Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Last night I saw a midnight screening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with a pre-movie Q&A with Arlene Martel! It was really cool, and reminded me of this blog, and so here I am.

Obviously I'm not caught up with the series right now, but I don't think too much from the movie went over my head.
In a couple of prologues, we see this enormous freaking cloud shooting lasers at spaceships for no reason, just destroying this gaggle of Klingons who were basically just chilling out. I have to confess, that this cloud is 100% of terrifying. The movie's special effects are much cooler than the show's, and director Robert Wise chose to spend about ten minutes out of every half hour slowly panning across the Laser Cloud. This made some critics say that the movie lacked plot. I say it made the whole thing even scarier. Seriously. Just these quiet, slow pans across a kloud that kills.

When we last saw our heroes (apparently) they were doing their thing on the USS Enterprise. You know, NBD. But since then, some things have changed. Well, not a lot of things. Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and (!) Rand are still toiling away in their dead-end jobs, some with mild promotions. Spock, on the other hand, has been away at camp on Vulcan, training to be more of a stone-cold harsh dude, and making lanyards. Kirk has been inexplicably promoted to Admiral, and Bones has been getting wasted, growing a boss beard, and banging everyone he encounters, using his Sex Medallion as a seduction tool. Scotty has been growing a mustache, but I don't recall where.
The Enterprise, in the power vacuum created by Kirk's promotion, is being commanded by Capt. Decker, a minister from a small town in Ohio who has like a dozen kids. As soon as Kirk hears about the Insane Cloud Posse, he gets back onto the Enterprise, demotes Decker for like no reason, and Reclaims His Throne.

Then quite a bit of nothing happens for a while. Basically, the Enterprise just flies toward the cloud for a while, and then reaches the cloud. They hire Sinead O'Connor to help out, and the very second she meets Kirk she tells him she has a vow of celibacy. Which, okay, do what you gotta do, but apparently Kirk's reputation is pretty set among Starfleeters. Even though he's her direct superior. So, she could just refer him to her H.R. rep if he tried anything. But she goes the celibacy route. So, okay.
Also, turns out she has a history with Decker, and the two of them share Meaningful Glances for basically the length of the movie.
They get to the cloud, and my least favorite thing in the movie happens. Spock uses his computer to figure out that the cloud communicates in a higher frequency or whatever than the Enterprise does, which is why it hasn't responded positively to their "What Up" messages. Here's what sucks about this: Uhura already gets basically nothing to do here. Let her be good at her job, please. She can figure this stuff out.
Anyway, they start chatting with the cloud, and then it attacks them, and then it eats Sinead O'Connor, and then it sends her back with a creepy voice. The cloud is named V'ger (pronounced "vagina") and it is sad and confused, like 24/7.
They keep flying deeper and deeper into the cloud, which is equal parts tedious and terrifying.
Once things are crazy dangerous enough, they get to the heart of the thing, and Kirk decides it's time to go exploring. He is led by Sinead, because she's acting as an operative for V'ger. He takes Spock, because Spock mind-melded with the thing or something. Decker wants to come, so fine. And he takes McCoy, because BROS FOR LIFE.
They get in close and figure out that oh man V'ger is short for "Voyager 6" and it has just collected all the information in the universe and wants to give it back to earth, in the form of DESTRUCTION. Obviously there's only one solution: Decker has to meld with V'ger and also with Sinead O'Connor, and then it's okay. It's like they're getting married basically.
Their job done (a ton of Starfleeters dead), Kirk and The Jets return to The Enterprise. Kirk figures Decker and Sinead might not count as dead, so he puts them down as "missing," WHICH WILL FUCK WITH THEIR FAMILIES' PENSIONS AND BENEFITS KIRK COME ON, and decides to just keep captaining this spaceship, and flying off to "that-a-way." Until next time!