Star Trek: The Motion Picture directed by: Robert Wise

 

Star Trek: The Motion Picture stars William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Majel Barrett, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Persis Khambatta, and Stephen Collins.  It is directed by: Robert Wise, written by: Harold Livingston, from a story by: Alan Dean Foster, and produced by: Gene Roddenberry.  It was released theatrically on December 7, 1979.

 

The road to the production and release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a long one, proposed as early as 1968 as an origin story for the series.  Gene Roddenberry’s development on the script for a proposal began in 1975 and would go through several iterations before Roddenberry was approached to relaunch Star Trek on television with a pilot written by producer Harold Livingston from a story by Alan Dean Foster.  Contracts for the cast were written up, other episode scripts were prepared, and then in 1977 two films, Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were released as cultural phenomena so Paramount cancelled the television series and asked to convert the pilot back to a two hour film.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture would adapt the script to include the entire original cast including Leonard Nimoy who had declined to appear in the rebooted series, but was fine taking on the role of Spock for a film.  In terms of talent behind the production, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is stacked, from two time Academy Award for Best Picture winner Robert Wise in the director’s chair, to Jerry Goldsmith composing the score, Ve Neill working as one of the makeup artists, and the special effects by Douglas Trumbull and up and comer John Dykstra, the production was clearly assembled with care to bring the franchise to the big screen.

 

The talent behind the camera means that the film is a visual feast for the eyes for its entire runtime.  Obviously the special effects team of Trumbull and Dykstra have a reputation, especially for Trumbull’s work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, work that is largely reflected here.  The special effects are largely framed to give the viewer a sense of the vastness of space and the eerie phenomena occurring in the film’s actual plot.  Look no further than the way that the film treats the reveal of the Enterprise to Kirk and Scotty in the film’s first act, it’s a nearly dialogue free sequence allowing Goldsmith’s score alone to enhance the panorama shots of the genuinely impressive model.  While I am not in Star Trek fan circles, a common criticism of the film is that it is too slow, but I would strike back at that notion.  When the film looks good, it is up there with some of the best visuals in terms of filmmaking, a lot of the actual plot being communicated on-screen visually without dialogue.  The aforementioned reveal of the Enterprise tells the story and uses the visuals with Goldsmith’s score is saying more than any of the dialogue could actually state.  There is however an issue with some of the visuals, while the models are incredibly impressive, the compositing has a tendency to be incredibly hit or miss, especially whenever there are spacesuits as the focal point of shots.  The third act of the film is where these issues become the most apparent, with Leonard Nimoy’s spacesuit being perhaps the worst offender though that may be because it’s the spacesuit that has the most screentime.

 

Robert Wise as a director is also incredibly good at getting some excellent performances from his cast.  Every returning character is given some extra element of depth beyond anything that was done on the original television series.  William Shatner as Kirk undergoes an incredible arc of learning to actually loosen his grip on the Enterprise and adapt to the time that has passed him by.  Much of the film he is foiled by Stephen Collins as Willard Decker, his replacement.  Shatner’s best moment is actually portraying Kirk’s big mistake in demoting Decker from his position as captain to take over.  It’s a pretty subtle performance from Shatner, and it elevates Stephen Collins’ performance.  Collins and Persis Khambatta as Ilia (and the probe of V’ger) are actually the weak links in the cast, stilted delivery even outside of where it would make sense in Khambatta’s case really brings down the film.  In fact, there are several issues with the script to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, mostly originating in the fact that this was a television pilot converted into a featured film.  Harold Livingston’s experience was as a television producer and writer, and has written a script from a story by Alan Dean Foster who worked primarily as a novelist.  There is also the general influence of Gene Roddenberry, the film itself is perhaps the purest distillation of Roddenberry’s vision of the future for better and for worse.  The dialogue throughout the film has a tendency to tell and not show, even when Wise is explicitly showing on screen what is being said.

 

This has a knock-on effect at key moments in the climax, a climax that is intentionally not action oriented, to undercut the emotional effect when the visual medium of a film should be able to rely on the visuals.  The first half of the film really does this incredibly well, but the second half of the film is where Star Trek: The Motion Picture really does begin to fall apart.  The central premise of a mysterious object heading towards Earth that the Enterprise needs to investigate, with the original crew coming out of retirement to do so, is honestly a perfectly good premise.  Each character introduction is also a great way to push the idea that this is pushing the crew into the future, from Nimoy as Spock being ready to give up his emotions, to James Doohan as Scotty giving the support to the engines, to Walter Koenig, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols all getting more personality than the original series, to DeForest Kelley as McCoy being pressed back into surface (and sporting a great hippie dad look).  Once the film gets going and the Enterprise gets to the anomaly, V’ger, later revealed as Voyager VI, the pace of the film almost runs out of steam and doesn’t actually know where to go until we get to the reveal of what V’ger is.  Ilia becoming a probe could push the ideas forward, it does start to crystalize the theme of humanity’s progress and eventual ascension to a higher level of being, but the connecting tissue to get there and show the humanity still in Ilia doesn’t actually work.  The necessary beats aren’t hit to allow the ending of the film where both Ilia and Decker ascend to become higher life forms and the Enterprise is back, including the crew’s camaraderie being restored.

 

Overall, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a feast for the eyes and in terms of filmmaking it is a beautiful film.  The first half has some genuinely stunning visual storytelling courtesy of Robert Wise, and even the second half is beautiful if several sequences need to be shortened to really elevate what the film was doing.  The film works its best when the original cast are being brought back together and pushing together their relationships as a view of humanity and it doesn’t work when the sweeping romance between Decker and Ilia is used as an ascension of humanity theme.  Robert Wise is a director I have nothing but admiration for, Jerry Goldsmith a composer who elevates the entirety of the film with one of his best scores (good enough to have its main theme reused for Star Trek: The Next Generation).  There is a masterpiece buried in this film, but in terms of the theatrical cut doesn’t end properly for the film to work as the masterpiece it could have been.  Still, it’s a film I’m going to be revisiting.  6/10.

The Counter-Clock Incident by: John Culver and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“The Counter-Clock Incident” is written by: John Culver, a pseudonym for Fred Bronson, and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22023, was the 6^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 22^nd episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on October 12, 1974.

 

Like the original series before it, Star Trek: The Animated Series did not end on an intentional finale episode.  The series completed its commissioned episode count and then went off the air when it was not renewed, a common fate for animation at the time.  As such, “The Counter-Clock Incident” is an episode from a first time writer for Star Trek, though one who would work on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in terms of its plot draws on ideas from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with the Enterprise on collision course with a ship from another universe where people age backwards.  The Enterprise is also carrying its first captain, Commander Robert April and his wife Sarah, played by James Doohan and Nichelle Nichols respectively, as the commander is at the age Starfleet mandates retirement.  The conflict of the episode is two-fold: first the Enterprise avoiding the collision which resolves with the Enterprise slipping into the alternate universe which leads to the second conflict of the crew beginning to age backwards rapidly, enough that only the Aprils can pilot the Enterprise.  This second idea of conflict is utterly ridiculous, writer Fred Bronson was actually the NBC publicist and it’s clear he has not thought through the science fiction implications of his premise.  This does mean we get to see the crew as teenagers and then children which is an equally ridiculous image, but still an incredibly fun image to ponder over.

 

Where “The Counter-Clock Incident” actually succeeds, outside of the few scenes of worldbuilding on Arret, that is the Earth as Terra spelled backwards, is the way Bronson treats Robert and Sarah April.  Star Trek before this point had a tendency to use advanced age as a source of terror, the episode “The Deadly Years” from the original series is perhaps the most explicit example of that.  It comes as a relief that Bronson actually treats the advanced age of the April’s as not a hinderance to their character: Robert is only retiring because it is mandated and the episode actually ends with Starfleet informing him his retirement will be reversed so he can keep serving as an ambassador.  It’s a nice reward after Robert resisted the temptation to leave the Enterprise crew as children (or not fully reversing the effects so he and Sarah can stay young and keep doing their work).  This dilemma is fairly brief because the deaging is only a plot point beginning after the halfway point of the episode so there isn’t much time to actually grapple with the question being posed, but it does show maturity and a progressive mindset to actually examine how the elderly are treated.

 

Overall, “The Counter-Clock Incident” may be ridiculous in terms of the science fiction ideas on display, but it’s actually a very solid ending for Star Trek: The Animated Series.  It’s got some very interesting things to say about aging and is actually one of the more progressive entries for the series.  It’s a nice way to say goodbye to the original series’ cast on television before transitioning to the films.  It’s also a nice little look at the history of the Enterprise and feels in a way like the groundwork is being laid for the major cast changes coming in the next series.  7/10.

 

Bottom 5 Worst Episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series:

5. The Eye of the Beholder

4. The Time Trap

3. The Survivor

2. Bem

1. The Ambergris Element

 

Top 5 Best Episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series:

5. The Terratin Incident

4. How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth

3. More Tribbles, More Trouble

2. The Slaver Weapon

1. Yesteryear

How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth? by: Russell Bates and David Wise and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” is written by: Russell Bates and David Wise and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22022, was the 5^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 21^st episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on October 5, 1974.

 

Godlike aliens are nothing new to Star Trek, they’re incredibly common throughout the original series and by extension Star Trek: The Animated Series.  “Who Mourns for Adonais?” specifically featured Greek gods as aliens in an episode that posed questions that it really wasn’t interested in examining or answering.  “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” is Star Trek: The Animated Series taking a stab at the ancient Earth gods as aliens concept, though interestingly from a writer closer to the original culture the god featured is meant to be from.  It isn’t a perfect representation, “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” does attempt to claim that one singular alien is responsible for multiple gods, across multiple cultures, across multiple continents, across multiple time periods and as such equates many cultures to a single alien influence, but it is representation and there is almost a subversion.  Instead of just having ancient aliens the episode posits that nearly every culture had some help from this alien.  Author Russell Bates was Native American, a Kiowa, and was inspired by his own heritage in writing this episode with David Wise, a writer who would have a long career in both live action and animated television, both Bates and Wise writing this near the beginning of their respective careers.

 

Bates in addition to centering “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth?” around Kukulkan, drawing on Maya myth, includes a Native American supporting character Walking Bear, the animation team even avoiding a stereotypical native design as there is no red skin or feathers.  He is sadly voiced by James Doohan who is voicing the entire non-recurring supporting cast in this episode sadly, but at least there is some representation that attempts to present Native characters and beliefs as not primitive.  It also helps that “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth” is an episode that is particularly well constructed.  The intent is to balance action with exploration and Bates and Wise do an excellent job of showing both.  The animation team is allowed to be let loose on designing Kukulkan and combining several cultures into the city on which he resides.  Kukulkan is also presented as nearly a fully fledged character, surprised that humanity has changed over the course of history and given up the fear of those more powerful than itself.  The episode is largely a rejection of the need to worship a god in line generally with Star Trek’s vision of the future as a post-religious society (despite several episodes wishing to raise Christianity above others due to being made in the 1960s and 1970s).  This allows “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth?” to be an episode which ends without violence and peaceful resolution   Bates and Wise also do a really good job of blending the myth with the science fiction, likely Wise’s influence based on his later career in science fiction television programs.  Instead of fully rejecting religion, the episode ends with the idea of humanity and Kukulkan on equal playing fields, humanity doesn’t need guidance so the god ends the episode by leaving.

 

Overall, “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth?” is one of those episodes that really shows off the potential for Star Trek: The Animated Series, and despite being an episode that draws on previous episode’s themes of the original series, it is an episode that actually examines the ideas that previous episodes didn’t do.  Bates and Wise balance the script wonderfully, and despite not being perfect representation and certain actors dropping the ball on pronunciations (hi Shatner), it's an episode that if Star Trek: The Animated Series had been producing more often, it would be a much stronger series.  8/10.

Albatross by: Dario Finelli and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“Albatross” is written by: Dario Finelli and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22019, was the 4^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 28, 1974.

 

In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner the killing of an albatross, a bird representing innocence, leads to punishment.  “Albatross” is an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series given the title to possibly reference Coleridge, or at least that is possibly what is happening because the episode doesn’t ever actually mention an albatross, or poetry, or really anything.  Perhaps writer Dario Finelli is attempting to write guilt for McCoy as a character as this is an episode that sees actions of 20 years previous catch up to him: he accidentally poisoned a race of aliens with a virus while he believed he was curing them.  Finelli’s script sadly doesn’t actually give McCoy much guilt, or even real focus, as the plot of the episode more actively focuses on Kirk and Spock trying to get to the bottom of this mystery and find a cure when the plague comes back.  This makes the title and allusion to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner pointless.  That’s the episode, there’s some drama about Spock having to convince the Dramians to actually pursue proper justice and not the perversion of justice that they have.  The plague also infects everyone on the Enterprise except for Spock, meaning that everyone turns blue which is a great visual even if it’s something that really doesn’t get explored in any significant amount of time.

 

The episode’s big twist is that McCoy isn’t actually at all responsible for any of the deaths, instead an aurora in space being responsible for the plague and its symptoms.  This allows a cure to be found, but it also feels like a cheap fake out to restore the status quo which isn’t terrible for a Saturday morning cartoon show meant for children.  This is still Star Trek however where the characters at least have an attempt at developing, but then again this is from an author who is difficult to find really anything about his career.  “Albatross” is also an episode that feels bare bones in terms of what actually happens, the dialogue suffers from not really feeling like it is meant for each character until the very end of the episode with the stinger.

 

Overall, “Albatross” can be used as a case study for the weaknesses of Star Trek: The Animated Series.  It’s an episode that has a good concept, perfectly adequate performances, and with a couple more drafts and a guiding hand could be considered one of the great installments of Star Trek.  The problems come to a head with the fact that the ideas don’t really resolve into anything of interest, there is a plot but not a particularly memorable one, there is an alien society that gets focus but also has one trait of not understanding justice, and there are characters but they largely aren’t affected.  It’s half a satisfying episode that reaches and achieves mediocrity.  5/10.

The Practical Joker by: Chuck Menville and Len Janson and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“The Practical Joker” is written by: Chuck Menville and Len Janson and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22021, was the 3^rd episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 19^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 21, 1974.

 

Sometimes you just want an episode of television that is a bit of fun and that’s exactly what “The Practical Joker” brings to Star Trek: The Animated Series.  Like the previous episode this is one that introduces a piece of lore, mainly the predecessor to the holodeck which as far as I am aware is one of those things that will be a big part of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  What’s kind of funny is that here the rec room is just a small part of an episode that decides to have fun by going full weird.  The central mystery is the Enterprise crew experiencing a series of practical jokes from their glasses being full of white liquid that spills on them, forks bending and dropping food, food dispensers dispensing ludicrous amounts of fruit, and laundry writing “Kirk is a Jerk” on the back of his uniform which I could not believe was an actual thing that happened in an episode of Star Trek and not a shitpost because of William Shatner’s general demeanor.  Doing an episode like “The Practical Joker” in animation could be a worry due to how limited Filmation’s animation standards were.  Yes, there’s still something quite static when the dialogue is happening, but even with the shortcuts being taken for very good reason in getting the episode in under the deadline.

 

Chuck Menville and an uncredited Len Janson write a script that actually increases in tension, the jokes start harmless as mentioned but eventually become more dangerous.  There’s also a secondary threat of the Romulans, the Enterprise accidentally entering Romulan space and by the end of the episode providing their ship with the same practical jokes the crew have had to deal with.  The big twist is that there isn’t a single joker on board, but the actual computer of the Enterprise is malfunctioning because of an energy field it passed through and playing these jokes.  Majel Barrett actually might be giving her best Star Trek performance here as the computer, using just enough emotion to communicate a childish sense of glee at the jokes being played while still holding back that artificial voice.  In fact, the entire cast of the episode seems to really be cutting loose, they know the episode has quite the silly premise and are playing into it with the slight exception of William Shatner who is just giving his usual performance as Kirk.  Menville and Janson also do a surprisingly good job of balancing the episode so everyone in the cast at least has something to do, which is an especially good feat since this is still just a 25-minute episode of television.  Okay, it’s accomplished by keeping characters in groups, but historically Star Trek has even struggled with doing this in even the standard hour-long episodes of the original series.  The weaknesses of Menville and Janson as writers, not usually writing in science fiction, does mean that the resolution of the episode is particularly ridiculous, just going through the field again to fix the computer and make the Romulan’s computer become a joker.  It's a resolution that doesn’t make sense but I can’t help but still enjoy the episode because of how much fun everyone is having.

 

Overall, “The Practical Joker” is an episode that isn’t particularly deep and has very little to say on anything, but it does fulfill a brief of being an entertaining episode of television.  The cast is clearly having a lot of fun performing their parts and that shows in the finished product, meaning the audience is going to have fun.  If Star Trek: The Animated Series was more like this it might get tired fast, but after a few weeks of boredom, this feels like a shot in the arm to finish the episode count strong.  7/10.

Bem by: David Gerrold and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“Bem” is written by: David Gerrold and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22018, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 18^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 14, 1974.

 

The one thing about “Bem” that stuck with me is that this is where Kirk’s middle name, Tiberius, is first spoken.  Outside of that, it’s among one of those episodes that just kind of exists.  David Gerrold is responsible for the script and there are clearly some ideas there that Gerrold should make work.  Gerrold as a writer has a general understanding of Star Trek, and this episode has a premise that largely should work.  The Enterprise has an ambassador in Bem, an alien with his own morality and an attempt at personality.  It vaguely wants to tackle the question of a space faring civilization encountering aliens and being treated as a god, something that is a tried and true Star Trek premise.  It’s something that Gerrold should really excel at, but honestly this isn’t one that works at all.  Bem as a character feels like an almost needless addition to the plot of the episode that bares his name.  There is this attempt to make some conflict between the crew and Bem, but with the godlike alien acting as a third party which has most of the focus pulled to it there isn’t enough for Bem to work as a character.  He is a character that is basically a troublemaker who strongarms his way into the episode’s plot that he really doesn’t contribute anything too.  The character can detach his own limbs and move them of their own accord which should be a great image, a perfect one for animation, but like so much of this episode it feels like it's there to fill time.

 

“Bem” as an episode is also one where the rest of the cast just feels as if they are getting tired of playing these roles.  Shatner and Nimoy both realize what sort of script this episode is and are just not really caring enough to make much of it interest.  Nichelle Nichols is providing the voice of the godlike alien in addition to Uhura for this episode as Majel Barrett is absent, and once again she is the best thing about a rather bad episode.  So much of the episode also plays into the rather problematic trope of the noble savages, the civilization on this planet is portrayed as completely savage and locks everyone up immediately with the godlike alien being the one that guides their actions.  This honestly also feels like a choice because of the limited casting of Star Trek: The Animated Series not allowing the civilization to be an actual civilization, but knowing the show it is equally likely as a flaw at the original conception of the script.

 

Overall, “Bem” is the second time Star Trek: The Animated Series really falls flat, but this time it’s from a writer I generally really like.  The idea of the character of Bem really deserved focus and characterization, but this is honestly an episode where it feels as if no effort was put in, Gerrold likely having to rewrite his script to make it work in the context of the animated series.  It’s an episode made to just fill a slot in the episode order, making it one of the worst.  2/10.

The Pirates of Orion by: Howard Weinstein and directed by: Bill Reed

 

“The Pirates of Orion” is written by: Howard Weinstein and is directed by: Bill Reed.  It was produced under production code 22020, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series Season 2, was the 17^th episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 7, 1974.

 

The second and final season of Star Trek: The Animated Series opens its second and final season with an adventure of Spock nearly dying from illness while the only cure is stolen by space pirates and it’s up to Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to get it back.  Okay, so the idea of this being a second season is actually quite silly, it’s just the final six episodes in the 22 episode order of Star Trek: The Animated Series but it is handled by a different director, Bill Reed, although both Reed and previous director Hal Sutherland are credited in different places during the episode.  I’m not entirely certain if the switch in direction is responsible for this, but “The Pirates of Orion” is an episode where every actor is delivering their lines in an almost rushed manner.  It’s possible that this is an episode whose script ran long and they needed to cut things down, the usual pauses between lines feel as if they’ve been edited out in several moments during the episode.  The performances of the villains of the episode are also particularly odd, the lines are performed in almost one breath with little between the lines, again an odd aspect of the episode’s editing.

 

This is also an episode where Orion is consistently pronounced with a different stress on the “i” because for whatever reason this is meant to be a completely different race of people than the green aliens that Star Trek has already established as Orions.  It’s far too consistent, coming from every actor involved in the episode, to just be a fluke from say William Shatner getting his lines wrong.  The plot itself also suffers from being particularly overstuffed, Howard Weinstein was only 19 when writing this episode and clearly going from his memory of watching Star Trek growing up.   This is an episode where everything just keeps moving without any real time to let things breathe, though putting Spock in danger as the ticking clock of the episode is good to keep the danger up.  While it feels partially as a workaround for limited availability from Leonard Nimoy, but it does allow DeForest Kelley as McCoy to get a few moments of kindness towards Spock and William Shatner as Kirk to get some nice bits of diplomacy.  The designs of the Orions are fairly nice though, and their actual presentation has some hints at a deeper culture.  There is an attempt to make some commentary on political neutrality and a society that is willing to end their own lives to keep that neutrality, but it’s one of those really dark themes that doesn’t actually get explored because this is a Saturday morning kid’s cartoon.

 

Overall, the second season of Star Trek: The Animated Series opens with an episode that despite some nice character interactions doesn’t really do a whole lot of note in terms of having a consistent plot.  Yes, the weird editing is bringing it down quite a bit, because there is a lot of potential here, but even with the editing problems this is an episode that is just another example of Star Trek: The Animated Series being perfectly fine.  This is also just something that Star Trek: The Animated Series struggles with, it’s often fine with a lot of potential lacking.  5/10.