Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Plot Summery: Kirk in mid-life crisis returns to Enterprise selfishly determined to reclaim his former glory. He bumps our young hero from the captain’s chair: the capable Decker who is further complicated when long lost love returns in the form of Lt Ilia, the irresistible Deltan who has been forced to take an oath of celibacy so as not to take advantage of a sexually inferior species.

Meanwhile, Spock has just failed Kolinahr, a grueling ritual to wash away his emotions, and is barely able to communicate with the human crew. Only Bones has enjoyed retirement having grown a long beard and lounging about in disco leisure suits with big gold necklaces. After a bit of grumbling, he sets himself to unraveling the Gordian knot of emotional baggage.

Don’t blame Robert Wise for all the problems of this film. Wise was stuck with the production Gene Roddenberry had proposed for for Star Trek: Phase 2, an aborted TV series that was planned to launch Paramount’s television network. Plenty of money had already been spent, actors cast and signed to contracts, but when StarWars launched Hollywood’s sci-fi sweepstakes at the end of the ’70s, the studio couldn’t wait. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was put on the fast track. Paramount simply added that tab and many of the contracts to this film’s whopping $40,000,000 budget.

It was Douglas Trumbull who was responsible for the much criticized V’ger sequence and also for the Enterprise drydock masterbation scene. He is credited as “Second Unit Director”, but had free reign over the fx — which is most of the film. They were late to be finished, and because of their great expense they were spliced into the film “as is” literally at the eleventh hour, too late to hold screenings or for Wise to trim. In the Director’s Edition commentary, Wise says the studio wanted a specific running time to make good on guarantees to theaters. Paramount execs had set a firm Christmas release date for ST:TMP and prevented Wise from trimming down the over-long fx sequences.
…more about Star Trek: The Motion Picture

TRON (1982)

There is only about 20 minutes worth of actual CGI in TRON, but Disney Studios still deserves credit for pioneering 3D animation. Even though it was all outsourced, no other animation studio could convincingly create a computerized look with traditional cel painting to fill in the rest of the movie. TRON is a stripped to the bone, minimalist experience of thin lines and smooth gradiants.

So the plot is lame: a cyberworld exists inside a corporate mainframe where nerds are worshiped as gods by their programs. A tyrant called Master Control Programclamps down on freedom in its quest to replace the religion with fear, forcing the programs to die in an arena of video games. David Warner is fun as the snarling sadist Sark. Jeff Bridges seems able to entertain himself. Bruce Boxlightner is as stiff as Dudley Dooright, and poor Cindy Morgan has little to do but be the girlfriend.

But the artwork is as visionary as anything put on film. Syd Mead’s light cycles are legendary, as is the violent jai-alai deathsport seen in the movie but absent from the original arcade game (later to become Discs of Tron). Wendy Carlos contributes a memorable dissonant soundtrack in a mathmatical tuning, and Moebius provides costumes that would pass as athletic bicycle racing gear today trimmed with designs made from reflective tape. And the Frisbee…, ugh, nothing says Eighties like tossing a Frisbee to save the world!

Bladerunner (1982)

What hasn’t been said about Bladerunner? The film made both Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford stars, introduced American audiences to Daryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer, and makes a perfect blend of two seemingly opposite genres: sci-fi and film noir, succeeding at both simultainiously.
…more about Bladerunner

Syd Mead (b. 1933) designed the greeble-noir of Bladerunner and the lightcycles and day-glo gladiators ofTRON, but his private paintings offer a future far less dystopic.

When Autombile Quarterly asked him to “envision the future of the American dream” they no doubt expected a few of his signature car designs. What he gave them was a lifestyle evolved from California in the swinging ’60s: Roadtrips in huge land yachts, designer pets shaped to match your gown, and exotic orgies where guests inhale halucinogenic vapor from chrome goblets, and sleek VR-helmets are the only required garment. In his Cocktail Party 2050 (above) imbibers pass “hi-low mood rings” — sort of like gnutella/file-sharing for drug trips is my guess…. At last, a future worth waiting for!