Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Robert Wise), 1979

This is not a fresh observation. Even the most hard core of Trek fans generally write this off as a misfire. Yet what I find odd about the reaction to this movie is that its flaws are shared by a great deal of the other Trek products. One of Roger Ebert's more interesting theories holds that the best Trek films are the even-numbered ones: I have a theory that the best Trek products are those that didn't closely involve Star Trek's creator, the late Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry's closest involvement with the franchise was with the original TV show, this first movie, and the early days of the Next Generation show. When this one went belly up, he retreated to a more supervisatory role on the films; they immediately improved. Similarly, the Next Generation's best episodes were the later ones, after Roddenberry had turned production over to others. I don't want to get stuck into Roddenberry too much: he's not around to defend himself, and the franchise he started has been a tremendous achievement. Yet since Trek fans valorise Roddenberry out of all proportion (he is referred to by some as "The Great Bird of the Galaxy"), I think the odd realistic assessment of his career might finally be in order.

This is relevant to ST : TMP because, despite the condemnation of virtually everybody, this film actually captures the feel of the earlier TV programs very well. However, robbed of the protective haze of nostalgia - and the excuse of a low budget - the dodginess Roddenberry model is more clearly exposed to view. Fans have claimed that the original show was innovative in bringing science fiction plots to the screen. It was ahead of its time, granted, but the show has not aged well, and these same plots now appear hopelessly simplistic and depressingly repetitive. Unfortunately, the plot of TMP has been taken directly from an episode of the TV show (and the broad outline - Enterprise encounters super-powerful alien being - is reminiscent of dozens of others). Very little has been added to the original plot outline, with the running time expanded mostly through special effects and reforming the original crew. So there is a distinct deja vu hanging over proceedings, as even those who don't remember the specific episode will doubtless recall others like it. The platitudinising in the final reel, with the self-congratulatory ranting about the need for those qualities Kirk repeatedly defines as "human" will also be annoyingly familiar (The Star Trek crew always were offensive about their chauvinism in the face of Spock's other-worldly attributes: despite it's celebrated inclusion of ethnic characters, Trek has always indulged in displaced racial stereotyping and colonialism through it's portrayal of alien races).

Our dull, inane plot is told in the bored, listless, B-movie fashion that the TV show pioneered: Wise clearly had trouble getting excited about the film. Leonard Nimoy, as Spock, and De Forest Kelley, as Bones, are the only original Star Trek actors to register any kind of performance. The rest either can't act (as in William Shatner's case) or never get a chance to. Even Nimoy seems distracted this time round, however, as the Enterprise ever-so slowly makes it into the centre of the alien cloud that threatens the Earth. Bones always did hang around the bridge too much (probably because that was the only decent set), but this becomes particularly embarrassing here. Even the supporting story is recycled material - the characters of Decker, the interim Captain of the Enterprise (Stephen Collins) and the Deltan navigator Ilea (Persis Khambatta) is salvaged from material that was to have been used in a second TV version of Star Trek. In truly miserly fashion, the characters would turn up again, barely altered, as the Next Generation's Riker and Troi. (That's not all that's recycled: many sets shown here continued in use right up to Generations, and I'm fairly sure the engineering set at least was still in use as of First Contact).

In amongst the dross, however, there are some good points. As Danny Peary has argued (in his excellent Guide For the Film Fanatic), this film is superior to its immediate followers in conveying some excitement at the notion of space travel. I disagree with Peary, however, in his suggestion that the old TV show did not: one advantage of the low budget was that the Enterprise's voyages through a world of awful grey sets did come to seem lonely and eerie. (This is a feeling subsequent adventures - in their increasingly plush starships - largely lost). Many of the special effects, by 2001's Douglas Trumbull, are excellent. And Jerry Goldsmith's music is a treat to listen to: themes from this score were still being dutifully paraded in First Contact.

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