Review: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Rating

Director

Robert Wise

Screenplay

Harold Livingston, Alan Dean Foster

Length

2h 12m

Starring

William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Majel Barrett, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Persis Khabatta, Stephen Collins, Grace Lee Whitney, Mark Lenard

MPAA Rating

Review

Rescued from cancellation by Lucille Ball and finding enduring popularity well after it was on the air, Star Trek leveraged its growing popularity through the 1970s to transfer to the big screen with this first installment of a vaunted series of films that were, like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, sometimes underwhelming.

A monitoring station reports an unusual alien entity on approach but is destroyed along with three Klingon vessels. The Enterprise, which is currently in drydock being refitted for its new captain (Stephen Collins), is the only ship close enough to respond in time, giving Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner), its former captain, a chance to commandeer the vessel and report to investigate the disturbance. With the refit incomplete, the ship suffers numerous malfunctions which further creates friction between Kirk and the ship’s new captain.

While the essence of Star Trek largely remains intact, including Kirk’s anti-authority antics, much of the salience of the storyline is in hypothesizing the deep space destination of the recently-launched Voyager probes and positing that the program would continue further. It suggests that space is not only vast but perilous and wondrous at the same time, which is certainly a Trekkian concept. But the perseverance of the human spirit and the science-fiction elements reflecting a modern lens are largely absent.

Shatner’s performance is always one of the weakest of the original crew and there’s not much here that disproves that notion. While he’s adequate, those around him help prop up his liabilities. Collins doesn’t come off much better and Kirstie Alley and Persis Khambatta don’t leave much of an impression. That said, it’s good to see the rest of the crew back in fine form. What really makes this first big screen outing stand out is its visual effects. For a film released in 1979, the work is spectacular, having taken inspiration from films like Star Wars, Logan’s Run, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the effects rivaled that of later 1980 release Empire Strikes Back yet it managed to lose the 1979 award to Alien, a solid effort but whose effects were more minimalist than Trek‘s. The film also earned well deserved citations for Art Direction and Original Score.

For those who weren’t already fans of Star Trek, this film would do nothing to quell their concerns. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a film by and for the fans. On those grounds, it’s an interesting entry in the series. That it sets up the premise for the remaining films is a small price to pay.