Star Trek reviews: Discovery season four

I spent the last three months watching the entire run of Star Trek: Discovery on Paramount Plus, finishing up last night. I thought the first season was good but uneven and padded out, the second and third seasons were great, and the fourth one was very good but again dragged in a few places. Here are some thoughts on the show in general and the fourth season specifically.

Discovery is a very character-driven series. One of the benefits of watching all the episodes to date in a relatively short period of time was that it enabled me to see just how much the various characters grew & developed. I feel the writers did a good job developing most of the cast.

From what I gather Michael Burnham played by Sonequa Martin-Green has proved to be a divisive character with some viewers. Her arc has certainly been highly unusual, to say the least. It was interesting to see Burnham at last become Captain of the Starship Discovery in the fourth season. I feel Martin-Green has done a solid job with the material given her, although at times she does perform her dialogue in what I can only describe as “a loud whisper” which comes across as odd to me. Still, she effectively carries the show most of the time.

Something I’ve noticed is that the writers aren’t at all shy about calling into question Burnham’s motives & actions and positioning other characters as adversarial counterpoints to her to push her to engage in some necessary self-evaluation.

Admiral Vance (Ohed Fehr) and President Rillak (Chelah Horsdal) are the two latest figures to do so. At first glance, given the parade of rogue Admirals and corrupt, self-serving politicians that have appeared in previous Star Trek series, one could be forgiven for thinking that Vance and/or Rillak were up to some nefarious purpose. But with both of them it eventually becomes clear that they are decent people attempting to do very difficult jobs under incredibly trying circumstances.

That’s a characteristic I’ve noticed about Disco. The challenge is often not some diabolical mastermind bend on galactic domination (although there have been a few of those); rather it is that you have different individuals who all want to achieve a greater good, but each of them disagrees, often drastically, as to the steps necessary to achieve that outcome, and everyone needs to work to find some sort of common ground within which to work together.

That’s certainly the case with Burnham and Booker (David Ajala) in season four. Both of them want to stop the mysterious Dark Matter Anomaly that is devastating the galaxy, but Burnham wants to try diplomacy, to reach out to the mysterious Species Ten-C to convince them to withdraw their creation, while Booker wants to attack it directly before it can cause any more harm. I found myself agreeing with Burnham’s approach, her desire to avoid escalating the crisis any further. But at the same time I have to admit, if I found myself in Booker’s shoes, with my home planet, my entire family, destroyed by the DMA, it’s quite likely I’d be making the drastic choices he did.

As much as I liked the first two seasons of Disco, I really feel like the show came into its own with season three. Yes, Enterprise and Strange New Worlds are both great shows. But Star Trek has always been at its best when it has looked forward, not backwards. For the first two seasons Disco was a prequel to the original series, and as strong as it was it felt too beholden to past incarnations of Star Trek. Having Discovery and its crew jump forward 900 years to the 32nd Century has allowed Star Trek to go in completely different directions.

I think that’s very well illustrated with the long sought-after reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan civilizations, which has finally been achieved in the 32nd century. It’s also demonstrated with the character of the half-Cardassian, half-human Laira Rillak. In The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine the Federation and the Cardassian Union were bitter foes; now a character who shares the dual heritages of those two once-implacable enemies is the President of the Federation itself.

I appreciated that Disco demonstrated that such change is possible, but also made it clear that it took a great deal of effort and a tremendous amount of time for those changes to be achieved, as well as showing that it is necessary to continually work to maintain that progress.

I also appreciated how Disco season four really leaned into the Star Trek mission statement “To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.” It’s rare that Star Trek has presented genuinely ALIEN lifeforms. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve always liked the original series: despite the limitations of the budget and the primitive special effects, it did attempt to present non-humanoid beings like the Horta, the brain parasites from “Operation – Annihilate,” Korob and Sylvia’s true forms in “Catspaw,” the Tribbles, the Melkotians from “Specter of the Gun” and so forth. Starting with The Next Generation the franchise became too dependent on bumpy-headed aliens.

It’s great to have Species Ten-C, a race that is SO alien that we never even find out their real name. The Ten-C are totally non-humanoid, and the Universal Translators used by the Federation are completely useless in communicating with these extra-galactic beings. It takes concerted efforts by both sides to cross that seemingly insurmountable gap, and when it is bridged, it feels genuinely rewarding.

That’s also why I like Saru the Kelpien, played by Doug Jones. At last we have a regular character serving in Starfleet who looks genuinely alien. Jones gives Saru an “otherness” through his performance & movements, and the make-up is stunning.

Looking at some of the other regulars on Disco, I really want to discuss Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), the first same sex couple on a Star Trek series. That’s a development that was long overdue, one that both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were ultimately afraid to discuss. Stamets and Culber are both great characters. Like everyone else on the Starship Discovery, the two of them have some serious issues (this has got to be the most dysfunctional Star Trek crew since DS9) and both characters are really performed well by Rapp and Cruz.

I appreciated how the two were introduced back in the first season. When we first meet Stamets he’s an arrogant, impatient egotist. We then meet Dr. Culber, who’s shown to be a caring, empathic individual. And then suddenly there’s a scene where Stamets and Culber are in their pajamas brushing their teeth side-by-side in their shared quarters. My reaction was basically “Oh, wait, they’re a couple? That’s cool.”

I like that it’s underplayed and just treated as an everyday occurrence that Stamets and Culber are married. And the fact that they are in certain ways two very different people has enabled the writers to show all the work they’ve had to put into maintaining their relationship. Which, I suppose, goes back to that whole theme of working to find common ground that permeates Disco.

In any case, Stamets definitely went from being an annoying jerk to a warm, funny, nuanced character in fairly short time, and now he is one of my favorites.

Also great work in the writing and acting department with the character of Sylvia Tilly, played be Mary Wiseman. When we are first introduced to the babbling, insecure Tilly in season one it seems like she’s going to be the show’s comic relief. Instead she gradually grew to become one of the strongest characters on Disco, and by the end of season four she really had come into her own.

I’m looking forward to Disco season five next year because I really do enjoy the series. I’m glad to hear the episode count is reduced from 13 to 10. As I said before, season four had some pacing issues, so hopefully season five will have a leaner structure. I’m sure it’s possible to have a somewhat more streamlined season without sacrificing any of the excellent character work. I definitely want to see more development for the Discovery bridge crew, some of whom are still unfortunately underutilized.

By the way, as I alluded to before, I know there are some Star Trek fans who do not like Discovery. Some even seem to hate it with a red-hot passion! I understand; we all have different interests. I really don’t like Voyager, but I know there are Star Trek fans who do love it, and when they talk about that series, I hold my tongue because I don’t want to belittle anyone’s else’s entertainment choices. You can dislike something without attacking someone who disagrees with you. And I feel that right now there is so much Star Trek material out there that there’s something for everyone. It’s a great time to be a fan.

Comic book reviews: Dark Crisis: The Dark Army / War Zone / Big Bang

I didn’t get the recent Dark Crisis miniseries from DC Comics because, seriously, ANOTHER cosmic mega-crossover with the fate of all existence at stake? However, I did end up picking up a few of the specials that tied in with Dark Crisis because I liked several of the creators who worked on them.

Dark Crisis: The Dark Army is written by Mark Waid, Delilah S. Dawson & Dennis Culver, drawn by Freddie E. Williams II & Jack Herbert, colored by Adriano Lucas, lettered by Troy Peteri and edited by Chris Rosa. I got the variant cover by Werther Dell’Edera.

A massive battle is taking place between Earth’s heroes and the supervillain army under the domination of Pariah. Damian Wayne / Robin devises a desperate plan to sever Pariah’s control of the Dark Army. Unfortunately he can only afford to take a few heroes away from the battle, choosing Sideways, Power Girl and Dr. Light, with newcomer Red Canary tagging along, much to Robin’s annoyance. The quintet begin a jaunt across the multiverse via Sideways’ dimensional portals.

I thought The Dark Army did a fair job with the characters. Robin is arrogant, bossy, headstrong & condescending, just like his father Batman, but we get glimpses that Damian does admire the other heroes for their convictions, and that he does genuinely value his friendship with Jon Kent / Superboy. Probably the highlight of The Dark Army is the back & forth snark between Robin and the equally headstrong, much more experienced Power Girl, who you just know is not going to have much patience for Damian’s know-it-all attitude.

It was also cool to have Dr. Light play a significant role in the story’s resolution. I’ve always though she was an underutilized character. And given that she was first introduced in Crisis on Infinite Earths, it makes sense to have her as a central figure in a story with several callbacks to that classic miniseries.

During the grand tour of the multiverse, it was nice to see, however briefly, versions of Captain Carrot and Mary Marvel… or Mary Shazam, or whatever DC is calling her nowadays. I appreciated that Mary was wearing the white uniform Jerry Ordway gave her in The Power of Shazam, since I feel that always helped give her an identity somewhat distinct from her brother.

I’m not too enthusiastic about DC continuing to use Dino-Cop, though. The character is obviously intended as a cute nod to Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon, but I feel he’s just too similar to Larsen’s creation to be showing up on a regular basis.

Freddie E. Williams II and Jack Herbert both do very solid work on The Dark Army. I’m a fan of Williams, so it’s always good to see his work. He draws a few really dynamic double-page spreads for this story. I’m unfamiliar with Herbert, but he has both a nice, slick polish to his work and a sort of atmospheric inking reminiscent of Mike Deodato.

The two artists have extremely different styles, but it’s not especially jarring going from Williams to Herbert and then back to Williams. The only exception to that is Herbert draws Robin as much taller & older-looking than Williams, to the point where Williams’ Damian almost feels like a different character from Herbert’s version.

The next special was Dark Crisis: War Zone. As with The Dark Army, it was a very character-driven issue, featuring several short vignettes spotlighting different heroes amidst the ginormous battle with Pariah’s army. Rafael Sarmento turns in a very striking cover.

“On Time” co-stars Iris West and Linda Park, and it was definitely a stroke of genius by Jeremy Adams to team up the wives of the second and third Flashes. The artwork by penciler Fernando Pasarin and inker Matt Ryan was solid. I would have enjoyed this one a lot more if it was longer than eight pages, though.

And that’s the weakness in all the segments in War Zone: none of them are really long enough to really give more than a cursory glimpse of the characters. There are five stories in this special, each of them eight pages, and I feel it would have benefited the book greatly to have cut out one of them and given two extra pages to each of the other four features.

The Green Lantern Corps story written by Matthew Rosenberg was another highlight. The interaction between gruff Corps veteran Guy Gardner and newcomer Sojourner “Jo” Mullein was well done. Rosenberg writes one of the better versions of Guy Gardner I’ve ever seen. Yeah, Guy is a gruff, arrogant hothead, but he also has the guts & conviction to back up his attitude, and when he sees that Jo can pull her own weight in a crisis he acknowledges that she has what it takes. Oh, yeah… leave it to Guy to use his ring to conjure up a chainsaw!

The offbeat artwork by George Kambadais and colors by Matt Herms was enjoyable. And I especially liked the distinctive, organic lettering by Troy Peteri.

“Birds of a Feather” follows on from Red Canary’s appearance in The Dark Army. Returning to the massive super-brawl on Earth, Red Canary meets her inspiration, Dinah Lance aka Black Canary. Delilah S. Dawson’s script gets some mileage out of the ever-revolving door of life & death in superhero comic books. Red Canary adopted her identity as a tribute to Black Canary after the later died… and here’s Dinah returned to life already, offering the following pithy explanation:

“Superhero stuff. Long story. But I can assure you it’s me, I’m not an evil twin, and I’m not secretly a zombie.”

Tom Derenick illustrates this meeting of the Canaries. I really enjoy Derenick’s work; he was the primary reason why I bought War Zone. He definitely does a good job on this story. I believe Derenick’s most recent ongoing assignment was the recently-cancelled Teen Titans Academy, and I hope DC gives him another series to draw soon. “Birds of a Feather” was another story that I really wish had been longer.

Rounding out my Dark Crisis purchases is Big Bang, which was far and away my favorite of the three specials. Big Bang is the epilogue to the whole event, establishing that the multiverse has at long last been restored to an infinite number of alternate realities for the first time since the first Crisis series back in 1986.

Well, honestly, I thought the whole “Hypertime” thing already did that in the late 199s, but that never seemed to stick, and for the last decade or so DC’s had the whole “52 alternate Earths” going. So it’s nice for them to (again) remove that limit and give us a literally unlimited number of parallel Earths. Let’s just hope this time they keep it that way and don’t flush it down the toilet again two or three crossovers down the road!

Anyway, Big Bang opens with Barry Allen, the Flash of the Silver Age, declaring “I’m looking for the man who murdered me.” With the multiverse restored, Barry is concerned that the cosmic menace known as the Anti-Monitor, the entity who caused his death back during Crisis on Infinite Earths, is out there, somewhere amidst the myriad alternate realities. Accompanied by Wallace West, the new Kid Flash, Barry begins exploring the multiverse, searching for any sign of the Anti-Monitor.

I got into DC Comics in the early 1990s, so for me Wally West is MY Flash. I didn’t see the point of bringing back Barry because writers such as Mark Waid did a fantastic job establishing Wally as a worthy hero who at long last stepped out from his predecessor’s shadow. Having said that, I feel Waid did a good job on Big Bang writing Barry. I guess no matter who the Flash happens to be, Waid has a really affinity for writing the Fastest Man Alive.

I got Big Bang because it was penciled by Dan Jurgens, whose work I have really enjoyed since he was one of the primary creative forces on the Superman books in the early 1990s. Waid’s story, with Flash and Kid Flash exploring the multiverse, provides Jurgens with the opportunity to draw numerous alternate Earths and their superpowered occupants. That includes Earth-27, with its dinosaur Jurassic League.

Barry and Wallace eventually do locate the Anti-Monitor, who unfortunately attacks them before they can retreat. Barry is left in a desperate struggle to keep off-balance the awesomely-powered being who once took his life. Wallace uses the opportunity to recruit some of the multiverse’s greatest heroes against the Anti-Monitor. Of course Jurgens does a fantastic job illustrating this epic struggle.

It was cool to see the Victorian-era Wonder Woman from the Elseworlds graphic novel Amazonia and the future Superman from the Batman Beyond reality among this gathering of heroes. And even though I’m not especially thrilled with DC continuing the America’s Best Comics characters without Alan Moore, I still liked the cameo by Tesla Strong.

What I really liked about Big Bang is that it demonstrated you can have this sort of monumental cosmic conflict without padding it out across innumerable issues. Waid’s story is one-and-done and is therefore much the stronger for it.

Jurgens is inked on Big Bang by Norm Rapmund. I would have preferred Brett Breeding, Jurgens’ old inking partner from Superman, but Rapmund still does a fair job. (At least we got to see Jurgens and Breeding reunited on the recent The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special.) Coloring is by Federico Blee, lettering by Troy Peteri, and editing is by Paul Kaminski, Brittany Holzherr & Dave Wielgosz.

Big Bang ends with a two-page text listing of many of the Earths in the restored multiverse. Waid is an absolute master of continuity, so if anyone was going to be able to put this one together it would be him. I had a fun time perusing it, and I was glad to see the Atomic Knights returned to continuity on Earth-17.

The one thing that I did not like about Dark Crisis: Big Bang was the cover. As with every DC release nowadays, Big Bang had several covers. The main one is by Mikel Janín showing Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman from Earth-118 getting smooshed together, or something. You have a story featuring the multiverse’s greatest heroes in an epic battle against the Anti-Monitor and THAT is the cover you come up with? Three editors on this book and none of them thought to have Jurgens, or any artist who specializes in big superhero action scenes, draw the story’s big set piece for the cover?

I feel that’s one of the drawbacks of EVERY issue having variant covers. There’s such a focus on coming up with all the different covers that there isn’t that effort to create that one single dramatic image that’s going to sell the book.

I ended up instead getting the Big Bang variant cover by Ariel Colon. It’s still not all that dramatic, but with the characters from various different realities being featured on it at least it brings across the whole “restored multiverse” theme of the story. Plus it has Dinosaur batman on it. How can you say “no” to Dinosaur Batman?

There was at least another Dark Crisis tie-in, The Deadly Green, that I missed, which I’ll probably try to find, since it features some Justice Society related characters.

For the most part I enjoyed these three specials. Yes, there was room for improvement on each of them, but for tie-ins to a big, overblown crossover they were certainly enjoyable. I just hope that some of the new heroes and alternate realities seen in them get the spotlight in the future.

It Came from the 1990s / Star Trek reviews: Untold Voyages

Here’s a twofer for you, an installment of It Came from the 1990s and a Star Trek review.

In my last blog post I looked at Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was originally released back in December 1979. So today I’m going to discuss a comic book series which serves as a sort of follow-up to that movie. Star Trek: Untold Voyages was a five-issue miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1998. Untold Voyages was written by Glenn Greenberg, penciled by Mike Collins, inked by Keith Williams, colored by Matt Webb, lettered by Chris Eliopoulos and edited by Tim Tuohy.

Marvel had previously held the license to publish Star Trek comic books immediately following the release of The Motion Picture. Their Star Trek comic book ran for 18 issues between 1980 and 1982 and was unfortunately not especially well-received. (Apparently Marvel could only use elements that appeared in The Motion Picture, and anything from the actual television series was off-limits.) The license was soon acquired by DC Comics, who between 1984 and 1996 published a number of highly regarded Star Trek comics.

Marvel ended up picking up the license for a second time in 1996. Although they once again ended up holding it for only three years, during this brief period they released several Star Trek books of a high quality. A major aspect of this appears to have been that the terms of the license were much more flexible than they had been in the early 1980s, providing the writers with greater creative freedom.

Untold Voyages is set in the gap between The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, during a new five year mission for Captain James T. Kirk and crew of the Starship Enterprise. Each issue is set during one of the five years of that mission. As the series progresses we gradually see the transition of the Star Trek universe from the tone of the first movie to that of the second. As critic Darren Mooney observes on the m0vie blog, Greenberg’s stories serve to bridge Gene Roddenberry and Nicholas Meyer’s very different visions of the Star Trek universe.

Greenberg is a longtime Star Trek fan, and if anyone was suited to write a Star Trek series set in the aftermath of the first movie it was him. As he recently stated on Facebook concerning The Motion Picture:

“This was not my first exposure to Star Trek, but it IS what sparked my great interest in the series.”

I asked Greenberg how the Untold Voyages comic book series came about, and he explained its origins:

“Was hanging out in the office of my fellow Marvel editor, Tim Tuohy, who was editing some of the Star Trek titles. I mentioned that he should consider doing something in the post-TMP era, and we jokingly called it The Grey Pajamas Saga. But ideas started pouring out of both of us, in terms of what could be done with such a project, and before I knew it, Tim was telling me to go home and write up a pitch for him. Which I did.”

Reading Untold Voyages, Greenberg’s fondness for both this particular period, and for Star Trek as a whole, is readily apparent. I really feel that he successfully captures both Roddenberry’s optimistic, utopian awe that permeated the original television series and The Motion Picture and the more grounded, skeptical view of the future that Nicholas Meyer introduced to it with The Wrath of Khan. Greenberg successfully balances these two approaches in much the same way that later episodes of The Next Generation and much of the run of Deep Space Nine also did, resulting in some intelligent, thought-provoking stories.

I don’t want to get into too many specifics about Untold Voyages because I’d rather encourage Star Trek fans to seek it out for themselves. The issues can be found on eBay at affordable prices. The miniseries was also reprinted in Volume 120 of the massive Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection published by Eaglemoss Collections several years ago.

I will say that probably my favorite issue was the second one. The title “Worlds Collide” has two very distinct meanings in Greenberg’s story. In the “A plot” an alien planet is threatened with destruction as an asteroid hurtles towards it, leading Kirk and Dr. McCoy into a very heated argument over the Federation’s Prime Directive, and whether they should or should not interfere and attempt to save the world’s inhabitants.

In the “B plot” Spock is serving as a mentor to the young, troubled Saavik. Greenberg utilizes the half-Romulan backstory for Saavik that was filmed for The Wrath of Khan but ultimately never used but which was later explored in several prose novels and the DC Comics series. He effectively parallels Spock and Saavik, each of them only half-Vulcan, each in their turn struggling to find their place, and their identity, in the rigidly logical Vulcan society.

Another stand-out issue is the fourth one. “Silent Cries” sees Lieutenant Commander Hikaru Sulu briefly assume command of the Enterprise. Greenberg wrote this story to show the event that helped place Sulu on the path to eventually becoming captain of the Excelsior several years later.

I’ve often lamented that, due to the realities of television writing & production during the 1960s, outside of Kirk, Spock and McCoy the Enterprise crew were undeveloped. Therefore, it’s good to get a story like this that spotlights one of those other characters. That’s always been a strength of the tie-in media of comic books and novels, it’s enabled writers to flesh out Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and the rest of the ship’s crew.

“Silent Cries” also has one of those great moral quandaries that Star Trek is so wonderful at addressing. I’ve always appreciated the series for how it can challenge our assumptions and ask us to reconsider our views.

The artwork on Untold Voyages is very well done. Mike Collins & Keith Williams do a superb job rendering the characters, the technology, and the different alien worlds. I’ve observed before that drawing likenesses in licensed comic books can be incredibly tricky. If the artist is too faithful to the actors there is a danger of the characters not seeming real, instead looking like they were traced from a photograph. It can be more important to capture the personality & body language of the characters than the actual appearances of the actors who portray them. Collins & Williams do an admirable job rendering the rest of the Enterprise crew.

Collins also has a long association with Doctor Who Magazine as one of the artists on its ongoing comic book feature, so he clearly has a great affinity for drawing actors’ likenesses as well as sci-fi elements. I’ve always liked Collins’ work, and I think he’s somewhat underrated, especially compared to a number of his contemporaries who also made their debuts in the British comic book industry during the mid-1980s.

Collins’ layouts & storytelling on Untold Voyages are very strong & dramatic. Williams is a superb inker, and he does a great job on the finishes here.

Going back to “Worlds Collide” I appreciated that Greenberg & Collins created a totally non-humanoid alien species. It’s long been a running joke that in Star Trek most aliens look like human beings with bumpy foreheads or funny ears. Obviously the primary reason for that is the constraints of time, money & technology in creating truly alien lifeforms on live television. But none of that applies to comic books, where the only limitations are the talent & imagination of the artist.

Oh, yes, I cannot discuss Untold Voyages without mentioning Matt Webb’s vibrant colors. The mid to late 1990s was often a crapshoot when it came to comic book coloring as creators struggled to adapt to the brand-new computer coloring technology that was being utilized. There was a lot of gaudy coloring during this period. But Webb did superb work on this miniseries. The coloring is striking without being overwhelming. I love what he does with the warp speed effect.

As I’ve said before, one of the reasons why I like doing these It Came from the 1990s blog posts is that they allow me to spotlight some of the great comic books that came out during a decade that often gets a bad reputation. There are a great many underrated gems from the 1990s, and Star Trek: Untold Voyages is one of them. If you’re a Trekkie it’s definitely worth seeking these out.

Star Trek reviews: The Motion Picture

This month is the 43rd anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which premiered on December 7, 1979. The movie was helmed by veteran director Robert Wise. The screenplay is credited to Harold Livingston, based on a story by Alan Dean Foster, although there were a number of other writers involved in the protracted task of bringing the movie from concept to completion. Over four decades later TMP remains a highly contentious subject among Star Trek fans.

My own personal experience with TMP was that I had only seen it all the way through, from beginning to end, a few times, and always on television. Hey, I was only three years old in 1979, so I was too young to catch it in the theater! In general I found it to be fairly underwhelming.

A few months ago Michele and I finally got our first wide screen television. Over the years some people have argued that TMP works much better on a big movie theater screen than on TV. Since a widescreen television is closer to a “big screen” than I’ve ever had before, I figure it was time to watch TMP in a manner as close to the original experience as possible. In early September I streamed the 4K Ultra HD (high definition) version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition on Paramount Plus. And, honestly, it WAS a brand-new experience for me.

I realize that part of that is also due to the fact that in the late 1970s TMP was an incredibly rushed production, and what ended up on movie screens was little more than a rough cut. Twenty years later Robert Wise was finally given the opportunity to conduct some badly-needed additional work on TMP, resulting in The Director’s Edition that came out in 2001. The 4K Ultra HD version further improves on the picture quality & special effects.

After I finished watching this version of TMP, I had to admit the movie was pretty darn cool. It definitely looked much better on a wide-screen television. This was the first time I really was able to take in the incredible visuals. Also, at 46 years old, I certainly had much more of an understanding and appreciation of the cerebral, philosophical nature of the story. So, yes, certainly the most enjoyable viewing of TMP that I’ve ever had. Here are some of my thoughts about the movie:

First off, whenever I watch the opening credits of TMP my mind automatically starts thinking “Why are they using the theme music from Star Trek: The Next Generation?” Yeah, yeah, I know… TMP came out eight years before TNG made its debut. But TNG was essential viewing for me when I was a teenager, so that theme song is very familiar to me, and I probably never watched TMP from beginning to end until after TNG finished up its run in 1994. Consequently whenever Jerry Goldsmith’s opening theme plays I just automatically think of Picard and Riker and Data and all that.

I understand that for a lot of fans in 1979 what Goldsmith produced was just too different from the already-iconic Star Trek theme composed by Alexander Courage. But the Goldsmith piece is well done, so it makes perfect sense that it was later repurposed for TNG, something that I feel helped that show establish its own distinct identity in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if the Courage theme had been used.

Moving on to the movie itself, that opening scene with the redesigned Klingons (sporting their bumpy foreheads & armor for the very first time) is actually a pretty good way to set up the central crisis. The Klingons were the closest the original Star Trek series had to a “big bad.” So it’s an effective method of establishing just how incredibly powerful & dangerous V’Ger is by having a trio of badass-looking Klingon battle cruisers get effortlessly obliterated in the very first scene. I guess this is an early example of what would later be known as The Worf Effect, which of course takes its name from TNG’s own resident Klingon warrior.

For years I had wondered why Wise had included that extended sequence of James T. Kirk in a shuttlecraft slowly, lovingly admiring the redesigned Starship Enterprise. This was but the first of several sequences that I feel works much better on a larger, wider screen. It really does look impressive.

It’s also important to remember the context. In 1979 Star Trek had been off the air for ten years. Yes, it had been in endless syndication during that time, but this was the first live-action Star Trek in a decade. It was also the very first time the series was ever seen on the big screen. So it makes sense for Wise to really take as much time as he did to spotlight the Enterprise, which literally had never been seen like this before.

I do have to give William Shatner credit for really selling this scene, for showing Kirk’s understated yet nevertheless palpable joy at once again seeing his beloved Enterprise. Shatner would have been looking at a blank wall or something when that scene was filmed, with only Wise’s direction and his own imagination to go on, but he totally sells it. Shatner has an admittedly well-deserved reputation for being a large ham. But given the right material and a strong director he could turn in powerful, subtle performances, and he did good work in this movie.

I still do think the new Starfleet uniforms and interiors of the Enterprise are “Meh.” I don’t know what it was about the 1970s that resulted in such a preponderance of subdued beiges and greys in fashion & decor, but all of it makes the future seen in TMP very bland. The red uniforms that were introduced three years later in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan were a vast improvement.

It feels like new characters Will Decker and Ilia, played by Steven Collins and Persis Khambatta, should be more important, that their ultimate fates should be genuinely dramatic. But neither character is given enough material to really develop within the confines of movie’s roughly two hour runtime. I believe Ilia does get slightly more emphasis in The Director’s Edition — apparently a scene showcasing her empathic abilities was absent from the theatrical cut — but it’s only a slight improvement.

I think both characters had potential, but there just was not enough time in an already-packed movie to develop either of them sufficiently. So I can understand why series creator Gene Roddenberry essentially recycled them in TNG, with young, ambitious Will Decker becoming young, ambitious Will Riker and the empathic Deltan Ilia becoming the empathic half-Betazoid Deanna Troi. A weekly television series certainly afforded more of an opportunity to explore the characters and their complex relationship.

For me the standout element of TMP was Leonard Nimoy’s superb performance as Spock. I feel TMP is essential viewing for Star Trek fans because it is a crucial moment in the character arc of the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock. In the original series Spock was a figure torn between two worlds as he struggled to reconcile his rigidly logical Vulcan heritage & training with his very emotional human heritage.

The first time we see Spock in TMP he has returned to his home planet where he attempts a Vulcan ritual to at last purge himself completely of emotion, only to meet with failure. He then telepathically senses the approach of V’Ger, a being possessing “thought patterns of exactingly perfect order.” And so Spock rejoins the Enterprise because he believes this mysterious entity may contain the solution he has sought for so long.

When Spock subsequently mind melds with V’Ger he confirms the entity is indeed a being of pure logic… yet for all its phenomenal power & knowledge V’Ger’s existence is incredibly barren. Spock discovers that logic alone has not been able to provide V’ger with true meaning & purpose:

“V’ger has knowledge that spans this universe. And in all this order, all this magnificence, V’ger feels no awe…no delight… no beauty… no meaning… no hope…”

For the first time Spock realized just how empty the path of pure logic can be. This really carries over through the remaining appearances in the Star Trek franchise, where he is finally at peace with himself, having at last found a balance between his logical Vulcan and emotional human sides.

DeForest Kelly isn’t given nearly as much to do in his role of Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. For the most part Bones is his typical curmudgeonly self. But occasionally there are glimpses of the humanistic warmth that lies beneath his irascibility.

When Kirk drags McCoy back into service early on, there’s a great exchange between the two that really establishes the later character:

Kirk: Well, for a man who swore he’d never return to the Starfleet…

McCoy: Just a moment, Captain, sir. I’ll explain what happened. Your revered Admiral Nogura invoked a little-known, seldom-used “reserve activation clause.” In simpler language, Captain, they DRAFTED me!

Kirk: They didn’t!

McCoy: This was your idea. This was your idea, wasn’t it?

Kirk: Bones, there’s a… thing… out there.

McCoy: Why is any object we don’t understand always called “a thing”?

I’ve always appreciated that last line, as it gets right to the heart of what I feel is one of the central tenets of Star Trek: exploring the unknown, seeking to understand that which seems different & frightening.

I also appreciated how in TMP we see how McCoy is the one person who won’t put up with Kirk’s bullshit. Bones readily perceives that Kirk, tired of riding a desk at Starfleet Command for the past two and a half years, exploits the V’Ger crisis to take back command of the Enterprise, in the process trampling over Decker, who was supposed to be the new captain, and the doctor has absolutely no qualms on calling Kirk out on his behavior.

As for the rest of the Enterprise crew… uh, yeah, they really don’t get all that much to do, unfortunately. But I’m sure that it in 1979 it was awesome to see all of them back together. And I appreciated that Christine Chapel and Janice Rand, now promoted to Doctor and Transporter Chief respectively, were among the characters who returned. One way in which the original series is a product of its time is that there were very few prominent regular female characters. So it was good to have Majel Barrett and Grace Lee Whitney appear here, however briefly.

I certainly can’t write about TMP without discussing V’Ger itself… or Voyager 6, as it is revealed to be in the climax of the movie. V’Ger does look absolutely spectacular, and I suppose I can forgive those looooong tracking shots the immense living machine. And in the 4K Ultra HD version we finally get to see exactly what V’Ger looks like.

It’s certainly a legitimate criticism to point out the similarities between V’Ger in TMP and Nomad from the original series episode “The Changeling” broadcast in 1967; they’re both space probes from Earth that merged with incredibly advanced alien technology, becoming immensely powerful beings that threatened the galaxy while seeking out their “Creator.” But whereas Nomad was merely a dangerous foe for Kirk to defeat, V’Ger is ultimately the equivalent of a lost soul, one that is finally helped onto the next step of its evolution by the Enterprise crew.

As I said at the outset, as an older and (hopefully) more mature viewer I now appreciate that the crisis in TMP is ultimately resolved peacefully, and everyone involved emerged with a better understanding of themselves and each other.

So, looking at Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it’s a good yet flawed movie. It had a lot of potential & ambition, but regrettably it sometimes falls short. It sacrifices some of the warmer, human aspects of the show to focus on Big Ideas. At times the movie’s pacing is a bit too languid. I like TMP, but I also agree that the next entry, The Wrath of Khan, is much stronger and ultimately helped to save the Star Trek franchise. I do feel that if you put the two movies side by side it demonstrates the diversity of the series, in that there are a lot of different types of stories you can tell. As far as I’m concerned, that’s one of Star Trek’s greatest strengths.