Re:Was Star Trek 1 That Bad?
Totally agree with your points 7th.
[quote=”Sci-Fi”]… But the Decker/Ilia arc needed to be focused upon a bit more since their characters were critical to the resolution/conclusion of the movie. A little more backstory would have done wonders and maybe a short verbal confrontation between Kirk and Decker would have cleared the air and answered a few questions and gathered more respect between the two. Yes TMP was slow after the beginning scenes, but for fans, it was easily forgiven.[/quote]
It’s a matter of taste, I suppose, but I feel very differently. I felt there was just enough on the Ilia/Decker arc, in other words just right. I really dislike unnecessary exposition. I like to use my own imagination rather than having every detail spelled out for me. I like the chance to infer, to come to my own conclusions, and to interpret. Same thing for the Decker/Kirk dynamic.
That first Decker/Ilia glance was enough for me to “get” it.
There was a sense of mystery to the romance which worked much better for me. It’s also complements the mystery of V-ger (and Spock’s link to V-ger) . It’s a bit melodramatic, and I wouldn’t it to become more so with more backhistory.
I really like Wrath of Khan, but they’re so different. WoK is more of an action movie, whereas I see ST: TMP as [i]more[/i] of a romantic movie: meaning, to paraphrase a bit the OED, imaginative, visionary, suggestive of an idealised, sentimental, or fantastic view of reality; preferring picturesqueness to finish; concerned more with feeling than form… The Wrath of Khan was something of a romance too… Spock’s dramatic and emotional death scene, this sort of love/hate relationship between Khan and Kirk (was I the only one who suspected some sexual tension there (lol)).
The effects sequence into the V-ger cloud may be considered over long and overdone visual masturbation, but it worked for me. It did take the scenic route.
Well, the only big flaw I can think of, as far as I’m concerned, was the many crew reaction shots after entering the cloud. View outside, wondrous reaction of Kirk Cut to view outside. Cut to stunned reaction from Chekhov. View outside, cut to quizzical look from Spock etc.. in a round robin of bridge personnel. It’s like laugh tracks (which I hate) — this is where you laugh, this is where you show a sense of wonder. It’s like they don’t trust the audience enough to feel what is expected of them, so they show multiple reaction shots (every now and then would have been fine, but it was tediously regular during one long sequence).
It’s enough that they already try to manipulate your emotions with the music, but… Incidentally, I do like to compare that sequence into the cloud with 2001’s sequence into the monolith (another supposedly slow movie that I enjoyed as a child and STILL love, unlike say, Star Wars, which I loved as a kid, but has since paled for me). However, I thought in 2001 that the reaction shots of Bowman were much better done.
I was young, but I was a Star Trek fan when I saw it in the cinema. I don’t feel it needs to be forgiven for being slow. Hell, many of my fave films are “slow”… The episodic series didn’t have quite the same luxury to take its sweet time (and of course they couldn’t do the same “sweet” effects).
It’s a wondrous journey relating to a wondrous journey.