Star Trek: The Motion Picture & The Black Hole
Reviews by Paul Preston
Welcome to Today I Watched…, a series of posts documenting my new challenge – watch a movie a day for the rest of my life. Keep coming back to TheMovieGuys.net to find out what I watch each day…and get my take on it.
When I see a movie that’s a new release in theaters or on demand, I’ll give it a proper review in the “Reviews” or “Home Viewing”, otherwise, I’ll write about it here.
June 9, 2017 – The Mummy– read the review of an early contender for year’s worst film in the REVIEWS category of TheMovieGuys.net.
June 10/11, 2017 – Star Trek: The Motion Picture & The Black Hole
The New Beverly had me pumped for this childhood double feature. I remembered what I was going to get from Star Trek: The Motion Picture – incredible score, but otherwise slow, slow, s l o w. But I had high hopes for The Black Hole, not remembering much at all except that I enjoyed it as a kid. How fun is it to see something you haven’t seen in decades, to re-visit old movie memories and see how they hold up? Well, not so much fun when they don’t.
The Black Hole is a bore. Such a shame, ‘cause my memories of this Disney space adventure are exciting. But I suppose time isn’t kind to 1970’s space operas not directed by George Lucas. Maximilian Schell plays a mysterious scientist that a research team sets out to encounter, Apocalypse Now-style (actually, that reference may be a little intense for this PG film). Schell has parked his spaceship next to a black hole, determined to explore the gravity-pulling space anomaly and find…nirvana, perhaps? There’s a lot of chatting and dinner and when the movie switches to action mode, the scenes are horribly dated. The classic shot of the fireball rolling down the hallway that the crew barely escape holds up, but much of the film does not, including, sadly, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. and B.O.B., the two R2D2 clones who aren’t as charming as I remember. Best part of the film? John Barry’s score. That guy can class up any joint.
Jerry Goldsmith’s score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was so excellent, they brought it back for future iterations of the long-running franchise. It’s in fine display in the 1979 classic, but man is patience tested with this film. There are occasional spurts of the dialogue and personality we see in later episodes of the Star Trek film series, but overall director Robert Wise thinks he’s making Fanny and Alexander. But where Ingmar Bergman’s five hour and ten minute experimentations in mood and atmosphere are expected from his style, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is coming off a TV series where the story had to wrap in thirty minutes! In this first big-screen adventure for Capt. Kirk and the gang, they examine the source of a mysterious threatening space presence that is very reminiscent of the odd alien craft that threatened Earth in The Voyage Home if it couldn’t talk to whales. Like The Voyage Home, it seems this unidentified menace will stop at nothing to communicate, including killing all the Federation, Klingon and other ships that think to explore it.
This is an interesting plot, but again, it’s mired in molasses pacing and a special effects team anxious to show off “strange new worlds” rather than get to the point of why they’re there. Coming off of Star Wars as this movie did in its initial theatrical run, it’s surprising that they didn’t take more cues from that legendary space opera in how to keep things moving and retain sense of humor. That being said, there’s something admirable in Wise’s adherence to how he’s going to make this movie. He was sticking to a more 2001 vibe and it just didn’t work for me. But again, The New Beverly offering this up on the big screen helped it be better than it is (that happens a lot at the New Bev).
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
Directed by: Robert Wise
Release Date: December 8, 1979
Run Time: 132 Minutes
Rated: PG
Country: USA
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
THE BLACK HOLE
Directed by: Gary Nelson
Release Date: December 21, 1979
Run Time: 98 Minutes
Rated: PG
Country: USA
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures
