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Star Trek - The Motion Picture [VHS] | ![Star Trek - The Motion Picture [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4164CYFHC6L._SL160_.jpg) | Director: Robert Wise
Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei
Studio: Paramount
Category: Video
List Price: $4.99
Buy Used: $0.01
as of 3/10/2010 23:57 CST details
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New (31) Used (90) Collectible (12) from $0.01
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Rating:  422 reviews
Sales Rank: 10554
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 132 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0792101707
UPC: 097360885835
EAN: 9786300216808
ASIN: 6300216802
Theatrical Release Date: December 7, 1979
Release Date: December 7, 1992
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Back when the first Star Trek feature was released in December 1979, the Trek franchise was still relatively modest, consisting of the original TV series, an animated cartoon series from 1973-74, and a burgeoning fan network around the world. Series creator Gene Roddenberry had conceived a second TV series, but after the success of Star Wars the project was upgraded into this lavish feature film, which reunited the original series cast aboard a beautifully redesigned starship U.S.S. Enterprise. Under the direction of Robert Wise (best known for West Side Story), the film proved to be a mixed blessing for Trek fans, who heatedly debated its merits; but it was, of course, a phenomenal hit. Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) leads his crew into the vast structures surrounding V'Ger, an all-powerful being that is cutting a destructive course through Starfleet space. With his new First Officer (Stephen Collins), the bald and beautiful Lieutenant Ilia (played by the late Persis Khambatta) and his returning veteran crew, Kirk must decipher the secret of V'Ger's true purpose and restore the safety of the galaxy. The story is rather overblown and derivative of plots from the original series, and avid Trekkies greeted the film's bland costumes with derisive laughter. But as a feast for the eyes, this is an adventure worthy of big-screen trekkin'. Douglas Trumbull's visual effects are astonishing, and Jerry Goldmith's score is regarded as one of the prolific composer's very best (with its main theme later used for Star Trek: The Next Generation). And, fortunately for Star Trek fans, the expanded 143-minute version (originally shown for the film's network TV premiere) is generally considered an improvement over the original theatrical release. --Jeff Shannon
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 422
 I've Seen Worse, Not As Bad As You'd Think.... February 6, 2010
R. Rodriguez (Los Angeles)
First things first, I wasn't a Star Trek fan at all prior to watching this film. I've never seen an original series episode ever! But the characters are so iconic, I felt like I had. Some of the negative aspects of the film are correct. There are scenes where it seemed like either the director or the special effects crew were amazed at the special effects work that the normal shots of a space ship which would normally last about 30 seconds (if even that) in movies now-a-days last for 5 minutes! I'm not kidding. A long 5 minutes of the crew reacting to psychedelic looking clouds! Spock's 5 minute space-walk! Oh my! I was tempted to push the forward button but I stuck with it. And yes, some of the special effects look awesome and others look horrible! But with that aside, I really enjoyed the film. William Shatner definately steals the movie and according to George Takei he literally did that behind scenes, stealing peoples scenes and close-ups. But being a non-star trek fan, I really enjoyed the film. Just be prepared for those long drawn out scenes and enjoy the 2001 ripoff shots....!
The Director's Cut is a Cut above the old VHS January 27, 2010
Moodies forever
Watched this movie and thought it would not be that different. The first thing you notice is the nice anamorphic widescreen presentation. It does lend the theatre touch and along with the upgraded audio make this an enjoyable movie experience.
The story is somewhat more cohesive with the edits. Getting rid of excess exterior Enterprise shots would have made the movie even more so.
The remastered(?) film seems much sharper overall, but a few scenes look as grainy as the VHS. I watched the fist half of the movie on a older DVD PS recorder(no upconvert) with componet hookup on a 42" LCD and the picture was OK. Watched the second half on a 32" LCD with a upconvert PS DVD hooked up HDMI outputing 720P and the picture was noticeably better. Fabric detail on the uniforms was noticeably better vs componet hookup on the same TV.
The movie is the 3rd best IMO of TOS movies. I always thought this was slightly better than TUC. The reveal of V'ger being Voyager 6, just captured my imagination and was a total surprise when I first saw the movie.
Was it worth the $13 I spent to have the DVD, you bet.
 It's bad. Really just bad. (Theatrical and Director's Cut Review) December 7, 2009
Andariel Halo (Phenomynouss@hotmail etc is my e-mail)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
There's no theatrical cut product available to review on Amazon, so I have to merge the two here, as I have not seen the Director's Cut entirely, but only managed to skim through certain bits to see what was improved upon.
Of course everyone really should know about how this movie was the final result of the attempted new Star Trek TV series "Phase II" which would have the Original Series crew reunite with some new characters for new adventures. They took a plot from one of the episodes and expanded it into a full-length movie.
For it's part, I greatly liked the V'ger idea, and the final reveal of V'ger as a force-evolved sentient entity from the old human Voyager 6 probe. But that's about it, and could be covered in a Star Trek episode not even a full 50 minutes in length.
The bad is just overwhelming. For one, the theatrical version's special effects border between spiffy but unconvincing, and just atrocious. The absolute worst offender is the Enterprise in drydock, where Scotty and Kirk spend a full 3-4 minutes in a transport moving alongside it, and showing us the front viewscreen with the two of them there. The juxtaposition is so jarring, it completely rips you out of immersion and beats you over the head with "Oh God this looks unbelievably horrible". For the life of me, it looks exactly like a special effects shot of everything, with an old-style television pasted onto the front of the transport!
The Director's Cut doesn't really fix this so much as lower the quality of the surrounding scene while darkening the television so it doesn't look so utterly out of place.
The design choices for the Enterprise are also atrocious. The old uniforms are done away with for what someone compared to pajamas. It not only looks entirely unprofessional, but it's a horror on the eyes that the uniforms are all shades of gray and beige, full-body, contrasted against a bridge that is the exact same color, and it looks less like Star Trek and more like an old post office or a bank.
The visual effects is what this movie banks on. So much so that it's to the utter detriment of the plot. While it's spiffy to show off the Enterprise, it's entirely overwhelming to spend FOUR CONSECUTIVE, UNINTERRUPTED MINUTES spanning its entire surface. While it's neat to show V'ger's cloud and the Klingon ships exterior and interior, it utterly dominates the first 10 minutes or so and gives us virtually nothing except to say "This cloud is kind of strong" leaving aside the sheer idiocy of firing weapons into a cloud 2 AU large, and hoping to hit something inside it.
I'm no mathematician or astronomer, but I'm pretty sure firing torpedoes into a cloud twice the size of Earth would be like trying to shoot someone in Canada when you're in Morocco, and firing up into the air, looking to have the bullet fall on them. While you're blindfolded. And there's heavy wind. And that person is in a car moving at fast speed.
Then there's the entire entering the cloud sequence. And from here begins a few sequences that I feel, unfortunately, are shameless ripoffs of "2001: A Space Odyssey", from Spock's spacewalk, complete with closeups of his face and screams of pain that are painfully obvious in their comparisons with Dave Bowman's spacewalk in "2001", which managed to pull this off with a length that nevertheless was taut, and the visuals were never oblique or boring, as they constantly changed and looked incredible for the year it came out.
Here, they decided not to copy the content, but the execution. As such, we have some five minutes of nothing but the exact same cloud effects, while cutting to shots of the Enterprise crew JUST STARING OUT THE WINDOW! DOING NOTHING! MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES OF WATCHING PEOPLE WATCH STUFF! MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES OF STARING AT CLOUDS THEN STARING AT PEOPLE STARING OUT A WINDOW AT THOSE CLOUDS!
There's another minute or two of nothing but Spock's vessel boarding the Enterprise. And so on.
Only a franchise like Star Trek or Star Wars could get away with that sort of total catastrophe of cinema.
Even then, those are seemingly just bits of minutes and scenes that don't really dominate the film, but are among the most sluggish and pointless that bring the film's already slow pacing to a grinding halt for an entire period of time.
Then there's pointless things like the wormhole sequence. In TVTropes terms, this is almost a Big Lipped Alligator Moment, as it is something that comes out of buttf&*k nowhere, takes up five or six minutes, then is totally gone with no damage or casualties, and the only plot element this introduces is Decker (rightly) undermining Admiral Kirk's orders. That entire waste of special effects and screentime just to give us another instance of Kirk being the brash, stubborn manchild who plays by his own rules to the detriment of everyone else, and turning Decker into the proverbial buttmonkey.
But the special effects failures and time-wasting aside, the reason this movie is utterly irredeemable to me lies with Admiral Kirk and his conflict of command.
As the Admiral comes on board and gets chummy with his friends, right away, even as someone whose seen the Original Series and some of the movies beforehand, you feel completely left out. Yay, it's great seeing the old favorites get together again, but it feels completely like an Old Gentlemen's Party you're not invited to. You get to see your distant friends reuniting with one another while you stand awkwardly in the doorway waiting to be noticed.
And this is exactly how Decker is portrayed---the outsider unwelcome in the Old Gentlemen's Club, but intruding anyway because he's been ordered to.
Meanwhile, Captain Decker is kicked off his command so Admiral Kirk can sit his ass on Enterprise and keep it for himself.
This raises an entire main plot point---Kirk and his company are getting old, and new people are coming on to add to their group. And Kirk cannot accept anyone getting in his way. He pushes Decker aside so he can captain the Enterprise, despite having absolutely no experience with the Refitted ship, and having not logged any star hours in two years.
But dammit, man, he's Kirk! So therefore he can do whatever he wants!
As I mentioned in my review for Wrath of Khan, this is one of the earlier points of the movie: Kirk finally seems resigned to accept that, as he says "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young", and he's even reluctant to accept command of the Enterprise over Spock. But he accepts it anyway.
This becomes a theme that is finally resolved (though rather messily) in "Star Trek Generations".
Maybe it wouldn't have been better served here, but all it serves is to make Kirk into a jerkass and then have the movie's plot and moviemakers side with Kirk against Decker and McCoy.
And in fact, this problem of Kirk's obsession, even addiction, to the Enterprise, is only exacerbated by this movie, and finally resolved in the most immature and childish way imaginable. The movie could have made an amazing plot element by having Kirk exert a dark, wicked sort of control in FORCING Decker to relinquish command to him, which may be out of character for Kirk, but make for an interesting character development of Kirk as an ADDICT---ADDICTED to the Enterprise and space exploration, reaching higher and higher levels until he's wielding political power and cronyism to eliminate all those who stand in his way.
Instead, Kirk basically learns nothing, and the audience learns that Kirk should be captain of the Enterprise, now and forever, as Decker basically abandons command by choosing to merge with Ilia into V'ger to form his consciousness or whatever. With Decker out of the way peaceably, Kirk can just sit back and enjoy unrestricted and unchallenged command.
But this movie serves one essential purpose: It killed Star Trek Phase II, and it kicked Gene Roddenberry out of the command chair for "Star Trek", much in the way it would later do with Kirk.
Argue all you like about Gene Roddenberry being the heart and soul behind Star Trek, but quite frankly, even a series' creator can do harm to it. You want an example of what Star Trek could possibly be like if Roddenberry continued to churn out Star Trek movies like this one? Look at George Lucas with the Star Wars prequel trilogy. That is an example of a series creator gone out of control with total creative control.
Lucas did great with Star Wars, but unfortunately he was in total control of the project, so that "The Phantom Menace" was not his "The Motion Picture" in getting him excised from the franchise.
But for Star Trek, that was the case, and with this movie's abysmal critical reception, new hands came into play, and we got the masterpiece that is "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan"
 I'll never understand why this movie gets so much crap from fans November 22, 2009
Obiturized (New Hampshire)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
1979, 10 years after 'The Original Series' went off the air, this movie comes out, the first Star Trek movie, and I do not know why this movie gets so much negativity, yes it's completely different than the rest of the movies (I like them all), this was Gene Roddenberrys true vision of Star Trek.
This is a very intelligent movie, which is the way Star Trek should be, you have to pay attention, or you won't get it, maybe some people just don't pay enough attention, because I cannot see how, if they did pay attention, could give it such a low rating, it really brings back the feeling of The Original Series.
The acting of course is great, all the original cast of course, and they picked it up 10 years later as if they were just doing the following episode to 'Turnabout Intruder', and the story, is just intelligent, a space probe lost in space for 200 years, with the help of an alien race of machine beings, stayed out there and collected all the information it could over the time span, and eventually became so smart by collecting all that information, V'cher became an entity.
Just a wonderfully thought out story, and intelligent, and the spaceshots/effects, you can definetly tell it's 'Star Trek'
On a side note, I would suggest buying the new 'Original Motion Picture Collection' box set, available on both blu-ray and standard definition, and if you're a fan of 'The Next Generation', pick up 'The Next Generation Motion Picture Collection' as well, same as the other set, available in both blu-ray and standard.
 Not really an improvement. November 10, 2009
Joseph M. Perorazio (Columbus, OH USA)
Overall the Director's Cut is an improvement in terms of sound, visual effects, and pace. And yet, i still prefer my VHS copy of the 143-minute version. Certain key scenes were deleted from the DVD, including some tender moments between Ilia and Decker, and some dialogue between McCoy and Kirk regarding Spock's obsession with V'Ger. The Ilia/Decker relationship is not as fully developed in this new cut, which is aggravating because it is that relationship that facilitates the ending of the film and gives it significance. If Robert Wise wanted to trim scenes, why not cut some more of those endless shots of V'Ger's inner layers, instead of interesting dialogue that actually contributes to the plot and characters' development. Having said all that, I suppose the DVD will please audiophiles and those who go ga-ga over CGI technology.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 422
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