Star Trek: Motion Picture Trilogy
by Leonard Nimoy, Nicholas Meyer
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig, William ShatnerDirector: Leonard Nimoy, Nicholas Meyer
Brand: Motion
Writer: Leonard Nimoy
Writer: Nicholas Meyer
Writer: Gene Roddenberry
Writer: Harve Bennett
Writer: Jack B. Sowards
Writer: Peter Krikes
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Portuguese (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Restored, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 335 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-05-12
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of Star Trek: Motion Picture Trilogy
Movie Review: Trek done right
Summary: 5 Stars
When "The Wrath of Khan" first appeared in theaters, someone said to me, "This is Trek as it should have been done on TV, but with enough money to do it right." The same could be said of all three of the movies in this set, which indeed form an "epic 3-part adventure," as the sleeve copy has it.
"Wrath" is probably my second-favorite sf movie of all time (the first, by a mile, being Star Wars, Episode IV- A New Hope (Widescreen Edition)). We find Jim Kirk, owing to the nature of military promotion schedules, grounded on Earth, having been kicked upstairs to an admiralty, while his officers--Spock (now captain of the aging Enterprise), Scotty, Dr. McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekhov--have all risen along with him and moved on to other assignments. McCoy, who knows his old friend well, advises him to "get back your command," but it isn't till he goes out on a training flight with a crew of about-to-graduate cadet trainees that Kirk has a chance to do so. Chekhov, aboard the small starship Reliant, has inadvertantly rediscovered Khan Noonian Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and the survivors of his "genetically engineered" followers on Ceti Alpha V, and Khan has taken over the Reliant to have his revenge on Kirk, whom he blames for the deaths of most of his group, killed by the sudden environmental changes brought about by a shift in the planet's orbit. When Khan finds out about the existence of the Genesis Project, helmed by Kirk's old lover Dr. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and their son David (Merritt Butrick), he determines to possess it--and to use it as bait to lure Kirk within reach. The duel that follows is classic action sf, with beautiful effects (3-D starfields, Station Regula I backlit by the glow of a nebula, a wonderful matte of the Genesis Cave, the Mutara Nebula glowing multi-colored with auroras and thunderstorms, gas and dust, all the space-battle scenes, and the crippled Reliant being among the best) and a splendidly thunderous James Horner music 'track (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). See if, like me, you find new things to notice on each viewing (it took me several of the dozen times I saw it in the theater to pick up on the ruby stud in Saavik's (Kirstie Alley before her weight woes) left ear). It's also worth noting that you sometimes forget Shatner trained in Shakespearean theater--until you see him, as he does here, registering rage, grief, despair, indeed almost the entire range of human emotion. Of course, it's clear that this is all happening in another version of human reality, since we know that no "eugenics wars" or "genetic engineering" took place in *our* "late 20th century," but its vision, as in the original TV show, is both inspiring and thrilling. (For more details about the characters, especially Saavik and the young cadet Peter Preston (Ike Eisenmann of Escape to Witch Mountain Special Edition and Return from Witch Mountain Special Edition), read the excellently done paperback tie-in, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan.)
"The Search for Spock" takes up immediately following the previous film, as Kirk & Co. return to Earth with plans to go back to the Genesis Planet as soon as possible. David and Saavik (now played by Robin Curtis, of whose career this seems to be the high point) are there ahead of them, and find evidence that Spock, dead of radiation poisoning after saving Enterprise and her crew and buried on the newborn world, may have been "regenerated" by the Genesis Wave. Meanwhile Kirk learns that Enterprise is about to be decommissioned and that the planet is off limits to everyone but the scientists. Then he receives a visit from Spock's father, Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard), who reveals that McCoy--the last person to physically interact with Spock--may well be bearing his "katra" ("all that he was, all that he knew"), and suffering personality changes because of it. This changes many things, and Kirk and his friends hijack the Enterprise out of spacedock and head for Genesis. Unfortunately, the Klingons--or at least one of them, Capt. Kruge (Christopher Lloyd splendidly villainous, and coughing and barking away in Klingonese as if he'd done it all his life)--know about Genesis too, and are likewise en route. And the planet is aging "in surges" owing to the inclusion of unstable "protomatter" in the Genesis Matrix. Now it's a race against time to get Saavik, David, and the resurrected Spock off the planet before it blows up--and prevent the Klingons from getting any more information about Genesis. Here again we find a thrilling storyline, lots of gorgeous special effects (contributed, as in STII, by George Lucas's world-famous ILM), and another pulse-hammering score, plus a fine portrayal of the relationships between a group of veteran spacers who've been to the edge of death and back together more times than they can accurately count. (And rather more humor than in the earlier movie, too, as in Kirk's observation regarding McCoy's reaction to the katra's presence ("I hear he's fruity as a nutcake") and Scotty's wry explanation of how he was able to prevent pursuit by the transwarp-equipped Excelsior ("The more they fancy up the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain").) Other high points include Sarek and the exotic resurrection ritual at Mount Seleyah on Vulcan (featuring Dame Judith Anderson as a Vulcan high priestess). For this installment, too, Vonda McIntyre supplied a masterful paperback adaptation (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock).
The trilogy concludes with "The Voyage Home," in which, after three months' exile on Vulcan, Kirk & Co. resolve to return to Earth and face the charges filed against them by Starfleet. With Enterprise destroyed (spectacularly) in the previous film, they're reduced to using the Klingon bird-of-prey patrol scout they captured over Genesis--but its cloaking device proves to be a great advantage. They arrive in Earth's system just in time to find it under attack by a mysterious probe, which, Spock suggests, is attempting to contact not humanity but another intelligent race--humpback whales, extinct since the early 21st Century. To save their world, Kirk's party must travel back in time to the 1980's ("an extremely primitive and paranoid culture," observes Kirk), find a whale or two, and bring the creature/s forward to "talk" to the probe and call off its attack. Their attempts to blend in are of course delightful, but the underlying tension never lets up, and there are a couple of near escapes as Chekhov is severely injured trying to harvest protons to regenerate the bird-of-prey's dilithium crystals and the whales they've found conveniently in captivity at the Cetacean Institute in Sausalito are released to the wild and spotted by a whaling ship. Leonard Rosenman's score isn't as good as Horner's work, but the effects are ILM at its best. Watch for the grandson of a famous Hollywood director listed in the credits, and read Star Trek IV The Voyage Home (McIntyre up to her previous standard) and Probe (Star Trek) (in which Margaret Bonanno explores the genesis of the probe).
If you're an old Trekker--or even a new one--these three movies are required viewing, and this combined package will allow you to acquire them at a lower price than you'd pay singly. Highly recommended.
Summary of Star Trek: Motion Picture Trilogy
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 12-MAY-2009
Media Type: DVD
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