TF01 3,STAR TREK HEAVEN? 4,by Simon Plumbe Star Trek Heaven? ------------------- by Simon Plumbe ----------------- Sunday, 5th June 1994 - potentially one of the more spectacular days for Trek fans living in the Birmingham area for 1994; the Odeon cinema arranged for a complete showing of all six movies, back to back, for the specially reduced price of just £10 a head. As expected, we went along to check it out... I arrived about an hour before the event was due to start and met up with Tim Smith - my co-sucker for punishment. With the first film not due to start until 12:30 pm, we weren't going to be leaving the cinema until after midnight, let alone thinking about what time we were going to get home. Work was the last thing on my mind for Monday! Still, previous showings like this have been good fun, so we had no reason to think that this would be otherwise. We reached the cinema to find a crowd gathering outside waiting to enter. This is when we first had an inkling that this day wasn't going to be as spectacular as we had been lead to believe - including ourselves there were less than 30 people waiting... and this was at 12:15 pm!! When we finally got in and the films started, there were no more than 40 people sitting in a cinema designed to seat a few hundred. To say that it looked bare was an understatement. It certainly gave us the impression that we had arrived on the wrong day!! Still, there were a few other fans there so we had the opportunity to chat to them and promote TFF and DOMINION (well, someone has to...!). Now, onto the films themselves. Naturally, Star Trek: The Motion Picture started the ball rolling just after 12:30 pm. Sadly, the copy that the Odeon had seemed to be a little worse for wear and was showing visible crackling and "noise" on the screen. ST:TMP isn't exactly my favourite of the movies, although this isn't due to the storyline. Infact, the story is one of the strongest seen yet in the film series, but far too much priority was given to the special effects than the cast and character scenes. For example, when we first see the Enterprise, we had to sit through a six minute scene of a shuttlepod flying around the Enterprise. When the film is only 2 hours long, this is nothing short of excessive. Still, it was one of the first times in the last couple of years that I've been able to sit through Star Trek: The Motion Picture without falling asleep and it was good to see the cast together on the big screen. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan quickly followed and despite the one or two gaffs in the film (such as Khan recognising Chekov when they had never met before) and Nick Meyer's influences trying to include background details that should NOT have been there (just look closeley when Kirk exits the Kobayashi Maru scenario and you can see an "EXIT" sign above his head!) it is easy to see why this is the most popular of all the films among Trekkers. There's plenty of drama, the characters are well written, there's a good helping of humour and the return of Khan only adds to the overall flavour of the film. Combining this with ILM's beautiful effects, the film simply oozes quality. However, the highlight of the film has to be one of the most emotionally powerful scenes ever filmed for Star Trek, namely Spock's death and subsequent funeral. This is certainly one of the times I don't mind openly admitting to crying while watching Trek. A masterpiece. Possibly the weakest of the movies in terms of storyline (not counting Generations, of course!), Star Trek III: The Search For Spock brought us up to the mid-point of the day. As a stand-alone film, it doesn't really hold up too well, but when viewed as Star Trek II, Part II then it serves as a satisfying, if somewhat cliched resolution to the story. Good performances all round and a welcome Trek debut for Robin Curtis who managed to successfully take over the role of Saavik from Kirstie Alley. Over half-way through the day, and we were presented with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Easily the most light hearted of all the movies and the most accessible to the non-Trek fan, this is probably the only true character-only film to-date and is full of wonderful touches and gentle humour. It is easy to relate to the characters as they struggle to come to terms with the culture of the 20th century. Highly entertaining and probably one of the best films of the series. A story that didn't need good effects (although ILM worked wonders again) and all the cast excelled in their performances. Although Star Trek's II and IV are both good movies, I don't rate them as highly as my all-time favourite, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (why do you think that's why I called this mag by that name?). I don't know why I prefer Trek V to all the other movies, but ultimately it has got to be the closest out of all the films in style and flavour to the original series and the film certainly has something to appeal to everyone - action, drama and humour, all in generous helpings. For me, this was definitely the highlight of the day. Finally came Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and to be honest, I was close to leaving the cinema before this film started mainly because of the late start time and also because it's my least favourite of all the movies. Sure, it's got plenty of action and adventure, excitement, a stunning musical score, wonderful effects and direction and it is a really good film, but as I've said before, it's NOT a good Star Trek film. Nicholas Meyer simply had his own ideas about what Star Trek should be like and many of the characters and scenes were compromised as a result of that. Spock would NOT have mind-raped Valeris, Kirk would not have demonstrated bitter racism towards the Klingons, Chekov would not have been overly smug... I could go on. In fact, the only character who was true to his normal self was McCoy. A disappointing way to end the evening. Between each of the films was a short 5-10 minute break. This is what really spoiled the day for me as the day began to drag after just a couple of films. With a longer break of 15-20 minutes, you would have just enough time to go to the toilet, pop out and get something to eat (from a local Pizza Hut, for example, which sold ready-cooked pizza by the slice), and still be back in time to catch the start of the next film. Instead, we were forced, without prior warning, to rush between films and if you wanted to eat you either had to have brought food with you (which I wasn't expecting to do) or you had to eat the hot dogs/burgers from the cinema (which were exhorbitantly over-priced). All these minor niggles really put a dampener on the day as I felt I had been cheated and tricked into buying cinema food when I would have rather eaten elsewhere. If I wanted to do so, I would have had to miss one of the films, which in turn would have made the entire day pointless. Also one of the things that I have never really liked about the Odeon in Birmingham is its seating. While the seats are bearable for a single film (just!), for a mammoth session such as this the seats will drive even the most devoted of Trekkers insane, wriggling around in their seats for hour after excruciating hour. The planning and timing of the event also left something to be desired. Now, to show all six movies you really need at least 11 hours (not counting breaks). That being the case, the Odeon decided in their infinite wisdom to start the programme at 12:30 pm, meaning that Star Trek VI did not reach its conclusion until 12:40 am on Monday!! Now, for those fans who didn't have to get up for work that morning, or for those with cars then fair enough, but those having to rely on public transport were left stranded in Birmingham City Centre, with NO trains running, a limited bus service running once an hour (and for some areas not at all) or were forced to use taxis (which are not cheap at the best of times, but in the proverbial graveyard shift the rates are even higher, costing me £7 for a journey that would have cost only £0.67 on the bus if the films had finished before midnight. Also, the event had very little publicity which no doubt accounted for the low attendance. There was a small mention hidden away in adverts in a couple of local newspapers, but that was about it. Many people who I had spoken to before the showing knew nothing about it, and when they were told of the start/finish time were put off from attending anyway. Surely an event like this should have had extensive publicity, which would have guaranteed a capacity audience weeks before hand? Overall, it was still an enjoyable way to spend a day, and pretty good value for money, and there is still no better way to see any of the Trek movies than on the big screen, but the poor attendance and the timing of the films did spoil the atmosphere. Being forced to either take your own food or live on a diet of very expensive hot dogs and burgers also isn't really my idea of fun. I've been to three other all day sessions prior to this and in every case they allowed ample time for the fans to have breaks between the movies to grab something to eat, the seats were more comfortable and the event was publicised enough to guarantee it a sell-out way in advance of the day itself. Let's just hope that the next all-day session held in Birmingham will be better. Who knows, it might be organised in conjunction with Dominion '96!