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The following (somewhat incoherent) blog entry is best justified using the following formula:

B = a × p(t) × E^-1 + h

a = Attempt to clear out excess beer from previous parties
p = probability that beer has gone bad since time t
t = time of previous parties
E = rationalizing force usually in effect around the house
E^-1 = lack of said force
h = HBO film schedule for summer
B = sappy blog entry

This entry is thusly subtitled:

1. Subtlety.   Derided by many as “Star Trek: The Motionless Picture” or “The Motion Sickness” [1], the film steadfastly refuses to fall into the trap of being a “regular Star Trek episode padded out two two hours.” It takes as inspiration, both in theme and pacing, with “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The languid pace gives the film the freedom to be introspective; it delves more deeply into the questions (”Is there nothing more?”) that permeated Roddenberry’s original vision for the series. The timeline of the film reaches back to NASA (including images of the Pioneer 10/11 plaque, overlaid during Spock’s mind-meld with V’GER, that I’d never caught before) and forward to the 23rd century of the Star Trek universe, considering in greater depth than the TV series the heroic flaws of some of our main characters (Kirk’s naked ambition and selfishness; Spock’s inability to entirely shed his humanity). Future films would become great adventures (”KHAANNN!”) or entertaining romps through Trek and pop culture (”Double dumb-ass on you!“) but they would never again attempt the level of naked philosophy of the first film.
2. Music.   Jerry Goldsmith’s stirring score, like everything else about the film, is an order of magnitude more sophisticated, more introspective, and at the same time more (dare I say it?) bold than the original TV series. The main theme is stirring, perhaps even chilling; hearing it at such an impressionable age planted a sonic seed in my cerebellum that rendered me powerless to resist Star Trek: The Next Generation when it first aired. Doo … do de doo … do de DOOO!
3. The world of the future of the past.   As the 70s gave way to the 80s, technology replaced nature as the driving force behind human endeavor. Computers moved out of universities and missile silos into garages and bedrooms. Patchouli gave way to patch cables. The visual style of ST:TMP moves beyond the distant imagineering of the Gernsback era to an achievable, reachable, imaginable future; it is the futurism of electric cars, of computer networks, of the Space Shuttle. The “world of the future of the past” was still the “world of the future,” which was closer than ever before.
4. Special Science Consultant: Isaac Asimov.   Enough said.
5. Timing.   I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t take me to see this film in the theater; if they did, I was a year and a half old, so it’s nearly impossible I’d remember much of what I saw. Or is it? So much of the film’s texture is etched into the folds of my brain; each scene is like a primeval memory, a shared unconscious fed directly from Universal Pictures. The lovingly interminable introduction of the refitted NCC-1701 (arguably, the best character entrance in the entire screenplay); the hexagons that permeate V’GER’s interior; the image of Spock in his EVA suit; the quaint vector-graphics wormhole; the technological horror of the transporter room; the omnipresence of Microgramma (known to you young ones as Eurostile). It occurs to me now, cataloguing these mental images, that I can remember touching them, sliding them against one another; yes, somewhere in my brain, I have just now recalled that I had some kind of primitive pop-up book of the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I have an odd recollection of a tear somewhere on the transporter-room page, actually. Knowing my parents, chances are very good that this book still exists, somewhere in the pile of crap that I’m supposed to assume custody of at some point. Update: Yes, such a thing does in fact exist! (ISBN 0671955365.)

Well, there you go: an aimless stumble through the beer-addled alleyways of my recollection with respect to this defining film.

Next time: E.T.