The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), directed by Robert Wise

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Star Trek Theme", by Leonard Nimoy

R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

     I don’t know how it happened, but at some point I became a fan of Star Trek. Not that I’d call myself a trekkie or trekker or whatever label obsessive Star Trek fans like to label themselves, the idea of watching Voyager or Enterprise still doesn’t appeal to me, but I still find myself interested in the series more so than the average person. If I had to make a definitive statement, I’d say it likely has something to do with watching through The Next Generation, which I fondly remember catching occasionally back when G4/TechTV was still a thing, which lead me to watching some of the original series, and which will likely lead me to watching Deep Space Nine in the future. I just can’t get enough of it, seems like. It may not be the best television in the world, in fact a lot of it can be embarrassingly dumb at times, but what makes Star Trek good (when it’s good) is the strength of its cast; their unique personalities and the way those personalities play off of each other. Plus the fact that there are like three other sci-fi shows worth watching means you don’t have much choice either way.

     Since all the TNG movies suck ass, I decided to go with the first of them all, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Released at the start of the space movie craze (Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had come out two years prior, Alien released earlier that year and Flash Gordon would come a year later) and 10 years after Star Trek had gone off the air, TMP takes place several years after the Enterprise’s famous year mission to boldly go where no man has gone before. It seems that there’s a enormous death cloud out in space with destructive capabilities far beyond that of mortal ken, and it just so happens to be making a beeline towards Earth. It’s up to Admiral James T. Kirk to get the band back together, glue the Enterprise back together and save the day yet again. Now with 100% more hot bald chicks!

     Star Trek: The Motion Picture retells a story that had already been played out several times over the course of 79 episodes: The Enterprise encounters an omnipotent being which puts her crew in danger, and lessons in the value of humanity and insight into ourselves is had by all. In that regard, like Pacific Rim, the appeal in my opinion isn’t so much the story (which is worthwhile, considering they got Isaac Asimov to consult on it) as it is the visuals. This film takes its time to lavish over every bit of scenery it can, whether it’s going over every single inch of the Enterprise or the breathtaking view of the death cloud’s interior, and it works out works out just as well if not better than A New Hope. This was the film that legitimized a cultural phenomenon and established a franchise that’s still going 30+ years, and it shows.

     The major flaw? No action. Perhaps Gene Roddenberry was a big fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey at the time, because there are a lot of long cinematic shots and guys floating in space but not that much energetic conflict. The death cloud, or Vger if you’d prefer, is not so much an antagonist as a force of nature, and much of the film’s time is spent on the task of attempting communication with it or crew tension. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, the mission statement is all about exploring after all, but the original series was a show that thrived on action, and so the lack of it is much more noticeable than it might be if Star Trek wasn’t in the title. Pop culture would seem to agree with me, as The Wrath of Khan is a much more action-oriented film, and is generally considered the better film. Though that might just be because of Ricardo Montalban’s luscious pecs.

     Halloween, like most of our society, has become increasingly nerdy over the years, but much more cynical. Things that we should love we get angry about, and in turn we tear down others. This year, why not put down the pitchforks and the torches and join together in the spirit of peace and cooperation, much like the Federation in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Just for a moment, among the ghosts n’ goblins, we can believe that one day mankind can rise above the hatred and bigotry that has marked our past and achieve things far greater than we ever expected, that one day utopias could be the norm, rather than the ideal. One day.

     And then you can go back to eating candy.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), directed by Robert Wise

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Prelude/Outer Space/Radar", by Bernard Hermann

To begin this article I have to say that I’m definitely not an expert in science-fiction, known as ‘sci-fi’ in layman’s terms, and ‘syfy’ in idiot’s terms. I sampled a great deal of it of course, in books, video games, movies, all the different cultural mediums that today’s society is inundated with. At times I’ve even tried my hand writing my own science-fiction, with varying amounts of success due to various personal issues of motivation and interest. Not really much of a Philip K. Dick so much as an Andy Dick in this case I guess. Without the cocaine addiction and the blood of Phil Hartman on my hands.

So not an expert, but I don’t feel that it’s overstepping my bounds as a consumer to say that lately sci-fi has been rather run-of-the-mill, lackluster, and otherwise uninspiring to me. Mainstream science-fiction (which has been mostly relegated to film) has devolved into a setting rather that a serious genre, where random leading man #45656 can do whatever leading men do in flying cars and space backgrounds, presumably having sex with the only woman hot enough to be given lines. Every world has to be a gritty dystopia, every scientific advance actually a regression, every alien contact a conqueror or killer, trust no-one and no-thing kind of scenarios. Of course there are exceptions to that ‘rule’ (Close Encounters of the Third Kind maybe?), and some of of my favorite films tend to fall in with this formula (Terminator 2, The Thing, et cetera), but I can’t help but feel that what we’re dealing is on the whole a very pessimistic worldview. Sure, I guess there are happy endings hidden within the films, but when you have to dig through piles of burning bodies to get there it kind of cheapens the sense of victory. Or at least it should.

It’s not a new concept either. Since it’s infancy film has pushed the whole ‘what has science wrought’ message, from the Universal horror movies of the 30s and 40s (Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon come to mind) to the alien and invasion movies of the 1950s and 60s, gigantic insects and saucers hanging from strings. From the advantages of hindsight we could conjecture that such distressing and disastrous abuses of science could be viewed as a reaction to the horrible power of the atomic bomb, as deadly aliens could serve as proxies for the Soviet Union and China. At least from an artistic sense it’s an appealing notion, I doubt that Roger Corman or Bert I. Gordon were considering the implications of Cold War politics on film and society’s self expression when they were making cheap popcorn flicks about giant women and super sized crickets.

One of the most famous/well regarded of the classic science fiction films is The Day the Earth Stood Still, released in 1951 by 20th Century Fox (and remade into a shitty Keanu Reeves movie in 2008, which seems like decades ago). The story involves the arrival of two aliens in the middle of downtown Washington, strangely humanlike for an alien ambassador Klaatu and super powered robot Gort. When Klaatu is shot by an overzealous soldier while attempting to deliver a message of peace, he’s retrieved (see: kidnapped) by the military in the interests of national security/stealing advanced technology for themselves. Klaatu has his own mission to complete however, and promptly escapes out into D.C. proper, to travel amongst its people and learn the true nature of humanity. Thus begins the largest manhunt in U.S. history, and a plot that concerns the fate of the entire planet.

Movie summaries in one paragraph or less. It’s my specialty.

I’ve talked about it several times before, so everybody should know about the relative inactivity of older films, especially when it comes to science fiction and thrillers in comparison to modern day expectations. In fact, given that this film is largely about aliens and the military, it’s interesting the movie is almost entirely without action at all. Although Gort technically racks up the higher body count by movie’s end, it’s important to note that the greatest source of violence comes from the human characters. The Day the Earth Stood Still is after all a film about the fallibility of human beings, how our inability to resolve problems has implications far beyond our limited understanding. It is an anti-war movie during a period of U.S. history that was bookended by two major wars, during what was most likely the most overwhelmingly patriotic time of our nation’s short life. I’d like to think that such a movie, wherein the United States is seen as not only wrong in this instance but antagonistic in nature caused some waves upon its theatrical release, but I don’t know. It’d be cool.

Also interesting to note is the alternative utopia, the alternative lifestyle that these alien races practice contrary to our own. Klaatu explains at one point during the film that the alien worlds live in a state of universal freedom from conflict, leaving them free to pursue fields like mathematics and philosophy. However, such a state was not produced naturally, through extensive debate and compromise in order to bring about a stable system of peace. Rather, said aliens created a race of all powerful robots (like Gort) in order to enforce peace upon its people. Although Klaatu notes that it’s not a perfect system, it’s at least interesting to see a near omnipotent police force that that imposes its will on its people is seen as a good thing, even if that thing is war. What was it about American society in the 50s that seemed to clamor for authority, for a definitive voice to say what was okay or not? Was it the Cold War? Racial tensions? Or, as is much more likely, was it some amalgam of several hundred different subjects that influenced their lives, just as it does for ours? Certainly something to think about.

This is one of those sci-fi movie history 101 kind of deals, so you might as well put it on in case anyone ever tries to get on your ass about classic film. It’s a bit slow, but if you can get behind the story it might be worth your time.

Result: Recommended