Spock discovers what he deduces to be V’Ger’s home planet, a planet of living machines, along with what appear to be whole galaxies’ worth of planets, all absorbed by V’Ger during its journey. Spock, meanwhile, has gone to investigate the interior of V’Ger, the design of which, is Maude Lebowski might say, “strongly vaginal”: When Robo-Ilia appears to recognize Decker, he attempts to job her memory by showing her places and objects familiar to the original, but he meets with little success, and V’Ger threatens the Earth with a set of probes that will destroy all the “carbon-units” on Earth. V’Ger’s goal, she explains, is to contact “the creator”, who apparently is on or originates from Earth. The Enterprise finally reaches the entity, which scans the ship and ultimately sends an energy probe which absorbs Ilia, sending in her place a robotic duplicate which is meant to observe the “carbon-units” which “infest” the Enterprise Robo-Ilia identifies the entity as V’Ger. Spock, who had been attempting a ritual purging of emotions on Vulcan when he sensed the approach of this entity, arrives on the ship to assume the position of science officer, but his cold, closed-off manner makes the reunion bittersweet. The Enterprise sets out to intercept the entity (now only about two days away from Earth), but the journey is a rough one: the Enterprise was caught in the middle of a massive refitting, and when it attempts to jump to warp speed, it creates a wormhole which nearly destroys the ship only Deckard’s intervention prevents this catastrophe, embarrassing Kirk. Ilia (Persis Khambatta) joins the crew as navigator, and we learn that she and Decker have a shared past. He must become the science officer as well, when the intended officer is killed in a transporter mishap (one of the film’s most genuinely unsettling scenes). The only ship that can intercept it before it reaches Earth is the Enterprise, and Kirk, now promoted to Admiral, has to finagle his way into the captain’s chair, in the process slighting the current captain, Will Decker (Stephen Collins), who is demoted to Executive Officer. It does pick up in its second half, but it’s a long, slow, heavy film, and not one easily recommended to the casual viewer.Ī mysterious entity, a sort of enormous energy field, is making its way across the galaxy towards Earth, absorbing everything it encounters we first see it absorb three Klingon warships (its method of absorption is not unlike the manner in which Flynn is sucked into the computer in Tron), and later a Starfleet space station. But his tweaks can’t hide the film’s central failing, which is that for all its scale, for all the elaborate effects, huge sets, and epic length (at 136 minutes, the director’s cut is the longest of the Trek films), the story just isn’t enough to sustain the length. Over 20 years after its debut, director Robert Wise was allowed to re-edit the film and touch up the special effects, and it’s his revised cut that is now most commonly available. It had a massively troubled production (read the Wikipedia article on the film for a thorough overview of these troubles), and the film was barely finished in time for its premiere. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is far from an ideal start to the Trek filmography. The human adventure? What about the Vulcan adventure, you fucking racists?
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