Copyright 2009, Paramount PicturesAs I end the Pixar marathon, I begin a new one. Yes, I'll finish up the Jason Bourne trilogy soon, but for now, it's time to look back at the Star Trek film franchise. Before I get into the first two films, which I've comprised into one review for reasons I'll delve into soon, I just want to establish that I got into the entire franchise thanks to the 1987 reboot of the series on television, with Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Brent Spiner. That pretty much means that anything before then--the Kirk era, as it were--is relatively foreign to me.
Granted, I loved the overhaul of the Kirk era from J.J. Abrams, but I never assumed that there was, for example, any other answer to the Kirk vs. Picard debate than the latter. Why wouldn't I side with the captain I'd grown up with? Still, I've seen all of the Star Trek films, with only one exception. Before last night, I'd never seen Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the film that started it all. OK, the TV series from the late 1960s really started it all, but in terms of really fueling the fire of fandom, it was the 1979 epic from director Robert Wise that kick-started the franchise.
And only God knows why that is. I will be perfectly honest: I tried. I really, really tried, but could only get through 90 minutes of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Yes, I got through two-thirds of this ridiculously slow movie. Why didn't I stick around for the last 45 minutes? Reader, I would have given myself a lobotomy before I forced myself to do that. That said, I'm going to spend a little bit of time on the first two movies, as my thoughts aren't too deep on either, but overall....I must share some disappointment.
Now, being fair, I knew going into the first film that I was probably not going to enjoy it. What I wasn't expecting was for the series' creator, Gene Roddenberry, to have been so inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey that he decided to supplant its middle section in all of its worst elements into an entire, 135-minute movie. The fact that no one, not one single person, told Roddenberry that spending five whole minutes on two men approaching a ship docked in space would me among the most mind-numbingly boring sequences ever put on film shocks me to my core. How could no one have told the people involved that it might be wise to speed up to the actual plot of the movie? How could no one have spent any time on creating a good plot? How? I'd like to move on from this movie, so my last words are these: whoever thought a slow-motion sequence would be a good idea is a moron (though it's terribly funny).
So, The Wrath of Khan. I'm scared, folks. I can't tell you how scared I am to consider the fact that I may have watched the best of the first ten Star Trek movies and found it to be hammy, corny, and just a bit too fake to enjoy. Yeah, I know that this movie came out over 25 years ago, but I'm not sure the Star Wars movies ever felt this cheaply made. No question, the second film is a major improvement upon its predecessor, but aside from Ricardo Montalban's delightfully over-the-top performance as the titular villain, there's not much to enjoy in Star Trek II, a movie which emphasizes too much blather as opposed to action. I wonder if the Elvis Presley lyrics "A little less conversation, a little more action" would be appropriate for the entire series, or just these two films.
Now, I've got the next two films in the series to watch, both of which will garner separate entries, but...I'm not too hopeful that things will improve until at least when Christopher Plummer turns into a Klingon. Can anyone dissuade me from this disquieting notion? Please?
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