Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Producer Gene Roddenberry and director Robert Wise have corralled an enormous technical crew, and the result is state-of-the-art screen magic.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is probably about as good as we could have expected. It lacks the dazzling brilliance and originality of 2001 (which was an extraordinary one-of-a-kind film). But on its own terms it's a very well-made piece of work, with an interesting premise. Read full review

Fans will probably spend little time debating Star Trek's intellectual depths; there are none. But the human element triumphs over the technological in a resolution that is sentimental and highly satisfying. Star Trek is a visually boggling 23rd-Century fantasy. But peel away the budget and it's as comforting as an old-fashioned fable. [8 Dec. 1979]

The big problem with this movie is its length. And the story it tells was really better suited for an episode of the series. Read full review

Perhaps the greatest strength of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is that, despite a badly-paced middle, it boasts a strong beginning and end. Read full review

Watching Star Trek — the Motion Picture...is like attending your high-school class's 10th reunion at Caesar's Palace. Most of the faces are familiar, but the décor has little relationship to anything you've ever seen before. Read full review

As dull as it is to watch, "Star Trek" at least possesses a measure of intellectual pizzazz: not enough to provoke thought and discussion, exactly, but more than many "Star Wars" imitators have bothered to give us. [4 Jan. 1980, p.15]

No matter how important teamwork is on a job of industrialized entertainment like these ostensibly visionary films, the vision itself has to come from a single inspired sensibility. Despite some intriguing ideas, episodes and effects, that isn't the case with "Star Trek." [17 Dec. 1979, p.110]

There are only so many ways to photograph black starry space and the under-bellies of spaceships, and the films that got there first used them all up. Read full review

What you see is what you respond to, and what you see is a unique cultural phenomenon, and a film that for all its visual splendors falls well short of its aspirations. Read full review

It is a purely mechanical movie that is no more dazzling to the eye than a nighttime landing at Kennedy airport. Read full review

Unfortunately, director Robert Wise has no feeling for Trek's pop insouciance, and the movie unfolds ponderously. Read full review

Star Trek is an essentially passive adventure movie, made more so by director Robert Wise's failure to prevent the protracted effects sequences from retarding the narrative pace. [8 Dec. 1979, p.E1]

The big screen was where none of them had gone before, and you can tell. Read full review

Star Trek is, finally, nothing but a long day's journey into ennui. Read full review

This 1979 movie adaptation of the cult TV series is blandness raised to an epic scale. Robert Wise's bloodless direction drains all the air from the Enterprise. Read full review