Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that the plot concerns a nonhuman entity asking quasi-religious questions like the purpose of life, and whether there is a creator. Just as confounding: what version of this movie will you find? There are both G- and PG-rated cuts of this on video. The original theatrical release was, in fact, rated G. A harsher rating on the video reflects more the changing attitudes toward that MPAA classification than the movie content; Paramount evidently decided a G might make video consumers think this was the one where Kirk meets Barney the Dinosaur. It's worth noting that the "PG" director's-edition VHS is in letterboxed widescreen -- really the way this expensive f/x spectacle was meant to be seen and appreciated -- and has an interesting making-of documentary with the participants 20 years later, and a prolonged intro of theme music. The DVD is crammed with similar extras and commentaries.
Families can talk about the conflict between Kirk and Decker, and how Dr. McCoy sizes up the situation of the starship having two rivals jockeying for the command chair. Those in more religious households might discuss the idea of creators and the search for meanings in existence. Spock's quest for perfect logic leads him to sympathize with V'ger, an entity that is planet-killing lethal, yet not really evil. You might ask kids if they prefer this kind of character- and idea-driven science fiction or the more simplistic notions of good and bad, in space swashbuckers like Star Wars. There is a small history lesson in the various real-life heroic vessels that have had the name "Enterprise," including a WWII aircraft carrier and a prototype space shuttle.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
After ten years of rumors and false starts and demands among the fans that the original Star Trek TV series of the 1960s be brought back, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE finally did it. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Star Wars finally did it. The galactic box-office success of that LucasFilm space-fantasy hit (though it was quite unlike Star Trek) and the extra rocket thrust of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Superman, convinced Paramount Pictures to invest heavily in relaunching producer Gene Roddenberry's universe, the biggest science-fiction property with name recognition to which they owned the rights.
Still, it was a somewhat strained Starfleet mission. High-profile science-fiction writers were consulted for plot input, then discarded as filming started in a hurry, without a complete script, to make a Christmas-movie deadline. The result was a lot about the special effects and 23rd-century sets and visuals created on a scale undreamt of back in the old low-rated NBC-TV days.
But what really ends up giving this movie its watchability is the reunion of beloved small-screen cast members. Those actors told eyebrow-raising stories about being asked to react to astounding sights in front of them that just hadn't been thought up yet (tellingly, in later CGI-dense spectacles like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, that sort of thing became commonplace). An astronomical $12 million worth of visual gimmickry was done, then discarded.
The $42 million final budget generated almost as much awe in itself as the movie's cosmic menace, a shimmering force field from uncharted space, heading for Earth and destroying anything in its way.
After years deskbound as an Admiral in Starfleet, James T. Kirk (William Shatner) reassumes command of the handiest countermeasure available, the starship Enterprise, just refurbished with the latest gear and weaponry. The Enterprise goes to meet the intruder with Kirk in an uncomfortable situation of having demoted the younger, more tech-savvy Captain Decker (Stephen Collins) in order to get his ship back. First Officer Spock is a late arrival on the mission, having unhappily opted out of joining a monk-like mystical order of pure logic on his home planet of Vulcan (this mirrors actor Leonard Nimoy's last-minute hesitancy to rejoin the cast reunion).
When the Enterprise enters the vast, cloudlike boundaries of the intruder (which calls itself V'ger), an awful lot of the movie is indeed the cast gaping at the shimmering light show, right up to a quasi-mystical finale that might have some viewers more puzzled than dazzled. Considering how much Paramount tried to add cute little robots and X-wing fighters, it's commendable that the filmmakers, for the most part, stuck to the TV show's model of character-based dramatics, and an interplanetary menace was defeated using intellect and good judgment, not light sabers. Still, it's a pretty ponderous spectacle.
After Klingon-like reviews (but box-office support from Starfleet's broad fandom), veteran director Robert Wise went back and did some "wise" revisions and edits that made the network TV and video versions measurably better. Still, it was in the sequels and TV revivals that the Star Trek series achieved higher altitudes of action, humor, and interplanetary wonder.
You could watch those sequels with kids, or episodes of the classic Star Trek TV show, also on video. Get the episode The Changeling, to which Star Trek: The Motion Picture bears a strong similarity (except the V'ger equivalent has the size and shape of a floating vacuum cleaner), and ask kids if they prefer that brisk, low-budget version over the giga-bucks one.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentMention that Decker formerly had intimate relations with a comely alien. She spends a lot of the movie in a robe with a very short hemline, and there is generalized talk about her species having a powerful psychic sexual allure (behave, Mr. Sulu!). |
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ViolenceSpace vessels are disintegrated into nothingness. A few crew are knocked around and scorched by energy bolts. A Vulcan nerve pinch. Minor characters perish in a transporter malfunction, but the horrific result is left to the imagination. |
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LanguageScotty saying "hell." |
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Social BehaviorThe United Federation of Planets is, by order of Gene Roddenberry, famously multicultural, multi-ethnic, even multi-species. While the crew of the Enterprise demonstrate some basic human foibles (Kirk is too eager to regain command, McCoy suspects Spock's motives), they still function well as a unit of people who care about one another. Some commentators have pointed to the main trio of Star Trek as summing up aspects of a well-rounded, complete person: Kirk for decisive action and passion, Spock for cold logic and intellect, Dr. McCoy for emotion and altruistic kindness. |
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CommercialismNothing onscreen, but Star Trek, as a marketing franchise, has toys and products in "infinite diversity in infinite combinations," to quote a favorite Gene Roddenberry saying. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoEven Scotty doesn't touch a drop in this one. |
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