Considered one of the worst Star Trek films this film is still gorgeous to watch, especially on this blu-ray release, especially with the original Douglas Trumbull Special Effects. The film is very much a love story to the new Enterprise, but it does suffer from a slow pace, and an enemy that is too inhuman to really be a foil to the crew, still it is an enjoyable straight science fiction story, even if it does not have the fun of later Star Trek. It is obvious that the films quick conversion from a new television series Star Trek: Phase II, and the transformation from the pilot script “In Thy Image” into the script for the film did not completely work as expected, as the film is a bit slow and dry. The film was rushed, and the script never finished, and the budget tripled, and the film was considered a failure, though it did easily make back it’s money, getting the studio to greenlight a sequel, and one without Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry who they blamed for this films failures. It is great to see the crew back together, and Nimoy was not set to return until this was turned into a film, though the one in the film with the best lines is McCoy, and because of that DeForest Kelly does really steal the show (helps only having special effects as the enemy). I still do enjoy this film, and it is much better than the dismal failure of Star Trek 5, but it is one of the weaker trek films.

The film starts with an overture featuring the amazing score by Jerry Goldsmith, which later because the opening theme to Star Trek the Next Generation. Then we see a vast energy cloud which 3 Klingon Vessels go in to attack (this is the first time Klingon’s have had the skull ridges which so define them later), and are quickly completely destroyed by powerful energy beams. And it turns out the cloud is on a direct intercept path to Earth. Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) has a meeting with Star Fleet command, and is given command of the Starship Enterprise, which has been being refit under the command of Captain Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) for the past 18 months, and is basically a new ship. Kirk is taken over in a shuttle pod by Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) where he learns the ship is not quite ready, and needs a shakedown cruise as many things are not in order, but they need to launch in 12 hours to intercept the Energy cloud. Kirk informs the angry Deckard that he has been demoted to first officer, and Kirk is taking command. The new Vulcan science officer is killed in a transporter accident while beaming over to the ship. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy (DeFirst Kelley) is drafted, and brought back into service thanks to Kirk, and McCoy isn’t too happy about it, or the refit of the medical bay. Kirk orders the ship into Warp speed, and they are dropped into a wormhole along with an asteroid. Kirk orders phasers to fire it, but Deckard belays that order, and has Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) now weapons officer (having been replaced as Navigator by Ilia (Persis Khambatta) a Deltan with a former relationship with Deckard who had to take an oath of celibacy to join Starfleet) to fire a photon torpedo, which destroys the asteroid and they safely make it out of the wormhole. Kirk confronts Deckard for countermanding his order, and Deckard informs him he doesn’t know enough about the refit enterprise, and the phasers are now routed through the warp drive, and were cut off. Meanwhile Spock (Leonard Nimoy) on Vulcan was attempting to gain total logic, but his mind felt the presence of the mind of the cloud entity, and does not attain total logic, so he takes a warp shuttle and goes to join the Enterprise, lending his expertise to help with the Warp Engine troubles.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

Spock quickly helps Scotty and they are able to fix the warp drive and intercept the energy cloud a day before it reaches Earth. The Cloud fires an Energy ball at the ship, and while damaged, the new shields hold, and the ship survives. The crew attempts to communicate, but isn’t able, though Spock hears something with his mind, and realizes the Energy creature is trying to communicate, and manages to send off a signal just in time to save them from a second Energy attack. Kirk brings the Enterprise inside the Energy Cloud to the huge ship inside it.

An energy probe appears on the ship, and attempts to take over the ship computer, attacking Spock when he smashes the controls, and taking navigator Ilia. Decker blames Kirk for her disappearance.

Ilia returns to the ship as another form of the probe, to learn of the carbon life forms, who she thinks are infesting Enterprise, but there seems to be some or all of Illia’s memories in her, so Kirk uses Decker to try and get through to Ilia so she can help them, before V’Ger destroys Earth because it’s signal is not being answered by it’s creator.

Spock meanwhile goes out in a space suit with an emergency booster to go in and try and contact the enemy, V’Ger directly. He goes in and sees images of it’s journey, of a homeworld of machines, and the whole universe it has seen, and it’s search for it’s creator on Earth, he mind melds with the image of Ilia’s sensor on his neck, and is blown back to Enterprise, where Kirk saves him and brings him aboard.

Spock realizes that V’Ger is a living machine, and is much like a child, and should be treated as such, and is asking is there more.

Kirk takes a gamble and tells Ilia that he knows why the Creator has not answered, but will only tell V’Ger directly. The Enterprise is pulled further inside the giant ship, and an atmosphere is created, so Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Deckard and Ilia can go out side, and walk to V’Ger.

The get to the heart of the ship, and find that it is fact the Earth probe Voyager 6, and they realize that it had gone through a black hole, and crashed on an alien planet with living machines, who realized it’s code, to learn all that is learnable and send it back to it’s creator, so they constructed the massive ship, and set it out, and on the way V’Ger became sentient.

Kirk gets the transmit codes for the probe from the Enterprise, and sends them, but V’Ger breaks it’s own relays as it wants to meet it’s creator in person, and join with it. Deckard says he wants to do it, and keys in the code manually, joining with V’Ger and Ilia, and becoming a new life form, one not based on total logic, which can expand and go beyond this universe. Kirk Spock and McCoy rush back to the Enterprise just as the V’Ger ship and it’s weapon disappear, saving Earth.

Kirk orders the Enterprise out, on it’s next mission, as he is back where he wants to be with his ship and friends.

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I actually enjoyed this much more than I remembered, but part of that may be that it looks amazing on Blu-Ray and really shows off Douglas Trumbles effects, and Goldmsmith’s score, plus I am also a huge fan of the Enterprise, so it is good to see it so lovingly treated.