Cinematic Excrement: Episode 72 - Star Trek: The Motion Picture 

"My oath of celibacy is on record, Captain. Anyway, how is your sex life?"

I just figure Ilia stated her vow of celibacy because Kirk's reputation preceded him. Dude chases alien women like Zeus chases everyone.

"All hail the mighty glow cloud" Insert Captain America understanding the reference gif here.

The shuttle approach to the Enterprise, with Goldsmith's score underneath...is majestic. It's gorgeous, pure cinema. "All hail...." Robert Wise.

I'm actually happy for the 5.5 minute Enterprise show-off, because it gave Jerry Goldsmith an opportunity for one of the greatest cues in film music history - with no sounds or dialogue interfering with its majesty.

Did you know that the black actress from Star Trek was wanting to leave but she was convinced to stay by a fan of both her character and the tv show. The fan was Martin L King Jr! True story

Sean, I'm not a Trekkie, but if you know how to speak Klingon, you, sir, win. At everything.

About the costumes, Robert Fletcher the designer didn't like them either because he felt they were too drab but the director insisted on using very simple designs and using the late 70's color pallet of beige, white, off-white and earth tones. Fletcher was thrilled when he got to do The Wrath of Khan and used very rich colors and more detailed designs.

The thing I love about TMP was that space actually felt like a dark, unforgiving territory that didn't discriminate it's victims. I never got that feeling of such a rich atmosphere in the subsequent films.

In defense of the pacing, Robert Wise has said that the film was so rushed to meet its release date that there wasn't time to properly edit the film!

I'm an original 60's Trek fan and I agree with most of your critique. However, I assure you, we hard-core Trekkies weren't bored in the least by the intro scene for the new Enterprise. To us, she is another cast member. The studio had been careful not to let the new version be seen much before the premiere of the film. It was one of the biggest questions we had. What would the new version look like? I'm sure the sequence was a bit too long for non-fans, but to me, it was exactly what I was looking for when I first saw her. I was completely entranced; loved every second of it. But the Vger flyby was ridiculous. I went to the men's room and came back and it was still going.

This is an example of style over substance. It really is visually stunning

Linkara has theorized that Star Fleet only has two ships active at any given time

We paid for these special effects shots and we're gonna use them, dammit! ~ Some Paramount Executive, probably.

I've seen a lot of people over the years wonder why the Enterprise seems to be the only ship that actually ever does anything, but I like to imagine all the other ships have just as many adventures as them off-screen.

The third season of Star Trek was awful, true, but there were some real gems there: "The Enterprise Incident" and "The Doomsday Machine" to name a pair.

Fun fact: One of the trailers for Star Trek: the Motion Picture was narrated by the one and only Orson Welles!

I look forward to your eventual review of Star Trek 5 for your Worst Picture project

2:21 - According to Nimoy, after Star Trek was cancelled, it went into syndication. The Apollo XI in July, 1969 is what made people interested in Star Trek again.

Chuckled when you noted how the director chose to show the Enterprise for so long. The director was, of course, Robert Wise, who a quarter century earlier had given us the original " The Day The Earth Stood Still " , a far superior SF flick.

Star Trek II is so good, you really cannot do it better. Not even by making Khan a british man...

"The possibilities of our returning from this trip may have just doubled." Yeah right. Uhura was never a Red Shirt.

Taking on the slow-motion picture, I see. Nice. Also, another NightVale fan!

I saw this in the theatre when it premiered. I was 10 years old, and it's what got me into becoming a Star Trek fan. I still think it's a good film

The Tour of the Enterprise actually makes sense, because the show had been gone so long it was there for emotional impact, which also transfers to Kirks Character. The fly around the Enterprise and Launch is considered very epic. It was the one time the slowness of the movie was not out of place.

I'm really happy that you made a Welcome to Night Vale reference

ALL HAIL. Also, you have just guaranteed that I will *never* unsubscribe.

Nice job on mimicking William Shatner's hammy, funny acting.

"Two times zero is still zero" one of your best quotes yet, which is saying a lot.

🙌 all hail the Glowcloud! 🙏

"They manage to convince it..." The Glow Cloud does not need to converse with us. It does not feel as we tiny humans feel. It has no need for thoughts or feelings of love.

Many people forget that there was an animated Star Trek TV show from the 1970s and starred most of the original cast from the first TV show.

Good thing Ilia proclaimed her vow of celibacy. Mr. Sulu looked really distracted there for a moment.

Literally almost screamed at the WTNV reference.

This movie is very slow and ponderous, but it's still my favourite Star Trek film. I wouldn't argue that it's the best made (Kahn, or Voyage Home), but it's definitely the most accurate film they could have made based on the TV show.

"Ten minutes of flying along side the alien ship at half the speed of smell" LOL!!!!! Great line!!!

I was a kid when this movie came out .My mom took me to see it at the drive-in and I fell asleep half way into it

Two things. First, love the Nightvale references, ALL HAIL! Second, I always assumed Ailia announced her vow of celibacy because everyone knows Kirk will try to fuck ANYTHING

Don't worry about us fanboys, we call this movie the "Slow Motion Picture," after all...

15:43 That should have been Scotty's job. Did this movie's makers forget Scotty's an Engineer? The word "Engine" is in the title!

Your Klingon disclaimer is EXACTLY why I friggin adore you!!

I wish you could get these out more than once a month.

I’ve been looking at the comment sections recently and a lot of what’s been said is so ridiculous. To anyone saying that people who hate Star Trek The Motion Picture because they have short attention spans or no patience, you are completely and utterly wrong. Everyone just likes different things. Some people liked it, some didn’t. You are not superior to anyone just because you liked a movie and you’re not inferior to anyone because you didn’t like a movie. People just have different tastes. It’s not about short attention spans or patience or whatever bullshit you guys come up with. You sound no different than DCEU fans who trash Marvel fans and hold the DC films as these high art pieces that only snobbish, fancy people can truly appreciate.

all hail the glow cloud.... all hail... aaaaalll hailll...

They reused the same shots of the shuttle docking in Star Trek 2, but Sulu mananged to do it in about 30s as he didn't fly round it 3 times first.

That disclaimers in the middle of the review was priceless!

Your point about it being bad to have plot points & dialogue that aren't explained in the film was a very good one. Therefore, you are practically *obligated* to do a video on Dune

22:20 "living machines"? So it landed in Cybertron

Another good knickname for this movie could also be Star Trek: A space odyssey, since I'm honestly getting flashbacks to 2001: a space odyssey.

3 seconds. it took 3 second for the joke everyone saw coming to hit. Well played sir, well played.

They only had a story long enough for a good trick-ending Twilight Zone episode - so the rest depended on being filled with visual effects. The studio wasted much time being sold on an effects company that had little idea what they were doing - had to turn at the last minute to Doug Trumbull who did a magnificent job saving this sorry project.

Welcome to Night Vale reference. I like this channel so much more now.

The images Spock saw during his spacewalk... I always understood those to be planets V'Ger had actually DIGITIZED and stored, as it did with the Klingon ships, and presumably what it was going to do to Earth when the creator didn't respond.

Apparently there were some other issues with this film during production. Although the original show's creator Gene Roddenberry was involved as producer, he and director Robert Wise didn't get along so well... their collaboration was contentious, to say the least, even in pre-production, as they had a number of creative differences that seemed to be evident in the film's staging and pacing (arguably another reason why the Director's Cut was made and released on television later). As far as the final product is concerned... well, here's the thing. Although the original series is one of my favorite shows, and I enjoyed a number of the pre-J.J. Abrams original films, I'm not really that much of a hardcore Trekkie, so not only do I look at how faithful films spinning off TV shows are to their small screen origins, but how well they stand on their own as, well, actual films. When I first saw this in both formats, I didn't really think it was all that bad, but as cinema it wasn't exceptional. Apparently they were going for a David Lean-type space opera in order to stay true to the original show's spirit by opposing the Cecil B. DeMille flamboyance and good vs. evil nature of the original STAR WARS, while also using TMP's larger budget ($44 million) to upgrade the material visually for the big screen beyond the budgetary constraints of television. However, as John Stanley in his CREATURE FEATURES Movie Guide said it best in his 3.5 out of 5 star review for this: "it rises above the mock heroics of STAR WARS but falls short of being 2001." As troubles during development and actual production proved, the end result is a film that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. Some parts are enjoyable and/or intellectually fascinating (especially when Spock returns to the bridge and later tries to do his mind-meld in space!), others mind-blowing (especially when you had both 2001's Douglas Trumbull and STAR WARS' John Dykstra doing the FX! AWESOME!!!), and I always loved Jerry Goldsmith's music in almost every film he scored. However, it tends to drag when it follows the same storytelling pattern of the show, especially when the main characters are less developed here, taking a backseat to the spectacle half the time, and the more intimate, grounded episode format works better on TV. They were definitely able to improve this approach with the next film (and Roddenberry got along better with Nicholas Meyer, who also later did THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY after Roddenberry passed away). Overall, while the first film is an uneven, unsatisfying mess that is better in parts than the whole, I think, Trekkies or not, we're all in agreement that ST5: THE FINAL FRONTIER is much, much worse... easily the weakest of the first six films based on the original series.

Back in 1979 two sci-fi movies hit the big screen Star Trek:The Motion Picture and Alien(1979)

That outtake is actually hilarious. 😄

"Cut! CUT! CUUUUUUUUUT! CUUUUUT!"

This was heavily influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odessey. That's where the slowness comes from.

My sister could not stop laughing throughout this entire film. Between the uniforms, the Ilia-bot, and the copious amounts of padding, it really is a so-bad-it's-good classic.

Damn it I want to go to bed. But I need my fix of Smeghead!

When bald Britney Spears walked in, my warpdrive tingled a little...

@ 24:33 The guy in the back is probably thinking, "Aw shit, I'm supposed to be on the set of 'Rollerball'!"

'...enough technobabble to keep the nerds happy...' ROFL Sean, you are not actually doing one of the 'Scary Movie' films for Halloween next month, are you? LOL

The first time the Enterprise made its' cameo appearance was absolute visual bliss for me....should've been longer than a measly 5min scene...just sayin.....⭐️💫🌟💥⭐️💫🌟💥

That is by far the best content warning I have ever had the pleasure of reading! Kudos 👍!

Pls do a review of Conan the Barbarian remake, i am dying to hear you tear that movie a new one

When you said Stephen Collins I know where your coming from.The world is filled with sick minded people.

Whenever I watch this, I also get the same feeling from the "Bones, I need you, BADLY" scene. For that matter, he makes a motion immediately afterward that's like "now take me like a man!" The move ends in...a handshake. Shatner can't even just shake hands without it being a dramatic overaction.

Fantastic review! (As always). You seriously deserve more views, love your work Smeghead:)

I remember the NOMAD episode. The talking space probe who was surprisingly sexist; it called Uhura, and all women by extension, "an unstable mass of conflicting impulses". Which in retrospect, was pretty funny. I don't know where or when, but it was retconned that Voyager 6 became V'ger after encountering The Borg, who fit the "living machines" description to a T.

0:56 - Malcolm McDowell will attest to how scary Trekkies can be. 13:20 - "Well you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a doctor not a woman's man, no time to talk, Jim."

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY GLOW CLOUD

I did a seminar at Sherwood Oaks on this film and interviewed all involved who needed to vent. The music was written before the special effects were finished so the shots they had were incredibly long, filled in with lots of staring. The editor, Todd Ramsey, was free to tell the truth about the hell they went through making it, which is why we never got Shatner, Nimoy, writer Harold Livingston and director Robert Wise to speak (An uncredited Jeffery Katzenberg held everything together). I'm just happy that such a great director got a chance to improve on this project before he died. George Takei described the ending as the largest orgasm in screen history.

Returning in one piece might have some other meaning for two people after a transporter accident.

For those of us whose religion in the late 1960's and 1970's was Star Trek, this was an emotional experience. The Enterprise reveal had us all in tears. You young people will never understand what this movie meant to us who had watched the original series. Go ahead and make fun of us. We original fans will understand. Those of us who actually KNEW Gene Roddenberry personally laugh at you.

As much as I actually love much about this movie, it definitely hasn't been dubbed "The Motionless Picture" for nothing................. :D

Here's my long-winded, if somewhat belated, explanation as to why the Klingons in the movie looked different than the Klingons in the tv series... IT'S CALLED A BUDGET.... Get over it already!!!

By my honor, I aspire to have a good and gracious sense of humor on the Internet, and to always.....whoa, that's so neat, you have a Star Trek outfit! Cool!! ...what was I saying about honor and humor?

Harlan Ellison said it best: Star Trek The Motionless Picture.

Sorry I gotta say this about the Klingons. Before the "cannon" explanation, my comical belief was that the movie Klingons (+TNG onward) were the Dominant Vikings while the ones on TOS were the East-LA Klingons that were wiped out by the strong ones.........then DS9 and Voyager had to reintroduce those classic Klingons as Vikings! Damn It!!!!

So what if the movie was slow? It looked awesome. I saw it as a boy and thought it was amazing. Then there was The Wrath of Khan, which was even better. It is unusual for a sequel to be better than the first one. Terminator/Terminator 2 was another example of this.

Veijer? Isn't that the bad guy from Jak and Daxter? "It's Veiger!" Bleh.

*All hail the mighty glow cloud.*

Nowadays, all movies are smashcuts and you can’t follow the story because the film is chop-suedes in the editing room. The music and sets of this film were used for various films and series, and this film did well enough to launch several movies and shows. This is the only film or show which shows the dark side of Kirk- totally devoted to the Enterprise, to the point where he is endangering the mission. Also, for those old enough to see it in theaters, it was glorious seeing a huge Enterprise with human figures for comparison, and it serves a plot point- we see how big Eneterprise is, so we are wowed when it is dwarfed by VGER.

Love. your. William. Shatner. impression, Sean.

When I saw the Enterprise fly by I understood what Scotty was showing Kirk. He was showing his captain the most beautiful starship in the fleet. I was at the first showing of the Motion Picture in my town, and I was in tears during this sequence. We true fans loved this show and we loved the first lady of space. God bless Gene Roddenberry.

I always liked Shatner’s acting style. It could be that I’m bad at understanding human subtleties and overacting makes it so much easier to comprehend what is happening. Or maybe people are too hard on overactors. Better over than under, honestly.

I watched the 4K restoration/directors cut earlier this year and it’s a lot better I mean I was really stoned, but yes much better. The visuals ✨

They explain why Kirk insisted on being in charge of the mission in the scene where Bones............talks to Kirk about his need to take over the mission. He is bored and can't stand being a desk jockey anymore. This continues in the next film too.

7:48 I never noticed they had rug on the port arrivals... why the hell rugs?

How'd I miss this movie?? I can understand why Nimoy was tired of the character, but oh man, am I glad he decided to return ... again, and again, and again.

Nearly 6 years later.. I recently watched and actually quite liked this movie. It's agree it's not one of the greats, but I really enjoyed it anyway. I thought the story of Voyager was a fascinating concept. That it gained self-awareness and was in search of the creator. I liked that the creator turned out to be something it thought to be very inferior to itself. That it at first refused to accept it. I can hear Kirk now saying "V'ger.. We, are the creators". I don't think this movie deserves to be called excrement. It's so much better than a lot of what comes out today which leaves nothing to wonder and the imagination. I'd watch it over Wonder Woman 1984!

Good review! I do eenjoy this movie, in the right mind-set. I've loved the images, the "visuals" since the first time I saw it... BUt I can understand what Sean said in the review.

This is 1 of my favorites by far the best trek movie. I love how they tie it in with the Borg in the books

Dude. Kirk wanting back his glory days is a plot point

9:14 on repeat for hours no days maybe even years !

TODAY IN #StarTrek HISTORY: December 7, 1979 "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" debuts in the United States. Happy anniversary!!🖖

There has to be a Star Trek V: The Final Frontier review in the future.

It would have been funnier if instead of the screen-crawl about klingons, you had just put the Worf clip from Troubles and Tribble-ations "We don't talk about it"

Your Parody of William Shatner’s acting is awesome!