Awesomely Horrible Netflix Instant Films: “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”

The original Star Trek series ran for only three seasons in the late sixties and was promptly cancelled by the network. Even though it was not a huge commercial success at the time, it struck a chord with certain sectors of the nerd population. Shortly after the show was cancelled, Trekkies started meeting together in groups, at first informally and then in huge conventions. Hollywood, always looking for a way to make some money, realized they had a potential gold mine on their hands. So, in 1979 the studio brought the original cast out of obscurity and into for the horrifying mess that is Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

At the start of the movie Jim Kirk (William Shatner) has been promoted to admiral and no longer commands the Enterprise. A weird cloud is heading towards the Earth, destroying everything in its path. So, Starfleet dispatches the Enterprise with Kirk in command to intercept. This brings him into conflict with captain Decker (the dad from Seventh Heaven) who was in command of the ship. Anywhoo, the crew discovers that there is a mysterious presence in the cloud named V'ger. This entity possesses this bald chick that works on the bridge and replaces her with a robot or something. The bald chick was banging captain Decker so, like, conflict. A bunch of random stuff happens that's unimportant. It turns out that the entity is the Voyager 6 probe that's become self aware. So, the only way to stop it is for the bald chick and Decker to merge with it and fly away. Or something. It's all very confusing.

This film is a mess from start to finish. How hard can it possibly be to make a good Star Trek movie? Apparently, pretty difficult. It's a well known fact that every odd numbered Star Trek movie sucks, starting with this one. The studio was lucky that nerds were desperate for any Star Trek they could get. If not there is no way it would have made enough money to justify making a sequel, arguably the best Star Trek movie: The Wrath of Khan. Whenever there is a Star Trek marathon on I watch the original movie just because I find Shatner's toupee in this one particularly hilarious.