Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Skippable on a first pass, and the most divisive thing on this page. It is a hundred and thirty-two minutes of which a remarkable proportion is people looking at something enormous in silence, and the complaint that it is slow is not unfair. It is also the only Star Trek film that is actually science fiction rather than an adventure with science fiction in it.

The production explains the shape. Paramount had spent years developing a new television series, cancelled it late, and converted the pilot into a feature after the success of Star Wars, with a release date that could not move. Robert Wise was finishing effects shots weeks before release and has said he never got to edit the film properly. There is no second pass on anything.

What it attempts is remarkable. A vast machine intelligence is approaching Earth, has consumed everything it encountered on the way out of curiosity rather than malice, and is looking for its creator. The resolution is not a battle. It is a conversation and then a merger, and the film ends with something new coming into existence. Jerry Goldsmith's score is the best written for the franchise and became the theme for The Next Generation.

Which version matters here. The 1979 theatrical cut is unfinished, the 1983 television edit is worse, and the 2001 Director's Edition, with completed effects and about four minutes trimmed, is the only one worth watching. A 4K restoration of that cut exists and is the definitive version.