My personal first Trek movie experience was seeing The Final Frontier when it hit television, shortly before seeing The Undiscovered Country. Needless to say, the sixth movie in the theater was far more impressive to a young BuckeyeFitzy than the What Does God Need With A Starship movie. That led me to seek out a box set of the other movies at the ripe old age of 9 or 10, and so my first experience with The Motion Picture was on a fuzzy small TV screen and a VHS tape. Given that this movie is more about the amazing big screen visuals than characters and action, that kind of made TMP a heavy disappointment, especially as compared to Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home. But I admit, I didn't have a chance to appreciate it on the big screen as it was intended.
TMP opened the door for what is now 12 other movies and 6 future TV shows, so the original return of Trek is something we should all be thankful for.
Today's short segment will focus on Lieutenant Ilia, who was a Deltan female conn officer on the Enterprise during what becomes the V'Ger mission. Deltans are known for their sexuality and strong affect on other races like humans, so in order to be a Starfleet officer, Ilia had to take a vow of celibacy. This is a bit awkward as she had previously on her home planet had relations with Commander Will Decker, who is also on Kirk's Enterprise.
We don't see much character development of Ilia beyond this background, as she is killed in the movie by the V'Ger probe. The V'Ger probe then creates an artificial life form in the guise of Ilia to act as a liaison to the "carbon units" infesting the ship. Although the probe replicated her memories and personality, V'Ger suppresses these aspects of Ilia, which reveals that Ilia really is gone. Nevertheless, Will Decker decides to sacrifice himself to join what's left of her and the V'Ger probe at the end of the movie, opening these roles on the ship to once again be filled by the TOS regulars in future films.
As you likely know, TMP was a replacement for a Phase II scrapped television project, and some of the general concepts from Phase II did live on when a second TV show eventually aired 8 years later in The Next Generation. Once of these general concepts was an ESP and sex-positive attitude character who serves on a bridge crew with a commander who had a past romantic relationship with her, AKA Deanna Troi is based on Ilia while Commander Will Riker is a small leap of letters away from Will Decker. They even named the Betazoid race in a similar fashion as Ilia's Deltans, based on the Greek alphabet. So while Ilia and Commander Decker only show up in The Motion Picture, the general concepts and underlying character threads were more than fully developed, just with modified characters in TNG.
Persis Khambatta played Ilia, and she had a short unsuccessful Bollywood career in India before establishing herself primarily as a US television actress. TMP was one of her only breakout movie roles. Khambatta passed away in 1998 at the age of 49.
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