Star Trek: The Motion Picture Part III

 I just finished the Star Trek novel The Lost Years.

It's about the Enterprise crew's time between the end of the original series (ST:TOS) and the first movie.

Since it was a while since I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I watched it again.

In 2014, I wrote two blog posts about the movie.

The posts came down to the longing for God along the Augustinian line (no rest for my soul until it rests in Thee, God) and baptism.

Upon re-watching the movie, it actually seems more like the sacrament of the Eucharist.

V'ger wants to touch the creator, who is human.

In reality, we touch and become one in a real, physical way with the One True God through Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity physically joins with us in a real and spiritual sense, since he is truly and substantially present in the form of bread and wine that enters our body. He joins with our body.

We don't join together with a halo or energy around us like Decker and V'ger's probe did. However, our lives are never the same.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Part II

This post is about the "meld" between the V'ger probe and Decker.



In the last post, I likened Decker to God the Father (Creator) and the V'ger probe as standing in for humankind. This post will discuss how the relationship between Decker and the V'ger probe is parallel to God the Son and to an individual.

During this clip, Decker wanted to be with the V'ger probe who was once his love interest Ilia. The V'ger probe who is made in the likeness of Ilia, who now stands-in for V'ger, wants with all its being to be with Decker.

This whole relationship reminds me of what St. Paul said about the one-fleshness between man and woman in marriage. He said that the sacrament of marriage was mysteriously a direct parallel to the bond between Christ (Jesus) and the Church.

The question is, how does an individual become part of the Church to have this special relationship with Christ? The answer is baptism.

This Star Trek movie is a commentary on baptism!

The "meld" scene above sort-of shows how Christ and His disciple become a new creation through baptism.

Could it be that the Enterprise is the Holy Spirit that brings the Christ character (Decker) to V'ger? That may be too much. What do you think?

(My first post on Star Trek: The Motion Picture is here.)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Part I

I thought for a long time that Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Star Trek I) was the second worst Star Trek movie after number five, but the more I think about it, the richness in its symbolism is pushing it higher and higher on my list (at least past number three).

I love Star Trek because of the gadgets, gismos, and science that are incorporated or forced into the show. I'm not as interested in the characters, save for Spock, especially the actors who play them. (This is why Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory TV show logically makes no sense to me in this regard. Why should he be interested in the actors who play the characters since they are just speaking and bringing alive the words that the writers make up? Though I digress.) The Heisenberg compensator (for beaming to work) alone has given me hours of pondering as to how it could work.

I wonder, in their final analysis, whether the writers realized the theological profoundness of their project. This post will mention a single overarching one.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 27 (CCC 27) reveals that, "The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself."

V'ger represents man and Decker represents God (Creator). V'ger, although knowing the accidents (or the stuff/workings) of the universe, nevertheless desires with a great passion to know the Creator from within its innermost core, the old stuff of ancient TI calculator circuitry. (Just because the heartfelt longing is old doesn't mean it is not there as from the beginning. / Sidebar: It has been said that all the electronics of the Apollo hardware could now fit in a single TI calculator.)

Although growth in knowledge of the universe seems to be completed at infinity, it is not enough for V'ger. It's programming is not complete. Hence the search climaxes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture with the interaction between Decker and V'ger via the probe (more on this in a later post).