Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) (Stephenverse)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American epic science fiction film directed by Robert Wise and based on the television series Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry, who also served as its producer. It is the first installment in the Star Trek film series, and stars the cast of the original television series. In the film, set in the 2270s, a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud known as V'Ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path. Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) assumes command of the recently refitted Starship USS Enterprise, to lead it on a mission to save the planet and determine V'Ger's origins.
When the original television series was canceled in 1969, Roddenberry lobbied Paramount Pictures to continue the franchise through a feature film. The success of the series in syndication convinced the studio to begin work on the film in 1975. A series of writers attempted to craft a "suitably epic" script, but the attempts did not satisfy Paramount, who scrapped the project in 1977. Paramount instead planned on returning the franchise to its roots, with a new television series titled Star Trek: Phase II. The box office success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, however, convinced Paramount that science fiction films other than Star Wars could do well, so the studio canceled production of Phase II and resumed its attempts at making a Star Trek film.
In 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since the 1950s to announce that Wise would direct a $15 million film adaptation of the original television series. With the cancellation of Phase II, writers rushed to adapt its planned pilot episode, "In Thy Image", into a film script. Constant revisions to the story and the shooting script continued to the extent of hourly script updates on shooting dates. The Enterprise was modified inside and out, costume designer Robert Fletcher provided new uniforms, and production designer Harold Michelson fabricated new sets.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered on December 2, 1979 in New York City and it was released in North America on December 7, 1979 and it received mixed to positive reviews, while many of which faulted it for a lack of action scenes and over-reliance on special effects. Its final production cost ballooned to approximately $48.6 million, and it earned $212.1 million worldwide, short of studio expectations but enough for Paramount to propose a less expensive sequel. Roddenberry was forced out of creative control for the sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).
==Plot== 
In the 23rd century, a Starfleet monitoring station, Epsilon Nine, detects an alien entity, hidden in a massive cloud of energy, moving through space toward Earth. The cloud easily destroys three of the Klingon Empire's new K't'inga-class warships when they fire on it and disintegrates Epsilon Nine when it tries to investigate. On Earth, the starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit; its former commanding officer, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and works in San Francisco as Chief of Starfleet Operations. Starfleet Command assigns Enterprise to intercept the cloud entity as the ship is the only one within range, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.
Citing his experience, Kirk uses his authority to take command of the ship, angering Captain Willard Decker, who has been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprise's new systems goes poorly; two officers, including the ship's Vulcan science officer Sonak, are killed by a malfunctioning transporter, and improperly calibrated engines nearly destroy the ship. Kirk's unfamiliarity with the ship's new systems increases the tension between him and Decker, who has been temporarily demoted to first officer. Commander Spock arrives as a replacement science officer, explaining that while on his home world undergoing a ritual to purge himself of emotion, he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the cloud, making him unable to complete the ritual because his human half felt an emotional connection to it.
Enterprise intercepts the energy cloud and is attacked by an alien vessel within. A probe appears on the bridge, attacks Spock, and abducts the navigator, Ilia. She is replaced by a robotic replica, sent by the entity, which calls itself "V'Ger", to study the "carbon lifeforms" on the ship. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history. He becomes troubled as he attempts to extract information from the doppelgänger, which has Ilia's memories and feelings buried inside. Spock takes an unauthorized spacewalk to the vessel's interior and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'Ger itself, a non-biological living machine.
At the center of the massive ship, V'Ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a 20th-century Earth space probe believed lost in a black hole. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned and return that information to its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its mission, and on its journey, the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved sentience. Spock discovers that V'Ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission; having learned what it could on its journey home, it finds its existence meaningless. Before transmitting all its information, V'Ger insists that the "Creator" come in person to finish the sequence. Everyone realizes humans are the Creator. Decker offers himself to V'Ger; he merges with the Ilia probe and V'Ger, creating a new life form that disappears into space. With Earth saved, Kirk directs Enterprise out to space for future missions.
==Casts==
*William Shatner as James T. Kirk, the former captain of the USS Enterprise and an Admiral at Starfleet headquarters. When asked during a March 1978 press conference about what it would be like to reprise the role, Shatner said, "An actor brings to a role not only the concept of a character but his own basic personality, things that he is, and both [Leonard Nimoy] and myself have changed over the years, to a degree at any rate, and we will bring that degree of change inadvertently to the role we recreate."
*Leonard Nimoy as Spock, the Enterprise's half-Vulcan, half-human science officer. Nimoy had been dissatisfied with unpaid royalties from Star Trek and did not intend to reprise the role, so Spock was left out of the screenplay. Director Robert Wise, having been informed by his daughter and son-in-law that the film "would not be Star Trek" without Nimoy, sent Jeffrey Katzenberg to New York City to meet Nimoy. Describing Star Trek without Nimoy as buying a car without wheels, Katzenberg gave Nimoy a check to make up for his lost royalties, later recalling himself "on my knees begging" the actor during their meeting at a restaurant to join the film; Nimoy attended the March 1978 press conference with the rest of the returning cast. Nimoy was dissatisfied with the script, and his meeting with Katzenberg led to an agreement that the final script would need Nimoy's approval. Financial issues notwithstanding, Nimoy said he was comfortable with being identified as Spock because it had a positive impact on his fame.
*DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy, the chief medical officer aboard the Enterprise. Kelley had reservations about the script, feeling that the characters and relationships from the series were not in place. Along with Shatner and Nimoy, Kelley lobbied for greater characterization, but their opinions were largely ignored.
*James Doohan as Montgomery Scott, the Enterprise's chief engineer. Doohan created the distinctive Klingon vocabulary heard in the film. Linguist Marc Okrand later developed a fully realized Klingon language based on the actor's made-up words.
(Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov, the Enterprise's weapons officer. Koenig noted that the expected sense of camaraderie and euphoria at being assembled for screen tests at the start of the picture was nonexistent. "This may be Star Trek," he wrote, "but it isn't the old Star Trek." The actor was hopeful for the film, but admitted he was disappointed by his character's bit part.
*Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, the communications officer aboard the Enterprise. Nichols noted in her autobiography that she was one of the actors most opposed to the new uniforms added for the film because the drab, unisex look "wasn't Uhura".
*George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, the Enterprise's helmsman. In his autobiography, Takei described the film's shooting schedule as "astonishingly luxurious", but noted that frequent script rewrites during production "usually favored Bill" [Shatner].
*Persis Khambatta as Ilia, the Deltan navigator of the Enterprise. Khambatta was originally cast in the role when The Motion Picture was a television pilot. She took the role despite Roddenberry warning her that she would have to shave her head completely for filming.
*Stephen Collins as Willard Decker, the new captain of the Enterprise. He is temporarily demoted to Commander and First Officer when Kirk takes command of the Enterprise. He was the only actor that Robert Wise cast; Collins recalled that although "every young actor in Hollywood" auditioned he benefited by being completely unfamiliar with the franchise, more interested in meeting the legendary director than in the role. Others advised him after being cast that Star Trek "is going to be in your life your whole life". Kelley's dressing room was next to Collins', and the older actor became his mentor for the production. Collins described filming as akin to "playing with somebody else's bat, ball, and glove" because he was not a part of the franchise's history. He used the feeling of being an "invader" to portray Decker, who is "an outsider who they had to have along".
==Release==
===Theatrical release===
To coincide with the film's release, Pocket Books published a novelization written by Roddenberry. The only Star Trek novel Roddenberry wrote, the book adds back story and elements that did not appear in the movie; for example, the novelization mentions that Willard Decker is the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the original series episode "The Doomsday Machine"—a plot element intended for the Phase II television series. The novel also has a different opening scene to introduce Vejur and Kirk, concentrates in sections on Kirk's struggle with confidence in taking command of the Enterprise again and expands on Ilia and Decker's relationship. The Vejur spelling for the "intruder's" name was used exclusively in the novel Roddenberry authored, from its first appearance on page 179 of the first paperback edition of the novelization through to the account on the novel's page 241 of Kirk reading the undamaged "V-G-E-R" letters on the fictional "Voyager 6" space probe's nameplate. In addition to the novel, Star Trek printed media included a coloring book, ship blueprints, and a comic book adaptation published by Marvel Comics as Marvel Super Special #15 (Dec. 1979). Toys included action figures, ship models, and a variety of watches, phaser mockups and communicators. McDonald's sold specially designed Star Trek Happy Meals. The marketing was part of a coordinated approach by Paramount and its parent conglomerate Gulf+Western to create a sustained Star Trek product line. The Motion Picture novel started Pocket Books' Star Trek book franchise, which produced 18 consecutive bestsellers within a decade.
===Home media===
Paramount Home Entertainment released the film on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, and CED videodisc in 1980 in its original theatrical version.
In 1983, an extended cut premiered on the ABC television network. It added roughly 12 minutes to the film. The added footage was largely unfinished, and cobbled together for the network premiere; Wise hadn't wanted some of the footage to be included in the final cut of the film. This version was released on VHS and LaserDisc by Paramount in 1983.
The film's original theatrical cut was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2009 to coincide with the new Star Trek feature, packaged with the five following features as the Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection. The Motion Picture was remastered in 1080p high definition. All six films in the set have 7.1 Dolby TrueHD audio. The disc features a new commentary track by Star Trek authors and contributors Michael and Denise Okuda, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, and Daren Dochterman. The original theatrical cut was also released with the four Next Generation movies as the Star Trek: Stardate Collection.
==Reception==
Star Trek: The Motion Picture opened in the United States and Canada on December 7, 1979, in 1,243 theaters and set a box office record for the highest opening weekend gross, making $53,726,241 in its first weekend. The film beat the 3-day weekend record set by Superman (1978) of $10.4 million in its third weekend (but not its 4-day weekend gross of $13.1 million) and the opening weekend gross of the 1978 reissue of Star Wars of $10.1 million. The Motion Picture earned $17 million within a week. At its widest domestic distribution, the film was shown in 1,632 theaters; it grossed $189,248,459 in the United States, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1979 in that country. Overall, the film grossed $212 million worldwide. The Motion Picture was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Art Direction (Harold Michelson, Joseph R. Jennings, Leon Harris, John Vallone and Linda DeScenna), Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score
The Motion Picture was met with mixed reviews from critics upon release. The film holds a 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 84 reviews with the consensus stating: "Featuring a patchwork script and a dialogue-heavy storyline whose biggest villain is a cloud, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a less-than-auspicious debut for the franchise." The characters and acting received a mixed reception. Stephen Godfrey of The Globe and Mail rated their performances highly: "time has cemented Leonard Nimoy's look of inscrutability as Mr. Spock [...] DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy is as feisty as ever, and James Doohan as Scotty still splutters about his engineering woes. At a basic level, their exchanges are those of an odd assortment of grumpy, middle-aged men bickering about office politics. They are a relief from the stars, and a delight." Godfrey's only concern was that the reunion of the old cast threatened to make casual viewers who had never seen Star Trek feel like uninvited guests.
==Differences from real-life release==
*The film uses the directors cut instead of the 132 minute cut.
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