Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Odd, this human need to continually rub this and that part of their bodies together, particularly since humans conducted it while fully rational, sometimes even intermixing it with conversation, which was certainly far from any definition of passion by Vulcan standards. I was fairly excited about this when I found it. It seems so weird to me that Gene Roddenberry wrote the novelization of a screenplay by Harold Livingston based on a story by Alan Dean Foster. This chain of writers is completely backwards. Anyway, I rather enjoyed Gene Roddenberry's writing. "Shit!" It was an expression that a very young Jim Kirk had learned from Grandfather Samuel. It seemed to fit this moment exactly. I might actually prefer the book to the movie. The movie is somewhat slow and feels like it's trying to be the fuckchild of 2001 and Star Wars. I don't think it's bad, but it could be a lot better. This book actually works the way I think a novelization is supposed to work. There are a lot of aspects of this story that need more explanation than a movie can easily provide. They introduce a new species to the Star Trek universe, she has a history with one of the crew members, and one of her first lines is about her oath of celibacy. There's a lot going on there, and the movie would basically have to become an alien sex ed film to really explain it. No one on the Enterprise is unfamiliar with her species, so why would anyone explain why all the men on the bridge now have boners? Books obviously leave more room for that type of exposition, and that's how Roddenberry made the book better. "I was never aware of this lovers rumor, although I have been told that Spock encountered it several times. Apparently he had always dismissed it with his characteristic lifting of his right eyebrow which usually connoted some combination of surprise, disbelief, and/or annoyance. As for myself, although I have no moral or other objections to physical love in any of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms, I have always found my best gratification in that creature woman. Also, I would dislike being thought of as so foolish that I would select a love partner who came into sexual heat only once every seven years." Throughout the book, there are footnotes that address things that are wholly unnecessary. The above quote comes from an editor's footnote explaining that the Vulcan word Spock called Kirk, in his own private thoughts, can mean brother or lover. After explaining this adequately, we get the quote from Kirk where he says he likes to fuck women, especially if they like to fuck more frequently than once every 7 years. I'm pretty glad it's there though. I don't know the Vulcan language, so I wouldn't have assumed that Spock was thinking about Kirk as a lover, but now I get to live the rest of my life thinking about the implications of a species the prides itself on its extreme logic using the same word for both brother and lover. It took the young security officer a moment to force his eyes away from the Deltan nakedness. Kirk knew how difficult it was. He had just realized that the pointing of those two breasts toward himself had simply meant that she was turning to look toward them. I wish I had taken notes of all the unnecessary sexist thoughts that run through Kirk's mind throughout. Unfortunately, my notes are total shit. I just remember thinking a few times that he seems to put a high value on the attractiveness of females whether it is relevant or not. It doesn't really come up much though. Accordingly, although there may be many other ways in which this story is told or depicted, I have insisted that it also be set down in a written manuscript which would be subject to my correction and my final approval. This is that manuscript, presented to you here as an old-style printed book. The book begins with a couple of pretty great, by novelization standards at least, prefaces. The first preface is supposed to be James Kirk and he's rambling about his name and how Starfleet chooses officers and how everything in the following pages is an accurate representation of his experience. The second preface is the author's preface and it's good but I still want more Kirk preface. "It's opening like a maw!" This from Sulu, being forced out of him in shocked surprise. There's a dumb moment right after V-ger starts pulling the Enterprise into itself where Kirk is trying to keep his crew from panicking. He really focuses on Sulu's use of "maw," thinking everyone will freak out because of a primal human fear of being eaten by something larger than themselves. It's just weird. If the crew is going to freak out, it's because the impossibly large, impossibly powerful ship can destroy them at any second and has total control over where they go and what they can do. That is already enough to cause a panic. But yeah, sure, just make sure they don't think about being eaten and they won't panic. Another scene that deserves more explanation than it receives is the one where the transporter fails and kills two people. It just doesn't make any sense and there's no good explanation for why it happened. I know it happens to make Kirk feel unfamiliar with the Enterprise, because he does feel responsible when his reaction is delayed for a split second as a result of the ship's redesign. However, why the fuck were people being beamed onto the ship while they were still working on getting it fully operational? This is minutes after Scotty personally picks Kirk up in that little shuttle thing. Kirk isn't beamed to the ship. It's like they assumed everything must be working properly now that Kirk is on board. Should we maybe talk to the ship and see if they're ready to accept people via transporter? Nah, fuck it. Send 'em! This is like playing catch with someone and hitting them in the face with the baseball because they were tying their shoes, except they feel responsible because their shoes weren't tied. It's not at all your fault for throwing the ball at them without looking to see if they were ready to catch it. "Jim," Decker said, "it wants an answer." "An answer?" repeated Kirk. "I don't even know the question!" Has anyone compared this story to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? It's more apparent in the book, but basically V-Ger has traveled across the universe to find its creator. When it gets to Earth, it sends a signal to tell its creator (NASA) that it has accomplished its goal. NASA doesn't exist anymore, so there's no response. Once Kirk and the crew realize that V-Ger is Voyager 6, they know who the creator is and they have a conversation about how V-Ger isn't going to like the answer. Then their answer is the equivalent of 42. V-Ger is about to destroy all carbon based life on Earth, essentially destroying its Creator, and then some of that life, which V-Ger refuses to even recognize as life, is going to say, "oh yeah, we uhh...we created you. Well, not us specifically. Some people like us 300 years ago, give or take." It can't comprehend what that even means. Then there's this... "'Is this all I am?'" Spock said, quoting the essence of the emptiness he had felt. "'Is there not more?'" V-Ger is looking for the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It was on a mission to record everything it possibly could about the universe. In the process, it became sentient, and more powerful and knowledgeable than any other life form in existence. Then it turned to its creator and asked, "is that it? But why?" I find it's amusing that, in the story of Hitchhiker's Guide, Earth was created to figure out the question to the answer, and after Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass, the mice want to get their question out of Arthur Dent. But he rather likes living (for some reason. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that living has not been kind to him) so they don't get to cut him up or whatever they were going to do to him. In Star Trek, V-Ger almost destroys Earth, or at least the life on it that would provide the questions and answers it seeks, and a human willingly sacrifices himself to merge with it so it can finally understand all of its otherwise useless knowledge and find its own purpose. It's like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if it was totally different, but you get what I'm saying? By the way, the ending of this is total garbage. After Decker merges with V-Ger and becomes some new form of life, everything is shit. Enterprise is a few crew members short (2 if you're watching, 3 if you're reading) and it's orbiting Earth. Kirk knows that his success with this mission means he can demand whatever he wants from Starfleet and what he wants is permanent control of Enterprise. Starfleet wants to know the status of the mission. They report the lost crew members. In the book, Starfleet also wants Kirk and the main crew to stop in for a debriefing and Kirk says, "no." Everyone's like, "meh, okay," with a smirk. Then Kirk suggests they give Enterprise a proper shakedown. When asked where to go, he just says, "out there. Thataway." In the movie, he gives a dismisses wave like it doesn't matter where they go. I get they wanted to wrap up the story, but basically they just stole the ship. They stole the ship and they're flying out into wherever without a proper navigator. Because that's what one of the missing crew members was. Ilia was the ship's navigator, and yeah, they got someone to fill in for her, but presumably that person already had a job and now no one is doing that job. As much as Kirk wants to stay on Enterprise until he dies, I also think he wants a properly staffed ship and also to gloat in everyone's dumb fucking faces for doubting him, even though he would have failed miserably without Spock. I would have ended this story like Star Wars: A New Hope, but with Kirk giving himself a medal in front of everyone at Starfleet Command, televised to the entire planet because he just saved their asses. "You didn't die like those punk ass bitches on Alderaan. That was because of me. You're welcome."
