Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
File:Star trek-the motion picture.png Theatrical release poster by Bob Peak
Directed by	Robert Wise
Written by	Screenplay: Harold Livingston Story: Alan Dean Foster
Produced by	Gene Roddenberry
Starring	See table
Cinematography	Richard H. Kline
Edited by	Todd C. Ramsay
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	December 7, 1979
Running time	136 minutes (Director's cut)
Country	United States
Language	English

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first motion picture based on the Star Trek television series.

The third science fiction film directed by multiple Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture revitalized the Star Trek franchise, spawning nine motion picture sequels, with a prequel due for release in 2009.

Plot

The starship USS Enterprise is undergoing a major refit in Earth orbit and its former commander, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and is now Chief of Starfleet Operations. A powerful alien force hidden in a massive cloud of energy is detected heading on a direct course for Earth. The cloud destroys three Klingon starships and a Starfleet monitoring station en route. As it is the only ship in intercept range, Starfleet decides to dispatch the Enterprise to intercept the cloud, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.

As part of the mission, Admiral Kirk takes command of the ship, angering Captain Willard Decker, who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprise's new systems goes poorly, with the science officer killed by a malfunctioning transporter. The ship's improperly calibrated warp engines cause an artificial wormhole. The tension between Kirk and Decker increases as Kirk's unfamiliarity with the Enterprise's redesigned weapons nearly destroys the vessel. The Vulcan Spock arrives as replacement science officer, explaining that while on Vulcan he felt a consciousness that he believes holds the answers to their mission.

The Enterprise intercepts the alien cloud and journeys inside, finding a vast alien vessel miles long that draws the Enterprise inside. An alien probe appears on the bridge and attacks Spock and abducts the navigator, Ilia. Ilia is replaced by a robotic probe, sent by "V'ger" to study the crew. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history, and is troubled as he attempts to extract information from the mechanical doppelgänger; the probe has Ilia's memories and feelings buried within. Spock takes a spacewalk to the alien vessel's surface and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'ger itself, a living machine.

At the heart of the vessel, V'ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a twentieth century space probe launched from Earth. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that is learnable, and return that information to its creator. The machines made V'ger into something capable of fulfilling that mission, and on its journey the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission; having learned all that is learnable on its journey home, V'ger finds itself empty and without a purpose. Only through its creator can V’ger begin to explore illogical things, such as other dimensions. Offering himself to the machine as the creator, Commander Decker merges with V'ger, creating a new form of life. With Earth saved and their mission completed, Kirk directs the Enterprise out to space for future missions.

Cast

• William Shatner as James T. Kirk, the former captain of the USS Enterprise and an Admiral at Starfleet Headquarters. When asked during a press conference during March 1978 about what it would be like to reprise the role, Shatner said "An actor brings to a role not only the concept of a character but his own basic personality, things that he is, and both Leonard and myself have changed over the years, to a degree at any rate, and we will bring that degree of change inadvertently to the role we recreate."

• Leonard Nimoy as Spock, the Enterprise's half-Vulcan, half-human science officer. Nimoy had been dissatisfied with unearned royalties from Star Trek and did not intend to reprise the role, so Spock was left out of the screenplay and its television precursor. Director Robert Wise, having been informed the film "would not be Star Trek" without Nimoy by his daughter and son-in-law, sent Jeffrey Katzenberg to New York City to meet Nimoy. Katzenberg gave Nimoy a cheque to make up for his lost royalties, and attended the March 1978 press conference with the rest of the returning cast. Nimoy was unsatisfied with the script though, and his meeting with Katzenberg led to an agreement that the script would need Nimoy's approval. Despite the financial issues, Nimoy said he was comfortable with being identified as Spock because it had a positive impact on his fame.

• DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy, the chief medical officer aboard the Enterprise.
• James Doohan as Montgomery Scott, the Enterprise's chief engineer.
• George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, the Enterprise's helmsman.
• Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov, the Enterprise's weapons officer.
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, the communications officer aboard the Enterprise. Nichols noted that she was one of the most opposed actors to the new uniforms Wise added, because the insisted drab, unisex look "wasn't Uhura". Wise appealed to Roddenberry, who sided with Nichols.
• Persis Khambatta as Ilia, the Deltan navigator of the Enterprise. Khambatta was originally cast in the role when The Motion Picture was still a television pilot. Roddenberry warned her that she would have to shave her head completely for filming The Motion Picture, which she agreed to.
• Stephen Collins as Willard Decker, the new captain of the Enterprise, overseeing the ship's refit. Temporarily demoted to Commander and First Officer when Kirk takes command of the Enterprise.
• Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel, a medical doctor aboard the Enterprise, formerly the chief nurse.
• Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand, a transporter specialist aboard the Enterprise, formerly one of Kirk's yeomen.
• David Gautreaux cameos as Commander Branch of the Epsilon 9 communications station. Gautreaux had been cast as Xon in Phase II, the Vulcan intended to replace Spock.

Production

Original development

The original Star Trek television series ran three seasons from 1966 to 1969 on NBC. The show was never a hit with network executives, and the show's low Nielsen ratings bolstered their concerns. A massive letter-writing campaign by fans secured the show a third season, but NBC responded by moving the show to 10:00 PM on Friday, the worst possible time slot. When NBC refused to move the show, creator Gene Roddenberry resigned himself to the fact that the series would be cancelled and stopped rewriting and polishing scripts, instead serving as executive producer. When the show was cancelled, owner Paramount Studios hoped to recoup their production losses by selling the syndication rights to the show. The series went into reruns in the fall of 1969, and by the late 1970s had been sold in over 150 domestic and 60 international markets. The show developed a cult following, and talks of reviving the franchise began.

Ray Bradbury was one of the science-fiction writers who offered a premise for the Star Trek feature film.

The idea for a Star Trek film was first proposed by Roddenberry at the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention. The movie was to have been set before the television series, showing how the crew of the Enterprise met. The popularity of the syndicated Star Trek caused Paramount Pictures and Roddenberry to begin developing the film in May 1975. Roddenberry was allocated $3 to $5 million to develop a script. By June 30 he had churned out what he considered an acceptable script, but studio executives disagreed. This first draft, The God Thing, featured a grounded Admiral Kirk assembling the old crew on the refitted Enterprise to clash with a godlike entity many miles across, hurtling towards Earth. The object turns out to be a super-advanced computer, the remains of a scheming race who were cast out of their dimension and into ours. Kirk wins out, the entity returns to its dimension, and the Enterprise crew resumes their voyages. The basic premise and many elements—a transporter accident and Spock undergoing a Vulcan ritual—were discarded, but later returned to the final script. The film was postponed to spring 1975 while Paramount fielded new scripts for Star Trek II (the working title) from acclaimed writers such as Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison. Ellison's story had a snake-like alien race tampering with Earth's history to create a kindred race; Kirk reunites with his old crew, but they are faced with the dilemma of killing off the reptilian race in Earth's prehistory just to maintain humanity's dominance. When Ellison presented his idea, an executive suggested Ellison read Chariots of the Gods and include the Maya civilization into his story, which enraged the writer because he knew Mayans did not exist at the dawn of time. John D. F. Black suggested a black hole threatening to consume all of existence. Roddenberry teamed up with Jon Povill to write a new story featuring the Enterprise crew setting a altered universe right by time travel; like Black's idea, Paramount did not consider it epic enough.

The Star Trek cast grew anxious about the constant delays, and pragmatically accepted other acting offers while Roddenberry worked with Paramount. The studio decided to turn the project over to the television division, reasoning that since the roots of the franchise lay in television the writers would be able to develop the right script. A revolving door of screenwriters offered up ideas that were summarily rejected. While Paramount executives' interest in the film began to wane, Roddenberry, backed by fan letters, applied pressure to the studio. In June 1976, Paramount assigned Jerry Isenberg, a young and active producer, to be executive producer of the project, with the budget expanded to $8 million. Povill was rehired and tasked with finding more writers to deveop a script. His list included Edward Anhalt, James Goldman, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Ernest Lehman, and Robert Bloch. To cap off his list, Povill put as his last recommendation "Jon Povill—almost credit: Star Trek II story (with Gene Roddenberry). Will be a big shot some day. Should be hired now while he is cheap and humble." The end result was a compiled list of 34 names, none of whom were ever chosen to write the script.

File:Space shuttle enterprise star trek.jpg

Roddenberry and the Star Trek cast on hand for the space shuttle Enterprise's maiden voyage on September 17, 1976.

In October, British screenwriters Chris Bryant and Allan Scott wrote a twenty-page treatment entitled Planet of the Titans, which executives Barry Diller and Michael Eisner liked. Bryant believed he earned the screenwriting assignment because his view of Kirk resembled what Roddenberry modelled him on; "one of Nelson's captains in the South Pacific, six months away from home and three months away by communication". In the treatment, Kirk and his crew encounter beings they believe to be the mythical Titans and travel back millions of years in time, accidentally teaching early man to make fire. Planet of the Titans also explored the concept of the third eye. Povill wrote up a list of possible directors, including Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Lucas, and Robert Wise, but all were busy at the time (or were not willing to work on the small script money budget.) Philip Kaufman was signed on to direct, having impressive directing and science fiction credits, and given a crash course in the series. Roddenberry screened ten episodes from the original series for Kaufman, including the most representative of the show and those he considered most popular; "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Devil in the Dark", "Amok Time", "Journey to Babel", "Shore Leave", "The Trouble with Tribbles", "The Enemy Within", "The Corbomite Maneuver", "This Side of Paradise", and "A Piece of the Action". Early work was promising and by the fall of 1976 the project was building momentum. Fans organized a mail campaign that flooded the White House with 400,000 letters, influencing Gerald Ford to rechristen the space shuttle Constitution to Enterprise. Bryan and Scott's proposal became the first accepted by the studio in October; Roddenberry immediately stopped work on other projects to refocus on Star Trek, and the screenwriters and Isenberg were swamped with fan mail. The elation was short-lived; the first draft of the completed script was not finished until March 1, 1977, and pressure was mounting for Paramount to either being production or cut its losses and cancel the project. Isenberg began scouting filming locations and hired designers and illustrators to complement the script. The writing-by-committee effort was turned down despite the best efforts of Kaufman to save it. Dissatisfied with having everyone take a turn at rewriting the script, Bryant and Scott quit in April 1977. Kaufman reconceived the story with Spock as the captain of his own ship and feauturing Toshirō Mifune as Spock's Klingon nemesis. Jeffrey Katzenberg called Kaufman in May to inform him that the film was cancelled; once again, Star Trek was in limbo.

Phase II

Main article: Star Trek: Phase II

Barry Diller, then the Paramount president, had grown concerned by the direction Star Trek had taken in Planet of the Titans, and suggested to Roddenberry that it was time to take the franchise to its roots—a television series. Diller planned on a new Star Trek series forming the cornerstone for a new television network. Though Paramount was loathe to abandon its work on the film, Roddenberry wanted to bring as many of the production staff from the original series to work on the new show, titled Star Trek: Phase II. Though the space opera Star Wars performed well at the box office a few weeks after Kaufman's film was cancelled, Paramount believed a film was still not viable.

Producer Harold Livingston was assigned to find writers for new episodes, while Roddenberry prepared a writers' guide briefing the uninitiated on the franchise canon. Among the changes since the cancellation of the original series was that Leonard Nimoy was not willing to return for a weekly television series. Fruitless attempts to persuade Nimoy otherwise led to the creation of Luitenant Xon, a full-blooded Vulcan prodigy. In contrast to Spock's constant struggle to repress his human emotions, Xon was intended to fill the same logical role in the series but struggle to empathize with his fellow crew and uncover the emotions his species had long repressed. Since Xon was too young to fill the role of first officer, Roddenberry created Commander William Decker, and later added Ilia. The new series' pilot episode "In Thy Image" was based on a two-page outline by Roddenberry about a NASA probe returning to Earth, having gained sentience. Alan Dean Foster wrote a treatment for the pilot, which Livingston turned into a screenplay. When the script was presented to Michael Eisner, he declared it worthy of being told as a feature film. Additionally, the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind showed Paramount Star Wars would not dominate the science fiction genre at the box office. On November 11, just two and a half weeks before production on Phase II was due to start, the studio announced that the television series had been cancelled in favor of a new feature film. Cast and crew who had been hired that Monday were laid off by Friday, and construction came to a halt. Production was moved to April 1978 so that the necessary scripts, sets, and wardrobe could be upgraded.

The Motion Picture

On March 28, 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since Cecil B. DeMille announced he was making The Ten Commandments. Eisner announced that Academy-Award winning director Robert Wise would direct a $15 million film adaptation of the television series, titled Star Trek—The Motion Picture.

Associate producer Jon Povill gave Roddenberry seven suggestions for directors; Francis Ford Coppola; Steven Spielberg; George Lucas; Robert Wise; William Friedkin; George Roy Hill; and Norman Jewison. Only Wise, a science fiction fan and director of The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Andromeda Strain, was not busy. Wise was pleased that a television series had established the characters because he felt it would allow the audience to focus on them and not the special effects. On March 28, 1978, Eisner opened a press conference with Wise and the cast, declaring a June 1979 release date. The budget was projected at $15 million. Dennis Clark (Comes a Horseman) was invited to rewrite the script and to include Spock, but he disliked Roddenberry, who demanded sole credit. Livingston returned as writer, and although he also found Roddenberry unreasonable, Wise and Katzenberg convinced him to continue rewriting the script throughout production.

Design

Ralph McQuarrie and then Ken Adam worked on the designs for Planet of the Titans. McQuarrie redesigned the Enterprise with a flat hull, and his models were eventually used for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Best of Both Worlds (Part II)". Sets and models including the Enterprise, the space dock and the orbital office had to be redesigned and remade to be more detailed and therefore look more impressive on screen. Andrew Probert redesigned the Enterprise, giving the vessel flattened engines and determining where the sets would fit in the ship's design. The production designer was Harold Michaelson, who approved the chair designs by Mike Minor featuring seatbelts and a vertebrae-like structure that supposedly provides massaging. Michaelson also approved a corridor redesign which Roddenberry criticized for resembling a hotel. It was Michaelson's idea to enlargen the transporter room with shields, to give the impression of powerful technology.

The first new sets (intended for Phase II) were constructed beginning Jul 25, 1977. The fabrication was supervised by Joseph Jennings, an art director involved in the original television series, special-effects expert Jim Rugg, and Matt Jeffries, on loan as consultant from Little House on the Prairie.

Fred Phillips – Spock's designer – worked on the film's makeup. Phillips had to create three pairs of ears for Nimoy to wear each day, because their deterioration would be more visible on the big screen. Robert Fletcher was the costume designer. This was Fletcher's first film in a career that began 30 years prior. Robert Wise deemed the Starfleet uniforms from the series too garish, so Fletcher created new uniforms in more muted colors. Fletcher used a fabric he found in the Paramount lot for the Betelgeusean ambassador, which Cecil B. DeMille had selected in 1939 and was considered lost. Fletcher also recycled suedes from The Ten Commandments for the Zaranite costumes.

Filming

The first scene of The Motion Picture was filmed on August 7, 1978. A few ad-libbed ceremonies were performed; Roddenberry gave Wise his baseball cap, emblazoned with "Enterprise" in gold lettering (the cap was a gift from the captain of the nuclear carrier Enterprise.) Wise and Roddenberry then cracked a special breakaway bottle of champagne on the bridge set (there was no liquid inside, as flying champagne would have messed up the readied set.) The first scene planned was the chaotic mess aboard the Enterprise bridge as the crew readies the ship for space travel; Wise directed fifteen takes into the late afternoon before he was content with the scene. On the first day's shooting, a total of 1,650 feet of film was used; 420 feet were good, 1,070 feet were no good, and 160 feet were wasted; only one and one-eighth pages had been shot.

Wise was very patient on set. Bets were placed on when he would finally lose his temper, but he never did, and pool organizers returned the money.

Effects

The cargo bay's first floor was built on set, while the surrounding areas were done as matte paintings. Andrew Probert designed multiple versions to be chosen from in post-production. For close-ups of the pod Kirk and Scotty travel in to board the Enterprise, close-ups of Shatner and Doohan were composited into the model, while in long shots puppets were used.

The film was delayed and $5 million was wasted when the producers rejected Robert Abel's effects, which he had spent a year on. Douglas Trumbull, John Dykstra and Richard Yuricich were all enlisted to complete the film for its new December 7 release date. Probert designed and Trumbull filmed the Klingon cruiser sequences, which was meant to evoke "an enemy submarine in World War II that's been out at sea for too long".

Throughout production, an ending was not developed for the film. Probert suggested the saucer section of the Enterprise separating from the rest of the ship to fight off Klingons. The idea, first mentioned in "The Apple", was eventually realized in The Next Generation's pilot "Encounter at Farpoint".

Music

The score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was written by Jerry Goldsmith. This was the beginning of his long association with Star Trek, which would lead to him composing the scores for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis. Goldsmith would also compose the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation (which was adapted from the main title music for Motion Picture) as well as the Emmy award-winning theme to Star Trek: Voyager. Gene Roddenberry had originally wanted Goldsmith to score Star Trek's pilot episode, "The Cage", but the composer was unavailable.

For Star Trek, Goldsmith was charged with depicting a universe with his music, and so it is extremely expansive. Goldsmith's initial main theme was not well-received by the filmmakers (director Robert Wise felt "It sounds like sailing ships"). Although somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial ideas.

Alexander Courage, who composed the theme for the original Star Trek television series, was a friend of Goldsmith's, and served as his orchestrator on several scores. Courage also provided a new arrangement of his theme from the original series for use in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Another of the original series' composers, Fred Steiner, provided a few minor cues based on Goldsmith's original material (as deadlines prevented Goldsmith from completing every last scene). A considerable portion of the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was conducted by an uncredited Lionel Newman (as Goldsmith, owing to the unusual instrumental blends, preferred to monitor the balance in the recording booth).

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only Star Trek film to have a true overture, using "Ilia's Theme" for this music. Star Trek and The Black Hole would be the only feature films to use an overture from the end of 1979 until the year 2000 (with the movie Dancer in the Dark).

After the overture the film launches immediately into the title music, which was later adapted as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. As the credits end, "Klingon Battle" theme is introduced, a clarion call introduced by woodwinds, accompanied by angklungs (bamboo rattles from Indonesia). Both the opening theme and the Klingon theme would make frequent appearances in Goldsmith's other Trek scores, appearing in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (throughout the film), Star Trek: First Contact (in "Red Alert" and the end credits music), Star Trek: Insurrection (in the opening and closing music), and Star Trek Nemesis (in "Repairs" and the end credits music), with the Klingon theme being used briefly in the Next Generation episode Heart of Glory, as Capt. Picard awaited the arrival of an allied Klingon battlecruiser.

Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 11, manufactured by Pasadena, California custom synthesizer manufacturer Con Brio, Inc. The movie provided major publicity at the time and was used to advertise the synthesizer, although no price was given at the time.

The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam, an electronic instrument about 10 feet long, stringed, and played with an artillery shell. Jerry Goldsmith used it to create the eerie signature V'Ger sound. The Blaster Beam was developed by musician Craig Huxley, who, as a child actor, had appeared on two episodes of the original Star Trek TV series. Goldsmith also utilized a large pipe organ, which required the score be recorded at 20th Century Fox (which had the only scoring stage in Los Angeles equipped with such an organ).

Jerry Goldsmith's score was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score, although the award went to Georges Delerue for A Little Romance instead. This was the only Star Trek score to be nominated for an Academy Award other than Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home's score by Leonard Rosenman.

When the film was originally made, the rush to get it into theaters on time left much of the sound design unfinished. When the DVD Director's Edition was released, Robert Wise and Foundation Imaging took the time to complete the sound mix, adding in many of the previously unfinished elements, as well as create a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.

Novelization

To coincide with the release of the film Pocket Books published a novelization of the film written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. This book, which was published in both paperback and hardcover editions, is significant for several reasons. It was the first and only Star Trek novel published by Roddenberry himself, and it launched Pocket Books' literary Star Trek franchise, which has spanned hundreds of volumes covering all subsequent spin-off TV series, into 2008. The authorship of the book was debated for a time, with incorrect rumors in the 1980s that it was actually ghost written by Alan Dean Foster.

Roddenberry's novel adds elements to the film story and social mores to the Star Trek universe that are not referenced on screen. According to Gene Roddenberry's novelization of the film, Willard Decker is the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the original series episode "The Doomsday Machine", which was also the plan for the Phase II television series. Despite not being mentioned onscreen in the movie, this relationship has assumed at least semi-canonical status, considering its Roddenberry origins, and the fact that it has never been officially contradicted in the years since. He also introduces the Klingon ships as "the new K't'inga-class" and says that some Starfleet technicians feared that they might be more powerful than Starfleet's "First Line Constitution-Class ships."

Release

Reception

Star Trek: The Motion Picture opened in 850 theaters and set a record by grossing $11.8 million in its first weekend, and $17 million within a week. It grossed $82,258,456 in the U.S. and $139 million worldwide. Though it made a fair amount of money, the film's gross was considered to be disappointing, considering its large $46 million budget. (Although it should be noted that to a certain extent, that figure is an accounting fiction, and the film itself did not actually cost $46 million to make. Reportedly, when Paramount decided to scrap their plans for Star Trek: Phase II and a fourth TV network, the accounting department decided to apply the development costs of those projects against Star Trek: The Motion Picture's budget, on the assumption that Star Wars-like box office figures would make up for the losses on the former projects.) The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Harold Michelson, Joseph R. Jennings, Leon Harris, John Vallone and Linda DeScenna), Best Effects and Best Music.

Time magazine gave the film an unfavorable review, criticizing the slowness of the film and its reliance on special effects. A 2001 BBC review claims the film was a critical failure. The Washington Post called it a "passive adventure", while Gene Siskel felt the film "teeters towards being a crashing bore" whenever Persis Khambatta was not on screen. James Berardinell, reviewing the film in 1996, mirrored these criticisms, also finding that it bore too close a resemblance to the original series episode "The Changeling", but considered the start and end of the film to be strong.

Home video

An extended cut of the film on videotape and ABC network television released in 1983 included a number of small character moments that had been trimmed. This was one of the first occasions in which an extended version of a film was created for television and the then-new home video market. The additional footage included a thruster-suited Kirk leaving the Enterprise in pursuit of Spock. This scene had no special effects applied, so viewers were clearly able to see the scaffolding and ceiling of the soundstage in which the sequence was filmed. (This sequence can still be viewed among deleted scenes included on the 2001 DVD release.)

In 2001, a Director's Edition of the film was released on VHS and DVD. Robert Wise was given the opportunity to re-edit the film to better match his original vision, and also to use computer-generated imagery to complete sequences which had been curtailed due to shooting deadlines. The new effects were based on storyboards from the original production and produced to appear as if done using the effects technology of the time. Several continuity errors were also corrected, but some were also added. Edits to improve the film's pacing were made, especially effective in the film's second half, where segments were trimmed to curtail prolonged reaction shots of the actors to the interior of V'Ger. This Director's Edition of the film also has a proper sound mix, which was lacking in the theatrical presentation.

The slow pacing, extended reaction shots, and the film's lack of 'action' scenes led Star Trek fans to nickname the film The Slow Motion Picture,, or sometimes The Motionless Picture, though it was still well-received by the fan community.

References

• Dillard, J.M. (1994). Star Trek: "Where No One Has Gone Before" — A History in Pictures. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-51149-1.
• Hughes, David (2008). The Greatest Science Fiction Movies Never Made. Titan Books. ISBN 9781845767556.
• Nichols, Nichelle (1994). Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. United States of America: GP Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-13993-1.
• Kreski, Chris; William Shatner (1995). Star Trek Movie Memories. New York: HarperCollins Publishing. ISBN 0-06-109329-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Reeves-Stevens, Judith and Garfield (1995). The Art of Star Trek. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-89804-3.
• Roddenberry, Gene; Susan Sackett (1980). The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-25181-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture at IMDb
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture at AllMovie
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture at Rotten Tomatoes
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture at Box Office Mojo
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture at Memory Alpha
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture at StarTrek.com