YELLOW ALERT...COULD BE SPOILERS!!!
I would guess that THE MOTION PICTURE is supposed to take place a few years before THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK, and the other following films. The UFP uniforms are gray, light blue, yellow and white, and the transporters are still functioning slowly, as they did in the original series.
I actually love this movie more these days than I did when I used to watch it as a youngster. It's complex plot and story are somewhat difficult to follow, unless you are a child genius or just the offspring of a hard core Trekker/Trekkie. My mom is a Trekker, has loved Star Trek since the original show came on in 1966. Every Saturday night, without fail, she tuned in to the adventures of the Enterprise, and she passed her love of these characters and this imaginative world of math and physics, science and logic, and endless possibility on to me. About every other year, I get a yen to watch the six films featuring the original ST cast, and I always learn something new from them.
THE MOTION PICTURE was criticized as boring, the acting wooden and uncharacteristic, and while I admit that THE MOTION PICTURE is not my favorite of the six films (that honor goes to THE WRATH OF KHAN) it is my SECOND FAVORITE. I think it is a wonderful, downright beautiful film, full of dazzling special effects, an astounding plot, and all the humor and warmth that Trekkers expect from the characters. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) finds himself feeling bereft in spite of his efforts to rid himself of "flawed" human emotions. Sensing a kindred presense in space whose emptiness mirrors his own, Spock joins Admiral/Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) aboard the Enterprise, which has been deployed to intercept a strange alien vessel in the form of a blue cloud. The main plot is to learn about the alien vessel and to find out why it is heading purposefully towards the earth. During their journey to the center of the vessel, a crew member, Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta), a lovely member of the seductive Deltan species, is "abducted" from the Enterprise, and a probe looking exactly like her is sent by the alien, intending to collect information on the crew of the Enterprise.
Spock realizes that the alien cloud is the presence he felt, and convinces Kirk that the intruder is a living machine, operating on total logic, with no emotion. With wisdom that spans the universe, yet with emptiness, because now that it has learned everything logical and scientific, it wonders what to do with its knowledge. The simplicity in the seemingly complex and over our heads plot is suddenly apparent. In short, the machine, although completely perfect in science and logic, is lonely and empty. It has taken on a life of its own, and with life comes the frustration of unfulfillment. The alien, who calls itself "Vejur" is seeking that which created it and sent it into space to collect knowledge. Vejur wants to give the Creator what it was sent out for, and to join the Creator and evolve beyond the emptiness of being a logical machine.
The visually beautiful scene in which Commander Decker (Stephen Collins) Ilia, and Vejur join together was at first something that stymied me. Beautiful, with lights and energy, but what the heck was happening??? Now I understand: Vejur wanted to physically join with a human being. You could think of it as some sort of sexual function, but I think rather it was two beings, one a machine, another, a human, who felt empty and unfulfilled. We're not really told why Decker jumped at the opportunity to end his existence as we knew it, but somehow he just seems through the film like someone who isn't quite fulfilled with life, someone who somehow just never fit in. Did Decker, Vejur and Ilia die??? No, but they ceased to exist in the way they had been existing. They evolved into something higher, a higher level of being. Maybe pure energy. Or maybe simply the joy of the spirit when fulfillment is at last achieved. Perhaps one of the most astonishing and appealing things about the first Star Trek film is that there were no evil villains, just an innocent being trying to find answers.
Such an interesting movie. Science fiction at its finest.
I would guess that THE MOTION PICTURE is supposed to take place a few years before THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK, and the other following films. The UFP uniforms are gray, light blue, yellow and white, and the transporters are still functioning slowly, as they did in the original series.
I actually love this movie more these days than I did when I used to watch it as a youngster. It's complex plot and story are somewhat difficult to follow, unless you are a child genius or just the offspring of a hard core Trekker/Trekkie. My mom is a Trekker, has loved Star Trek since the original show came on in 1966. Every Saturday night, without fail, she tuned in to the adventures of the Enterprise, and she passed her love of these characters and this imaginative world of math and physics, science and logic, and endless possibility on to me. About every other year, I get a yen to watch the six films featuring the original ST cast, and I always learn something new from them.
THE MOTION PICTURE was criticized as boring, the acting wooden and uncharacteristic, and while I admit that THE MOTION PICTURE is not my favorite of the six films (that honor goes to THE WRATH OF KHAN) it is my SECOND FAVORITE. I think it is a wonderful, downright beautiful film, full of dazzling special effects, an astounding plot, and all the humor and warmth that Trekkers expect from the characters. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) finds himself feeling bereft in spite of his efforts to rid himself of "flawed" human emotions. Sensing a kindred presense in space whose emptiness mirrors his own, Spock joins Admiral/Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) aboard the Enterprise, which has been deployed to intercept a strange alien vessel in the form of a blue cloud. The main plot is to learn about the alien vessel and to find out why it is heading purposefully towards the earth. During their journey to the center of the vessel, a crew member, Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta), a lovely member of the seductive Deltan species, is "abducted" from the Enterprise, and a probe looking exactly like her is sent by the alien, intending to collect information on the crew of the Enterprise.
Spock realizes that the alien cloud is the presence he felt, and convinces Kirk that the intruder is a living machine, operating on total logic, with no emotion. With wisdom that spans the universe, yet with emptiness, because now that it has learned everything logical and scientific, it wonders what to do with its knowledge. The simplicity in the seemingly complex and over our heads plot is suddenly apparent. In short, the machine, although completely perfect in science and logic, is lonely and empty. It has taken on a life of its own, and with life comes the frustration of unfulfillment. The alien, who calls itself "Vejur" is seeking that which created it and sent it into space to collect knowledge. Vejur wants to give the Creator what it was sent out for, and to join the Creator and evolve beyond the emptiness of being a logical machine.
The visually beautiful scene in which Commander Decker (Stephen Collins) Ilia, and Vejur join together was at first something that stymied me. Beautiful, with lights and energy, but what the heck was happening??? Now I understand: Vejur wanted to physically join with a human being. You could think of it as some sort of sexual function, but I think rather it was two beings, one a machine, another, a human, who felt empty and unfulfilled. We're not really told why Decker jumped at the opportunity to end his existence as we knew it, but somehow he just seems through the film like someone who isn't quite fulfilled with life, someone who somehow just never fit in. Did Decker, Vejur and Ilia die??? No, but they ceased to exist in the way they had been existing. They evolved into something higher, a higher level of being. Maybe pure energy. Or maybe simply the joy of the spirit when fulfillment is at last achieved. Perhaps one of the most astonishing and appealing things about the first Star Trek film is that there were no evil villains, just an innocent being trying to find answers.
Such an interesting movie. Science fiction at its finest.