I had such high hopes for this movie being an ardent trekkie. It started superbly with the various crew members assembling to take the new Enterprise (away from Cpt Decker) to investigate the mysterious cloud that was approaching Earth. Terrific stuff. They leave Earth with an ill prepared crew, Spock dramatically joins the ship in deep space and the journey recommences. By now I was on the edge of my seat. The Star Trek movie of my dreams. Then they entered the cloud . . . . .and the action , and the script, and the dialogue ended! To be replaced by endless boring pans through scenery so dark and meaningless as to make the green end-of-reel-umpteen interesting! That cloud penetration sequence seemed to go on FOR EVER! What was the editor thinking about. Eventually the Enterprise reaches the centre to be confronted by V-ger and the action,script and dialogue picks up again to conclude the film in a satisfactory way. Never before have I seen a film that so sorely needed severe editing. Even now when I watch the DVD (Yes it was good enough for me to buy) I usually fast forward through the cloud entry eternity. And I am still amazed at how long it is even on 20X speed. . . Watch it but you can have a long break in the middle without having to stop the film!
Review of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
