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| Thursday, December 18, 2008 08:15 PM |
| (Last updated on Thursday, December 18, 2008 08:26 PM) | | On the Viewer - Star Trek - The Motion Picture: The Director's Edition |
 by Fëanor |
I always thought the first Star Trek movie was okay, but certainly not great. So I was excited when I heard there was a director's cut. I hoped that Wise had found a way to slim the movie down and make it a lot tighter and better. After watching the movie in installments (many, many installments) over the past week or so, I have to admit with some disappointment that this is not the case. The movie is still painfully bloated, agonizingly long, melodramatic, poorly written, and badly acted.
Things start out on the wrong foot right away, as for no particular reason the movie opens with a full two minutes of nothing but stars streaking by in utter blackness. Then finally the Paramount logo shows up and we get the opening credits. The movie will continue in this vein, constantly stretching out scenes that should really have only lasted a few moments. One of the biggest offenders in this regard is a scene early on where Kirk and Scotty fly around the docked Enterprise in a shuttle craft. It goes like this: shot of Enterprise gleaming. Shot of Kirk smiling and shaking head. Shot of Enterprise gleaming. Shot of Scotty smiling at Kirk, who's looking at Enterprise in amazement. Shot of Enterprise gleaming. And on and on and on. It would be funny if it weren't so boring and irritating.
I think the main problem is that everyone involved with the film was really excited to have Star Trek back and on the big screen, and they were reveling in that feeling way too much. Yes, we get it. We're back. There's the Enterprise. There's Kirk. Okay. Let's move on already!
Another weird thing: the whole opening of the movie seems focused on proving to us that Kirk is a huge dick. He's an admiral when the film opens and has been out of the captain's chair for years, but he's clearly been itching to get back in, so when the news comes that an extremely powerful entity is headed straight for Earth, and the only starship in range is the newly refitted Enterprise (natch), he immediately takes the opportunity to throw his weight around and get himself appointed Captain of the ship. He throws his weight around some more and gets his friend McCoy yanked out of retirement because, as he says twice, very vehemently, to McCoy himself, "I need you!" Later on, after Spock has arrived and the three of them are all sitting in a room together, McCoy is making his usual jokes about the Vulcan when Kirk turns to him suddenly and says, "Bones! I need him. I need him!" Woah. Okay there, Kirk. You sure need a lot of people a whole heck of a lot. But the truth is, he definitely does need McCoy around, because he's the only guy that Kirk listens to who's willing to tell him he's a dick.
Speaking of which. One of the first things Kirk does when he gets on board the Enterprise (finally, after flying around it for an hour) is to go tell Decker, the current Captain - who's been with the Enterprise from day one of her re-fit, supervised the whole thing, and knows everything about the ship - that Kirk's here to steal his job out from under him. He doesn't exactly break the news to him gently, either. Then he appoints Decker executive officer so he can help him. Decker is kind of annoying in his own right, but it's hard not to sympathize with him. Especially when, only a few scenes later, after Kirk's chosen science officer is killed in a horrific transporter accident (seriously: that was nasty), he decides Decker is going to have to do that shit job, too.
More evidence that Kirk is a dick? When he first gets on the Enterprise, a yeoman helpfully asks him if he needs directions, and he says no. Then he promptly gets lost - because he's never been on the ship before and has no idea where he's going. Dumbass.
There are a lot of weird interpersonal moments in the movie. When Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta) arrives, there's a bit of a fuss made over the fact that she's a Deltan (like that's supposed to mean something to us), and then when she shows up on the bridge, everybody kind of makes eyes at her and looks goofy. I guess weird ugly bald alien women are considered sexy in the future? Ugh. Things get worse when we have to watch Ilia and Decker talk about their relationship. The overdone acting, cliche dialogue, and heaps of melodrama in these scenes are worthy of a bad soap opera.
I mentioned before that it's a good thing McCoy's there to tell Kirk when he's going wrong. But he gets a little carried away with it sometimes. His folksy, irascible comments get grating pretty quickly, and sometimes he's just ridiculous. After the scene where and he and Kirk talk to Spock for the first time, McCoy suggests that Spock might throw them over for the alien, then goes on to further suggest that anybody on board might betray the mission for their own interests. Where the hell did that come from? Does he think most Starfleet personnel are traitors?
McCoy is also constantly wandering onto the bridge for no particular reason, staring around aghast, exchanging meaningful glances with Kirk, and then wandering off again. It's actually pretty hilarious.
There's another pretty funny scene (although admittedly very darkly funny) when Kirk is addressing the crew before departure. There's a priority signal from a starbase, so he makes the mistake of putting the call on the big viewer. This means the entire crew gets to watch firsthand as the starbase is destroyed by the alien cloud. Does Kirk take the chance to motivate the crew? Reassure them? Nope. He just orders them to get to their stations.
Once the Enterprise finally, finally gets under way (about 45 minutes into the movie. Seriously), despite the fact that everyone tells him it's a bad idea, Kirk orders them to go to warp speed. (Although, as an aside, I was a little confused by this, as I could have sworn they had already gone to warp 5 earlier, but maybe I misheard.) As everyone predicted, this is a bad idea, and they get sucked into a wormhole. Kirk nearly compounds his error when he tries to fire the phasers at an asteroid that has gotten sucked in with them. Decker knows this won't work, countermands his order, and shoots the asteroid down with a torpedo instead.
Decker's not right all the time, though. As the story goes on, he keeps telling Kirk going into the cloud is too dangerous, and too much of a risk, but never offers any alternative options. I mean, how can you call anything too much of a risk when the future of the entire planet Earth is on the line? If you have a better plan for saving humanity from the awesomely powerful alien being, we'd all like to hear it!
Once they enter the alien entity, it's like we're trapped in the Enterprise's introductory scene all over again. There's a shot of the alien entity. Then a shot of a crew member looking on in awe. A shot of the alien. A shot of a crew member with his mouth gaping open. A shot of the alien. And on and on and on. I understand they spent a lot of money on the alien effects, and they were probably pretty impressive at the time. But c'mon! We get it! It's an awe-inspiring alien entity. Let's move on already!
There are plenty of other unnecessary scenes, too, like the lame expository sequence where a yeoman asks Scotty why the Captain ordered him to prepare the self destruct sequence. He should have answered, "Well, lass, we're just starting a tradition we intend to keep up in every Star Trek movie. Always use, or threaten to use, the self destruct!"
Most of the changes in this edition of the film I didn't notice, but one that did stand out for me is the cool new way they walk down to V'Ger from off the Enterprise's saucer section onto this self-generating path.
Once they get to V'Ger, and finally figure out what's going on, they decide they need to transmit an old code to V'Ger to finally satisfy the thing. For some reason, Decker feels he has to read this code - which is just a sequence of numbers - out loud. It's very silly, especially when, upon reaching the final sequence of numbers, he stops and says, "Here comes the final sequence!" and Kirk says, "That should cause Voyager to transmit!" Duh! You already told us that. That's the whole point. Now get on with it! (Really, the movie's title should be Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Get on With It Already!)
V'Ger then deliberately disengages its wires so it can't receive the final sequence via transmission; it wants the creator to come and key the final sequence personally. Decker knows he's the one that has to do this, but Kirk tries to stop him. The funny thing about this scene is that I got the strong sense Kirk was trying to stop Decker less because he was afraid for Decker's life, and more because he thought keying that final sequence was the kind of self-sacrificing, heroic act that he, Captain Kirk, was supposed to perform.
After it's all over, the final, epilogue-type conversation between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on the bridge is extremely cheesy and unnecessarily states things that were already made clear through the action of the film.
Another of the lame things about the movie is that the story is very similar to that of an original TV series episode called "The Changeling," which is about an old space probe created by humans that by chance becomes fused with an alien probe. The two machines get their directives mixed up and together decide to destroy anything that isn't perfect. The movie is also about an old space probe created by humans that becomes fused with alien technology and gets confused about its directives. "The Changeling" was a great episode, but did they really have to drag it out into something twice as long?
Another thing I should mention: the uniforms. In the history of Star Trek, the actors have often been forced to wear all manner of horrible outfits, but the uniforms they have to wear in this movie are some of the worst of all time.
Oh, and I'd forgotten Star Trek: The Next Generation got its theme music from the theme music for this movie. I associate that music very strongly with the TV series, because it played in front of every episode, so it was really weird hearing it during the credits of the first Star Trek movie.
But I don't want you to get the feeling that I hate the movie. It's certainly not all bad. Most of the scenes with Spock, for instance, are powerful and effective. There's no question that Leonard Nimoy got the best role and the best dialogue in the movie. He gets to go through a serious character arc. Spock sees a kindred spirit in V'Ger and realizes that for both of them, logic and reason are not enough. The story overall is an interesting and effective one, V'Ger is visually impressive and unique, and there are some pretty fun sequences.
The Director's Edition is actually a two disc DVD, and on the second disc are some additional and deleted scenes. These are split into original scenes from the theatrical release, and scenes from the television version, which were altered in various ways (including being cut entirely, being re-edited, or having new effects shots added to them) for the Director's Edition. It seems impossible, but the original version of the film was even longer and more boring. Jesus! In fact, I prefer the Director's Edition in every way. The effects changes are subtle, but all for the better. Everything that's been cut was not needed, and in the case where a different shot or different line of dialogue was used, it's always better. So thumbs up as far as all that's concerned.
The one extra scene that I found the most jarring depicts an early interaction between Sulu and Ilia. This scene further emphasizes the strange idea that Ilia is supposed to be attractive - so attractive that Sulu is flustered and dazed just by being in her presence. This is utterly confusing to me, as Ilia is so obviously ugly. It's also even funnier considering that we now know George Takei is gay.
Anyway, that's my incredibly long examination of Star Trek: The Director's Edition. I'm glad I saw it, but I'll never sit through it again! |
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