Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
G | 07 December 1979 (USA)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Trailers

When an unidentified alien destroys three powerful Klingon cruisers, Captain James T. Kirk returns to the newly transformed U.S.S. Enterprise to take command.

Reviews
Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined
Jemima It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film
drewstewartcola While the film does rekindle the fire of TOS, it lacks the imagination and spirit of TOS. It doesn't do anything to advance the spirit of the franchise, it was almost like it would have made a better 11/2 hour Sunday night movie of the week on NBC.
merelyaninnuendo Star Trek : The Motion PictureThe makers takes too much time to sink their teeth in their characters and the surrounding offered to them, leaving them spending away their first act which is clearly not feasible as they suffer for it latter on their second act which grows obvious as it ages on screen, creating an enormous amount of pressure on the last act to pull it off, which they do, but it isn't glorifying enough to save the almost sunken ship. It is rich on technical aspects like visual effects, make-up design and production design but is short on editing. Robert Wise's execution is appreciative but it could have been a lot better and so could have been the screenplay by Harold Livingston which never even attempts to seek the attention of the viewers. The returned characters have hold on to their roles especially by Leonard Nimoy and William Shartner, although the maturity seemed to be missing in there. The writer uses the magnitude of the characters and their chemistry among each other and chooses their moments wisely which helps the feature survive for a bit longer period. Star Trek : The Motion Picture is a misguided plot dipped into a space-fest of unknown creatures and regions whose well written characters are the only thread to hold on to.
teodorodontosaurus There was simply not enough material for a full-length movie; it would have been a very good episode. Damn, they could have added just a few ideas, changed the plot structure a little bit and shortened the movie with 30-40 minutes... it had so much potential! Being too slow-paced is not the real problem; the plot was simply too thin for such a long movie. So, the movie is not thrilling, nor dramatic or introspective (although it tends to be)... there is an initial spark of mystery, followed by a tone of inconsistent and uninteresting scenes; but it has a very interesting conclusion. I don't know if this idea has been used before, but I liked it very much! So the movie had a redeeming conclusion, but did I really need to spend more than 2 hours for that?
captgage-1 Star Trek: The Motion Picture is one of my favorite examples of a movie that starts out promisingly but builds up to nothing. The premise, if nothing else, has sometimes been praised even by people who don't like Star Trek. The real trouble is, it doesn't do enough with said premise, building up to nothing. Anyhow, the good:-The opening scene gets the movie off to a misleadingly fast start. It's ominous, and it's a trip. Plus, we get the first glimpse of the redesigned Klingons. -The first glimpse of the Enterprise. Many people think it's such a lousy scene because it goes on a bit more than it ought to, but the first minute or so of it was the first time we ever saw the refitted Enterprise, and on the big screen.-The transporter accident. Some of us can't help thinking it might have been prevented, but it was disturbing, sound and all. It may have even been there to try to keep the film going, but that's actually a good thing.-The wormhole. Another Enterprise glitch that briefly jump started the movie. After that is when it gets the most boring, as the movie lumbers to a stop.-When (SPOILER) Chekov agrees wholeheartedly not to interfere with V'Ger hacking the ship's computer. A friend of mine once said that one moment was the only good part in the whole movie. Shortly before that was when I officially got bored. -The "Spock Walk." Most of what this movie's supposed to be about is here, though many viewers were asleep by then. Easily one of the most fascinating scenes in the film. Not sure how many people wrapped their heads around it, instead of just expecting a space battle or something. Star Trek TMP isn't as boring as almost everyone thinks, but it is boring. The V'Ger flyover could have been edited at least a little, and Robert Wise still could have gotten the point across. Ditto for the scene with the Enterprise in drydock. It's great that the movie isn't just another shoot-em-up space cowboy movie, but it didn't have to be just the opposite. At least (or maybe at most) space operas are fun (witness the Trek reboots), though stereotypical.The climax didn't make sense to everyone, but I understand what happened. It just wasn't powerful enough to justify sitting through the whole movie. So all in all, I liked Star Trek: The Motion Picture in some ways, but it's hard to believe that it took so much preparation and rejected, in some cases better, scripts to end up with what we finally got. Just lucky The Wrath of Khan got things on track.