Cinema: Warp Speed to Nowhere

STAR TREK—THE MOTION PICTURE Directed by Robert Wise; Screenplay by Harold Livingston

It used to be that special effects were created to serve a movie's story, to permit the camera to capture that which could not be found—or recorded on film—in the natural world. But now, in the postStar Wars era, stories are created merely to provide a feeble excuse for the effects. Star Trek consists almost entirely of this kind of material: shot after shot of vehicles sailing through the firmament to the tune of music intended to awe. But the spaceships take...