Star Trek Viewing Guide
Chapter 4 · The Long Road to Khitomer
  1. 1The Road to the Federation2063–2161
  2. 2Toward the Five-Year Mission2230s–2261
  3. 3The Expanding Federation2265–2268
  4. 4The Long Road to Khitomer2268–2293
  5. 5A New Generation2324–2367
  6. 6Continuing Voyages2367–2369
  7. 7New Frontiers and Foundations2369–2370
  8. 8Exploring New Quadrants2371–2372
  9. 9Storms on the Horizon2372–2373
  10. 10The Dominion War2373–2375
  11. 11Trying to Get Home2375–2379
  12. 12Life on the Lower Decks2380–2382
  13. 13Echoes and Legacies2383–2401
  14. 14The Far Future3074–42nd century

Feature film

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Released December 7, 1979

Admiral James T. Kirk leads the crew of the USS Enterprise to stop a mysterious alien cloud from destroying Earth.

Commentary

Movie time! Some background here. Paramount was planning on making a new network, and intended a new Star Trek series, "Star Trek Phase II", to anchor it. Scripts were written, sets were built, and actors cast. When network plans fell through, and Star Wars became a hit, they decided to take one of those scripts and streeeeeeeeeetch it out into a movie.

So…. Is it way too long for the amount of plot it has? Yes, though it has its charms. And isn’t it basically a retread of Nomad from the episode "The Changeling" anyway? It is. And hey, isn’t that the pedophile Dad from 7th Heaven? mm-hmm. Anyway, if you have access to it I recommend the Director’s Cut, in which pacing is much improved and some particularly flawed effects are redone, but either version works story-wise.

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