[Yes, this is a television pilot, but since it is also a feature-length movie, I believe a review of it is suitable for rec.arts.movies.reviews. -Moderator]
STAR TREK: VOYAGER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
(Note: Many of the proper names in this review are undoubtedly misspelled. They are phoneticly accurate, at least as far as I can tell. Hey, I never was too hot with Earth languages. Put me in front of an extraterrestrial and I am hopeless.)
After whole moments of anticipation, the fifth "Star Trek" series (counting the animated episodes but not counting the films) has come along and in spite of negative expectations the first episode is at least mediocre. Being mediocre it is probably the most impressive "Star Trek" series premiere ever.
The approach seems to be an acknowledgement on the part of the producers that the original series had the most exciting concept. "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Animated" took place in the frontiers of an unexplored universe--extra-terra incognita, so to speak. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" took place in a universe much more cosmopolitan with a more widespread Federation. The "Next Generation" Enterprise was less like the Golden Hind and than it was like the Queen Elizabeth II. "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" also takes place in a universe that is settled, but with a mousehole into a not very explored quadrant. Still, it has not really taken much advantage of the possibility of unknown civilizations on the other side of the hole. Instead of an exploring ship, it really takes place in a port. The problem is that all this leaves people hungry for the good old days when the universe was less settled, back in the Sixties. At least, that seems to be the philosophy behind the new series, which uses a huge contrivance to move the ship, the Voyager, seventy light-millennia away and into unexplored territory.
All of the artistic decisions point toward a recreation of aspects of the first series. Having success with the character of Spock who had funny ears, the new series has a lot of alien life forms with funny ears in funny shapes or in funny places. But apparently no matter where your ear are in this universe or what shape they are, the language they are used to hearing is good, old-fashioned English. Light from our sun reaching this quadrant would have had to leave our sun something like 68,000 B.C. but everybody speaks a language that did not leave Earth until the twentieth century A.D.
Of course, the first thing that a "Star Trek" fan wants to see in the new series is the Bridge. No, not the bridge of the new starship, but the bridging of the last series into the present one. The first episode of "The Next Generation" had DeForest Kelley show up as Old Bones. "The Next Generation" Enterprise docked at Deep Space Nine to christen that series. And not too originally, the Voyager also docks at Deep Space Nine for a few nominal moments in the opening episode until it is clear that the visit is just delaying the real story. Each older series lends legitimacy to the new series in that unbroken chain of "Next Generation"s. I wonder how will they manage next time with the Voyager some seventy light-millennia from home?
The crew of the Voyager is headed by Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway, who in the first episode we see in an array of emotions from tender to tough--probably a wider range than a male counterpart would have had to portray in the first outing. Also along is Tuvak, a black Vulcan, played by Tim Russ, who has the voice and mannerisms right, but still looks distressingly like some "Saturday Night Live" parody of a Vulcan. The new comic relief is Neelix (Ethan Phillips), a scruffy scavenger with a roguish way. He looks like something the cat caught and has been playing with for a week. Another member of the crew is B'Elanna Torres (played by Roxann Biggs-Dawson), half Klingon, half human. That means she only has subtle ridges over her eyes where most Klingons look like they have horseshoe crabs glued to their foreheads. Then there is Chakotay (Robert Beltran), an American Indian with a big tattoo on his forehead making him look like that venerable old Indian Queequeg in MOBY DICK. Also notable but not present is Doc Zimmerman (Robert Picardo) a petulant physician who is present only as a hologram--a perfect character for the 1990s, when image is everything and substance is purely optional.
The story starts with a Maquis ship in a STAR-WARS-like blaster battle with a much bigger ship. (If you don't know who the Maquis are, don't worry. It makes absolutely no difference to the plot who the heck they are. I'm not sure I remember myself and I'm reviewing the episode.) Suddenly the Maquis ship is plucked out of space by a ray of some sort. Cut to the credit sequence.
Each new series has a more impressive-looking credit sequence. This one has a theme by Jerry Goldsmith, who writes some of the most majestic "Star Trek" music, like the theme from STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE which was reused for "Star Trek: The Next Generation." The score is actually by Jay Chattaway, but the theme was composed by Goldsmith. The sequence shows the Voyager flying through some spectacular space scenery in the vacuum of space (except it clearly does not look like a vacuum). This is the first we see the new ship which looks from some angles like a scrawny flying duck with a huge bill. Well, too late to change it now.
The new Voyager, under the command of Janeway (and after a quick and pointless docking at Deep Space Nine), heads off in search of the missing Maquis ship and finds itself lost in space and plucked seventy light-millennia away. The story from there borrows from a number of sources, starting with Ray Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven" and continuing with pieces of old "Star Trek"s, and even bits from the film TOWERING INFERNO. The script by Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor does not produce great science fiction, but it does demonstrate the dramatic intelligence by intentionally splitting up the nine major crew members into groups of two or three to allow the viewer time to become familiar with them.
The style of the new series is polished and better than the writing. As is traditional in the series, the model effects work is superb. It is not as imaginative as some of the Video Toaster graphics of "Babylon 5," but is still beautiful to look at. In the "Star Trek" tradition matte paintings of landscapes are spectacular, though not always convincing. Speaking of traditions, the computer still has Majel Barrett's voice. The traditional long scene of a shuttle flying around a new ship, whichever new ship it is, is there but much shorter than the minutes-long sequence in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. Some of the effects work is surprisingly understated. The seventy light- millenia trip shows up as just a simple generic spacestorm effect. It could have been a little more dramatic, considering it provided the theme for the new series. The costume design is occasionally a bit silly. One group called the Ocampo seem to be wearing scarves or their collars over the lower part of their faces to give the impression of Bazooka Joe.
Until now the series has been trying to make the starship a character and even gave it Majel Barrett's voice. The writers have taken the second step by giving the Voyager something called "bio- neural circuitry." One might wonder how much longer it will be before we have a starship with human emotions ("Oh, please don't make me fire on that... Oh, no. Now you did it. Uh-oh! They's firing back. Will you put up my shields please? Ouch! Hey, dammit, put up my shields you bozos!") Some of the science is questionable. The Voyager travels seventy light-millennia into unexplored space in seconds and almost immediately the navigator knows where he is. For some time the series has been asking us to accept some peculiar things about hologram technology and the ability to interact with it. The Doc Zimmerman hologram seems to be able to hug humans and hold up physical objects. Along with the unexplained ability everybody has to understand English, there seems to be a standard concept of what it means for a character to live nine years. Nobody asks anyone how long their years are, nor even if they would get any useful information in the answer. How do you express to an alien who doesn't know how long it takes for your planet to circle the sun how long a year is?
There was one great moment in the episode for anyone who has ever gotten fouled up by an uncooperative computer center. Captain Janeway confronts the alien being who has taken her ship and pulled it seventy light-millennia off course. Oops, coulda happened to anyone, right? All she asks is that he undo the damage he has done and send the ship back. He stops his banjo-playing, looks her in the eye and whines "Sending you back is complicated. I just don't have the time." I wonder if he trained some of the computer centers I've worked with.
Overall impression? The series is okay and somewhat better than expected. But I am still a "Babylon 5" sort of guy.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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