The Daily Scrapbook 2/5/13 — March 29, 1978 ‘Starship on a Silver Screen’

Hi Kids, here’s today’s flashback:  From March 29, 1978, the news all Trekkies longed to hear: Star Trek was finally coming back, and now as a movie! Now in my lifetime, there had been many movies turned into TV series, but never vice-versa.   The first Trek movie was a pioneer in this aspect.   I was so happy that Nimoy was back as Spock, and recall being cautiously optimistic about the movie, which turned out to be with good reason.  Despite all the bells and whistles, the first movie to me just wasn’t Star Trek; the uniforms were ugly dull polyester onesies, the Klingons were bumpy,  Shatner’s toupee was all wrong! A tally of offenses abounded in first movie.   There were intensely loving but terribly long and  slo-o-o-o-ow close-ups of the Enterprise.  The splendid music and special effects were loud, but the dialogue was annoyingly whispered.  The plot meant well, but it was executed all wrong! But the worst offense was  that there was hardly any humor in it, (save for McCoy) with the characters so sombre I wondered if Nimoy’s character from Invasion of the Body Snatchers had turned the whole Enterprise crew into pod people!  I was so disappointed with it that I was ready to give up on my beloved series.  Was there anything I liked about the first movie?  Yes. Jerry Goldsmith’s  “Illia’s Theme” was dreamily beautiful, and still gives me chills. Alas, even the love story between she and Decker wasn’t utilized as well as it could have been.  I give Roddenberry and crew points for trying,  but unfortunately, it would be  three years until the second movie‘s glory made up for the first ones dearth of spirit (in spades!)                By the way — this was the final article posted in my original scrapbook– a fitting end to five years of clippings up to this point. Volume II will start tomorrow (there are four volumes in all).  Thanks for coming along for the ride so far!