Star Trek: The Motion Picture

As for the book and its binding, it's well made and looks great. I would have loved a hardcover copy, but whom am I kidding. Most people were not well impressed with this film.

I have read this book about three times since the film came out. Gene Roddenberry's ideas for Star Trek are what attract me to the series and this film. I loved the first pilot "The Cage", and I loved episodes like "The Corbomite Maneuver", and this story ranks up there for me. I do like the 'fun' and 'banter' of the t.v. show, but that is not as important to me as the idea of a move advanced humanity - not just more advanced technology.

The Director's Edition of the film is a great improvement on a film that had a troubled production. This novelization, for me, puts meaning in many of the events. It is superior to the film (I've also read a couple of versions of the t.v. script, "In Thy Image"), but it can also enhance it. Already criticized for too many special effects, this book accomplishes what would only have made the film longer.

Although I love the dialog between characters in ST II: TWOK , this is more of what I otherwise love about Star Trek. It was unfortunate that they couldn't have improved upon this format (such as allowing the characters to shine more) without abandoning it. But, then again, most of us understand how money works in our world.

I agree with what another reviewer said - if You enjoyed this film at all, the novel puts a lot more meaning and detail into the story and is well worth the read.

[Incidentally, I've read a German translation; it is very amusing to see what was left out or altered. Right off the bat, the idea that Kirk's mother had a "love instructor" before she married was changed to "former lover". the translator just wasn't going to go there.]

Gene Roddenberry's novelization of Star Trek: the Motion Picture is kind of mindblowing in the types and amount of oddball, off the wall detail it adds to the Star Trek universe.

Written by the series' creator (and there's plenty of evidence in the book that it isn't ghost-written), this book fleshes out considerable detail of the universe, characters and conflict at the center of this legendary film. Unlike ST:TMP, this novelization is never dull and has at least one moment per page which might bring a Spock-style eyebrow lift from you.

For instance, the book purports to begin with a short commentary by Admiral Kirk in which he laments the fame his five-year mission has brought him. He also describes his planned one-year marriage (apparently that's the way they do things in the future), denies rumors of a sexual relationship between he and Spock (not because Kirk doesn't like other men but because Vulcans only go into heat once every seven years and that would be too much for Kirk), and discusses how stupid people are better space travelers than the very smart.

No, seriously, that (and more) all comes up in the first four pages, which are then signed by Kirk so you know it's true!

Then we get an author's preface in which Roddenberry tries to claim the book is written from a writer in Kirk's time.

Then away we go! Quickly we learn that Starfleet places implants into their leaders' heads which, when they go off, send the person with the implant into something like an epileptic fit. Soon we find ourselves on Vulcan watching Spock deny his emotions in a scene very different from the movie, as scene after scene, moment after oddball moment, tumbles one after another like little segments of Gene Roddenberry's id and ego.

It's often considered a truism that the best art is produced by auteurs rather than committees. This is an auteurist work, full of writer's indulgences and obsessions. It has an odd view of sexuality, of friendship and especially of why it's important for Great Men like Kirk to be able to indulge their obsessions. It presents a strange, alternate view of the Star Trek universe, a glimpse at an alternate film which would likely have been much more interesting and far stranger than what we saw on the screen.

This book is fascinating, and weird, and I couldn't put it down.

TMP is, rightfully, referred to as the worst of the TOS films and I think that, besides the creative disagreements behind the scenes, the reason for this is because this type of story was MEANT to be a book. There's just so much happening in the minds of Kirk, Spock, and Decker that can't be 100% portrayed on screen--and even in the cases where the actors do, it's just not as entertaining as actually hearing those thoughts.

The only con about this book is that Roddenberry really shoe-horns in some metaphors that are unnecessarily sex-oriented. Where the focus can be on sex, even if it derails the narrative, it is. Mostly this is done in a sex-positive way and not too big a deal, except for once in the beginning that is distinctly sexist.

The movie novelization gives detailed story exposition and characters backgrounds to The Crew of The Refit Starship U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 encounter The V’Ger Entity brilliantly done by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

My husband will love this when Christmas rolls around.

A great edition!