Treknobabble is a continuing series of columns written by uber-Trekkie Reed Farrington about Star Trek and how it has influenced his life.When I first watched
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (STTMP) in a theatre in 1979, I must admit that I thought that Gene Roddenberry could do no wrong. I was one of those Trekkies who were eager for new adventures after years of watching reruns. I think I watched the theatre screen with rapt attention even with the interminable fly-throughs of the V’Ger spacecraft. I must admit that I didn’t clue in to the twist even when the crew approached the Voyager type spacecraft. I remember being disappointed by the simple resolution of the threat. And I did miss the fun factor even though I had thought most of the humor in the television series was hammy.
Visually, I liked the monochromatic design with the gray and muted colors. I thought Star Trek needed a more serious, realistic look to counter the overuse of color that was used in the Original Series (TOS) in order to sell color televisions. The costumes appeared more dignified. I thought that it made more sense now that engineering personnel had special outfits. Also the security personnel now had head and chest protection. I had pre-imagined the all-in-one pants and boots as a visually appeasing look. I was probably influenced by the svelte appearance of Bruce Lee in a form fitting track suit. In our current day and age, this idea of the pants and boots being one piece seems rather impractical, but in the 23rd century, laundry doesn’t seem like it would be much of a problem. As the movie showed, after you showered, you could have transporter technology “instantly” clothe you.
The new Enterprise looked beautiful. I liked the rectangular rather than cylindrical look of the nacelles. Wrist communicators seemed like a good idea although it may have seemed a bit retro because of Dick Tracy. Even though ten years had passed since the television series, it was rather surprising to me that no new technological ideas were introduced in the movie. Everything just seemed to look different. I suppose the airbus that brings Kirk to Starfleet Command was something we had never seen in Star Trek before, but it was similar to the shuttlecraft. I’m still trying to decide if I like the stick-shift on Sulu’s navigation console.
I will begrudgingly admit that STTMP was slow and boring. I did think that the fly around of the Enterprise by Kirk and Scotty seemed to take forever. We had an entity destroying everything in its path and coming towards Earth while Kirk and Scotty were casually enjoying the beauty of a starship. I was anxious for the Enterprise to get under way! I understood later that the excuse given for the fly around was to give the Trekkies a moment to appreciate what could not be shown in the television series due to budget constraints. The musical score by Jerry Goldsmith was without a doubt one aspect of the movie that was exemplary and the fly around did give one the opportunity to appreciate the musical score along with the hard work put in by the Enterprise modelers.
Before his death, the director Robert Wise was able to supervise a director’s cut in which originally planned visual effects were completed using today’s technology. Care was taken to make sure that the added effects complemented the original effects. Also the pacing was improved through judicious editing. When I saw this revised version, I must admit that my opinions about STTMP didn’t change.
What has changed over the years is my regard for the movie’s plot. I think I have come to the realization that it is very difficult to come up with an original plot or even an interesting variation. The lack of originality in STTMP’s plot is often criticized. STTMP shares similarities with TOS episodes “The Changeling,” “The Immunity Syndrome,” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Comparisons have even been drawn to an animated episode, “One of Our Planets is Missing.” At least Star Trek was copying from itself (although Star Trek stories can be traced back to earlier science fiction source material). And if one considers that a goal for the movie was to expand the audience beyond the loyal Trekkies, then the choice to expand and enhance elements of Star Trek that had worked before seems logical. Trekkies should be grateful that Roddenberry didn’t decide to remake a television episode for the big screen although I actually wouldn’t have minded this too much as long as the movie had retained the impact of the episode it was based on. I should note that in “The Changeling,” Kirk saves the day by performing one of his patented mind-f*cks with the obstinate computer intelligence. I’m surprised that Kirk didn’t attempt this against V’Ger. Ha ha.
I do think that the use of V’Ger and its search for life’s meaning is relevant for a Star Trek movie involving a re-introduction of the characters of Kirk and Spock after the original five-year mission. At the beginning of the movie, we find Spock attempting to attain Kolinahr, a “Vulcan ritual intended to purge all remaining emotions in pursuit of the ideal of pure logic.” Throughout TOS, we saw Spock struggling with his human side as he had chosen the Vulcan way to live his life. After serving with humans for so long, we can imagine the frustration that Spock must have felt in denying his human self. The approach of V’Ger prevents Spock from achieving Kolinahr, because Spock’s human half is stirred by the disturbing telepathic thoughts from V’Ger.
At the same time, Kirk’s own aimlessness at this point in his life parallels both V’Ger and Spock’s search for meaning. After completing the successful five-year mission, Kirk had been promoted to admiral, thus consigning him to a desk bound position. At the beginning of the movie, we find a Kirk who is eager to once again sit in the captain’s chair. We feel his frustration at not knowing his way around the new Enterprise. When Captain Will Decker confronts Kirk with a correct assessment of Kirk’s actions, we are glad to see Kirk recognize that Decker is right. This reaffirms our belief in Kirk as the honorable hero.
By the end of the movie, Kirk is back on firm footing as the captain of the Enterprise. When Spock realizes that V’Ger can never understand its purpose without the ability to feel, we know that Spock has also realized that Kolinahr is not what he needs. Will Decker makes the sacrifice to bond with V’Ger, allowing V’Ger to transcend its machine origins. The sacrifice is made not only out of duty but also out of love, because Decker will also be bonded with Ilia who had been assimilated by V’Ger. Kirk, Spock and V’Ger have all achieved contentment for the time being.
Much fun has been made of the alien intelligence that found V’Ger, because it wasn’t smart enough to wipe the smudge off the exterior of V’Ger’s nameplate to reveal V’Ger’s true name. I would think that the aliens would have discovered V’Ger’s real name somewhere in V’Ger’s data banks. If so, I imagine the alien intelligence might have a wry or whimsical sense of humor and have nicknamed the spacecraft, V’Ger, based on the nameplate that it did not bother to clean. After communicating with the alien intelligence, V’Ger might simply have come to refer to itself by its nickname. However, we are told that V’Ger was damaged when the alien intelligence came across it and the alien intelligence repaired V’Ger. Perhaps the damage had wiped all data pertaining to Voyager since V’Ger had no “knowledge” of itself except for the notion that it should transmit all accumulated data to its creator. But how do we know that the alien intelligence was corporeal? Would the fact that the alien intelligence was able to see the smudged nameplate necessarily mean that it must have the physicality to remove a smudge? Might it be so smug as to not bother to remove the smudge?
There is some speculation in fandom that V’Ger in its damaged state had landed on the Borg home world. Thus the alien intelligence that had reprogrammed V’Ger was the Borg! This deduction seemed logical since V’Ger was no longer benignly gathering data. V’Ger had been transformed to basically assimilate everything that it came across during its search for its creator. One wonders if V’Ger was also given the unspoken motivation that the Borg have of achieving perfection.
When V’Ger arrives at Earth, it sets up satellites around the planet and threatens the planet in order to meet its creator. If this movie was remade nowadays with our current CGI technology, then I’m sure we would witness scenes of destruction on Earth which seems to be de rigueur for science fiction movies. Perhaps the climax of STTMP would have benefitted from this type of visual impact.
What made me reconsider STTMP was a book entitled,
On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not, written by a neuroscientist, Robert A. Burton, M.D. His basic premise is that the “feeling of knowing” does not arise from conscious reasoning. From this, he goes on to speculate about subjects such as the ongoing debate between science and religion. People have this idea that Star Trek is all about science and how technology will provide all the solutions to our problems. Curiously, I think the message of STTMP is that science alone is not enough and not just because the movie had the audaciousness to show a transporter mishap. Humanity is special because we have a quality that transcends pure reason. Since Gene Roddenberry was a humanist who despised organized religion, he was asking us to have faith in ourselves rather than in some external deity. And in this movie, the solution lies in humanity.
Burton discusses the myth of the autonomous rational mind and our understanding of objectivity. Basically he thinks people, even “smart” people, fall into the trap of thinking that any problem can be solved by reasoning. Philosophers have been tackling the question of the existence of God and the meaning of life ever since humanity attained consciousness. (Note that there have been interesting discussions of when exactly humans achieved a sense of self or consciousness, but I won’t get into that right now.) Burton thinks that the meaning of life is one of those questions that cannot be deduced through reason. Many others have come to the same conclusion that it’s impossible for the mind to know itself. I think this is the limitation that V’Ger encounters. Even when it is presented with the evidence that humanity created it and it fulfills its purpose by uploading all the data that it has accumulated while traveling through space, it still isn’t satisfied. It rationally decides that it must bond with its creator, its God, in order to gain further insight into its existence.
On an episode of Enterprise, “Breaking the Ice,” T’Pol solicits Tucker’s advice concerning her pre-arranged marriage. When Tucker suggests that she subconsciously made a decision by postponing her arrival date, she replies with a typical Vulcan response that she doesn’t allow her subconscious to make decisions for her. But as Spock discovered in STTMP after a mind-meld with V’Ger, there is a limit to logic and rational thinking. In addition to giving our lives meaning, feelings for which we have no conscious control over help us to make decisions. The scene where Spock reveals this insight to Kirk was not in the theatrical release of the movie. In order to speed up the already languorous pace of the movie, someone apparently thought that this scene was superfluous or at least that the expressed idea was not necessary to be explicitly stated.
At the end of the film, Kirk believes they’re witnessing the birth of a new life form. I would suspect that the resultant hybrid of man and machine would still ponder the question of the meaning of life, but its human side will allow it to cope with this unanswerable question. It would be interesting to revisit V’Ger. Like all good Star Trek stories do, STTMP leaves us to speculate on the consequences.
Burton mentions a Terry Bisson science fiction short story,
They’re Made Out of Meat, that I think is amusing. Imagine a machine intelligence coming across Earth and discovering humanity, and trying to come to grips with meat that thinks. I think STTMP missed an opportunity to have V’Ger provide some comic relief. Ha ha.
So, does STTMP deserve better consideration as a science fiction film? I don’t wish to reopen the familiar art debate of a filmmaker’s intentions versus what a viewer interprets. The well-documented difficulties that arose in coming up with a script for this movie provide suitable evidence for the reasons why there is a lack of dramatic thrust in the movie. Filming began without a completed script and both Shatner and Nimoy got unfairly blamed for being conceited actors when they tried contributing ideas of their own. When all is said and done, I think what an audience member gets from viewing a movie shouldn’t be disregarded. STTMP is certainly a unique film. We often complain about the dearth of intellectual science fiction movies. I suppose when one tries to make an intellectual science fiction film, one is bound to produce something that is labeled boring and pretentious.
I’m sure many of you are thinking that I’ve rationalized away or downplayed all the things that made STTMP “bad.” And I admit I probably am. Years from now, I will probably admit that my initial impression of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek was wrong. And I’ll be calling it a masterpiece.
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