MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) Discussion > EPIC. IMPORTANT. improves with age.

EPIC. IMPORTANT. improves with age.

posted a year ago by JohnBraun604 (353)
1 reply | jump to latest

This movie was big, serious and bold and a Masterpiece.

Star Trek was so well known, but was just a TV show, with often cheap production values. But now, a big-budget treatment and the anticipation was incredible and Star Trek: The Motion picture seemed to be infront of me everywhere growing up - the backs of comics, endless tv commercials, Happy Meals, billboards.

After Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, I begged my parents to take me to see this....
and was BORED OUT OF MY SKULL.

Gone was the fun of the tv show, it was drab, not colorful, I remember putting my head on my dad's lap and wanting to sleep after endless, endless shots of a space cave. It was confusing to me and I was not ready for it at 8 years old.

Over the years I began to revisit and re-watch and appreciate the utter brilliance of this movie, daring to offer some incredible big ideas. Directed by the great Robert Wise (Sound of Music, Andromedia Strain, West Side Story to name a few...) - this is my books is the BEST STAR TREK movies ever made.

Grand and Epic.

Sure Wrath of Khan is more entertaining and thrilling but Star Trek: The Motion Picture is wonderful and unmatched if you have the maturity and appreciation for something beyond pew pew pew!

[–] MaximRecoil (4836) 2 months ago

"Gone was the fun of the tv show, it was drab, not colorful, I remember putting my head on my dad's lap and wanting to sleep after endless, endless shots of a space cave. It was confusing to me and I was not ready for it at 8 years old."

I first saw it when I was about 9 or 10 (1984 or 1985). It was a TV broadcast so it would have been the extra long version that was specifically cobbled together for its first TV airing in 1983. I loved every minute of it.

I had been watching reruns of the original series every day after school for quite a while at that point so I was already a big fan of the show. I thought it was awesome seeing older versions of the characters for the first time, and the updated Enterprise. Then I was drawn in by the mystery of what V'ger actually was. Also, the movie seemed so epic compared to the TV show.

I was blown away by the reveal at the end, especially since I had been learning about the Voyager probes in school at the time. I was still thinking about that ending long after the movie ended. To this day it's one of my two favorite movie endings (the other being the ending of The Terminator [1984], which was also fun to think about long after the movie ended).

The one that seems to be most people's favorite (The Wrath of Khan), I find boring in comparison to TMP. It has a lot more action, but it doesn't have any mystery, sense of wonder, nor a fascinating concept to think about after the movie is over.