Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) -🤯📼First Time Film Club📼🤯 - First Time Watching/Reaction/Review 

Really looked like she was nodding off a few times.

She needed a Raktajino before the movie.

I think THIS movie is just AWESOME! . .. and always have! And I suspect that those who've called it "slow" or "booring" are probably just the kind of t@@ls who crave ohhhhh guns, car chases, and explosions every minute throughout the entire duration of a movie. In fact, such people are the reasons we have all these big, dumb, action "blockbusters" with goons like Vin Diesel and The Rock and Schwarzenegar and so on.

​@@IanFindly-iv1nlcareful, you're so edgy you might injure yourself 😇

@@IanFindly-iv1nl I grew up with this movie. Got to see in theaters a couple years back. I love the whole flyby bit.

I shudder to imagine this movie….. using the musical style of the TOS series….. wooohoooo oooh oho ohohoh

Although maybe if his music for the Enterprise reveal hadn't been so good, they might have cut the scene down to only a couple of minutes.

I like to think that this could’ve been the musical theme to Star Wars had John Williams never been around.

Well, I admire the score too. However. I'm not of the belief that it was this movie's SOLE ASSET, no.

The Original Series had 3 seasons already in 1960's so if the original was to have another season it would be the 4th season.

It's also the first time the Enterprise has been seen on the big screen and the first new Star Trek in ten years.

Well, TOS was in the 1960's and was fully fleshed out models as well. In fact, the original series model, which they faithfully restored to its original look, is on display at the Smithsonian Museum. :D

​@@ChrissonatorOFLyes but the new model is a significant improvement. Its a gorgeous model.

There were plans for a Star Trek Phase II television series. But it got cancelled and many of the visuals like those of the Klingon ships and the new look of the Klingon characters were repurposed and used in the movie. The male Starfleet Officer at 4:09 who is killed on the Epsilon 9 Space Station at 8:56 was to be the new Vulcan science officer in Phase II. He got repurposed too. :)

2001 A Space Odyssey was the first not A New Hope.

Also "The Motion(less) Picture" 🤣

Never too late to join Starfleet. Live long and prosper 🖖

Hey fellow 47-year-old (though my birthday is in 5 days, so I'll be 48 and we won't be age friends anymore lol). Glad to see someone my age getting into Star Trek. I've been a Trekkie for my entire life, I still remember watching reruns of the original series aka TOS when I was about 4 or 5 (same time I started watching Doctor Who actually). I certainly hope you continue watching the films for sure, if not the various TV series as well. It's (mostly) all worth a watch. I will say this, definitely watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan it is considered one of not only the best Trek films ever made, but one of the better sci-fi films made with an incredible villain. I'd also recommend Star Trek 6 - but that's just me :)

I think THIS movie is just AWESOME! . .. and always have! And I suspect that those who've called it "slow" or "booring" are probably just the kind of t@@ls who crave ohhhhh guns, car chases, and explosions every minute throughout the entire duration of a movie. In fact, such people are the reasons we have all these big, dumb, action "blockbusters" with goons like Vin Diesel and The Rock and Schwarzenegar and so on.

Hello. I will be joining the 47 club next week. I can't imagine growing up without Star Trek. I remember watching the show everyday after school as early as the 1st grade. Wrath Of Khan is my favorite of the films and I saw Voyage Home in the theater with my dad. You are in for a wonderful journey.

​@@LordLOCI'll be leaving 47 for 48 in three weeks, and have been a fan since I was little. They played reruns of TOS in the afternoons after school when I was in grade school. My first movie was Wrath of Khan at the age of 6. I've only missed seeing The Motion Picture, The Search for Spock, & Generations in theaters but have seen all the movies & series many times. Nice to know I'm not the only one my age that likes Star Trek, most people our age wouldn't go near it when we were younger cuz that's what nerds did.

And the guy who invented and played it was the former child actor who played Captain Kirk's nephew in "Operation--Annihilate!"

That's an awesome factoid!

"Fascinating," quoth Mr. Spock. A most intriguing observation indeed. 🤔

I guess she is jealous. Personally though I think she loved Spock the most. Not because she didn't love Kirk, but Spock's been with her the longest and is likely her deepest familial connection. They'd die for each other, to speak dramatically.

THAT scene is SCARRY! And t@@ls who say "Nothing ever happens" in this movie seem to forget scenes like THAT one. Something similar to it also happens in The Fly (86 version). SAME thing basically, only more graphicaly in THAT (with the aftermath actually being shown).

@@IanFindly-iv1nl Agreed - but just a bit of clarification if you please: did you _intend_ to spell "scary" with two r's, as if to say "it'll scar you for life"? 😁

@@goldenager59 Well, it was a lucky accident you could say.

Perhaps klingon will be the base for the next code talker type code like Navajo in WWII. Lol

@@charlesmaurer6214 there are too many geeks all over the world for that to work. Klingon could be the new esperanto, tho. lol

IIRC the Defense Language Institute is in the Bay Area on the West Coast? (Googles) Dang so close! Right Coast, Right State, Wrong Bay...off by a couple of hundred measly miles.

You beat me to it, I was going to comment on the “stars” too :) Yeah, musical preludes and intermissions used to be much more common, especially in longer movies. I believe Ben-Hur (the Charlton Heston version) had both, and that was a LONG movie (like 4 hours). Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had an entr’acte, but I don’t recall if it had a prelude. Doctor Zhivago may have had them as well but I haven’t seen it in decades.

@@user-uo6cq1cp3u Thinking about it, I believe it might have even started in the 1930s with Gone With the Wind. That's almost 4 hours long. Anyway, the mark of the hopeless cineastes is a knowledge of this kind of stuff. It's nice when you know you're not the only one with this kinda stuff cascading around their cranium! :)

In fact, the very last two movies to have a long musical overture like this were this movie - and Disney's The Black Hole - both sci-fi films, and both coming out at the end of 1979. - And interesting note about credits - and where they are placed - at the beginning and at the end of films. You may notice in films prior to the mid 1970s that it was common for films to FRONT LOAD all of their credits at the beginning of the film. Leaving only a perfunctory "The End" and fade to black at the end of the film. Now - this was not universal. Look at the James Bond films - they put SOME of the more important credits (main actor - director, producer etc) at the front of the film - and notably to the "risque" device of scantily clad ladies (to hold at least SOME *AHEM* of the audience's attention during that sequence) but then have MOST of the credits at the end. To clarify further - it was American films that front loaded the credits and films from other countries (like England) did not. Why? The Unions. The actors guild. Directors guild. Every technical guild and union you can think of - they ALL wanted the names and credits of THEIR people to be in FRONT before the film proper starts - forcing you to see them. And possibly read them. They figured that if the credits and names were at the END of the film, people would walk out without seeing them. Which - let's face it - is true. So - what changed? Star Wars. That's what happened. George Lucas wasn't PART of Hollywood proper. The Star Wars films were 100% his (until he sold the rights to Disney - which was a DISASTER of course, but a separate topic) and he wanted the credits at the end. He could get away with that because - A) He was independent (20th Century Fox financed and distributed his Star Wars film, but had almost no direct control of it) B) He filmed mostly overseas in Tunisia and England Pinewood studios So neither the studios or the Unions had much to say about where he placed his credits. To be fair - they thought - along with most everyone else, that Star Wars was going to BOMB and therefore wasn't worth getting worked up about. (Insert Maniacal Nerdish Laughter here) OH THE IRONY!! ANYWAY... George Lucas actually paid a small penalty IIRC for placing ALL the credits at the end. But since Star Wars made SO MUCH MONEY I doubt he much noticed. Star Wars, along with Jaws and Superman - started the trend of placing the credits mostly at the END of films. Superman famously tried to have it BOTH ways -with it's famously overdone FLYING FONT and dramatic music to announce the lead actors, the producers, the director etc. But did repeat and have all the detail credits at the end. Now it would be considered VERY odd and old-school to have all the credits at the beginning. But that's the way it was done before Star Wars.

Also simply called an "overture". 2001: A Space Odyssey had one too - a few minutes of black screen with atonal Ligeti music, before the MGM logo kicks in and that bowel shaking low organ note of "Also Sprach Zarathurstra" launches in to the main title - it sets the mood of that film perfectly. This movie, more than anything, wanted to ape that previous film's awe, so went for a similar overture. I sort of miss those overtures, it makes it more an "event", and builds anticipation - but modern general audiences would just get twitchy and not just sit there and bask in the atmosphere such an opening can create. Shame really.

But mostly, it's because she's talking to Kirk and the man has a reputation...

problem was, none of this species lore is presented in the film (and really, I don't know how it could have been without it being awkward), and without that context, the line is almost a non sequitur. Yeah, it's explained in the novel, but one shouldn't require external materials to explain things that ultimately don't help advance the plot.

@@Redfern42 Honestly I don't really think it's that much of a non-sequitur as it's pretty heavily implied through character reactions and dialogue. The way Uhura says "she's Deltan" and the looks of everyone's faces when she enters the bridge. It's still vague, but you know something's up, and Ilia's celibacy line more or less hammers it.

@@Redfern42 The novelization does go into much more detail about it. In fact the novelization is really horny for some reason.

The director's cut is NOT a tightened version of the theatrical version. It has the same pacing issues and is four minutes longer.

@@ThreadBomb It has indeed been tightened in some ways. The extra four minutes is from additional character scenes. If you carefully observe and compare, some of those long scenes involving the journey through the cloud and the V'ger flyover have been trimmed, which is made evident from cuts made in the music. Granted, we are talking mere seconds so to someone watching it for the first time (who hasn't had their coffee) it wouldn't make a heck of a lot of difference. 😊

@@davidfox5383 Also keep in mind that the original release was taken away from Robert Wise before he finished editing it, it order to make its release date. The director's cut fixed that.

@@ThreadBomb Overall, yes, but the original theatrical moves even slower--as David explained, shots went on way too long, so Robert Wise made tons of seconds-long trims throughout the movie. A number of the moments in Emily and Matthew's reaction aren't even in the theatrical version, and those are some of the best human moments in what was a overall a cold story.

I think THIS movie is just AWESOME! . .. and always have! And I suspect that those who've called it "slow" or "booring" are probably just the kind of t@@ls who crave ohhhhh guns, car chases, and explosions every minute throughout the entire duration of a movie. In fact, such people are the reasons we have all these big, dumb, action "blockbusters" with goons like Vin Diesel and The Rock and Schwarzenegar and so on.

Overtures were never common for films, they were only composed for a few "prestige" productions, to try to give the movie the validity of a play or an opera.

@@ThreadBomb - you need to do better research bud...overtures were associated with many films (I said many films, not all films) from the golden age of cinemas up until the late 70s. They were the most popular during the 50s & 60s. In many cases, these overtures have been cut from a lot of television and/or home video releases, so many modern audiences never got to see/hear them (let alone knew about them). Nowadays many of the original overtures for many of these films can only be found on "restored" DVD, Blu-ray & 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray versions, if at all. Here is a link listing the many films with overtures...en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_with_overtures

This is a beautiful film.

Not exactly true. A relaunch TV series ('Phase II') was about to start production - they had scripts, sets, costumes, and a cast (the guy who plays Sonak in the movie had been cast as Spock's replacement in the TV series). But after Star Wars was a huge hit, Paramount Studios wanted to cash in and so turned the TV series into a movie.

@ThreadBomb true, but "Phase II" was sort of stuck in limbo when "Star Wars" hit and they decided to do the film. But, after several changes "Phase II" eventually became "The Next Generation".

I think THIS movie is just AWESOME! . .. and always have! And I suspect that those who've called it "slow" or "booring" are probably just the kind of t@@ls who crave ohhhhh guns, car chases, and explosions every minute throughout the entire duration of a movie. In fact, such people are the reasons we have all these big, dumb, action "blockbusters" with goons like Vin Diesel and The Rock and Schwarzenegar and so on.

It wasn't to get you in the mood. They used to have actual curtains covering the screen that would open just before the studio logo like in plays. This is before previews and Ads. This movie is just old enough to have the "dark screen" because some movie theaters still had the curtains when this came out. A lot of the older movies have had this "dark screen" removed for the more modern releases but not all.

​@@tj_2701 They definitely had previews and ads in the "old days"! Up until the 70s, the way most movie theaters worked is they would play continually, movies interspersed with previews and cartoons (and newsreels, before TV killed those). Audiences could go in whenever they wanted and stay as long as they wanted. That's where the phrase "This is where we came in" comes from, because people would watch the loop of movies and leave once they reached something they had seen before. Overtures were reserved for a few big-budget movies that wanted an air of prestige. These movies were also given a theatrical-style intermission due to their unusual length. But these were special events. It was not the usual movie-going experience.

Unfortunately.

I think THIS movie is just AWESOME! . .. and always have! And I suspect that those who've called it "slow" or "booring" are probably just the kind of t@@ls who crave ohhhhh guns, car chases, and explosions every minute throughout the entire duration of a movie. In fact, such people are the reasons we have all these big, dumb, action "blockbusters" with goons like Vin Diesel and The Rock and Schwarzenegar and so on.

There has been a lot of complaints from fans about the pace over the years.

There is a lot to love about this film. I love the first view of the Enterprise in space dock with the music, though I respect people’s opinion it goes on for to long. At a guess I think they coulda made this about 20 mins shorter, made it a bit tighter, and not lost anything. The soundtrack is fantastic!

@@Temeraire101 and, this is the director's cut, which is 17 minutes shorter than the theatrical release.

They were trying to go the 2001 route by having those long shots but it didn't work.

When you put yourself in the shoes of the fan base, they had loved to show for 3 years that got canceled pre-VCR. They had nothing but occasional fan magazines to feed their fandom for years. They were thrilled to see long high-def images of their favorite ship

I cracked my wife up the first time we went to a casino. We read a sign that said "poker in the rear" and I of course immediately said "but I barely know her".

And the first Romulan seen on the series IIRC

That shot, along with the music is one of my favourite scenes in a movie. I just remember sitting in the cinema and being captivated by the beauty of the refit.

at least its not like the "extended cut", where the long take of v-ger was evenlonger. it was actually so long they ran out of model and at one point you can see just white foam with paint dribbling down it. lol

I'm in complete agreement! The refit Enterprise is by far my favorite ship, and I could watch hours of those beauty shots and never get tired of it.

It's not just a case of "older movies were slower". Even compared to movies from decades earlier, TMP has pacing problems.

I'm one of those weird fans, too... It has a hypnotic effect. That said, I still prefer the director's cut which tightens those long shots a bit.

Amusingly, the film was also known as *Star Trek: The **_Motionless_** Picture* (as well as *Spockalypse Now* ). 😁

It also makes a great T-shirt.

Possibly two. 1 and 2 in-universe were about 10-12 years apart. 2272-ish and 2284/85.

@@Vipre- In Wrath of Khan, Kirk is depressed, feeling old, hates inspections. I get the impression that Spock has been captain for awhile and Kirk has had time as an Admiral to get miserable. Chekov is also on another ship as the first officer.

Fans don't call it the Slow Motion Picture. Malcontents who would rather be watching a Star Wars movie call it that.

I love this movie for what it is and I am glad it's here. BUT! My freiends and I have always called this Star Trek : The Motion Sickness :)

@@richardb6260 To be fair, some of the long shots are longggggg. But as a lifelong Trekkie, trust me, I love them all. That like 10-minute flyover of the Enterprise - it was literally for the fans basically. Not the people who don't watch the show, that's for sure. Though knowing some of the changes and discussions the film had during production, the fact we even got some of those longer shots is a miracle let alone the movie itself :D

Alternate names: Star Trek: The Motionless Picture Star Trek: Where Nomad Has Gone Before Star Trek: Spockalypse Now!

@@LordLOCI’m a big ST fan, love the Enterprise flyover and music. They coulda cut out about 20 mins from the film though and not lost anything.

The actor who was to play the new Vulcan got the consolation role of being the Commander of the Space Station that gets digitized during Kirk's briefing with the crew.

@@bjgandalf69 David Gautreaux. I always wondered why they didn't make the Vulcan Sonak Xon instead and have Gautreaux play him. The role amounted to about the same. Maybe they didn't want to kill off Xon for some reason.

'Outland' is an underrated movie from the post-Star Wars boom.

Financially, it was very popular. It made $139 million at the box office. Of the original cast and Next Gen Trek films, only First Contact beat it with $143 million. Voyage Home came close with $133 million.

@@richardb6260 Oh really? For some reason I had it in my mind that it flopped at the box office. Not sure why I thought that tbh, it's just been a thing I though I knew :D

@@TheOdMan it had a runaway budget that went from $25 million to $44 million due to a special effects fiasco that required hiring the biggest effects names (Doug Trumbull and John Dykstra) to work around the clock to get the film finished in time. So, the studio made sure the sequel would be under control and produced Wrath of Khan through their television division (Harve Bennett was primarily known as a television producer). So, while Wrath of Kahn made $97 million, it only cost $12 million to make.

The Motion Picture had the 4th biggest US box office of 1979 (behind Superman, The Amityville Horror, and Rocky II), but failed to be a hit on the scale of Star Wars, as the studio had hoped. It was shown in more US theaters than any other movie that year - except Star Wars, which was still going strong two years after it came out. 1986's The Voyage Home was more financially successful than TMP, if you take into account its much lower budget.

He also directed the original version of The Haunting (1963) ! And also The Sound of Music, The Andromeda Strain, West Side Story and amusingly enough the original "Cat People" ("Curse of the Cat People"). He got around. 😀

@@snorpenbass4196 Always liked the Andromeda Strain.

Probably also watch The Doomsday Machine too, since it give context to The Motion Picture and Decker's relationship with Kirk.

I suggest Emily drinks her coffee, for the first time I was not pleased with her comments. Back then, the entire audience applauded when they saw Captain Kirk. It wasn’t a perfect movie but just the fact it was made was enough for many fans. I felt your flippant remarks were unnecessary.

I think THIS movie is just AWESOME! . .. and always have! And I suspect that those who've called it "slow" or "booring" are probably just the kind of t@@ls who crave ohhhhh guns, car chases, and explosions every minute throughout the entire duration of a movie. In fact, such people are the reasons we have all these big, dumb, action "blockbusters" with goons like Vin Diesel and The Rock and Schwarzenegar and so on.

And all Sisko men are great fathers.

Except that the asteroid causing the imbalance is within _Enterprise’s_ warp field, which means that the FTL limitation on phasers does not apply.

Phasers are not light beams, (I.e., not lasers.)

@@Parallax-3D 🤔Which... is irrelevant. Starships are designed to carry photon torpedoes because phasers don't work when you travel faster than light.

I loved STC!

We are Borg!! Resistance is futile!!

In point of sober fact, it _has_ ...sort of. The episode "The Changeling" (I forget which season exactly) has the _Enterprise_ encounter Nomad, an Earth space probe that was long since lost and ended up being augmented by uniting with an alien race's probe, developing self-awareness as well as fearsome powers. (For this reason, *ST:TMP* was referred to by some Trek-savvy wits as "Where _Nomad_ Has Gone Before".) 🤭

I saw in the movie in theaters in 1979, it had the overture music but being only 2 hours 12 minutes long there was no intermission. There was a version edited for television that ran in a 3 hour time slot, they padded out the movie with extended scenes, deleted scenes and even scenes without special effects added in, most famously the scene where Kirk leaves ihe Enterprise in the EVA suit, you see the airlock with the stage framing and harness supporting him as he floated out. That version was released on home video as Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Special Edition that ran 2.5 hours.

lol now they would be priceless.