Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, Episode 8 - "Upper Decks"V'Ger, the villain from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, has received two surprising callbacks in Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5. In its fifth and final season on Paramount+, Star Trek: Lower Decks has the USS Cerritos fixing fissures in space that lead to alternate Star Trek timelines. However, Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 8, "Upper Decks," takes a break to focus on the Cerritos' bridge crew. Amazingly, "Upper Decks" also has two references to V'Ger 45 years after Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
V'Ger is unforgettable in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Introduced as an impossibly vast energy cloud that destroys everything in its path on a direct course for Earth, V'Ger's secret was unlocked by Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the USS Enterprise. V'Ger was a massive, sentient starship built from Earth's Voyager 6 space probe, which vanished in a black hole but was rebuilt by a world of machines. V'Ger journeyed home to Earth in a search for its creator, desiring to learn the meaning of its existence. V'Ger was never seen again after it evolved into a higher life form at the end of the first Star Trek movie.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s V’Ger Made 2 Lower Decks Comebacks In Season 5
Star Trek: Lower Decks Hasn't Forgotten V'Ger
Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, episode 8, "Upper Decks" has two callbacks to V'Ger. At the start of the episode, Lieutenant Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) finds her friends, Lieutenants Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), Samanthan Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), D'Vana Tendi (Noel Wells), and T'Lyn (Gabrielle Ruiz) having a pumpkin carving party. Rutherford reveals he carved an image of V'Ger in his pumpkin, prompting Mariner to mimic V'Ger's voice (although V'Ger never spoke in Star Trek: The Motion Picture).
However, V'Ger has been appearing in Star Trek: Lower Decks since season 5 began. Star Trek: Lower Decks' opening credits feature a gag where the USS Cerritos encounters and runs away from various Star Trek villains. Each Lower Decks season's titles add more Star Trek villains to the scene. Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5 topped it all with V'Ger becoming the last and most powerful alien entity to join the intergalactic conflagration.
Why V’Ger & Star Trek: The Motion Picture Still Captivates Audiences
Star Trek's First Movie Still Has Power
Star Trek: The Motion Picture has undergone a renaissance with Trekkers reassessing the original Star Trek movie, thanks, in part, to the 2022 release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Director's Edition. With the film's visual effects enhanced for 4K, accompanied by a limited theatrical release, Star Trek: The Motion Picture became even more dazzling. As such, audiences gained a greater appreciation for the heady sci-fi themes of the Starship Enterprise's first movie adventure and its ponderous encounter with V'Ger.
V'Ger was the most astounding vision Star Trek presented to launch its enduring movie franchise.
Star Trek has changed significantly since Star Trek: The Motion Picture, especially thanks to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies leading the way for the more cinematic and serialized Star Trek on Paramount+ series. V'Ger is a symbol of a different era of Star Trek where the emphasis was less on action and more on moral and philosophical questions that test the integrity of Admiral Kirk and the USS Enterprise's crew. Of course, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is also a special effects extravaganza, and V'Ger was the most astounding vision Star Trek presented to launch its enduring movie franchise.
Star Trek Gives V'Ger Its Due After Khan Changed Movie Villains
Star Trek Movies Likely Won't Have Another Villain Like V'Ger
Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a success at the box office, but it was also wildly over budget and disappointed critics and audiences. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan relied on a more traditional villain by bringing back Ricardo Montalban as Khan, the genetically engineered warlord from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed." Khan was everything V'Ger was not as a Star Trek antagonist, and Montalban's electrifying, scenery-chewing performance remains the gold standard for Star Trek movie villains.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home also had a V'Ger-like villain, the Probe searching for humpback whales. Perhaps not coincidentally, Star Trek IV is one of the most popular and the highest-grossing of the Star Trek: The Original Series movies.
Khan's popularity ensured that, even decades later, Star Trek movies would continually attempt to duplicate the diabolical Khan with heavies like Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, General Chang (Christopher Plummer) in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and, amusingly, Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) again in Star Trek Into Darkness. However, V'Ger had a unique majesty and a power to capture the imagination. Gratifyingly, Star Trek: Lower Decks gives V'Ger its due.
