ships get fried in their attempt to get to know the blasted thing, Kirk decides to take a different approach – none. After doing nothing for a few minutes Spock discovers that the thing is, in fact, trying to communicate with them. They have a little chit chat, then go inside the blue stuff, despite the ex-captain’s reservations. The ex-captain’s name, I think, was Pecker. No, Decker. Yeah. Anyway, once inside they find what appears to be a ship (or a planet-sized alien). They float ridiculously slow across the outside of it, and then hover around its rear end. This, perhaps, caused the alien to be suspicious (hell, I’d be uncomfortable too with anyone probing down there), so it beamed some lightning on board the Enterprise and zapped the bald woman, whose name is Ilia. I don’t know if it vaporized her or just transmitted her back to its own ship for torture (or pleasure), but I guess we’ll find out later. Decker is understandably upset with Kirk’s cock-blocking.
When later came, so did she, beaming back aboard the ship as a ‘mechanism;’ a robotic-like devise used to scan and understand all that the Enterprise is. The real bald woman, Ilia, is apparently still inside somewhere, and they try to reach her, with Decker being in charge of that operation. Meanwhile Spock sneaks out, using his Vulcan nerve-pinch or whatever it’s called on an unsuspecting guard, and tries to make contact with the alien, now known only as V’Ger. When Spock finally meets V’Ger he tries to mind-meld with it, which turns out to be a bad idea, as it practically puts him in a coma. Kirk goes out to get him and brings him back to the ship.
How long have I been watching this damn movie now anyway? Sure is a long bastard. I might have to do this over two sittings; it’s too much all at once. My dinner sits half finished beside me – I was too sick to eat any more. I’ll see how much longer I can hold out before succumbing to boredom and unconsciousness.
Back aboard the Enterprise Spock comes out of his coma (see, Vulcans can shake off a coma like we humans shake off a hangover), and reveals that V’Ger is a living machine. It came from a planet of other living machines, and it seems to be trying to find the meaning of life; it wants to find its creator. So it’s traveling to Earth, believing that it will find its creator there for some reason. But when it gets to Earth, it can’t find its creator, and decides to destroy all the humans on the planet, blaming them for the lack of communication. Kirk intervenes and says that he can help if he speaks directly to V’Ger. So the Ilia mechanism takes Kirk, Spock, and Decker to V’Ger, which turns out to be an old probe sent out by NASA over three-hundred years ago, the Voyager 6.
Years ago the NASA unit fell into a black hole and stumbled upon the machine world. They studied the Voyager 6, which was supposed “to collect all data and return home,” and figured they’d help. Thusly they built it a new ship – the wild blue mess – and sent it on its way. For three-hundred years it collected data, somewhere along the way spawning consciousness. When that happened, it did what its programming told it to do: go home.
Now it’s home and can’t find its creator, so it’s throwing a tantrum like a spoiled child and trying to kill all the humans on the planet. Kirk and the gang try to dismantle the old Voyager 6 unit, but they don’t succeed. They then try to tell V’Ger that they (NASA) are its maker, but V’Ger didn’t buy that. The only thing that V’Ger wants is to meet its maker. According to Spock, in order for V’Ger to contact its creator, it has to merge with a human (or something like that), so Pecker, er, Decker steps up to the plate and boldly goes where no man has gone before – and he takes along Ilia too – and merges with the machine. For some reason this makes V’Ger happy.
Promptly, V’Ger vanishes, the ship vanishes, and the big blue mess vanishes, and it was like none of it ever happened. Kirk reports Ilia and the ex-captain missing, and they celebrate their victory by zooming around space for a while. The End.
Well, that’s FINALLY over with. I suppose it wasn’t too bad. I’d certainly seen far worse movies. My impressions? Well, the first thing I noticed was how the Klingon ships were superimposed upon the background of space. It looked very tacky in a bad CGI kind of way. I know this is an old movie, but it did come out in 1979, a full two years after Star Wars debuted (and it looked a hell of a lot better), so there isn’t much of an excuse. I also approved (yet was slightly disappointed) with William Shatner not talking the way he does when portrayed in other, more comedic shows. But all in all, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.
On to the next one!
The Chris Effect 
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