Star Trek - The Motion Picture (1979)
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When a mysterious and powerful alien cloud approaches Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk must lead the refitted Starship Enterprise on a perilous mission to determine its origins.
The story
In the 23rd century, a Starfleet monitoring station, Epsilon Nine, detects an alien entity hidden in a massive energy cloud moving toward Earth. The cloud destroys several ships on its course. At Earth, the starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit. Admiral James T. Kirk takes command of the ship to intercept the cloud entity, as it is the only vessel within range. The mission requires the ship's new systems to be tested in transit. Kirk's leadership is tested as he navigates the complexities of the ship's new technology and the looming threat of the mysterious entity.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
In the 23rd century, the Enterprise is tasked with intercepting a massive energy cloud containing an alien entity. Kirk takes command of the refitted ship, leading to tensions with the current officer, Willard Decker. During the mission, the ship's new systems malfunction, and the crew encounters an alien vessel. A probe from the entity replaces the navigator, Ilia, with a robotic duplicate. Spock performs a telepathic mind meld with the entity, discovering it is a non-biological living machine named V'Ger. It is revealed that V'Ger is actually Voyager 6, a 20th-century NASA space probe that became sentient after being upgraded by an alien race of living machines. V'Ger seeks a 'Creator' to finish its mission. The crew realizes humans are the Creator. Decker offers himself to V'Ger, merging with the Ilia probe and the entity, creating a new life form. With Earth saved, Kirk prepares the Enterprise for future missions.
- First release year
- 1979
- Runtime (minutes)
- 132
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Robert Wise
- Writers
- Harold Livingston · screenplay; Alan Dean Foster · story
- Cast and characters
- William Shatner · James T. Kirk; Leonard Nimoy · Spock; DeForest Kelley · Leonard McCoy; James Doohan · Montgomery Scott; Walter Koenig · Pavel Chekov; Nichelle Nichols · Uhura; George Takei · Hikaru Sulu; Persis Khambatta · Ilia; Stephen Collins · Willard Decker; Majel Barrett · Christine Chapel
- Genres
- science fiction
- Themes
- sentience; exploration
- Tone and mood
- serious
- Setting
- The 23rd century in space and near Earth.
- Premise and plot tags
- space opera; sci-fi
- Source material / true-story basis
- Star Trek television series
- Franchise connections
- Star Trek
- Awards and nominations
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains · Nominated Hero · 2003 · Nominated; AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores · Nominated · 2005 · Nominated
- Production trivia
- The film's production cost was approximately $44 million.; The film earned $139 million worldwide.; Jerry Goldsmith's score began an association with Star Trek that lasted until 2002.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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