Star Trek's Forgotten Original Movie Captain Will Decker, Explained

The USS Enterprise briefly got a new Captain in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but Will Decker (Stephen Collins) never actually got the chance to embark on his planned five-year mission. Picking up about years after the events of Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture finds Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) returning to the retrofitted Starship Enterprise for a vital new mission. A strange alien entity (later called V'ger) surrounded by a massive energy cloud is on its way to Earth and has the power to destroy the entire planet.

Starfleet assigns Admiral Kirk to lead the mission and take over command of the USS Enterprise, much to the frustration of Captain Willard Decker. Kirk had personally chosen Decker to take over as captain, and Decker had spent the past year and a half overseeing the Enterprise's retrofit and familiarizing himself with the ship. Because of this, Kirk keeps Decker as his First Officer, temporarily reducing him from Captain to Commander. Kirk clearly loves getting to sit in the captain's chair again, and Decker ultimately proves vital in the mission to stop the unconventional villain called V'ger.

What Star Trek: The Motion Picture Revealed About Captain Will Decker

Decker Never Truly Got To Command A Mission On The Enterprise

In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Will Decker is an accomplished and ambitious Starfleet officer who takes his job very seriously. When Kirk arrives and takes over command, Decker immediately protests, saying that he knows the new Enterprise better than anyone. Decker also feels that Kirk is just trying to get his old job as captain back, but he nevertheless complies with Kirk's orders. When the new Deltan navigator, Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta), arrives on board, Decker greets her warmly, as the two had had a previous romantic relationship.

The character of Will Decker was originally conceived for Star Trek: Phase II, which was to be a spin-off series of Star Trek: The Original Series. After the resurgent popularity of Star Trek in the 1970s, Paramount Studios began planning for a spin-off covering another five-year mission for the Enterprise. In the series, Will Decker served as the First Officer on the Enterprise under the command of Captain Kirk, and Ilia served as the ship's navigator. Both of these characters and many elements from the pilot script titled "In Thy Image," were used in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Why Captain Will Decker Was Never Seen Again In Star Trek

As the Enterprise approaches the cloud surrounding V'ger, the entity sends a probe to the ship's bridge that kills Ilia. V'ger then sends back a robotic version of Ilia to gather information and act as its voice aboard the Enterprise. As Decker shows Ilia/V'ger around the Enterprise, he realizes that V'ger has assimilated Ilia's memories and emotions as well. At the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker merges with Ilia and V'ger, creating a new life form that then disappears into space. This permanently wrote off both Decker and Ilia's chatacters.

With the premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, several concepts from Star Trek: Phase II were, again, incorporated into the series. Many elements of Will Decker and Ilia's story became part of the initial characterization of Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). Like Decker, Riker served as First Officer on the USS Enterprise-D, and he also had a previous romantic relationship with Counselor Troi (who had empathic abilities like Ilia). Ultimately, Riker and Troi proved to be a more successful and popular pairing than Decker and Ilia, whose story came to a satisfying conclusion in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.