Unreview: Star Trek: the Motion Picture

I rewatched Star Trek: the Motion Picture over the weekend. First time in decades. I still think it’s much better than its reputation, but this isn’t a proper review. Instead, a few observations:

I had forgotten about the shuttle flyby when boarding: Due to the position of the space station and the maintenance docks, they’re coming from behind the Enterprise. They take a wide arc out and around the docks to the front of the ship. They then fly into the docks, past the entire ship to the rear, presumably where the shuttle bay is. But they don’t actually head for the shuttle bay, instead swooping past and heading back towards the front of the ship, finally docking at the base of the neck. So they basically do two complete flybys of the entire ship for no reason…when they’re on a super tight schedule where every minute counts.

This Is No “95%” Movie

I know, I’m a little late to the game here. I’ve had other priorities. But Star Trek is nowhere near as good as Rotten Tomatoes might indicate. Oh, sure, it’s good. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s not the level of sheer awesomeness that a 95%-fresh rating might indicate. Here are some other movies that have a 95% freshness: Monsters, Inc., Pan’s Labyrinth, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [man, it’s hard finding movies that i’ve seen with exactly a 95% fresh rating]. Probably a better measure of why this isn’t the right rating is to look at a few really excellent recent movies with lower overall ratings (in no particular order):

• No Country For Old Men
• Juno
• The Bourne Ultimatum [though, admittedly, this is probably the weakest of the 3 Bourne movies, relying almost entirely on action]
• There Will Be Blood
• The Dark Knight
• Milk
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Iron Man [well, ok, i might agree with that]
• Bolt
• Casino Royale