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Sep. 18th, 2019 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariY'all can have your Wrath of Khans, your Voyage Homes, but for me, the best Trek movie is The Motion Picture.
You wouldn't know this without asking her, but my mother loves Sci-Fi. While she's not hard-core about it, she was the one who introduced me to Star Trek and The Twilight Zone from a very early age. She watched both growing up, and passed that to me. She did not pass on the Mexican Tele-Novellas, though. She can keep those.
I hadn't been watching Star Trek long when The Motion Picture came out. Maybe a year or two. And I was four or five at the time. But I was hooked. The family would stay up all night with me on Saturdays, and we'd watch Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. If we were REALLY wired, we got to Space 1999.
But the Motion Picture was MY Star Trek. Sure, they were the same guys as the Original Series...but The Motion Picture was all mine. I don't even think my mother took me to see it at the theaters...that was my dad.
Ever have those "Flashes" of scenes you distinctly remember as a kid? While I don't remember much about seeing the movie at the theater, there are certain images I remember very distinctly from that original viewing. And through the magic of computers, I can show you EXACTLY those images I remember so distinctly. Although one of those scenes I remember specifically cause my dad had to go to the bathroom and a guy took his seat (CREEPY).
The Motion Picture was never re-released as far as I can remember, so I never saw it in a theater again. But I've seen it on TV, VHS, DVD and eventually Blu-Ray at least 100 times in 40 years. Yeah, it's slow, ponderous but it's beautiful, asks big questions, and is one of the few Treks that delves into "Real" Sci Fi (versus "Speculative Fiction," which is just Drama in The Future). The kind of stuff I dig. The Alexandria in one of my developing stories is based off of V'Ger, and its avatar in the Tasha/Ilia probe (and the Red Dwarf and Rimmer, but I'm not writing about Red Dwarf).
And I got used to the TV versions. The extra scenes that bring some characterizations back in, the DVD version which fixes the "Slow" complaints to the movie. Pumping the volume WAY up on my Skullcandy headphones to get the best sound out of these movies....
But today I got to see it on the big screen (along with a special about the writing of the movie, which...shall we say...was very generous about the difficulties I've read about in writing the script). And it was glorious, for the most part. The digital print we saw (you know how some people swear they can hear digital artifacts in even the best MP3s? I can see macroblocking in the best digital TV/movies I've seen, so I know this was digital) wasn't nearly as good as the Blu-Ray, with a light blur to most scenes. But something you don't get on TV? Where do you LOOK? Watching the movie on the big screen, I was having to look left, look right, catch someones eye, really see a portion of V'Ger's immense ship. It helps immerse you in the story. And the sound...wow. My Skullcandy headphones can't reproduce the kind of sound you get at a movie.
And you know...I enjoyed the heck out of that movie, warts and all. In the end, I even felt I came away with MORE out of the experience at the theater than on the home versions. Because I DIDN'T see everything at once. I saw Kirk fuming when the Enterprise escapes the wormhole. I saw Decker looking accusingly at Kirk every time Kirk ignored his suggestions. I watched Ilia really try to get through the probe's programming. I got to see the Drydock and even a ship nacelle through the V'Ger briefing. I never noticed the Vulcan woman in the front row of the V'Ger briefing before today (although I always managed to see David Gerrold be the most heroically posed crewman in the V'Ger briefing, despite being partially eclipsed by Kirk's shoulder) Because you have to FOCUS on one part of the screen, versus seeing it all on one little screen at home.
I'm kinda glad Fathom does these re-releases. It's eye-opening to see these old movies back on the screen, when, honestly, they were designed to be seen only on the big screen. I plan to see more of these. :)
(Disclaimer: I do like Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home and Speculative Fiction, don't get me wrong...)
You wouldn't know this without asking her, but my mother loves Sci-Fi. While she's not hard-core about it, she was the one who introduced me to Star Trek and The Twilight Zone from a very early age. She watched both growing up, and passed that to me. She did not pass on the Mexican Tele-Novellas, though. She can keep those.
I hadn't been watching Star Trek long when The Motion Picture came out. Maybe a year or two. And I was four or five at the time. But I was hooked. The family would stay up all night with me on Saturdays, and we'd watch Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. If we were REALLY wired, we got to Space 1999.
But the Motion Picture was MY Star Trek. Sure, they were the same guys as the Original Series...but The Motion Picture was all mine. I don't even think my mother took me to see it at the theaters...that was my dad.
Ever have those "Flashes" of scenes you distinctly remember as a kid? While I don't remember much about seeing the movie at the theater, there are certain images I remember very distinctly from that original viewing. And through the magic of computers, I can show you EXACTLY those images I remember so distinctly. Although one of those scenes I remember specifically cause my dad had to go to the bathroom and a guy took his seat (CREEPY).
The Motion Picture was never re-released as far as I can remember, so I never saw it in a theater again. But I've seen it on TV, VHS, DVD and eventually Blu-Ray at least 100 times in 40 years. Yeah, it's slow, ponderous but it's beautiful, asks big questions, and is one of the few Treks that delves into "Real" Sci Fi (versus "Speculative Fiction," which is just Drama in The Future). The kind of stuff I dig. The Alexandria in one of my developing stories is based off of V'Ger, and its avatar in the Tasha/Ilia probe (and the Red Dwarf and Rimmer, but I'm not writing about Red Dwarf).
And I got used to the TV versions. The extra scenes that bring some characterizations back in, the DVD version which fixes the "Slow" complaints to the movie. Pumping the volume WAY up on my Skullcandy headphones to get the best sound out of these movies....
But today I got to see it on the big screen (along with a special about the writing of the movie, which...shall we say...was very generous about the difficulties I've read about in writing the script). And it was glorious, for the most part. The digital print we saw (you know how some people swear they can hear digital artifacts in even the best MP3s? I can see macroblocking in the best digital TV/movies I've seen, so I know this was digital) wasn't nearly as good as the Blu-Ray, with a light blur to most scenes. But something you don't get on TV? Where do you LOOK? Watching the movie on the big screen, I was having to look left, look right, catch someones eye, really see a portion of V'Ger's immense ship. It helps immerse you in the story. And the sound...wow. My Skullcandy headphones can't reproduce the kind of sound you get at a movie.
And you know...I enjoyed the heck out of that movie, warts and all. In the end, I even felt I came away with MORE out of the experience at the theater than on the home versions. Because I DIDN'T see everything at once. I saw Kirk fuming when the Enterprise escapes the wormhole. I saw Decker looking accusingly at Kirk every time Kirk ignored his suggestions. I watched Ilia really try to get through the probe's programming. I got to see the Drydock and even a ship nacelle through the V'Ger briefing. I never noticed the Vulcan woman in the front row of the V'Ger briefing before today (although I always managed to see David Gerrold be the most heroically posed crewman in the V'Ger briefing, despite being partially eclipsed by Kirk's shoulder) Because you have to FOCUS on one part of the screen, versus seeing it all on one little screen at home.
I'm kinda glad Fathom does these re-releases. It's eye-opening to see these old movies back on the screen, when, honestly, they were designed to be seen only on the big screen. I plan to see more of these. :)
(Disclaimer: I do like Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home and Speculative Fiction, don't get me wrong...)
