Beam Me Up, Scotty!

The Enterprise crew operates from a drydock launch, tracking an explosively destructive probe floating through space. When the massive attack machine approaches Earth, Kirk and crew detect intelligent life within. The power and force of the weapons inside it are unmatched and Earth is at stake. Kirk takes control of the Enterprise, citing seniority and the current situation. By chance many of the former Enterprise crew are on board. Kirk decides to go in for a closer look.

But the interaction of the entity with one of their own kidnapped crew proves most fruitful for information. Persis Khambatta plays Lt. Ilia, an alien woman who serves on the crew of the Enterprise. The social part of crewing a space vessel is shown with dating and romantic life on hold during critical missions. Kirk tries to learn more as the Enterprise nears the dangerous space travelling entity. The appearance of the ship has an expansive feel, as if humans truly belong in space. The tiny pod ships have given way to light and elegance in design.

When the entity enjoins a union with the woman, her dimensional aspects travel outward. An intrigued former Captain Decker (Stephen Bauer), displaced from his responsibilities by Kirk's assumption, follows in her wake. But as they communicate with the entity via the woman, Kirk must be cagey about the way he deals with the entity. Their mission is to detect a weakness and destroy it. With every conversation, Kirk gambles desperately.

Information comes into the bridge at a rapid rate, and many technologies are shown advanced from the original cast television Star Trek. The entity blasts the vessel with power, lashing it with extreme energy. But when it scans the database banks, something "clicks". Astounding themes and jarring electronica music reveal an awesome weapon is floating in space, destroying everything in its path. The crew floats through a suspended warehouse of the flotsam of former kills.

Kirk is by turns frustrated and enchanted with the attitude the entity shows toward earth, humans, and the ship. Kirk decides to trap the entity into allowing them to come to it heart to discover what it is and what it is made out of. Spock independently attempts a stealth mission to do the same in a capsule, and meets with disaster. As the Enterprise is drawn within a vast web or the past history of the entity's "incorporations", unlimited power and endless intelligence is displayed.

V-ger, an appellation of the lost Voyager earth mission, is determined at the end to be the host of the entity. The being is trying to return home, and the maker (Houston Control) is gone. V-ger, as an intelligent life form, detects sexuality and romance via the sensory input of the female it inhabits and is curious. Kirk interprets this as vulnerability and plays for more time. Kirk knows, as the being does not, that sensual input must be programmed and controlled to process and experience, and uses its distracted state for the mission.

For a movie released in 1978, the idea of intelligence inside a computer was extremely advanced. The computer graphics and figural work done earned this film many industry awards for exemplary and historic science fiction illumination. The ending of the film shows Kirk awakening the creature's interest in sexual union as the ultimate investigative achievement. The resulting orgasmic power storm short circuits and destroys the entity, saving Earth.