The Motion Picture
Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:52 am
I watched the Director's edition of the motion picture last night.
You know, the more I watch this movie the more I like it. I think a lot of the complaints about it arise from misplaced expectations. People say Wrath of Khan is a better movie than TMP. I think even making that comparison is absolutely absurd. It's like asking whether The Godfather is a better movie than Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Star Trek II is an action movie. It's a movie about good guys and bad guys, it's about firing torpedoes and phasers and all that good stuff. It's of the same stable as Star Wars and Independence Day and The Fifth Element. ST II is a really, really good action movie.
TMP is nothing like that. TMP is a philosophical discourse. It is literally about the meaning of life. It is of the same stable as 2001 : A Space Odyssey, or Solaris. Is it slow and boring? It's faster paced than 2001, and a hell of a lot faster paced than Solaris! It's a movie with meaning, deep meaning even. We might argue about how well it achieves its aims - some would laugh that I even compare it to 2001 - but to complain that there's no bad guy or phaser battles is to miss the entire point of the movie. It's the same as watching Schindler's List and complaining that for a movie set during a war there aren't enough battle scenes.
TMP also had an absolutely colossal impact on the Trek franchise one way or another. The theme music was used for the TMP theme. The Klingon battlecruiser built for the movie was still in use for Enterprise, 22 years later. The orbital office model was used through the whole of TNG and DS9. TMP was the first time Star Trek showed us the future Earth. It's the first time we see Starfleet command. It's the first time we see alien-looking Klingons. It's the first time we hear the Klingon language, the first time we hear the Vulcan language.
Does anybody else think this movie is sadly underrated?
You know, the more I watch this movie the more I like it. I think a lot of the complaints about it arise from misplaced expectations. People say Wrath of Khan is a better movie than TMP. I think even making that comparison is absolutely absurd. It's like asking whether The Godfather is a better movie than Monty Python's Life of Brian.
Star Trek II is an action movie. It's a movie about good guys and bad guys, it's about firing torpedoes and phasers and all that good stuff. It's of the same stable as Star Wars and Independence Day and The Fifth Element. ST II is a really, really good action movie.
TMP is nothing like that. TMP is a philosophical discourse. It is literally about the meaning of life. It is of the same stable as 2001 : A Space Odyssey, or Solaris. Is it slow and boring? It's faster paced than 2001, and a hell of a lot faster paced than Solaris! It's a movie with meaning, deep meaning even. We might argue about how well it achieves its aims - some would laugh that I even compare it to 2001 - but to complain that there's no bad guy or phaser battles is to miss the entire point of the movie. It's the same as watching Schindler's List and complaining that for a movie set during a war there aren't enough battle scenes.
TMP also had an absolutely colossal impact on the Trek franchise one way or another. The theme music was used for the TMP theme. The Klingon battlecruiser built for the movie was still in use for Enterprise, 22 years later. The orbital office model was used through the whole of TNG and DS9. TMP was the first time Star Trek showed us the future Earth. It's the first time we see Starfleet command. It's the first time we see alien-looking Klingons. It's the first time we hear the Klingon language, the first time we hear the Vulcan language.
Does anybody else think this movie is sadly underrated?
I appreciate this film on a different level.