Thanks lister!

Apologies TayDor...I get defensive around that picture and any picture where the director's art is severely underappreciated. Sorry for being so snobby.

Sincerely.

How did you know I had a stick up my butt?  ;)

I don't expect everyone to understand the artistry cinema-wise that Robert Wise brought to THE MOTION PICTURE and I guess I can't expect everyone to appreciate and understand his motivations for doing what he did in any of his films. Film Theory can be a tough concept to get one's head around, so of course THE WRATH OF KHAN will appeal to a wider audience. From the way the shots are set up to the (overly?) meticulous way the story unfolds, Mr. Wise used tools he'd learned from making some of the most memorable films in Hollywood.

As for the much maligned scene where Scotty is taking Kirk over to the Enterprise for the first time...

The purpose of this scene and the logic behind why it was constructed that way was for a couple of major reasons. That scene is about scope. It has everything to do with just how BIG the Enterprise really is. Alan Dean Foster and Harold Livingston could have just had Kirk beam aboard the ship I guess, but having spent the time to show the scale of the Enterprise and then later seeing just how much bigger V'ger is in comparison puts everything into perspective. The point (for the cheap seats) is the awe and humility that exists when encountering unknowns in space. That is what STAR TREK is all about.

The other reason for this scene is that It had been 10 years since fans or anyone had seen the Enterprise and Kirk had been away from the ship for a couple of years. The pace of the scene is to convey Kirk's love of "her", hence the Director's Cut inserting the reflection of the ship over his face.

I can remember seeing this film in the theater when I was 10 and even then I got the scope of it on an albeit subconscious level. Seeing the guy wave at the ship and do the flip outside of it was great. They were SO small compared to the ship. I never got the shear size of it from the TV show.

Speaking of the TV show, A PIECE OF THE ACTION and SHORE LEAVE are definitely some of the "lighter" episodes. I don't mean to alienate the "sillier" episodes by saying that they are barely STAR TREK but the mindset of STAR TREK's core are a little harder to find. What I was trying to get across is that THE MOTION PICTURE takes Roddenberry's idea of the future VERY seriously.

About the merits of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY...I'm proud that Ihave the intellectual maturity to appreciate it and I hope that anyone that finds it "boring" will broaden their cinema palate.

Just wanted to say that I've noticed that it is really easy to "skip over" STAR TREK - THE MOTION PICTURE for some people.

Dismissing the first film as "long and overdrawn" is the mindset of the film viewer that does not find it easy to be intellectual. THE MOTION PICTURE is the most faithful story that has STAR TREK at it's core. It is about unknowns and exploration. Rarely in the following pictures does that combo rear it's head in the way it does in the first film. Robert Wise tried to creat a science-fiction film that was thought-provoking in the way that Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was.

It's insulting to skip the first film because of it's pacing and lack of space battles ala Khan.

THE WRATH OF KHAN (like Abram's) is barely STAR TREK. While they are fantastic and extremely enjoyable films it seems that there exists a sacrifice with the intellectual nature of science-fiction for the kineticism of an action film.

I love the new film. I love KHAN. But they're not really STAR TREK to me. Roddenberry's vision WAS "Let's see what's out there."

For me "There is no comparison."