Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Director's Cut)

To listen/download, click here!

Once again, the guys were short a person (Jake was on vacation, camping with his family), so it was left to Derek and Larry to slog their way through this week's movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Majel Barrett, Persis Khambatta, Stephen Collins, Grace Lee Whitney, and Mark Lenard.

Hot on the heels of the record-shattering box office of Star Wars, the folks at Paramount were looking for their own science fiction epic to rake in some of those sweet, sweet nerd dollars. And after trying and failing to bring their old franchise back to the small screen, it was decided to put it on the big screen. Budgets were made, then slashed. The old cast was re-hired, although Leonard Nimoy was not too keen on donning the pointy ears of years past, some new characters were added, and detailed models were built. Finally, filming began...

And, although it was almost painfully long, it still managed to bring in a pretty solid chunk of change. It wasn't Star Wars money, but it was clear that the army of the original television show were excited to see the further adventures of the Enterprise crew.

This adventure begins with a cloud. A big cloud. like, really big. And some Klingons. But not the Klingons of yesteryear; no, these Klingons had a whole new look, with ridges on their foreheads and severely receding hairlines, giving them the appearance of an irritated grandpa who doesn't understand that rock-and-roll music the kids seem to like these days.

True to form, the Klingons encounter the cloud and determine that the best way to deal with it is to shoot it with torpedoes, as one does. Unfortunately for them, the could basically swallows their torpedoes and retaliates with a murderous disco ball of sparks, instantly destroying all three of their ships.

Not just a cloud; A murderous space vagina!

Space Station Epsilon Nine intercepts the Klingons' transmission of the cloud attacking them, and they decide that they should probably warn the United Federation of Planets, being as the cloud is heading right for Earth. In turn, the Federation nominates the U.S.S. Enterprise to save the planet--again--because there are no other ships within range--again.

Admiral James T. Kirk (Shatner), sick of pushing papers at a desk all day, meets with his superior and demands to have the Enterprise given back to him, which, of course, happens. Now all he has to do is break it to the current captain, William Decker (Stephen Collins), who does not take the news well. He takes it even worse when Kirk informs him that, along with being demoted, he has to stick around as the Executive Officer.

And the finger pointing begins!

During Kirk and Decker's conversation, the transporter fails during a beam up of a pair of new crewmen, including Sonak (Jon Rashad Kamal), now-Captain Kirk's choice for Science Officer. As a result, the now demoted Commander Decker is also given double duty as the ship's acting Science Officer. Poor guy gets all the garbage dumped on him. But things improve for him when Ilia (Khambatta), the ship's new Deltan navigator, arrives. It seems she and Decker have a past of some kind.

Over on Vulcan, Spock (Nimoy) is taking part in the Kholinar ritual, which involves cleansing one's self of all emotion and becoming pure logic, or something like that. However, as he is about to be confirmed, he stops the ceremony because he is getting some kind of signal from somewhere out in space. He fails Kholinar.

The last crew member to arrive on the Enterprise before they leave is Dr. McCoy (Kelley), who is his usual cranky, possibly drunk self.

That guy on the left should really think about bangs.

Finally off and moving toward the cloud, Kirk demands they go to warp speed, which, due to an imbalance in the warp engines, immediately drags them into a wormhole with an asteroid that has the potential to destroy them before they even get out of the solar system. Decker saves the day, and Scotty (Doohan) is left to clean up the mess.

Not long after, the Enterprise is contacted by a Vulcan shuttle that drops Spock off. He's been listening to their communications and has figured out how to fix the warp engines, thereby cutting off one of Kirk's many options to kill as many crewmen as possible all at once. He is recommissioned and given the Science Officer position, relieving Decker of at least a little bit of the hassle he's had heaped upon him since Kirk took over. Time to get moving!

After what feels like hours of meandering shots of the Enterprise cruising along, they finally intercept the cloud, which is now only two days from Earth. As they try to make contact, the cloud sends a murderous disco ball after them. Fortunately, Spock figures out how to communicate with the cloud and transmits a peaceful message, and the cloud makes the disco ball disappear. Taking this as a tacit invitation, the Enterprise proceeds into the cloud.

Another mess for Scotty to clean up.

Almost immediately, a probe made of lightning and blinky lights boards the bridge and begins scanning the computers. Spock smashes his station's console in an attempt to stop it, which sort of works, although the probe zaps Spock and the disintegrates Ilia. Seconds later, the ship automatically goes to red alert again when an alien object appears in the crewmen's quarters. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker and Rand (Whitney) all go down to see what it is, because that seems like a safe idea. They discover an android--another probe--that looks almost exactly like Ilia, but with a monitoring device mounted on its throat. Although it isn't Ilia, it still appears to have some her memories, as it recognizes Decker, which leads to Kirk assigning Decker to keep an eye on it.

Now deep inside the cloud, the ship is forced to stop in front of a closed aperture. Spock decides he has to see what's beyond that, so he takes an EV suit with a rocket pack on it, and then he heads out into the cloud to see. He makes it through the aperture, and discovers an enormous memory bank that contains all the things the cloud, which is known as V'ger, has seen. At the end of it, Spock sees a giant representation of the probe and attempts a mind-meld, which does not go well; he gets pooped out of the aperture and has to be rescued by Kirk.

Persis Khambatta: Committed to indifference.

Back on the ship, the Ilia probe explains that V'ger is going to Earth to find its creator and, because it is clear the humans on the planet are an infestation that is causing the creator to not be able to respond, it's going to wipe those out, too. Thinkingt fast, Kirk says he known who the creator is, and would be happy to tell V'ger himself, but the Ilia probe refuses, demanding to be given the information. When Kirk further refuses and clears the bridge, the Ilia probe concedes and offers to take Kirk and his crew to meet V'ger.

But what is V'ger? And will Kirk manage to convince it not to kill everybody? Will Spock get the information he came looking for? Will McCoy and Scotty sober up enough to remember any of this happening? And will Decker get to do the one thing with the Ilia probe that he couldn't do with the real Ilia--touch them space boobies?

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Larry was not impressed. It was a long movie that didn't really do much. Most of it was people staring at things, with occasional shots of the things they were staring at, mixed with bits of dialog. Dull, plodding dialog. But it's funny to imagine McCoy being hammered the entire time.

Derek also doesn't think it's a very good film, but he is fascinated that Kirk manages to maintain his rank despite his insatiable blood lust. The guy was responsible for two crewmen dying before they even got out of space dock! Also, Derek talks about sitting in the Captain's Chair, which deserves the capital letters.

That's right...This happened. (The Star Wars shirt was done intentionally, as a joke.)

So strap on your pointy ears, throckulate your perambulators (or the 21st century equivalent), live long and prosper, and listen this week's episode!