What's Your Favorite Derisive Nickname For TMP?

[JonnyQuest037]

I was just reading a review of Roddenberry's novelization for TMP and it struck me how many nicknames the movie has picked up over the years. These are all the ones I either already knew or found in a cursory Google search. So here's your chance to vote on whichever nickname(s) you think are the most accurate, most clever, or funniest overall. You can vote for your top two choices. Voting will close after one month, on December 23, 2019.

NOTE: I really don't want this thread to become a thinly-disguised excuse for a TMP bashfest. Truthfully, the movie's grown on me over the years (I went to the 40th Anniversarry screening earlier this year), but I'm also aware that the film has problems. But I thought doing a poll on the TMP nicknames might be fun.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think I have to go with either "Where NOMAD Has Gone Before" (Commenting on TMP's plot similarity to the TOS episode "The Changeling") or "Spockalypse Now" (Comparing TMP to Apocalypse Now, one of 1979's other major releases that also contained a long journey to a destination).

 

[Lord Garth]

I don't have a nickname for it. I was impressed with the film from Day One. Okay, not Day One, but you know what I mean... I've been impressed with it ever since I was first exposed to it, even though I could never watch it in one sitting until recently.

But... of the these nicknames, the one I'd go with -- if I did -- would be "Where NOMAD Has Gone Before".

 

[Pauln6]

I'd go with "Perfection" normally, except that I'm going to try some tweaks plus I've never heard Spockalypse Now!

 

[David cgc]

I actually used "The Slow-Motion Picture" recently when I noted The Mandalorian's extremely decompressed storytelling was the kind of stuff I love, though I could see how people would think it was slow.

 

[FormerLurker]

When I was in high school one of my friends called it "Star Trek: The Reunion" because everybody got back together, but the plot was barebones.

 

[Galileo7]

I always enjoyed the epic feel of TMP since seeing it on the cinema big screen. Unfortunately, I have seen it called The Motionless Picture a lot since '79.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Motionless Picture has been my go to since 1979.
Where Nomad Has Gone Before is a close second.

 

[FormerLurker]

Didn't Mad Magazine call it "The Motionless Picture"?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Didn't Mad Magazine call it "The Motionless Picture"?

I thought so too, but nope. It was Star Blecch: The (Gacck!) Motion Picture.

One of the better Mad Trek parodies, though!

 

[mb22]

Cracked had "Star Drek: The Moving Picture"
https://mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/2009/05/cracked-star-drek-moving-picture.html

Crazy had "Star Tripe"
http://mystartrekscrapbook.blogspot.com/2009/09/1980-crazy-sttmp-spoof.html

Sick had "Star Wreck"
https://archive.org/details/sick133jun80/page/n5

Am I missing anything?

 

[WarpFactorZ]

I thought so too, but nope. It was Star Blecch: The (Gacck!) Motion Picture.

One of the better Mad Trek parodies, though!

That Mad parody was longer than the first issue of Countdown: Picard!

PS: I've always been partial to The Motionless Picture.

 

[PhotoBoy]

That Mad parody is quite curious. It has both Kirk and Spock in spacesuits going into V’ger and the “Learn all that is learnable” line is delivered by Kirk like it was in some drafts rather than Decker. I wonder if they were working off of an early script and some still photos rather than basing it on the movie as released?

 

[FormerLurker]

That Mad parody is quite curious. It has both Kirk and Spock in spacesuits going into V’ger and the “Learn all that is learnable” line is delivered by Kirk like it was in some drafts rather than Decker. I wonder if they were working off of an early script and some still photos rather than basing it on the movie as released?

They probably were. mb22 cites another parody that has cast and crew in TOS costumes and sets, while still telling the TMP story (in parody form). Movie parodies often tell variant versions of the original's story, usually because of this. It's easier to get the visuals correct on TV parodies because the many episodes provide more visual information to work with.

I'm suddenly curious about parodies of something like The Odd Couple. Which couple do they use; Art Carney and Walter Matthau (Broadway), Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (film), or Tony Randall and Jack Klugman (TV)? Or even one of each?

 

[mb22]

Back before home video, the artists were forced to rely on stills to depict the movies they were parodying. If no images were available they sometimes had to use their imaginations, for example, Mort Drucker imagined this three eyed, tentacled creature instead of the real thing for the original Alien film:

 

[FormerLurker]

Jeez, I love Mort Drucker's art. He's my favorite of the parodists listed here.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

Jeez, I love Mort Drucker's art. He's my favorite of the parodists listed here.

He is by far my favorite MAD artist. If he was drawing a parody that was written by Dick DeBartolo, you knew you were in for a treat! I always loved he drew the first four movies. Unfortunately, the parodies for V and VI kinda sucked

 

[mb22]

He is by far my favorite MAD artist. If he was drawing a parody that was written by Dick DeBartolo, you knew you were in for a treat! I always loved he drew the first four movies. Unfortunately, the parodies for V and VI kinda sucked

IMHO Mad peaked in the early 1970s. By the time the movies came out, it was already past it's prime. Drucker was always good, though.

 

[FormerLurker]

Drucker is part of an artistic style that includes Jack Davis (artist for the "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" poster, among other things), Vaughn Bode (production design for Ralph Bakshi films, including "Wizards"), and Mike Ploog (co-creator of "Abadazad"). They're all capable of incredible illustration, yet each has mastered their own version of a particular type of caricature that is in its own way incredibly illustrative. I'm a big fan of all of them.

 

[mb22]

Not to mention Will Eisner, who preceded them and was a huge influence on Ploog.