I'm not a great Star Trek fan for some reason. Never have been. I only have a copy of the first movie and that's the director's cut from 2001. I have seen all the films but mostly only once or twice. Now I had a chance to see the first half dozen on dvd and figured that would be a nice way to block out some SFS posts for the next three weeks. I went to see Star Trek The Motion Picture in the theatre in 1979. It was fairly entertaining the first time, everyone was excited to see it, but now I find the thing too slow as I watch it on dvd. Especially the flyby around the Enterprise, then it takes a while to get going, more time to get there, and then when you finally arrive at the giant dangerous thing there's an annoying robot at it's heart. It was a flashier version of a story used in an episode of the show. The effects are mostly pretty good but there isn't much story to fill in the blanks. Director Robert Wise directed a couple of other science fiction films, The Andromedia Strain and The Day The Earth Stood Still. I like TDTEST more than either of his other sf films. The two disc dvd has lots of featurettes and a couple of commentaries including one from Wise. All in all a film I just don't watch that often.
I had seen Star Trek: The Wrath Of Kahn in the theater when it came out in 1982. I never bought the movie on video but I had seen Nicholas Meyer's 2002 version of the film when Sperhauk got the director's edition dvd ages ago. I borrowed that same dvd to watch it again. That Ricardo Mantalban is sure handsome. huh. His hair sure looks nice for some guy stuck on a planet of dust for 15 years. Kirk's takes over the Enterprise again and poor Spock gives up his life and has be reborn in the next film. It's a better bit of story with some conflict as Kirk battles Kahn for the Genesis Device. It's a magical terriforming bomb. I'm not too happy with the costumes in either movie. They just look awful at times, especially the white uniforms. Meyers said something in one of the interviews that he wanted to get a more Navy feel and look to the show. It does have that feel but it doesn't work for me. Mostly it was fun enough to watch, certainly more so than the first movie. I had forgotten most of the details in both movies so that helped.
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