Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) - 45th Anniversary Special

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[00:00:45] David here.

[00:00:47] If you took a look at this episode when it showed up on your player, you'll notice that it's like two and a half hours long.

[00:00:57] And it is a big ask to have folks listen to something this long, especially about a 45 year old movie.

[00:01:07] But Ian and I spend a lot of time talking about Star Trek writ large.

[00:01:15] Ian is one of the hosts from the Captain's Pod podcast over at the CinemaSins Universe.

[00:01:21] He and his host Danae do a lot of fun stuff around the Star Trek universe.

[00:01:27] Right now they've been covering Lower Decks.

[00:01:30] And he and I got together to talk about the 45th anniversary of Star Trek The Motion Picture.

[00:01:37] And it turned into something much bigger.

[00:01:39] A much bigger conversation about our love for Star Trek.

[00:01:44] What Star Trek is.

[00:01:45] What are the things that make Star Trek Star Trek?

[00:01:48] And of course we talk about the movie and the incredible amount of work and effort that went into making that movie.

[00:01:56] And how that movie represents a critical restart for the franchise.

[00:02:02] And we talk about a bunch of the troubles that the movie went through in terms of getting itself made.

[00:02:08] But also how groundbreaking it was in many respects for movies at that time.

[00:02:15] So I hope you enjoy this conversation.

[00:02:19] Ian and I had an amazing amount of fun.

[00:02:22] I think you can hear that in the podcast.

[00:02:24] I would highly encourage you to go over to the Captain's Pod and subscribe to their channel.

[00:02:31] And look forward to Ian and I figuring out what our plans are going to be for maybe doing a film festival of all the Star Trek movies.

[00:02:42] At the very end of this podcast, we do a power ranking of the original cast movies.

[00:02:48] So that's a lot of fun.

[00:02:50] And you get to hear us talk through and think through our feelings about all of the other movies.

[00:02:57] But I think that really is a great precursor to doing a full film festival on everything.

[00:03:04] Because we just had too much fun and there's just so much richness in the Star Trek world.

[00:03:09] So again, thanks for your indulgence.

[00:03:13] And I look forward to catching you on the next podcast.

[00:03:17] Enjoy.

[00:03:19] Captain, V'ger must evolve.

[00:03:21] Its knowledge has reached the limits of this universe and it must evolve.

[00:03:26] What it requires of its god, Doctor, is the answer to its question.

[00:03:29] Is there nothing more?

[00:03:31] What more is there than the universe, Spock?

[00:03:34] Other dimensions, higher levels of being.

[00:03:36] The existence of which cannot be proven logically.

[00:03:38] Therefore, V'ger is incapable of believing in them.

[00:03:41] What V'ger needs in order to evolve is a human quality.

[00:03:46] Our capacity to leap beyond logic.

[00:03:49] And joining with its creator might accomplish that.

[00:03:51] You mean this machine wants to physically join with a human?

[00:03:55] Is that possible?

[00:04:01] Let's find out.

[00:04:02] Ian, how are you doing today?

[00:04:04] I am very good.

[00:04:05] It is a pleasure to have multiple captains on the bridge of this shared ship that we're embarking on today.

[00:04:13] Have we named the ship yet?

[00:04:15] Because it doesn't feel fair to have it.

[00:04:17] No, and I was thinking about that too when I saw your notes.

[00:04:20] Because what Denae is, what's her rank?

[00:04:23] She's the ambassador.

[00:04:24] Oh, the ambassador.

[00:04:25] I wouldn't dare give her the power of admiral.

[00:04:28] And then I was trying to think, relative to the Lorehounds, where might I be?

[00:04:33] Because we actually have multiple podcasts, not under us, but we sponsor and support a few other podcasts.

[00:04:39] We've spawned a few other podcasts.

[00:04:41] So we actually have a little flotilla.

[00:04:43] Hmm, a fleet.

[00:04:45] Yes, we have a small fleet.

[00:04:46] You have a Lore fleet.

[00:04:47] What's that?

[00:04:48] You have a Lore fleet.

[00:04:49] We have a Lore fleet.

[00:04:50] I like that.

[00:04:51] I'm going to write that down.

[00:04:52] Lore fleet.

[00:04:55] And I think, and I was doing some quick internet searching, and I think I would fall somewhere around a Commodore rank.

[00:05:05] That is exactly, we are on the same wavelength.

[00:05:08] That is exactly if I was going to give you a rank that was the original series specific.

[00:05:14] Yes.

[00:05:14] Visiting Commodore would be absolutely perfect.

[00:05:17] Maybe from another sectors command.

[00:05:23] Yes, or a parallel universe.

[00:05:26] Oh, are we going to do some mirror mirror stuff?

[00:05:28] Yeah, mirror mirror.

[00:05:29] We absolutely should.

[00:05:30] Imagine if they brought that into the motion picture.

[00:05:34] Okay, well that was a mind blow.

[00:05:36] I mean, that could have been one of the scripts out there, but that does bring us nicely into why we've connected today.

[00:05:43] Yes.

[00:05:44] We have connected because I noticed that it is the 45th anniversary of Star Trek, the motion picture, 1979.

[00:05:53] Over on the Lorehounds, I did a crossover partnership special project with Aisha from every single sci-fi film ever podcast, which is where she's going historically from in film history, moving up through the sci-fi genre.

[00:06:13] A bold undertaking.

[00:06:14] A very bold.

[00:06:15] And it has, she, her, her podcast name has a little asterisk on the end of it because it's in and down at the bottom, it says almost.

[00:06:21] Because.

[00:06:22] Perfect.

[00:06:23] Suddenly things start to mushroom out from there, but she's really addressing the roots and she is such a joy to work with.

[00:06:31] And it was such a fun thing.

[00:06:33] We did an alien.

[00:06:34] This is also the 45th anniversary.

[00:06:35] So Star Trek, the motion picture and alien came out in.

[00:06:38] Two opposite ends of the sci-fi spectrum.

[00:06:41] Wow.

[00:06:42] Yeah.

[00:06:42] And so when I was looking around, I was like, oh, you know, because I was looking at what the, the context of alien was in 1979.

[00:06:52] And then I was like, oh my God, start.

[00:06:54] I had, you know, I had sort of my whole, my Star Trek fandom has been in, in hibernation a little bit.

[00:07:02] And obviously we're very busy with other things at the lore hounds, but then I saw that.

[00:07:06] I was like, I can't not, you know, talk about the motion picture.

[00:07:11] Unless we wait for five years and do it at the 50th anniversary.

[00:07:14] Exactly.

[00:07:14] Exactly.

[00:07:16] And in, um, conversation with Aaron from Lord of the Rings, which is another one of our friend podcast, Alliance-y sort of, you know, we're all sort of in this cluster together.

[00:07:31] He had mentioned that he had, uh, we, he was putting together a live show kind of thing.

[00:07:35] And Danae, your cohost is a Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, um, a fan.

[00:07:43] Very much.

[00:07:44] Yeah.

[00:07:44] And he was putting together a, uh, a live watch or a, uh, a live show type of thing following Rings of Power.

[00:07:52] Sadly that got, uh, had to get postponed because of a hurricane.

[00:07:57] So.

[00:07:58] Hurricanes.

[00:07:58] Yes, I tell you.

[00:07:59] Uh, so, um, that, this is the long way of saying that's how I found out about Captain Spot.

[00:08:06] Because I hadn't been necessarily aware of you guys before, nor CinemaSins.

[00:08:11] Mm.

[00:08:11] Mm.

[00:08:12] And, um, so then I asked Aaron and he hooked, he connected me with you and then we started chatting.

[00:08:19] And I, I kind of wanted to recreate that thing that we did for Alien, which is let's, let's do a little cluster of projects around this because this isn't just some sort of, oh, I have a nostalgia, you know, room in my heart for this particular title.

[00:08:34] The 1979 Star Trek motion picture movie is actually very critical in the world of big IP storytelling.

[00:08:45] Mm.

[00:08:45] Mm.

[00:08:46] And it needs to have more than, hey, let's get together and laugh and, and have some fun around this title.

[00:08:54] Yeah.

[00:08:54] So I, I pitched an email to you guys and you basically showed up outside my door.

[00:09:00] Hello.

[00:09:01] Hello.

[00:09:02] I talk about Star Trek.

[00:09:03] The reason this works out so beautifully for me on the Captain's Pod side is, um, for anyone that doesn't know that the brief overview of Captain's Pod is I'm the self-proclaimed Star Trek expert.

[00:09:15] And Danae is a, um, a relapsed fan who grew up with TNG, but hasn't consumed any Star Trek pretty much since the nineties.

[00:09:25] Mm.

[00:09:25] And so I'm kind of like bringing her feet to the fire, to the warp core as it were, and reintroducing her and reigniting her love of Star Trek.

[00:09:33] However, there are limits to that.

[00:09:35] Yeah.

[00:09:36] We are still relatively early in the journey and I couldn't quite feel like this was the right time to bring her to the motion picture.

[00:09:43] So my desire to dive into this, this piece of like undeniable Star Trek history just doesn't quite fit in with where we are on the Captain's Pod journey.

[00:09:54] Cause we started with Picard, the, the TV show, um, because Picard was very much her focal point, her entry point for Star Trek.

[00:10:03] Mm.

[00:10:03] So we've done a lot of the TNG generation, but not a huge amount in TOS.

[00:10:07] And it's really not fair to say, here's the motion picture.

[00:10:10] Mm.

[00:10:11] Let me explain what the original series is at the same time.

[00:10:14] So, um, meeting up with you to talk about it is kind of a, a perfect, uh, perfect storm in a nebula.

[00:10:21] Well, and this will be a good, uh, primer for her.

[00:10:25] Mm.

[00:10:26] Because we're going to be talking largely about the meta context of the movie production details, how the fricking thing got made.

[00:10:34] It's not going to be necessarily a full taking apart the pieces of the movie as the movie itself, but more all of the stuff around it, the legacy, the impact.

[00:10:44] We'll talk about some of the stuff that we really enjoy about this.

[00:10:47] Just wait until I detour us into it and it just becomes a love fest.

[00:10:50] Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:52] And of course that begs the question, uh, that we have been, uh, winking to each other over emails about, which is a film festival.

[00:11:04] Yes.

[00:11:04] Of all the Star Trek movies.

[00:11:06] Oh my goodness.

[00:11:06] This is because we don't, we're not busy enough as it is in our lives.

[00:11:10] No, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:11:10] We don't actually have real, real jobs around this either.

[00:11:14] Yeah.

[00:11:14] Yeah.

[00:11:15] Every email is kind of added with PS.

[00:11:17] Wouldn't the film fest be nice?

[00:11:18] Like PS.

[00:11:19] Yes, it would.

[00:11:20] When should we do this?

[00:11:21] Um, and it's, it's, it's, it's undeniable.

[00:11:24] I think it's going to happen at some point.

[00:11:26] We just have to decide how exactly that takes form, but it's TV, TV, Star Trek and movie Star Trek are two different beasts.

[00:11:34] Sometimes they intertwine, but very minimally.

[00:11:38] They're very much almost their own little universes.

[00:11:41] And it's, it's a fascinating subject just to talk about where does Star Trek work best TV or, or movie?

[00:11:47] Um, so yeah, it's, and yet I think we have a quote.

[00:11:49] I haven't even pulled a plucked a quote from Roddenberry about the, about this very sort of tipping point between the things, but we can talk about that a little bit later.

[00:11:58] How did you, we are of slightly different generations.

[00:12:11] Hmm.

[00:12:14] Yeah.

[00:12:14] And by looking at your backdrop and all of your models, and I want to talk about model making at some point as well.

[00:12:19] Cause I'm like, I've been like scratching my chin.

[00:12:21] I'm like, Oh, I've been looking up a 1701, you know, original, not the TOS and as well as the redesigned, uh, the refit and the, yeah.

[00:12:31] The refit models online.

[00:12:33] And I don't know.

[00:12:34] Anyway.

[00:12:34] So yeah.

[00:12:35] Mm hmm.

[00:12:36] Anyway, how did you, how did you make these?

[00:12:38] What's that?

[00:12:39] You'll be disappointed because I didn't make these.

[00:12:41] Oh, okay.

[00:12:42] Right.

[00:12:42] They are beautiful models, but they're all purchased.

[00:12:44] I don't quite have the, the patience to me.

[00:12:47] I would love to one day, but it isn't to do it properly.

[00:12:50] It is an undertaking.

[00:12:51] Yes, indeed.

[00:12:52] And that's why I, that's why I, that's what has stopped me from actually purchasing a model kit.

[00:12:56] Yes.

[00:12:57] Uh, is like, do I really have the time for this?

[00:13:00] I have three and the answer is no, you don't.

[00:13:06] So yeah, my, my entry point, um, into Star Trek, I was born in 1990.

[00:13:12] Um, so my teen years were basically in the barren landscape where we didn't really have Star Trek on TV.

[00:13:21] Um, the, um, the oversaturation, um, after like enterprise, but we had deep space, nine TNG, um, Voyager, all simultaneously going on and then enterprise on its own for a bit and then kind of stop nothing.

[00:13:36] So my, my entry point was very much from the womb where my dad was watching, um, the next generation as it aired.

[00:13:45] And my, we would joke that my mom would sit on the TV so that the baby Ian could hear the warp core of the enterprise.

[00:13:52] The, the, the over-encompassing womb sound.

[00:13:56] Yep.

[00:13:57] So you guys play when you do your live, uh, uh, Twitch stream when you're recording the captain's pod.

[00:14:03] And immediately calms my nerves.

[00:14:05] Um, so yeah, I had, I had not much choice.

[00:14:09] TNG was on in the background at some point from the age of zero upwards.

[00:14:14] So it, Star Trek has always been in the house.

[00:14:17] My dad would have the models and there was a Star Trek fact file that he would get every week.

[00:14:22] He would buy the TNG VHS when it would come out and then replace it with the next format and the next format.

[00:14:27] So he was very much the TNG guy.

[00:14:31] Um, yeah, he was all of the way in.

[00:14:34] And just from that, I transitioned into Voyager deep space nine.

[00:14:39] And then the completionist in my brain said, well, now you've got to watch all of it.

[00:14:43] So went into TOS and then the movies.

[00:14:46] And most of my life has been a lap of, well, I finished watching all of Star Trek time to start again.

[00:14:52] So I've done it chronologically.

[00:14:54] I've done it in terms of like release dates.

[00:14:56] I have my favorite episodes.

[00:14:58] So it is very much an environmental.

[00:15:01] You were going to love Star Trek, Ian.

[00:15:03] Uh, I don't have sports.

[00:15:05] I have Star Trek instead.

[00:15:07] You had no choice.

[00:15:09] Indeed.

[00:15:09] You were imprinted.

[00:15:10] I was just listening to a podcast about these periods in our, when our brains are receptive to social learning.

[00:15:17] Mm.

[00:15:18] Uh, open brain kind of thing.

[00:15:19] Yeah.

[00:15:20] They're, they're talking about, uh, imprinting at early ages.

[00:15:23] And so you were imprinted on Star Trek.

[00:15:25] I was very much imprinted.

[00:15:26] I'm always curious.

[00:15:27] Like, was there a chance that I could have bucked against it?

[00:15:30] Um, and I just, I don't know that there was, I mean, there's gotta be a combination of something in my brain that it just,

[00:15:36] made, made very, very happy.

[00:15:38] And I'm very thankful for it because, um, there's many people that have quoted everything I've learned.

[00:15:42] I've learned from Star Trek and to a great degree.

[00:15:46] I, I believe that Star Trek is a great, if you're going to go for a rule, a set of guidelines and a way of like raising kids, the rules in Star Trek and the moral, um, foundation, especially if TNG is a great way to, to, to teach kids how to, how to be human, how to, how to interact and exist with others.

[00:16:06] One of the things that is core to the lore hounds and the podcast and the community that we've put together over on our podcast, and we're not genre specific, you know, we're, we haven't built Dune up as much.

[00:16:22] Neither Alicia or, uh, John are as big of Star Trek aficionados.

[00:16:30] I'm the closest thing that we have amongst us, but we have Wheel of Time.

[00:16:34] John is just now starting to read Dune and his eye, you know, the scales are falling from his eyes.

[00:16:38] Um, but both John and Alicia are big Wheel of Time fans.

[00:16:43] Uh, we really enjoy, we have John, one of our co-hosts who's very Marvel and DC and we have that.

[00:16:49] We have, uh, Tolkien with, uh, Marilyn Arpikila, who's our, our sort of Tolkien expert.

[00:16:54] She actually taught Tolkien.

[00:16:55] She's a librarian and a research librarian and academic.

[00:16:59] Uh, you know, we're getting into foundation.

[00:17:02] Um, and so we have a lot of, we're very interested in big IP storytelling as well as, uh, smaller stuff too, you know, and, and, uh, we're very, we're very much into the Star Wars world.

[00:17:16] And one of the things that I think is critical to the engine that drives our, our interest in this kind of stuff.

[00:17:24] And we do book, yeah, a lot of, uh, book stuff as well.

[00:17:27] Movies is that it's a lit, it's a kind of literature, you know, uh, it's literature on screen, if you will.

[00:17:35] And if, when it's talking about the human condition and it's informing us and giving us these pathways to explore ideas and values and morals and engage with our own humanity and reflect on our own lived experience.

[00:17:51] That's what we're really interested over, you know, on community ultimately.

[00:17:55] And I think you're right that Star Trek is, and we were talking before we, you know, hit the record button, which you could probably hear on, on the back end of your podcast.

[00:18:06] Um, we were talking about Gene Roddenberry and his, you know, vision for the world a little bit.

[00:18:11] Now he didn't necessarily live his values, but I mean, do we ever like to live it all?

[00:18:19] There's obviously, there's obviously extremes, but yeah, it's as a, as a basic set of guidelines as a, I hate to say the word, but Bible for, um, for, for living, um, in a non-religious sense.

[00:18:31] It's, it's got so much that you need in there.

[00:18:34] Um, I think Picard could very much be, um, just taught as ethics.

[00:18:40] Just here we go.

[00:18:41] Let's what would Picard do?

[00:18:42] I believe there are colleges in the United States that have actually, you know, done, uh, using Star Trek next year.

[00:18:49] Next generation as a lens to examine bigger questions.

[00:18:53] So, I mean, if you can get some kind of official degree in speaking Klingon, I would absolutely hope that a degree in actual Star Trek would exist as well.

[00:19:01] Well, when in the Tolkien world, there's Signum University, which is generated just out of teaching Tolkien.

[00:19:07] That's incredible.

[00:19:08] Yeah.

[00:19:09] Absolutely incredible.

[00:19:10] And they're sponsoring moots and all of these kinds of things.

[00:19:11] So, and I think that goes back around to this other question, what is Star Trek?

[00:19:15] And I've been meditating on that quite a lot in preparation for this recording and thinking about, because that's one of the kind of questions like what it, what, what did, what is Star Trek the motion picture?

[00:19:25] What does it mean?

[00:19:25] And what is, I think, you know, what we get into Star Trek.

[00:19:28] Well, for the captain's pod side of things, um, how did you get into Star Trek?

[00:19:33] What's your background?

[00:19:34] And it might be good for, um, law hounds as well.

[00:19:36] If you don't have a, you dare to not have a Star Trek contingent wing.

[00:19:40] Um, they may not know how you got into Star Trek as well.

[00:19:43] It's true.

[00:19:44] We do not even have a, uh, Star Trek channel on our Discord.

[00:19:50] Terrible.

[00:19:50] But, you know, neither, uh, you know, I, I think there's appreciation, but there's nobody who's like, you know, we all, the way that we work is, is like if somebody has ownership and passion and then we bring it forward and we have an environment where we can have a sort of a growth matrix.

[00:20:04] A, uh, a genesis, if you will.

[00:20:06] Indeed.

[00:20:07] And, uh, and, uh, I, I'm, I think I, I am the default de facto guy because for me, not dissimilar to you is that it was just on and around.

[00:20:19] Yeah.

[00:20:20] I'm an elder Gen Xer.

[00:20:22] Um, I'm at the top range of, uh, of the, uh, of the generation and it was just on.

[00:20:30] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:31] And we were a TV generation and the TV was on and you had TV time, Saturday morning cartoons, you know, TV on when you got home from school.

[00:20:42] And I personally as well, I'm a visual learner.

[00:20:46] And so like sitting down and reading a book is not something that I enjoy as much as like sitting down and watching a movie that then, as we were talking about before, informs me.

[00:20:55] It's more efficient storytelling.

[00:20:57] It is very efficient storytelling.

[00:20:59] You don't have to describe the ship.

[00:21:00] You can see it.

[00:21:01] Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:01] So it was just on, uh, Dr. Who was just on.

[00:21:04] I'm not as big a fan of Dr. Who.

[00:21:06] Tom Baker is my doctor, but like it was on along with a lot of other things.

[00:21:11] And so it was, it was just there.

[00:21:14] And then when the motion picture came out and Wrath of Con, like then, you know, seeing all the movies and it's always occupied a corner of my life.

[00:21:22] And then obviously with next gen and the cultural impact and the, my age and station in life at that point, it really did form a, um, important part of the, the cultural conversation that was occurring around us.

[00:21:41] Yeah.

[00:21:42] And, and it, it shaped a lot of, and it was a lens for a lot of us to think about the world and especially with, uh, uh, you know, Bill Clinton as the president and some of the things, the values that he was trying to, uh, put forward and, and the ways that, you know, people were having conversations about what do we do in these really morally complex, morally clear situations, but, um, practically complex to affect some kind of change in the world.

[00:22:11] Yeah.

[00:22:12] Uh, with different things that had gone on during that time.

[00:22:15] And so Star Trek was very much there.

[00:22:17] I have, I think my fandom has lapsed in more recent years because I've been confused about what has been being put forward for me in terms of Star Trek content.

[00:22:31] The last big show that I was a fan of was Voyager and, uh, my, my deep space nine roots don't go as deep cause I was like busy.

[00:22:40] I, I don't know.

[00:22:40] I just, I didn't have the space for that, but I have a huge degree of appreciation for that show.

[00:22:47] And I've just never had the time to be able to go right front to back.

[00:22:51] Here we go.

[00:22:52] You know, let's, I mean, it's a big undertaking no matter what it is.

[00:22:55] Seven seasons, 25, 26 episodes a season.

[00:22:58] And it's, it baffles me how I managed to watch so much of it.

[00:23:05] And very complex storytelling.

[00:23:07] Especially when you get to the back end of deep space nine.

[00:23:09] Absolutely.

[00:23:10] Yeah.

[00:23:11] There's, there's a lot going on.

[00:23:12] So, so in Voyager, I loved for lots of different reasons.

[00:23:16] I love Catherine, uh, uh, Kate Mulgrew.

[00:23:19] Sorry.

[00:23:19] Uh, I love the ship design.

[00:23:21] Uh, you know, all kinds of a bunch of other stuff.

[00:23:23] There's some other things that I'm like, I don't love so much, but you know, Hey, that's

[00:23:26] Star Trek.

[00:23:28] Yeah.

[00:23:28] No one likes Nelix.

[00:23:29] It's fine.

[00:23:31] See, see, we're made for this.

[00:23:33] This is because that's, that's what was in my mind, but I didn't say it.

[00:23:36] Um, and Cass, right.

[00:23:39] She, anyway, let's, let's save that for that.

[00:23:40] That's all in one bucket.

[00:23:41] Yeah.

[00:23:42] One unfortunate problematic bucket.

[00:23:44] Yeah.

[00:23:45] So, um, so then yeah, with like enterprise and, and some other things, I can't even list

[00:23:52] them all in my head.

[00:23:53] I would dip in, I would check them out a little bit.

[00:23:56] And then I was just like, there's something off here.

[00:24:00] The spicing, the seasoning is off.

[00:24:02] Everything looks right.

[00:24:03] I, I, the plate is delivered.

[00:24:05] It looks like what I ordered, but then I go to taste it and it's not, it's not doing

[00:24:10] something right for me, which I think goes into that question of what is Star Trek.

[00:24:12] So anyway, loved it.

[00:24:14] You know, uh, original series was on, uh, just around the movies have followed all the

[00:24:20] movies up until the reboots, the Abrams reboots.

[00:24:23] And again, it's that same, something's off in the flavoring and the spicing, but, uh, all

[00:24:28] the way up through and then next generation Voyager and deep space nine, deep space nine is

[00:24:34] then Voyager.

[00:24:34] And then that's really the history of my fandom, um, and, and not really engaged in

[00:24:39] the new television.

[00:24:41] That said, I'm still very glad that the new television, that the, the, the franchise is

[00:24:45] not, you know, Star Wars have problems with Star Wars in the leadership of Star Wars because

[00:24:52] we were talking about this before in a 16 year period from, from 16, 79 to 95, there are

[00:25:00] seven movies and they booted three television shows.

[00:25:03] Yeah.

[00:25:04] That is a phenomenal amount of content.

[00:25:07] It is, it is incredible.

[00:25:08] And, um, I was listening to the commentary behind the theatrical cut of the motion picture,

[00:25:14] which is something I need to get that.

[00:25:16] Oh, it's incredible.

[00:25:17] So there's a Blu-ray box set that came out a few years ago, um, of the original series,

[00:25:21] uh, movies and it has the theatrical cut rather than the director's cut.

[00:25:27] And this is one of, this is my favorite DVD commentary that I've ever listened to.

[00:25:33] Um, as Mike and Denise Okuda, who basically, if you know what TNG looks like, they designed

[00:25:39] it.

[00:25:39] They made the L cars system.

[00:25:41] Everything that you feel looks right about TNG is, is Mike and Denise Okuda.

[00:25:48] Um, Judith and Garfield Reeves Stevens, who are prolific sci-fi writers and Darren Docterman,

[00:25:54] who's, um, a visual effects supervisor at the art director along those lines.

[00:25:58] Um, and they, uh, the very end, they said there are four pivotal points in, in Star Trek

[00:26:05] history.

[00:26:05] There's the cage, the pilot episode that started everything off.

[00:26:09] Um, there's the motion picture, which was bringing Star Trek to the big screen.

[00:26:14] Right.

[00:26:14] Uh, there was TNG that proved you can get lightning in a bottle twice.

[00:26:19] Star Trek isn't, it's, isn't Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

[00:26:24] Star Trek is now.

[00:26:25] To break that, to break that mold.

[00:26:27] My goodness.

[00:26:28] For me, that is the, the encounter at Farpoint, the start of TNG is the pivot point of Star

[00:26:33] Trek where it goes from TV show movie.

[00:26:37] That was fun to now.

[00:26:39] Now Star Trek is everywhere and it can do anything because you've somehow made, in my opinion,

[00:26:46] as iconic or more iconic a crew than the original series, which already has the most iconic crew

[00:26:51] of any franchise.

[00:26:52] Um, and in the fourth pivotal point that they said, cause this came out in 2009, I believe

[00:26:57] was the JJ Abrams reboot.

[00:27:00] Um, and that's the fourth point.

[00:27:02] And obviously they don't know what happened from that point on.

[00:27:05] It's fascinating to hear them talk about Star Trek before the JJ Abrams reboot at the

[00:27:11] end of this, um, famine of Star Trek content that we just, we didn't have.

[00:27:16] So yeah, it is, it is just, it reinvents itself.

[00:27:20] It's not afraid to reboot, be parallel.

[00:27:23] Everyone accepted that the JJ Abrams movies were separate, but equal in their own unique

[00:27:29] timeline.

[00:27:30] Um, that allowed the interest to go back to a TV show.

[00:27:34] So yeah, it's what is Star Trek is a three hour podcast in and of itself.

[00:27:42] Um, but it is, I look forward to exploring that topic with you in the very short future.

[00:27:48] Maybe it's absolutely midterm future, if not, but, but short to mid range.

[00:27:53] Oh my goodness.

[00:27:53] I would, I would love that very much.

[00:27:55] It's, it's fascinating, but I think it's, it's this enduring quality of, of optimism.

[00:28:01] It really is.

[00:28:02] It's just like, Hey, 300 years from now, this is what space travel could look like all being

[00:28:06] well, like, and there was so much optimism in that.

[00:28:09] And I think that's one of the big reasons it endures is that the ships are pretty and it's

[00:28:13] an optimistic view of the future.

[00:28:15] Yeah.

[00:28:16] Wasn't that part of, um, what made Roddenberry, I don't like to swear much on podcasts just

[00:28:21] as a general rule.

[00:28:23] So I'm going to use, I'm caveat that because I'm going to say what did, what made Roddenberry

[00:28:27] Roddenberry.

[00:28:28] And one of the things that made him a real asshole was his insistence on holding to this positive

[00:28:34] view of humanity's future.

[00:28:35] He was so focused on that, that he drove people mad and broke relationships and wrecked opportunities

[00:28:44] because he would not ever let go of a, of, of some kind of vision that he had for humanity's

[00:28:49] future.

[00:28:49] There is no coincidence that deep space nine, um, exploded after Gene Roddenberry passed

[00:28:58] away.

[00:28:59] Um, because he was holding back the, the story humanly against pretty much everything that

[00:29:05] deep space nine.

[00:29:06] It is such a radical departure from the rest of the project.

[00:29:09] It's like, Hey, this is corruption.

[00:29:11] Like this is the bad side.

[00:29:12] They weren't even putting it on earth.

[00:29:13] They were putting it on a different planet.

[00:29:15] And like good old Shakespeare would do is make it an allegory.

[00:29:18] So that in Europe, um, so, but even that was like too much for him.

[00:29:22] He was like in space.

[00:29:23] Yeah.

[00:29:23] You've got the Klingons that are a bit antagonistic, but you don't have oppression because the whole

[00:29:28] galaxy has moved forward and it would drive people crazy on TNG because they weren't even

[00:29:32] allowed interpersonal conflicts on the ship.

[00:29:34] I was like, no, these people have moved past it.

[00:29:36] They just, they get on and we're happy.

[00:29:38] We've got bigger fish to fry than what is Star Trek?

[00:29:42] Yeah.

[00:29:43] Is moving beyond your individual ego.

[00:29:45] Yeah, exactly that.

[00:29:47] And that's what he, um, he was so reluctant to introduce religion into Star Trek as well,

[00:29:52] which is a focal point of deep space nine, like religion, like that is the core of deep

[00:29:59] space nine.

[00:30:00] And we kind of move past it in the future was his opinion, even though he was a religious

[00:30:05] person himself.

[00:30:06] So yeah, he's, he vehemently had this unwavering vision.

[00:30:12] He had the textbook.

[00:30:13] He literally wrote the book.

[00:30:14] He wrote a manual for what the different buttons do on the, on the bridge of the enterprise for

[00:30:21] the motion picture that the actors could read.

[00:30:23] So they would know what button does what he could explain the difference between deflector

[00:30:29] shields and battle shields.

[00:30:31] Like this universe was talking levels of fleshed out.

[00:30:36] Um, I love that.

[00:30:37] It's, it's incredible.

[00:30:38] And it's one of the reasons why we have this firm view of what Star Trek is now.

[00:30:43] The downside being is that it is quite rigid and there is a lot of pushback when we depart

[00:30:49] from that.

[00:30:50] And I think thing, this is a bit of a side note, but I think DS9 skyrocketed in popularity

[00:30:57] in the last decade or so, because we have some distance from it and can appreciate it as

[00:31:01] a serialized story.

[00:31:03] And I think things like discovery will age better with time as we look back on it.

[00:31:08] Um, yeah, it's, we can be a little bit resistant to what new Star Trek looks like because of

[00:31:14] how clear Roddenberry's vision was.

[00:31:16] And he passed away in 95, I believe, 95.

[00:31:21] So we've had far more Star Trek after, well, we've had more Star Trek after Roddenberry than

[00:31:25] during Roddenberry, which is fascinating.

[00:31:28] Right.

[00:31:29] Anecdotally, I believe Tolkien once missed some publishing deadlines or something along the

[00:31:33] effect of that because he had to go back and rework the moon phases because some such

[00:31:39] and such character was supposed to be at this place on this date, but the moon was actually

[00:31:43] out.

[00:31:43] So he had to like go back and refix everything.

[00:31:46] And then the publisher was like, what are you doing?

[00:31:48] There was, um, one of the episode, we'll get into this very shortly.

[00:31:53] I'm sure.

[00:31:53] We promise that we're going to talk about the movie in a second here.

[00:31:56] We will.

[00:31:57] But one version of the motion picture was phase two, which was going to be a TV show.

[00:32:01] And one of the episodes that was pitched was essentially the motion picture, but the resolution

[00:32:07] was going to be because the, the, the, the Vija probe, which was actually called Tasha in

[00:32:13] phase two, created a physical body for itself.

[00:32:18] Um, a voluptuous woman by chance.

[00:32:20] I am Matt.

[00:32:21] I 100% guarantee it was a naked woman, um, for as much as TV could get away with a naked

[00:32:28] woman at the time.

[00:32:29] Um, and, and the, the Vulcan science officers on, and his solution was to create a, uh,

[00:32:36] basically their own probe that looked exactly like himself.

[00:32:40] And he would send that probe back into space.

[00:32:42] And this robot probe that looked exactly like a Vulcan would destroy the probe and blow it

[00:32:49] up.

[00:32:49] And that's how they would resolve the episode.

[00:32:52] It was brought to Gene and apparently he was horrified.

[00:32:55] And I was like, Oh, he was probably horrified because it's quite a violent, quite a violent

[00:33:00] way to end the episode.

[00:33:01] No, he was horrified because there's no way the enterprise should be able to replicate robots

[00:33:06] that look exactly like the crew and act exactly like the crew.

[00:33:10] Cause that's not how replicators work.

[00:33:11] And it would break all of Star Trek.

[00:33:13] Like at that, he was like, no, we're not doing this because that's not how my technology

[00:33:18] works.

[00:33:19] That's not, you've got to look at Star Trek from this point onwards.

[00:33:22] And everything we write from now on means that they can replicate a robot to replace

[00:33:27] themselves and do something dangerous on the mission.

[00:33:30] Like first and foremost, he lived in Star Trek and had to keep explaining his parallel

[00:33:36] universe to everybody that doesn't live there.

[00:33:39] It's just, it's, it's, it's in some ways, that's why like the stories, they need that

[00:33:44] guardian.

[00:33:44] They need that kind of gatekeeper to maintain the structural integrity of the, of the show.

[00:33:50] Because otherwise everything starts to mush down into, to a sort of marketing exercises.

[00:33:56] Are we hitting sort of four quadrants and viewership and what our numbers are and, and

[00:34:00] making this problem.

[00:34:01] Yeah, and sci-fi can just be whatever you want it to be.

[00:34:03] Yeah.

[00:34:03] He was very keen to have sci-fi to take the fiction out of it almost and just like, this

[00:34:08] is science prediction, not science fiction.

[00:34:11] Like this is logically where we, where we could go.

[00:34:13] And in the 2360s, we're not at a point where we can replicate robots to look like us on

[00:34:20] the ship.

[00:34:23] We're Teresa and Nemo.

[00:34:25] And that's why we switched to Shopify.

[00:34:27] The platform, which we used before Shopify, has used regularly updates, which have caused

[00:34:32] some of the time to make sure that the shop didn't work.

[00:34:35] Finally, our Nemo Boards shop makes a good figure on the mobile device.

[00:34:38] And the illustrations on the boards come now much clearer, what is also important to us and what

[00:34:43] our mark also makes us out.

[00:34:46] Starte dein Testen heute, für 1 Euro pro Monat, auf shopify.de slash radio.

[00:34:56] That's incredible.

[00:34:57] So, let's make...

[00:34:59] Should we actually get into the motion picture?

[00:35:01] Should we go back into our outline here, this beautiful outline that you put together?

[00:35:05] Yeah, we did actually write a nice structure for this episode, which about half an hour

[00:35:09] in, we haven't actually touched yet.

[00:35:12] So I'm Ian, this is David.

[00:35:14] What's that?

[00:35:14] I'm Ian, this is David.

[00:35:16] Welcome to the show.

[00:35:18] So when did you see...

[00:35:19] When did you first see the motion picture?

[00:35:21] I cannot...

[00:35:22] Because you have a very circuitous route into all of this.

[00:35:24] Absolutely.

[00:35:25] So my earliest memory is watching all of TNG start to finish.

[00:35:29] And then I was...

[00:35:30] So seeing the movie for...

[00:35:31] I'm really curious as to what your first reaction to the movie was.

[00:35:35] Yeah, so...

[00:35:36] So continue.

[00:35:36] Sorry, I didn't mean...

[00:35:37] No, no.

[00:35:37] I'm excited to hear this.

[00:35:39] It's fascinating to me as well, because I don't have a solid memory, because so much

[00:35:43] of this goes all the way back to my upbringing.

[00:35:46] I remember a deliberate choice to, Dad, I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning,

[00:35:52] and I'm going to start with the original series, and then chronologically I'm going to go through

[00:35:58] everything.

[00:35:59] And this was before the internet.

[00:36:00] So I had to ask him, what order does Star Trek happen in?

[00:36:04] Like, is Kirk before Picard?

[00:36:06] What happens?

[00:36:07] Because for me, Picard was my first Star Trek TNG.

[00:36:12] You imprinted.

[00:36:14] 100%.

[00:36:16] I was the Star Trek probe that had been...

[00:36:18] that replaced Ian and was in the world.

[00:36:21] So I remember seeing bits and pieces of...

[00:36:24] The Ian unit will now assist me with my observations.

[00:36:26] Yes, exactly.

[00:36:27] I had like a little flashlight in my neck that I would just flash every now and again.

[00:36:31] Yeah, I remember seeing bits and pieces of like all of the Star Trek movies, generations

[00:36:36] always stuck in my head.

[00:36:38] Spoiler, because of the Enterprise D crashing.

[00:36:42] Always always stuck in my head.

[00:36:42] We should have probably given a...

[00:36:44] You know, we'll do that in our pre-intros that, yeah, this is like weapons-free.

[00:36:48] We are in a...

[00:36:49] Fire everything.

[00:36:51] Everything, yeah.

[00:36:52] Yeah.

[00:36:53] So my earliest memory of the motion picture is falling asleep during it.

[00:36:59] Because I was...

[00:37:03] Sorry, I took out.

[00:37:05] I missed...

[00:37:05] I wasted.

[00:37:06] Strategically, you did that on purpose.

[00:37:08] You saw me drinking water.

[00:37:09] This is where I drop it.

[00:37:10] Yeah, he's got a mouthful of water.

[00:37:11] I want to ruin his equipment.

[00:37:14] Now, in Ian's defense, the reason for that is Ian was very young.

[00:37:18] So the first few attempts, Ian fell asleep because my dad would work quite late shifts.

[00:37:23] So if we watched a movie, it would be quite late.

[00:37:25] Past Ian's bedtime, I would, without a doubt, fall asleep through it.

[00:37:28] So my earliest memory of watching the motion picture all the way through is sitting down

[00:37:34] and thinking, I'm finally going to do this.

[00:37:36] I am...

[00:37:36] It's the middle of the day.

[00:37:38] I'm going to watch this and not fall asleep.

[00:37:40] But you're so socially conditioned to do this.

[00:37:43] 100%.

[00:37:43] This was my Sleepy Time movie.

[00:37:45] I was like fighting.

[00:37:47] I was like, you're going to stay awake.

[00:37:49] So I had a very negative view of the motion picture because young 10-year-old Ian, teen

[00:37:55] Ian was like, there's no action in it.

[00:37:57] I want to see phases.

[00:37:58] I want to see photon torpedoes.

[00:38:00] So it wasn't until my late teens, 20s, when I did another full watch through of everything

[00:38:09] that I really appreciated it.

[00:38:11] And it has, every time I watch it, and I think I've seen this movie, it's the one I've seen

[00:38:17] the least.

[00:38:18] And I think I've seen it 20 times.

[00:38:21] It's every time I watch it, I appreciate it more.

[00:38:24] So I run from falling asleep during it to this is a masterpiece of science fiction cinema

[00:38:29] and I would defend it all day long.

[00:38:33] Yeah.

[00:38:33] So that was my surprising introduction to the motion picture.

[00:38:36] And it's just, when you overlay that with the context of what it did for Star Trek and

[00:38:42] the proof of concept it was, we should be bowing down and any Star Trek fan should be bowing

[00:38:48] down and thanking the motion picture for being whatever it is that created the Star Trek that

[00:38:55] we have now.

[00:38:55] Because I don't think we have Star Trek.

[00:38:57] Like I said, with the commentary that I listened to, the Okudas firmly believe we don't have

[00:39:03] Star Trek today if the motion picture is the TV show that was planned instead of the movie.

[00:39:08] They are convinced it would have been a cool 13 episode run that died and killed Star Trek

[00:39:13] completely.

[00:39:14] So yeah, that's my interaction with the motion picture.

[00:39:17] I'm interested in yours being a person, not to give too much away, that was around when it

[00:39:24] wasn't a thing.

[00:39:25] I saw it in the theater.

[00:39:27] You saw it?

[00:39:28] It is incredible.

[00:39:29] I am profoundly jealous.

[00:39:32] I think, and I would just want to go back and just say, I basically agree with your

[00:39:38] assessment and what the Okudas have said.

[00:39:42] There is so much that we have to acknowledge for this movie.

[00:39:47] And yet, from my experience in 79 and going forward up until this point, because I don't

[00:39:54] think I've rewatched it in quite a long time.

[00:39:56] And now I've watched it, I've rewatched it two and a half times.

[00:40:00] I'll probably do it again.

[00:40:02] Did you fall asleep the final half?

[00:40:04] Well, I break it up.

[00:40:05] I have to break it up.

[00:40:05] And I have a family.

[00:40:07] And so, you know, with kids and stuff.

[00:40:09] Yeah.

[00:40:10] You know, there's, I don't get just uninterrupted.

[00:40:12] They're all falling asleep.

[00:40:13] So you have to rewind it all for them as well.

[00:40:16] Right.

[00:40:17] My daughter will wander in sometimes while we're watching and she'll kind of look at

[00:40:20] the screen and then she'll kind of wander out.

[00:40:22] But she's being exposed, right?

[00:40:23] It's, there's a radiation effect.

[00:40:25] Yeah.

[00:40:26] Start it young.

[00:40:26] So yeah, I saw it in the theater.

[00:40:29] It was a monumental thing.

[00:40:31] And I don't think people, if you, you know, if you're of a generation where Star Trek has

[00:40:38] not been part of your life or, you know, in these different entry points, there is a

[00:40:42] historical context that I think is naturally not going to get picked up on because it was

[00:40:48] one of those as lived experience things.

[00:40:50] This movie coming out was a phenomenon that it was a, it was the first thing to come back

[00:41:02] of the franchise and to have a big screen experience.

[00:41:08] We were not going to miss that.

[00:41:11] No.

[00:41:11] And having had the phenomena of Star Wars a few years earlier, and then everything else

[00:41:19] that was going on in this motion picture, science fiction thing where science fiction was really

[00:41:25] stretching itself out because we had technology and all of this stuff to be able to create

[00:41:29] visions on screen in big, beautiful ways was really important.

[00:41:33] And we walked out of that movie and we loved it and we were confused as anything.

[00:41:41] We were like, what, what, what was that?

[00:41:45] What did we just watch?

[00:41:47] Yeah.

[00:41:48] Because the, and I learned since subsequently, the movie that they rushed out was not the movie

[00:41:54] that they had intended to have delivered.

[00:41:57] So watching the director's edition for this process, man, what a much better, tighter edit.

[00:42:05] So anyway, that confusion, it was there, but yeah, it was a big deal for us to have that

[00:42:12] and to have the return of this crew and these characters on big screen was really, really important.

[00:42:20] I will forever be envious of that.

[00:42:23] I don't know if there's a more satisfying time to be a Star Trek fan than 79 through to like 80.

[00:42:35] 79 through to like 90.

[00:42:37] Yeah, 80.

[00:42:38] Yeah.

[00:42:39] Very short period of time.

[00:42:41] You had the joy of watching the original series.

[00:42:45] You had to wait.

[00:42:47] Okay.

[00:42:47] You had the animated series to kind of keep you going a little bit, couple seasons of that.

[00:42:50] Which was weird because that was also on and it was like this Saturday morning cartoony thing.

[00:42:56] Roddenberry hated that.

[00:42:57] It was, it wasn't, it was never meant to be a Saturday morning cartoon.

[00:43:00] He despised that time slot.

[00:43:03] I think I need to go back and rewatch the cartoon animation.

[00:43:07] There's some good stuff in there.

[00:43:08] That's, it's very similar to the motion picture in the sense that the reins were let loose.

[00:43:14] So it was like, hey, you can have a cat on the bridge of the Enterprise.

[00:43:17] You can have all of the technology that you wanted to, to show.

[00:43:22] You can do it in animation now.

[00:43:24] Like you can, you can draw it.

[00:43:25] You're not limited by props and costuming.

[00:43:28] So they really, they let loose with a lot of those stories and there's some, there's some great Star Trek in there.

[00:43:32] Um, but yeah, living through that time period, I am so envious because you have like the, the remorse of losing Star Trek from TV.

[00:43:39] Then it launches into a motion picture franchise with the, the motion picture and then the wrath of Khan and just that continuing, um, Khan arc and all of those movies.

[00:43:53] And then bam into TNG.

[00:43:54] Like how satisfying is that as a, and I'm sure there were people that were against it and hated TNG, et cetera.

[00:44:02] But looking back in hindsight, what a beautiful time to be a Star Trek fan.

[00:44:05] Yeah.

[00:44:06] And we look at the timeline as you're doing, it's, it's, it's incredibly rich.

[00:44:10] So yeah, I think I'm with you in your assessment that the more I watch it, the more, how impressed I am at what Robert Wise did.

[00:44:20] Yes.

[00:44:21] And what he was able to pull off given that.

[00:44:24] So I, uh, in preparation, I got the book, the 50 year mission, which I didn't understand what it was until I got it from the library.

[00:44:32] And then of course I had to buy a copy for myself and that it's just one of these oral history books.

[00:44:38] And I have one of these books for the making of the 1984 Dune movie where it's all these little, it's conversations with a whole lot of people and their quotes are taken out and then put into this interesting timeline order.

[00:44:49] That's incredible.

[00:44:51] This rolling.

[00:44:51] I, it's fascinating, but that what Robert Wise went through to get this movie made is wild, absolutely wild.

[00:45:01] And so that we got anything that is incredible.

[00:45:03] And then the more I watch it and the more I watch the version that he wanted to have had made.

[00:45:09] Yeah.

[00:45:10] The more I am impressed at what the story is and does and how it operates and how it operates as a piece of cinema from its time period.

[00:45:21] Yeah.

[00:45:21] And the kind of movie making that was being done.

[00:45:24] That is a, this is a movie.

[00:45:26] It is a golden age of movie.

[00:45:30] Like the, the, the richness that you get from that DVD commentary as well.

[00:45:34] Like I will recommend it a million times is it makes me feel bad for ever saying a bad word about the motion picture,

[00:45:41] because just from like a physical effects viewpoint as well, it is incredible.

[00:45:47] The, the fact that they're still writing the damn thing today and they finished filming is, is, is amazing.

[00:45:55] Like the, the cast just being handed rewrites of a scene that they literally just finished.

[00:46:00] And like you said, Robert Wise being able to wrangle that, having not watched an episode of Star Trek until Paramount gave him 10 to watch for a movie that he wasn't supposed to be directing is absolutely phenomenal.

[00:46:13] And what they managed to do with all of the visual effects and a lot of the practical effects added in after they'd finished filming is incredible.

[00:46:23] I don't know.

[00:46:23] You don't know that when you're sitting down and you're watching a movie and you can get the violins out and say, Oh, isn't it sad that they had a rough time making this movie?

[00:46:31] It is incredible.

[00:46:32] We got any kind of movie out of that at all.

[00:46:35] So we can maybe mention in our, our re our recorded intros that we'll tack onto the front of this is that we're going to do a power ranking of the, uh, up through generations at the end of the podcast here.

[00:46:48] And so we'll, uh, sort of pre teasing that and reminding us to mention that because then that, that helps us situate where does this movie.

[00:46:56] And I have this question that I wanted to ask you, which is how do you relate to the, the motion picture relative to the rest of the franchise?

[00:47:07] Because while the ship remains the same and our primary characters and our cast is the same, the uniforms are different.

[00:47:16] Uh, it's, it's when, when we get to wrath of Khan, it's as if V'ger never existed.

[00:47:21] Um, V'ger is never referenced in any of the subsequent stories or, you know, uh, elements.

[00:47:28] The culture of Starfleet itself is very different in, in terms of it's a much more military forward rather than just, you know, ranks and sort of, Oh, Hey captain, whatever.

[00:47:39] There's a casualness.

[00:47:40] I think that the rest of the movies follow this movie feels very rigid as a, like, I feel like I would be, this feels like a, a, a, there's naval tradition and the way things work.

[00:47:51] And so it's a very different movie.

[00:47:53] So how do you relate to it relative to all of the other properties?

[00:47:58] Um, for me, it's like its own iteration.

[00:48:01] It really, really is.

[00:48:02] I don't see, I mean, wrath of Khan doesn't exist if you don't have the motion picture, but the, the original series movies really start, the continuity starts with the wrath of Khan.

[00:48:13] Agreed.

[00:48:13] That really is Star Trek one.

[00:48:15] And then everything onwards, how the motion picture very much is this phase two project.

[00:48:22] Like it is a sequel to the series and really a test bed for the Star Trek that was to come.

[00:48:29] Some of it we kept, some of it we didn't.

[00:48:31] And it's kind of like baffling to see what was kept and what has endured.

[00:48:38] And like, is that the reason that Star Trek is so big?

[00:48:40] Because we learned the right lessons from the motion picture and there's certain things we kept, certain things we left behind.

[00:48:46] But in my head as a, as a fan, it is very much its own thing.

[00:48:50] Like it was very jarring to see Decker, a new captain of the, of the enterprise Spock different, like the first 20, 30 minutes of the movie is getting the band back together.

[00:49:02] Because they were on their separate ways.

[00:49:04] Like you said, we've never, we never see these uniforms again, other than in like some parody stuff.

[00:49:09] You know, we're going to talk, we're going to have a whole podcast, maybe an hour and a half, two hours, just talking about uniforms, right?

[00:49:13] Just on your, oh, I, the power ranking for that on its own would be 45 minutes.

[00:49:18] I love the short sleeves that Kirk has.

[00:49:20] Oh, it's like just flexing his biceps.

[00:49:23] Totally, right?

[00:49:24] It's incredible.

[00:49:26] Yeah.

[00:49:27] And just the, the, the disco McCoy that we get as well with his medallion and open chest and the chest there.

[00:49:34] You, you strategically placed that again, just as I was taking another drink of water when you said disco McCoy.

[00:49:40] I almost ruined my equipment a second time.

[00:49:42] He materializes as this, he's literally just come from a German discotheque, angry at the world.

[00:49:49] But it is everything about this movie feels different.

[00:49:54] It feels like its own thing.

[00:49:55] Even in, so one of my childhood memories is of course Shatner's iconic hair piece.

[00:50:01] And the fact that in the motion picture, it looks very different from the Wrath of Khan.

[00:50:05] So for me, there is Shatner's hair in the original series.

[00:50:08] There is Shatner's hair in the motion picture and there is Shatner's hair in the rest of the Star Trek movies, which is my delineation of when we are.

[00:50:16] So it's, it's this, the motion picture is this odd thing that is parallel to all other Star Trek, but the Star Trek that comes after it just doesn't exist without that.

[00:50:28] And it's this brilliant bridge between the original series and the rest of Star Trek.

[00:50:34] A lot of that is for me down to the visual effects as well.

[00:50:37] The Warp Core, for example, the Warp Core doesn't exist really in the original series.

[00:50:43] It's this big like tubular thing that's behind a metal grate.

[00:50:47] And you're like, is that the nacelle or what is this?

[00:50:50] Like, why is Scotty getting near it?

[00:50:52] That's got to be pumping out radiation.

[00:50:54] But in my head, that shocked me because I, one of the first times I went back to the original series, I'd be like, dad, where's the Warp Core?

[00:51:00] And he was like, yeah, I didn't really have that.

[00:51:02] And the Warp Core, like, is an iconic element of Star Trek.

[00:51:06] And that swirling tube of energy that is the centerpiece of engineering and of the ship starts in the motion picture.

[00:51:15] And that swirlingness, swirlingness is a great word, that effect is reused again and again.

[00:51:21] It's the same engine room that you see in Voyager.

[00:51:24] A great aside on the commentary is that when they're filming Voyager, somebody in the production crew was doing something in the engineering section of Voyager

[00:51:34] and is pulling a panel apart to like, Voyager was always getting destroyed every episode.

[00:51:40] So engineering was always in pieces.

[00:51:42] So they called down one of the writers who happened to be doing the commentary on the motion picture and said, you better come take a look at this.

[00:51:50] Which must have been incredible to, in the real world, have one of your production assistants say, hey, you'd better come down to engineering.

[00:51:57] I've got something you need to see.

[00:51:59] And the thing they needed to see was part of the set from the motion picture that they just built on top of.

[00:52:06] So in figurative, literal ways, the motion picture is the foundation for so much Star Trek that comes after it.

[00:52:13] Literally because ships, sets, station designs, all kinds of stuff is pulled.

[00:52:20] It's chopped up and used for parts.

[00:52:22] The music, it's all literally just chopped up in a chop shop and then reused and repurposed.

[00:52:29] Well, the motion picture theme becomes the TNG theme because it's actually the Enterprise theme.

[00:52:35] It was written for that three and a half hour tour of the Enterprise that we get in this movie.

[00:52:42] It was written for that.

[00:52:44] So a lot of people think it's the Star Trek theme.

[00:52:46] It's the Enterprise theme.

[00:52:48] It is a theme for the most important character in the show.

[00:52:52] And that is from the motion picture.

[00:52:54] So it can be belied as a little bit boring and poorly paced, but it is the template for a lot of Star Trek that came afterwards.

[00:53:02] I mean, Mike Okuda said that some of the panels that he designed for the bridge were redesigned and retemplated.

[00:53:11] But when he went in there, when he rejoined for one of the other projects, I think Star Trek V, he lifted up some of the panels and found his original designs under there.

[00:53:19] So they would just build on top of it.

[00:53:21] And he was just like, that's it.

[00:53:22] It's still there.

[00:53:22] That's the same bit that I was going to make.

[00:53:24] And it's just, it's such a great metaphor for what Star Trek is, just building on what came before.

[00:53:31] So a little bit of a turn here in topics.

[00:53:34] And one of the things that we have notes on here is like, what are our favorite things or what, you know, about the plot or the movie?

[00:53:40] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:53:41] Before we get too nerdy about the background.

[00:53:43] And I just re, I just finished an additional watch the day before yesterday.

[00:53:49] And I was making note of how they did the photography of the models of the ship.

[00:54:00] Yes.

[00:54:00] Every time the Enterprise is on screen, it's with this gentle, loving, sorry to be so.

[00:54:08] No, it is.

[00:54:10] It's caressing the ship.

[00:54:13] And I think to understand why they made those choices in how they shot the model.

[00:54:20] Mm-hmm.

[00:54:21] We have to understand that in the television show, the ship is a character.

[00:54:28] Yeah.

[00:54:28] That is never, we didn't really recognize it as a character, but it was a character and it was part of the crew.

[00:54:38] Yeah.

[00:54:38] As much as Chekhov and Sulu and Uhura and everybody else is.

[00:54:42] It got more screen time than any of those people.

[00:54:47] Yes, it's true.

[00:54:48] It's really sad.

[00:54:49] Anyway, that, so then to have.

[00:54:52] It's the only presence Shanna couldn't compete with.

[00:54:57] To have the opportunity to put the Enterprise on screen with that level of detail and special effects was something extraordinary and something special.

[00:55:11] And so when we, when we go back and we think about, well, this is the first time that we've had this crossover between a success.

[00:55:19] Well, we've had other crossovers because I believe they did Planet of the Apes into a TV series as well.

[00:55:23] Correct.

[00:55:24] Yeah.

[00:55:24] But that went backwards.

[00:55:25] Yeah.

[00:55:25] Movie first.

[00:55:26] And then, hey, it's going to be cheaper to make a TV show.

[00:55:29] Right, right.

[00:55:30] So.

[00:55:30] And give you more money for a movie that nobody wants.

[00:55:32] That's true.

[00:55:33] And I think, I think, yeah, that's an interesting, is it harder to go from small to big than from big down to small?

[00:55:38] Welcome to our fourth podcast idea that we've just, um, intuited.

[00:55:45] Just like the movie, we are spawning all kinds of other creative content.

[00:55:50] So to get the Enterprise on screen and to get the, uh, not only to see Kirk back on screen and then to have Scotty pilot him in the space shuttle up and then to do that ultimate ship porn.

[00:56:05] Yeah.

[00:56:06] Of seeing her.

[00:56:07] I just got chills.

[00:56:07] I just got chills thinking about it.

[00:56:08] I've seen this scene so many times.

[00:56:10] We never had that before on the original series because our animation and our televisions and everything was just crap.

[00:56:18] And so going to see it on a big screen long before, you know, Dolby and, and IMAX and, and, uh, laser of what all these different designations are for all these new cinema technologies.

[00:56:29] Just being able to see it on screen big like that.

[00:56:32] And to see things like, uh, and EVA people in space suits floating around.

[00:56:37] Oh my goodness.

[00:56:38] Yeah.

[00:56:38] Yeah.

[00:56:38] Shuttle crafts docking and backing up and locking in and doing this kind of stuff.

[00:56:44] Photon torpedoes actually coming out from a dedicated tube on the front.

[00:56:49] All of it.

[00:56:49] Yeah.

[00:56:49] We had never had that experience before.

[00:56:51] And so seeing that, and that's when we walked out of the movie, like, wow, that was just an orgy.

[00:56:57] And then the storyline was like the confusing part.

[00:56:59] Like what?

[00:56:59] Yeah.

[00:57:00] What, what was that?

[00:57:00] It's a, uh, and I mean this with all sincerity.

[00:57:04] It is a deliberate and genius masterstroke to have that scene with the enterprise.

[00:57:11] And it's people jokingly or otherwise say, oh, it takes so long.

[00:57:15] And they're going around it for 10 minutes.

[00:57:17] Like that wasn't an accident.

[00:57:18] It wasn't like a goof in editing.

[00:57:21] It wasn't an oversight.

[00:57:23] Like that's going to be in every version of the motion picture because this was Star Trek is back.

[00:57:29] And like you, this is literally for the fans.

[00:57:33] Like this is the perfect example in my mind of fan service because it's, we know you've had to wait a long time.

[00:57:41] It's worth it.

[00:57:42] Like look at this ship and it's not just refit and looks different because, um, because time has passed.

[00:57:49] It's because literally that model in the original series isn't going to work on a movie set.

[00:57:54] And the original design for this new enterprise was completely different.

[00:57:58] And our gatekeeper gene said, no, it has to have the bones of the enterprise that we know from the TV show.

[00:58:06] It has to at a glance look the same.

[00:58:09] And I, the restrain in designing the refit enterprise is phenomenal.

[00:58:15] And it is, it's, it's hard to not call it my favorite version of the enterprise because.

[00:58:21] Well, you realize that you've just spawned a fifth podcast.

[00:58:24] Oh my God.

[00:58:25] Ship design.

[00:58:26] Ship design.

[00:58:27] Oh my God.

[00:58:28] Just ship design in general.

[00:58:29] I mean, can I have a blueprint of, of one?

[00:58:32] Oh my God.

[00:58:33] You are a deep dive fan.

[00:58:35] Oh, I've just revealed a blueprint of the enterprise E on my arm as my, my actual favorite enterprise.

[00:58:41] You kind of scared me a little bit there.

[00:58:44] I mean, it's one thing to have models behind you on the, on your shelf.

[00:58:47] You didn't know what you were getting into with this, did you, David?

[00:58:52] I am in the presence.

[00:58:54] I, I am, I am, I am deep, deep in the mythos.

[00:58:57] I am part of the cult.

[00:58:59] Um, but it is, um, yeah, it is a literal victory lap of we did it.

[00:59:04] You're going to see on the big screen.

[00:59:06] We're not going to miss this opportunity to show you what we can do when we strong arm millions of dollars out of paramount to finally.

[00:59:16] The, at a certain point by the end of production, I had a blank check to get this movie done and on screen.

[00:59:21] Robert Wise delivered a wet celluloid can of film to the theater because they were that literally for the premiere.

[00:59:30] Well, the, uh, yeah, the, the writers, writers, um, Judith and, and Garfield Reeve-Stevens said that they were at the Chinese theater for the premiere.

[00:59:40] Yeah.

[00:59:40] And they were told after the fact that the fourth reel of the movie was delivered while the movie was playing and it got hooked up somewhere at the halfway point.

[00:59:50] Um, and that is just, that is just, I cannot imagine that happening today, but yeah, that's, we'll, we'll get into that for sure.

[00:59:59] The special effects that happens afterwards, but this, this tour of the enterprise is a victory lap.

[01:00:04] And I, I, I ironically believe that this is Shatner and Doohan's best bit of acting in throughout all of Star Trek.

[01:00:14] Like you can, you can cite Shatner's speech when Spock dies, spoiler, um, you can, you can say anything you want, but them in a pod reacting to something they can't see.

[01:00:27] And so perfectly is, is incredible.

[01:00:31] Shatner, the way he looks at the enterprise, like a lost lover and just this beautiful thing that he doesn't even have a picture in his head.

[01:00:38] Like he may have like a bit of a blueprint, but he doesn't know what he's looking at.

[01:00:41] And the way I believe that he's looking at the enterprise, the way the fans look at the enterprise is so perfect.

[01:00:48] And then you've got.

[01:00:49] It's one of my notes in, in a movie breakdown is that, um, Kirk's reaction on his face is our reaction.

[01:00:56] He's telling us how to react to this.

[01:00:58] It's perfect.

[01:00:59] I mean, I don't think he even needed to tell us, but he's with us.

[01:01:01] It's like, Oh, I'm with Kirk at this moment.

[01:01:04] And that's the brilliance of Robert Wise's direction.

[01:01:06] Yes, absolutely.

[01:01:07] Absolutely.

[01:01:08] And Scotty is reacting to Kirk because Scotty has been there throughout the entire refit process.

[01:01:16] This isn't his first tour around the enterprise.

[01:01:20] So he's enjoying seeing his captain enjoying this new ship.

[01:01:25] And it's just like, you can't, you can explain that, but the fact that it delivers all of that in this one 74 minute scene of, of, of, of circling, circling the enterprise is just beautiful.

[01:01:38] And it's, it's how like people say, why didn't he just beam over onto the ship?

[01:01:43] And like, because he's, he loves that ship as much as the fans.

[01:01:47] Like Captain Kirk wants that long journey around the enterprise as well.

[01:01:51] And it's just, yeah, it's a, it's a huge showcase of this is the music we're going to have for Star Trek.

[01:01:57] This is the visual effects we can do.

[01:01:59] This is what we are on the big screen.

[01:02:01] This is Star Trek without the tiny TV budget that we had.

[01:02:05] One of the things that were my, that I remarked on in my own mind was, is how prideful Scotty is because he's worked all throughout the original series.

[01:02:15] He's been the one to keep the enterprise going.

[01:02:18] And so he's very intimate.

[01:02:20] And then to see, you know, Kirk's reaction and then his pride at the fact that his cap, like you said, his captain is, is so is, is just beaming.

[01:02:29] To quote Carol Marcus in the wrath of Khan.

[01:02:32] Can I cook or can't I?

[01:02:34] Yes, buddy, you can cook.

[01:02:39] When you then dive into the history of, of the special effects process, it was an absolute nightmare.

[01:02:48] And they dumped buckets of money into it.

[01:02:51] From what I gather with one agency that actually couldn't deliver.

[01:02:56] And then they had to change after the fact.

[01:02:59] Yeah. So the original budget, Gene was given 15 million to make a Star Trek movie by the $15 million in 77, which is a phenomenal amount of money and a big like kind of leap of faith as well that, okay, Star Trek's doing well enough in syndication, have some money.

[01:03:18] And it hit a high watermark for the most expensive film once it was released.

[01:03:22] And all said and done, it was the most expensive film at that time.

[01:03:25] Yeah. And that is, it is baffling how much money was spent during and then after the fact, because the final total went from 15 million to 44 million.

[01:03:36] Like it went over budget by over a hundred and like 20%.

[01:03:40] And it is, it is stunning.

[01:03:43] 15 million, I'll say 10 million of that is just in the physical effects.

[01:03:48] So 75% of the entire original budget went to the visual effects.

[01:03:54] So no cast, no crew, no, no script, no writers, nothing, just all visual effects.

[01:04:03] And they were, that's the bit that they were kind of strong armed into because they originally wanted, oh, what's his last name?

[01:04:10] It's just escaped me, Doug.

[01:04:12] Trumbull.

[01:04:12] Trumbull.

[01:04:13] Thank you.

[01:04:14] Obviously he'd done a 2001 Space Odyssey and they wanted him for this, but based on the original timeline, he wasn't available and he couldn't do it.

[01:04:23] He was also reportedly fed up of making a special effects for other people's movies and wanted to, to make his own film.

[01:04:30] But the, the, the movie took so long to make and was delayed so much that eventually he was available, but they'd already, they'd already used Robert Abel and associates who were relatively new to the industry, but said, we can do this.

[01:04:45] We can deliver on time.

[01:04:46] That's fine.

[01:04:47] Over, over promised and under delivered.

[01:04:50] And gradually, um, over the course of 1979.

[01:04:54] So they, they had to deliver this movie into theaters for Christmas of, um, 79 filming finished in January special effects dragged on for the entirety of 79.

[01:05:07] And gradually they would like, okay, well, if you can focus on this bit of production, we'll give the matte paintings to someone else.

[01:05:13] Okay.

[01:05:14] If you can focus on this, we'll give the lighting to somebody else.

[01:05:17] And eventually, uh, I think six or seven months in, they basically admitted, we won't be able to deliver this movie by Christmas.

[01:05:25] And Paramount just wrote a blank check to Doug, uh, Trumbull and said, okay, you can, we'll, we will let you direct your own movie and give you a blank check.

[01:05:36] If you finish Star Trek motion picture for us in time for us to deliver, to deliver it in December.

[01:05:42] And he was like, yeah, okay, that's fine.

[01:05:43] And for me, in my opinion, does the best work of his entire incredible career.

[01:05:50] That dude is like, he also shaped our, our, our perception of science fiction.

[01:05:56] A hundred percent.

[01:05:56] Like you mentioned the external shots of like people in space and like doing.

[01:06:02] The little dude doing the little flip.

[01:06:04] Try doc.

[01:06:05] That's a shot that he wanted to put in 2001, a space odyssey, but couldn't.

[01:06:09] Um, so.

[01:06:10] And those spaces really look 2001.

[01:06:12] 2001.

[01:06:12] Very much.

[01:06:13] Right.

[01:06:13] It's the same person designing them.

[01:06:15] So there was a lot of stuff that he wasn't allowed to do in 2001 that he then got to play with in the motion picture with his blank check.

[01:06:23] And in Robert Wise's words, um, he just said, I trust him implicitly to make this thing right.

[01:06:29] Like to fix his thing.

[01:06:31] So Robert Wise kind of like took a step back and just said, you're going to have to do this on your own.

[01:06:36] And Paramount said, here is a bodyguard that is going to make sure you deliver this movie on time.

[01:06:42] But that's all the interference we're going to have.

[01:06:44] Like he's going to make sure you deliver it.

[01:06:47] Whatever you deliver is, is up to you.

[01:06:48] And my goodness, did he deliver just a visually incredible movie without a computer in sight.

[01:06:54] I think we have to take that into account.

[01:06:56] They, this is not computer.

[01:06:58] This is not CGI.

[01:06:59] Every shot you see, especially in the theatrical cut is a picture or multiple pictures.

[01:07:06] Like this is literally called the motion picture, not because it's in, it's in the cinema.

[01:07:12] It is literally pictures moving.

[01:07:13] Like the graphics are matte paintings that are being filmed from three dimensions and overlaid on top of each other.

[01:07:21] Like everything you see is a physical thing that exists on the set that they used clever camera trickery to make look like a nebula, a warp field.

[01:07:32] The light streaking, like literally painting the enterprise as it goes to warp to get that streaking effect and putting streaks of color on it.

[01:07:42] Like, and it just, you can tell, like for me, CGI is great, but this physical model, physical doing things has a depth and richness that you, I, I haven't seen anyone replicate on a computer yet.

[01:07:57] I think even in the V'ger set, they were still like, it was incomplete.

[01:08:00] So they had to do all kinds of camera trickery to get the incomplete stuff done.

[01:08:06] And they were, they were using forced perspective.

[01:08:09] They literally just mirrored it and just duplicated the shot and then mirrored it to make it look like a complete thing.

[01:08:15] Cause they were, they were literally building the set as the scenes were being recorded.

[01:08:19] So as soon as a set was built for V'ger, especially towards the end of the movie, it was like, okay, now you're ready to do this scene.

[01:08:25] We've built it.

[01:08:26] You start recording there.

[01:08:28] We're going to finish building the next bit.

[01:08:30] And a lot of that was Doug, Doug Trumbull saying this has to have character.

[01:08:35] Like V'ger, uh, can't just be a fluffy thing that we have.

[01:08:41] It needs to be a physical thing that you can see.

[01:08:43] And it is this six sided probe, like the V'ger at the middle of the nebula is this physical thing that you can see.

[01:08:50] And he had a very specific vision for that.

[01:08:52] That was a nightmare to build.

[01:08:55] I can imagine.

[01:08:56] I think that's an important point that you brought up there too, is, is the, not a computer in sight.

[01:09:02] Because when we talk about what edition we're seeing on screen, we need to have that as, uh, to inform our understanding of what we're, we're watching.

[01:09:13] Because the director's edition is called the director's edition, not the director's cut.

[01:09:18] It's a director's edition does have CGI in it.

[01:09:22] Yes.

[01:09:22] To just fill in a couple of gaps that were never quite done correctly.

[01:09:29] Whereas, um, there are, correct me, how many, how many versions are, I can count three, not including the 4k version of the director's cut.

[01:09:38] Yeah.

[01:09:39] That's the fourth one that I would say, because there was a cut that they re-edited for ABC called the ABC cut that they released on TV, um, to go into syndication and to go onto ABC.

[01:09:50] Which is an interesting thing because when we, we had a, with Star Wars, we were in a little desert for a while.

[01:09:55] So they created the Star Wars Christmas special.

[01:09:57] Yes.

[01:09:58] Oh my goodness.

[01:09:59] To fill the void.

[01:10:00] So this idea of how can we get stuff, you know, and we had roots, you know, these mini series and the Thorn Birds and Shogun, all these other things.

[01:10:07] And so this idea that, hey, we can pump content into the small screen and in this synergistic way between the big screen and the small screen was a thing at that time.

[01:10:18] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:10:18] And now we're just like, okay, I'm not going to theater.

[01:10:21] When is it going to come on streaming?

[01:10:22] Yeah, exactly.

[01:10:23] Or like sometimes I'll just wait a few weeks and it's going to get a release in streaming now because it didn't do well in theaters.

[01:10:29] It's a completely different landscape.

[01:10:31] What's, what's really interesting.

[01:10:34] And this is just a really quick aside.

[01:10:36] One of the reasons that Star Trek was going to be brought back was because Paramount was launching its own TV.

[01:10:43] Right.

[01:10:44] That's right.

[01:10:45] Paramount Television, Paramount Television Service, PTS.

[01:10:48] So, and Phase Star Trek.

[01:10:50] Like as a network at that time, that's a big deal to launch a quote unquote network.

[01:10:54] That is not a small thing.

[01:10:55] Yeah, that's, that's, that's in, this isn't a time when you don't have a lot of channels to choose from and it's entering into.

[01:11:03] So this is the beginning.

[01:11:04] This is the like streaming wars Mark one, where it's just like, it's easier to put things on our own channel because we own everything and we don't have to finagle things.

[01:11:12] And Star Trek phase two was going to be the flagship show that, that launched it.

[01:11:17] And one of the reasons they had, they, one of the many reasons they moved to the motion picture was because they abandoned launching this Paramount TV channel.

[01:11:24] Exactly.

[01:11:25] Right.

[01:11:25] So it's that in and of itself, podcast idea number six, everyone is a fascinating story.

[01:11:31] And it's funny because the Paramount network streaming network now is cornerstoned by Star Trek properties.

[01:11:38] Discovery was, it's like, I know Discovery was on Netflix first, but Strange New Worlds, it was, it's big.

[01:11:45] We're here and this is going to be just on, on Paramount.

[01:11:47] It's what a interesting evolution of Star Trek from TV to streaming as well.

[01:11:53] But anyway, podcast idea number seven.

[01:11:55] Yeah, exactly.

[01:11:55] So the, going back to that, that network thing just really quickly to put a, just a sort of a final underline underneath it.

[01:12:01] This has got to be understood in the business market of the American television market at that time.

[01:12:07] We had three major networks, ABC, the American Broadcasting Corporation, CBS and NBC.

[01:12:12] I say ABC because in Australia, they have an ABC.

[01:12:15] Yes.

[01:12:16] Americans, we always get confused because we're first person.

[01:12:19] We're the, we're the player one in the world.

[01:12:22] Right.

[01:12:23] You're the protagonists.

[01:12:24] Yes.

[01:12:25] So, um, ABC, CBS and NBC.

[01:12:27] And then you had a, typically a PBS, a public broadcasting station.

[01:12:31] And then typically you had in your local market, one, two, maybe three.

[01:12:35] If you're in a massive metro area like Los Angeles or something like, or New York, where they were independent and they basically lived off of, um, they, they were syndicators.

[01:12:45] So they would buy ads from local businesses.

[01:12:49] Uh, and then they use that money to buy syndicated shows.

[01:12:53] And that's where we saw Star Trek was not on ABC, CBS and NBC, but on our local channel that had like wrestling on, on a Friday and Saturday nights at like 11 o'clock.

[01:13:05] And they would have movie matinees.

[01:13:07] And that's where I saw, uh, the good, the bad and the ugly, or, you know, all these sort of spaghetti Westerns or, or, um, Oh, what was the guy?

[01:13:14] The animated ones with Jason and the Argonauts and the skeletons and all that stuff.

[01:13:18] Oh, gosh, the Titans.

[01:13:20] Uh, well, that was a movie that came later.

[01:13:22] There was another that, that, that, that spun out from those TV shows.

[01:13:24] Anyway, so to then take a major motion picture and then put it out onto a television is a, another big deal.

[01:13:32] Yeah.

[01:13:33] But also to try to say, Oh, we're going to launch a whole new network to compete with a market that is locked.

[01:13:40] Yeah.

[01:13:41] Literally locked from a business perspective is a big deal.

[01:13:45] And so then when they ran, when they, they were running, running, running, running, running with the idea.

[01:13:49] And then finally the head guy looked at the numbers and was like, Nope, cut it off at its head.

[01:13:54] And it came at a really interesting time for the Star Trek production because they hired everybody.

[01:14:00] They started work on Monday, were fired on Friday.

[01:14:04] Literally.

[01:14:04] They were literally on there for five days and they'd, they'd already had all 13 episodes, had a treatment.

[01:14:14] We have episode titles for all of phase two.

[01:14:17] Are those scripts out?

[01:14:18] Um, so two of them became episodes of the next generation.

[01:14:22] Uh, the child and, uh, devil's due, which are two.

[01:14:26] The child is fine.

[01:14:27] Devil's due is one of my favorite guilty pleasures of Star Trek.

[01:14:31] I've looked at one of those.

[01:14:31] Okay.

[01:14:32] Um, TNG.

[01:14:32] And it's quite like, it's one of the later episodes of TNG as well.

[01:14:36] Um, and the very first episode of phase two was, um, in thy image, which was what became the motion picture or rehash of, of the changeling.

[01:14:46] Um, so yeah, they, they had the scripts they, and then they were just told to, okay, we'll repurpose the pilot into, into the motion picture now that we're not getting a TV show.

[01:14:56] And it took ages for these other 11 scripts to see the light of day.

[01:15:00] Some of them still haven't because the synopsis, well, the synopsis of them kind of tell you why they haven't.

[01:15:04] They weren't like, Oh, this would have killed Star Trek.

[01:15:08] That sucks.

[01:15:09] There were four Klingon focused episodes.

[01:15:12] They were like, this is the same episode.

[01:15:13] We've seen this in, in TOS.

[01:15:15] Like the writing just, and who knows how the, the synopses would have evolved over time, but it's very different from what we ended up with in, in the movies in TNG.

[01:15:26] So can you tell me how we got to that point?

[01:15:28] How did we get onto this tangent?

[01:15:30] I was just riffing off of things in the, uh, in the outline and just, uh, sort of letting us go because.

[01:15:36] That was incredible.

[01:15:37] I don't know how we got there.

[01:15:38] So it's really about the budget.

[01:15:39] It's amazing.

[01:15:40] Uh, but I was just going to transition again because you invoked the changeling.

[01:15:45] Hmm.

[01:15:46] And we have to, we cannot talk about the motion picture without talking about the changeling.

[01:15:51] So do you want to set that up for, for folks?

[01:15:53] Yes.

[01:15:54] So in the, the, again, in the comments.

[01:15:58] I'm so glad you brought that up because you emailed me and you were like, dude.

[01:16:00] And so I went a couple of years ago, I got all of the, uh, I got the remastered original series on a DVD thing.

[01:16:09] So I found that episode and watched it immediately.

[01:16:12] And I was just like, Oh yeah.

[01:16:15] That was like towards the, towards the end of our initial call.

[01:16:18] You're like, is there any homework I should do?

[01:16:19] And I was like, well, watch all of star Trek, but in particular, watch the changeling.

[01:16:23] And I think it will change your perspective on the motion picture.

[01:16:25] So the changeling, um, I'll give you the, the quick synopsis is as an episode, I think in season, uh, season two reference you roll.

[01:16:34] And I'll, I'll, yeah, it's obviously it's, it's an episode during the original series.

[01:16:38] And what happens is that the enterprise is responding to a distress call from a planet that has been destroyed.

[01:16:44] And they pick up episode three.

[01:16:46] Yeah.

[01:16:46] I thought it was season two.

[01:16:47] Um, they pick up a probe, um, that has destroyed this planet.

[01:16:52] Uh, it's called Nomad.

[01:16:54] And the gist of it is that this probe, this robot has been sent on a mission to destroy all biological, um, life that is inefficient.

[01:17:03] And it has been sent by its creator.

[01:17:06] We find out over the course of the episode that Nomad was a probe that was sent out by humans, has been damaged at some point, and now sees biological life forms as inefficient and decides to destroy them, um, as part of its mission from its creator to, to find perfection.

[01:17:26] Uh, Kirk outfoxes it with a logic puzzle as often happens, and it blows itself up.

[01:17:31] And that is almost beat for beat, the plot of the motion picture.

[01:17:37] But of course we, we are V'ger instead of, instead of Voyager, instead of Nomad.

[01:17:41] So yeah, it's, it didn't go amiss on the, the commentary.

[01:17:45] One of the writers said that it was referred to by somebody they know is, uh, where Nomad has gone before.

[01:17:53] I love that.

[01:17:54] Which is, uh, but it's, for me, it's different enough that, like, what's the other saying?

[01:17:59] There's only like 12 stories that have ever been told or six stories.

[01:18:02] There's only one.

[01:18:03] Yeah, there is only one.

[01:18:04] Yeah, if you talk to my, uh, fellow Lorehounds, uh, hosts, it's the human heart in conflict with itself.

[01:18:11] Oh, that's amazing.

[01:18:13] Everything boils down, in my opinion.

[01:18:15] So, they say exactly something very similar at the end of the commentary, which is, um, something was not as it seems.

[01:18:22] It's the one, the one storyline that you need.

[01:18:25] It's different enough, but it's hard to mistake that this is the movie version of The Changeling.

[01:18:29] And what baffles me is that this was going to be the pilot for Phase 2, the new TV show.

[01:18:36] So, Star Trek Phase 2, or Star Trek 2, as it was going to be called as well.

[01:18:41] Episode 1 was V'ger with Dekka and Ilea and everyone.

[01:18:47] Basically, the story...

[01:18:48] Oh, and the other science officer.

[01:18:49] Zon was going to be Spock's replacement.

[01:18:51] Because, uh, Nimoy was doing other things and there was a large, uh, there was a big, I don't want to say conflict.

[01:19:01] There was a whole bunch of stuff that his likeness and rights were being used sort of outside of his...

[01:19:07] Mainly merchandising, yeah.

[01:19:08] He wasn't seeing any of the dividends from the products that were being made in his, uh, in his image.

[01:19:14] Not just like the bootleg stuff, but legit Star Trek stuff.

[01:19:17] So, and I think that's completely fair.

[01:19:20] He was also... Nimoy was going through this big thing.

[01:19:23] He published a book saying, I am not Spock.

[01:19:25] Like, he was...

[01:19:26] Yeah.

[01:19:27] I am not Spock and I am Spock.

[01:19:28] I am Spock, exactly.

[01:19:30] But he was very much in his I am not Spock period.

[01:19:32] Mm.

[01:19:33] Where he's trying to distance himself from...

[01:19:36] He's trying to do other movies.

[01:19:37] He's trying to do stage.

[01:19:38] Yeah.

[01:19:38] He's actually trying to produce, uh, things.

[01:19:41] Exactly.

[01:19:41] Sing, in some respects.

[01:19:43] Yes, there is an album out there.

[01:19:45] The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, to link it back to our lovely, lovely Lord of the Rings.

[01:19:51] Um, but yeah, they could get Shatner back.

[01:19:53] They weren't too sure how long they could afford the Shatner, which is why they had Decker waiting in the wings to take over as captain if they got season two.

[01:20:02] Okay.

[01:20:02] So they were pretty convinced that they weren't going to be able to afford Shatner for a second season where they're going to get that.

[01:20:08] Um, everyone else was fine because they only paid them tuppence.

[01:20:11] But yeah, Leonard Nimoy, they definitely couldn't get back.

[01:20:13] They wanted a Vulcan on the bridge, so they hired Zon.

[01:20:17] Which goes back into the question of what is Star Trek?

[01:20:20] And when we're breaking the cast mold of having a Vulcan on the bridge, I think it's one of those things that you've got to...

[01:20:27] But then that goes to a deeper question, which is what is a Vulcan?

[01:20:30] What is a human?

[01:20:31] And that struggle is one of those things that is...

[01:20:35] What is humanity?

[01:20:37] Is one of those Star Trek questions that makes Star Trek, Star Trek.

[01:20:40] Anyway, sorry.

[01:20:41] No, it's why TNG has a Vulcan on the bridge.

[01:20:43] They just made him a robot and called him Data.

[01:20:46] Exactly.

[01:20:46] You need that non-human presence to explore humanity.

[01:20:51] And I think that's why having a Vulcan on the bridge was so appealing as well.

[01:20:55] Like, there's a backhanded comfort to it.

[01:20:57] Okay, we don't have Spock, but we have Zon who is 100% Vulcan and committed to the Vulcan ways, even more so than Spock.

[01:21:07] And how is he going to explore Kirk?

[01:21:09] And how is he, as a younger officer, going to be mentored by Kirk as well?

[01:21:14] And then they killed him in a transporter accident malfunction.

[01:21:17] They didn't.

[01:21:18] They deliberately didn't kill him.

[01:21:20] So, in the motion picture, David Gautreaux...

[01:21:24] Oh, is that...

[01:21:24] Am I confusing Wrath of Khan?

[01:21:26] No, no, no.

[01:21:26] You're not.

[01:21:26] There is a Vulcan that dies in this episode, but it's not Zon.

[01:21:29] Zon isn't in the motion picture.

[01:21:32] Deliberately so.

[01:21:33] So, I can't remember.

[01:21:34] There is a Vulcan science officer that is recruited to replace Spock.

[01:21:40] He dies in a transporter accident.

[01:21:42] But the actor, David Gautreaux, who was cast and did screen testing to play Zon, requested,

[01:21:48] can this please not be Zon?

[01:21:50] Please don't kill him off.

[01:21:52] I'm also refusing to play him just in case there's a chance to get a TV show.

[01:21:58] And Gene agreed and said, there's a chance that we go from the motion picture into phase

[01:22:03] two, the TV show, and we don't want to kill Zon just in case.

[01:22:07] So, they kill another Vulcan instead, and David Gautreaux plays Commander Branch, who

[01:22:12] is the...

[01:22:13] He's the commander of the Epsilon station that gets blown up by the cloud.

[01:22:18] So, he gets a part in the movie, and then they kept him waiting in the wings just in

[01:22:22] case they got a TV show.

[01:22:23] Brilliant sleight of hand, because in my mind, it is Zon.

[01:22:28] That gets...

[01:22:28] Because Kirk has that interaction with him in the transport area.

[01:22:32] Yeah, as he's at Starfleet Command, he talks to the Vulcan science officer.

[01:22:38] But yeah, it's not Zon.

[01:22:39] Oh, nice.

[01:22:40] So, they had a little smoke and mirrors thing.

[01:22:43] And so, when people were like, but that was...

[01:22:44] And then they could go, no, it wasn't.

[01:22:46] No, it wasn't.

[01:22:47] He's actually...

[01:22:48] We're waiting for him.

[01:22:49] Oh, but he didn't get a TV show.

[01:22:51] Yeah, but we're still glad we did it.

[01:22:54] But yeah, brilliant sleight of hand.

[01:22:56] And again, a testament to Gene, like, being really smart and covering his bases as well.

[01:23:02] Like, I think deep down, he knew Star Trek's place was on TV and had a lot of these scripts

[01:23:08] written with Zon in them.

[01:23:09] And it would have been a nightmare to rewrite, recast, and change that character.

[01:23:15] So, yeah, really, really, really smart move, I think.

[01:23:17] I want to throw in this quote that I picked up from the 50 Years book really quick.

[01:23:23] And this is Roddenberry.

[01:23:24] This is the first time a television show ever became a motion picture.

[01:23:27] And Robert Wise did a remarkable job in adaptation from one medium to another.

[01:23:32] Many people don't seem to be aware that they're two entirely different mediums.

[01:23:37] You strive for different values in television.

[01:23:39] It's a more intimate medium where you can get into multiple characters and character conflict

[01:23:44] that can be very exciting.

[01:23:46] With motion pictures, the trend has been to make it a sensory experience with stereo sound

[01:23:52] and bigger screens.

[01:23:54] Televisions cannot create that illusion.

[01:23:55] So, it goes for other things.

[01:23:58] It intellectualizes rather than sensorizes the product.

[01:24:03] And a major motion picture spectacle doesn't lend itself easily to Mr. Spock's cute little

[01:24:09] remarks with Captain Kirk.

[01:24:11] The conversion of a two-hour television show into a movie was much more difficult than anyone

[01:24:18] could have believed.

[01:24:19] What an incredible insight that still applies today as well.

[01:24:24] And in some ways, Star Trek gets a head start because it has all of those conversations on

[01:24:30] TV so that the motion picture doesn't have to have it.

[01:24:34] We know Kirk and McCoy.

[01:24:35] We know Kirk and Spock.

[01:24:36] We know McCoy and Spock.

[01:24:37] We have that valuable insight of how they interact as a trio.

[01:24:41] So much work has already been done.

[01:24:45] However, motion pictures are getting bums in seats.

[01:24:48] So, you also have to have that spectacle.

[01:24:51] It's an event.

[01:24:52] You have to please the people that have never seen Star Trek before.

[01:24:56] So, I don't even know how you go about starting this by introducing new people and fan servicing

[01:25:03] the fans as well.

[01:25:04] That's a good question.

[01:25:05] I think because I think I would say that you could just grab anyone who's never seen

[01:25:10] Star Trek, put them down with the motion picture, and they would get it.

[01:25:12] Yeah, no, I think that's true.

[01:25:14] I don't know how true that is in 79, though.

[01:25:17] I think so because I think the tenets of storytelling are still there because there's a whole lot

[01:25:22] of implied history and the way that you create a plot point and character interaction and creating

[01:25:28] that density.

[01:25:29] But then between the writing and the portrayal of the actor, that's their job to make you

[01:25:36] understand that there's this implied history.

[01:25:37] And because I'm a human and these are human beings making human stories, I can intuit that

[01:25:42] very quickly.

[01:25:44] One of my favorite things with Kirk, McCoy, and Spock in this is when McCoy arrives and

[01:25:49] there's this preamble of McCoy saying, I'm not doing this anymore.

[01:25:54] I've left Starfleet.

[01:25:55] They've recruited me.

[01:25:56] I didn't want to come back.

[01:25:57] And Kirk's response is just, damn it, I need you.

[01:25:59] I need you.

[01:26:00] And just like, shut out his hand.

[01:26:02] Shut out his hand.

[01:26:03] He's like, shut my hand.

[01:26:04] Come with me.

[01:26:06] And that passion speaks to their history so, so well.

[01:26:11] So I think that it does so much work.

[01:26:13] And then when Mr. Spock shows up on the bridge and Hora jumps out of her seat.

[01:26:17] He just gathers around him.

[01:26:18] Yeah.

[01:26:18] And he's so cold and emotionless and he doesn't return their warmth.

[01:26:23] And then that sets up the dramatic arc for Spock to come around when he cries the single

[01:26:29] tear for his brother.

[01:26:31] The little tear.

[01:26:32] The pathos.

[01:26:33] The pathos.

[01:26:34] It's incredible.

[01:26:35] And I unironically believe that the motion picture has the best character arcs and the

[01:26:43] best character development of any Star Trek movie.

[01:26:47] I'll put it up against any of them.

[01:26:50] Honestly, the journey that Spock takes from being on Vulcan.

[01:26:54] He's about to finish the purge of all of his emotions.

[01:26:57] His bat signal goes off.

[01:27:00] The colon R.

[01:27:01] His friends are in trouble.

[01:27:02] Earth is in trouble.

[01:27:04] Abandon it.

[01:27:05] But he's still got to come out of that.

[01:27:06] Kind of like Luke on Dagobah.

[01:27:07] Nothing like that at all.

[01:27:09] Oh, sorry.

[01:27:10] I'm talking to a purist here.

[01:27:11] We on Lorehounds, we're always like spinning our IPs around.

[01:27:15] It's very, no, it's very, very true.

[01:27:17] He does have to put the Jedi's are just fancy Vulcans with swords.

[01:27:25] Let's go.

[01:27:26] Tell me I'm wrong.

[01:27:27] Tell me I'm wrong, people.

[01:27:29] Any interaction is good interaction.

[01:27:31] Even the negative.

[01:27:31] That's right.

[01:27:32] We say engagement equals engagement.

[01:27:35] Exactly.

[01:27:36] Yes.

[01:27:37] Star Trek did it first.

[01:27:41] Spock beautifully has this interaction with V'ger, who is missing the human element and missing the biological piece of the puzzle.

[01:27:51] And that scene in sick bay.

[01:27:53] I think that's one of the, the, the, one of the, the beauties of the director's cut is that we get a bit.

[01:27:59] The director's edition.

[01:28:01] It's a bit.

[01:28:01] It's a bit.

[01:28:02] It's a bit.

[01:28:02] It's a bit more of Spock's emotion in there as well.

[01:28:05] And a bit more of that interplay between him and Kirk and his arc from there where Kirk is holding his hand.

[01:28:11] Kirk has his friend back.

[01:28:13] Spock reconnects with why emotions are valuable.

[01:28:17] And by the end of the film, we really have the crew that's ready to go into the Wrath of Khan.

[01:28:22] So yeah, there's a big difference between the Wrath of Khan and the motion picture, but it happens during the Wrath of Khan.

[01:28:29] And McCoy's brought back into the fold.

[01:28:31] Kirk goes from this stuffy admiral that's been behind a desk back into the captain's chair and understanding that's where he needs to be.

[01:28:39] The development of where all three of them are, sadly, no one else gets any development other than screaming.

[01:28:46] But where the three of them are throughout this movie, especially Kirk and Spock is so deliberate and often, I think, overlooked by pacing issues that people put forward.

[01:28:58] Well, if we go back to that idea of the motion picture as being a source element, you know, a source for all these different elements that then ultimately get broken up and added to things.

[01:29:10] We're the only ship in the sector.

[01:29:13] Under repair.

[01:29:15] Not ready for the mission because it's being repaired.

[01:29:18] Exactly.

[01:29:19] Dammit, Jim, you should never have taken that promotion, right?

[01:29:23] Like getting back the command is there.

[01:29:26] And then obviously all of the other standard tropes of Kirk with bones and Spock on either shoulder of, you know, of his humanity.

[01:29:36] And but yeah, it really does create the material that gets used later on over and over again.

[01:29:45] Yeah, it really it's cemented that like we'd seen it in the original series.

[01:29:49] We knew that McCoy was the troll that was just going to prod Spock at every opportunity.

[01:29:54] Spock was going to be the voice of logic and Kirk was the bridge between the two of them that came with the final answer.

[01:30:00] And the motion picture capitalizes on that, develops it.

[01:30:03] And then some of the part that the bit that feels a little bit jarring is Decker and Ilea.

[01:30:09] That's the bit for me that would have worked in phase two.

[01:30:13] That doesn't 100% work for me in the motion picture.

[01:30:18] I'm not saying it's like it doesn't work at all, but it feels a little bit jarring.

[01:30:22] And I think the reason the rest of the movies kind of get held up more is because the focus is on our core crew.

[01:30:30] Uhura, Sulu, Chekhov, Scotty, they all get more time.

[01:30:35] Whereas the time that they would have had is given to Ilea and Decker in the motion picture.

[01:30:40] And understandably for what they were trying to do.

[01:30:43] That's interesting.

[01:30:44] I was going to say that my only nitpick on the film,

[01:30:48] and I hadn't really considered whether the Ilea-Decker thing is a drawback.

[01:30:54] Well, I guess there's, I have two drawbacks for the movie overall

[01:30:58] that are not in the thematically placed arena, but more in sort of a movie.

[01:31:02] Does the wormhole thing with the asteroid really, is that really necessary?

[01:31:06] It does give us some mechanical elements to, you know, why Spock has to work in the engine room, which is great.

[01:31:14] Oh, I could talk about that scene at length.

[01:31:20] No, carry on your thought.

[01:31:22] And then, what was the other thing?

[01:31:24] Oh, V'ger disappears and Starfleet wants to make sure how we're doing.

[01:31:31] Yeah, we're good.

[01:31:32] We're going to head off.

[01:31:32] Bye.

[01:31:33] Bye.

[01:31:33] No debriefing.

[01:31:34] No nothing.

[01:31:35] Just we're going to fuck off into space.

[01:31:37] I've got two fantastic explanations.

[01:31:39] I'll start with like that, the last one.

[01:31:43] And I think it purely exists so that the Enterprise can emerge from the cloud with the sun at its back.

[01:31:50] And you get this huge, oh, chills again.

[01:31:53] That as if we haven't had enough of this ship, the reveal of the blinding light,

[01:31:58] and then the Enterprise just coming into view, and then the full shot of it, and then they go off.

[01:32:03] It exists just for that.

[01:32:04] Starfleet just said, wow, that looked amazing.

[01:32:07] No debrief needed.

[01:32:08] We're fine.

[01:32:09] Go on your merry way.

[01:32:10] That's great.

[01:32:11] So Starfleet is all about cinematography.

[01:32:14] So that's my explanation for that.

[01:32:16] Now, the wormhole is fascinating.

[01:32:19] And I completely agree that the function of the Enterprise getting sucked into that wormhole,

[01:32:25] I've just said sucked, and a physicist is going to come at me and say,

[01:32:29] technically it was parabolically vectored or something like that.

[01:32:32] Whatever happens to the Enterprise that gets into the wormhole?

[01:32:35] And a very different wormhole from other wormholes, you know?

[01:32:38] Yes, exactly.

[01:32:39] It was more of a slipstream.

[01:32:40] Wasn't there some slipstream stuff in some other?

[01:32:43] Yeah.

[01:32:45] Star Trek.

[01:32:46] You said Starfleet?

[01:32:47] I'll allow that.

[01:32:47] I am so, I'm in so deep.

[01:32:49] I have penance.

[01:32:50] It's okay.

[01:32:51] You have to say four Gene Roddenberrys, and then we will.

[01:32:58] I have to go do some Kulinar work.

[01:33:00] You have to purge that from your system.

[01:33:02] Yeah, no, there is a quantum slipstream drive that replaces warp drive.

[01:33:07] Very briefly in Voyager.

[01:33:09] Oh, in Voyager.

[01:33:10] Okay.

[01:33:10] Well, there's also, there's an energy wave that tries to replace warp cores as well,

[01:33:15] and that's in TNG.

[01:33:17] Okay.

[01:33:22] Anyway, this scene, the function of this scene fundamentally is to show us that Kirk doesn't

[01:33:26] know what the F he's talking about when it comes to piloting the new Enterprise.

[01:33:33] And Decker knows his stuff.

[01:33:34] And if Kirk continues, man's going to get people killed.

[01:33:38] And this is all about giving Decker some power.

[01:33:41] The way it sits a bit strange for me is that, man, it'd be great if we ever saw Decker again,

[01:33:46] but he obviously doesn't exist in Star Trek after the motion picture, which is why for

[01:33:50] me going back, it feels a little bit jarring because we're building up this character that

[01:33:55] they didn't know at the time wasn't really going anywhere.

[01:33:59] I know you have like the ending, but that ending wasn't written when they wrote this scene.

[01:34:04] So I don't think they even fully decided Decker wasn't going to survive this movie by that

[01:34:09] point.

[01:34:09] Because they literally, Decker, Ileah bot, Ileah unit, whatever we call her, and V'ger itself,

[01:34:16] gone.

[01:34:17] Yeah.

[01:34:17] Gone.

[01:34:18] All of it vanished.

[01:34:19] There's a new, we've created a new life.

[01:34:21] I hope we gave it a good start.

[01:34:22] Well, we'll never find out.

[01:34:24] That's it.

[01:34:24] It's done.

[01:34:25] But that's the function of that scene.

[01:34:27] But it is a very long way to do it.

[01:34:30] So then the function is also showing off visual effects that were an absolute, by all accounts,

[01:34:37] nightmare to create.

[01:34:39] And the original-

[01:34:40] Without computer, that would be, I have no idea how they did what they did.

[01:34:43] How they did it is incredible.

[01:34:45] It's literally recording a laser that was shooting down onto, it was a piece of material, and then

[01:34:53] they kept rotating it and they'd spin it.

[01:34:55] So, you know, like, do you have Spirograph?

[01:34:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:34:58] In America?

[01:34:58] Yeah.

[01:34:59] Basically, Spirograph with a laser.

[01:35:01] And then the camera-

[01:35:03] On some sort of platform that was spinning that was being photographed from above or whatever.

[01:35:09] And the camera would move in three dimensions around it to give the spinning effect as well.

[01:35:14] Oh, so they weren't just spinning the platform thing.

[01:35:17] They were spinning the camera itself.

[01:35:20] I think the platform was stationary and the camera was moving around it.

[01:35:23] From what I could understand from the, again, that the theatrical cut DVD commentary is incredible

[01:35:28] because these are the, not just, not necessarily the writers, but these are the visual effects

[01:35:33] people.

[01:35:33] And yeah, so the camera was moving in three dimensions around this laser as it was lasering

[01:35:39] onto this material.

[01:35:40] And that's what created the effect.

[01:35:42] The distortion of the crew members moving around.

[01:35:47] Delay that order!

[01:35:51] So that was created by basically multiple exposures on multiple cameras.

[01:35:59] People having to repeat the same movements to get the delayed effect and the strobing.

[01:36:06] It was one of the longest scenes they had.

[01:36:08] It took them weeks of filming to get this right and to line up enough shots that married

[01:36:15] up together.

[01:36:16] So if we, I'm speaking to the listeners a little bit now, breaking the fourth wall.

[01:36:22] Do we have fourth walls in podcasts?

[01:36:24] I don't know.

[01:36:25] The third air?

[01:36:27] Yeah, something.

[01:36:28] It's kind of weird.

[01:36:30] If there is a justification to listen to this podcast, number one, but number two, go back

[01:36:37] and watch this movie.

[01:36:39] Yes.

[01:36:40] When you have this context, I don't have, I did, you're telling me things that I had

[01:36:43] not known.

[01:36:44] And I was just like, oh, this is kind of lame special effects.

[01:36:48] And I know it's 1979.

[01:36:49] And does this, what does this really do for the story and the plot and the characters?

[01:36:53] When you understand the visual craft, the craft that these human beings, they were fighting

[01:37:02] every day with the studio.

[01:37:03] Roddenberry was up their backsides.

[01:37:05] The studio was on them.

[01:37:06] The director, the everybody was fighting all the time and that they were able to make this

[01:37:13] scene with that streaking.

[01:37:16] And then you tell me that that took them weeks to make that.

[01:37:20] It is a showcase for visual effects.

[01:37:23] And it isn't the same mindset that the majority of movies go into today.

[01:37:28] Now, special effects is almost a dirty word because it's whatever Marvel is doing or it's

[01:37:33] whatever.

[01:37:34] Are you watching the franchise?

[01:37:36] No, I haven't.

[01:37:37] It's on HBO Max.

[01:37:39] Oh, HBO Max is such a difficult thing.

[01:37:41] So we can't get that in England.

[01:37:43] We have to do it through another streaming service and have a cable package called Sky.

[01:37:47] So I miss out on so much like the penguin missing out on the penguin almost entirely because

[01:37:51] it's not, it's on a cable package.

[01:37:53] I don't have frustrating.

[01:37:56] Anyway, when you get a, when, when it comes around eventually to getting it, the franchise,

[01:37:59] which is, um, I don't know if you ever saw Silicon Valley, which is a send up of the

[01:38:04] Silicon Valley culture, tech and bro culture.

[01:38:06] This is a send up of the Marvel DC IP franchise movie franchise industry.

[01:38:14] It is an absolute riot.

[01:38:16] Anyway.

[01:38:16] Oh, that's incredible.

[01:38:17] That sounds right up my alley.

[01:38:18] But yeah, it's just, it's, it's making it with a different mindset.

[01:38:21] This was very much like, even though, um, Robert, uh, Robert Abel couldn't, was it Robert

[01:38:27] Abel?

[01:38:28] Yeah, it was Abel.

[01:38:28] Yeah.

[01:38:29] Even though he couldn't deliver everything, there was some ambitious stuff that he managed

[01:38:33] to pull off and Doug Trumbull revamped so much of it, but it was with the vision of like,

[01:38:38] this is what we can do.

[01:38:39] Like, this is the Olympics of special effects and without using like so much, the, so all

[01:38:46] of the monitors on the bridge, just as a quick aside, the monitors on the bridge aren't

[01:38:51] backlights.

[01:38:52] They aren't backlit graphics.

[01:38:53] They are eight mil and 16 mil films that are playing a graphic that has been recorded.

[01:39:04] They, and they needed so many of them and they didn't want them to be on the loop.

[01:39:09] They recorded fresh ones on site because the production company that they bought the film,

[01:39:14] like, Hey, we need a six minute loop of this computer graphic to play.

[01:39:19] And they literally put that film into the monitor.

[01:39:21] So all of the monitors that are around the, around the bridge of the enterprise are playing

[01:39:25] a movie inside of them of a repeated graphic.

[01:39:29] And they, they filmed so much they had to make their own.

[01:39:31] Like that's the level of detail.

[01:39:33] Like now I could do this on my monitor in, in my office.

[01:39:37] It is incredible.

[01:39:39] And like 50 technicians have to go in underneath those consoles, reset those.

[01:39:43] Yeah.

[01:39:44] You have a movie projector inside each of those things projecting a movie graphic.

[01:39:48] It's, it's absolutely incredible.

[01:39:50] So yeah, that scene, I view that scene differently now because if you, and it's not, I will never

[01:39:56] begrudge anyone saying that that's superfluous.

[01:39:59] It's not needed.

[01:39:59] It's too long for the function of Decker knows what he's on about.

[01:40:03] Kirk's a dick.

[01:40:04] It's too long for that.

[01:40:05] But as an experiment in cutting edge, 1979 visual effects, I, I bow down to it.

[01:40:14] It is incredible what they, what they managed to put on screen.

[01:40:19] And I want to see the movie that is recording them doing these crazy acrobatics.

[01:40:25] Yeah.

[01:40:26] Yeah.

[01:40:26] I don't think there is a behind the scenes documentary available.

[01:40:29] No.

[01:40:29] And what's, what's incredible is that that scene was pitched as the enterprise is heading

[01:40:34] towards an asteroid.

[01:40:35] As soon as it leaves dry dock and it can't steer away.

[01:40:39] And Roddenberry, the, the paramount execs were like, that's boring.

[01:40:41] We don't want to do that.

[01:40:42] Roddenberry said that's stupid.

[01:40:44] The enterprise wouldn't not be able to steer away.

[01:40:47] Like you can't blame that on Kirk.

[01:40:49] Like the enterprise should be able to dodge an asteroid.

[01:40:51] So like, okay, well, what if we put an asteroid in the wormhole?

[01:40:54] And then the wormhole is the thing that they can't escape.

[01:40:56] And they blow up the asteroid to escape.

[01:40:59] And paramount said, I don't know what a wormhole is.

[01:41:02] Again, this is, this is from the theatrical cut, um, uh, commentary.

[01:41:06] Paramount said, we don't know what a wormhole is.

[01:41:09] Is this science going to hold up?

[01:41:11] So Gene was like, well, I guess.

[01:41:14] So he sent it to his buddy Isaac Asimov who said, yep, that holds up.

[01:41:18] And just like rather stamped it and said, yep, that may, that's how wormholes work.

[01:41:22] And paramount said, okay, let's go.

[01:41:25] If it's good enough for Asimov, it's good enough for us.

[01:41:28] Wow.

[01:41:29] Incredible.

[01:41:29] And that's how that scene was born.

[01:41:32] Um, and that's just, that blows my mind.

[01:41:34] And it would be on the cutting room for floor in so many ways today.

[01:41:39] I think this is where we have to take this movie as a, we have to draw a box around it.

[01:41:44] Yes.

[01:41:45] And set it aside.

[01:41:46] We have many different Batman variations in, you know, world.

[01:41:49] They don't, we don't have to have this as part of our storyline continuum.

[01:41:53] Mm-hmm.

[01:41:54] We can, we can, we can allow this movie to be in and of its own because wormholes don't work.

[01:41:59] Like all these things.

[01:42:01] Yeah.

[01:42:01] But really just appreciate it for its aesthetic and technical values and the fact that it was ever made in the first place.

[01:42:07] Uh, 100%.

[01:42:08] Even, and that's kind of like a good metaphor for that is the warp trail that you see.

[01:42:12] So a lot of people, this is including mine, the, my favorite warp effect.

[01:42:18] So the enterprise jumping to warp is an iconic thing.

[01:42:22] And the way they did, again, it took hours and hours and days and days to physically create this warp effect that isn't with CGI or computers.

[01:42:34] Is it, it is physical lights.

[01:42:35] It is a lot of cameras.

[01:42:37] It is a lot of drawing as well.

[01:42:39] And the reason you don't see it in any of the other films is because it's just too hard.

[01:42:44] It's too hard to make it the way that they made it in the motion picture.

[01:42:47] So the motion picture will always be its own island of stuff that was just, you're only going to do this when Paramount writes you a blank check for a movie they've already over leveraged themselves on that they have to get across the line.

[01:43:01] They had con, they were contractually obligated for a December 7th release.

[01:43:05] And if not, they were going to get penalized badly.

[01:43:08] Whatever this movie was unfinished or not, it was going into theaters.

[01:43:12] So yeah, they were just like, we're, we're this much in the hole on it.

[01:43:16] Fine.

[01:43:16] And I like to think that, um, Dog Trumbull used that to play and the, well, I've kind of got you over a barrel here.

[01:43:25] I think we're going to, we're going to really do some fun stuff, but, but, but who knows?

[01:43:29] And it goes into this, this whole thing of this, this era of cinema from coming out of the sixties,

[01:43:38] but this seventies and early eighties cinema creation.

[01:43:44] There are things that will never get made today, regardless of, uh, streaming or anything, just, just creatively where the constraints of the technology and the medium forced people to create in ways that are, uh, uh, just absolutely incredible.

[01:44:00] The craft.

[01:44:01] Just innovative.

[01:44:02] Yeah.

[01:44:02] Just thinking outside the box.

[01:44:04] Absolutely.

[01:44:05] Should we start to wrap up a little bit?

[01:44:08] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:44:09] I, I think there was, there was one other thing I wanted to touch on, which was the kind of iterations.

[01:44:15] Cause this is fascinating to me.

[01:44:17] The iterations that this movie went through to, to begin with.

[01:44:21] Um, obviously we've talked about, um, Star Trek going off the air.

[01:44:25] You get the animated series in 74 paramount comes to gene and says, these Star Trek conventions are quite cool.

[01:44:33] Um, syndication seems to be working quite well.

[01:44:35] How do you feel about making a TV movie for us?

[01:44:38] And he's just like, okay, we'll make a TV movie.

[01:44:40] It was called the God thing.

[01:44:43] Right.

[01:44:43] And this was definitely like gene wanted to do something with an almighty being that Kirk had to deal with.

[01:44:50] And this iteration, uh, and alien claims to be God.

[01:44:54] Kirk argues with it and they send it back to its own dimension and paramount passed on it.

[01:44:59] I said, no, we don't really like that.

[01:45:01] There is a few other, like the final frontier.

[01:45:05] I think he gets, uh, picks over some of those bones.

[01:45:08] Exactly.

[01:45:08] He manages to re-imagine it in the final frontier for better or worse.

[01:45:12] Um, it then goes through like a few different script iterations still becoming a movie.

[01:45:18] Um, but then evolves into planet of the Titans, which I love diving into this because this is Kirk.

[01:45:26] Again, they go to a planet that they believe has, uh, uh, is the home of a long extinct race of Titans that helped create earth.

[01:45:34] They get sucked into a black hole and get sent back in time to caveman times and basically play out 2001, a space odyssey by introducing fire to cavemen and accidentally birth the human race.

[01:45:50] Paramount said, you know what?

[01:45:52] No.

[01:45:52] And we're going to stop letting you do this.

[01:45:55] Like this is, they said there was budget reasons.

[01:45:59] They couldn't make the planet of the Titans.

[01:46:01] It was way too expensive to do all of this.

[01:46:04] Um, so that's when they were like, look, let's just make a TV show.

[01:46:07] We're doing the, the, the, the paramount television service thing.

[01:46:11] Star Trek can have a TV show.

[01:46:13] Here you go.

[01:46:13] And then we've, we've talked a lot about phase two and how that, that, that happened.

[01:46:17] And then phase two jumped into the motion picture.

[01:46:20] So there was, there's a joke at the beginning of the commentary where the paramount logo is coming up and the stars all appear.

[01:46:27] And apparently there's one star for every script of this movie that was.

[01:46:32] That's awesome.

[01:46:33] It's just, it's incredible.

[01:46:35] It's incredible knowing all of that from 74 through to what we saw in 79, five years of TV movie, TV show to motion picture.

[01:46:45] Every sci-fi writer you can imagine Spielberg briefly attached.

[01:46:51] And then no Robert Wise said no to begin with, cause he was doing something else.

[01:46:55] George Lucas was in the, in the talks to direct it as well.

[01:46:59] Of course, after star Wars.

[01:47:01] And I often wonder if close encounters and star Wars hadn't done as well.

[01:47:08] Star Wars did at first close encounters, repeated it.

[01:47:11] But if those two hadn't happened, would they have doubled down on the motion picture and said, okay, fine.

[01:47:17] Cause it could have just been the phase two died and nothing happened with star Trek at all.

[01:47:21] But those proof of concepts, I think is why we've got the motion picture as well.

[01:47:27] Yeah.

[01:47:27] Just a fascinating story.

[01:47:29] And you can play that game of what if, what if this never got made?

[01:47:32] And oh my goodness.

[01:47:33] It's so hard.

[01:47:34] It's so hard to think like that because so much of it was repurposed into the next generation.

[01:47:39] So in my mind, I take comfort in that as it was inevitable.

[01:47:44] Like these ideas were there in some way they were going to see the light of day.

[01:47:48] And I'm really happy with how we, how we landed and how it came about.

[01:47:52] Well, this is a kind of an interesting transition then for us to do a little power rankings.

[01:47:57] Love that.

[01:47:58] Yes.

[01:47:58] The movies, uh, from starting with the motion picture, but I almost don't want to include it.

[01:48:05] But then, uh, going through the original, uh, cast movies.

[01:48:10] Yes.

[01:48:11] Uh, up to generation.

[01:48:14] Do we want to include generations or not?

[01:48:16] I kind of don't.

[01:48:17] No, I'm fine with not including it.

[01:48:19] Um, I, that's absolutely fine by me.

[01:48:20] And my idea was that we do it in reverse order because I believe that our favorite pick and

[01:48:32] our favorites, uh, of these, you know, uh, we're going to be in agreement and it'll be

[01:48:37] the last couple that will be.

[01:48:39] And I think the, the ones that are less successful are more interesting to talk about than the more

[01:48:44] successful ones.

[01:48:45] No, I'm not going to be shocking everybody with one and two, like no one's going to be

[01:48:49] surprised by my two favorites.

[01:48:52] I think three is where we're going to get controversial.

[01:48:54] It's going to get interesting.

[01:48:55] And so I thought we, we could do a, uh, alternating reveal and I will preface you've, you just

[01:49:01] are living in this world.

[01:49:03] I just, because of this project, I went back and in my spare moments have been rewatching

[01:49:08] all the films up through up to generations.

[01:49:12] And so I'm fresh on my perspectives of the original cast movies.

[01:49:17] I don't know if we do this before or afterwards, but I'm fascinated to hear what, because I

[01:49:22] get this from Denae on the TV side a lot as a relapsed fan that's coming back into the

[01:49:28] fold for you diving into the movies.

[01:49:31] I can't wait to hear your thoughts about how they hit you now, going back into them with

[01:49:37] a deliberance, um, of, of what we're doing here.

[01:49:42] Yeah.

[01:49:43] So I think our, our favorite has got to be Wrath of Khan.

[01:49:48] Yeah.

[01:49:48] My number one is Wrath of Khan with the caveat of it's, it's the one I, it's, it's, I'm

[01:49:56] going to jump into number two as well.

[01:49:58] Okay.

[01:49:58] Go for it.

[01:49:59] Because I'm guessing we're both the undiscovered country.

[01:50:03] No, no.

[01:50:04] Okay.

[01:50:05] That's going to completely derail everything.

[01:50:07] Perfect.

[01:50:08] I love it.

[01:50:08] Good podcast material.

[01:50:10] This is incredible.

[01:50:11] This is great.

[01:50:11] I did not expect that.

[01:50:12] Okay.

[01:50:13] Um, so the undiscovered country is my number two.

[01:50:16] Oh my God.

[01:50:17] Yeah.

[01:50:17] Okay.

[01:50:17] Okay.

[01:50:18] And I, I jump.

[01:50:19] The caveat is that genuinely, depending on which one I see more recently, it switches

[01:50:23] with Wrath of Khan.

[01:50:24] I love them both so much.

[01:50:29] And it's, that's the sound of my jaw hitting my desk.

[01:50:33] That's the sound of a thousand Jedi is just igniting the lightsabers.

[01:50:37] Exactly.

[01:50:38] So genuinely like the undiscovered country, Star Trek six.

[01:50:41] I, I love that movie so much.

[01:50:44] Wrath of Khan nine times out of 10 wins out and it will consistently be my number one.

[01:50:50] The Wrath of Khan is a perfect action movie start to finish action sci-fi.

[01:50:56] And it, it has got so much drama and narrative and pathos and, uh, Ricardo Montalban is glorious.

[01:51:07] Dramatic consistency as well.

[01:51:09] Glorious in that role.

[01:51:10] I think quoting Shakespeare is often applied to Picard and Patrick Stewart.

[01:51:14] It started with Ricardo Montalban.

[01:51:17] It really did.

[01:51:18] Like he, oh, he tasks me.

[01:51:21] Like he's delivery of everything.

[01:51:24] This is city alpha file.

[01:51:27] His every single line, he eats them alive.

[01:51:31] And I, oh my Lord.

[01:51:32] It's just, where did this performance come from?

[01:51:35] It's incredible.

[01:51:36] And then Kirk is matching his energy.

[01:51:40] But what's the, sorry, Shatner's matching Montalban's energy.

[01:51:44] One of my favorite, like, this is something I didn't realize until recent years, but Kirk's delivery,

[01:51:51] sorry, Shatner's delivery of Khan is one of the most iconic moments in all of Star Trek.

[01:51:56] However, it's not just Shatner acting.

[01:51:59] That's Kirk acting.

[01:52:00] Because Kirk knows at that point that Spock hasn't abandoned him.

[01:52:06] And Khan, he's selling it to Khan that you've left me on this planet to die.

[01:52:12] But he already knows that Spock is minutes away from beaming them up.

[01:52:16] So he is screaming at Khan and selling that it's a lost cause.

[01:52:21] So I, that extra layer blows my mind every time.

[01:52:25] Kirk is acting as much as Shatner is acting in that Khan moment.

[01:52:30] So, um, for the film festival.

[01:52:34] Yes.

[01:52:36] We, I, we need to watch the movies together.

[01:52:39] Oh, that would be incredible.

[01:52:41] Yeah.

[01:52:41] That's easy to arrange.

[01:52:43] Yeah.

[01:52:43] That is, that is coincidentally the format of Captain Spot.

[01:52:46] Denae and I watch the episode together and then Raw go straight in to, um, to recording a podcast about it.

[01:52:54] It's really fun.

[01:52:55] Uh, because to, to have the, this and to be able to talk about what we're seeing on screen and live the emotion real time.

[01:53:04] It's, it would be so, because these movies are so rich.

[01:53:09] And, and there's just so much cellular history.

[01:53:12] DVD commentary.

[01:53:14] Yeah.

[01:53:14] To the movie.

[01:53:15] That's right.

[01:53:16] That's right.

[01:53:16] Okay.

[01:53:16] Well, my number two is search for Spock.

[01:53:20] I respect that.

[01:53:21] I respect that a lot.

[01:53:24] Search for Spock.

[01:53:25] There's this, um, the famous thing that every other.

[01:53:28] Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[01:53:29] Right.

[01:53:29] I screwed up.

[01:53:30] The voyage home, aren't you?

[01:53:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:53:32] Voyage home.

[01:53:33] I had the, the, the in reverse.

[01:53:35] That's why I got confused.

[01:53:36] And I was like, wait, search for Spock.

[01:53:37] Yeah.

[01:53:37] So I got a little confused there.

[01:53:38] So yeah, voyage home is number two.

[01:53:40] The one with the whales is it's colloquially known.

[01:53:44] Um, among Star Trek fans.

[01:53:46] Purely on vibes because that storyline is a dumpster fire of potholes and, and inconsistencies

[01:53:57] and, and things that are just entirely unbelievable in what could be.

[01:54:03] But when you put the humor into it and when you put those, um, those actors who are making

[01:54:12] fun of themselves by taking themselves out of time and being on the streets of San Francisco

[01:54:17] and, and, and Spock's, uh, memory loss and coming back into himself.

[01:54:23] Yeah.

[01:54:23] And, um.

[01:54:24] Why not?

[01:54:25] Yes, exactly.

[01:54:27] That's what I was, I was trying to remember some of those lines or the reaching over and

[01:54:31] giving the nerve pinch to the guy with the.

[01:54:34] The punk on the bus.

[01:54:35] Yeah.

[01:54:35] On the bus.

[01:54:37] The audience roared with laughter because that was so culturally poignant.

[01:54:42] Like it, it works out of time, but it also works greatly within the historical context.

[01:54:47] Yeah.

[01:54:48] Which is something I forgot to talk about earlier with, uh, V'ger just really quick that V'ger

[01:54:53] would have been a cultural thing that we were all very well.

[01:54:56] That's a stroke of genius.

[01:54:57] Yeah.

[01:54:57] We all knew what Voyager was.

[01:54:59] Yeah.

[01:54:59] And so when they, when he rubs the placard and it's Voyager, we're all, you know, we're

[01:55:05] punched in the gut right then.

[01:55:06] Like, well, when we see it, but then yeah.

[01:55:09] When, when they draw the thing.

[01:55:10] So that, that, that.

[01:55:11] It's a great punch.

[01:55:12] It's one of the, my favorite twists because it's not just a twist for the sake of a twist.

[01:55:16] It's a twist that serves the story and puts so much into context.

[01:55:20] Yeah.

[01:55:20] For the rest of them, for the entire movie.

[01:55:22] It's yeah, it's a stroke of genius.

[01:55:24] So yeah.

[01:55:25] So Voyage Home for me on a storyline basis does not hold up at all.

[01:55:30] It's completely ridiculous.

[01:55:33] It's the only comedy Star Trek movie.

[01:55:36] Um, and it's brilliant.

[01:55:37] It's comedy.

[01:55:38] And it's so well executed.

[01:55:40] It's, it's a little bit jarring sometimes for me because Star Trek first and foremost

[01:55:44] isn't comedy.

[01:55:45] And this leans into the comedy and the ridiculousness so much like just McCoy and Scotty going to

[01:55:53] the plastic factory to get.

[01:55:55] Computer.

[01:55:57] I'm holding up my mouse and speaking to it right now.

[01:56:00] It's so great.

[01:56:01] It's so good.

[01:56:02] Transparent aluminum.

[01:56:03] Um, and the, the discussion they have about corrupting the timeline.

[01:56:07] It doesn't even care about corrupting the timeline and introducing transparent aluminum.

[01:56:12] Because, uh, the, the enterprise crew were the only people in the sector and the, uh,

[01:56:17] only people who could save the fate of the universe.

[01:56:20] Well, they're not even on the enterprise.

[01:56:22] No.

[01:56:23] They, they stole the enterprise, blew it up.

[01:56:26] Blew it up.

[01:56:26] Spoilers.

[01:56:27] Stole a Klingon bird of prey.

[01:56:29] They're, they're, they're the only ones alive because they're the only ones that haven't

[01:56:32] been wiped out by this whale probe.

[01:56:35] So they decide, Hey, you know what?

[01:56:36] We did that one time.

[01:56:37] We went back in time.

[01:56:39] Didn't we?

[01:56:39] When we slingshot around the sun, let's just do that again and pick up a whale.

[01:56:42] Like it is.

[01:56:44] They literally go back in time to pick up a whale, to talk to a whale probe, to convince

[01:56:50] it to stop attacking earth.

[01:56:52] When in reality.

[01:56:53] And then it just fucks off.

[01:56:54] And we never see, never to be seen again.

[01:56:55] And the, what the hostile witness that they kidnap and bring to the future should be saying,

[01:57:02] yeah, kill these bastards.

[01:57:04] The humpbacks on, in the eighties are nearly extinct because of them.

[01:57:08] So go back further and preserve.

[01:57:10] You need to go back even further to a point where you're not killing humpbacks because

[01:57:14] this whale wants you dead.

[01:57:16] Like that probe should have finished the job based on the, the, the, the testimony of the

[01:57:21] humpback from the eighties.

[01:57:23] There be whales.

[01:57:25] There be whales, sir.

[01:57:28] It is one of the most quotable Star Trek films.

[01:57:32] Like you have the genius.

[01:57:34] Speaking of like, um, speaking of like context at the time, you have Chekhov, a Russian at

[01:57:41] the near height of the Cold War.

[01:57:44] Can you direct us to your nuclear vessels to a police officer?

[01:57:49] The insane thing is that the police don't arrest him straight away.

[01:57:53] It is San Francisco after all.

[01:57:56] So great.

[01:57:58] There are just so many incredible, um, moments in that.

[01:58:02] Everyone remember where we parked every time without fail that I park my car and it's somewhere

[01:58:07] strange.

[01:58:08] Everyone remember where we parked.

[01:58:10] I knew that quote from my dad before I'd seen the movie.

[01:58:13] Everyone remember where we parked.

[01:58:14] It's, it's just, that is such an iconic movie.

[01:58:17] This movie sits in number two for me because it takes the, the seriousness of everything that

[01:58:23] has come before and completely inverts it and brings in this element of joy and fun and

[01:58:31] escapade that is, exists nowhere else within the series.

[01:58:37] It stands alone, but it is delivered so well.

[01:58:40] The actor, all the actors commit to the bits.

[01:58:43] Yep.

[01:58:43] And, um, it, it, it tells a more, there's a, uh, something else that is, uh, intrinsic

[01:58:49] to Star Trek and Star Trek sometimes works almost better as this, uh, anthology type of

[01:58:56] show rather continuing, uh, continuing storytelling.

[01:58:59] It's almost like a twilight zone kind of thing where we're going to just take this idea and

[01:59:03] then play with it.

[01:59:04] And that's what this movie does because we talks about environmental conservation.

[01:59:08] Yeah.

[01:59:09] It talks about our relationship to other species.

[01:59:12] It talks about our relationships to ourselves and it, it just is, is so unique in that way.

[01:59:19] And purely the vibes bring, elevate this movie in a way that is unseen in anywhere else.

[01:59:26] And I can't ever let go of the, the heartwarming nature of this movie.

[01:59:31] Yeah.

[01:59:31] It is, it is, I would say other than the wrath of Khan, it's the most famous Star Trek movie.

[01:59:38] It's the one that people really have heard of.

[01:59:41] Oh, that's the one where they're actually on earth.

[01:59:44] Like everything looks familiar because it's set in the eighties.

[01:59:48] It's set in, um, San Francisco.

[01:59:50] It's, and it's just, it's ridiculous.

[01:59:52] Even the score is like a John Hughes score.

[01:59:54] Like it's a comedy score.

[01:59:56] Like it is a playful, lighthearted score.

[01:59:58] After the, the heaviness of the wrath of Khan and, uh, the search for Spock, which have this, um, this, uh, very consistent score throughout.

[02:00:07] This one goes like hard left turn into, into a very comedic score.

[02:00:13] Um, but I've never considered the score.

[02:00:15] So that you're bringing your cinema skin, sins, um, eye to this.

[02:00:19] That's great.

[02:00:19] When you watch it again, you'll notice the score in particular when they're in the hospital and they're trying to escape with check.

[02:00:26] Oh, that's a classic, uh, um, credible.

[02:00:29] Yeah.

[02:00:30] Slapstick sort of, uh, chase comedy.

[02:00:33] Completely slapstick.

[02:00:34] Noises off type of thing.

[02:00:35] Yeah, exactly.

[02:00:36] It's yeah.

[02:00:37] I, I, I absolutely see why that's, that's number two.

[02:00:48] For me, my number two, as I said, is the undiscovered country.

[02:00:52] Man.

[02:00:52] And you, you've sighed.

[02:00:54] Why didn't this movie hit you?

[02:00:56] Do you see the pain on my face?

[02:00:57] I see the pain on your face.

[02:00:59] Why didn't you like this movie?

[02:01:00] Why are you so wrong?

[02:01:05] It is.

[02:01:07] So I have a fresh rewatch of this.

[02:01:10] So I don't know.

[02:01:11] Do we talk about it now or, or at the end?

[02:01:13] Because can you guess where this one is for me?

[02:01:16] Oh, it's at the end.

[02:01:16] Let's wait until the end.

[02:01:17] Yeah.

[02:01:18] I'm absolutely fine with waiting for the return of Nicholas Meyer.

[02:01:22] Um, and the incredible piece of movie cinema that he made.

[02:01:26] Um, so what's your number three then?

[02:01:28] Search for Spock.

[02:01:30] Um, this is what, this is, this is where I get a bit controversial.

[02:01:33] Mine's the motion picture.

[02:01:35] So you're including, say I didn't include motion picture.

[02:01:38] Oh, interesting.

[02:01:39] Oh, well that's interesting.

[02:01:40] I guess we didn't set that rule, but I have a hard time comparing the motion picture to

[02:01:44] anything else.

[02:01:45] Yes.

[02:01:46] Agreed.

[02:01:46] Robert Wise.

[02:01:47] He's a director completely outside the Star Trek franchise.

[02:01:50] As you mentioned before, he had never seen the thing until, uh, he was actually tasked

[02:01:54] to make the movie.

[02:01:56] Yeah.

[02:01:56] It stands alone.

[02:01:57] Timeline wise, V'ger, uh, all of these things, nothing relates to, to the rest of this frequency.

[02:02:03] But even though this is the Star Trek motion picture podcast, so it really should be included

[02:02:07] in my power rankings.

[02:02:09] So I would put it in at, I'm going to put it here on my notes right now.

[02:02:13] I'm going to put it as my number three.

[02:02:15] And it goes up in my ranking every time.

[02:02:18] And I think three is where it's going to stay.

[02:02:20] I, um.

[02:02:21] I feel good about three.

[02:02:23] I feel really good about three.

[02:02:24] Like I've, it, I respect it so, so much as a piece of cinema and wherever.

[02:02:32] And it's a shame because it has such a cloud over it from its cinematic release.

[02:02:36] It does.

[02:02:36] It really, really does.

[02:02:38] And, but even the theatrical version, I can enjoy that as well.

[02:02:42] Like it's not the final product, but I enjoy it.

[02:02:45] And it's just, it is hurt by everything that came after it being so good.

[02:02:50] But this is honestly a fantastic piece of sci-fi, um, cinema.

[02:02:55] And I, every time I watch, I appreciate it more.

[02:02:58] Yes.

[02:02:58] The commentary has given me an extra level of appreciation.

[02:03:01] This research has helped me appreciate it more.

[02:03:03] But organically from that, every time I watch it, I appreciate it more.

[02:03:08] And it's just that having it in third place is an acknowledgement for me.

[02:03:12] Like the Wrath of Khan and Undiscovered Country, for me, a top tier TOS.

[02:03:16] This is, if you're going to do like an action sci-fi, this is what can happen.

[02:03:20] Popcorn entertainment.

[02:03:21] If I'm getting a pizza and I'm going to get some snacks and some buddies around, we throw

[02:03:25] on the Wrath of Khan.

[02:03:27] But the motion picture as a piece of cinema is incredible for me.

[02:03:30] Yeah.

[02:03:31] I love it so much.

[02:03:31] So yeah, that's, I'm happy with that being my number three.

[02:03:34] And yours was your...

[02:03:35] Well, I added it in as my number three.

[02:03:38] So that would make your number four the search for spot?

[02:03:40] Correct.

[02:03:41] Correct.

[02:03:42] Tell me, tell me, tell me why that's...

[02:03:44] It surprisingly holds up.

[02:03:47] It has a coherent story.

[02:03:49] It has a clear beginning, middle and end.

[02:03:51] And it is where it sort of lacks in some of its practical effects, the earthquake and

[02:03:57] the silly trope of like, you know, reaching over to, give me your hand and, you know.

[02:04:01] Yeah.

[02:04:02] I have had enough of you.

[02:04:09] But what's his name?

[02:04:11] Who's the actor who plays the main character?

[02:04:13] Christopher Lloyd.

[02:04:14] Thank you.

[02:04:14] Christopher Lloyd is an icon.

[02:04:16] Oh my good.

[02:04:17] And he commits to that bit as well.

[02:04:19] Before Back to the Future.

[02:04:21] As well.

[02:04:22] Like he hasn't done Back to the Future yet.

[02:04:24] Yeah.

[02:04:24] He was born to be Doc Brown and this Klingon.

[02:04:28] Yeah.

[02:04:29] Yeah.

[02:04:29] He's incredible.

[02:04:30] We get a lot of world building around the Klingons.

[02:04:33] We have a very poignant moment of Kirk losing his son.

[02:04:38] Yeah.

[02:04:39] You Klingon bastards.

[02:04:41] You killed my son.

[02:04:45] Like you're activating me whenever you do.

[02:04:49] Just fall into my chair.

[02:04:50] Yeah.

[02:04:51] Yeah, exactly.

[02:04:54] There's, and it's a coherent storyline.

[02:04:58] And there is, it's silly in some ways.

[02:05:03] Spock's adolescence and the little Ponfar action.

[02:05:07] Yeah.

[02:05:07] You know, McCoy with the, what's it called?

[02:05:12] Oh, the contra in his head is like, you Vulcan bastard.

[02:05:17] You did this.

[02:05:17] I knew you did this to me.

[02:05:19] McCoy is the perfect person.

[02:05:21] Perfect.

[02:05:22] It's the perfect last word to just screw with McCoy.

[02:05:26] And the fact that McCoy addresses that, it's like that Vulcan bastard.

[02:05:29] He had to get one last word.

[02:05:30] Yeah.

[02:05:30] It's so great.

[02:05:32] And then of course, capitalizing off of Spock's death and putting into play the relationship between McCoy, Kirk and Spock.

[02:05:40] Yeah.

[02:05:41] Is, is all very done nicely.

[02:05:44] It is not, it is, it is in my number four position for a reason because they're on production levels.

[02:05:50] And in some of the, um, working out of these themes and, and plot elements, it is imperfect.

[02:06:01] It is a better, it has more plot consistency and holds up better than Voyage Home does.

[02:06:09] Voyage Home is a absolute hot mess.

[02:06:13] An inconsistent hot mess in like, you've got the trilogy of the Wrath of Khan, the search for Spock,

[02:06:18] and then wait, why are we suddenly in the past?

[02:06:21] Are we not going to finish this trilogy?

[02:06:23] What?

[02:06:24] What?

[02:06:25] Why, why whales?

[02:06:27] But it just sort of, uh, it just has some, uh, again, it starts to feel like the studio is squeezing.

[02:06:32] And I haven't looked at the budget numbers for what, what's being devoted to it.

[02:06:36] You can guess.

[02:06:36] Yeah.

[02:06:37] It's the same thing happened.

[02:06:38] We covered Planet of the Apes earlier this year.

[02:06:40] Oh, that's fascinating how that budget drop off in the Planet of the Apes.

[02:06:45] They squeezed and squeezed.

[02:06:47] Yeah.

[02:06:47] Yeah.

[02:06:48] And so my, my fellow host on the Lorehounds, Alicia, um, did, uh, the movie, what we call

[02:06:54] a one shot in our world where she did movie review.

[02:06:57] But what, what we did is we, I went and looked at the original films and then we talked about

[02:07:02] that and then relative to the, the sort of the reboot.

[02:07:05] And yeah, Planet of the Apes holds an interesting position in, and I'm just waiting for Aisha

[02:07:11] from every single sci-fi film, uh, from her podcast to get up into this point because there's

[02:07:16] so much going on in this time period.

[02:07:18] But the, the Planet of the Apes is really interesting because it is one of the original

[02:07:23] franchise establishing a story universe.

[02:07:26] Yes.

[02:07:27] And then working the franchise.

[02:07:29] But yeah, the budgets every year down and down and down and still expecting that same

[02:07:35] blockbuster result while they're squeezing the creativity and the ability to actually just

[02:07:41] do the job.

[02:07:42] Yeah.

[02:07:42] It's, it, that is a fascinating franchise in and of itself.

[02:07:45] Charlton Heston said the movie he's most proud of and least proud of come from the same

[02:07:50] franchise, Planet of the Apes and then Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

[02:07:54] Right, right, right.

[02:07:54] It's incredible.

[02:07:54] Where he gets killed.

[02:07:55] Yeah.

[02:07:55] To jump straight from there to that.

[02:07:57] Oh, spoilers.

[02:07:57] Sorry.

[02:07:58] Yeah.

[02:07:58] What an ending.

[02:07:59] Anyway, we need to, I could do a show on Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

[02:08:02] Okay.

[02:08:03] So that's my search for Spock number four.

[02:08:05] What's your number four?

[02:08:06] So my number four and number five switch, and it's so, so hard.

[02:08:12] It's the Voyage Home and Search for Spock, which is quite fitting because we've, we've

[02:08:16] just done a deep dive into both of those.

[02:08:19] My, my teen ranking and my Want to Impress the Fans ranking is the Voyage Home and then

[02:08:25] the Search for Spock.

[02:08:26] My heart has Search for Spock at four and the Voyage Home at five.

[02:08:31] Okay.

[02:08:31] So I do rank Search for Spock slightly higher than the Voyage Home.

[02:08:36] And I'm curious why.

[02:08:38] The reason I do that is because yes, the Voyage Home is iconic and it is fun, but it's also

[02:08:44] not why I go to Star Trek.

[02:08:46] The Search for Spock is why I go to Star Trek much more.

[02:08:51] I get that.

[02:08:51] There's a cohesive story there.

[02:08:53] Where, um, Voyage Home was very populous, like we, which is like, I do not begrudge them

[02:09:00] doing what they did for the Voyage Home, especially for like budgetary reasons as well.

[02:09:04] Rumor has it Eddie Murphy was going to play the woman.

[02:09:08] Um, what's her name?

[02:09:09] Oh, Dr. Carol.

[02:09:10] Um, no, not Carol Marcus.

[02:09:12] God, what am I?

[02:09:13] Uh, what's her name?

[02:09:14] Oh, no.

[02:09:15] I'm going to look it up.

[02:09:15] You carry on.

[02:09:17] I'll look it up for us.

[02:09:17] Jillian Taylor is the character's name.

[02:09:19] Uh, that was going to be Eddie Murphy.

[02:09:21] Like they were going to go for, or Eddie Murphy was going to be like a captain or some, but

[02:09:26] anyway, there was going to be a huge comedy element injected into the Voyage Home that

[02:09:31] never happened.

[02:09:33] And that, I love watching the Voyage Home and as a movie, I really enjoy it.

[02:09:39] But as a Star Trek movie, I think Voyage Home, uh, the Search for Spock works better as a

[02:09:45] Star Trek movie.

[02:09:46] I get that.

[02:09:46] The, the arc of Spock's still alive.

[02:09:50] We're going to get him.

[02:09:52] That is, I don't know what's more Star Trek than that.

[02:09:55] Like that is like the crew get together on a rescue mission and then let's go and do

[02:10:00] it.

[02:10:00] It suffers from like not working without the wrath of Khan.

[02:10:03] It doesn't make any sense.

[02:10:05] It is not a standalone movie, which is why I have it relatively low down on this list.

[02:10:11] But the, this is the first like Star Trek iteration or kind of project that didn't have

[02:10:19] Spock in it.

[02:10:21] Like, okay, you've got team Spock, but you do not have Spock in this movie.

[02:10:25] This is a Star Trek movie without Spock and without Leonard Nimoy.

[02:10:29] The fact that we can watch it at all is incredible because Leonard Nimoy is, he is so much of what

[02:10:35] we love about Star Trek is him and Spock and what he brings to the table.

[02:10:39] Capturing the Enterprise, escaping with it, the escape from Dry Dock, that entire escape

[02:10:45] sequence against the Excelsior is freaking incredible.

[02:10:50] Just Kirk looking to Scotty and he's just like, now Scotty, open the doors.

[02:10:56] Now.

[02:10:57] And Scotty's like, yeah, I know Captain.

[02:10:58] I'm trying.

[02:10:59] I'm doing it.

[02:11:01] Absolutely incredible.

[02:11:04] I'm trying to get the captain, the.

[02:11:06] Oh, the, the, the, the asshole captain of the Excelsior.

[02:11:09] Yeah.

[02:11:09] With his little stupid staff.

[02:11:11] What is the actor's name?

[02:11:12] It's escaped me.

[02:11:14] Yeah.

[02:11:14] He does a great job though, is the being an unlikable captain.

[02:11:17] Captain Stiles.

[02:11:19] James Sisking.

[02:11:20] James Sisking.

[02:11:21] Absolutely.

[02:11:22] Just.

[02:11:22] So good.

[02:11:23] Perfect performance.

[02:11:24] Just like brushing his nails in his cabin while he gets called to the bridge.

[02:11:28] Just perfect physical acting.

[02:11:30] And honestly, the, this movie destroys the Enterprise.

[02:11:37] That is bold.

[02:11:39] That is a swing.

[02:11:42] Like they, nobody, I don't think anybody liked it at the time.

[02:11:45] It didn't have Spock in it.

[02:11:46] They blew up the Enterprise.

[02:11:47] They're like, what have you done?

[02:11:48] Kirk.

[02:11:49] My God, bones.

[02:11:50] What have I done?

[02:11:50] But that shot of the Enterprise saucer section blowing up and then crashing down.

[02:11:57] I replay it every time I watch it.

[02:12:00] And I think it works for the movie.

[02:12:02] It's exactly what needs to happen in that movie.

[02:12:06] And the sacrifice he makes to get Spock back like that.

[02:12:11] The ship is not as important as rescuing Spock.

[02:12:14] And I just think the, the arc of getting Spock back, it had such a high level of difficulty

[02:12:19] and it executes it well.

[02:12:21] And yeah, the ending is a bit cheesy and bit hand wavy with just Kirk getting beamed up,

[02:12:28] doing a great Klingon impression.

[02:12:31] But I, I, it has a really great.

[02:12:37] So good.

[02:12:38] So good.

[02:12:40] Yeah.

[02:12:40] I love that.

[02:12:41] And then for Voyage Home does come in number five for me for the reasons that we've, we've

[02:12:46] talked about.

[02:12:46] I like it.

[02:12:47] I have a great time with it.

[02:12:48] It's not necessarily why I come to Star Trek.

[02:12:51] I think I absolutely have to own the fact that Voyage Home is number two is a big nostalgia.

[02:12:56] Yeah.

[02:12:57] Totally get it.

[02:12:57] Energy for me because when we were in the theater, the theater was on its side, hilarious,

[02:13:04] rolling in the aisles, laughing.

[02:13:06] And that's not what Star Trek is supposed to do.

[02:13:08] That's great.

[02:13:09] Just, you know, energized.

[02:13:10] It's incredible.

[02:13:11] Yeah.

[02:13:11] I wish I could.

[02:13:12] And I think I might feel differently had I been there for it as well.

[02:13:15] And the shock of, wow, Star Trek's doing something different.

[02:13:19] Like, yeah, it's incredible.

[02:13:20] Yeah.

[02:13:20] And doing it well.

[02:13:21] They did it so well.

[02:13:22] They did the comedy bit so well.

[02:13:23] Well, and that's the first Star Trek movie without the Enterprise as well.

[02:13:26] Like, that in and of itself is bold.

[02:13:29] Yeah.

[02:13:29] That's a, to have the, one of the main characters not in the movie is huge.

[02:13:34] Sir, it's the Enterprise.

[02:13:37] Understood.

[02:13:38] Pan over.

[02:13:38] It's like, oh, what are the odds?

[02:13:40] That's amazing.

[02:13:41] Brilliant.

[02:13:41] Yeah.

[02:13:42] All right.

[02:13:42] Well, my number five is Final Frontier.

[02:13:48] Not number six.

[02:13:49] I'm, I'm sorry.

[02:13:50] I'm, I'm, I'm.

[02:13:51] Now it's your turn to be shocked.

[02:13:53] I'm trying to be accepting.

[02:13:55] I'm trying to be gracious as the custodian of Star Trek in this conversation.

[02:14:00] You like the Final Frontier more than the Undiscovered Country.

[02:14:04] And I, I am excited to hear your reasoning.

[02:14:10] Tell me why the, the, the movie that Shatner directed.

[02:14:13] Shat on the, the, the Shat, the Shatner movie.

[02:14:16] The Shat cut.

[02:14:18] Yeah.

[02:14:19] The piece of Shat that we don't talk about.

[02:14:21] Why is, why is that your, your number of your, your fifth most favorite Star Trek movie?

[02:14:27] And I, going into this, I had a preconceived dose, you know, cause I just rewatched the movies

[02:14:31] just all within the last month-ish or so.

[02:14:33] So you knew it by reputation.

[02:14:35] And, and so I was coming in with my predisposed already like, oh, I know what my order is.

[02:14:43] It's Wrath, Voyage Home, Search for Spock, Undiscovered Country, Final Frontier.

[02:14:50] And those two flip.

[02:14:51] That's the best way to go into watching the, the, the, the Final Frontier.

[02:14:55] And Final Frontier is, it's in number five.

[02:14:58] It's below the fold here.

[02:14:59] It's below the, you know, it's at, it's near the bottom here.

[02:15:03] It is silly.

[02:15:06] It is, uh, um, cannon breaking, story breaking.

[02:15:11] Uh, oh, hey, let's cross the, the barrier.

[02:15:14] We can.

[02:15:15] The galactic barrier.

[02:15:16] Let's, yeah, let's do that.

[02:15:17] We're going to skate through it in one direction and we'll skate right back out the other direction.

[02:15:21] No problem.

[02:15:22] Yep.

[02:15:22] Um, but it has a heart to it in that it is asking those, those questions about humanity.

[02:15:36] What is it?

[02:15:38] And is this all that there is?

[02:15:40] Which is a question that the motion picture asks.

[02:15:43] Mm-hmm.

[02:15:43] And, uh, Cybok is not different than V'ger in some ways when he's trying to find his creator.

[02:15:55] And he is a messianic cult leader.

[02:16:00] Mm-hmm.

[02:16:00] Who has this empathetic ability to, you know, uh, encounter people and take their pain.

[02:16:09] And then in the, the relieving of the pain, there is a transformation of, of being, which is very real.

[02:16:18] Mm-hmm.

[02:16:19] From a psychological standpoint.

[02:16:20] You go into therapy or you take some of these leadership courses or whatever, and you start to unpack your, your guilt that you don't need to carry around with you.

[02:16:30] Mm-hmm.

[02:16:31] You can start to re-perspective the, the, you have these moments in your life that you can take new, fresh perspective and, and understand the meaning that you collapsed and, and unpack that kind of stuff.

[02:16:43] And you can become, you can really feel that, that level of transformation.

[02:16:47] Mm-hmm.

[02:17:17] That, that, that, those questions of psychology and transformation and the seeking of truth, it is above undiscovered country for me.

[02:17:28] I don't disagree.

[02:17:30] I, we get, it, it is very popular to poo upon, um, the one with God.

[02:17:37] God, not God.

[02:17:38] But, I don't know, weird.

[02:17:39] What does God need a starship for?

[02:17:41] Uh, which is just like the great line, best line delivery Shatner possibly does in the entire movie is, excuse me.

[02:17:47] One finger up, God need of a starship.

[02:17:51] Um, but yet the, the final frontier, it, it is popular to, to hate on it, but I still find myself watching it every couple of years.

[02:17:59] Like, sure.

[02:18:00] I'll never skip it.

[02:18:01] I still enjoy it.

[02:18:02] And you're right.

[02:18:03] There is a very solid theme going throughout it.

[02:18:08] If you cut away Shatner's ego, his questionable directing, the car crash that is the special effects in this movie.

[02:18:16] Absolutely.

[02:18:17] Yeah.

[02:18:17] Absolute dog shit.

[02:18:19] Yeah.

[02:18:19] But the, the, the theme I really like, it's very Star Trek.

[02:18:24] It's a extremely Star Trek theme to explore this fundamental thing of shakari, the, the God that is in every culture, like everyone, everyone in some form, like on earth, every religion on earth has these focal figures, these origin stories that can find common ground.

[02:18:43] It's the monomyth, it's Joseph Campbell.

[02:18:46] Yeah, exactly.

[02:18:47] It's the, it's the, this thing that connects everyone and can we find it?

[02:18:51] So yeah, it's fascinating.

[02:18:53] It's just the execution for me is so, so poor and it's so bogged down by Shatner.

[02:19:00] It's so hard to get past the idea that Shatner's like, I won't do any more Star Trek unless you let me direct this.

[02:19:07] Nimoy got to direct one.

[02:19:08] I'm going to direct one.

[02:19:10] Yeah.

[02:19:10] And that seeps through so much of the movie.

[02:19:14] The climbing scene at Yosemite, the row, row, row your boat camp.

[02:19:18] Which has become iconic in and of itself, but it's, it's, it comes back to that thing that I think is going to be in like the.

[02:19:26] Row, row your boat is in Final Frontier.

[02:19:29] I'm my bad.

[02:19:31] Is it?

[02:19:32] No, I think it's in.

[02:19:32] Because the gravity boots and everything.

[02:19:35] Well, it is in the Final Frontier.

[02:19:36] Yeah.

[02:19:37] Isn't it?

[02:19:37] Yeah.

[02:19:38] Yeah.

[02:19:38] Undiscovered.

[02:19:39] That's what we're saying.

[02:19:40] Oh, now I'm getting.

[02:19:40] This is the thing that annoys me about these two movies too, is that the undiscovered country and the Final Frontier, they cross the barrier.

[02:19:47] That should be the Final Frontier.

[02:19:49] That is the Final Frontier.

[02:19:50] I don't know.

[02:19:50] The names don't do the justice to the storyline.

[02:19:53] The Undiscovered Country is the confusing title.

[02:19:56] Exactly.

[02:19:56] Because it isn't about.

[02:19:58] The Undiscovered Country is one line.

[02:20:00] It's not actually what the movie is about.

[02:20:02] So yeah.

[02:20:03] That's the problem of.

[02:20:03] It could say the same thing as the Final Frontier.

[02:20:06] Yeah.

[02:20:06] I see what you mean.

[02:20:07] Yeah.

[02:20:07] Like that title would have worked for the Final Frontier.

[02:20:10] That's where I get my confused.

[02:20:11] I totally get it.

[02:20:12] Totally get it.

[02:20:13] Yeah.

[02:20:13] But yeah, it has like the Go Climb a Rock t-shirt and the campfire stuff.

[02:20:18] Teaching Spock to sing Row, Row, Row, Row your boat.

[02:20:20] And that's all Shatner's personality and things that he's interested in are being expressed in the movie, which do no service to the movie.

[02:20:28] Exactly.

[02:20:29] No, none at all.

[02:20:30] And it's hard to get past that for me.

[02:20:32] And I feel this extra Shatner-ness to Kirk's delivery of everything.

[02:20:38] And then when you, especially when you get to the back half of the movie and the special effects where the people that they usually would get to, which I think is ILM.

[02:20:47] By this point, the Star Trek movies are being, the special effects are being created by George Lucas's special effects crew.

[02:20:57] They weren't available to do this movie.

[02:21:00] They went ahead with it anyway.

[02:21:01] And I can't remember the name of the production company, but they shat the bed on the special effects for the final frontier.

[02:21:11] Right.

[02:21:12] They used like just the techniques that they used weren't right.

[02:21:15] They were pretty budget.

[02:21:18] And it's just, it doesn't feel, it feels different to any other Star Trek movie.

[02:21:23] So it's hard to unsee that as well in the special effects.

[02:21:27] I'm trying to find in the Brian Fern's effect company, Associates and Fern.

[02:21:35] There you go.

[02:21:36] Never heard of them.

[02:21:37] Yeah, exactly.

[02:21:38] They did Altered States and Little Shop of Horrors, apparently.

[02:21:41] Oh yeah.

[02:21:41] They got this off the back of Little Shop of Horrors.

[02:21:44] Okay.

[02:21:44] And it shows in some of the, when you have the, you have like the Klingon bird of prey that picks up Kirk and you have like the shuttle sequence where they're piloting the shuttle from Nimbus.

[02:21:57] Nimbus three into the enterprise, which I love as a sequence, but the visual execution of that is terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible.

[02:22:07] Right.

[02:22:08] But yes.

[02:22:09] So Undiscovered Countries, what's your number six?

[02:22:13] My number six is the final frontier.

[02:22:15] Interesting.

[02:22:15] It's not, it's, it's kind of like 13.

[02:22:19] It's, it's all the, it's like, it's way, way, it's off the list somewhere.

[02:22:23] Yeah.

[02:22:24] But again, I still find myself watching it.

[02:22:26] And Undiscovered Country was my number two, which is your number six.

[02:22:30] So tell me why you dislike this amazing movie.

[02:22:36] I was like, okay, I'm ready for a Klingon spouting Shakespeare and floating gobbles of blood.

[02:22:44] Yes.

[02:22:44] And then we got the prison planet.

[02:22:48] We've got Day of the Jackal, assassins.

[02:22:51] Yes.

[02:22:51] We've got all kinds of things.

[02:22:54] Phantom torpedoes.

[02:22:56] Yes.

[02:22:57] Yes.

[02:22:57] Mysterious, mysterious torpedoes and crewmen.

[02:23:01] You, you, this is your locker and here are your gravity boots.

[02:23:05] And then they all look down and they see the.

[02:23:07] The reptile feet.

[02:23:10] So I, there's a lot that this movie is trying to do.

[02:23:15] It's mixing genres.

[02:23:16] It's mixing storylines.

[02:23:18] We've got the shape shifter on the prison planet.

[02:23:21] We have, you know, Kirk and McCoy on, uh, on trial and on, on Klingon.

[02:23:29] We have.

[02:23:30] Kronos.

[02:23:31] Yeah.

[02:23:31] We have a cast of, of Klingon characters.

[02:23:34] The grieving.

[02:23:36] It's just.

[02:23:37] It's like one of those baking shows or food cooking shows where the person puts up a dish

[02:23:43] and it looks great, but the flavors don't all, they don't mix.

[02:23:49] It, it, they're, they're doing 50 things when they should do five things.

[02:23:52] It's an Italian Chinese fusion pizza chow mein.

[02:23:56] It is a, to me, and to me, the, the, the comedy that they try to go for completely misses.

[02:24:03] There's too much sauce for the goose.

[02:24:05] You might say.

[02:24:07] It is just, uh, it makes it to me unwatchable.

[02:24:12] And then when we get the reveal of, you know, who, who's really behind this nefarious plot.

[02:24:18] Young Kim Cattrall is behind it all.

[02:24:20] I do not buy it at all.

[02:24:23] They.

[02:24:24] You'd have bought it even less with the original idea, which was to have Savick.

[02:24:29] Be the person.

[02:24:30] Be the person.

[02:24:31] That's the threat.

[02:24:32] That would have, that chain.

[02:24:33] If they'd kept that, that changes things.

[02:24:35] That would have been breaking.

[02:24:38] I, I hear it.

[02:24:39] I, I get it.

[02:24:40] This is a movie that should not work, but for me does.

[02:24:44] It's a, it's a.

[02:24:45] So at what point in your life did you see this and how did it, how do, how is your personal

[02:24:50] circumstance around encountering this affecting your choice?

[02:24:53] Is it for you?

[02:24:54] Like Voyage Home is for me.

[02:24:56] Voyage Home is a complete train wreck of a plot, but God, I love it because of that

[02:25:01] vibe and that humor and that history.

[02:25:03] I don't know.

[02:25:04] Is that, is that a similar thing or is that?

[02:25:06] It's yeah, it's got, I've seen, um, the Wrath of Khan and the Undiscovered Country.

[02:25:11] It's no coincidence that those two are my dad's favorite Star Trek movies.

[02:25:15] So that meant that they were in rotation a lot.

[02:25:19] So if we were going to watch, he steered away from the Star Trek movies a lot, but if

[02:25:24] I insisted on watching a Star Trek movie, he'd be like, it's still a win.

[02:25:27] I'm watching Star Trek.

[02:25:28] I got my kid to convince, I got to, I convinced my kid to convince me to watch Star Trek.

[02:25:33] What's going on?

[02:25:33] Right.

[02:25:34] So it would be between the Wrath of Khan and the Undiscovered Country.

[02:25:37] So yes, this is one that was on rotation.

[02:25:40] So I get it that I do have a bias for that.

[02:25:43] And it is visually imprinted on my brain because of the floating Klingons, the purple blood,

[02:25:50] Kirk with one knee on the chair, fist in hand, fire!

[02:25:54] Like that.

[02:25:56] Just pummeled them with torpedoes.

[02:25:59] They're operating on a torpedo while it's traveling down the tube, people!

[02:26:03] They're going to get fired out with it and Kirk doesn't care!

[02:26:06] The mystery behind it.

[02:26:10] The murder mystery that Spock Columbo has to solve while he's on board as chief investigator,

[02:26:18] detective Sherlock Spock Holmes, because we all know that Sherlock was actually written

[02:26:23] in Vulcan first and then cribbed by Arthur Conan Doyle.

[02:26:27] There is all of that.

[02:26:29] There is the incredible space battle.

[02:26:32] There is Sulu in the Excelsior racing to meet his friend.

[02:26:37] Right, who gets promoted, who gets a promotion that he had just deserved.

[02:26:40] Finally, in spite of Shatner, because he didn't like George Takei.

[02:26:46] But they're on the Excelsior, they're racing towards it.

[02:26:50] The ship's going to fly her apart!

[02:26:52] Fly her apart, dammit!

[02:26:53] And just all of that drama, for me, it is executed beautifully.

[02:27:00] And for me, it showed that Star Trek can once again good genre hop.

[02:27:04] And I didn't realize this as a kid.

[02:27:06] It's something I've come to much, much, much after the fact.

[02:27:08] But you've got The Wrath of Khan being The Hunt for Red October in a submarine movie.

[02:27:14] Absolutely.

[02:27:14] And it's hot by the time you get to the finale.

[02:27:16] Z minus whatever.

[02:27:17] Exactly, yeah.

[02:27:18] One ping only.

[02:27:20] And this, you have this, like the Day of the Jackal.

[02:27:23] Connery, by the way.

[02:27:24] Thank you very much.

[02:27:25] I have an advantage by being just south of where he's from.

[02:27:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[02:27:28] But yeah, the Undiscovered Country being, like I said, the Day of the Jackal,

[02:27:32] the conspiracy, the assassination attempt.

[02:27:34] The first time.

[02:27:35] All things I love.

[02:27:36] All things I absolutely love those genres.

[02:27:38] Mm-hmm.

[02:27:39] And it's one of the first times we see Starfleet be corrupt as well.

[02:27:42] This is a corruption within Starfleet.

[02:27:45] Yep, yep, yep.

[02:27:46] And it's Cold War, right?

[02:27:48] So it's absolutely at that time of when this was made.

[02:27:52] The fact that you're opening with Spock opening peace accords

[02:27:56] between the Klingons and Starfleet.

[02:28:00] Or Sarek?

[02:28:01] Um, Spock.

[02:28:03] Spock.

[02:28:04] You said Spock.

[02:28:05] I meant Spock.

[02:28:06] Sarek said it wasn't possible.

[02:28:07] Okay.

[02:28:08] Yeah, Sarek's, no, well, Sarek's, Sarek's involved, but Spock is spearheading it.

[02:28:13] Okay.

[02:28:14] Oh, that's right, you're right.

[02:28:15] Yeah, Sarek thinks it's illogical to even try.

[02:28:17] Right, right, right.

[02:28:18] But Spock is like, we're going to do this.

[02:28:20] Like, we need peace with the Klingons.

[02:28:22] Obviously, their moon has exploded and that's where all of their-

[02:28:25] Praxis, which is, yeah, Chernobyl and, yeah.

[02:28:27] Yes, exactly.

[02:28:28] And the allegory is great.

[02:28:30] The Klingon Empire.

[02:28:31] I remember being shocked when Spock and Kirk are talking to each other

[02:28:34] and Spock's just like, without our help, they're going to die.

[02:28:38] And Kirk's just like, let them die.

[02:28:41] And I'm just like, whoa, this isn't Star Trek, that's weird.

[02:28:45] But I get it because those Klingon bastards, they killed his son.

[02:28:49] And then facing Kirk with the longest transporter beam sequence in canon,

[02:28:59] which I am fine with it breaking.

[02:29:02] For all of you Star Trek nerds out there,

[02:29:04] you'll know that transporter beams have a confinement beam.

[02:29:06] So it stops you from moving.

[02:29:09] So you can't accidentally move a transported part of yourself out of the beam.

[02:29:14] That doesn't matter in this movie because Kang turns his head mid-transporter beam

[02:29:19] to look at Kirk.

[02:29:21] And just that, the deafening sound of the transporter beam as they all come on board.

[02:29:26] There are so many moments in this movie that are just embedded,

[02:29:30] implanted into my brain that I love.

[02:29:32] So I can't look at it objectively.

[02:29:35] And that's why I hold it up there.

[02:29:36] It's your number two.

[02:29:37] I get it.

[02:29:37] It's my voyage home.

[02:29:39] Yeah, it's exactly the same.

[02:29:41] The nostalgia there, the iconicness of Christopher Plummer.

[02:29:46] Yeah, thanks.

[02:29:47] Christopher Plummer.

[02:29:47] Cry havoc and let slip.

[02:29:49] Cry havoc!

[02:29:50] Like whenever I get a wheelie chair, it's the first thing I do.

[02:29:52] I'm a child.

[02:29:53] I'll sit down in the wheelie chair and I'll spin it around and cry havoc.

[02:29:58] It's incredible.

[02:29:59] It's incredible.

[02:30:00] Brilliant.

[02:30:01] I get it.

[02:30:01] I respect it.

[02:30:02] Yeah.

[02:30:02] And I think you could ask this power ranking to so many different fans.

[02:30:07] And I would justify any order other than the Final Frontier being above six.

[02:30:12] I would accept any order of the movies because they all do, apart from the Final Frontier,

[02:30:18] they all do something different to the person watching them and your background.

[02:30:23] And it is such an eclectic genre hop of a franchise that now when you have a franchise, it's how

[02:30:30] do we do the last thing better?

[02:30:33] Star Trek is very much, ah, how do we do something different better?

[02:30:36] So it's going to get interesting when we do a complete front to back power ranking.

[02:30:44] It'll be fascinating.

[02:30:45] Where we're mixing direct, you know, styles and casts and that kind of stuff.

[02:30:50] I will tell you there is a new number six.

[02:30:53] There will be a new bottom place if we do the full ranking.

[02:30:56] Final Frontier is not my least favorite.

[02:30:58] Don't say anything.

[02:30:59] Don't say anything.

[02:30:59] Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

[02:31:01] I am intensely curious.

[02:31:03] And that curiosity shall be the clickbait that we leave our listeners for their impetus to

[02:31:09] listen to another series from us.

[02:31:12] So you know that we are from two different podcast and pop culture commentary individual

[02:31:19] cultures or, you know, you have Cinema Sins and the Captain's Pod, us over here on the

[02:31:26] Lorehounds.

[02:31:27] But we know that we are sympathetic because it's two and a half hours into this podcast

[02:31:33] and we could continue on.

[02:31:36] I haven't even begun to talk about the split diopter camera technique and lenses that were

[02:31:41] used in the motion picture.

[02:31:43] Like that's in my notes and we're not going to get to it.

[02:31:45] So this is a quintessential element to the Lorehound culture, which is, oh, it should

[02:31:51] be a quick podcast, an hour, hour and a half.

[02:31:53] And it's, you know, two X, two and a half times.

[02:31:57] And you leave so many on.

[02:32:00] We use those little checkboxes in Google documents, like for our notes that we get that you there

[02:32:05] are a half a dozen, dozen, uh, unchecked, uh, topics.

[02:32:09] Yeah.

[02:32:10] Just let left on the floor.

[02:32:12] And this is it.

[02:32:13] It, it, it pains you that you did not get to talk about that thing, which is why I shoehorned

[02:32:18] the split diopter into, into that final clip because I have to talk about the split diopter

[02:32:22] and how you don't see that in many movies.

[02:32:24] This is when you can see the person in the background is in focus and the person in the

[02:32:28] foreground at the same time.

[02:32:29] And it goes throughout the motion picture and it adds so much depth to the movie.

[02:32:33] And that's something I'm not going to get to talk about.

[02:32:36] Boy, now I have to go back and watch the movie.

[02:32:39] You got to rewatch that when you, so you'll see like a bit of blurriness between two characters,

[02:32:44] but you will see Sulu in like the extreme background, Kirk in the foreground, both in focus with a

[02:32:52] blurry bit between them.

[02:32:53] And that is literally a lens that they put in front of the camera to allow it to focus

[02:32:58] on multiple points before 3d technology was even happening.

[02:33:02] And it just gives you a depth of field for the bridge that is any, any other movie.

[02:33:06] Robert Wise was a gift.

[02:33:09] Chef's kiss.

[02:33:10] An absolute gift to this franchise.

[02:33:13] Incredible.

[02:33:14] Well, well, as we, as we wrap up for the captain's pod listeners, where can people find you,

[02:33:20] David, the law hounds plug all of the things that are worthy of plugging.

[02:33:25] We are at lorehounds.com.

[02:33:27] We have multiple shows within our range of just the lorehounds.

[02:33:33] We cover Tolkien, we cover comics, DC MCU stuff.

[02:33:37] We do a little bit of movies.

[02:33:39] We do a little bit of books.

[02:33:40] I'll be covering Dune Prophecy by the time that this comes out.

[02:33:45] My compatriot, Alicia, will be doing Silo season two.

[02:33:49] Nice.

[02:33:49] John will probably be covering Star Wars skeleton crew for us as we roll through the new year.

[02:33:57] And so if you visit us at lorehounds.com, you can find all the things and the subscriptions.

[02:34:02] We have a community discord.

[02:34:04] We have a great mod team.

[02:34:05] We have channels and forum threads set up for all the different projects and things that we're covering.

[02:34:11] We also sponsor a whole bunch of other podcasts.

[02:34:15] Never mind the music, which is a music theory professor and a psychology professor taking apart songs from different time periods.

[02:34:25] It's amazing.

[02:34:26] By the time this comes out, you'll have heard a cross promotion on the front of some Captain's Pod episodes sending you over to them.

[02:34:33] So I can recommend all of the podcasts that David's mentioned.

[02:34:37] They're excellent.

[02:34:38] We have Rings of Rituals, which breaks down Rings of Power through a lens of ritual.

[02:34:44] That's Marilyn R. Pequila and Dr. Sarah Brown from Signum University, which is the Tolkien University.

[02:34:49] We have Radioactive Ramblings, which was born to cover the Fallout series.

[02:34:56] And they're doing the Red Redemption book series right now.

[02:35:00] Oh, amazing.

[02:35:01] Yeah.

[02:35:01] And we also have Properly Howard movie reviews, which is Anthony and Steve.

[02:35:09] He's a standup comic.

[02:35:10] Anthony's an academic within the space of theology.

[02:35:15] And Anthony has a whole other world of covering House of Dragon, George R.

[02:35:19] Martin, Game of Thrones, but he does all the books as well.

[02:35:24] And he comes in.

[02:35:25] And so, yeah, we cover a lot.

[02:35:26] But go to lorehounds.com and you can find us there.

[02:35:30] And then I'll give you a Linktree link for all of our things as well that you can put in the show notes of Europe.

[02:35:35] Yeah, we'll have that in the description.

[02:35:37] I can massively recommend anything with lorehounds on the front of it.

[02:35:41] Now gets me excited after our initial chat after connecting with you, after doing some stuff with Aaron.

[02:35:48] Yeah.

[02:35:48] On Lore of the Rings.

[02:35:50] Yeah, Aaron.

[02:35:50] Absolutely incredible.

[02:35:51] Good, good, nerdy, nerdy, nerdy stuff.

[02:35:54] What about you?

[02:35:55] Yeah.

[02:35:55] So for the Captain's Pod side of things, we do a weekly podcast.

[02:36:00] Myself and Danae, the relapsed Star Trek fan.

[02:36:04] We're currently, by the time this comes out, we'll have just finished the final season of Lower Decks.

[02:36:10] So that's season five.

[02:36:11] So what we usually do is any live Star Trek that's on TV, we'll dive into, even if we are midway into something else.

[02:36:24] Yeah.

[02:36:24] Or if the show is something that Danae hasn't seen.

[02:36:27] So we did season five of Discovery, even though she hadn't seen a single episode of Discovery.

[02:36:31] So we will dump her into it and I will do my best to fill in any gaps that are necessary.

[02:36:38] And if you're familiar with CinemaSins, we kind of take a similar view of the show.

[02:36:43] We'll do like an overall...

[02:36:43] That's a YouTube channel.

[02:36:45] Yeah.

[02:36:45] And CinemaSins is a YouTube channel.

[02:36:47] That's my day job.

[02:36:48] For the Captain's Pod show, we'll do a general discussion and then we'll give it the CinemaSins treatment,

[02:36:54] which is nitpicking and picking apart inconsistencies for the second half of the show.

[02:36:58] But yeah, we do a weekly podcast for that that comes out on Wednesdays and we record the bulk of that live on Twitch every Friday.

[02:37:09] So if you go to twitch.tv slash CinemaSins live, you can actually watch us record the show as it happens and join in with the lovely audience that joins us there.

[02:37:20] Otherwise, if you want to find me, you'll find me mainly on the CinemaSins YouTube channel, writing lots and lots and lots of videos.

[02:37:27] We'll do two videos a week, lovingly sinning and nitpicking whatever movies are relevant.

[02:37:34] We have done all of the Star Trek movies now.

[02:37:37] I wrote on Star Trek 3, 4, 5, and then all of the TNG movies.

[02:37:47] So if you want to hear some more nitpicky thoughts, you'll hear Jeremy's voice, but you'll hear my writing in those videos.

[02:37:55] But yeah, CaptionsPod is the best place to find us.

[02:37:58] And we have a Discord channel very similarly.

[02:38:01] It's a CinemaSins Discord.

[02:38:03] So discord.gg slash CinemaSins with a CaptionsPod channel in there where we talk all things Star Trek from spoilers to spoiler free to everything.

[02:38:16] Speculation, the whole lot.

[02:38:17] So yeah, Discord is great for building those lovely communities.

[02:38:20] Absolutely.

[02:38:21] Brilliant.

[02:38:21] Brilliant.

[02:38:22] Well, Ian, it's been an absolute pleasure.

[02:38:23] It has been three hours of my life, 40 minutes of it that may not even make it into the show.

[02:38:28] That's right.

[02:38:29] That's right.

[02:38:30] Because we were...

[02:38:31] Incredible.

[02:38:32] Yeah, it's been such a joy.

[02:38:33] I hope it wasn't too much of a shotgun blast of information because we really wanted to cram in a lot of detailed stuff from behind the scenes.

[02:38:42] And there's so much we didn't get to cover, but hopefully it was educational and fun.

[02:38:47] And then you and I will continue to conspire about our plans for other coverage and figure out how we're going to tackle that.

[02:38:57] Because I really want to...

[02:38:59] As I was watching the movies recently, I kept thinking about how fun it would be to do that Mystery Science Theater 3000 style, watching and talking and having fun and really just...

[02:39:11] Oh, I'm absolutely here for that.

[02:39:12] Yeah.

[02:39:12] Yeah.

[02:39:13] There's something to be said for a hyper-prepared podcast that's a deep dive and then just a raw emotion.

[02:39:20] We're enjoying the movie together and this is how we feel.

[02:39:22] Like, there's so much fun to be had in that.

[02:39:24] So I don't think this is the last time you'll hear our two voices talking about how wrong David's opinion is of The Final Frontier.

[02:39:34] All right, Ian.

[02:39:35] We'll talk to you soon.

[02:39:36] Cheers.

[02:39:36] See you later.

[02:39:37] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds.

[02:39:40] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact.

[02:39:46] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds Podcasts at patreon.com slash thelorehounds.

[02:39:52] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[02:39:58] Thanks for listening.

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