If you actually sit down and watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it is a very good film. Yet the film’s reputation among fans is quite poor. Why is this?
[This article primarily analyzes specific criticisms of the film. For other information, such as plot descriptions, see Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s wikipedia or imdb pages.]
Criticism: They are copying Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
One of the groundbreaking aspects of Kubrick’s 2001 (of which there are many) is the beautiful sequences of spacecraft flying to classical music. These include: the earth-to-space-station-flight; the space-station-to-Clavius-Moonbase-flight (both to Strauss’ Beautiful Blue Danube); the moon-bus trip to the monolith site (György Ligeti’s modernist Lux Aeterna); and the extended view of the Discovery spacecraft (Adagio from Aram Khachaturian’s Gayane ballet suite [which is also the source of the piece Sabre Dance] ).
Star Trek: The Motion Picture has two sequences many claim are derivative of those in 2001. The first has Kirk and Scotty taking a shuttlepod to the newly rebuilt and redesigned Enterprise (both in terms of in-universe story-line, and real life effects miniature). Scotty takes a couple of extra loops around the Enterprise to give Kirk an extended view of his beloved ship. This is done against Jerry Goldsmith’s glorious theme.
This first sequence does feel derivative of 2001’s Blue Danube sequences. The second one, however, is another matter. Near the mid-point of the film, the Enterprise enters a gargantuan energy cloud. What follows is an extended sequence of passing through the various cloud layers, followed by views of an equally massive spacecraft at the cloud’s heart. These scenes are intercut with occasional cutaway/reaction shots of the Enterprise crew.
Many have associated this second sequence with Kubrick as well, but thematically it is closer to the work of horror/fantasist author H. P. Lovecraft. One of the major themes of his work, particularly of his Cthulhu Mythos stories, is of an amoral universe full of forces very dark, very powerful, and very alien. These entities don’t look at humanity as something to be conquered, so much as something so small and insignificant as to be unworthy of consideration at all. The V’ger entity of ST: TMP ultimately turns out to be much less inhuman than Lovecraft’s Old Ones, but the cloud sequence makes it clear we are dealing with something powerful beyond conception. The resemblance to the waltzing spaceships of 2001 is just superficial.
“Wait a minute,” some will say. “Maybe the cloud sequence really wasn’t like the Blue Danube bit. But isn’t this dark/mysterious/powerful concept exactly what 2001’s monolith was? Aren’t they still copying Kubrick?”
Lovecraft died in 1937. During his lifetime, Lovecraft was a prolific contributor to speculative fiction pulps including Weird Tales. He influenced and corresponded with many genre luminaries of the era including Robert E. Howard, the original creator of Conan the Barbarian, and August Derleth, who later founded Arkham House, the first American sci-fi/fantasy small press publisher.
Since Kubrick famously said 2001 was supposed to be "the proverbial good science fiction movie" (Arthur C. Clarke, The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1979)) and had a well known inclination for heavy research (he reportedly read almost 500 books for his unrealized project Napoleon) Kubrick almost certainly read up on genre literature. Therefore Lovecraft is likely a common source for both Kubrick and ST: TMP.
Look forward to musings on the relationship between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the Original Series episode The Changeling in part 2 of this article.
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