Review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) by Kevin B — 19 Sep 2011

I saw a movie poster for this defaced as "Star Trek: The Motion Sickness". While a clever line, I can't say I entirely agree with the sentiment.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a solid episode of the television series, but a disappointingly flimsy movie. Still, that didn't stop director, Robert Wise, from bloating it up to a 2 and a half hour movie. There's very little character development and back story on what the crew had been up to since the series' end. Still, far too much running time was added with drawn out special effects montages (don't get me wrong, the effects are good).

I have to admit, however, the scene where they show us the Enterprise for the first time is absolutely goose-bump inducing, and worthy of an extra half-star for that alone. Too bad the rest of the movie feels so unfulfilling. Luckily, the series really picks up steam with the next movie.