Often cited as the most boring Trek of them all, few Trekkies claim 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture as their favorite film. But now, a fan-edit has condensed the whole movie into a 22-minute mini-episode, and replaced the score with Daft Punk’s soundtrack from 2010’s Tron: Legacy.
Jerry Goldsmith’s music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture is arguably the best thing about the movie. It earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score in 1980. Subsequently, the main theme of the film (originally only composed for “The Enterprise”) went on to became the primary theme associated with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.
Still, with its slow pace and humorless story, even Goldsmith’s beautiful score doesn’t make up for The Motion Picture’s deep flaws. Ironically, by pairing this troubled Trek with another derided and troubled sci-fi movie — Tron: Legacy — geeky gold has been struck.
As pointed out by Andrew Liptak on The Verge on May 14, Daft Punk’s soundtrack for Tron: Legacy was “the best thing” to come out of a troubled sequel; just like Goldsmith’s Star Trek score. By blending the two, Patrick Collins has created Star Trek: Legacy, a movie that travels through time to cobble together a watchable sci-fi video, which isn’t too different from an Earth space-probe combining itself with a super-ancient alien computer to become an unstoppable destructive force. See? Star Trek: The Motion Picture sounds cool, when it’s edited just right. Watch it here.
See also: The Fandom Menace: Star Trek and the Battle for Fan Films
