When Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in December 1979, the modern idea of franchise fandom didn’t exist. But bringing a defunct TV series back as a theatrical feature film was an even more unprecedented prospect. By the time the movie made it to theaters, Paramount and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had already spent several years developing various iterations of a Star Trek follow-up, including one much earlier film concept, plus, a planned TV series that was, eventually repurposed into The Motion Picture.
It’s the kind of risky experiment that could easily have done away with the idea of Star Trek as a long-running media property, despite its fervent fan following. The relative success of The Motion Picture, which is out in a new 45th-anniversary limited edition 4K/Blu-ray this week, paved the way for the entirety of the thriving Star Trek franchise today. Without The Motion Picture, Star Trek as we know it wouldn’t exist.
