Broken Base: A crashing bore that nearly buried the Trek franchise for good, or a worthy Trek Spiritual Successor to 2001: A Space Odyssey? For better and/or worse, it's probably the Trek film that comes closest to being an episode of the Original Series in movie format. Compare The Search for Spock, which tends to get much more muted reactions from just about everybody. Maybe the only Trek movie to get this treatment (at least until the J. J. Abrams films) especially after the Re-Cut DVD version, which many felt improved the movie.
Where NOMAD Has Gone Before (alluding to the fact that it's a blown-up version of the episode "The Changeling". NOMAD was the space probe in the TV version).
Franchise Original Sin: While it had happened a couple of times in the TV series, this film was where the plot device of the Enterprise being the only starship in range to deal with an emergency really took hold. It's understandable enough here why the untested Enterprise is the only viable choice, since Starfleet already knows that the Klingons' top-of-the-line ships got immediately destroyed by V'Ger, and anything weaker would meet the same fatenote It was admittedly explained a little better in the Star Trek: Phase II pilot script that the film started out as, with the point being reinforced by having a Starfleet light cruiser go ahead of the Enterprise as an advance scout, and get instantly obliterated without finding out anything useful about V'Ger. In future entries in the franchise, however, this scenario would lead to implausible situations such as the grossly under-equipped Enterprise-B being the only ship able to deal with an emergency right outside the solar system in Star Trek: Generations — or it would lead to Voodoo Sharks such as the even worse-equipped Enterprise-A being sent to deal with an emergency in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier because the commanders of other ships in the Earth area were apparently too inexperienced.
Genre Turning Point: While there had been films spun off from various television series before, they tended to either be released while the show was still airing (such as with Batman: The Movie), or be several episodes edited together into a Compilation Re-release (like the film compilations of Battlestar Galactica (1978)). This was the first high level, big budget feature film adapted from a television series, and is generally credited with establishing the trend of reviving or remaking television series as theatrical feature films (like The Addams Family, The Fugitive, and the Mission: Impossible Film Series).
Harsher in Hindsight: Decker's wanting to meld with V'Ger not ten minutes after the latter is described as a child might take on a whole different meaning in the wake of the underage sex crimes that Stephen Collins was revealed to have committed in 2014...
Putting one of the most popular Ho Yay pairings in entertainment history in a rainbow on the poster. At the time, the rainbow was extremely popular in media design and home decor generally, such that it would have been more surprising if they hadn't used one. However, the rainbow used for gay rights was started in 1978, so one wonders if it was intentional.
Spock on a member of a machine race: "Resistance would be futile."
The newly redesigned Enterprise is rushed out into service, resulting in numerous problems. Much like the film itself.
Kirk kicking Decker out of his hard-won job would be repeated in real life a few years later, when Stephen Collins' series Tales of the Gold Monkey was cancelled in favor of Shatner's TJ Hooker.
The long scenes of the bridge crew watching the effects as the ship travels through V'Ger's clouds in wonder now just look like they're watching a screensaver out of boredom.
Also, the scrolling and swirling of the energy field as it passes accompanied by the eerie, contemplative music makes it look like a precursor to Winamp.
The big reveal hinges on the fact that V'Ger is actually Voyager 6. 16 years later, another spacecraft named Voyager would headline its own series. In fact, the premise of that series is about Voyager being flung to the far end of the galaxy and trying to find her way back to Earth, not unlike V'Ger's backstory.
This film has frequently been criticized/mocked for its 70s "disco" vibe, but it became particularly amusing in 2017, when T-shirts to promote Star Trek: Discovery were printed Star Trek: Disco.
"This simple feeling..." is exactly what, now, Spock? Especially since they're holding hands? And Kirk's gazing at him with a look of unprecedented, almost aching tenderness?
Well worth noting: Hand touching is Vulcan kissing. Yeah.
"Dammit Bones, I need you!Badly!"
The page image for Ho Yay is from this movie. Just sayin'.
Watch the scene where Spock first shows up on the bridge. Now look at Kirk's face. Does he or does he not look like he's just had the love of his life returned to him from death? His entire face lights up in that moment. There's no ambiguity there whatsoever.
And V'Ger finally understands this 'simple feeling' once Decker and Ilia join with it... sorry, is this supposed to be subtext?
Improved by the Re-Cut: Both the VHS version, with an additional 12 minutes, and the DVD director's cut that shuffles scenes around, adds some effects and four more minutes, were deemed better than the theatrical cut. (See Padding below for more.)
Informed Wrongness: When seized by V'ger's tractor beam, Decker recommends a phaser strike on the source of the beam to break free, only for Spock to counter that any such attack would be pointless because there's nowhere to escape to. Decker questions why Spock is opposed to trying, with the scene being shot as if Spock has ulterior motives (Spock has actually admitted to having his own reasons for participating already). Yet, by any logical assessment, Spock is in the right here and following Decker's suggestion would have gotten them killed.
Misblamed: While Gene Roddenberry is often lumped entirely with the blame for the Troubled Production, in actual fact the responsibility was pretty equally divided between Roddenberry, director Robert Wise, and initial visual effects designers Robert Abel & Associates. Roddenberry couldn't make any firm decisions as to the storyline and kept rewriting the script on the fly until Paramount were forced to step in and remove him from creative control, Wise made several decisions such as insisting on major set and costume redesigns and not shooting for more than 12 hours a day that caused the budget to balloon, and then RA&A completely failed to deliver any usable visual effects while also using the film's effects budget for other projects they were doing, forcing the studio to hire Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra to churn out the effects no matter what the cost.
Also, Paramount itself waffled back and forth on whether the new Trek would be a new TV series, TV movies, then ultimately a feature when Star Wars exploded. Star Trek Phase II had significant pre-production completed, including sets that had to be redone for cinema quality. They even pretended Phase II was still underway for months (buying scripts, etc) after finally deciding to make a feature. All these costs were considered the "budget" of TMP, which seems a bit misleading. It's also worth noting that much of the Phase II work became TNG: Decker/Ilia were proto Riker/Troi, and Xon became Data. It's since been implied by several of the effects artists who worked on the film that Paramount were also the ones responsible for bringing RA&A onto the film in the first place, despite the latter having no film experience to speak of.
Older Than They Think: Sonak is sometimes thought of as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Xon, Spock's intended replacement from the aborted series Star Trek: Phase II, and the transporter accident a way of getting rid of him to allow Spock back into the cast. In actual fact, Sonak's death is something taken directly from the pilot script of Phase II (which was turned into this film), except there he was called "Ronak," and the transporter malfunction just caused his pattern to dissipate into nothingness, instead of rematerialising him in a horribly warped state.
Once Original, Now Common: Use of the "blaster beam" in the score was revolutionary at the time, earning Goldsmith an Academy Award nomination. Thanks to Christopher Nolan's overuse of the effect in the past few years, though...
A script for a one-hour pilot for a new Trek series that never came to be was made into a two-hour movie by the addition of a little extra chatter and lot of establishment shots of truly insane length, such as our first look at the new Enterprise, as well as when V'Ger is revealed. 2001: A Space Odyssey moves at light speed by comparison. Fortunately, Jerry Goldsmith was on hand.
The original VHS release was the theatrical cut, but in 1983 ABC TV broadcast the movie and requested extra footage to pad the film to a THREE hour slot (with commercials). This made the runtime 12 minutes longer than the theatrical cut. Which, believe it or not, improved the movie somewhat, since much of the material that was added back consisted of dialogue that actually advanced the plot and explained what the heck was going on while also giving the rest of the cast and extra more screen time, allowing for some quirky humor and philosophical musings that made them seem more alive and, well, human. The TV cut was so well received that Paramount released a VHS edition based on this cut called (believe it or not) "Special Longer Edition" and this became the definitive version.
Editing wasn't actually finished when the movie premiered—in fact, the filmmakers were frantically editing to the very last few hours before the premiere, to the point where the film prints were still wet. Editing was completed properly for the director's cut, and this makes the movie a much better flick.
Also, bear in mind that this movie was a very big deal at the time—Trekkies had spent ten years clamouring to see a new live-action version of the show (and remember that this was before home video, so unless they caught some reruns it really had been ten years since they saw anything involved with the show). Some bits were left (when we first see the Enterprise, Kirk's arrival at Starfleet, McCoy beaming in, Spock first stepping on The Bridge, etc.) so the fans could cheer for their favorites returning.
Presumed Flop: The divisive reception, with particular complaints on the padding, has given the movie a bad reputation, but even if it wasn't a juggernaut like Star Wars, it was very profitable at $139 millions worldwide against a 44 million budget, although Paramount's management was not happy at how much of a Troubled Production it was, and pressured the producer of the sequel to make it a considerably more economical film, with more acclaimed results.
Signature Scene: The accident in the transporter room. Anyone who has seen the film would remember that disturbing scene and the fates of those crew members.
When Kirk and company stand on the exterior of the saucer, the angle of the hull is far too steep (theatrical). The Director's Cut replaces the matte painting with a CG model of the Enterprise from a more correct perspective.
When the V'ger light probe moves around the bridge, it's painfully obvious the film was spliced vertically because the two halves don't match. This was because the probe was a huge light dragged around by a filming crew member with the idea they would be washed out, which didn't work.
As awesome as the effects in the theatrical cut generally are, there are a few cases where it's obvious that the effects were rushed in order to meet the release deadline. Notable examples are the horrible-looking asteroid explosion, and two occasions later in the film where V'Ger's energy bolts are rather clumsily matted in.
This was also a case where this happened quite literally. The film's already Troubled Production meant that The first special effects company, commercial veterans Abel & Associates, couldn't get the job done, so Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra had to be hired late in the production. Reasons for this vary, ranging from the studio using Paramount's money and equipment to continue their commercial work, to Robert Abel attempting to make an overly complex computer-controlled camera system, to the massive amounts of rewrites forced upon the film by Roddenberry himself that roped the company into doing set and costume designs on top of the VFX. The studio would be let go just a few months before release, with their one lone sequence in the film, the wormhole scene, being considered one of the weaker effects.
In the TV edit which aired several times on ABC in the 1980s, one notorious scene, in which Kirk spacewalks out of the Enterprise to join Spock at the meeting with V'Ger, features an unfinished wide shot of Kirk leaving the ship, with the studio rafters and scaffolding visible all the way around the edge of the "ship exterior". The scene had been cut during filming but was restored to pad the TV edit before anyone realised that it had not undergone any post-production. It also didn't help that the scene was part of the original space walk, in which Kirk joined Spock and encountered a "memory wall" together.
The astronaut who gets thrown away from V'Ger's attack on the station has comically thin and doll-like limbs.
It is conspicuous, but perhaps it's an alien with very thin arms?
The matte painting for Spock's homeworld in the Theatrical Cut are very unconvincing, looking very flat and obvious, especially compared to the other matte paintings in films at the time, and that's before you get to the continuity flub of depicting Vulcan as a volcanic planet instead of a desert one. It was completely replaced and much improved in the Director's Cut.
Spock also covers his eyes and squints from the sun, despite it being night time in the original cut.
While the film tries to depict Kirk and Scotty as being visible through the windows of the inspection pod they use to board the Enterprise, the effect isn't too successful, and makes them look like a pair of cardboard cut-outs. Tellingly, after this film the franchise would depict shuttle windows as being opaque until Star Trek: Insurrection, where the technology had improved enough to convincingly depict the occupants moving with the shuttles.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While generally seen as a big improvement overall, the Director's Edition did come in for some minor criticism over changes made to the sound mix, in particular the red alert siren being changed to a much wimpier-sounding one, and V'Ger's energy bolts getting a much shriller and higher-pitched noise. For some reason, Wise removed Kirk having to bark "Turn it off!" a second time, when the original cut showed how shocked the crew was that Uhura was unable to notice Kirk's order the first time.
The film actually features some far more profound and interesting themes than its more well-received sequels, which for the most part are much more standard action-adventure takes on the franchise. Unfortunately, said themes are either glossed over or crammed into the last twenty minutes and not given enough time to be explored, meaning that they end up taking a back seat to the effects sequences. As an example, it's the start of Kirk having a breakdown about his age and position, but that's given more focus and weight only by the other films making it a Story Arc.
The machine race. We are talking about a species so advanced that they can take a Voyager-series probe from the twentieth century and turn it into a sapient weapon that makes a Borg cube look like a paddle steamer. And yet not only do we never see them again either in the movies or the series, but nothing whatsoever comes from Decker bonding with V'Ger. Unless, as speculated by numerous people, up to and including Gene Roddenberry himself, the machine race is the Borg... (which only raises a completely different set of equally interesting questions, like why the Borg would behave so apparently benevolently towards a wayward Earth probe made from, in their estimation, "stone knives and bear skins.")
Unintentional Period Piece: Best exemplified when Dr. McCoy shows up looking like a hippie who just escaped from The Bee Gees. The Space Clothes and some of the hairstyles (especially Uhura's large afro) really help to date the film. A few of the set elements also have a bit of the seventies in them, particularly with the earth tones used on the furniture, but for the most part they avoided the Zeerust of The Original Series, with the computer technology only beginning to look significantly outdated in the 21st century.
Vindicated by History: Star Trek: The Motion Picture was popular enough that it did financially well at the box office. Despite critics bashing it, Trekkies were glad to have Star Trek back. After Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and especially after Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, more fans began to see 1979 Motion Picture in a different light, often jokingly calling it "The Motionless Picture" due to its slow pacing and subdued performances from the cast. note There were references to the slowness before Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan but it increased after. The dynamic melodrama and powerful character moments of II, and the refreshing comedy relief humor of IV, were often held up as unfavorable comparisons for The Motion Picture, and it is included with the other odd-numbered Trek movies as inferior.note This tendency to regard the odd-numbered Trek films as inferior started after The Wrath of Khan, and it increased with the third film (seen as okay, but much less memorable than the films either side of it), and even more with the fan reaction to Star Trek V (which got an overwhelmingly negative reaction on its initial release, and even with its own reputation having improved is still seen as by far the weakest of the original cast Star Trek films) The 2001 Director's Cut has improved the reputation of the film somewhat, thanks to better pacing and improved visuals, though the film is still considered too slow for some fans. The fact that almost every Star Trek movie since Star Trek II has emulated its formula in some manner has made The Motion Picture stand out more and be more appreciated.
Powered by going way over budget. From the iridescent paint job on the Enterprise that made Chroma Key fail hard, to zillions of vehicles and costumes you only saw on screen once, to (of course!) the mind-bending V'Ger sequences, you should seriously consider giving your eyes a break every now and then.
Not to mention the awesome effect when the Enterprise warps out.
Say what you will about the slow pacing of the film, but the effects shots look gorgeous for the time.
The photon torpedoes look and sound deadlier than they ever did in the original series. The exact same sound and effect (except for changing the torpedoes from blue to red) would be reused in all Star Trek up through First Contact, which introduced quantum torpedoes (and photon torpedoes still saw use in that film, as well as on Deep Space Nine and Voyager).
Most of the cast hated the costumes they wore throughout the majority of the movie, which have been derisively referred to as "space pajamas" by many. For The Wrath of Khan and the subsequent Original Series films, this had been fully rectified. The redesign was at least in part due to the fact that all principal actors from the series flat-out refused to do any more films unless the uniforms were redesigned. Not only were they extremely uncomfortable to wear, they required assistance to don or remove, even for a visit to the restroom.
Male actors in particular were showing a little bit more detail "downstairs" than they would have liked. Whereas for some of the female cast, the figure-hugging suits did no favors from behind.
However, partway through, Kirk inexplicably puts on a white short-sleeved polo shirt that doesn't seem befitting of a starship captain.
Robert Wise had the uniforms designed so plain compared to the bright TOS uniforms (which were planned to be used again in the Phase II series), so that the audience would focus more on the actors' faces. Unfortunately, the actors don't get to show a whole lot of emotional range throughout most of the movie, so the ploy ended up backfiring spectacularly.
The Novel:
Ho Yay: The movie is already fairly homoerotic, but the novelisation takes it up to eleven. For one thing, the novel introduces the Vulcan word t'hy'la, which Spock uses to describe Kirk, and which can mean friend, brother or lover. For another, it outright states that it was Kirk's mind that had called to Spock across the lightyears and ruined his Kolinahr (the film implies that it's V'Ger's arrival in Federation space, not Kirk's mind, which disturbs Spock during his Kolinahr ceremony, and Spock later says he sensed a powerful and perfectly ordered consciousness that might hold "his answers.").
For what it's worth, the novelization was written by Gene Roddenberry. Yes, that Gene Roddenberry—his only published Star Trek prose. (Roddenberry did this, in part, as an act of revenge against the film's screenwriter Harold Livingston—Roddenberry really wanted to get script credit but didn't (and turned down co-story credit), so he got his own back by novelizing the script, as was his legal right. It's worth noting that Livingston and Alan Dean Foster (who has story credit) aren't mentioned on the front cover.)
Foster repeatedly confirms that he had nothing to do with the novelization. If you know his work at all, you can tell by reading it isn't. It's likely his ghostwriting of the A New Hope Star Wars novelization that keeps causing this confusion.
