After a show has been running for long enough, whether it’s
from the fans or from the creators themselves, the idea of turning it into a
movie will always crop up eventually. Take, for instance, the Simpsons Movie
which had had been the development/rumour-driven stage for over a decade before
it saw the light of release to a wide opinion of “Eh, it was alright.” There
are plenty of approaches that can be taken translating from small to big
screen. You could make it just an extended version of a standard episode, only
with a bigger budget. This can work well in translating from one medium in
another by keeping the series content intact, like with the Mystery Science
Theatre 3000 movie, or it can bore audiences to death because it utilises a
plot that has to be stretched to all
hell to make it feature-length, like with Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This
film, on the other hand… well, the show itself doesn’t have that much of an
overarching plot to build on so it can’t really go with the straight
translation route. I don’t even think there is a specific name for the route that
this film took with its writing and, if I’m being honest, it’s a film I’m still
trying to figure out even after having seen it. Why? Well, let’s get started
and I’ll show you.
