My cousin Dani

From a toilet outside of Bismarck, my cousin Dani was running her mouth on Threads. This time she was saying that the Klingon scene at the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the “best” Klingon scene of all time. Unfortunately this post was seen “41,000” times and had just under “800” likes. This means that whatever bullshit falls out of her brain gets more views and likes than any of my THOUGHTFUL and WELL RESEARCHED blog posts. If this isn’t a sign of the impending apocalypse, I don’t know what is. But despite her being a dumb bitch, I think she’s right.

So I’ve been listening to Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack nonstop for seven days straight. It’s great. Mahler’s 9th Symphony is a piece of shit compared to it. And what makes this soundtrack so haunting is that badass blaster beam. Just watch the scene for yourself:

There’s a lot of gravity to that sound. It makes you wonder why more soundtracks don’t use it. It’s a top five for sure.

But what’s also great is that opening shot. After showing a giant ominous space cloud, it cuts to three approaching D7 Klingon cruisers. The camera lingers on the center cruiser as it passes underneath and drift toward the opening of V’ger. Imagine seeing that on the big screen. Picture yourself in 1979 and being a fan of some decade-old cheap ass sci-fi show and seeing this. It gives me goosebumps just to think about it.

Unfortunately, this is the most terrifying that Klingons will ever appear. No shade at all to subsequent Klingons though. It just highlights how incredible this scene is. Mark Lenard, as the captain, appears as if he’s Satan himself. The bridge glows like the fires of hell. When the captain speaks, his orders crack the air like a lashing from a cat o nine tails. This is the full wrath of god confronting the cool indifferent force of interstellar space. And god doesn’t stand a chance.

This was the introduction to modern Star Trek. And they sure don’t make em like they used to.

But because of Dani’s newfound influence on Threads, I have delegated her to be my representative. So don’t message me. Don’t contact me whatsoever. Send all your unsolicited dick pics to her. She told me to say so.

Is it over?

I guess word on the street is that Alex Kurtzman is out at Star Trek. I’ve been so checked out with the news and Star Trek that I hardly noticed.

Am I happy about it?

I dunno. I guess so.

Do I think Paramount will make improvements?

No. I’m not that delusional.

Star Trek is dead as a quality IP. I’ve said that time and time again. We’re living in an era where studios will keep rolling out these corpses and drawing every last bit of blood from them. We will thus never be granted the time to grieve over our favorite franchises like we would our dearly deceased loved ones because reality is just an episode of Black Mirror. For any Trekkie holding out hope, I have some advice: you’ve had enough Star Trek. It’s time to live and let go. Whatever iteration that comes next will be just as bad if not worse.

I’m sorry for your loss.

As much as we focus the blame on Kurtzman, I honestly feel like this is no one’s fault (unless you want to classify late stage capitalism as a person or persons). But it is wild to me that JJ Abrams played a hand in the death of not ONE iconic sci-fi franchise, but TWO. Star Wars, however, will recover. Kids still talk about it and love it. It only took them 50 years, but it seems like they’ve made progress in breaking away from the Skywalker saga. In my view, Star Wars will safely survive for another generation. But it’s unclear if Star Trek will. Despite being an expansive universe, its episodic and theatre-like presentation is out of step with modern storytelling. Star Trek favors the cerebral. Audiences—or, rather, studio executives—prefer the spectacle of emotion and explosion. Kurtzman tried it that way and failed to bring in a new audience and alienated the old one. (There’s an interesting article about this here)

Star Trek is dead and I’m fine with it. But let’s say Paramount does the unthinkable and resurrects this Lazarus. Again, this absolutely won’t happen but let’s say it does. How can it be done? Well, thankfully, we already have a template.

It’s called Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

“Isn’t that the boring one?” you might ask.

Yes, but let’s not focus on the execution. Instead I want to draw attention to the concept. TMP was a HUGE production. Everything naturally seemed larger than in the Original Series. But this is also one of the more cerebral productions in the official canon. Producers weren’t aiming to make Star Trek like Star Wars. They were aiming to make it more like 2001: A Space Odyssey. Obviously this led to a slower pace, but I don’t necessarily believe that’s what led to audience rejection. A rushed post-production did that. If you watch TMP in its final “director approved” form, it might actually be the best ST film. Space felt magical, dangerous, mysterious. Starfleet felt real, structured, and disciplined. It was a major break from the pulpy aesthetic of TOS. So just imagine if someone like, say, Denis Villeneuve had his hands on this material.

Sadly we don’t live in that world. Villeneuve will be handling the James Bond franchise for Amazon. And as much as I don’t wish it, the death of Star Trek is a harbinger of things to come for James Bond.

A gene Roddenberry production of a Robert wise film

Because I’m a chump, I finally broke down and paid for Paramount+.

Available on the service is the newly remastered version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, and renowned sex pervert Stephen Collins.

When Robert Wise’s Director’s Cut came out years ago, it greatly improved what was an otherwise interesting but clunky and boring movie. Unfortunately, this version of the film wasn’t updated for high def until recently.

It looks incredible. Douglas Trumbull’s special effects have been vastly improved. Jupiter, V’ger, the Enterprise…it all pops in ways that it didn’t before. That element alone makes the film much more watchable.

However, while some aspects of the film have been improved, it only only highlights its weaker aspects. While the special effects, music, and (most of its) production design are incredible, that only makes the direction, script, editing, and acting look that much more terrible.

It doesn’t matter how hard they try, they can’t disguise the fact that this movie was hastily thrown together. At the time, I think, it was one of the most expensive movies ever made. And to be honest, it doesn’t look it.

Oddly enough, I think fault lies on the shoulders of legendary director Robert Wise and his DP. Much of the film takes place on the bridge of the Enterprise. And the set looks godawful. It’s too claustrophobic, too cheap, too bland. And the editing doesn’t do much to improve it as actors awkwardly wander on and off the set without much of a purpose.

It’s not the best design for the Enterprise bridge. But Nicholas Meyer and Leonard Nimoy…both novice directors at that time…make that same set look like a million dollars in subsequent Trek films. Meyer especially puts the claustrophobic aspect to good use in Star Trek II.

Fortunately, I think most of this could be easily fixed. And that requires jettisoning most of the journey through the V’ger cloud. While visually it’s interesting, it adds absolutely nothing. The immensity of V’ger itself is also established in the next sequence (which also needs to be cleaned up a bit editing wise) therefore making the cloud voyage redundant.

It’s a small change, but it would go a long way in improving the pacing. I’m sure there’s a fan edit floating around the internet somewhere that does this.

The uniforms also look underwhelming. I don’t hate them. Some internet genius explained that these surgeon-like uniforms actually highlight the delicacy of the matter: the characters have to be precise in their decision making. In that light, the uniforms add a nice touch. Nevertheless, the film could have used an updated version of William Theiss’ iconic designs.

Unfortunately nothing will fix the caricature performances and phoned-in script. But that’s okay. This high-def version of the Director’s Cut…which will presumably be the final cut…elevates what was one of the worst Trek films into a pretty solid sci-fi movie.

And that’s good enough 👍