Star Trek: The Motion Picture should have been a big heads up for Treksters that Gene Roddenberry was losing his way -- either that or his vision of Star Trek was always markedly different from what most viewers thought they were seeing.
The studio also had a hand in sending the production down a wrong road, mistaking the popularity of Star Wars, which was released two years earlier, for audience fascination with special effects.
The film is very deliberately paced -- Slow Motion Picture would be a generous subtitle. It lacks virtually all of the charm and humour with which the series was infused. The chemistry between the actors, and so the characters, is entirely absent.
The plot, what there is of it, seems to be based on The Changeling, an episode of the old Star Trek series, and on a bad episode of Space: 1999.
For a real reunion of the crew of the Enterprise, forget this blunder and look at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Nicholas Meyer knew what virtues make Star Trek the pop-cult phenomenon it is, and he knew how to put it on the big screen.
The studio also had a hand in sending the production down a wrong road, mistaking the popularity of Star Wars, which was released two years earlier, for audience fascination with special effects.
The film is very deliberately paced -- Slow Motion Picture would be a generous subtitle. It lacks virtually all of the charm and humour with which the series was infused. The chemistry between the actors, and so the characters, is entirely absent.
The plot, what there is of it, seems to be based on The Changeling, an episode of the old Star Trek series, and on a bad episode of Space: 1999.
For a real reunion of the crew of the Enterprise, forget this blunder and look at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Nicholas Meyer knew what virtues make Star Trek the pop-cult phenomenon it is, and he knew how to put it on the big screen.