snowleopard

This review will not recant the plot, or mention anything about the concept of Star Trek, or it's characters. That has been done many times over by many others. Instead, I am going to review what it's like watching this film in the year 2012. Over 30 years after it's initial release. I'm doing so because my memory of originally watching was greatly altered with time, and yours may be too.

At the time of it's release I thought it was pretty good, if slow. I thought the new Enterprise looked fantastic, and the effects with the "Cloud" the team is investigating were beautiful and stunning. The story was average, devoid of much suspense or conflict. In this aspect it was blown away by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But it was an okay movie.

Watching TMP again, in the year 2012, on a nice HD television, reveals many flaws. First, the effects are nothing special, at times the cloud is interesting, but much of the time only because the design of it is somewhat innovative. Instead the effects look somewhat soft, even bland. The scenes of it, and the Enterprise go on forever. I'm sure when they made the film, and I first saw it, this was hypnotic to watch, to see something so new and special. But it's shine has long ago worn off with time. Some of the effects shots are almost laughable. They look very old. I tried my best to keep in context when the film was made, but even with that in mind it was at times hard to watch. There are other flaws as well, such as the tactical display of the cloud looks nothing like what they show you in space. It creates confusion. There are also other scenes that seem like interludes to show you effects and they drag. All of these things made the film difficult to watch.

However, if you are a ST fan, and can accept that and somehow get past it, how is the film? I still believe quite average. A lot of ST fans dislike this film and Star Trek V, but others think people missed the point. Having recently seen ST5 I now get that one, and think it's message is reflective of many episodes from the original series. It too is flawed, but I like it's idea, and it has a classic ST antagonist. But TMP doesn't have this. It's mostly just about re-discovering the characters, which was too subtle and took too long, and investigating the cloud. And in that regard I think even a lot of ST fans are going to find it difficult to sit through, and simply too long and uneventful.

The film tells the story about famed Quartzite Falls, a daunting Class V+ or VI rapid (a short cascading waterfall) deep in the wilderness along the Salt River Canyon (some 120 miles east of Phoenix near Highway 77), the only commercially run rapid in this class in the state. Quartzite was such an obstacle, that guided trips down the river were spending up to four hours to portage it, and a few who didn't want to wait, went over the falls, and some paid for it with their lives.

Frustrated with this, a group of 8 vandals (some outfitters) went into the wilderness one off season and dynamited Quartzite Falls into oblivion, reducing it to a series of ripples.

How this happened, and what happened to the men who did this, is told in this outstanding film, which is narrated by Peter Coyote. I caught this at the 2002 Banff Film Festival, and was fortunate enough to see it again seven years later.

I caught this cute film at a festival in 2006, which is likely where most people will view it. It's story is one of a French exchange student played by Natalie Avital who is befriended by a young man eager to help her out in her time in America. There's a twist ending I won't give away.

The film is in black and white, and the style does a good job of imitating great French directors of the past, such as Jean-Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut, in the way it's shot, edited, and scored. Fans of that age of film-making will likely admire this film more than the general viewer and perhaps give this film a higher rating.

As a disclaimer, I actually met the filmmaker, Shawn Dawes, and worked with him one day many years ago. I have not seen him since that time, and did not know that he had directed this film until the credits rolled.