Star Trek: The Motion Picture - reviewed.

I'd never seen the original Star Trek, but J.J. Abrams' 2009 movie gave me an itch to watch a little more of the Star Trek franchise.

I figured the best place to start was square one. Turns out that may not have been the case.

The effects in the movie weren’t too bad – despite being several decades old. Granted, they kind of played it safe.

They didn't have the cast involved in a lot of the special effects. Much of the effects were done in the outer space setting, so it was probably easier to incorporate graphics into that than it would be to mix with actual human beings.

There were some primitive green screen spots as well, however, like when Spock was floating into the invading alien's ship.

The story is what was lacking. It lacked a little bit of logic (this alien ship seemed more friendly than threatening), but most of all it lacked excitement.

The alien ship, which was operated by robotics (no humans or other races aboard), didn’t really both to attack the ship or the crew. It did take possession of one of the female members of the crew in order to communicate with members of the Enterprise.

The robotics essentially invaded the body of Ilia (Persis Khambatta...who really did shave her head for the role), a navigator for The Enterprise, and took over her mind.

I was surprised to see the father from 7th Heaven (otherwise known as Stephen Collins) in the movie. I had no idea he was part of the Star Trek universe. He played Willard Decker, the new captain of the Enterprise, who was quickly demoted by Captain Kirk. He was also Ilia's love interest, so you can imagine how upset he was with Kirk after his actions as a Captain allowed Ilia to be possessed.

Their plan was to have Decker spend time with Ilia and try to find the human side of her by reigniting the spark they had. The problem is that they all developed this plan just feet away from Ilia. Apparently the robotics didn't have very good hearing.

Beyond the plot holes, there weren't any laser beams fired. I don't think there were any combat scenes or action sequences. What kind of Star Trek movie is that?

There was a little twist at the end of the movie that I didn't see coming. Although Earth was technically in danger of being destroyed, the movie didn't leave me feeling any kind of anxiousness about the possible destruction of Star Fleet's home planet.

I suppose I'll just have to look forward to battles with the Klingons and other more exciting space adventures in the next few Star Trek films on my Netflix list.


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