Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Director's Edition (1979/2022)

I've always been more of a Star Wars fan than a Star Trek fan, but I've enjoyed much of the original series, and a number of the films with the original series cast. But based on its reputation, I had never sat down to watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture in its entirety. Oddly enough, as a fan of Jerry Goldsmith's wonderful score (which forever redefined the Star Trek theme), I had sat through the opening overture a dozen times or more through the years on different formats. When a Director's Edition was released on DVD in 2000, I picked it up thinking that I would finally sit down to watch it. But I never got around to it. So my patience worked in my favor, as 22 years later, the Director's Edition was remastered for 4K with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. 

While no amount of revisionism was going to make this more entertaining than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it does feel like a film that was trying to appeal to the fans of the original series. But in a post-Star Wars world, it clearly didn't deliver to an audience with new expectations for another action-packed space opera. Sure, the Klingons show up in an effective opening scene, and there are a handful of aliens represented aboard the Enterprise, but it's not that kind of movie. 

The cast of the original series settle back into their roles nicely after more than a decade (if you ignore those who reprised their roles vocally in the animated series), and newcomers Stephen Collins and Persis Khambatta are welcome additions to the crew. While the film lacks a traditional villain (Ricardo Montalbán will more than make up for that in the sequel), it's still a somewhat interesting story as the crew of the Enterprise heads out to intercept a dangerous electrical cloud on a collision course with Earth. 

I'm glad to have finally seen the film, and experiencing the Jerry Goldsmith score in all of its Dolby Atmos glory makes up for many of the film's shortcomings.