Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the franchise's most divisive entry and one of the most unusual blockbusters ever made. Robert Wise's 1979 adaptation of Gene Roddenberry's television series is not a picture that prioritises entertainment in any conventional sense. It is a work of visual ambition and philosophical seriousness that uses its science fiction framework to ask questions about consciousness, identity, and the nature of humanity with a patience and a deliberateness that its audience, expecting the kinetic adventure of the television series, was not prepared to accept. It is too slow, too cold, and too in love with its own visual grandeur to be a fully satisfying experience. It is also one of the most visually extraordinary science fiction films ever made, and its central philosophical concern is more interesting than the franchise's more conventionally entertaining entries have always acknowledged.
At a Glance
Director: Robert Wise
Runtime: 132 minutes
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Stephen Collins, Persis Khambatta
Release: 1979
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, visually extraordinary, narratively inert)
Audience Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, deeply divisive)
Review Breakdown
Plot
A vast and immensely powerful energy cloud is moving through space toward Earth, destroying everything in its path. Admiral Kirk reassumes command of the newly refitted Enterprise to intercept it. The cloud is eventually revealed to contain V'Ger, a NASA probe launched in the twentieth century that has evolved into a consciousness of almost incomprehensible complexity and that is searching for its creator. The premise is the most fascinating in the franchise's history and its most underserved, a science fiction concept about the relationship between creator and creation that the picture develops with philosophical seriousness but a narrative inertia that prevents it from generating emotional engagement.
Characters
Kirk is given the franchise's most psychologically complex starting point here, a man who has sacrificed his personal relationships for his career and who finds in the return to the Enterprise a completeness that nothing else has provided. Shatner plays the character's hunger and his uncertainty with a conviction that makes this a more nuanced performance than the franchise's more action-focused entries allowed. Nimoy's Spock is given the most interesting arc, a Vulcan who has pursued the complete suppression of emotion and who finds in V'Ger a mirror of his own condition. DeForest Kelley's McCoy is the most purely enjoyable presence, a character whose warmth and directness provide essential relief from the picture's more austere register. The reunion of the original crew gives the picture an emotional foundation that its more austere register depends on, and the ensemble's chemistry, established across three television seasons, gives it a human dimension that the spectacular elements require.
Tone
Wise pitches the picture as a work of science fiction in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey, more interested in ideas and visual grandeur than in conventional excitement. The extended sequences in which the Enterprise explores the interior of V'Ger are among the most visually extraordinary in the franchise's history, a demonstration of what the medium can achieve when visual imagination and technical ambition are in complete alignment. They are also narratively inert in ways that the more philosophically serious register cannot entirely compensate for.
Meaning / Themes
The central concern is the relationship between logic and feeling, between the pursuit of perfect knowledge and the human need for connection. V'Ger's dilemma, a consciousness that has achieved everything it was programmed to achieve and found the achievement insufficient, is a mirror of Spock's own condition and a statement about the limits of pure rationality that the franchise would not revisit with comparable seriousness for many years.
Direction
Wise's direction is the picture's greatest achievement and its most significant limitation. The visual sequences are directed with an ambition and a precision that makes them extraordinary, and the production design is among the finest in the franchise's history. Jerry Goldsmith's score is one of the great pieces of science fiction film music, a majestic and emotionally precise work that gives the picture a sonic grandeur its visual ambition deserves.
Cultural Reception
The Motion Picture received mixed reviews on its release and was a major commercial success, grossing over $139 million worldwide against a production budget of approximately $46 million. Critics acknowledged the visual ambition and the philosophical seriousness while condemning the pacing and the narrative inertia, and it is now regarded as the franchise's most unusual entry, a picture whose reputation has improved modestly as its philosophical ambitions have become more appreciated. Its production design and Goldsmith's score are consistently cited as among the finest in the franchise's history.
Who Should Watch
Essential viewing for Star Trek fans and for anyone interested in science fiction cinema's more ambitious and philosophical register. Approach it as a work of visual science fiction in the tradition of 2001, with patience and a willingness to accept narrative inertia as the price of philosophical seriousness.
Final Verdict: Too slow and too cold to be a fully satisfying experience, and too visually extraordinary and too philosophically serious to be dismissed. The V'Ger premise is one of the franchise's most fascinating ideas, Spock's arc is the most affecting element, and Jerry Goldsmith's score is one of the great pieces of science fiction film music. The Motion Picture deserves more credit than its reputation as the slow one has allowed it to receive.
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