STAR BLECCH: THE (GACCK!) MOTION PICTURE

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979)
dir: Robert Wise

Another Star Trek parody that has to be broken in half.

MAD #216, Jul 1980
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

On the USS Enterprise, they've detected a cloud called V'ger that is consuming everything in its path with the goal of obtaining the entirety of the universe. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) has returned after a long absence and Scotty (James Doohan), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Chekhov (Walter Koenig) and Sulu (George Takei) are still part of the crew.

Kirk, now an admiral, takes over command despite the fact that Decker (Stephen Collins) is already running the ship. Decker is now demoted, creating adversity and insisting Kirk is not qualified to take over the ship again after it has been refitted and updated.

During a test run science officer Sonak is killed in the line of duty and Decker has to do his job as well. V'ger is already starting to take its toll, consuming one of the space stations. Ilia (Persis Khambatta) comes on board as their new navigator, and it's established she and Decker once had a previous relationship.

Reference is made to The Black Hole, another science-fiction movie that came out around the same time.

“Bones” McCoy (Deforest Kelley) returns, having been drafted as the ship's doctor. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) also returns. He was going to finish his rites as a Vulcan, but his himan side sensed priority aboard the ship. Now that the band is back together, they can investigate V'ger.

V'Ger abducts Ilia.

Ilia has returned, but she is actually V'Ger in human form sent back down to study carbon life forms before swallowing them up. The crew figures a human element of Ilia is somewhere inside of her and Decker has been assigned to use his past with her to possibly reveal it. Meanwhile, Spock goes out into space on his own to further investigate V'Ger.

After Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Decker have examined V'Ger, they realize it's actually Voyager VI, a vessel that has been sent from Earth to explore space 300 years earlier and gone rogue (not to be confused with the spinoff series of the same name). As advanced as it's become, the one thing it lacks is the ability to understand humanity. Not Vulcan lack of expressing it, but being unaware of its existence. Decker sacrifices himself to give V'Ger the final piece of the puzzle needed to defeat it.

This was the cover for the Mexican edition of MAD.

STAR TRIPE
Crazy #60, March 1980
w: Rico Tallar (Paul Laikin)
a: Kent Gamble

Something tells me they didn't see the movie when they wrote this. Actually, they couldn't have, since it came out in December of 1979, and the date on a magazine is three months after its release.

STAR WREK
Sick #133. June 1980
w & a; Adam V. Kane (Dave Manak)

As usual, Cracked would exploit a property more than once, so there's enough material to give it its own post, Which is going to happen tomorrow.