The Motion Picture.
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:
“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” — One Of The Greatest Movies Ever Made, Or
The Very Greatest?
- 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. - 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! - 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. - Special Science Consultant: Isaac Asimov. Enough said.
- 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.