Cinematic Enterprise 3: Re - Genesis

THE FACTS:
STAR TREK III : THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK
Directed by Leonard Nimoy
Written by Harve Bennett
Released: 1st June 1984
Set: c.2285
Starships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,
USS Grissom NCC-638, USS Excelsior NX-2000
Klingon Bird-of-Prey, Merchantman
Planets visited: Earth, Vulcan and Genesis

The third Trek movie formed the middle part of a linked trilogy that charted the lengths that Kirk and Spock would go for each other. While it's considered the weak link in the trilogy by some - suffering from the supposed curse of the odd numbers - to my mind it's a fine adventure with real heart.

The Wrath of Khan had been a hit with the fans and critics alike, and naturally Paramount wanted a sequel. The first and most important part was getting the stars back on board, and Leonard Nimoy's involvement was, well, paramount. Fortunately, Nimoy's feelings on Trek had been revitalised by the success of Khan, but there was one proviso: he wanted to direct the film. The previous director Nicholas Meyer had cut his ties with the franchise over disagreements concerning the scripts, so the position was open. Producer Harve Bennet began writing the script with Nimoy's input, crafting a story about the resurrection of Spock on the Genesis planet. The story would involve Kirk going to any lengths to retrieve Spock's renewed body, stealing the Enterprise from Starfleet in order to travel to the quarantined planet. In a more metaphysical element of the story, Spock's soul would be carried by McCoy, who had been melded with by Spock moments before his death (leading to some intense moments from DeForest Kelley as the addled McCoy).

Nimoy brought in Industrial Light and Magic much earlier on this film than previously, working closely with them during the storyboarding and design process. The result is a visual richness that surpasses Khan, but works in a very different way to the ethereal, hyperspace visuals of The Motion Picture. The result is a more lived-in, workspace kind of universe, a little bit Star Wars in its rough-edged realism. Roger Ebert called the film a compromise between the tones of the first and second, and that's exactly right. It feels more like a true follow-up to the TV series, and also looks forwards to the upcoming The Next Generation, only three years away at this point. While the uniforms are straight from Khan, we get to see the main characters in their casual, off duty wear, and they wear clothes that people might actually go outside in. I love the mix of the grimy, used alien ships and the shinier, more majestic Starfleet facilities, but even then, there's a realism to it. The Spacedock prop, which would turn up several times as different space stations in TNG, is filmed brilliantly, making it appear absolutely gigantic, the Enterprise a bug against it. Inside, starships are lined up, building on this tremendous sense of scale. Then McCoy goes to the bar on the Spacedock, a seedy joint not that far from the Mos Eisley Cantina, with bizarre alien patrons, and tries to charter a ship off a shrill, big-eared extraterrestrial who looks almost like a prototype Ferengi.

Even the Enterprise is looking a bit worn out by this stage, overshadowed by the newer, sleeker USS Excelsior, designed as a plausible design evolution from the familiar ship. The Excelsior prop would become the mainstay of Starfleet, appearing again and again in TNG and even DS9, an old workhorse of the 24th century - part of the old guard, but not that old. Then there are the alien ships: the battered kitbash Merchantman, with its mixed crew of humans and a sexy female Klingon captain; and of course, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey. While this is another new ship, it's Klingon through-and-through (in spite of early scripts having it a stolen Romulan vessel, hence the name). It looks like it was made old, a functional and threatening beast of a ship. While again, its reuse throughout TNG and DS9 was partly due to having a well-made prop that could be reused, it's such a perfect ship for the Klingons that it becomes iconic in short order.

The Klingons themselves are designed better here than in The Motion Picture, refined from their brief appearance there since they need to function as actual characters, rather than V'Ger fodder. Early plans were for the Romulans to be the primary antagonists, but Nimoy wanted the Klingons, who he felt were more theatrical (the studio was in agreement, considering them a better selling point). His casting of Christopher Lloyd makes that plain. Lloyd, a year away from Back to the Future, is brilliant here, hammy as anything but genuinely threatening. Commander Kruge is just an absolute bastard, through and through. His obsession with controlling the secret of Genesis is a feasible goal; he's not wrong when he states that it's the greatest weapon ever created. (I assume Starfleet thoroughly buried the technology after this, for the sake of keeping the peace.) The Genesis planet itself is at once both wondrous and hellish, with wormlike bacteria creatures that try to eat the Klingons (Kruge kills one straight away, just to show how hard he is).

The Search for Spock reinforces the status of the Enterprise crew as a family, in spite, or indeed because, of Spock's effective absence for much of the runtime. Sulu was given command of the Excelsior in early drafts, an element that would be held back until the sixth film. In the event, Sulu, Chekov, Uhura and Scotty all help Kirk and McCoy pinch the Enterprise. The film continues on from Khan with the inclusion of David Marcus and Saavik, working together to explore Genesis as part of the USS Grissom crew. There are hints of romance there between them, but this plotline never really gets anywhere. The link back to the previous film is weakened somewhat by the recasting of Saavik; with Kirstie Alley declining to return, Robin Curtis took on the role, giving a little more humanity to the character. The inclusion of Mark Lenard as Sarek linked the film back to the original series, and cemented the family theme; Spock's father and Kirk's son are both major parts of the film.

There was a real risk, when developing this film, that bringing Spock back would invalidate his sacrifice in Khan's climax. Retrieving Spock would have to come at a price. The cost of Kirk regaining his friend would be the loss of son - killed by the Klingons in a moment of pure cruelty - and the Enterprise itself. The ship is as much a character as any of the actual cast, and while destroying the Enterprise is par for the course in Trek films now (happening again in Generations, Into Darkness and Beyond) back in 1984 it must have packed on hell of a punch. I can't imagine many viewers were that upset by Merritt Buttrick getting stabbed up, but I bet a few fans cried when the Enterprise was destroyed. Beyond that, Spock, when Nimoy finally appears in the closing scenes on Vulcan, is not the man he was.

Some fans tend to skip The Search for Spock, but it's an essential part of the ongoing story of Star Trek and a film with a lot to offer.

Cinematic Enterprise 2: Revenge of the Sikh

THE FACTS:
STAR TREK II : THE WRATH OF KHAN
Directed by Nicholas Meyer
Written by Jack B. Sowards, with Harve Bennett, 
Nicholas Meyer and Samuel A. Peeples
Released: 4th June, 1982
Set: c.2285
Starships featured: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,
USS Reliant NCC-1864, SS Botany Bay (wreck)
Planets visited: Earth, Ceti Alpha 5, 
Regula, Genesis

I dropped the ball on this one. About a year ago, Suz and I watched through the Trek films and I was going to write up my thoughts on each. I managed to get as far as writing a piece on The Motion Picture, then somehow forgot to carry on with it. However, we are know watching the series again, starting with The Wrath of Khan, so I'm having another stab.

The Wrath of Khan has a glowing reputation among fans, and while it's not the flawless classic some see it as, it's a good candidate for the strongest of the original run of Star Trek films. It's a very different beast to The Motion Picture, ditching much of the high concept philosophical science fiction in favour of a personal story of vengeance in a military setting.

The Motion Picture had been a very successful failure. It had made a lot of money in the box office, but had cost an enormous amount to make, badly affecting the profits. Paramount were eager to make more Star Trek films but wanted to avoid the mistakes of the first movie, and above all, wanted to keep costs under control. Gene Roddenberry was sidelined, to the chagrin of some members of the cast, and the indifference of others. Various people worked on the script, with Nicholas Meyer fulfilling the final version, without accepting a writer's credit. Khan looked back to the successes of the original series in several ways. It evoked some of the swashbuckling, heroic style of Kirk's mission of discovery. It continued the series and its predecessor's themes of friendship, particularly between the central trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The series had been about progress, with episode such as “The Ultimate Computer” and “Dagger of the Mind” showed that this was a future in which both technological and social progress were ongoing, but that this was not without its dangers. Most of all, though, it was a direct sequel to a popular episode of the original.

“Space Seed” was an interesting episode, hinting at a dark and turbulent near future for humanity that would give way to a more inclusive and positive society. There was a feeling that the upstanding people of the Federation didn't like to talk about the unpleasant truths of their past. So when that past turned up on their doorstep, they were ill-equipped to deal with it. Khan Noonien Singh was a megalomaniac, but was a man of such conviction and charisma that he swayed people to his cause and had the utmost confidence in his attempt to take power. Kirk's eventual treatment of him – dumping him and his followers on a habitable but uncompromising planet to start their own world – was both generous and hugely insulting for a character like Khan. In the episode, Kirk and his crew wondered what might grow from the seed they just planted. Nothing good, it turned out. In a distinctly grim turn of events, the planet on which Khan was marooned was devastated when its sister planet exploded only six months later, and Kirk, of course, never bothered to check up on them.

While any Trek fan had already seen “Space Seed” a dozen times when the film came out, there would have been plenty of people who went to see it with no idea who this Khan character was, or why he was so angry. This didn't matter. Skilful exposition combined with Ricardo Montalban's scenery-chewing but passionate performance sells it perfectly. Not only did Kirk defeat Khan, a man utterly convinced of his own superiority, but he condemned him to hell. His wife was killed by monstrous creatures (Madlyn Rue was to return as Marla McGivers, but the onset of MS prevented this, and her absence does provide Khan with even more reason to hate Kirk). Khan has spent the last fifteen years nursing his hatred for Kirk, wanting only to best him and have his revenge.

This is what makes the film so effective. Even though they're never in the same room together, there's a bristling fire between Kirk and Khan that's felt across the vacuum of space. Kirk's sheer horror at seeing that Khan is behind the attacks on Federation people belies the fact that he was never set up as an archvillain or nemesis in the first place. You believe in the relationship here because these two have history, even if it's not quite the history we saw on TV way back when. (This is exactly the reason that the near remake Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't work. It relies on viewers knowing that Kirk and Khan have history in another version of events, where they're really complete strangers to one another.)

It's a far more personal story than The Motion Picture. Meyer made the wise decision to stop ignoring the age of the cast and instead make it part of the story. This is long after Kirk's second wind onboard the refit Enterprise. He's a ground-based admiral again and bored out of his wits. He feels old, he's eyesight's failing him. He's got a full-grown son out there who we'd never even heard of before, and is forced into a reunion with him and his mother. Brilliantly, the guy absolutely hates Kirk, in spite of, or likely because of, his gigantic hero status. To add insult to agedness, the Enterprise, previously portrayed as newly revamped and top of the range, has been relegated to a training vessel. Spock seems content to captain the ship – he was always more suited to be a teacher than a commander – but there's clearly some discontent buried there.

Other crewmembers have moved on. They all come back for this last hurrah, but they have their own careers. McCoy seems on the verge of quitting again. Chekov is doing well, first officer on the Reliant, before running into Khan in a spectacular gaffe. (No, I'm not talking about he and Khan recognising each other when they never met onscreen before. Khan was on the Enterprise for a long time and Chekov was clearly working in the lower decks before he got his bridge posting.) Somehow, the crew of the science vessel Reliant mistake Ceti Alpha 5 for the extinct Ceti Alpha 6 – were they counting backwards or something? And the sheer bad luck to land right on top of Khan's camp, given the entire planet to choose from.

The Motion Picture stands alone as a largely disconnected part of the Trek story, while The Wrath of Khan's influence has been felt in the franchise for years to come. The visual changes for the film included a complete redesign of the Starfleet uniforms, discarding the futuristic pyjama look of TMP and the primary colours of the original in favour of layered, deep read and cream uniforms that evoke a naval feel. These remained the uniforms for the rest of the 23^rd century-set films, and with modifications, turned up in early 24^th century sequences on The Next Generation – an easy shorthand for the past of that show. We finally got an entirely new starship design in the Reliant, recognisably from the same lineage as the Enterprise but distinct, and one that would continue to show up in future productions as a reliable workhorse ship. The Kobayashi Maru, the legendarily unwinnable test that Kirk beat as a cadet, was central to the storyline of the 2009 Star Trek movie, and the list of influences this film had on Star Trek Into Darkness is too long to list.

Khan and his post-apocalyptic followers' look was deeply eighties and wouldn't be replicated except much later in the series Enterprise three-part homage in its final season. Khan and his wars of conquest – subtly altered backstory going from true eugenics to the more futuristic genetic engineering – have been only carefully touched upon in most versions of Star Trek since, largely because they were encroaching the period in which it what supposed to happen. Once we were past that into the 21^st century, Enterprise and Into Darkness used it for retro-flavoured inspiration. The Ceti eels – nasty little creatures that burrow into the brain – became a childhood nightmare. They may look fake now, but I was convinced as a small boy that the bug crawling into someone's ear was completely real. The monsters were referenced by the very similar “Centaurian slug” in the 2009 movie and would even appear as a fried snack in an episode of Star Trek: Discovery.

Surprisingly, for all that this film was set up to be about Kirk and Khan, in the end it was all about Spock. Nimoy had tried to pull out of Trek before and was only convinced to return for this if he would receive a heroic death scene. Fan reaction to this news – leaked early in the production process – was predictably negative, and it was pushed back to the very end of the story. It's hard to see how it could have worked better early on; the final moments between Kirk and Spock remain an emotionally galling scene and one of the most memorable moments of the whole franchise. Even as filming was being completed, however, plans were set in motion for a return, and a hasty reshoot saw Spock's coffin land on the newly created Genesis planet, a world of “life from lifelessness.” It must have been blatantly obvious to anyone watching that he was coming back; they just had to convince Nimoy...

The Wrath of Khan can be viewed as the first part of a trilogy that continues with The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home, charting Kirk's spiritual renewal and Spock's journey to death and back. The second and third parts had not been conceived, however, when the film was released, and it's easy to see that there was some intention to revamp the franchise with a new, younger cast. Merrit Butrick as David Marcus, Kirk's son, and Kirstie Alley as Spock's protege Saavik, both look set up as potential replacements as central characters. Indeed, they combine elements of both characters, with David being Kirk's offspring but a scientist like Spock, while Saavik is a Vulcan learning to understand her emotions but also set up as command material. There was always the possibility of romance between the two as well, something that carries over to the sequel. Saavik in particular strikes as an interesting character; she speaks like a Vulcan but isn't styled like one, openly cries at Spock's funeral and is far more emotional than we might expect a Vulcan to be. Indeed, according to the original treatment she was intended to be half-Romulan, although this was cut from the final film.

The Wrath of Khan is far from perfect and by today's standards is a languidly paced adventure. There are moments that risk becoming boring, although it never drops to the pace of its predecessor, and it maintains a strong storyline throughout. It's helped by a stirring score, entertaining performances, and effects sequences that still impress all these years on. It's the first time that the Trek universe felt real and lived in, and this would help set the remaining original cast films apart from the rest of the franchise as it moved into the more clinical 24^th century. And, of course, it has perhaps Shatner's greatest single moment as Kirk. Really, though, you have to get it right. It's not enough to just shout “Khaaaan!” with as many vowels as possible. It's all in the build up. You've got to channel that suppressed Kirk rage. Get your chin to wobble a bit. That's how you sell it.

Cinematic Enterprise 1: Impossible Vistas, Impractical Pyjamas

During the latter months of 2016, the missus and I watched the full original run of Star Trek films, from The Motion Picture to Nemesis. Suz had never seen any of these before, in spite of being a big fan of TNG and Voyager and an occasional watcher of the original series. Now, it's no longer 2016, but it's still within Star Trek's fiftieth anniversary as far as I'm concerned (it didn't start till halfway through the year, after all). So, I'm finally getting back on the Trek writing wagon.

So, we sat down to watch all the Trek movies. We started with The Wrath of Khan.

Well, I watched The Motion Picture, but I told Suz not to bother. We watched Khan with drinks and mates and not a little disbelief that Suz had never seen it before. TMP is notoriously hard going, so I decided it was unnecessary to put her through it. In the end, she did catch it on TV a few weeks later and had it on in the background, which is perhaps the best way to watch it. She thought it was pretty, which it most certainly is.





THE FACTS:
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Gene Roddenberry, with Alan Dean Foster and Harold Livingston. 
Released: 7th December 1979
Set: c.2273
Starships featured: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Klingon Battlecruiser, Vulcan warp shuttle
Planets visited: Earth and Vulcan

Star Trek: The Motion Picture marks a very odd start for the franchise's cinematic outings. In 1973, all that existed to base the film on was the original series and the short-lived animated follow-up, plus a few books and comics. Star Trek was solely Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Enterprise. Work was in progress on a Star Trek feature film from the mid-70s, and had stalled several times before reverting back to television. The script and production work that began TMP were originally intended for a sequel series, known as Star Trek II or Phase II. This would have written Spock out and replaced him with a fully Vulcan science officer, but even including this fundamental departure, early work on the series still sounds far more like the original Trek, in content and spirit, than what we eventually got with TMP.

The Motion Picture owes its existence to the success of Star Wars two years earlier. True, Close Encounters probably convinced them this wasn't a one-off, but still, without Star Wars' runaway success, the exorbitantly expensive Star Trek movie would never have been greenlit. Early reports that it was the most expensive film in history to date are untrue, but understandable: it was actually somewhat cheaper to produce than Superman: The Movie, but the full cost of that film wasn't released for years later. Taking inflation into account, several earlier epics were considerably more expensive. However, it was still an enormous gamble for Paramount, and one that only partially paid off, even considering that the line between Phase II and TMP's costs is somewhat blurred. So, the question remains, if the success of Star Wars convinced studio execs that space opera was a moneymaker, why did Roddenberry decide that the best film to emulate was 2001: A Space Odyssey?

It's no surprise that the studio used TMP's apparent financial failure (itself grossly exaggerated) to push Roddenberry to the sidelines, nor is it a bad thing that they did. Much like Star Wars later, the franchise only really got back on track once its creator was no longer able to control production. The best films and series are the result of collaboration in the face of adversity. TMP is Roddenberry's personal vision of the future, with the budget to show it. His novelisation of the script reveals some fascinating insights into the future world of Earth in the Federation, little of which made it to screen. The woman who dies in the transporter accident, in a jarring scene of horror early in the film, is revealed to have been Kirk's former "life partner." There's intriguing talk of a more advanced strain of humanity which now dominates Earth, while, amusingly, it's the more primitive, instinctive types like Kirk who are considered more suited to exploring space.

Roddenberry's vision was of an intellectual, complex society, and this is reflected in the rather sterile look and feel of the film. Gone are the primary colours and makeshift props of the original, so evocative and recognisable, but existing due to production and budget restraints. In are sophisticated sets and beige pyjamas. Admiral Kirk may manipulate events to regain his command of the Enterprise, but he is far removed from the adventurer of the original series. Kirk's rebellious, swashbuckling nature has been exaggerated in the reboot films, and this clouds how we see the original version of the character, but he was far more human and interesting than the reserved character Shatner is given here.

It's no wonder that, with the human crew so emotionally reserved, Spock is required to become even more stoic. Written back into the script following successful negotiations with Leonard Nimoy, Spock's personal journey is fundamental to the film's story. His attempt to purge all emotion mirrors V'Ger's crisis, and it is when he makes contact with the being that he realises the futility of his efforts. He finally embraces both logic and emotion, accepting that he is both Vulcan and human, and becomes a more complex, balanced character. Spock's story is the highlight of the script, and Nimoy, naturally, performs it perfectly. Xon, his Phase II replacement character, morphed in the script to Sonak, the other victim of the unstable transporter, perfunctorily killed off.

Perhaps the most promising characters are Will Decker and Ilia, respectively played by Stephen Collins and Persis Khambatta. Created as ongoing characters for Phase II, it's easy to see that these characters had legs. After all, they were essentially recreated for The Next Generation, becoming William T. Riker and Deanna Troi, although the alien sexuality angle was dropped from the latter's character. Both Collins and Khambatta are extremely good in difficult roles. Originally conceived as Kirk's eventual replacement in Phase II, Decker's role is inverted as the new captain of the Enterprise, usurped by Admiral Kirk during the V'Ger crisis. Collins portrays Decker's reserved anger at Kirk with class and restraint. Khambatta is even better as Ilia, an interesting mix of alien sexiness and refined logic whose descendants, other than Troi, include fan favourites Seven of Nine and T'Pol. She also has the difficult task of portraying V'Ger's recreation of Ilia, faced with making this artificial version recognisable as the same character and distinct as a machine. It's no easy task, but Khambatta pulls it off with grace and skill.

While it's easy to criticise TMP, and I will, one thing cannot be argued with: the film is absolutely gorgeous. Douglas Trumbull was drafted in to take over the effects work after a long pre-production process, revamping the look of the Star Trek in the vein of his earlier work on 2001 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. From the outset, TMP revels in the luxurient vistas of space travel.  The revamped Enterprise, lit only by its alien surroundings, is a thing of beauty. Once we encounter V'Ger, we are pulled into a realm of bizarre, mystifying structures and energies that boggles the mind. We get glimpses of Vulcan that drive home the alien nature of this civilisation. The Klingons are no longer extras with bad facial hair, but alien beings with bizarre skull structures.All of this is supported by a powerful and beautiful score by Jerry Goldsmith, beginning an association with Star Trek that would continue for decades, including a stirring theme that would be reworked for subsequent movies and The Next Generation.

The problem with the film is that it is all too ready to bathe in its music and effects. While there are a number of cuts available, each of Robert Wise's directorial efforts begin with an agonisingly long intro that lingers on the new Enterprise for what feels like about an hour. The story zips along quite happily for the first actual hour or so of the film, but once we enter V'Ger's sphere of influence the plot fundamentally stops. Nothing much happens between the Enterprise's entry of V'Ger's energy cloud and the being's eventual ascendance, and in a film that is already moving at a languid pace this is a terminal error. It's hardly surprising that the novelisation is made up almost entirely of the build-up to encountering V'Ger, with the long, drawn-out process of contact relegated to a mere handful of pages.

It's not for nothing that TMP has been nicknamed "The Motionless Picture." It's a shame that they took this direction, because there is so much to love in this movie. It's a film of genuine intelligence and stunning wonder, that truly explores the extent of what Star Trek can be and do. It's also a slog to make it through, and while the same can be said of its spiritual forebear, 2001, it never reaches the heights of that production and so doesn't seem worth the same investment. If talky, thoughtful science fiction is your thing, then The Motion Picture is worth your time. If you prefer your sci-fi films with a little more fun and action, then you should still be grateful for it, for it paved the way for The Wrath of Khan and all the films that followed, not forgetting the many TV series from The Next Generation to Discovery. If you've never watched TMP, give it a try. Just maybe watch it in two or three goes.