Footie Pajamas, Space Whales, and Ageing Heroes
Found this in my journal, from a few years ago when I was rewatching the Trek movies. Apparently I had strong feelings.
We begin with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This is Bad. Really Bad. Like, how is this thing still a viable franchise bad? Why is there an alien girl with no hair who is supposedly sexually irresistible but who is pretty much ignored by everybody, and anyway isn’t that what the Orion women are supposed to be all about?
Why is there a captain who is not the captain? Why does the script destroy any sympathy for Kirk by having him jerk Decker around for no legitimate reason?
Why is Spock suddenly telepathically communicating with an ancient Earth probe that’s a really long way away? Why does the new science officer have to be a Vulcan who dies in a horrible transporter accident and who is then in an utterly improbable series of events replaced by Spock? Why not just kill the NEW CAPTAIN in a transporter accident, making Kirk the obvious short-notice replacement, and have Spock show up before they leave?
Why do we spend the better part of an hour looking at the Enterprise in spacedock?
Who designed those appalling horrific uniforms that look like footie pajamas with grotesque belt buckles? (2026 me would like to confirm that the uniforms are still terrible.)
PACING PEOPLE PACING WTH?
Why do the two new characters who have had nothing whatsoever of any importance to do for the entire movie get to save the ship and the world at the end? What kind of sense does that make? DOES NOBODY KNOW WHO THE PROTAGONIST IS HERE? DOES THAT NOT SEEM LIKE KIND OF A GROSS OVERSIGHT?
And last of all and perhaps most imponderable, how did such a dog of a movie end up with such an amazing score?
Nowhere to go from here but UP, baby!
We are up to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one about the whales), and movies 2-3-4 are really a trilogy that tells one long story, so now we think of them that way, although when they first came out I was too young and/or the whole movie trilogy thing was still too new and unfamiliar and/or they were too far apart for me to actually notice this. Observations:
1. No more footie pajama uniforms! Oh GOOD! I don’t love the new uniforms, exactly, but they’re SO MUCH BETTER than the ones from ST:TMP that I’m not going to complain. Also, they keep them for all three movies, so that’s good. I like that the three movies have a consistent look to them.
2. Remember I said the uniforms are better? Well, all of them except for the weird outfits the engineering guys wear, and the even more bizarre outfits the security guys wear. Whoo those are bad.
3. Hey! These films are actually Star Trek! Kirk and Spock and McCoy are recognizably Kirk and Spock and McCoy! There’s stuff that’s actually connected to the TV show! RICARDO MONTALBAN IS BACK YAY! One of Kirk’s ex-girlfriends is important to the plot (how very Trek!)! Spock is logical, McCoy is wry, Kirk stands in the middle saying “Play nice, boys…”
4. They let the actors age. You know, as a teen/twentysomething, I did not pay this any attention that I can recall – it was Star Trek, and I loved it because it was Star Trek – although I do seem to remember other people commenting on it. Watching these movies now, I think this is completely and totally awesome. (rereading this now, I’m even more convinced that one of my favorite things about Star Trek is that it lets its heroes age—even its holographic heroes). These people are, like, in their fifties and sixties some of them, and they are SAVING THE WORLD!!! Honestly, I think this is one of my new favorite things about Star Trek: They’re like Bilbo and Gandalf in space! Not everybody who’s important and heroic has to be in their twenties!
