When I was a kid watching the original cut of the film I remember my father telling me this was the film that made him a Star Trek fan. He’d seen some of the old shows but with a bit more money thrown at it this film showed him something bigger. The obsession with Star Trek has been with him ever since and was passed down to me. 30 years after that film his cinemas we’ll be treated to JJ Abrahms contribution in the prequel remake of the original crew’s adventures.

With the new Trek’s huge budget, wonderful cast and epic story reaching out not just to hardcore fans but the casual audience it aims to create a new generation of fans. Abrahms concept makes me wonder if my fathers discovery of Trek all those years ago wil be shared with similar experiences in a whole new generation of film fanatics. It made me curious to go back and watch the firt in the film franchise. I remember feeling unfulfilled as a film fan so as I hunted down a copy of the unfindable DVD I was finally able to take a peek back to the 1979 film wondering how it was able to capture my fathers imagination and how it helped revive what is not a huge sci fi franchise.

Years after moving onto a desk job, the now Admiral Jim Kirk pushes his way back into the centre seat to tackle a mysterious and threatening energy cloud that seems to be munching on everything on it’s way to Earth. Trying to recapture his glory days he finds himself stuck on a rebuilt Enterprise he doesn’t understand with a new captain and crew who he’s punted to the sidelines to take control and then goes on to save the day. Tracking a destructive energy cloud the crew, old and new, come together to find out the thing they know as V’Ger is a being of pure logic seeking it’s creator. With both Spock and Kirk searching for their purpose in life, they find the answers they’re looking for in discovering V’Ger’s origins to see it as something crying out for help, rather than an enemy to be destroyed.

The film was never terrible, but it was never a masterpiece either. There were a lot of factors that made it suffer, the one that always sticks out to me being that director Rob Wise was rushed into the finishing it and didn’t even get a chance to see the finished print until it was to late. All these years later we have the Directors Edition which makes some wonderful improvements. It looks better, it plays better, but there was always something missing in the film and no amount of editing will change that major problem in the script and design.

To me the problem was always lack of personality. Early on Kirk comes aboard and takes command away from the ships new captain. Theres an immediate conflict and it continues through the film. The problem here was that there was no reason to care about the new Captain Decker. There’s no back story, no scenes of his passion and love and excitement for his first command. Instead we just see him acting like a child after Kirk stomps on all his favorite toys. Then we have Kirk, who’s feelings are clear, he wants his ship back. Great. But there’s nothing to show his obsession, his passions or even his sher boredom and unhappiness in his new job. The best part of the feud comes from McCoy’s all too brief observations and his entire role in the movie seems spoiled by him randomly entering and leaving the bridge throughout for no particular reason.

In the series, as dodgy as it looks to our modern eyes, even the worst ideas were held together by the big three personalities of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Now Kirk is muted and subdued, McCoy is his usual old self but doesn’t really click and Spock’s gone all hippy on us. The three that held everything together before doesn’t really come together until the film comes to a close. As a fan it was major letdown in the middle of a film that was based on a script with all style and no substance. A common complaint I’d heard was that the crew were too reactive to the creature. Playing it safe and learning before doing is a good intelligent move, it just isn’t exciting to watch and could have been one of the things that could have been cut down to make the film shorter or give it’s pace a boost.

It wasn’t just the script that lacked substance. The wonderfully bright future we’d seen int he 60′s became cold and serile. From the uniforms to the sets everything was plain and ordinary. A step down from this wonderful world that we’d seen created before it. Maybe it could be put down to the ‘style of the time’ but it just didn’t click and it’s the film that ages the most because of it. I always look on the positive side though. The sheer size of some of the sets were incredible. The recreation deck and the shuttlebay showed how huge that ship was, which served well to later show how large V’Ger was as the Enterprise did a fly by once they encountered the being. The new imagining of Engineering also gave that part of the ship more functionality, bringing a visual logic to imaginary technology and it’s base design has remained core to every show that’s followed.

But I knew all the negatives going into it. I’d seen the film a few times and I was pleasantly surprised that the Director Edition seemed to make tweaks that made some things better and far more enjoyable. Sure, there are still things I think make very little sense. How about V’Ger not understanding the ‘carbon units’. It’s absorbing everything it see’s so surely it’s encountered a ship with a crew. In fact, the opening scene shows it taking three Klingon ships and their crew. Surely it figured it all out before Enterprise decided to get involved.

On the flip side there are moments in the film which work in it’s context from lines such as McCoys. “Wrong. There are casualties. My wits. As in frightened out of, sir.” to a meeting with ‘the big three’ in which Kirk and McCoy realise Spocks gone a bit mental which is a story point which resolves itself in the end with Spock finally accepting he needs to work with his human half, ot against it.

Tightened up and finished in the way Wise wanted it, it’s a hell of a lot better. It’s not the strongest plot in the movie side of the franchise, but I personally don’t think it deserves the bashing it does. It’s a good film. Just not a great. film. The pace seems a bit slow which makes it feel all too long and it does at times feel like a polished turd. But under it all is a good Star Trek story thats perhaps let down by it’s lack of an epic feeling. Even more focus on the personal aspects of the crew would have made huge improvements to the script.

The film that followed was a hell of a lot better. With that we could understand Kirk’s problem and the chemistry between the crew was more than just a formality. But the Directors Edition does made improvements and comes along with a bonus disc explaining it’s roots and background story in the abandoned ‘Phase II’ series. Parts of the film, and Phase II, were reused in the Next Generation, most notably the relation ship between Troi and Riker mirroring Decker and Illia. It’s a shame that the story suffered from rehashed ideas and unexplained back plots and it really doesn’t kick off the film franchise as well as Wrath of Khan.

Regardless of it’s problems the Motion Picture still works well as it’s own standalone film. It’s not a great sci fi epic as later films and the new Star Trek prequel promises, it’s a good story with some low key cerebral moments that doesn’t rely on action to get it’s point across which does seem to be a lost art. Looking back on it I can see why my father fell in love with the film. Despite it’s flaws there was a Star Trek story buried in there that I think worked. For me I’d just prefer much more character and personality where as at times this film had as much personality as Nathan Petrelli.

This edition of the DVD shows how the film should have been played back in 1979 which, along with the extras that shows the possibilities, explains some unanswered questions and gives you an idea of how TNG was put together, it’s not a film to be skipped by any sci fi fan.

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