in thy image star trek

How the Abandoned Star Trek: Phase II Pilot Became The Motion Picture

Series creator Gene Roddenberry was going to remake his hit show for the small screen in Star Trek: Phase II, but the studio canceled it for a movie.

Ten years after Star Trek was unceremoniously canceled by NBC, The Motion Picture hit the box office. It was a hit financially, but audiences, critics and even the cast felt the film wasn't the universe at its best. However, the hunt for a Star Trek movie was long and fraught, with the studio giving up and going back to television. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was born from the ashes of a pilot episode for the Phase II series that would've brought the Enterprise back to the small screen.

Paramount long wanted to launch its own broadcast network, which it eventually did with its failed United Paramount Network. Still, like Enterprise tried to do, the studio wanted its most profitable franchise to anchor its programming. Thus, series creator Gene Roddenberry was brought in to create Star Trek: Phase II . Other attempts to make a movie failed, like the infamous Star Trek: Planet of the Titans movie . However, the money the studio would lose starting a network compared to what could be made with a movie like Star Wars: A New Hope or Close Encounters of the Third Kind ended the show days before the pilot began filming. The story for the pilot, a script called "In Thy Image," based on a story by Alan Dean Foster, became the framework on which Star Trek: The Motion Picture was built. While fans remain divided about the movie, it was a fortunate break for Trekkies. Star Trek: Phase II was no The Next Generation , and it likely would've failed.

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Star Trek: Phase II's Head Writer Was the Wrong Choice for the Show or the Movie

While Roddenberry liked the idea of a movie , he liked the idea of a TV series more. He could retain more creative control as the producer. Roddenberry believed a movie would mark the end of Star Trek . For Phase II , he took an approach like George Lucas did for the second and third movies of his original Star Wars trilogy . He would oversee the entire production, delegating writing and production tasks to others. When Paramount eventually repurposed the pilot episode as The Motion Picture , Roddenberry saw his influence reduced. Yet, it wasn't director Robert Wise he clashed most with, it was a man he hired himself.

He hired Harold Livingston, a TV writer whose series Future Cop lasted on ABC for only five episodes. He disapproved of Star Trek 's "geriatric" cast and "allegorical" stories, according to The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman. Livingston "never read" the Star Trek: Phase II writers guide Roddenberry created. He believed he could create a bigger audience for the characters on his own. When Foster brought his scripts, Livingston "thought [they] were terrible" and "didn't want him to write." Everyone else disagreed, choosing "In Thy Image," about an old NASA space probe that returned to Earth wreaking havoc as the story for the film.

Paramount originally thought the low-budget movie would serve as a backdoor pilot for a new series. Livingston was brought back to make Foster's "TV story" into one worthy of the big-screen budget . Instead of working with Roddenberry, whose writing skill Livingston did not respect, he seemed to care more about fighting him than finishing the job. He quit multiple times and admitted in The Fifty-Year Mission that he didn't know how to end the thing. Who actually came up with the idea for Will Decker and Ilia to "merge" with V'Ger remains a mystery, but it was the best ending they could come up with on such short notice. Paramount presold the film and would've released it unfinished to avoid breaking the contract.

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Star Trek: The Motion Picture Artists Used Phase II as the Movie's Foundation

Star Trek: Phase II was nearly ready to begin production on its pilot episode when Paramount canceled it for The Motion Picture . Costumes, sets and the Enterprise redesigned by Matt Jefferies were all scrapped. A veteran director, Robert Wise was able to handle Livingston's near-constant feuds with Roddenberry. The real problem for the movie was the visual effects production. An upstart visual effects company showed Wise test footage with a potato standing in for the ship because they hadn't built it, according to The Fifty-Year Mission . Multiple people interviewed for the book noted that meeting was the only time they remembered seeing Wise actually angry. Luckily, Star Wars visual effects legends John Dykstra and Douglas Trumbull stepped in and saved the picture.

With such a tight schedule to film (and no completed script), Wise picked and chose Star Trek: Phase II 's elements for his film. Xon, the new Vulcan, was left behind, while Decker and Ilia became the tragic heroes of the film. The Enterprise bridge had been redesigned with practical lights and switches to last the run of a show. Wise had it redesigned again to improve the look and reduce the functionality since this was a one-off story. He also had the designers put in the seat restraints because he thought the crew flailing about the bridge was too silly for his serious film. While Star Trek: Phase II had humor like The Original Series , Livingston and Wise wanted the movie to be deadly serious.

At the end of the film, when Dr. McCoy agrees to stay on the ship, Leonard Nimoy improvised a classic Spock line. "If Doctor McCoy is to remain on board," Spock said, "then my presence here will be essential." They told him not to do it again. Luckily, Roddenberry took Phase II leftovers for The Next Generation . The new human-intrigued Vulcan became Data. The original characterization of Ilia was reworked for Counselor Deanna Troi's character. So much of the fraught production during The Motion Picture came from the writer and director discounting the work of the artists who knew Star Trek best.

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In Thy Image

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"In Thy Image" was the pilot episode script for the abortive development of the television series Star Trek: Phase II . The episode went unproduced, and the script was heavily rewritten to become Star Trek: The Motion Picture . The original version of the story did eventually find publication, as the complete script was reprinted in the reference work Phase II: The Lost Series .

In this story, in the Phase II continuity, V'Ger and its probe Tasha made different choices while returning to Earth in search of its creator.

1 Publisher's description
3.1 Characters
3.2 Starships and vehicles
3.3 Locations
3.4 Races and cultures
3.5 States and organizations
3.6 Science and technology
3.7 Ranks and titles
3.8 Other references
4.1.1 Characters
4.1.2 Technology
4.2 Related stories
4.4 Connections
4.5 External links

Publisher's description [ ]

Summary [ ].

A reunion between Admiral James T. Kirk and retired Doctor Leonard McCoy at a park in San Francisco is cut short when Kirk is recalled to Starfleet Headquarters for an emergency meeting. Joining through holographic technology , Captain Lebutu reports the destruction of three Klingon cruisers by a massive vessel headed for Earth . USS Aswan is diverted to intercept, and Starfleet hastily readies the refitted USS Enterprise to assist. Willard Decker , Xon and Pavel Chekov are reassigned, and McCoy "drafted". Kirk is assigned as its commanding officer , and Heihachiro Nogura officiates a brief recommissioning ceremony .

En route, the Enterprise suddenly finds itself unable to avoid an asteroid . Xon had deactivated helm , deflectors , sensors and phasers in order to reprogram and familiarize himself with the systems. Chekov hastily arms a photon torpedo and destroys the asteroid. Xon apologizes, having computed high odds against such an emergency, and assures Kirk that he will make fewer mistakes in the future.

At battle stations with shields up, the Enterprise approaches the 70-kilometer-long vessel at warp six . They launch a probe , but it is destroyed, then phaser -like weapons and a tractor beam strike the Enterprise . Xon discovers that the alien vessel responds to their initial hails as if the Enterprise was alive. When Kirk allows Xon to transmit back at the same frequency, the vessel ceases fire. It then downloads starship schematics from the main computer , but nothing about the crew .

Groups of hovering egg-shaped probes materialize throughout the ship, as well as a different probe that walks on spindly legs and squeaks. Xon disassembles one of the hovering probes, finding sophisticated technology made of liquid hydrogen and controlled force fields . After probes try to break into the computer library , and requests to stop are ignored, Chekov and others try to stop them with phasers. The floating probes dematerialize, but the walking probe emerges on the bridge . Its squealing is translated by Nyota Uhura as requests, then demands, to talk to the Enterprise . Chekov names it Tasha after one of his relatives. When Uhura translates Kirk's reply that he is in command, the response is a denial — humans are parasites . Transmitted via the computer as if he was the ship, Kirk asks why the probes attacked and why the vessel is headed for Earth. It says it attacked because the Enterprise is infested with 430 parasites, and reveals Earth is "The Holy Home of the Creator". Then, discovering Kirk's deception, it starts downloading more files. To prevent it from learning about Starfleet and the Federation , Xon smashes the computer, getting electrocuted in the process. As Ilia reaches to help him, she and Tasha dematerialize.

Based on the files it downloaded, Xon believes that the alien vessel now considers Earth infested and might want to disinfect the planet. Xon recuperates in sickbay , and Kirk follows McCoy's advice to get some sleep. He awakes when his sonic shower activates and Ilia appears within. But it isn't Ilia. She explains that she was Tasha, reformed by V'Ger into the likeness of Ilia to better communicate with humans. Kirk updates Starfleet with a brief, hi-speed subspace transmission. Tasha asks why he did that. Kirk explains that the planet needs to be informed of V'Ger's arrival. V'Ger releases the tractor beam as an act of faith and offers to show Kirk proof that Earth is the home of the creator.

Kirk, Xon and Tasha beam to a set of coordinates within V'Ger, inside a massive technological cavern. They find Ilia suspended in a stasis field . Nearby they see pieces of a 20th century space probe growing out of the walls — Voyager 18 , which had disappeared into a black hole . When they read NASA 's ID plaque, Tasha muttered "Glory to Nasa". Kirk tries to explain that humans built Voyager, but gets struck by lightning .

When the Enterprise enters orbit, it uses the USS Delphi as a transporter relay to beam Kirk and Tasha to the park in San Francisco. By exposing her to other humans, he tries to convince her that humans are living things who build machines. They then beam to Starfleet's Archives Building and show films made by NASA, but Tasha remains unconvinced. Meanwhile, V'Ger arrives in orbit and prepares neutron bombs to annihilate humanity .

Tasha expresses regret that humans have to die. Kirk implores her to see that V'Ger is wrong. Emotionally wrought and compassionate, Tasha lies and tells V'Ger she accepts the proof. V'Ger disengages its bombs. Disappointed to learn that lower life forms are in fact its creator, and feeling it can learn nothing from them, V'Ger deactivates Tasha, returns Ilia, and departs the Sol system .

The Enterprise is ready for its next assignment.

References [ ]

Characters [ ], starships and vehicles [ ], locations [ ], races and cultures [ ], states and organizations [ ], science and technology [ ], ranks and titles [ ], other references [ ], appendices [ ], background [ ].

Harold Livingston's 110-page Rough First Draft script was completed on October 20, 1977. It was published along with Alan Dean Foster 's 8-page Original Treatment, dated July 31, 1977.
Notions of Kirk and McCoy corresponding through handwritten letters and McCoy treating unusual patients in the early 2270s would be expanded upon in John Byrne 's series Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor .
When Kirk and Xon beamed aboard V'Ger, the text compared them to Lilliputians and Lemuel Gulliver .
V'Ger was spelled phonetically, Ve-Jur, in the script.
In this continuity, V'Ger did not generate a power field. Rather than measuring more than 1 AU in diameter when initially encountered, sensors found V'Ger to be about 70 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide.
Captain Wah Chen was the assigned commanding officer of the Enterprise , not Willard Decker . Kirk was given command by Nogura because Chen was at Starbase 6 .
After science officer Ronak was killed in the transporter malfunction, Vulcan Lieutenant Xon was assigned as his replacement, despite only recently having graduated from Starfleet Academy .
Commander Decker was reassigned from the USS Boston ( Miranda -class) to be the first officer . He soon would earn his own command, but he was not demoted, nor was any mention made of him having had a prior relationship with Ilia .
Pavel Chekov was reassigned to the Enterprise by Admiral Carson at Kirk's request.
Spock 's absence was unexplained, though he was referenced in two scenes. Xon compared himself to Spock following a miscalculation, and Kirk compared Ronak to Spock.
Ledoux , a patient in sickbay , was also seen in TOS - Mere Anarchy eBook : The Darkness Drops Again .
Bandar and Swenson also appeared in TOS novel : Ex Machina .
Hawkins , an engineering lieutenant , also appeared in Ex Machina . He could be Darryl Hawkins . He could be Wallace Hawkins , a famous 23rd century test pilot, if he survived a grueling experience in TOS comic : " The Collector ". He could also be the prime reality counterpart of Hawkins .
Branch was a woman in this continuity, based at Starbase 9 rather than Outpost Epsilon 9 .

Technology [ ]

Conferencing involved life-size holograms of some participants, a technology later visualized on Star Trek: Discovery .
Life support belts were mentioned prior to beaming inside V'Ger . These were stated as being unnecessary due to the formation of a gravitational field and oxygen atmosphere .

Connections [ ]

External links [ ].

In Thy Image article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
In Thy Image article at the Orion Press website.
In Thy Image article at the Forgotten Trek website.
In Thy Image article at Eruditorum Press .
In Thy Image article at The Movie Blog .
1 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition
2 The Chase
3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

“It’s only human”: In Thy Image (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

Forest of Illusions Star Trek Film Series , Star Trek Phase II , Star Trek The Motion Picture 6

We are urgently requesting backup and further advice…Intel on the ground indicates that this timeline has been effectively secured by our forces for the moment, though installing a permanent presence here seems unlikely…While they’ve been mostly keeping quiet for the moment, there’s no doubt The Empire will eventually take notice of what we’re doing here and strike back with a vengeance, and skirmishes with the other renegade factions are a constant problem…We followed your instructions and The Prototype codename “ VOYAGER ” is complete and ready for a shakedown cruise, though we are concerned as to its structural stability and overall viability and worry it may not yet be capable of fulfilling The Purpose for which it was designed, and that activating it will alert The Empire as to our whereabouts…Please inform as to further action ASAP…

At some point it became inevitable.

While a tenaciously niche property throughout the 1970s, Star Trek gave no indication of ever going away, especially once new generations of fans started to get introduced to it. It had a uniquely built-in self-regenerating audience, and one that was big enough to eventually attract the attention of the higher-ups. It was never a question of if Star Trek would come back, but how and when . The answer to all of those questions eventually came in 1977, when Paramount announced plans to enter the television market with their own network, and a new Star Trek series as its flagship programme. The series, chronicling a second five-year mission of the newly-refitted USS Enterprise under the command of Admiral James T. Kirk, eventually got the name Star Trek Phase II and premiered the following year.

Star Trek Phase II was not the first idea Paramount had for ways to revive the franchise: Originally, there were plans for a British-produced feature film called Star Trek: Planet of the Titans , to be handled by a pre- Star Wars Ralph McQuarrie. This film was in development throughout 1976 and 1977, but was eventually abandoned in favour of doing this show instead (and, presumably, due to McQuarrie’s commitments to the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg camp). It was an interesting story, involving heavily redesigned Enterprise following the original five-year mission involved in a territorial dispute with the Klingons over a planet rumoured to be home to a mythical race of cosmic Titans, who apparently were very influential in the history of life in the galaxy. After a brief dust-up involving a black hole and time travel, the Enterprise finds itself back in time and orbiting prehistoric Earth, where the crew soon discover that they are in fact the mythical Titans.

But returning to Star Trek Phase II , the series premier, “In Thy Image”, was a real event: Unlike the Original Series, which sort of just appeared out of nowhere, Star Trek Phase II was hyped up with a big PR machine and took off with a massive two-hour pilot movie . With much of the original creative team returning, as well as the addition of talented and professional new team members like Andy Probert and Robert Wise, who will go on to leave their own marks on the history of the franchise, this is as good an introduction to the new Star Trek as we could have hoped for, showing genuine maturation and development of themes we’ve seen explored before, and that most Star Trek of promises to continue growing and learning along the way. In fact, “In Thy Image” is basically about this, at least on one textual level.

But wait, we can’t just leap into this like it’s a run-of-the-mill Star Trek story. This is a series premier, a proper one, which means we need to take some time to examine the show’s setting, cast of characters and status quo. The first obvious change is, of course, the completely redesigned Enterprise : The designs of Matt Jeffries, Andy Probert and Mike Minor give both the ship’s interior and exterior a unique look, one that both feels like an evolution of specific design themes from the Original Series and distinctly 1970s, though early 1970s (which makes it also feel curiously outdated). This philosophy extends to the rest of the look of the show, which also evokes a crisp and distinctive style of Golden Age science fiction iconography (especially, and perhaps appropriately, 2001: A Space Odyssey ).

The characters too have gotten a noticeable upgrade, and across the board its for the better. Everyone’s been promoted, and each person feels older, wiser and more worldy then they did on the Original Series. This is best embodied in Admiral Kirk, a seasoned veteran space traveller who is consciously depicted differently than the brash hothead Kirk at least had the reputation of being on the Original Series. Some characters, like newly-minted Doctor Chapel, feel completely different: In both the writing and Majel Barret’s performance I see shades of Lwaxana Troi to come: An affable, gregarious, outgoing chatterbox who’s about 180 degrees from any previous depiction of the character and immediately likable (she even gets to carve out a sizable role in the actual plot, which leads me to believe this was the beginning of Gene Roddenberry and his team really recognising Barrett’s strongest when you just let her be herself and don’t make her actually act). Even Janice Rand is back, serving as Commander Uhura’s relief communications officer.

We also have a crop of new characters. The most notable is Vulcan Lieutenant Xon, the new science officer, and Spock’s replacement. It’s hard to read the loss of Spock as anything less than a tremendous blow to Star Trek Phase II , given how absolutely central he was to both the Original Series and the Animated Series. But, Leonard Nimoy didn’t want to commit to another Star Trek show, still stinging from how wholly and completely he’d been typecast in the role he played for three years. So, we get a new Vulcan, and, while he’s not Spock, he’s an engaging and interesting character in his own right. Unlike Spock, Xon is overtly interested in exploring and understanding human emotion, and his attempts to become more human define much of his character arc on the show. He’s also a fresh-face youngster, always eager to please and endlessly enthusiastic about throwing himself into his work, to the point he places doing his job, far, far and away above his own personal well-being. And, the energetic David Gautreaux conveys all of this admirably.

Without Spock present, though, this also means that Kirk and McCoy get to have a much closer relationship in this show than they did in either of the two previous ones. Most of the big character moments in “In Thy Image” are between Kirk and McCoy, and the episode is great at conveying that these are two very old friends who know each other inside and out and who are capable of stepping in to make decisions on each other’s behalf they wouldn’t necessarily make on their own. Two scenes in particular that stick out in my mind are when Kirk approaches McCoy in the wilds of San Francisco and after V’Ger starts towing the Enterprise to Earth: In the former, McCoy expresses ambivalence about serving in Starfleet as Kirk begins to reminisce about the five-year mission, which also doubles as a bang-on critique of the Original Series patently ridiculous and obscene body count:

“What I remember, Jim…are the friends who couldn’t be put back together. For five years…so many of them.”

Kirk tries to get McCoy to sign back on for the new Enterprise ‘s crew, while McCoy straight-up asks why he’s not back in the captain’s chair. It’s a great moment that shows off these characters’ dedication, loyalty and restlessness. In the latter scene, meanwhile, McCoy does his usual making sure Kirk gets some rest in the middle of a tense situation, but what’s great here is that it comes right after a scene where Kirk gives a similar speech to Xon, and another where Kirk requested McCoy and Chapel keep a close eye on them . Not only is it Star Trek camaraderie at its finest (and probably a nod at how their relationship was supposed to work all along before Spock came around) and a decisive argument against the tired “triumvirate” and id/ego/superego reading of the Original Series, it’s also a great bit of just basic structural continuity that goes a long way towards proving this show has finally grown up a bit.

Then there’s Will Decker, Kirk’s new first officer, and Lieutenant Ilia, the new navigator. The addition of Decker is the aspect of Star Trek Phase II that makes it the most evident a substantial amount of time has passed: He’s clearly going to be the character who filled Kirk’s earlier role, the commanding and virile lead man (although this episode at least seems a bit uncertain about this), and there’s a bit of a generation gap situation between him and Kirk, though Kirk obviously considers him a friend and a reliable ally. Decker has something of a complicated history, son of the infamous Matt Decker and still haunted by his father’s actions in “The Doomsday Machine”, Will is bound and determined to prove himself, and he was almost given his own command before Kirk requested him as his XO for the Enterprise ‘s emergency first mission (for which Will is a bit resentful). Will has a history with Ilia, a member of a mysterious species called the Deltans, renowned for their almost psychic empathic abilities and love of sex and sensuality (so much so that they have to take an oath of celibacy before working with non-Deltans). Will and Ilia were romantically involved at some point in the past, but have since broken up, and moving beyond this forms the basis of their character arcs on the show.

(I also have to give major props to Persis Khambata, who plays Ilia: Deltans are supposedly hairless, and, while she was offered a bald cap, she instead opted to get into character by shaving her entire body . That’s dedication, girlfriend.)

Another milestone “In Thy Image” gives Star Trek is the first real textual confirmation of the universe’s express utopianism. Although previous Star Trek hinted at this and it was largely assumed to be the case by fandom, “In Thy Image” makes it very overt that the world it takes place in is very much an idealistic one more peaceful and prosperous than the one we live in today. This is most evident in the scene where Kirk goes to meet McCoy, which doubles as the first time we actually get to see Earth in Star Trek. And it’s a profoundly weird scene: San Francisco is a mishmash hybrid of futuristic architecture and untamed natural wilderness that seem to organically grow around each other, such that the park we see McCoy in features happy children mingling with actual wild animals , and in particular cheetahs , who just loiter around and play with the kids. The implication, interestingly enough, is that material social progress might eventually get us to a point where there’s no tangible distinction between humans and nature, and that nature itself recognises this . It’s at once Star Trek for the environmental age but at the same time not: This is a genuinely bizarre and unprecedented vision of the future and conception of utopia and I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere else, yet alone in any other Star Trek.

To me though this is also very indicative of how indebted the new creative team is to fandom, and how much they really, truly did listen to them throughout the 1970s. That utopianism and idealism the fans saw in Star Trek and wrote about in droves was actually written back into the next bit of Star Trek Soda Pop Art to be produced: Weird as it is, this is idealistic on every level, and the show goes out of its way to make this clear at every opportunity. What this tells me is that, one again, Star Trek was never explicitly utopian from the beginning: If you actually watch the Original Series, it becomes pretty clear what it was originally supposed to be: Roddenberry’s Fables. But, because of the diverse casting and a few memorable moments, fans read a wonderful, captivating, engrossing utopian dream onto it, and that was so infectious that when Star Trek came back to television it made sure to make this a central theme. Even so though, the universe Star Trek Phase II presents, while idealistic, is not a flawless one. It’s still imperfect and is still growing and learning, and this is in fact the entire message of “In Thy Image”.

It may seem unusual to get this far into an analysis without talking about what “In Thy Image” is actually about, but really, I haven’t done: Given its status as a series premier, by definition a huge swath of the story is going to be taken up introducing everything. And this extends to the rest of the story as well. First of all, while the script was written by Harold Livingston, the original story treatment was actually by Alan Dean Foster. Knowing this, in hindsight, it does make the wonderfully surreal scene in San Francisco make more sense. However, it is also worth pointing out that the experience of “In Thy Image” is also what convinced Foster to abandon writing for Hollywood altogether and focus on his novel work, which is unfortunate (though sadly prescient: Thus begins a long, not-so-proud tradition of Star Trek getting such a horrible reputation for frustrating writers it burns every bridge it ever had the potential of having).

Even so, the script he and Livingston came up with is just terrific: Years after the end of the five-year mission, Admiral Kirk is called upon to once again take command of the retrofitted USS Enterprise , the most advanced vessel in the fleet, and the one that happens to be closest in position to investigate a mysterious force that has destroyed an entire Klingon armada and is making its way to Earth. Rekindling relationships with old friends and making some new ones, Kirk and the new crew of the Enterprise try to make peaceful contact with the alien life force before it wipes out the entire Federation. Engaging the force at the end of the solar system, it’s soon revealed that it’s a gigantic sentient starship that calls itself V’Ger, thinks the Enterprise is alive as well and is gravely concerned about the 400 carbon-based “parasites” that “infest: its body. To make matters worse, after scanning the ship’s records (which the Enterprise computer helpfully provided for it) V’Ger determines that a similar infestation is plaguing The Holy Home of the Creator, that is Earth, and, as its chosen champion, is destined to cure its ancestral home.

Eventually it’s revealed that V’Ger is actually Voyager 18 , one of the last space probes sent out be NASA. It was thought lost, but actually fell through a black hole and wound up on a planet of machine-people, where a sharing of minds took place and the newly emerged V’Ger went on a journey to find its origin. Now right away this is probably ringing some bells for my ever-astute readers: This is pretty much the same plot as “The Changeling”, a second season episode of the Original Series about a space probe sent out by 20th century space agencies that disappeared, had an encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence and then went on a journey to find its origin. Similarly, the space probe, in this case known as Nomad , was deeply concerned about imperfect carbon-based lifeforms and, because its tapes had been scrambled, felt it was its duty to cleanse the universe of all imperfections.

Back when I talked about “The Changeling”, I mentioned the fundamental problem with this story was twofold: Firstly, this is a very Pop Christian kind of story because it’s about a journey to essentially find God (which is clearly meant to be one specific being or thing), and secondly, related to this, it relies on a Western conception of metaphysics because it presupposes a singular objective Truth. “In Thy Image”, however, plays with this concept a bit, and it’s a far more enjoyable and multi-faceted story than “The Changeling” because of it. For one thing V’Ger, unlike Nomad , isn’t looking for perfection, it just can’t understand life that isn’t machine-based. This means V’Ger is a mirror for the ignorance and self-centredness of humans (and, actually, the narrow-mindedness of the early Federation as seen in Original Series episodes like “Arena” and “The Devil in the Dark”-Tellingly, Kirk and McCoy reference the Horta here) and their unwillingness to broaden their horizons to other worldviews and ways of living, which makes it a far more effective metaphor for humanity.

That said there is a scene near the climax where Kirk, speaking to V’Ger’s representative (a probe that’s temporarily assumed the form of Ilia) tries to convince it of the virtue of imperfection and human foibles, V’Ger not being able to understand why humans would want to settle for such things and about ready to vaporize the Earth. Kirk’s point being, of course, that humans pride themselves on being able to learn from their mistakes and are always growing and trying to better themselves. What’s great about this scene though is that it’s in the same park where Kirk met McCoy at the beginning of the episode: As idyllic as Earth is it’s still not perfect because, in truth, it can’t be . Eventually, Ilia-Probe gets V’Ger to call off its attack by lying to it, a human imperfection she learned the situational value of. The point being on the one hand another affirmation of the Star Trek lesson to never stop growing and learning, but also what can be gained when two people talk to each other and share perspectives.

But the other needed twist on this story “In Thy Image” provides is how it conceives of truth and the divine. One of my favourite moments comes where Kirk gets indignant at V’Ger’s insistent use of the phrase “The Holy Home of the Creator”. This irritates Kirk because, according to him, there can be no one “Home” of a singular “Creator”: The point of origin of not just V’Ger, but humans, and every other form of life in the universe, is not one place but everywhere at once. The entire Cosmos. We are all stardust. “In Thy Image” is not quite Star Trek’s definitive statement on the divine, nor even of the Original Series story, but it’s a damn good one, a clear step forward for the franchise and the moment where the philosophy of Star Trek really starts to crystallize for the first time. The structure of the story may retain some of the Pop Christianity of “The Changeling”, but it’s shunted all of that onto V’Ger’s role and is trying very hard to come up with an alternative. It doesn’t have one just yet, or at least hasn’t expounded on it, but the fact it’s working hard to get there is one more sign that Star Trek is growing and learning.

With all of that in mind, it’s hard for me to claim that “In Thy Image” isn’t simply one of the single best pieces of Star Trek we’ve yet seen. It’s without question one of the best episodes yet made: Aside from the engaging and mature philosophy, a breath of fresh air from the two-fisted moralizing of the past, it’s also a structural song, and I attribute all of that to Livingston and Foster’s influence. The Original Series had an annoyingly reoccurring problem with pacing, and a *ton* of the episodes on that show felt badly, badly padded; stretching really basic, pulp material far beyond the point anyone should have tried to stretch it. But “In Thy Image” doesn’t have any of those problems: Every single moment feels worthwhile and important, and every moment comes back in some form or another later on, tying the whole story up into a neat and tidy bundle. Furthermore, any worries that the creative team might feel tempted to get self-indulgent with a feature-length story are quickly put to rest as “In Thy Image” moves along at a crisp, jaunty pace. It’s always provocative, always engaging, and always a pleasure to follow.

…But that said, there are a few problems with it. For one thing, as much time and care as it takes to introduce the new characters and the new setting, it still tends to fall back on focusing on Kirk, McCoy and Xon pretty heavily. At least this episode also elevates Chapel and Will Decker to that league, which is nice, and Chekov, Sulu and Uhura each get their moments to shine, which is also very much appreciated. But other characters aren’t so lucky: Janice Rand is basically an extra, which is annoying, but the real problem is Ilia. She’s supposed to be a major new character, and the script does basically nothing with her. She gets to sex up Sulu for a laugh, but that’s the extent of her role in this episode as she’s quickly whisked away by V’Ger due to her empathic abilities (not the last time Ilia would be used as a vehicle for an alien to try and explore and understand humanity). Persis Khambata gets a meaty role as she comes back as “Tasha”, one of V’Ger’s probes who temporarily takes on Ilia’s form and sort of becomes its spokesperson, but it still seems odd to not have her play the role she was actually hired to play for the majority of the episode she was introduced in. For all of the feminist strides Star Trek has made over the years, we’re still seeing women used primarily as plot devices, so I guess we’ve still got a ways to go.

Then there are the special effects. Which, OK, hate complaining about effects, this is the most money Star Trek has *ever* had and the overwhelming majority of this episode looks *gorgeous* to be sure. However…this is still television in 1978, and it’s painfully obvious there were corners cut in places one would perhaps like corners to not be cut in. One thing that bothered me was the reuse of a lot of costumes from the Original Series, which jar pretty horribly with the look-and-feel of the rest of the show. But the biggest VFX fail for sure has to be V’Ger itself: If I were to be charitable , I’d say it looks like an update of the Planet Killer from “The Doomsday Machine”, which would be altogether fitting given the presence of Will Decker, but if I’m being honest…It looks like a dunce cap. And don’t get me going on the CSO composite shots with V’Ger and the Enterprise : The script says our ship looks like a golf ball against the incomprehensible vastness of V’Ger and that’s exactly what it looks like . There’s no getting around the fact that when you’re trying to convey a sense of cosmic awe and wonder, golf balls and dunce caps are not quite the best way to go about doing that.

But, even in spite of its quirks and imperfections, I’m still going to call “In Thy Image” one of my absolute favourite Star Trek episodes to date. It’s conclusive proof that not only is Star Trek back, it’s grown to become something bigger and better than what it used to be. And, in doing so, it’s reaffirmed its commitment to neverending personal growth on its neverending journey through the stars. After all, isn’t that the whole point of this episode? That humans can better themselves and shouldn’t settle for a simulacrum of perfection, as that way lies complacency and a toxic stasis? The least I can do is take the lessons of this episode and apply them to “In Thy Image” itself. All art ultimately comes from our own experiences and positionalities, and no matter how hard some try, that can never be distilled out of the finished product. If that’s the image Star Trek reflects for us now, it’s hard not to feel heartened by it.

UPGRADE OR DIE. PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. The first thing we should square away is that of all the possible ways for Star Trek to come back, this was by no means the inevitable one, or even, really, one that would be seen as in any way logical or reasonable.

For ten years, it seemed obvious that whatever form Star Trek would return in, it would always remain something particularly niche. As recently as 1977 we had the entire cast and Gene Roddenberry himself positing that, for the foreseeable future at least, fanfiction was the future of Star Trek. Even when we looked at things like The Star Fleet Technical Manual and Star Fleet Battles , those were still, ultimately, products of fan love and ingenuity. Comics and tie-in books? Bantam’s, and later Pocket’s, Star Trek line was full of wild experiments and world building and Doug Drexler was writing for Gold Key. All by fans, for fans.

In other words, it would be absolutely unthinkable for anyone even a year or two prior to 1979 that Star Trek’s actual return to the world of Soda Pop Art would be in the form of a massive, sprawling, self-consciously epic “Motion Picture Extravaganza”. What everyone would have expected would be something like a revived Star Trek TV series with a comparatively larger budget and studio support airing on a niche timeframe either on a niche network or even direct to syndication, especially considering Paramount had announced precisely that exactly two years ago. What eventually became Star Trek: The Motion Picture began life as a special two-hour pilot movie, “In Thy Image” for a proposed new Star Trek TV show entitled Star Trek Phase II , which would have premiered in 1978 as the flagship show of a new Paramount-owned network.

The only reason we have this movie, and by association the film series it spawns, instead of the should-have-been third Star Trek TV show is because Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind happened and Paramount suddenly thought they should be competing with them. Now, there are a great deal many and varied reasons why Star Trek cannot compete with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind , not the least of which is that none of the three are remotely comparable works aside from the fact they can all be loosely called science fiction, but that’s a discussion for another time and place. The bottom line is that the move to scrap Star Trek Phase II and rewrite “In Thy Image” to be a feature film was a decisive one, and a damning one, and it’s impossible to properly talk about one without also talking about the other.

Let’s not beat around the bush here. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a deeply flawed and problematic film. It’s nowhere near as bad as Star Trek fans say it is (which is somewhere in the vicinity of “The Worst Movie Ever Made”): It has a great deal of captivating moments and paves the way for a lot of really good Star Trek to come. But it doesn’t really work either, and the reason for this is entirely because it’s a television episode (and not just any episode, but a pilot) artificially stretched to become a movie (and not just any movie, but a barnstorming cinematic epic) and also because Gene Roddenberry was the guy who did the stretching. This is without question the reason this film is frequently accused of having the pacing of glacial melt, aside from the fact that it does.

But this is worth parsing out, because while this criticism is perfectly valid and likely the biggest issue with this film, the argument is almost always made completely the wrong way; citing things as problems that aren’t actually problems and flat-out ignoring cripplingly serious flaws. In this regard, my biggest gripe with those who denounce this movie on the basis of its pacing is their claim that the various VFX shots (in particular the V’Ger Cloud stuff and the scene where Scotty takes Admiral Kirk on a tour around the exterior of the refit Enterprise ) linger forever and drag the film out intolerably. First of all, in the context of V’Ger I just have to flat-out disagree: Those special effects are incredible and are without question some of the most evocative and mesmerizing science fiction images ever conceived , let alone put to film, bar none , and I’ll debate anyone on that. The film was right to linger on those shots, because that’s precisely the sort of imagery you should linger on.

I used to be a huge fan of this movie: Before rewatching it for this project, I would have called it one of the three or four best Star Trek movies (admittedly not a title with a ton of competition or prestige). Seeing it again with a new perspective, I found it to be the *definition* of “slow motion train wreck”, but even still V’Ger was the *only* thing from it that was anywhere remotely near as powerful and imaginative as I remembered. Seriously, I could do an entire essay just on how V’Ger looks and what that means to me.

As for the Enterprise scene, bear in mind this was the first new footage of the ship people had seen in a decade, and it was on a movie screen and completely redesigned by Matt Jeffries and Andy Probert to look slick and cool: This is Star Trek’s moment of triumph, and it’s allowed to indulge itself. The problem is that the actual effects shots used in filming that scene are nowhere near as good as they need to be to justify that indulgence. We’ve got this lovely new model and, while it’s clear the workbee, drydock and starbase models are equally as intricately designed and we do get more of a sense for the presence of the greater Star Trek universe, this is all conveyed…through a crappy 1970s CSO job. It *doesn’t* look as good as Star Wars , it *doesn’t* look as good as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (though it’s clear Roddenberry and his team are painfully trying to ape both) and it doesn’t even look as good as 2001: A Space Odyssey , which was eleven years old by this point.

I’m not one to pull the eye candy card, but I think the fact the VFX comes up a bit short here actually proves to be a massive problem for Star Trek: The Motion Picture , and here’s why: See, Roddenberry isn’t just envisioning this as a Star Trek movie, he’s very clearly envisioning it as a cinematic epic . Roddenberry’s not only trying to compete with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind , or even with 2001: A Space Odyssey (by which “compete” of course means “try very hard to show that we can do everything bigger, better, more spectacular and more extravagant than everybody else”), he’s genuinely trying to make a case that Star Trek: The Motion Picture deserves to stand alongside Cleopatra , The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur . He even went so far as to pluck Douglas Turnbull (who worked on 2001 ) to be the VFX supervisor (which is probably why the V’Ger stuff looks as good as it does), tapped Hollywood veteran Robert Wise to direct and got Paramount to host the biggest, most lavish press conference in their history to that point to announce the project. Gene Roddenberry actually thinks he’s Cecil B. DeMille.

And he absolutely isn’t. Just like the VFX shots of the Enterprise in drydock, Roddenberry isn’t remotely as up to the pale as he thinks he is, because the story is just as over-stretched as the effects are. What I find so completely baffling is that Roddenberry somehow took a tight, perfectly functional script and for some inexplicable reason decided to thin it out before adapting it into a movie! I’ve read the original script for “In Thy Image” and it was a terrific piece of work. In fact, I’d say with a few minor tweaks and revisions it could have been filmed as-is and would have been one of the best episodes of Star Trek ever made. Roddenberry, however, takes a hack saw to it and his usual deft hand ends up introducing a whole new raft of problems. This is another reason Star Trek: The Motion Picture moves along at the speed of continental drift: The vast majority of the runtime is actually taken up not by lingering special effects shots, but with military procedure .

Without question the most aggravating and unwatchable moments in this film for me came when Roddenberry has the crew spend agonizing minutes reciting bits of starship procedural lingo at each other, making reports from their stations and waxing profusely on Starfleet rules and regulations. It’s the exact same shit that drags down all of Roddenberry’s other scripts, from “The Cage” to “The Savage Curtain” and he’s clearly learned nothing in over a decade. It’s not even that the movie has too much exposition, another common complaint. Actually, the problem is the exact opposite : There is no exposition! The original script for “In Thy Image” had a lot of really well done, really *relevant* scenes introducing the new setting, the new status quo and showing us all the important moments that explain who all the characters are and the relationships they have with each other. Star Trek: The Motion Picture has precisely none of this, Roddenberry deciding it best to take all of it out and replace it with more of his Little Boy Soldiers military pornography.

It’s the characters who get shafted the most, obviously, to the point where entire motivations were changed without any real rhyme or reason. Admiral Kirk gets it the worst: In “In Thy Image”, Kirk is reluctant to take command of the Enterprise again considering himself to be too old and at too much of a different point in life. He actually has to be pushed into taking action by McCoy, who reminds him that this is where his heart truly lies, and Admiral Nogura (who is an actual character in this version, as opposed to merely being mentioned occasionally in passing, like he is in the movie) who points out Kirk is the best person for the job, Also, Kirk *personally requests* Will Decker as his XO, who was about to take command of an entirely different and unrelated ship because he valued his judgment and needed someone younger and sharper around. In the movie, meanwhile, Kirk becomes a total asshole, selfishly muscling his way into command, alienating McCoy and Decker for no real reason and the story becomes generic burden-of-command, married-to-the-ship drivel.

(There’s also a great scene in Kirk’s quarters in the original script where he explains to Decker, McCoy and Chapel that his repressed desire for the Enterprise might cloud his judgment, while Decker also confesses his bitterness at losing command might do the same, and they both ask the doctors to keep an eye on them: It’s a great, idealistic scene where two people talk about their feelings, and it got cut right out, replaced with a far more antagonistic and confrontational one. Actually, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is far less utopian than “In Thy Image” across the board, yet another reminder that what Star Trek means to the professionals and what it means to the fans are two very different things.)

The one thing I will give this movie is that it does a good job fleshing out the relationship between Will Decker and Ilia, which “In Thy Image” never quite managed to do (though the later Star Trek Phase II scripts do explore their relationship, it really should have been introduced in the pilot. It’s one of the minor tweaks and revisions I would have made). The film also has the good sense to have Decker be the one interacting with the Ilia-Probe instead of Kirk, though ultimately this is all pointless because Decker and Ilia ascend to a higher plane of existence at the end of the movie, just as we always knew they were going to. But apart from this, the movie just doesn’t seem to care about them: There’s no mention of Ilia’s Deltan heritage and what that means (which is the whole reason V’Ger picked her, because she was empathic) and nothing about Decker’s backstory and personal demons. As the two legacy characters introduced for the abandoned TV show, of course they have to be the ones to snuff it, so it becomes impossible to actually get invested in anything they do. Originally intended to be major characters in Star Trek Phase II , Star Trek: The Motion Picture turns Decker and Ilia into glorified redshirts, which makes their story, much like most of this film, feel like a complete waste of time.

There’s also an entire character who doesn’t make the cut at all, science officer Xon (though his actor, David Gautreaux, has a minor role in the movie), because Paramount rightly decided they couldn’t have a Star Trek movie without Spock. Writing him in, however, required another massive change to the original script, and this had the side effect of messing up the story’s primary theme . Originally, the point of V’Ger was that it was incapable of comprehending a form of life that wasn’t like itself, making it a kind of mirror of the Federation. The plot was resolved by V’Ger and the “Carbon Units” learning to communicate and coming to understand how similar they were. Now though, V’Ger ends up a massively overblown metaphor for the standard Spock story about learning how both logic (here defined as “quantitative information”) and emotions (here defined as “sensuality”) are necessary to live a fulfilling life. And while that’s not terrible, it feels less effective, especially since D.C. Fontana did this story twice already and her combined efforts are a fraction of the length of Star Trek: The Motion Picture ‘s runtime.

But the biggest conceptual problem with Star Trek: The Motion Picture ‘s V’Ger is the end resolution, where Spock describes it as a “child” and encourages Kirk to “treat it as such”. This opens up a *huge* swath of worrying implications and subtexts it flat out submarines any remaining vestigial potential effectiveness this movie had. Back when I discussed “Bem” for the Animated Series I took issue at that script’s conception of God as a benevolent, divine authority beyond reproach, a description and phrase which longtime readers will probably figure would get under my skin a bit. So now, in Star Trek: The Motion Picture , we have a Jobian, Pop Christian concept of godhood once again, and now we’ve gone an extra alarming step and attributed this perspective to Kirk and Spock . Forget all those criticisms Star Trek: The Next Generation gets about being holier-than-thou and entitled, this has me the most concerned: After all, humanity is explicitly V’Ger’s God, so this movie is tacitly endorsing the selfsame benevolent dictator perspective that will most assuredly run Star Trek aground faster and more catastrophically than anything else. But this is worse than even “Space Seed”, because now Star Trek isn’t just claiming to be your augmented, superior philosopher king, it’s claiming to be your patrician GOD .

(The implication is likely supposed to be that humans too are like children, as we’re in some sense still meant to be seen as comparable to V’Ger, but that meaning is absolutely not conveyed anywhere close to how explicitly it would have needed to be to actually work.)

The result is all of this is that we’re right back at the presumptuousness and hubris that Gene Roddenberry burdened Star Trek with from the beginning. Though there have been many examples, I can’t think of a more perfect embodiment of this problem than this movie. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is an overstuffed, overwrought, pretentious, middlebrow slog that’s demonstrative of nothing else except Star Trek enthusiastically and ineffectually trying to punch above its class. And it kills me, because there are a lot of things to recommend here: Robert Wise’s work on this film gets a bad rap, but it’s actually pretty good: His feel for actor placement, blocking and visual symbolism is pitch-perfect. It gives Star Trek a cinematic scope that it usually doesn’t have and shouldn’t have, but is appropriate here. The scenes with V’Ger are nothing short of landmark science fiction, and there’s a great story buried underneath all of that just waiting to be told. But it’s just not enough in the end. When you aim that big and miss, you’re only gonna crash and burn big too.

Shakedown trials to commence *immediately* on The Prototype codename “ VOYAGER ”. Proceed with swiftness, as the enemy grows ever stronger and wiser.

It's with Star Trek: TMP / In Thy Image that your alternate-universe motif comes into its best use. Really, it's working through counter-factual situations through the science-fictional motif of the alternate universe: changing a few core details of a situation such that the world completely transforms. It also articulates the political use of the counter-factual as utopian thinking: It doesn't so much rewrite the past as actually transforms history. I tried to do a similar thing with my imagined timeline of Assignment: Earth, but this works much more effectively, because you already have the In Thy Image script to work from.

When I was younger and looking into the history of Star Trek, I usually saw Star Trek: Phase II regarded as a curious also-ran not really worth thinking about, a dry run or inferior iteration of what eventually became TMP. Now that you've shown clearly what was in the original script, I can see how that received view amounts to a whitewashing of history in favour of the lionization of Gene Roddenberry.

I find the role of Xon in the Phase II timeline particularly interesting, because it gets to a key concept in how we understand the nature of Star Trek (which I think will be especially important when covering Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock): the reification of the original seven crew. The notion that there is no Star Trek without Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekhov all together seems to have become so pervasive that it isn't even discussed. After all, the first Abrams film was structured particularly to give every member of the original crew at least one sequence of ass-kicking. I wonder if we'd see it this way if Leonard Nimoy had gotten his wish, and was allowed to be written out of Star Trek in favour of this remixed version of the TOS crew in Phase II (Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Xon, Decker, Ilia, Sulu, Uhura, Chekhov, Chapel, feat. Rand). If In Thy Image is any indication, Phase II would have included more character drama in its sci-fi settings and narratives. Having such a large crew to play with, along with creative staff unafraid to shake things up could have resulted in a television masterpiece. Instead, we got a movie so dull that, even though it ultimately made money, had a public impact that nearly killed the franchise.

Definitely, TMP showed that the biggest weakness Star Trek had, was Gene Roddenberry, which was why he ended up marginalized in the production of the future films.

The reification is key, I think. The presence of Star Trek: The Motion Picture , and to a lesser extent Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock absolutely ossifies one specific idea of what Star Trek is supposed to look like.

I have a feeling this is a major reason that Star Trek: The Next Generation met with the resistance it did at first, which was considerably more then Star Trek Phase II got: The movies made it eminently clear that without Kirk, Spock and McCoy you couldn't have Star Trek. And, no matter how successful The Next Generation eventually became (and also how successful Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was at first, though most people seem to have forgotten that), the myth and structure of the Original Series remained, and still remain to this day, a big monolithic thing that we can't seem to move beyond.

Wow what an article. Agreed with Adam above, I love your alternate universe work here, and the framing narratives you use from other civilisations who appear highly advanced. Great stuff.

I first watched this when I was about ten years old and pretty much was in awe of the whole experience and then felt a lot of nostalgic love for the film for a long time after. The main elements that still draws me to the film are Robert Wise's direction (he adds a lot to Start Trek's visual iconography), and the sequences inside V'Ger which still blow me away. I feel that there is a whole story missed there somehow in that journey that is shown inside V'Ger. I can't fully grasp what it is, but my capacity for awe still gets grabbed every time I see those sequences.

In Thy Image sounds far, far superior – I would have SO watched that. I certainly feel that it is one of the biggest mistakes ever made in Trek to have Roddenberry allowed to hack a working script apart and remove its heart.

"UPGRADE OR DIE. PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE" – rings in my ears like Roddenberry talking at us and all around him as he tries to fulfil his mission of getting his own narrow vision of storytelling accepted.

Thanks for the kind words!

I absolutely agree with you about V'Ger: I wished I could have spent more time talking about it, but the post was running super long already. But, thankfully, you got it across well yourself!

While this is surely obvious, I never noticed it before: the Riker/Troi relationship is simply the Decker/Ilia relationship rebooted — male human action hero and female alien empath with prior history together.

That's not the only thing from Star Trek Phase II Gene Roddenberry recycled into Star Trek: The Next Generation . Picard as originally conceived was basically the older Kirk from "In Thy Image" and Data was basically Xon.

Pretty much anything special and unique about that show came solely from the actors and subsequent creative teams who expanded on everything considerably.

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Early TMP script online

Discussion in ' Star Trek Movies I-X ' started by Nightowl1701 , Jan 16, 2012 .

Nightowl1701 Commodore Commodore

I didn't post this script, I just spotted it today. Dated May 1978, it's very much a transitional piece between the Phase II pilot In Thy Image and the July 1978 shooting script (at the same site). After reading it myself, I'm assuming this is the Gene Roddenberry rewrite of Livingston's pilot script that caused Paramount to lure Harold Livingston back into the production. http://www.mypdfscripts.com/star-trek-the-motion-picture-1978-05-17-draft/

Mr Silver Commodore Newbie

Excellent stuff, I'm going to have to take a look at this! Props for finding it!

Firebird Commodore Commodore

Nightowl1701 said: ↑ I didn't post this script, I just spotted it today. Dated May 1978, it's very much a transitional piece between the Phase II pilot In Thy Image and the July 1978 shooting script (at the same site). After reading it myself, I'm assuming this is the Gene Roddenberry rewrite of Livingston's pilot script that caused Paramount to lure Harold Livingston back into the production. http://www.mypdfscripts.com/star-trek-the-motion-picture-1978-05-17-draft/ Click to expand...

Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

I like page 88 through 91.

indranee Vice Admiral Admiral

if this is for real, thank you so much!

Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

Cool, hope someone uploads the First Adventure Script sometime.

Joe_Atari Commander Red Shirt

Thanks Nightowl1701! As a huge TMP fan (in spite of its undeniable flaws), I'm still waiting for a definitive tell-all on its tortured production -- maybe a continuation of the Phase II: Lost Series book. There is still so much to be told about what went wrong and when: the sacking of Abel and Associates, the endless script rewrites (most of what we know comes from Harold Livingston -- hardly an objective source), and the studio machinations that led to Roddenberry's marginalization on the project. The last point is mostly conjecture on my part. I am hardly a blind GR defender, but as I skim this script I'm struck by how much drama and action didn't make it to the screen. Just read the Klingon / V'ger battle scene as written in this draft by GR compared to what we ultimately got. Behind the scenes footage (Abel tests I believe) shows conventionally exploding Klingon ships, so that was obviously the intent from the beginning -- showing the Klingons being graphically and brutally defeated by an unknown force. Instead we got the visually striking -- but also abstract, antiseptic, and lifeless -- digitization and then vanishing effect. Then there are all of the small character moments I see in this draft between Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scott that were jettisoned (by Livingston with the support of the studio?) -- character moments that might have addressed many critics' complaints about the film and brought it more in line with the more character-driven Harve Bennett films that followed. I know how quickly the film was edited to make its locked-in release date, but how could they drop so much (I believe) Roddenberry-derived material such as the "Spock tears" scene -- a scene that when reinserted into the ABC telecast garnered almost unanimous praise? My theory has always been that TMP's flaws and cost overruns were largely the result of studio waffling and second-guessing and less due to Roddenberry's incompetence. Sure GR was probably in over his head once Phase II became TMP, but I've always thought he was unfairly maligned and never really (to my knowledge) defended himself. Much was written during his declining years and after his death (by Livingston, Shatner, Nimoy, et al) but did GR ever personally address the production of TMP in an interview? Was it not the studio that brought in Robert Wise (a legend and deservedly so, but IMHO just the wrong choice for this project) whose Andromeda Strain-esque approach to the material may have led to many if not most of the "Motionless Picture" cracks over the years? I always enjoy seeing the TMP / TNG connections (e.g. the "Tasha" name for the Ilia probe, the Decker / Riker and Ilia / Troi parallels, the reuse of the TMP theme for TNG, etc.) as GR's vindication for his TMP experience and removal from the film series ("Executive Consultant"? Ouch). The heavily Roddenberry-influenced first season of TNG was much like TMP -- flawed but ultimately successful -- but in that case Roddenberry was not unceremoniously pushed aside by the studio and allowed to keep his mantle until his death. I've always felt that TMP in any of its forms (even the IMO unjustifiably vaunted "Director's Edition") never did the In Thy Image story justice, where most believe the film was not well served by the story. It would probably never be green-lit, but I'd love to see this story revisited -- maybe not as Star Trek at all. Heck it originated as an unused treatment for GR's Genesis II; why not? So how many of the Livingston / Roddenberry TMP drafts have been leaked over the years (supposedly there were quite a few as the two battled back and forth)? I think this is the first I've seen.

Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

This is definitely a different draft than I've seen previously. So far some is really familiar, other bits...not so much. I'll reserve comment until I've read the whole thing.

RAMA Admiral Admiral

Neat

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How 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s Cerebral Take on the Franchise Remains Fascinating Over 40 Years On

The much-criticized big-screen debut of 'Star Trek' is long overdue a revaluation.

The road to Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a long one. Initially conceived by series creator Gene Roddenberry in 1969 following the cancellation of the original television series, it wasn’t until six years later that Paramount Pictures agreed to begin development on the project. But despite a revolving door of some top writers in science fiction pitching ideas, disagreements regarding the budget and Paramount’s desire for an epic blockbuster led to Roddenberry abandoning the project in favor of a new television show, tentatively named Star Trek: Phase II . Except when that fell apart too, Paramount had a big issue on their hands. Production had been set to begin in a matter of weeks, with a full cast and crew already hired and an entire season of sets and scripts under construction. There was no way Roddenberry could afford to let all that work go to waste, and as luck would have it, he had no intention to either.

The result was Star Trek: The Motion Picture , built from the ashes of Phase II that reused as many resources from its parent project as it could, most notably the script “In Thy Image” that had been intended as the show’s pilot episode (albeit one that got heavily rewritten when the jump to a feature film was made). With The Sound of Music and West Side Story director Robert Wise in the directing chair progress was finally being made, and despite several behind-the-scenes troubles that resulted in hourly script rewrites and special effects being worked on right to the final deadline, Star Trek finally hit the big screen in December 1979.

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And the result was not what Paramount had been hoping for. While the film was a modest success at the box office, the film received a mixed response from critics with criticism directed at its slow pacing and lack of action. Roddenberry was forced out of creative control for the sequel, The Wrath of Khan , which placed a greater emphasis on action and received a much warmer response in turn, becoming the template future Star Trek films would follow. This also resulted in The Motion Picture feeling like a bizarre anomaly in its own franchise, with a tone in vast contrast to later entries. The slow pacing has led to fans dubbing it The Slow Motion Picture, and it is generally accepted that newbies should skip this one in favor of its more accessible sequels. But to do so would be doing a disservice to a film with more merit than its reputation suggests. The Motion Picture will not appeal to those who prefer films of a more reasonable length with an explosion or two thrown in for good measure, but for those looking for a more thoughtful and cerebral take on the science fiction genre, there is plenty to appreciate.

The film’s story, written by seemingly every writer in Hollywood but credited to just Harold Livingston , sees recently promoted Admiral James T. Kirk ( William Shatner ) taking command of the newly refurbished USS Enterprise as he investigates a mysterious cloud of energy known as V’Ger that destroys everything in its path, and which is currently on a collision course with Earth. And that’s basically it. The script feels like exactly what it is; an episode of a TV show that has been stretched to fit a feature film, and that does create some problems. The plot remains rather stationary throughout its runtime, lacking much in the way of exciting set pieces or even a clear villain that’s more than just a cloud, but Wise takes advantage of the minimalist plot to craft an experience like no other.

For one, nothing in the franchise’s sixty-year history captures the grandeur of space like this. While future films may have had larger stories when compared to the simplicity of this, none of them come close to the levels of splendor The Motion Picture imbues into every moment. The sequence of Kirk and the ship’s engineer Scotty ( James Doohan ) boarding the retrofitted Enterprise lasts six minutes, most of which consists of reaction shots of the two actors as they bask in the ship’s glory. To some it’s an overlong sequence that could be completed in a fraction of the time, but the excellent special effects and grandness of Jerry Goldsmith’s musical score combine to make it an utterly memorizing scene. Beauty for beauty’s sake, a concept that too few films embrace. This same sense of grandeur persists throughout the film, where even the most mundane of moments are presented with enough pomp and ceremony to fill a musical (the echoes of Wise’s previous work can clearly be felt). Space is the ultimate of grand concepts, and with many contemporary films (including some in the same franchise) barreling through entire galaxies in the blink of an eye like the characters are just casually driving down a country lane, it’s refreshing to see a film bask in the wonders of science fiction, where even the most distant of stars glow with the power of endless possibilities.

But the film’s methodical pace also allows for richer characterization than its successors. The friendly comradery between the crew of the Enterprise is gone here, replaced by a coldness that alienated fans of The Original Series , but it’s a decision that allows Wise to explore these characters in new but refreshing ways. Ten years have passed since audiences last saw these characters, and rather than picking things up like no time has passed, it genuinely feels like ten years of hardship have befallen them. Kirk is a far more vulnerable character than his television counterpart, with his unfamiliarity with the retrofitted Enterprise the source of much conflict with its new captain William Decker ( Stephen Collins ). He demotes Decker and takes command of the ship, partly due to his greater experience dealing with such events, but also for his own selfish desires to pilot a starship again after spending the last few years trapped in the offices of Starfleet Operations. It’s a decision that nearly destroys the ship when he activates warp speed, causing Kirk to gradually accept the importance of his crew rather than assuming his decisions will always be correct. It’s nothing revolutionary, but it develops his character beyond being just a standard hero archetype he often falls into, whilst also providing a standalone arc that ensures The Motion Picture feels like a complete feature rather than just another episode of a TV show. Shatner, while never the best of actors, does an admirable job playing a more reserved version of his signature character, and the result is his best performance in the role.

This richer characterization also extends to the film’s supporting cast. Chief medical officer Leonard McCoy ( DeForest Kelle y) is unhappy about being drafted back into action, only softening to the idea after Kirk tells him there’s a thing out there that he needs help dealing with (with McCoy’s response “why is any object we don’t understand always called a thing” being the film’s defining line). Even Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ), never the most excitable of characters, seems more emotionally distant than ever. When he first appears on the Enterprise there’s no grand entrance or reprise of classic Star Trek music as he reminisces with his old friends, he merely appears and resumes his work without even glancing at most of the crew. It’s as though, amongst the vast emptiness of space, everyone has lost their humanity, a feeling echoed by the clinical nature of the costumes and set design. But this is also a film where people strive to be better, where its idea of a dramatic sequence is not explosions and fighting but Kirk and McCoy desperately trying to get Spock to open up about his problems, so they can help him. Sparks of humanity are hard to come by, but when they do, they are cherished like they’re the most valuable thing in the universe. The budding romance between Decker and the ship’s navigator Ilia, while in any other film just a forced addition to widen mass-market appeal, becomes the cornerstone which the entire climax depends on. By the time the end credits roll Kirk and his crew have resumed their close friendship The Original Series thrived on. It took over two hours to get there, but the optimistic future Gene Roddenberry had envisioned is back, and it’s stronger than it has ever been.

The film’s special effects were one of the few elements to receive praise when it first released, and rightfully so, even if it wasn’t an easy process getting there. After the original special effects supervisors were fired following a full year of work that had yielded almost no usable footage, legendary visual effects maestro Douglas Trumbull was brought onboard. His work on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had earned him an excellent reputation in Hollywood, giving him effectively an unlimited budget to complete years’ worth of effects in just nine months. Work continued right up to the eleventh hour, but Trumbull and his team managed it, and their work remains impressive to this day. The magic of the docking scene or the film’s famous light probe sequence wouldn’t be half as good without his work, and it took several years before the series again featured effects that replicated the brilliance of Trumbull’s work.

Perhaps the most impressive element of The Motion Picture is its villain, or lack thereof. V’Ger, the evil cloud that has been causing everyone such problems, is actually Voyager 6, a space probe programmed to gather knowledge from every corner of the universe, and also something that had been thought lost centuries ago. In reality, it gathered so much information that it achieved sentience, but in doing so became a being of pure logic that began to question its own existence. The reason for its journey to Earth isn’t to cause mindless destruction, it merely wants to question its creator about its place in the universe, with the havoc it is causing being an unintended consequence of its newfound sentience. It’s a remarkable change of pace when compared to the villains in virtually all other science fiction properties whose motivations can often be boiled down to just power, money, or revenge. Instead, The Motion Picture opts for a lonely machine than just wants a purpose in life, and our characters go about solving this methodically and thoughtfully without a trigger ever having to be pulled.

It’s a mindset that encompasses the entirety of The Motion Picture , a film that favors contemplation about the human soul in lengthy scenes full of subtle performances and cleverly written dialogue, rather than hurrying through the dull bits to get to the next action scene. Not that such films are inherently bad, of course. The Wrath of Khan placed a greater focus on action and proved to be a perfectly enjoyable summer blockbuster, but the unique approach of The Motion Picture makes it a film that is long overdue a revaluation.

The Precursor to Star Trek: The Motion Picture Written by Harold Livingston Story by Alan Dean Foster ROUGH FIRST DRAFT, Dated October 10, 1977 report & analysis by David Eversole

Though originally intended as the two-hour premiere episode of the aborted Star Trek: Phase II series, this script, reprinted in Star Trek: Phase II, The Lost Series (1997), by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, has no act or episode breaks indicated. On August 3, 1977, Michael Eisner called Livingston, Roddenberry and producer Robert Goodwin into his office and told them that "In Thy Image" was going to be a feature film. They were sworn to secrecy and work continued on the Phase II series with the plan being that first a film would be released to theaters and one year later Phase II would premiere on TV. By the beginning of 1978, plans for a new series were permanently dropped. So, when Livingston wrote his script in October of 1977, he knew very well he was not writing a television pilot--he was writing a feature. Thus the thing had no teaser or act breaks.

Deep Space. Three Klingon Heavy Cruisers ( Koro class), led by the Amar , commanded by Commander Barak, are suddenly destroyed by a "turbulent whiplash of energy" which strikes from off screen.

The destruction of the Klingon ships is noted by Commander Branch ("a young, very attractive female ") at Starbase 9. Whatever destroyed the Klingon ships is headed directly toward Earth.

San Francisco -- a few familiar landmarks still recognizable. A beautiful summer day. Families romp and play in a parkland area. Animals, unafraid, wander about. Tasteful adult nudity here and there.

Admiral James T. Kirk, in civilian attire, strolls through the park, looking for someone. Ahead of him he spots two teenagers and their pet cheetahs. A man, his back to Kirk, gives first-aid to the wounded paw of one of the cheetahs. Kirk smiles, moves forward.

It is Leonard "Bones" McCoy (known to the locals as the "animal doctor"). He and Kirk greet each other warmly, but warily. The Enterprise is nearing the end of her refit, and Kirk wants McCoy to reenlist in Starfleet and serve as the chief medical officer under Wah Chen, her new captain. McCoy is tired of Kirk’s pestering and turns him down again. Kirk is ready to retort, but is interrupted by a communicator call. Admiral Nogura, Starfleet Officer Commanding, has hastily convened an emergency staff meeting. Kirk disappears in the sparkle of the transporter.

In Nogura’s office, Kirk is met by Commander Montgomery "Scotty" (Livingston spells the nickname as "Scottie" throughout) Scott. They discuss the Enterprise refits for a moment, but Nogura interrupts and turns on a holographic display which shows Admiral Carson and Captain Lebutu. Lebutu was in charge of sensor drones near the neutral zone between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. He plays the footage from one of the drones which shows the destruction of the Klingon vessels. Kirk learns that this huge unstoppable object will arrive at Earth in 8.6 days. The U.S.S. Aswan is the only vessel ready to intercept it, Kirk notes. Nogura orders Scotty to have the Enterprise ready to depart in twenty-four hours to rendezvous with the smaller Aswan . Uhura and Sulu are already onboard. Kirk recommends Commander Ronak, a Vulcan, be the new science officer. He decides to reassign Chekov as Weapons Officer on the Enterprise , but since Captain Wah Chen is at Starbase Six, three days away at maximum warp, Captain Bar-Lev, the next senior captain, will have to take command.

Nogura isn’t buying it, looks directly at Kirk, asks him to forget who is next in line. He wants to know who the most qualified person to command this mission is.

Kirk looks Nogura in the eye and says, "I am."

Scotty takes Kirk aboard the Enterprise in a travel pod. As he heads toward the bridge, Kirk meets Dr. Chapel, apologizes for pulling her from her assignment, but since they could not get McCoy, she is best qualified for the position of Chief Surgeon. He travels to the bridge, informs the crew that he (temporarily assigned the rank of captain) will be taking command of the ship for this mission. Cheers and shouts throughout the vessel at this news. Kirk puts a quick stop to the ruckus.

We meet Lieutenant Ilia, the new Deltan navigator, who is sworn to celibacy for the duration of the mission. Sulu is instantly smitten with her but she keeps him at arm’s length. Since Commander Ronak was not available, Kirk pulls Willard Decker off the U.S.S. Boston to act as both his executive officer and science officer. Decker is a bit angry -- he was due promotion to captain and resents having to serve on this mission but Kirk calms him, tells him not to fear, he will still get his promotion.

As they prepare to leave orbit, two final people beam aboard. One is a shabby, long-haired 22-year-old science officer -- Lieutenant Xon, only eighty-one days out of the academy. He has been meditating in the desert and his hair hides his Vulcan ears. The other is a very disgruntled Leonard McCoy. "Seldom used reserve activation clause" -- he was drafted!

The Enterprise gets underway. Lieutenant Xon erases an hour’s worth of flight preprogramming by Decker because he wishes to insure the program’s accuracy. He takes the computers off-line for a moment. As soon as he does this, an asteroid is suddenly in the ship’s path. Sulu reports that the navigational computer is offline. He cannot steer out of the way. Decker orders manual override. Kirk belays that command, orders the phasers to fire, but there is no response when Chekov presses the firing button. He quickly brings the photon torpedoes on line and destroys the asteroid.

Kirk is furious when Xon explains that he took the computers offline. Xon blandly accepts Kirk’s reprimand. Decker questions why Kirk countermanded his manual override order. Kirk furiously stomps off the bridge, orders Decker and Doctors McCoy and Chapel to join him in his cabin.

Kirk tells Decker that unlike the light cruisers he is used to serving on, a manual override would not have allowed a vessel as big as the Enterprise to avoid the asteroid. Decker accepts this, but asks why Kirk would order phaser fire after learning that the navigation system was offline. Surely Kirk knows that if nav is offline phasers would be offline as well. Kirk admits that this fact escaped him.

Kirk orders Decker to work with him and help him readjust. Decker is told to report any behavior he finds aberrant to Dr. McCoy and to report his own problems to Dr. Chapel, to which Decker agrees.

The Enterprise cruises to rendezvous with the Aswan . Commander Corryell of the Aswan calls the Enterprise . They are moments away from intercepting the object. Without warning, the energy weapon from the object totally obliterates the smaller ship.

A few hours later, the Enterprise is closing on the object. Visual expected any moment. A sensor probe is fired in its direction. The probe is overloaded, and its transmissions back to the Enterprise burn out the computer’s integrators. Helm goes dead, weapons go dead. And suddenly, the 70-mile long object appears on the screen:

From the script:

Kirk turns to the viewer, and his expression is equally incredulous.

WHAT KIRK SEES ON THE VIEWER - THE ALIEN SPACESHIP

but, at first, only a section of the front of it. What we SEE resembles a gigantic chrome and silver object , almost like the gaping mouth of some unbelievable large metallic animal--and just a GLIMPSE of a huge circular window or engine duct on the side of the "head," this glowing red and blue. It is perfectly symmetrical, the sides of the "mouth" constructed in equally-sized slabs of metal.

Power is regained aboard the ship and they move in closer to view it. It seems to take no notice and sails on. As the Enterprise maneuvers closer it is as if the ship is a "golf ball floating beside a dirigible" in comparison.

Another sensor probe is launched. Suddenly, the giant vessel fires at the Enterprise . Shields barely hold. The object locks onto the Enterprise with a tractor beam. The helm goes dead again. Kirk orders no return fire. He orders Uhura to send out messages of friendship. There is no response.

The shields are about to fail. Kirk finally orders photon torpedoes made ready. But Xon yells for him to wait. He realizes that the vessel has been responding, but not directly to their messages. It has been attempting to contact the computers themselves! It thinks the Enterprise is alive. Xon programs a message as if it came from the vessel itself, asks the alien ship to break off its attack. He sends it. All wait tensely. The turbulent energy weapon subsides, ceases firing.

It will take twelve hours to get the Enterprise engines back on line. Kirk takes a chance to change into a fresh uniform, orders the bridge staff to take some rest time.

When Kirk returns to the bridge, refreshed, he is pleased to see Ensign Janice Rand, back-up communications officer, on duty. Xon is still at his station, but finally leaves and takes the rest Kirk ordered.

In the recreation room, Ilia and Sulu try to rest. Ilia attempts to give him a Deltan facial massage to relax him but Sulu is aroused instead. Ilia jokingly says that sex is all he thinks about. She looks up, suddenly screams.

Several small sensor-probes appear and hover a few feet off the floor. Intruder alert warnings blare. Before the room can be sealed the sensor-probes sail out into the corridors. Chekov and security men approach. There are three of them, two egg-shaped probes, and one which resembles a ring-shaped pearl mounted on three legs. The three-legged probe begins to emit SQUEALS. It is the only probe that seems to notice the Humans. The other two sail about blissfully hovering here and there in the ship.

Soon there are egg-shaped probes everywhere on the ship, sailing along, inspecting everything in their path, ignoring the Humans as if they were not there. The three-legged probe stomps around SQUEALING, stays away from the crew.

The three-legged probe stomps onto the bridge, looks around, emits a SQUEAL. When Uhura plays back and decodes the squeal it says, "Please allow me to speak to the U. S. S. Enterprise ."

When Chekov notes that the ring-shaped pearl atop the three-legged probe reminds him of a cheap ring his aunt Tasha received from her worthless suitor, all begin referring to this probe as "Tasha."

Tasha begins inserting small probes into Kirk’s ear, down his shirt, down his. . . Kirk stops this pretty fast! When Tasha will not respond to his questions, Kirk orders Uhura to transmit messages to it as if from the Enterprise herself. When asked why the alien ship attacked, Tasha says that other beings similar to Enterprise had attacked it recently. Obviously these other beings were malfunctioning. Tasha fears that Enterprise may be malfunctioning. In fact, Tasha asks if Enterprise is aware that it is infested with 430 parasitical beings.

Xon warns Kirk not to tell Tasha that they, the 430 parasites, control Enterprise . He fears that Tasha will take it to mean they are malignant infestations and destroy the ship. Kirk has the computer tell it that the parasites are welcome to inhabit Enterprise . He then asks why Tasha’s ship is heading for Earth. Because it is the "Holy Home of the Creator," of course. Nonsense, Kirk says.

Suddenly, the tractor beam from the huge ship grabs Enterprise again. Tasha believes that Kirk is attempting to deceive him. Tasha begins communicating directly with the computer. Kirk worries that Tasha may download all files concerning Starfleet security, may discover all there is to know of Earth defenses. Kirk orders the computer to shut down. It does not comply. Xon, using his great Vulcan strength, smashes the main computer interface, shutting the entire system down.

Tasha moves toward Ilia. Both suddenly dematerialize as if via a sophisticated transporter. Sulu moves too late to do anything about it.

Two days away from Earth. Enterprise is still held fast in the huge ship’s tractor beam. By shutting down their computers they have no way to communicate with the alien vessel. No way to know what has become of Lieutenant Ilia. Xon and crew work on repairing the computers.

Xon reports that the alien did not download any information from the computer concerning Starfleet strength and Earth defenses. All the compromised data concerned three thousand years of ancient Earth history and some personnel files. Still, Xon is worried. With the history files, he fears the ship will decide that Earth is infested by the same parasites as Enterprise and destroy the entire planet. "Now we’re a plague," McCoy grumbles.

McCoy orders Kirk to his cabin to rest. There he is startled as a perfect duplicate of Ilia appears in his shower. It is the sensor-probe Tasha reconfigured in Ilia’s form. She willingly goes to Sickbay and is examined by McCoy. "Ilia" informs them that the real Ilia was scanned and disassembled. The Ilia-probe has been sent to the Enterprise to find out why the "servo-units" infested it.

Xon advises Kirk to attempt to enter into a "relationship" with the faux Ilia to determine more of her vessel’s origin and purpose.

"Ilia" readily informs them that her vessel is called Ve-jur. Kirk takes her to the bridge where all think the real Ilia has returned. He informs them that this is Tasha imitating Ilia. Meanwhile, computers repaired, Kirk attempts to send a message to Earth informing Starfleet of what has transpired. "Ilia" is suddenly alert and surmises that Kirk is attempting to warn the servo-units which infect Earth of what is happening.

Ve-jur must rush to Earth to rid it of the servo-units. The tractor beam releases the Enterprise and Ve-jur streaks toward Earth.

"Ilia" informs Kirk that he and one other servo-unit may beam over to Ve-jur with her to see proof that the third planet is the Home of the Holy Creator. Kirk, Xon and "Ilia" beam over. They pass through the gigantic vessel, see the real Ilia’s dead body floating inside a gelatinous mass. When Kirk asks if they may take her body back in the hope of repairing it the Ilia-probe asks why they would want it. They have her now.

Soon they discover that at the heart of Ve-jur is the remains of Voyager 18, a probe launched by NASA in 1996. "Glory to NASA," the Ilia-probe says reverently. "Ilia" rejects their pleas that Humans launched the space probe, and all three beam back to the Enterprise . Ve-jur gives Enterprise a five hour head start to get to Earth to prepare the servo-units for its return. "Ilia" tells Kirk that she knows the God NASA will be awaiting Ve-jur’s return.

"Ilia" tells more of her machine race’s history. Three hundred years ago during "The Time of Trouble" her race was breaking down. When Ve-jur landed, although primitive, it provided a "spark" that caused her race to strive to overcome their obstacles. They rebuilt themselves, rebuilt Ve-jur and now wish to go to Earth to thank the God NASA for giving them its Son Ve-jur and his Holy Message.

Kirk takes the Enterprise into orbit above Earth. Since the damaged transporters are not strong enough to beam them to Earth, he commands the Delphi , a smaller ship, to take a lower orbit. He and the Ilia-probe will beam to that ship, then from there they will be beamed to the Starfleet Archives building in San Francisco.

"Ilia," meanwhile, has seen other servo-units kissing and decides to try it out on Kirk. Surprised, he tells her she has definitely got the hang of it. "Ilia" admits that she felt emotions when she did this.

As they beam away, Kirk relays orders to Decker and Xon to stand by to self-destruct in case his plan fails. On the Delphi , he and "Ilia" are retransported, materializing outside the archives building. A small boy is awed by Kirk, says he wants to join Starfleet when he grows up. Kirk has to explain to "Ilia" what "growing up" means. "Ilia" shows anger when she sees servo-units riding a hydrofoil.

Soon they enter the archives building, and Kirk begins to show her data tapes of NASA’s history. "Ilia" says that these are recreations. She wants to see the originals. Kirk tries to tell her that old books and old films have deteriorated, but she will not listen.

On the Enterprise , Decker sends history tapes to Ve-jur, attempting to show that Humans are not infestations. He sends tapes showing man’s great achievements. Xon suggests sending tapes showing man’s wars, his destructiveness, to convince Ve-jur that they have risen above such ugliness, that they are worthy of surviving. Decker decides against it.

In the archives building, Kirk finds an old film projector and an old film can which contains a twentieth century documentary entitled, This is NASA . 'Is this original enough?' he asks. Will she accept it if they can project it? A young technician helps set up the projector which "Ilia" thinks is a beautiful machine.

In orbit, Ve-jur releases weapons which take up equidistant orbits around Earth. Unless Ve-jur hears from the Ilia-probe soon, Earth will be destroyed to save the God NASA. Decker orders a self-destruct be set in motion.

In the archives building, the film begins to run. . . and breaks almost immediately. It is hopeless. Kirk pleads with "Ilia." Humans built Voyager 18, there is no God NASA.

Ve-jur is waiting for "Ilia" to signal. When it does not hear from her, it sets a count-down timer on its weapons.

Kirk continues to plead on the behalf of Humanity. "Ilia" finally glances at Kirk, says that she doesn’t want to hear anymore. She walks away.

Ve-jur’s countdown concludes. Nothing happens.

"Ilia" informs Kirk that she told Ve-jur she had seen proof that servo-units built it. When Kirk questions her, she admits that she lied to it. "Why?" Kirk asks. "I don’t know," she says.

Kirk signals Ve-jur who acknowledges that Humans built it. When Kirk asks if they can communicate further, Ve-jur says it does not communicate with lower lifeforms, turns and sails away.

Kirk and "Ilia" beam to the Enterprise , but there is a flash of light and the Ilia-probe reverts to her three-legged Tasha form and stands inert, dead.

Ve-jur picks up speed and is soon lost to view. An instant before it disappears, the real Ilia is transported to the bridge of the Enterprise , alive, repaired.

The Enterprise is assigned a new mission. Kirk will remain as the captain. He informs the crew that any officer who wishes to return to his former duty assignment may beam off the ship now. No one moves. Kirk smiles, orders the ship into deep space.

As it departs, we hear: "Space the final frontier, these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise , its new five-year mission. . ."

Amazingly very little in the way of plot changed between this rough first draft and the resulting motion picture. To its favor, the action never slows for five minute fly-bys of the Enterprise exploring Ve-jur. The majority of changes are in the characters of Decker and Xon/Spock. Once Nimoy came back aboard, the role was of course rewritten and expanded to include him. Xon, in this admittedly rough first draft, comes across as very much a Spock clone, and had the series come to fruition, many changes would have been necessary to differentiate the two characters. This script's Decker is almost a non-entity. He has a couple nice scenes arguing with Kirk early on, but then fades into the background. His best scenes, thereafter, are with Xon as the two officers attempt to work together while integrating themselves into the bridge crew. Except for a couple scenes with Ilia, Sulu, like Scotty and Uhura, has little to do. Chekov gets a chance to lead a couple security details, but he too is very much a supporting character, as all were in the original. Sadly, despite some strong early scenes, McCoy also gets little real screen time of substance. Ve-jur's motives are given much more background and detail here. Though some may dislike the overt God/Son of God parallels, I thought they added to the story. I've never really bought (hell, I've never really understood!) the whole Decker/Ilia-probe going up in sparks and becoming... whatever the hell it is they become... in the final product, and wish some of this version's ending could have been kept. Despite its flaws, I still recall the mystery and wonder of Star Trek: The Motion Picture . This script put me right back in that same frame of mind. I remember the awe and anticipation of Star Trek: The Motion Picture back in 1979. Starlog ran some great shots of the new uniforms and sets, and of Andrew Probert's art, plus they had already had articles and artwork from Phase II . Man, my imagination was fired up!

Yes, the film as originally produced bogs down here and there. Yes, Khambatta was pretty bad as Ilia, and the fly-bys are too long. The fly-bys I can deal with. I disliked the damn scenes were the camera just crept around the bridge showing everybody's gaped mouth looks of awe. Some may like 'em, but those bored me. Despite these flaws, there are great moments throughout the film. I don't care how long the Scotty/Kirk travel pod scene took -- I loved it! Some fine acting from Shatner and Doohan in that scene.

I'm going to dig it out right now and watch it again for the first time in a couple years, and I bet some of you will, too.

Harold Livingston (1924 - 2022): Movie and television writer whose career spanned 1966-1984. Initially, he was a producer for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II , and wrote the script for Alan Dean Foster's story "In Thy Image," which was to have been the two-hour premiere. When the series was shelved, his script, after undergoing several rewrites by himself and Gene Roddenberry, was filmed as Star Trek: The Motion Picture . Livingston was given sole screenplay credit despite the fact that Gene Roddenberry considered filing for Writer's Guild arbitration proceedings. Other motion pictures he has had a hand in writing are The Street is My Beat (1966) and The Hell With Heroes (1968). For television, he has penned episodes of Mission: Impossible , Mannix , Banecek , Barbary Coast , Future Cop and Fantasy Island , among others.

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Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Film details.

Articles & Reviews

Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, robert wise, william shatner, leonard nimoy, deforest kelley, stephen collins, james doohan, technical specs.

Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise take to the skies for this big-budget film based on the beloved sc-fi TV series. Years after Kirk completed his missions for Starfleet, the Enterprise is pulled out of mothballs to intercept a destructive alien force destroying everything in its path.

George Takei

Majel barrett roddenberry, walter koenig, nichelle nichols, persis khambatta, mark lenard, billy van zandt, grace lee whitney, david gautreaux, howard itzkowitz, marcy lafferty, terrence o'connor, michael rougas, dick alexander, isaac asimov, charles barbee, philip barberio, david bartholomew, deborah baxter, lisze bechtold, thane berti, albert bettcher, cosmas bolger, martin bresin, deena buckett, glenn campbell, merllyn ching, elrene cowan, tom cranham, linda descenna, angela a diamos, james r dickson, cy didjurgis, dennis dorney, roger dorney, janet dykstra, john dykstra, douglas eby, leslie ekker, robert elswit, scott farrar, david c fine, robert fletcher, alan dean foster, robert friedstand, ernest garza, bruno george, chris george, rocco gioffre, leora glass, philip golden, jerry goldsmith, phil gonzales, suzanne gordon, abbot grafton, michael greene, alan gundelfinger, david hardberger, alan harding, leon r harris, linda harris, jack hinkle, richard hollander, robert hollister, joseph r jennings, jack johnson, proctor jones, nicola kaftan, denny kelly, john kimball, steve klein, martin a kline, richard kline, tom koester, milt laiken, michael lawler, deirdre leblanc, harold livingston, bruce logan, brian longbotham, guy marsden, michael matessino, robert t mccall, robert mccall, daniel j. mccauley, david mccue, grant mccune, russ mcelhatton, harold michelson, mike middleton, bill millar, john millerberg, michael minor, barbara minster, virgil mirano, rick mitchell, harry moreau, linda moreau, connie morgan, gerald nash, david j negron, sam nicholson, tommy overton, marvin paige, lindsley parsons jr., fred phillips, janna phillips, george polkinghorne, jerry pooler, bonnie prendergast, darrell pritchett, andrew probert, todd ramsay, lex rawlins, phil rawlins, gene roddenberry, john rothwell, richard rubin, jonathan seay, dieter seifert, frank serafine, robert shepherd, john shourt, william shourt, tut shurtleff, steve slocum, doug e smith, robert sordal, scott squires, dave steward, dave stewart, john sullivan, robert swarthe, michael sweeney, robert taylor, randy thornton, don trumbull, douglas trumbull, john c vallone, jesco von puttkamer, brett webster, alex weldon, evans wetmore, charles wheeler, greg wilzbach, douglas e wise, diane e wooten, hoyt yeatman, alison yerxa, matthew yuricich, richard yuricich, maurice zuberano, award nominations, best art direction, set decoration, best music original dramatic score, best visual effects, robert wise (1914-2005).

Evaluation, Mr. Spock. - Captain James T. Kirk

Fascinating. - Commander Spock

It's life, Captain, but not life as we know it. - Commander Spock

I'm sorry, Will. - Captain James T. Kirk

No, Admiral. I don't think you're sorry. Not one damned bit. I remember when you recommended me for this command. You told me how envious you were and how much you hoped you would get a starship command again. Well sir, it looks like you found a way. - Commander Willard Decker

Enterprise, what we got back didn't live very long... fortunately. - Transporter chief

Well, for a man who swore he'd never return to the Starfleet... - Captain James T. Kirk

Just a moment, Captain sir! Your revered Admiral Nogura invoked a little-known, seldom-used "reserve activation clause." In simpler language, Captain, they DRAFTED me! - Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.

They didn't! - Captain James T. Kirk

This was your idea! This was your idea, wasn't it? - Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.

Bones, there's a... thing... out there. - Captain James T. Kirk

Why is any object we don't understand always called "a thing"? - Commander Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D.

After the original "Star Trek" (1966) TV series proved a success in syndication, Paramount became interested in making a "Star Trek" movie. Writers who contributed ideas or draft scripts in 1975-77 included Gene Roddenberry, Jon Povill, Robert Silverberg, John D.F. Black, Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, and Ray Bradbury. A story called "Star Trek: Planet of Titans" was selected; 'Bryant, Chris' and Allan Scott (II) wrote a script, which was then rewritten by 'Kaufman, Philip' . At this point Star Wars (1977) burst upon the world, and Paramount reacted by canceling "Star Trek: Planet of Titans" before pre-production started. Allegedly they thought there wasn't a sufficient market for another big science-fiction film.

Paramount then announced that they would be creating a new TV network, initially operating one night a week showing Paramount TV-movies and a new "Star Trek" series about the Enterprise's second 5-year mission, with most of the original cast and the title "Star Trek Phase II". It soon became clear that they could not make a go of the new network, but Paramount continued work on the new series in the hope of selling it to one of the existing networks.

For a previous unproduced TV series of his called "Genesis II", Roddenberry had created a story he called "Robot's Return". This was now rewritten for "Star Trek" by Alan Dean Foster under the title "In Thy Image", and proposed as the 2-hour premiere episode of "Star Trek Phase II". However, Paramount executive Michael Eisner responded, "We've been looking for the feature for five years and this is it", and made the final decision to forget the new series and produce the story as a movie.

The decision was made in August 1977, but in order to keep the team together during the necessary renegotiation of contracts, Paramount kept it secret until March 1978; when Rona Barrett broke the secret in December 1977, they denied it. Meanwhile, they pretended that the TV series was still going to happen, even soliciting scripts for episodes that would never be made. Sets built for the TV series were used in the movie, but modelwork had to be redone after the changeover was made public, due to the need for finer detailing in a movie.

TV director Robert Collins was hired to direct the 2-hour premiere, but after the change to a movie, Paramount wanted a more experienced director and replaced him with 'Wise, Robert' .

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States September 7, 1991 (Shown back-to-back with "Star Trek" sequels II-V in 44 US cities on September 7, 1991, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the television series.)

Released in United States Winter December 7, 1979

Re-released in United States on Video July 25, 1991

Released in United States September 7, 1991

The DVD-released 2000 "Director's Edition" features a new, fine-tuned edit approved by director Robert Wise and several redone special effects.

Released in USA on video.

Began shooting August 1978.

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Screen Rant

I wish the breen had kept their helmets on in star trek: discovery.

Star Trek: Discovery finally reveals what DS9's Breen keep under their helmets, and after decades of speculation, the results are disappointing.

WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery, season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors"

"Star Trek: Discovery" reveals Breen's true form, undermining DS9 mystery of enigmatic warrior race.
The Breen design in "Discovery" is a missed opportunity for alien creativity, as they just turn out to be green humanoids.
L'ak's face reveal in "Discovery" challenges perception of secretive Breen aliens from DS9, adding complexity.

Star Trek: Discovery has finally revealed what a Breen looks like underneath all its armor, but Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Breen should have kept their helmets on. In Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco, and directed by Jen McGowan , audiences learn more about Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis), and their motivations for seeking the Progenitors' treasure. "Mirrors" also contains a number of reveals about DS9 's Breen aliens , including that L'ak himself originates within the Breen Imperium.

For the first four episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5, audiences saw L'ak as a hulking green villain, determined to protect his lover Moll at any cost. Now, Discovery season 5, episode 5 reveals that audiences have been seeing the true face of one of the enigmatic Breen aliens from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . In DS9 , Lt. Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) stated that no outsiders had seen what a Breen looked like under their armor and lived to tell the tale. Barring Fred (J. Adam Brown) and his guards from Discovery season 5, episode 1, "Red Directive", this is no longer the case.

“Jelly Breens”: Star Trek Writer Deep Dives Into Discovery Season 5’s Breen Villains

Discovery’s breen reveal undermines a big ds9 mystery.

There's no question that updated 32nd century design of the Breen refrigeration suits is a great upgrade for Star Trek: Discovery season 5 . The loss of the helmet's odd beak from the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine design makes them look sleeker and more like the armored warrior race that their reputation suggested. The main issue with the Breen in Discovery is that what's underneath the mask undermines the huge mystery that has surrounded the Breen since their introduction in DS9 . For years, Star Trek fans have speculated about what a Breen looks like underneath their armor, and now they discover it's a creature made of green Jell-O .

Worf's assertion that nobody had ever seen the face of a Breen and lived is undermined by Star Trek: Discovery season 5's love story . While the Breen remain secretive in "Mirrors", the very fact that L'ak shows his face out of love for Moll undermines the idea of an isolationist and secretive warrior race. Instead, it suggests that these implacable Star Trek: Deep Space Nine villains just need someone to love. This, combined with the confusing physiology of the newly-revealed Breen, means that the DS9 aliens in Discovery don't solve the mystery satisfyingly.

An abandoned plot for Star Trek: The Next Generation 's season 6 finale would have introduced the Breen as major antagonists for TNG 's final season.

Star Trek: Discovery’s Breen Design Is A Missed Opportunity

Star Trek: Discovery 's Breen design is a missed opportunity when compared to some of its other work in creating alien species. For example, Discovery season 4's antagonists, the non-humanoid Species 10-C felt alien in a way that Star Trek aliens had rarely felt since the days of TOS . With that in mind, Discovery could have really thought out of the box when it came to what was inside the Breen's refrigeration suits. Sadly, that isn't the case, as they're revealed to be that most enduring of sci-fi archetypes; the green man from outer space.

In an interview with The 7th Rule , Carlos Cisco spoke of the design of the Breen being inspired by " transparent deep sea fishes ."

The fact that the Breen are green humanoids is a missed opportunity, because the teases of the Breen in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine always hinted that they may not be a humanoid species at all . Their lack of circulatory system and reliance on refrigeration suits implied they were potentially higher beings that forced themselves into a humanoid form. While that's sort of the case with the gelatinous beings that have " evolved " past a solid form in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, it's hard not to feel underwhelmed by the Breen turning out to be yet another humanoid alien species in the canon.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

All episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Discovery

*Availability in US

Not available

Star Trek: Discovery is an entry in the legendary Sci-Fi franchise, set ten years before the original Star Trek series events. The show centers around Commander Michael Burnham, assigned to the USS Discovery, where the crew attempts to prevent a Klingon war while traveling through the vast reaches of space.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also known as DS9, is the fourth series in the long-running Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek. DS9 was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, and stars Avery Brooks, René Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, and Cirroc Lofton. This particular series follows a group of individuals in a space station near a planet called Bajor.

Making Phase II

Planet of the titans, the billion year voyage, visions of the future, lost episodes, in thy image, lord bobby’s obsession, the prisoner, to attain the all, starship and set design, enterprise interiors.

Star Trek: Discovery's Enterprise Plaque Reveals New Mirror Universe History Details

Warning: This Article Contains SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 - "Mirrors"

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", reveals new details about the Mirror Universe's history on the ISS Enterprise.
The dedication plaque on the starship sheds light on events in the late-23rd century after "Mirror, Mirror" from TOS season 2.
Burnham and Booker found the ISS Enterprise in interdimensional space and brought it into the 32nd century Prime Universe.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", shockingly brought the ISS Enterprise into the 32nd century, and the starship's dedication plaque reveals new details about the Mirror Universe's history. Written by Johanna Lee and Carlos Cisco and directed by Jen McGowan, "Mirrors" brought Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) into interdimensional space in pursuit of the next clue to the ancient treasure of the Progenitors, which was hidden aboard the 23rd century ISS Enterprise from the Mirror Universe.

On his X account, Jörg Hillebrand (@gaghyogi49), who was a researcher for Star Trek: Picard season 3 renowned for his attention to detail, posted a clear translation of the ISS Enterprise's dedication plaque from Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5 . The illuminated text reveals what happened in the late-23rd century Mirror Universe after the events of Star Trek: The Original Series season 2's "Mirror, Mirror." Read the post below:

Here is the image in the X post:

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

A timeline of star trek's mirror universe, from the terran empire to the temporal wars.

The Mirror Universe was introduced in Star Trek: The Original Series season 2's "Mirror, Mirror" and its canonical history can be tracked through Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, and Star Trek: Discovery. The earliest chronological glimpse of the Mirror Universe is on April 5, 2063, when Zephram Cochrane (James Cromwell) murdered a Vulcan after making First Contact in Enterprise 's "In A Mirror, Darkly". In the 22nd century of Star Trek: Enterprise 's Mirror Universe , Commander Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) captured the USS Defiant from the 23rd century, but he was betrayed by Hoshi Sato (Linda Park), who declared herself Empress of the Terran Empire.

In the 23rd century of Star Trek: Discovery , the Mirror Universe was ruled by Emperor Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh). Georgiou jumped to Star Trek 's Prime Universe aboard the USS Discovery after defeating a coup by Gabriel Lorca (Jason Issacs) . The Terran Empire continued unabated, but after Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) briefly switched places with his Mirror Universe counterpart, he convinced the Mirror Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to institute reforms to save the Terran Empire from its inevitable collapse.

Refugees fled the Mirror Universe aboard the stolen ISS Enterprise.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 episode 5 reveals that High Chancellor Spock did change the Terran Empire, but he was assassinated for weakness. Refugees fled the Mirror Universe aboard the stolen ISS Enterprise, thanks to the Mirror Saru (Doug Jones), a rebel leader. The ISS Enterprise's personnel did make it to the Prime Universe. However, in the Mirror Universe, the Terran Empire was conquered by the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance , as detailed in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . By Star Trek: Discovery 's 32nd century, the Mirror and Prime Universe timelines have split further apart thanks to the Temporal Wars, making crossing over impossible.

Source: Twitter/X

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+

Cast Blu del Barrio, Oded Fehr, Anthony Rapp, Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Wilson Cruz, Eve Harlow, Mary Wiseman, Callum Keith Rennie

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Alex Kurtzman

Directors Jonathan Frakes, Olatunde Osunsanmi

Showrunner Alex Kurtzman

Where To Watch Paramount+

Star Trek: Discovery's Enterprise Plaque Reveals New Mirror Universe History Details

April 28, 2024 | Interview: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Writer Carlos Cisco On Unmasking The Breen And Revisiting The ISS Enterprise
April 26, 2024 | Michael Dorn Wanted Armin Shimerman To Play The Ferengi That Worf Killed In Star Trek Picard
April 26, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Gets To Know The Breen In ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ 505, “Mirrors”
April 25, 2024 | Prep Begins For ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 3 Finale; Cast And Directors Share BTS Images
April 25, 2024 | Jonathan Frakes Sees Opportunities With Streaming Star Trek Movies, Weighs In On “Filler Episodes”

Podcast: All Access Gets To Know The Breen In ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ 505, “Mirrors”

All Access Star Trek podcast episode 182 - TrekMovie - Star Trek: Discovery "Mirrors"

| April 26, 2024 | By: All Access Star Trek Pod Team 27 comments so far

[ Discovery 505 review starts at 17:00]

Anthony and Laurie start with a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds production update, then round up the latest on the William Shatner documentary, a new Discovery coffee table book, and IDW’s “Star Trek: Celebrations” comic. Then they play some audio from Tony’s recent interview with Carlos Cisco, co-writer of this week’s Star Trek: Discovery episode, “Mirrors.” After that, they give “Mirrors” a full review; Tony liked it more than Laurie, but they both enjoyed the Moll and L’ak backstory. After a quick reminder about the PanCAN Purple Stride walk happening this weekend, the wrap up the pod with a Paramount business update courtesy of The Town and a recent interview with makeup legend Michael Westmore on The 7th Rule .

Prep Begins For ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Season 3 Finale; Cast And Directors Share BTS Images

‘William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill’ Documentary Arrives On VOD On Friday

Coffee Table Book On The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Makeup Artistry Of Glenn Hetrick Coming In September

Exclusive First Look At Artwork From ‘Star Trek: Celebrations’ – IDW’s One Shot Comic For Pride Month

THEORY: Did ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Finally Resolve The “Calypso” Mystery?

Podcast: Armin Shimerman, Kitty Swink, Jonathan Frakes & Juan Carlos Coto—Trek Against Pancreatic Cancer

Trek Against Pancreatic Cancer participation and donation page

Carlos Cisco on Twitter

Elias Toufexis (L’ak) on Twitter

The story of Dread Pirate Roberts (from The Princess Bride)

Ten Star Trek Fun Facts From Michael Westmore’s Memoir

Anthony: The Town podcast: Which bidder is best for Paramount?

Laurie: Michael Westmore on The 7th Rule talking about “Allegiance”

Let us know what you think of the episode in the comments, and should you be so inclined, please review us on Apple .

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Keep up with everything to do with the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

Discovery , Interview

Interview: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Writer Carlos Cisco On Unmasking The Breen And Revisiting The ISS Enterprise

Discovery , Review

Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Reflects On Its Choices In “Mirrors”

Books , Discovery

Coffee Table Book On The ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Makeup Artistry Of Glenn Hetrick Coming In September

Analysis , Discovery

THEORY: Did ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Finally Resolve The “Calypso” Mystery?

I hear you on missing stuff. “The Ultimate Computer” made the rounds on one of the legacy channels last night. In the opening scenes, McCoy, Kirk and Spock make their way to engineering to see Dr. Daystrom. After some conversation, McCoy starts going off on the tech, Daystrom looks square at him and asks “who are you”? In all the times I’ve seen this episode over the decades, Daystrom throwing shade at McCoy had never registered on me…..

I can hear it in William Marshall’s voice as I read it! Hey, it’s always fun to discover something new in TOS episodes I’ve seen a thousand times. There’s a great scene in “Wink of an Eye” where Kirk is asking McCoy if he’s going crazy and Nurse Chapel is totally eavesdropping in the background… it’s so funny! I think I only noticed it for the first time a few years ago.

Great podcast per usual!

I agree with most of the thoughts about Discovery and per usual agree with Laurie this was the weakest of the season so far. There were just waaay too many missed opportunities, not very much happening and clear it was very much shot on a budget.

But it is cool to see the Breen back. That was a big plus.

But I really enjoyed the section where you guys talked about how Discovery was originally trying to avoid canon it’s first year compared to today and be more its own thing. I have been saying this forever now and believe Discovery was originally just a reboot but simply not called that. Everything about that first season just felt so off from Trek of old.

They were clearly trying to reboot the franchise for a different time and audience and move away from the old style and canon of the classic shows.

But I think they really underestimated how much fans wanted the old style and canon back and panicked once the complaints flowed in and why we got Spock and Pike the next season and Picard was announced after that.

I have also said this before as well but if Discovery was a bigger success than the other shows would be in its image, both look and style. Instead they been running from it with the other shows.

SNW is a direct spin off and yet it feels and acts like the Roddenberry/Berman era of shows being episodic again, A and B stories and doing alien/anomaly/crisis of the week. There is not a single episode (OK maybe the musical lol) that couldn’t fit into any of the old shows TOS-ENT.

It is ironic the new era tried to be something different from Berman Trek just to basically be that again with shows like LDS, Prodigy, Picard season 3 and SNW. It just proves A. nostalgia is always a strong tool and B. Old fans ultimately still control this franchise for better or for worse.

My personal take on SNW is that they’re not getting the canon balance right either. They rely too heavily on TOS instead of forging their own path more. It’s why I’ve been so happy with Discovery’s approach this season, particularly when they take something we don’t know a lot about but have heard of and then add to it. SNW has all the ingredients to tell brand-new stories with new aliens and characters, and I hope they start doing more of that and less leaning back into TOS.

Oh yeah fully agree. I think you know my feelings on SNW and while I certainly like the show it’s canon issues really frustrates me and I really think they are overdoing the TOS fan service.

But I was never surprised about the latter. I actually predicted Kirk would show up on the first season finale way before we were told Kirk would be on the show itself. I figured they were going to make it more a TOS ‘prequel’ than a Pike show and sadly proven right.

But I truly truly hope we don’t get a TOS show when SNW is over. They may do it but I really hope they do something different and more original if there is a spin off. I just have zero interest in reliving the show and so far not a fan of Wesley’s Kirk at all, so even less so.

As I’m sure you know, I’m with you on that one!

It is weird that Discovery was trying to evade Trek canon when the whole first season plot revolved around a war with the Klingons, followed by a journey to the Mirror Universe. The central character is Spock’s adopted sister, and because of that we encounter Sarek and Amanda. Also Harry Mudd is prominent in the season, and the season ends with the appearance of the Enterprise.

RIght? It was a weird mish-mosh of what they leaned into (as the saying goes) and what they wanted to avoid. I will say I loved the choices they made with Amanda.

Hi Tony and Laurie. I felt compelled to thank you both for the podcast. You put a lot of work into each episode despite currently not getting much in the way of feedback or comments. I can’t help but notice that in general, comments across the Discovery articles seem quite low in terms of numbers compared to previous shows. In particular, Picard S3 where for example, some episode reviews garnered +600 comments, so many in fact, that I could only get round to reading a fraction of them. Perhaps Discovery is more niche than previous Trek series.

While I did enjoy last weeks episode, watching Discovery for me still feels a bit like watching The Cage. It’s labelled Start Trek and has Trek iconography scattered throughout and yet IMO it lacks the warmth and connection I felt towards other series.

Thank you, Scott! Appreciate the comment. It’s true I am greedy for comments and we don’t seem to get a lot of them, or reviews on Apple. It sometimes feels like we are just out there in the void! I am always interested to hear what people think of the podcast, what they’d like us to do more of or less of.

I would really like the Shuttlepod back on a regular basis. It was cathartic for me because I felt that it aligned with my view of Star Trek in general, whereas with All Access, I like you both and enjoy listening to you, but I’m frequently disagreeing with your opinions on these shows and the state of the franchise.

So would I! They have a lot of schedules to wrangle. We do try to have them on our podcast whenever they’re free.

The irony for me Laurie is that I actually do try to post in every podcast discussion and there is always so much I want to say. But a lot of the times I don’t post until a few days later since I don’t always have time to listen to it right away. But when I do it looks like everyone has already moved on so I just don’t always bother.

There was a podcast you guys made maybe a month ago that I had so much to say I literally wanted to make a five point post to counter all the discussions you guys said in it lol. But by the time I could sit down and write it it was nearly a week later and I thought what was the point when there were only a few posts and I figured no one would even see it by then so didn’t bother.

It is obviously true there are fewer posts for the podcast but I think mostly due to the fact everything you guys talk about are usually things that has already been discussed ad nauseam on the boards like the latest episode review. You guys are going over news that’s already been posted so people have had their say about it and usually not a lot more to add; unless there is a specific point made in the podcast itself that’s been highlighted for the first time.

But I truly love listening to it and listen to every one of them. I make a comment about 60% of the time but as said the discussions dry up so quickly here that after a few days it just doesn’t seem worth it unfortunately.

But you guys definitely have advid listeners who enjoy listening to your thoughts. I’m certainly one of them especially since I agree with nearly all your thoughts lol.

So glad to hear it. Obviously we talk about stories that are already up on the site, so the discussions are already happening. I get it! I just always hope that if people like things we do or don’t like things we do, they’ll let us know. (Like the way we review shows; is it bothersome that we just jump all over the place and don’t go from beginning to end?)

Hi Laurie. How about you and Tony team up with the Shuttle pod crew to do an end of season Discovery review and also a look back at the series; highs, lows and legacy. By the way I totally agree about your SNW comments. I really enjoy the show and think the cast is terrific but would like them to explore new ground far more than they currently do.

Most of them don’t watch Discovery! But we will definitely do that topic when the show is done, and hopefully Matt can join us for it.

I’m very surprised to hear that your colleagues (and for me great podcasters) don’t watch Discovery. I have to say that if such knowledgeable and learned ST experts don’t find it worth watching (and I’m sure for their own very good reasons), what chance did the show really have. I know that my UK Trek family have long since bailed, most exiting at the end of S3.

“Most of them don’t watch Discovery.”

Wow that sort of says it all when dedicated Trek fans who have their own podcast don’t bother to watch the show. I could be wrong but I don’t think Mark Altman watches it either or he just doesn’t talk about it on his podcast.

From what I gather so called nu-Trek isn’t Altman et al’s bag at all. In contrast they were huge fans of Picard S3 (I am too). The Blu-ray is wonderful by the way.

A lot of people have been pointing out the lower discussions about Discovery this season. It really is noticable especially compared to the shows first three seasons which were much more active to say the least.

And yes compared to Picard season 3 is night and day. I went and looked up that seasons episode 5 discussion as a comparison and that got around 450 comments vs Discovery’s current episode 5 that only has around 110 comments currently. And what’s crazy is that is the highest number of posts so far all season.

So yeah it’s definitely a lack of discussions here and all across the bigger sites as well. It doesn’t mean people aren’t watching it obviously but it’s also clear there is much less passion for the show today, especially one that is ending very soon.

Good points. I’ll be interested to see the streaming viewing figures if they are made available.

What we have found is that there are some people who come rushing to all the Discovery posts to tell us how much they hate it, and we are being more vigilant about getting rid of those comments. If someone watches the show and hates it, fair! But there are a lot of comments from people who just want to shit on its existence (and clearly aren’t watching it), so those go, as well as anything racist or homophobic, which obviously happens a lot with this show too.

Yeah I understand but I don’t think that alone is the reason for less posts either because as I said it’s down everywhere else I post and lurk. That includes TrekCre, Reddit, Trek BBS etc. It’s a very obvious gap. Reddit is the more obvious because those posts usually go on the thousands when an episode is reviewed.

For example the latest episode Mirrors has around 400 posts which sounds decent but every episode review in season 4 usually had double that or more. Some got into the thousands.

Maybe it’s just been off the air too long. It has been two years.

Could be. I saw a Tweet from Patrick Kwok-Choon (Rhys) saying they filmed it so long ago, he doesn’t even remember what happened!

In his defense: It’s not like he’s getting a lot of particularly memorable material ;-)

I agree with Tony about them leaving the map… When Burnham left her quarters she just left the map on the desk, and I was thinking just that. I mean, what if the cleaning lady breaks it or just moves it somewhere. They do that, they break things and don’t tell you, figuring you won’t notice. They have to think about those things.

Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series

View history
3.1 Cover gallery

Summary [ ]

Contents [ ].

Background information [ ]

Executed as a softcover edition, the book features black & white concept art and photographs throughout, with an additional, unnumbered 32-page full color insert included.
This book covers similar ground to the unofficial Trek: The Lost Years , released at the beginning of the decade, but in much greater detail.

Cover gallery [ ]

3 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

IMAGES

In Thy Image
Star Trek The Motion Picture Fan Edit: "In Thy Image." Part 1
Star Trek Phase II
STAR TREK: In Thy Image
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STAR TREK: In Thy Image

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In Thy Image
"In Thy Image" was a 1977 script for the pilot Star Trek: Phase II episode, written by Harold Livingston. It was based on a story treatment by Alan Dean Foster, although the treatment itself was based on a story idea by Gene Roddenberry entitled "Robot's Return". (Star Trek Monthly issue 26, p. 25) The basic plot concept of "In Thy Image" was that a huge unknown object crossed the universe ...
In Thy Image
In Thy Image. In August 1977, science-fiction author Alan Dean Foster submitted a story for the two-hour premiere of the new Star Trek television series, Phase II. It opened with the Enterprise receiving a Starfleet communication detailing the appearance of an enormous metallic shape moving to Earth.
How the Abandoned Star Trek: Phase II Pilot Became The Motion Picture
The story for the pilot, a script called "In Thy Image," based on a story by Alan Dean Foster, became the framework on which Star Trek: The Motion Picture was built. While fans remain divided about the movie, it was a fortunate break for Trekkies. Star Trek: Phase II was no The Next Generation, and it likely would've failed.
Star Trek: Phase II (1978)
Star Trek: Phase II was abandoned and the pilot - In Thy Image - was reimagined as the script for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Many, including Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, have argued that this was for the best. They wonder whether Phase II could have competed in the saturated science-fiction market of the late seventies.
In Thy Image
"In Thy Image" was the pilot episode script for the abortive development of the television series Star Trek: Phase II. The episode went unproduced, and the script was heavily rewritten to become Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The original version of the story did eventually find publication, as the complete script was reprinted in the reference work Phase II: The Lost Series. In this story, in ...
The Making of Star Trek: Phase II
Most were turned down and Star Trek quickly developed a reputation as the "hardest sell in town". Heinemann pitched, and Foster wrote, the show's pilot, "In Thy Image". It incorporated Goodwin's suggestion that, for the first time on Star Trek, Earth would be directly threatened.
"It's only human": In Thy Image (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
It's with Star Trek: TMP / In Thy Image that your alternate-universe motif comes into its best use. Really, it's working through counter-factual situations through the science-fictional motif of the alternate universe: changing a few core details of a situation such that the world completely transforms. It also articulates the political use of ...
Designing the Living Machine
After the planned pilot of the second Star Trek television series, "In Thy Image," became the basis for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Richard Taylor as art director assumed responsibility for designing the mysterious entity known as V'Ger (then still written as "Vejeur").Mike Minor had drawn a few concepts for Phase II.Tony Smith, brought in by Taylor, developed the entity further.
Early TMP script online
Early TMP script online. Discussion in ' Star Trek Movies I-X ' started by Nightowl1701, Jan 16, 2012 . I didn't post this script, I just spotted it today. Dated May 1978, it's very much a transitional piece between the Phase II pilot In Thy Image and the July 1978 shooting script (at the same site). After reading it myself, I'm assuming this ...
Remembering Star Trek: Phase II
Lt. Ilia (Persis Khambatta) You see: The pilot of Star Trek: Phase II - called "In Thy Image" - was an ambitious one. A silent, god-like cloud being appears in the heavens above Earth, and ...
In Thy Image: Re-imagining Star Trek
Star Trek Phase II "In Thy Image" Based upon Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. click to view episode - low res version. In the fall of 1977, Star Trek was poised for a comeback. After being cancelled in 1969, a revival of the series called Star Trek Phase II was planned to begin airing in the fall of 1978 on the then proposed 4 th network ...
Star Trek Phase II
Star Trek Phase II - In Thy Image. When Star Trek The Motion Picture debuted in 1979, what we were seeing was the re-envisioned pilot episode of a T.V. series named Star Trek Phase II. A brief footnote in Star Trek history, the series was cancelled with only 2 weeks to go to the start of production. Following the unprecedented success of Star ...
Star Trek: Phase II
Star Trek: Phase II was the initial working title for what officially became titled Star Trek II, an unproduced American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as a sequel to (and continuation of) ... The Motion Picture (1979), which was itself a massive reworking of the "In Thy Image" two-hour pilot script.
Star Trek: Phase II
Early The Motion Picture teaser poster, still featuring the Phase II Enterprise. The refit of the original Enterprise formed an integral part of the plot of "In Thy Image". Originally, designer Ralph McQuarrie - best known to the public for his production designs for the Star Wars films - was invited to England to work under Ken Adam to help develop the designs for the Star Trek: Planet of ...
The God Thing
The God Thing, by Gene Roddenberry, was one of numerous never-produced scripts that were written with the intention of being made as the first Star Trek movie. It served as the precursor of likewise-undeveloped Star Trek: Phase II pilot episode "In Thy Image" and, ultimately, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In "log entries" in Starlog (vol. 2, no. 3, January 1977, p. 60), Gene Roddenberry ...
Why Star Trek: The Motion Picture Remains Fascinating 40 ...
The result was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, built from the ashes of Phase II that reused as many resources from its parent project as it could, most notably the script "In Thy Image" that ...
In Thy Image
Harold Livingston (1924 - 2022): Movie and television writer whose career spanned 1966-1984.Initially, he was a producer for the aborted Star Trek: Phase II, and wrote the script for Alan Dean Foster's story "In Thy Image," which was to have been the two-hour premiere.When the series was shelved, his script, after undergoing several rewrites by himself and Gene Roddenberry, was filmed as Star ...
Which episodes where based on phase II script? : r/startrek
3. kenman278. • 5 yr. ago. Due to the writer's strike in 1988, TNG used the script of Phase II's "The Child.". They then later adapted "Devil's Due" in Season 4. Those were the only TNG episodes based on those old scripts. The intended Phase II pilot was reworked and became "The Motion Picture" so there is also that.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
This was now rewritten for "Star Trek" by Alan Dean Foster under the title "In Thy Image", and proposed as the 2-hour premiere episode of "Star Trek Phase II". However, Paramount executive Michael Eisner responded, "We've been looking for the feature for five years and this is it", and made the final decision to forget the new series and ...
K't'inga class
Background information [] Origins []. In the Star Trek: Phase II script "In Thy Image", written by Harold Livingston, the three Klingon warships were identified as Koro-class.They were later changed to K't'inga-class in Gene Roddenberry's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.. Although this designation was never referenced in any on-screen displays or dialogue, it was adopted by the ...
Prep Begins For 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 3 Finale; Cast
Work on the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continues to move swiftly in Toronto and looks to be set to wrap up next month.We have some fun bits from the set shared by the cast and a ...
Kirk's Starship Enterprise Returns In Star Trek: Discovery
The Mirror Universe's ISS Enterprise in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5 is the same Constitution Class starship from Star Trek: The Original Series season 2, episode 4, "Mirror, Mirror," which was the ISS Enterprise's only prior canonical appearance. The ISS Enterprise was trapped in interdimensional space and abandoned by its crew, who were refugees and freedom fighters attempting to ...
I Wish The Breen Had Kept Their Helmets On In Star Trek: Discovery
Star Trek: Discovery has finally revealed what a Breen looks like underneath all its armor, but Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Breen should have kept their helmets on.In Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco, and directed by Jen McGowan, audiences learn more about Moll (Eve Harlow) and L'ak (Elias Toufexis), and their motivations for seeking the ...
Phase II
Star Trek: Phase II concept art and history. TOS; Phase II; Films. The Motion Picture; The Wrath of Khan; Other Movies; TNG; DS9; VOY; Fandom; Phase II. Production. Making Phase II; Planet of the Titans; The Billion Year Voyage; Visions of the Future; Lost Episodes. In Thy Image; Lord Bobby's Obsession; The Prisoner; To Attain the All ...
Star Trek: Into The Unknown
Teleport to the bridge of the most legendary starships from Star Trek as you launch an epic adventure across the galaxy!. Star Trek: Into the Unknown features the most detailed Star Trek ship models in tabletop gaming, all designed to scale. Large ships like the U.S.S. Enterprise or the Jem'Hadar Battle Cruiser will tower over the smaller ships, and all come pre-painted to an incredible amount ...
Horta
A Horta was referenced in the first-draft script for "In Thy Image" - the story that gradually developed into Star Trek: The Motion Picture - in which Kirk reminded Dr. McCoy, now a veterinarian, of the Horta having been "patched up" by McCoy using silicone cement. (Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series, p. 125)
Star Trek: Discovery's Enterprise Plaque Reveals New Mirror Universe
Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 5, "Mirrors", reveals new details about the Mirror Universe's history on the ISS Enterprise. The dedication plaque on the starship sheds light on events in ...
Podcast: All Access Gets To Know The Breen In 'Star Trek: Discovery
[Discovery 505 review starts at 17:00] Anthony and Laurie start with a Star Trek: Strange New Worlds production update, then round up the latest on the William Shatner documentary, a new Discovery ...
Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series
Star Trek Phase II: The Lost Series is a reference book which gives a detailed analysis of the development and early days of the abortive spin-off, Star Trek: Phase II, featuring concept art, set photos, and two complete scripts from the series, "In Thy Image" and "The Child". From the book jacket Dateline - Paramount Pictures announces the formation of its own television network, saying ...
Star Trek: Discovery
Take a look at some images from the next episode of Star Trek Discovery starring Sonequa Martin-Green, David Ajala, Callum Keith Rennie, and Anthony Rapp. Star Trek: Discovery - Episode 505 ...

How the Abandoned Star Trek: Phase II Pilot Became The Motion Picture

Star Trek: Phase II's Head Writer Was the Wrong Choice for the Show or the Movie

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Artists Used Phase II as the Movie's Foundation

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In Thy Image

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