A gigantic object is hurtling towards Earth and will arrive in days. The only starship available is the newly refitted USS Enterprise. Admiral James T Kirk (William Shatner) pulls strings to become captain of the ship demoting current captain Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) to XO. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) fails his Kohlinar training and returns because he hears the object calling to him. Dr Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) is recalled from retirement for the mission. Meanwhile Montgomery Scott (James Dookan), Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) were already assigned to the ship. We also have new navigator Ilia (Persis Khambatta) and Decker's former flame...

I recently rewatched ST:TMP Director's Cut version and my fondness for this film grows. It's a slow moving story with not that much action making for not the greatest motion picture. But now I look at it as a classic science fiction novel brought to film. Character focused, cerebral, wrapped around a mystery that is slowly revealed layer by layer. And then you get the last mystery revealed at the climax and it's resolved and the film ends. Very well done, even the part where they spend several minutes panning around the new Enterprise showing off the new model details.