(Originally written on 7/16/06, I should've posted this when the reboot "Star Trek" was around. Oh well.)
I am not a "Trekkie" by any means. Them people scare me. I am, however, an occasional viewer of Star Trek and quite enjoy it. Just cause I watch Star Trek doesn't mean I'm gonna run out and get plastic surgery on my ears so they'll be pointy. Or will I develope a speech impediment like Kirk. No, I am just a simple viewer.
I remember fondly seeing Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan when I was a kid and even back then finding something pretty humorous about "KHAAAAAN!!!" My personal favorite is possibly Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home, mainly cause it involves time travel. Sure people panned it cause it had a stupid eco-friendly message in it about saving the dolphins, which at the time the movie was made much of humanity seemed to have a huge hard-on about. But it's still my favorite. The rest seem kind of a blur to me. So I rented Star Trek: The Motion Picture to see if the first film in the series holds up to the rest. And I'm here to tell you...
No. No it does not.
A bunch of Klingons are attacking some thing that looks like it came from a Pink Floyd album cover when they get killed. Some other people in a space ship that we shouldn't really care about cause they'll be killed later on, witness this and run back to Starfleet, screaming "MOMMY! MOMMY!"
On Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk arrives at Starfleet and DEMANDS that the brand spankin' new Enterprise be up and ready in an hour! Everyone is confused onto why and Kirk just goes "Trust me. MU-HAHAHAHA!" Then he meets up with Scotty, who took a break from his usual heavy drinking to meet Kirk and board the Enterprise.
On the way, Kirk tells Scotty everything must be ready in time cause that Pink Floyd Album Cover is on it's way to Earth! And it must be stopped! So they take a 20 minute trip to the Enterprise and another 15 minutes is spent on 800 different angles of The Enterprise, to give Trekkies enough time to jerk off to the image.
When I woke up from the boredom, Kirk boards Enterprise and has the bad task of telling Captain Decker that he's being demoted to Commander so Kirk can get his jollies off by being Captain again. By the way, you know who plays Decker? That dude who plays the priest or whatever on "7th Heaven". I know, weird right?
So with Decker's balls being handed to him by Kirk, he scampers off, probably to cry in his quarters. Soon, the rest of the crew come aboard and last but not least to arrive is Bones, who has a beard and probably a gut the size of Rubben Studdard. Bones is his usual self, but accepts the mission and goes off to shave and drink some Trimspa.
You're probably asking yourself "Where's Spock?" Well...he's on Vulcan, getting ready to recieve his first communion or some crap, when he gets distracted. This pisses off the high priestess of Vulcan and she storms off in a huff. Spock steals the tacky necklace that was to be placed on him and he leaves.
So finally, at the one hour mark, Enterprise takes off. Kirk is all like "Go to Warp 1" and Decker is all like "NOOO!!" and Kirk is like "Do it now, bitch!" and Decker is like "WAH! MOMMY! KIRK ISN'T PLAYING FAIR!" and Sulu engages to Warp 1.
Soon, a trippy sequence appears where everyone is inside a worm hole (I bet Sulu isn't a stranger to entering holes. HA!) and for some reason, everyone is moving and talking in slow motion. Instead of the film being slowed down, the actors are obviously just moving and talking all slow. Witnessing William Shatner talking in slow speed is just hilarity. Pure hilarity.
Anyway, they find a meteor and Chekov blasts it and the wormhole vanishes (Damn hemorrhoid.) and things return to normal. In between plot points, we are introduced to a minor plot point. There is a bald chick on board named Ilia (Played by somewhat hot chick Persis Khambatta, at least when she has hair) who seems to have gotten it on with Decker. But she's like totally denying it happened cause she goes into "Deny" mode when anyone talks to her.
It's like "Hi Ilia!" and she goes "I have a vow of celebacy!! REALLY!! I am like other human females! I'm celebate!!!" and the guy is like "Um, I just wanted to know if you're gonna finish that pickle." But you know Decker and Ilia totally did it. WOO!
Anyway, Spock just appears on board all out of nowhere and doesn't talk to anyone. He goes to a computer and says "I can fix your Warp engine" and does so. Soon, they're able to reach Warp 9 without their heads and various other body parts exploding.
A bunch more boring stuff happens that I won't get into, so let's just get to the main plot, shall we?
They find the Pink Floyd Album Cover and they try to make themselves as friendly as possible. The Album says "Hm, ok." and lets them into the cover. Inside they rock out to "Wish You Were Here" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Pigs". Soon, a large white beam appears and starts scanning the bridge. Ilia touches this and suddenly vanishes. Decker cries out "NO!!!!" and cries some more. But Kirk gets over it and just demands that someone replace her soon!
More flying inside the album cover when out of nowhere Ilia appears again! But she's NUDE! And she has a lozenge stuck in her throat that glows bright red. She's not Ilia anymore she's a BORG! No wait...wrong series. She's just some kind of robot thing that talks for the Album Cover.
She tells us the Album Cover is named Vejur and that it wants to know what's up with the people inside Enterprise. So RoboIlia and Decker, who's drooling the whole time, shows her around the Enterprise.
Yada, yada yada, more boring stuff. Spock attempts to mind meld with Vejur but goes into a panic. Kirk is getting all pissed off and gets pissed off even more when he finds they are at Earth and Vejur has some weapons of mass destruction planted around Earth and will set them off if Kirk does not lead him to his creator. Kirk doesn't know who the creator is, but bullshits his way through it, saying he'll tell him but only to Vejur's face. So RoboIlia takes Kirk, Spock, Bones (Why? In case someone needed to get yelled at?), and Decker deep inside the Album Cover and they find dead in the center of it...
A Earth made satellite. WHAT?! THAT'S IT?!?! A FUCKIN SATELLITE!!! ARRGH!!!
So what happened is this. In the "20th century", NASA lauched something called Voyuger IV. And if you cover up the "oyu" you get "V-ger" aka Vejur. Yes. Let THAT wrap around your brain for a few minutes. Anyway, Kirk realizes this thing came to life on it's own, much like Johnny Five, and has been trapsing across the galaxy for thousands of years and decided to come back to Earth to meet with NASA. But NASA don't exist anymore. So Kirk has to bullshit his way out of this again, which involves looking up some code NASA had to destruct a satellite or some crap.
Decker says the only way Vejur will be destroyed is if it got it on with a human and since Vejur is talking through a female, only a male can do it. And since Decker isn't a beloved character from the 60's series, it must be him. So Decker gets naked, gets it on with Ilia, and the entire Album Cover explodes or implodes or something like that, with the Enterprise all safe and sound. Kirk says "Go thataway" (seriously) and their new 5 year mission begins. I guess.
This isn't my favorite Star Trek movie, but it could be worse. The effects were pretty awful but I see this was made in 1979, which isn't a year known for high tech effects. I mean, Battlestar Galactia and Doctor Who was made in the 70's and look at those effects. So I guess I don't have any room to complain about that. Anyway, I still say 2 and 4 are my favorites, even though I haven't seen 3, 5, 6, 7 and possibly 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14...99, and 100 yet. But I'll get there.
-Jason
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