Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in the US forty years ago today.
It had been more than ten years since the end of the original series (and five since the animated series) and Star Trek was back, looking beautiful and presenting an optimistic vision of the future.
Famously troubled, it started as the pilot script for a planned TV revival while other film scripts came and went, regained Spock after moving to the big screen, and used that screen to show the Enterprise and the threat of V’ger to an epic extent, though it has been observed that the runtime-filling giant uncut effects shots, often beautiful, add to its slow pace.
An interesting experiment in 2001-like big ideas SF using the established characters, being cinema-ified and released in response to Star Wars didn’t help.
Its main effect on the following films and shows was in swinging away from it. The Wrath Of Khan would follow a zippier action-adventure tone with a straightforward villain and more emphasis on dialogue and humour, and subsequent films include a lot more Khans than TMPs. That, and giving the theme tune to Star Trek: The Next Generation. But it provided a future for the setting, and for that I am grateful.
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