i have never been a huge fan of star trek. as a child i was way into star wars and so drew my allegiance to that side of casual science fiction at an early age. a couple of years back i saw "star trek 2 : the wrath of khan'' on late night television and absolutely loved it; i wasnt as stoic or stuffy as the later films and tv series had led me to believe, and the depth of character drew me in. the absolutely staggering (for its time) climax, in which a major character meets his fate left me eager for the next film. as a result the next night i watched "star trek 3 : the search for spock". well i say i watched, i lasted 15 minutes before the previous innaccessibility of the franchise alienated me once again. and there ends my brief fling with the star trek franchise.
having picked up robert wise's original attempt at a star trek film some months ago, yet never managing to actually finish the film i decided to give it another shot a few nights ago. with that in mind i can safely say that "star trek - the motion picture" is a bit of an unsuccessful venture. bearing in mind the success that is "the wrath of khan" i obviously dont think that the entire franchise is doomed, but the first one suffers from the same problem that a lot of post-star wars science fiction did - it doesnt know how to take itself. does it go for the traditional route, the one in which its series was founded, or does it go for the freewheeling attitude that star wars successfully introduced? to make matters worse, the filmmakers bizarrely seem to take kubrick's "2001 - a space odyssey" as its inspiration instead, taking the film in a far to pseudo-intellectual direction.
