MovieChat Forums > Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) Discussion > I've always liked and enjoyed this film.

I've always liked and enjoyed this film.


Yes, I have. I saw it several times in the theatres back in 1979, I liked it the first time I saw it, even in its "unfinished" form as it was at that time (though I did not learn about all that stuff until years after). It never seemed unfinished to me when I viewed it in the cinema on the huge screens.

The look and atmosphere and realism were, I would say, more powerful than the story, but the overall experience was sufficiently distracting to me. What a gorgeous-looking Star Trek film this is!

When the film was "fixed" and remastered by Robert Wise and his people later, for DVD, I saw that and I was much impressed by what they did to tighten and clarify and polish the film. So that version I am very happy with too.

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Right there with you. I completely get why people don't like this movie, but I love it. It has some flaws, to be sure, but there's a lot about it that impresses me. And yes, that includes the looooong scenes of special effects going by.

And it's certainly one of the most influential Star Trek movies ever. They were still using the sets and models from this '79 movie on TNG and DS9 right up to the end of the 90s - the Orbital Office, Spacedock, the Refit Constitution, the new look Klingon Battlecruiser.

The bumpy headed Klingon look was established in this movie!

Starfleet Command being in San Francisco was established here!

The theme tune for 170-some episodes of TNG came from here!

So much of what we see in this film went on to influence literally decades worth of Trek afterwards. You have to give it props for that, surely?


--
If I could stop a rapist from raping a child I would. That's the difference between me and god.

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[deleted]

Did they ever explain why the Klingons looked different in the movies and later TV shows than they did in the original show?

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Yes, in an episode of Enterprise. I can't recall all the details, so I won't try to explain it; but it was addressed.

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Found a good article about the change, if anyone else is wondering.

https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/2017/06/13/star-trek-discovery-klingons/#3

Budget had something to do with, understandably. They had more money to work with in the movies and later series. But in TOS Klingons were passing for human, so they had to come up with an explanation for that!

Fascinating.

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I love TMP..remember seeing it on a big screen when l was 9...

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All the power to you and then some!!!

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This is a classic to me. The costumes aren't great, but the story, long shots, and re-introduction of the original cast were great.

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I originally saw the version that aired on TV in the early/mid 1980s when I was about 10 years old. For the past couple of years I'd been watching reruns of the original series which aired every weeknight and I'd become a fan of the show. I'd never seen any of the Star Trek movies before, nor did I even know that they existed, so I was expecting it to just be a 2-hour episode of the TV series, with all the actors, sets, and props looking the same.

I was surprised by the new look of everything, and by how much the actors had aged, and by Scotty's mustache, and Uhura's afro, and the Canadian beaver pelt that Kirk was wearing on his head. I was initially disappointed that Spock didn't seem to be among the crew, but that was soon rectified.

As the story unfolded I was intrigued by the mystery of what "V'ger" was, and not once was I ever bored. I was amazed by the reveal that the heart of it was a Voyager probe, since I'd been learning about the real Voyager probes in school at the time. To this day it's my favorite Star Trek movie, or at least a tossup between it and part IV.

The next day our teacher initiated a class discussion about the movie. I don't think anything like that would ever happen today. Watching a movie at home these days isn't an "event," and with most people having hundreds of TV channels, plus internet streaming sites, what are the chances that a significant number of kids in a classroom watched the same movie the night before? Back then VCRs weren't commonplace yet, and most people only had three TV channels (not counting PBS). If a big Hollywood movie was airing on one of those three channels, a large percentage of the country watched it.

The Wrath of Khan aired on TV a year or two later, but I didn't like it anywhere near as much as TMP. I found it rather boring, and I still do.

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Yeah, me too. This feels and looks like a motion picture with a good scifi story, not some expanded tv-series episode (like Wrath of Khan).

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Agreed. This movie aimed for something more lofty.

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I would love to see this on the big screen. The visuals are stunning and I want to hear the score in a big booming theater, too.

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Me, too! It's a great sci-fi film and delivers on a more cerebral experience than, say Star Wars. Sometimes it's nice to see a slower-paced, philosophical film.

There are sequences which could have been whittled down without harming that tone (shuttle to the Enterprise...), but overall it's pretty great.

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