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Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first motion picture based on the Star Trek television series. When a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called Vger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path, Admiral James T. Kirk assumes command of his old vessel—the USS Enterprise—on a mission to save the planet and determine Vgers origins.
When the original television series was cancelled in 1969, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry lobbied hard to continue the franchise through a film.
Discussion
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Quotations
Leonard McCoy:
Well, Jim, I hear Chapel's an M.D. now. Well I'm going to need a top nurse... not a doctor who will argue every little diagnosis with me. And they probably redesigned the whole sick bay too! I know engineers. They love to change things.
Spock:
On Vulcan I began sensing a consciousness... from a source more powerful than I have ever encountered. Thought patterns of exactingly perfect order. I believe they emanate from the intruder. I believe it may hold my answers.
Encyclopedia
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first motion picture based on the Star Trek television series. When a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called Vger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path, Admiral James T. Kirk assumes command of his old vessel—the USS Enterprise—on a mission to save the planet and determine Vgers origins.
When the original television series was cancelled in 1969, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry lobbied hard to continue the franchise through a film. The success of the series in syndication and fan pressure led to Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973-1974, and convinced Paramount to begin work on a feature film in 1975. A revolving door of acclaimed writers took a shot at crafting a suitably epic script for the planned film, but Paramount remained dissatisfied and the film was scrapped in 1977. Paramount instead planned on returning the series to its roots with a new television series, Star Trek: Phase II. The box office success of other science fiction films such as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind convinced studio executives to once again attempt to bring Star Trek to the silver screen. Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since the 1950s to announce that Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise would helm the $15 million film adaptation of the television series.
With the cancellation of the television series, the film's writers rushed to adapt the planned pilot episode of Phase II, "In Thy Image," into a film script. Constant revisions to the story meant that revisions of the shooting script were distributed hourly. The Enterprise was completely redesigned inside and out, with new uniforms by costume designer Robert Fletcher and sets designed by Harold Michelson. Jerry Goldsmith composed the film's score, beginning an association with Star Trek that would continue to 2002.
Released on December 7, 1979, The Motion Picture received mixed reviews from critics. The film earned $139 million worldwide, enough for Paramount to propose a sequel; Roddenberry was forced out of creative control and the franchise was revived with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. For the DVD rerelease of the film, Wise created a director's cut of the film, where the audio was remixed, scenes were shortened, and new effects were added; this edition was received better than the original by critics.
Plot
A powerful alien force hidden in a massive cloud of energy is detected heading on a direct course for Earth. The cloud destroys three Klingon starships and a Starfleet monitoring station en route. On Earth, the Starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit in orbit; its former commander, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and works at Starfleet Command in San Francisco. As it is the only ship in intercept range, Starfleet decides to dispatch the Enterprise to intercept the cloud, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.
As part of the mission, Kirk takes command of the ship, angering Captain Willard Decker, who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprises new systems goes poorly, with the science officer killed by a malfunctioning transporter. The ship's improperly calibrated warp engines cause an artificial wormhole. The tension between Kirk and Decker increases when Kirk's unfamiliarity with the Enterprises redesigned weapons nearly destroys the vessel. The Vulcan Spock arrives as replacement science officer, explaining that while on Vulcan he felt a consciousness that he believes holds the answers to their mission and which he believes emanates from the intruder.
The Enterprise intercepts the alien cloud and journeys inside, finding a vast alien vessel miles long that draws the Enterprise into itself. An alien probe appears on the bridge and attacks Spock and abducts the navigator, Ilia. Ilia is replaced by a robotic probe, sent by "V'ger" to study the crew. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history, and is troubled as he attempts to extract information from the mechanical doppelgänger; the probe has Ilia's memories and feelings buried within. Spock takes a spacewalk to the alien vessel's surface and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'ger itself, a living machine.
At the heart of the vessel, V'ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a twentieth century space probe launched from Earth. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that is learnable, and return that information to its creator. The machines made V'ger into something capable of fulfilling that mission, and on its journey the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission; having learned all that is learnable on its journey home, V'ger finds itself empty and without a purpose. Only through its creator can V’ger begin to explore illogical things, such as other dimensions. Offering himself to the machine as the creator, Commander Decker merges with V'ger, creating a new form of life. With Earth saved and their mission completed, Kirk directs the Enterprise out to space for future missions.
Cast
- William Shatner as James T. Kirk, the former captain of the USS Enterprise and an Admiral at Starfleet headquarters. When asked during a press conference during March 1978 about what it would be like to reprise the role, Shatner said "An actor brings to a role not only the concept of a character but his own basic personality, things that he is, and both Leonard and myself have changed over the years, to a degree at any rate, and we will bring that degree of change inadvertently to the role we recreate."
- Leonard Nimoy as Spock, the Enterprises half-Vulcan, half-human science officer. Nimoy had been dissatisfied with unearned royalties from Star Trek and did not intend to reprise the role, so Spock was left out of the screenplay and its television precursor. Director Robert Wise, having been informed the film "would not be Star Trek" without Nimoy by his daughter and son-in-law, sent Jeffrey Katzenberg to New York City to meet Nimoy. Katzenberg gave Nimoy a cheque to make up for his lost royalties, and attended the March 1978 press conference with the rest of the returning cast. Nimoy was unsatisfied with the script though, and his meeting with Katzenberg led to an agreement that the script would need Nimoy's approval. Despite the financial issues, Nimoy said he was comfortable with being identified as Spock because it had a positive impact on his fame.
- Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, the communications officer aboard the Enterprise. Nichols noted that she was one of the most opposed actors to the new uniforms Wise added, because the insisted drab, unisex look "wasn't Uhura". Wise appealed to Roddenberry, who sided with Nichols.
- Persis Khambatta as Ilia, the Deltan navigator of the Enterprise. Khambatta was originally cast in the role when The Motion Picture was still a television pilot. Roddenberry warned her that she would have to shave her head completely for filming The Motion Picture, which she agreed to.
- Stephen Collins as Willard Decker, the new captain of the Enterprise, overseeing the ship's refit. Temporarily demoted to Commander and First Officer when Kirk takes command of the Enterprise.
- David Gautreaux as Branch, the commander of the Epsilon 9 communications station. Gautreaux had been cast as Xon in the aborted second television series as the Vulcan intended to replace Spock.
Production
Early development
The original Star Trek television series ran three seasons from 1966 to 1969 on NBC. The show was never a hit with network executives, and the show's low Nielsen ratings bolstered their concerns. A massive letter-writing campaign by fans secured the show a third season, but NBC responded by moving the show to 10:00 PM on Friday, the worst possible time slot. When NBC refused to move the show, creator Gene Roddenberry resigned himself to the fact that the series would be cancelled and stopped rewriting and polishing scripts, instead serving as executive producer. When the show was cancelled, owner Paramount Studios hoped to recoup their production losses by selling the syndication rights to the show. The series went into reruns in the fall of 1969, and by the late 1970s had been sold in over 150 domestic and 60 international markets. The show developed a cult following, and talks of reviving the franchise began.
was one of the science-fiction writers who offered a premise for the Star Trek feature film.]]
The idea for a Star Trek film was first proposed by Roddenberry at the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention. The movie was to have been set before the television series, showing how the crew of the Enterprise met. The popularity of the syndicated Star Trek caused Paramount Pictures and Roddenberry to begin developing the film in May 1975. Roddenberry was allocated $3 to $5 million to develop a script. By June 30 he had churned out what he considered an acceptable script, but studio executives disagreed. This first draft, The God Thing, featured a grounded Admiral Kirk assembling the old crew on the refitted Enterprise to clash with a godlike entity many miles across, hurtling towards Earth. The object turns out to be a super-advanced computer, the remains of a scheming race who were cast out of their dimension and into ours. Kirk wins out, the entity returns to its dimension, and the Enterprise crew resumes their voyages. The basic premise and many elements—a transporter accident and Spock undergoing a Vulcan ritual—were discarded, but later returned to the final script. The film was postponed to spring 1975 while Paramount fielded new scripts for Star Trek II (the working title) from acclaimed writers such as Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon and Harlan Ellison. Ellison's story had a snake-like alien race tampering with Earth's history to create a kindred race; Kirk reunites with his old crew, but they are faced with the dilemma of killing off the reptilian race in Earth's prehistory just to maintain humanity's dominance. When Ellison presented his idea, an executive suggested Ellison read Chariots of the Gods and include the Maya civilization into his story, which enraged the writer because he knew Mayans did not exist at the dawn of time. John D. F. Black suggested a black hole threatening to consume all of existence. Roddenberry teamed up with Jon Povill to write a new story featuring the Enterprise crew setting an altered universe right by time travel; like Black's idea, Paramount did not consider it epic enough.
The Star Trek cast grew anxious about the constant delays, and pragmatically accepted other acting offers while Roddenberry worked with Paramount. The studio decided to turn the project over to the television division, reasoning that since the roots of the franchise lay in television the writers would be able to develop the right script. A revolving door of screenwriters offered up ideas that were summarily rejected. While Paramount executives' interest in the film began to wane, Roddenberry, backed by fan letters, applied pressure to the studio. In June 1976, Paramount assigned Jerry Isenberg, a young and active producer, to be executive producer of the project, with the budget expanded to $8 million. Povill was rehired and tasked with finding more writers to deveop a script. His list included Edward Anhalt, James Goldman, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Ernest Lehman, and Robert Bloch. To cap off his list, Povill put as his last recommendation "Jon Povill—almost credit: Star Trek II story (with Gene Roddenberry). Will be a big shot some day. Should be hired now while he is cheap and humble." The end result was a compiled list of 34 names, none of whom were ever chosen to write the script.
In October, British screenwriters Chris Bryant and Allan Scott wrote a twenty-page treatment entitled Planet of the Titans, which executives Barry Diller and Michael Eisner liked. Bryant believed he earned the screenwriting assignment because his view of Kirk resembled what Roddenberry modelled him on; "one of Nelson's captains in the South Pacific, six months away from home and three months away by communication". In the treatment, Kirk and his crew encounter beings they believe to be the mythical Titans and travel back millions of years in time, accidentally teaching early man to make fire. Planet of the Titans also explored the concept of the third eye. Povill wrote up a list of possible directors, including Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Lucas, and Robert Wise, but all were busy at the time (or were not willing to work on the small script money budget.) Philip Kaufman was signed on to direct, having impressive directing and science fiction credits, and given a crash course in the series. Roddenberry screened ten episodes from the original series for Kaufman, including the most representative of the show and those he considered most popular; "The City on the Edge of Forever", "Devil in the Dark", "Amok Time", "Journey to Babel", "Shore Leave", "The Trouble with Tribbles", "The Enemy Within", "The Corbomite Maneuver", "This Side of Paradise", and "A Piece of the Action". Early work was promising and by the fall of 1976 the project was building momentum. Fans organized a mail campaign that flooded the White House with 400,000 letters, influencing Gerald Ford to rechristen the space shuttle Constitution to Enterprise. Bryan and Scott's proposal became the first accepted by the studio in October; Roddenberry immediately stopped work on other projects to refocus on Star Trek, and the screenwriters and Isenberg were swamped with fan mail. The elation was short-lived; the first draft of the completed script was not finished until March 1, 1977, and pressure was mounting for Paramount to either being production or cut its losses and cancel the project. Isenberg began scouting filming locations and hired designers and illustrators to complement the script. The writing-by-committee effort was turned down despite the best efforts of Kaufman to save it. Dissatisfied with having everyone take a turn at rewriting the script, Bryant and Scott quit in April 1977. Kaufman reconceived the story with Spock as the captain of his own ship and feauturing Toshiro Mifune as Spock's Klingon nemesis. Jeffrey Katzenberg called Kaufman in May to inform him that the film was cancelled; once again, Star Trek was in limbo.
Phase II and restart
Barry Diller, then the Paramount president, had grown concerned by the direction Star Trek had taken in Planet of the Titans, and suggested to Roddenberry that it was time to take the franchise to its roots—a television series. Diller planned on a new Star Trek series forming the cornerstone for a new television network. Though Paramount was loathe to abandon its work on the film, Roddenberry wanted to bring as many of the production staff from the original series to work on the new show, titled Star Trek: Phase II. Though the space opera Star Wars performed well at the box office a few weeks after Kaufman's film was cancelled, Paramount believed a film was still not viable.
planned on anchoring a new Paramount television network with a new Star Trek series.]]Producer Harold Livingston was assigned to find writers for new episodes, while Roddenberry prepared a writers' guide briefing the uninitiated on the franchise canon. Among the changes since the cancellation of the original series was that Leonard Nimoy was not willing to return for a weekly television series. Fruitless attempts to persuade Nimoy otherwise led to the creation of Luitenant Xon, a full-blooded Vulcan prodigy. In contrast to Spock's constant struggle to repress his human emotions, Xon was intended to fill the same logical role in the series but struggle to empathize with his fellow crew and uncover the emotions his species had long repressed. Since Xon was too young to fill the role of first officer, Roddenberry created Commander William Decker, and later added Ilia. The new series' pilot episode "In Thy Image" was based on a two-page outline by Roddenberry about a NASA probe returning to Earth, having gained sentience. Alan Dean Foster wrote a treatment for the pilot, which Livingston turned into a screenplay. When the script was presented to Michael Eisner, he declared it worthy of being told as a feature film. Additionally, the success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind showed Paramount Star Wars would not dominate the science fiction genre at the box office. On November 11, just two and a half weeks before production on Phase II was due to start, the studio announced that the television series had been cancelled in favor of a new feature film. Cast and crew who had been hired that Monday were laid off by Friday, and construction came to a halt. Production was moved to April 1978 so that the necessary scripts, sets, and wardrobe could be upgraded.
On March 28, 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since Cecil B. DeMille announced he was making The Ten Commandments. Eisner announced that Academy-Award winning director Robert Wise would direct a film adaptation of the television series, titled Star Trek—The Motion Picture. The budget was projected at $15 million. Dennis Clark (Comes a Horseman) was invited to rewrite the script and to include Spock, but he disliked Roddenberry, who demanded sole credit. Livingston returned as writer, and although he also found Roddenberry unreasonable, Wise and Katzenberg convinced him to continue rewriting the script throughout production.
The writers began to adapt "In Thy Image" into a film script, but the script was not completed until four months after production commenced. Wise felt that the story seemed right, but the dramatic action and visuals could be upgraded and made more exciting. By the intended start of filming in late spring 1978 approached, it was clear a new start date was needed. Time was of the essence; Paramount was worried that their science fiction film would appear at the tail end of a cycle, now that every major studio had such a film in the works. Livingston described the writers' issue with the story, calling it "unworkable":
We had a marvelous antagonist, so omnipotent that for us to defeat it or even communicate with it, or have any kind of relationship with it, made the initial concept of the story false. Here's this gigantic machine that's a million years further advanced than we are. Now, how the hell can we possibly deal with this? On what level? As the story developed, everything worked until the very end. How do you resolve this thing? If humans can defeat this marvelous machine, than it's really not so great, is it? Or if it really is great, will we like those humans who do defeat it? Should they defeat it? Who is the story's hero anyway? That was the problem. We experimented with all kinds of approaches…we didn't know what to do with the ending. We always ended up against a blank wall."
The script received constant input from the producers and from Shatner and Nimoy. The input led to incessant rewrites, right up to the day the pages were to be shot. At one point, the day's scenes were rewritten several times the same day so that it became necessary to note on script pages the hour of the revision. Each initial script came on white paper, with revisions appearing on different colors; Star Treks constant changes meant that every color from blue to goldenrod was used. While revisions were constant, the biggest push for change revolved around the ending. Much of the rewriting had to do with the relationship of Kirk and Spock, Decker and Ilia, and the Enterprise and Vger. A final draft of the third act was approved in late September 1978, but if it had not been for a Penthouse interview, where NASA director Robert Jastrow said that machine forms of life were likely, the ending may not have been approved at all.
Design
The first new sets (intended for Phase II) were constructed beginning Jul 25, 1977. The fabrication was supervised by Joseph Jennings, an art director involved in the original television series, special-effects expert Jim Rugg, and Matt Jeffries, on loan as consultant from Little House on the Prairie. When the television series was cancelled and plans for a film put into place, however, new sets were needed for the large 70mm film format.
Wise asked Harold Michelson to be the film's production designer, and Michelson was quickly put to work on finishing the semicomplete Phase II sets. Michelson began with the bridge, which had nearly been completed. Michelson first removed Chekov's new weapons station, a semicircular plastic bubble grafted onto one side of the bridge wall. The idea for Phase II was that Chekov would have looked out toward space while crosshairs in the bubble tracked targets. Wise wanted Chekov's station to face the Enterprises main viewer, a difficult request as the set was primarily circular. Utilizing one side of the set that for an unknown reason had been sculpted differently than the rest of the frame, production illustrator Michael Minor created a new look for the area which became Chekov's new station.
The bridge ceiling was redesigned, with Michelson taking structural inspiration from a jet engine fan. Minor built a central bubble for the ceiling to give the bridge a human touch. Ostensibly, the bubble functioned as a piece of sophisticated equipment designed to inform the captain of the ship's attitude. The device was seen in operation during the wormhole sequence, with its tilting lights giving the impression something was dramatically wrong. Most of the bridge consoles, designed by Lee Cole, remained from the television series. Cole remained on the motion picture production and was responsible for much of the visual artwork created. To inform actors and series writers, Lee prepared a USS Enterprise Flight Manual as a continuity guide to control functions. As each panel was activated by touch via heat-sensitive plates, it was necessary for all the main cast to be familiar with control sequences at their stations. The voltage of the light bulbs beneath the plastic console buttons were reduced from 25 watts to 6 watts after the generated heat began melting the controls. The seats were covered in girdle material, used because of its stretching capacity and ability to be easily dyed. The new consoles were rigged for hydraulic operation so that they could be rolled into the walls when not in use, but the system was disconnected when the crew discovered it would be easier to move them by hand.
Aside from control interfaces, the bridge set was populated with monitors looping animations. Each oval monitor was a rear-projection screen on which super 8mm and 16mm film sequences looped for each special effect. The production acquired 42 films for this purpose from an Arlington, Virginia-based company, STOMAR Enterprises. STOMAR's footage was exhausted only a few weeks into filming, and it became clear that new monitor films would be needed faster than an outside supplier could deliver them. Cole, Minor, and another production designer, Rick Sternbach, worked together with Povill to devise faster ways of shooting new footage. Cole and Povill rented an oscilloscope for a day and filmed its distortions. Other loops came from Long Beach Hospital, the University of California at San Diago, and experimental computer labs in New Mexico. In all, over two hundred pieces of monitor footage were created, catalogued into a seven-page listing of "waves", "orange gases", "asteroid library", and more.
The Enterprise engine room was dramatically redesigned, while staying consistent with the original theory that the interior appearance had to match the corresponding area visible in exterior views of the starship. Michelson wanted the engine room to seem vast, a difficult effect to achieve on a small sound stage. In order to create the illusion of depth and long visible distances, the art department staff worked on designs that would utilize forced perspective; Set designer Lewis Splittgerber considered the engine room the most difficult set to realize. While on film the egine room appeared hundreds of feet long, the set was actually only forty feet in length. To achieve the proper look, the floor slanted upward and narrowed, while very small actors of three, four, and five feet in heigh were used as extras to give the appearance of being far from the camera. For "down shots" of the engineering complex, floor paintings extended the length of the warp core several stories. J.C. Backings Company created these backings; similar paintings were used to extend the length of corridors and the rec room set.
Another of Michelson's responsibilities was redesigning the Enterprise corridors. Initially, the corridors were of straight plywood construction reminiscent of the original series, which Roddenberry referred to as "Des Moines Holiday Inn Style". To move away from this hotel look, Michelson created a new bent and angular design. Roddenberry and Wise agreed with Michelson that in three hundred years, lighting did not need to be overhead, and so they had the lighting radiate upward from the floor. Different lighting schemes were used to simulate different decks of the ship with the same length of corridor. Aluminum panels on the walls outside Kirk's quarters were covered with an orange ultrasuede to represent the area outside Illia's room.
The transporter had originally been developed for the television series as a matter of convenience; it would have been prohibitively expensive to show the Enterprise land on every new planet. For the redesign Michelson felt that the transporter should look and feel powerful. He added to the designs a sealed control room to protect technicians from the forces at work during matter transport. The space between the transporter platform and the operators was filled with complex machinery, and cinematographer Richard Kline added eerie lighting to the set to create atmosphere.
After the redesign of the Enterprise sets was complete, Michelson turned his attention to creating the original sets needed for the film. The recreation deck occupied an entire soundstage, dwarfing the small room built for the planned television series; this was the largest interior in the film. The set was 24 feet high, decorated with 107 pieces of custom-designed furniture, and packed with 300 people for filming. Below a large viewing screen on one end of the set was a series of art panels containing illustrations of previous ships bearing the name Enterprise. One of the ships was NASA's own Enterprise, added per Roddenberry's request:
Some fans have suggested that our new Enterprise should carry a plaque somewhere which commemorates the fact it was named after the first space shuttle launched from Earth in the 1970's. This is an intriguing idea. It also has publicity advantages if properly released at he right time. It wont hurt NASA's feelings either. I'll leave it to you where you want it on the vessel.
Another large construction task was the Vger set, referred to by the production staff as "the Coliseum" or "the microwave wok". The set was designed and fabricated in four and a half weeks, with a fully usable 360 degree circle; parts of the set were designed to pull away for better camera access at the center. Throughout production Star Trek used eleven of Paramount's thirty-two sound stages, more than any other film done there at the time. To save money, construction coordinator Gene Kelley struck sets with his own crew immediately after filming, lest Paramount charge the production to have the sets dismantled. The final cost for constructing the sets ran at approximately $1,985,000, not counting additional costs for Phase II fabrication.
Props and models
Ralph McQuarrie and then Ken Adam worked on the ship designs for Planet of the Titans. McQuarrie redesigned the Enterprise with a flat hull, and his models were eventually used for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Best of Both Worlds (Part II)". Sets and models including the Enterprise, the space dock and the orbital office had to be redesigned and remade to be more detailed and therefore look more impressive on screen.
Art director Richard Taylor wanted to completely redesign the ship, abandoning Jeffries' television design, but Roddenberry insisted on the same shape. Instead, Taylor focused on the details, giving it a stylization he considered "almost art deco". Concept artist Andrew Probert helped with the redesign. Probert stayed with a similar design designed by Jennings for the television movie, making the Enterprises secondary hull wider, with angled and swept back struts supporting the nacelles and an elaborate wiring system for the model's lights. In the television series, it had not been clear where the photon torpedoes were intended to have originated from, so Probert rectified this by designing multiple launcher designs at the base of the secondary hull for Taylor to choose from. Probert even added elements such as a separating saucer and landing pads that never made it to The Motion Picture or any other film featuring the model. While the hull surface was kept smooth, it was treated with a special paint finish that made its surface appear iridescent in certain lights. More windows were added than the previous design, and transparent images of the sets were inserted behind the windows so that when the camera approached the model it appeared that viewers could see something inside. As a joke, these images featured Probert, other production staff members, and Mickey Mouse.
Most of the models in The Motion Picture were created by Magicam, a Paramount subsidiary. The main Enterprise model was eight feet long, to a scale of 1 inch to 10 feet. It took fourteen months and $150,000 to build. Instead of standard fiberglass used for older models, the new Enterprise was constructed with lightweight plastics, weighing eighty-five pounds. The biggest design issue was making sure that the connective neck and engine struts were strong enough so that no part of the ship model would sag, bend, or quiver when the model was being moved. The completed model was supported at five different points as each photographic angle required. A second, 20 inch long model of the ship was used for long shots. Magicam also produced the orbital dry dock seen during the Enterprises first appearance in the film. Four feet high by ten and a half feet deep and six feet in width, its fifty-six neon panels required 168,000 volts of electricity to operate. A separate table was needed to support the transformers supplying the power; the final price tag was $200,000.
The Motion Pictures props were handled by Dick Rubin, who set up a makeshift office in the corner of stage 9 throughout production. Rubin's philosophy as property master was that nearly every actor or extra ought to have something in their hands. As such, Rubin devised and fabricated approximately three hundred and fifty props for the film, fifty-five of which were used in the San Francisco tram scene alone. While many of the props stood in for items previously seen in Star Trek—phasers and handheld communicators, for instance—all the props were redesigned. The only prop that remained from the original television series was Uhura's wireless earpiece, which Nichols specifically requested on the first day of shooting (and all the production crew save those who had worked on the television show had forgotten about.) The new phaser was entirely self-contained, with its own circuitry, batteries, and four blinking lights. The props came with a hefty $4000 price tag; to save money, the lights were dropped, reducing the size of the phaser by a third. A total of fifteen of the devices were made for the film. The communicators were radically altered, as by the 1970s the microminiaturization of electronics convinced Roddenberry that the bulky handheld devices of the television series were no longer feasible. A wrist-based design was decided upon, with the provision that it look far different than the watch Dick Tracy had been using for decades previous. Two hundred communicators were fashioned, but only a few were the $3500 top models, used for close-ups of the device in action. Most of the props were made from plastic, as Rubin thought that in the future manmade materials would be almost exclusively used.
Costumes and makeup
Roddenberry firmly believed that throwaway clothes were the future of the industry, and the idea was incorporated into the costumes of The Motion Picture. William Ware Theiss, the designer who created the original television series costumes, was too busy to work on the film. Instead Robert Fletcher, considered one of American theater's most successful costume and scenic designers, was selected to design the new uniforms, suits, and robes for the production. Fletcher preferred natural materials to manmade fabrics, finding that these fabrics sewed better and lasted longer. As times had changed, the Starfleet uniforms, with their bright reds, blues, greens, and golds, had to be revised: the miniskirts worn by females on the show seemed exciting in the 1960s but would now be considered sexist. Wise deemed the original multicolored uniforms too garish, and Fletcher believed that the brightness of these old designs would work against believability when seen on the wide screen. His first task was to redesign these uniforms, meeting Wise's requirements of not detracting from the action.
In the original series, divisions in ship assignments were denoted by shirt color; for the movie, these color codes were moved to small patches on each person's uniform. The Starfleet delta symbol, which previously indicated duty branches—command, science, medical, engineering, and so forth—was replaced with the command symbol for all branches, superimposed over a circle of color indicating area of service. The blue color of previous uniforms was discarded, for fear they might interfere with the blue screens used for optical effects. Three types of uniforms were fabricated: dress uniforms used for special occasions, Class A uniforms for regular duty, and Class B uniforms as an alternative. The Class A designs were double-stitched in gabardine and featured gold braid designating rank. It was felt that the traditional four gold sleeve stripes for the captain's rank was too blatantly militaristic. Povill had to send out a memo to Fletcher with the modified stripe rank system, as the designer continued to get the 20th and 23rd centuries confused. Fletcher also designed a Class B uniform, designed as similar to evolved t-shirts with shoulder boards used to indicate rank and service divisions. Each costume had the shoes built into the pant leg to further the futuristic look. An Italian shoemaker decorated by the Italian government for making Gucci shoes was tasked with creating the futuristic footwear. Combining the shoes and trousers was difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, as each shoe had to be sewn by hand after being fitted to each principal actor. There were difficulties in communication, as the shoemaker spoke limited English and occasionally confused shoe orders due to similar-sounding names. Jumpsuits, serving a more utilitarian function, were the only costumes to have pockets, and were made with a heavyweight spandex that required a special needle to puncture the thick material. A variety of field jackets, leisure wear, and spacesuits were also created; as these parts had to be designed and completed before most of the actors' parts had been cast, many roles were filled by considering how well the actors would fit into existing costumes.
For the civilians of San Francisco, Fletcher decided on a greater freedom in dress, with much of the materials for these casual clothes found in the old storerooms at Paramount, where a large amount of unused or forgotten silks, crepes, and leathers were found. One bolt of material had been handpicked by director Cecil B. DeMille in 1939, and was in perfect condition. The red, black, and gold brocade was woven with real gold and silver wrapped around silk thread; the resulting costume was used for a Betelgeusean ambassador and at a price of $10,000 for the fabric alone was the most expensive costume ever worn by a Hollywood extra. Fletcher also recycled suedes from The Ten Commandments for the Zaranite costumes. With the approval of Roddenberry, Fletcher fashioned complete backgrounds for the alien races seen in the Earth and recreation deck sequences, describing their appearances and the composition of their costumes.
Fred Phillips, the original designer of Spock's Vulcan ears, served as The Motion Pictures makeup artist. He and his staff were responsible for fifty mask masks and makeups for the aliens seen in the film. The designs were developed by Phillips himself or else off Fletcher's sketches. In his long association with Star Trek Phillips produced his 2000th Spock ear during production of The Motion Picture. Each ear was made of latex and other ingredients blended together in a kitchen mixer, then baked for six hours. Though Phillips had saved the original television series casts used for making the appliances, Nimoy's ears had grown in the decade since and new molds had to be fabricated. While on the small screen the ears could be used up to four times, since nicks and tears did not show up on television, Phillips had to create around three pairs a day for Nimoy during filming. The upswept Vulcan eyebrows needed to be applied hair by hair for proper detail, and it took Nimoy more than two hours to perpare for filming—twice as long as it had for television.
In addition to developing Vulcan ears and alien masks, Phillips and his assistant Charles Schram applied more routine makeup to the principal actors. Khambatta's head had to be freshly shaved each day, then given an application of makeup to reduce glare from the hot set lights. Khambatta had no qualms about shaving her head at first, but began worrying if her hair would grow back properly. Roddenberry proposed insuring Khambatta's hair after the actress voiced her concerns, believing the price of such insurance to be negligible. Roddenberry also saw other benefits to taking out a policy:
...Second, [the insurance] would have the advantage of reassuring [Khambatta] and making her feel more comfortable during her role. Third and finally, if the price does turn out to be negligible, John Rothwell, our publicist, assures me that we would probably get many times the cost back in publicity about the insurance.
The idea was ultimately scrapped, as it turned out it would be highly expensive since the insurance company believed that there would be difficulty in proving that the hair grew back exactly the same as before. Instead, Khambatta visited the Georgette Klinger Skin Car Salon in Beverley Hills, where experts recommended that she receive six facials and scalp treatments during the course of production. The salon also prescribed a daily scalp treatment routine of cleansing bars, brilliantine lotion, conditioner, makeup remover, and cleansing lotion. The studio agreed these measures were necessary and footed the bill while Khambatta spent six months following the tedious instructions (her hair eventually regrew without issue, though she kept her shaven locks even after production had ended.)
Technical consulting
In the decade since the end of the Star Trek television series and the film, many of the futuristic technologies that appeared on the show—electronic doors that open automatically, hypodermic injections, talking computers, weapons that stun rather than kill, and personal communication devices—had become a reality. Roddenberry had insisted that the technology aboard the Enterprise be grounded in established science and scientific theories. The Motion Picture likewise received technical consultation from NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as individuals such as a former astronaut and Isaac Asimov.
The greatest amount of technical advice for the production came from NASA. Trek fan Jesco von Puttkamer was furnished by NASA as advisor to the film. Roddenberry had known Puttkamer since 1975, when they had been introduced by a mutual friend, the Assistant Director of Astronautics at the Smithsonian Institute. From 1976 until the completion of the film Puttkamer provided the writers, producer, and director with memos on everything technical in the script; the scientist reviewed every line in the script, and was unpaid for his assistance. "Science fiction films, including those of the recent past, have been woefully short of good science advice," he said. "Star Wars [is] really not science fiction. I loved it, but it's a fairy tale of princes and knights in another galaxy. The technology was improbable, the science impossible."
At one point, one newspaper erroneously reported that NASA and JPL had loaned valuable equipment to the production and had hired the FBI to protect it. The press prompted at least one constituent to writer to her senator and complain about the misuse of taxpayer funds; the senator initiated an investigation. The debacle prompted Roddenberry to solicit Paramount's publicity department and ask them to release more publicity to stem further rumors.
During the rewrite of the final scenes, the studio executives clashed with Roddenberry about the script's ending, believing that the concept of a living machine was too far-fetched. The executives selected Asimov as a consultant, deciding that if the writer decided an intelligent machine consciousness was plausible, the ending could stay. Asimov loved the ending, but made one small suggestion; he felt that the use of the word "wormhole" was incorrect, and that the anamoly that the Enterprise found itself in would be more accurately called a "temporal tunnel".
Filming
The first scene of The Motion Picture was filmed on August 7, 1978. A few ad-libbed ceremonies were performed; Roddenberry gave Wise his baseball cap, emblazoned with "Enterprise" in gold lettering (the cap was a gift from the captain of the nuclear carrier Enterprise.) Wise and Roddenberry then cracked a special breakaway bottle of champagne on the bridge set (there was no liquid inside, as flying champagne would have messed up the readied set.) The first scene planned was the chaotic mess aboard the Enterprise bridge as the crew readies the ship for space travel; Wise directed fifteen takes into the late afternoon before he was content with the scene. On the first day's shooting, a total of 1,650 feet of film was used; 420 feet were good, 1,070 feet were no good, and 160 feet were wasted; only one and one-eighth pages had been shot.
Alex Weldon was hired to be supervisor of special effects for the film. Weldon was planning on retiring after 42 years of effects work, but his wife urged him to take on Star Trek because she thought he didn't have enough to do. When Weldon was hired, many of the effects had already been started or completed by Rugg; it was up to Weldon to complete more complex and higher-budgeted effects for the motion picture. The first step of preparation involved analysing the script in terms of the number, duration, and type of effects. Before costs could be determined and Weldon could shop for necessary items, he and the other members of the special effects team worked out all possibilities for pulling off the effects in a convincing manner.
The production was for most of the filming a closed set, with great measures taken to maintain the secrecy of the plot. Scripts were numbered and a list was kept of the person who received each copy. The press was told nothing about the story and only a few production stills were allowed to be published. During construction one young visitor to stage 9 stole a copy of blueprints for the bridge set and sold duplicates of theme to any fans who would pay him $75; Paramount reported the matter to the FBI, who turned the case over the the LAPD. The police arrested, convicted, and fined the man $750; it was later discovered that the stolen plans were in fact not the final copies. Visitor's badges were created to keep track of guests, and due to the limited number were constantly checked out; among the visitors included friends of the cast and crew, the press, fan leaders, and actors such as Clint Eastwood, Tony Curtis, Robin Williams and Mel Brooks
Richard H. Kline served as the film's cinematographer. Working from sketch artist Maruice Zuberano's concepts, Wise would judge if they were on the right track. Kline and Michelson would then discuss the look they wanted (along with Weldon, if effects were involved.) Each sequence was then storyboarded and left to Kline to execute. The cinematographer called his function to "interpret [the] preplanning and make it indelible on film. It's a way of everybody being on the same wavelength." Kline would recall that there was not a single "easy" shot to produce for the picture, as each scene required special consideration. The bridge, for example, was light with a low density of light in order to make the console monitors show up better. It was hard to frame shots so that reflections of the crew in monitors or light spilling through grillwork were not seen in the final print.
While Kline was concerned with lighting, print quality, and color, Bonnie Prendergast, the script supervisor, took notes that would be written up after the company had broken for the day. Prendergast's role was to ensure continuity in wardrobe, actor position, and prop placement. Any changes in dialogue or ab-libbed lines were similarly recorded. Assistant director Danny McCauley was responsible for collaborating with unit production manager Phil Rawlins to finalize shooting orders and assigning extras. Rawlins, McCauley, production manager Lindsley Parson Jr. and studio executive in charage of production, Jeff Katzenberg, were all tasked with keeping things moving as fast as possible and keeping the budget under control; every hour on stage cost the production $4000. Wise was very patient on set; bets were placed on when he would finally lose his temper, but when he never lost his cool pool organizers returned the money.
The planet Vulcan was created using a mixture of on-location photography at Minerva Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park and set recreation. Yellowstone was only selected after shooting by Turkish ruins proved to be too expensive. Getting permission for filming the scenes was difficult in the middle of the summer tourist season, but the Parks Department acquiesced so long as the crew remained on the boardwalks to prevent damage to geological formations. Zuberano, who had helped select the site for the shoot, travelled to Yellowstone and returned with a number of photos. Minor also made a trip and returned to create a large painting depicting how the scene might look. In consultations with Michelson, the crew decided to use miniatures in the foreground to create the Vulcan temples, combined with the real hot springs in the background. In the film, the bottom third of the frames were composed of miniature stairs, rocks, bits of red glass and a miniature version of a Vulcan statue The center of the frame contained Nimoy's shots and the park, while the final third of the frame was filled with a matt painting. On August 8, the day after production began at Paramount, an eleven-person second unit left for Yellowstone. The sequence took three days to shoot.
On returning to Paramount, the art department had to recreate parts of Yellowstone in the studio lot for the remainder of the scenes. An exterior site was chosen in a large "B tank", 110 by 150 feet long. The tank was made to be flooding with millions of gallons of water to represent large bodies of water. Minor set up miniatures on the tank's floor before construction and made sure that the shadows that fell on Spock at Yellowstone could be properly recreated. A plywood base was built on metal platforms to create stone silhouettes, reinforced with chicken wire. Polyurethane foam was sprayed over the framework under the supervision of the Los Angeles Fire Department. The bottom part of the statue miniature was represented by a 16 foot high fiberglass foot. Weldon matched the effects filmed at Yellowstone using dry ice and steam machines. To recreate the appearance of the swirling pools of water in the real Yellowstone, a combination of evaporated milk, white poster paint, and water was poured into the set's pools. The pressure of the steam channeled into the pools through hidden tubing causes enough movement in the whirlpools to duplicate the location footage. Due to the requirement that the sun be in a specific location and bright enough, production feel behind schedule when it was unseasonably cloudy for three days straight. Any further scenes to recreate Vulcan would be impossible, as the set was immediately torn down to serve as a parking lot for the remainder of the summer.
The brilliant explosion of an engine room console that causes the transporter malfunction was simulated using brillo pads. Weldon hit steel wool inside the consol and attached an arc welder to operate by remote control when the actor pulled a wire. The welder was designed to create a spark instead of actually welding, causing the steel wool to burn and make sparks; so effective was the setup that the cast members were continually startled by the flare-ups, resulting in additional takes.
Chekov's burns sustained by V'ger were difficult to film. Though the incident took only minutes on film, Weldon spent hours preparing the effect. A piece of aluminum foil was placed around Koenig's arm, covered by a protective pad and then hidden by the uniform sleeve. Weldon prepared an ammonia and acetic acid solution that was touched to Koenig's sleeve, causing it to smoke. Difficulties resulting in the scene being shot ten times; it was especially uncomfortable for the actor, whose arm was slightly burned when some of the solution leaked through to his arm.
Throughout the film various canisters and cargo containers appear to be suspended by antigravity. These effects were executed by several of Weldon's assistants, particularly Marty Bresin. Bresin built a circular track that had the same shape as the corridor and suspended the antigravity prop on four very small wires that connected to the track. The wires were treated with a special acid which oxidized the metal and turned the wires a dull grey that would not show up in the deep blue corridor lighting. Cargo boxes were made out of light balsa wood so that very fine wires could be used as support.
Khambatta's appearance as the Illia probe in a shower proved difficult as the actress' conservative Indian upbringing meant she would not appear nude as called for in the script. The producers finally got her to agree to wear a thin skin-colored body stocking, but she managed to cathch a cold as a result of the shower mist, created by dropping dry ice into warm water. The resulting vapor was funneled into the shower by hidden tube. Not only did the heavy vapors sink to the bottom of the floor and chill Khambatta, but she had to leave the shower repeatedly to avoid hypercapnia. Khambatta faced other obstacles in filming her effects. One scene required the Ilia probe to slice through a steal door in the sickbay. Deciding the best way to make it appear that the probe could slice through a door like paper was to make the door actually made out of paper, Weldon created eight sets of doors. Some were made of corrigated cardboard covered with sheets of aluminum foil. Others were made from foil-covered cork; the doors were scored with a razor blade to make them weaker. During filming, some doors gave way too easily, and all the doors were used to get the proper effect. The illuminated button in the hollow of the probe's throat was a 12-volt light bulb that Khambatta could turn on and off via hidden wires; the bulb's heat eventually caused a slight burn.
The last week of production was fraught with issues. Red gel lights appeared orange upon reviewing the daily footage; the lights were faulty, and three people were nearly electrocuted. On January 26, 1979, the film finally wrapped after 125 days. The three leads (Shatner, Nimoy, and Kelley) delivered their final lines at 4:50. Before the crew could go home, however, a final shot had to be filmed—the climactic fusing of Decker and V'ger. The script prescribed a heavy emphasis on lighting, with spiraling and blinding white lights. Collins was covered in tiny dabs of cotton glued to his jacket; these highlights were designed to create a body halo. 4000 watt lamps, helicopter lights, and wind machines were used to create the effect of Decker's fusion with the living machine. The first attempts at filming the scene became a nightmare. The extreme lighting caused normally invisible dust particle in the air to make it appear that the actors were caught in a blizzard. During the retakes throughout the week the crew mopped and dusted the set constantly, and it required later technical work to completely eliminate the dust in the final print.
Two weeks later, the entire cast and crew joined with studio executives for a traditional wrap party. Four hundred people attended the gathering, which took place at two restaurants in Beverly Hills. While postproduction still loomed for much of the crew, Wise and Roddenberry were grateful for the opportunity to catch their breath and take a short vacation.
Post-production
While the cast departed to work on other projects, the postproduction team was tasked with finalizing the film in time for a Christmas release at the very latest; the resulting work would take twice the amount of time as had been spent in the filming process. Editor Todd Ramsay and his assistants had spent their time during shooting syncing film and audio tracks and creating rough cuts of the sequences while plans were discussed for the sound effects, music, and optical effects that would be added later.
While Wise made sure his directing choices were reflected on screen, Roddenberry also provided a large amount of input. On April 19 he sent off an eleven page memo to Ramsay via Wise where he proposed several ideas for editing, including looping the Vulcan ceremony into a Vulcan language, feeling that fans would consider it a "cheat" to have the Klingons speak in their language while having the Vulcans perform in "King James-type English", as well as more cuts to supporting characters during interactions. Ramsay tried to cut as much footage and unnecessary moments as long as the cuts did not jeopardize character or story development or short-change the visual sweep of the film.
At the time "In Thy Image" was being prepared as a television movie, the producers were keenly aware that after the optical effects of Star Wars the television movie could not settle for outdated effects. Postproduction supervisor Paul Rabwin suggested Robert Abel's production company Robert Abel and Associates might be up to the task; Douglas Trumbull, a film director who had worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey, concurred with the choice. When the television movie became The Motion Picture, the number and complexity of the effects increased. Abel and Associated bid $4 million for doing the film's effects and Paramount accepted. By May 1978 Abel revised their bid $750,000 upwards as new effects were added, and Roddenberry began to suggest that the effects costs and schedules be reexamined. Creative differences grew between Abel's company and the Paramount production team, and by mid-February, 1979, the two companies agreed their differences were irreconcilable. Primary responsibility for The Motion Picture's primary optical effects was given to Trumbull, who had just become available. The studio wasted $5 million and a year's worth of time with the change. In March the studio offered Trumbull virtual carte blanche if he could get the opticals work completed by December, the release date that Paramount was financially committed having accepted advances from exhibitors planning on a Christmas delivery. Trumbull was confident that he could get the work done without a loss of quality, and with colleague Richard Yuricich the effects team rushed to finish; the effects budget figure climbed to $10 million.
Yuricich's previous work had been as Director of Photography for Photographic Effects on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and he and Trumbull formulated a plan which involved reassembling the equipment and crew from Close Encounters, modifying existing equipment and factories for the new opticals and adding more stage space, cameras, and personnel. Time, not money, was the main issue; Trumbull had to deliver in nine months twice the effects as found in Star Wars or Close Encounters, both of which had taken years to complete.
Trumbull felt that the Enterprises lights were not adequate for his needs, and had the model completely rewired. He questioned that the ENterprise could be traveling years from any source of light and yet still be fully illuminated. Instead of having the ship completely dark save for viewports, Trumbull came up with a system of self-illumination; he pictured the ship as something like an oceanliner, "a grand lady of the seas at night". A similar method was used on the Klingon cruiser model, but he made it less well-lit to convey a different look than the clean visuals of the Federation—the cruiser was meant to evoke "an enemy submarine in World War II that's been out at sea for too long".
The scenes of Kirk and Scott approaching the Enterprise in drydock spanned two pages of script but took forty-five different shots (averaging one shot a day) for the travel pod containing Kirk to make its flight from the space office complex to the docking ring. Double shifts around the clock were required to finish the effect on time. For close shots of the pod traveling to the Enterprise, close-ups of Shatner and Doohan were composited into the model, while in long shots lookalike puppets were used.
John Dykstra, known for his work on Star Wars, and his production house Apogee Company, were subcontracted to Trumbull. Employing a staff of 60 people, Dykstra still found the work time-consuming, as Paramount's directives including creating effects that had not been seen before, completing them on time and keeping the price down while they were at it. In addition to detailing and shipping the models to Trumbull, Apogee was responsible for preparing the transporter sequences, V'ger's whiplash bold, the destruction of the Klingon vessels, the building of the Epsilon 9 miniature, the wormhole asteroid, and the maw and exterior of V'ger.
Yuricich also provided much of the matte paintings used in the film, having previously worked on The Day the Earth Stood Still, Ben Hur, North by Nortwest and Logans Run. The paintings were combined with live action after a selected area of the frame was matted out. For example, the blue Earth sky over Yellowstone was replaced with the specially-created painting of a red-hued Vulcan landscape. More than one-hundred such paintings were used. Robert McCall, known for designing the original posters to to 2001: A Space Odyssey, provided Trumbull with concept art to inform Spock's spacewalk sequence.
Music
The score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was written by Jerry Goldsmith, who would later compose the scores Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis, as well as the themes to the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. Gene Roddenberry had originally wanted Goldsmith to score Star Trek's pilot episode, "The Cage", but the composer was unavailable. When Wise signed on to direct, Paramount asked the director if he had any objection to using Goldsmith. Wise, who had worked with the composer for The Sand Pebbles, replied "Hell, no. He's great!" Wise would later consider his work with Goldsmith one of the very best relationships he ever had with a composer.
For Star Trek, Goldsmith was charged with depicting a universe with his music, and so it is extremely expansive. Goldsmith's initial main theme was not well-received by the filmmakers (director Robert Wise felt "It sounds like sailing ships"). Although somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial ideas.
Alexander Courage, who composed the theme for the original Star Trek television series, was a friend of Goldsmith's, and served as his orchestrator on several scores. Courage also provided a new arrangement of his theme from the original series for use in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Another of the original series' composers, Fred Steiner, provided a few minor cues based on Goldsmith's original material (as deadlines prevented Goldsmith from completing every last scene). A considerable portion of the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was conducted by an uncredited Lionel Newman (as Goldsmith, owing to the unusual instrumental blends, preferred to monitor the balance in the recording booth).
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only Star Trek film to have a true overture, using "Ilia's Theme" for this music. Star Trek and The Black Hole would be the only feature films to use an overture from the end of 1979 until the year 2000 (with the movie Dancer in the Dark).
Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 11, manufactured by Pasadena, California custom synthesizer manufacturer Con Brio, Inc. The movie provided major publicity at the time and was used to advertise the synthesizer, though no price was given at the time.
The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam, an electronic instrument about 10 feet long, stringed, and played with an artillery shell. Jerry Goldsmith used it to create the eerie signature V'Ger sound. The Blaster Beam was developed by musician Craig Huxley, who, as a child actor, had appeared on two episodes of the original Star Trek TV series. Goldsmith also utilized a large pipe organ, which required the score be recorded at 20th Century Fox (which had the only scoring stage in Los Angeles equipped with such an organ).
When the film was originally made, the rush to get it into theaters on time left much of the sound design unfinished. When the DVD Director's Edition was released, Robert Wise and Foundation Imaging took the time to complete the sound mix, adding in many of the previously unfinished elements, as well as create a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.
Reception
Release
To coincide with the release of the film Pocket Books published a novelization of the film written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. This book was the only Star Trek novel published by Roddenberry and spawned Pocket Books' Star Trek book franchise which within a decade had produced 18 consecutive bestsellers. Roddenberry's novel adds further backstory to the film and elements that did not appear in the movie; for example, the novelization mentions Willard Decker as the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the original series episode "The Doomsday Machine". While this origin was planned for the Phase II television series, it was never mentioned in the film.
The film's world premiere was held at the K-B Mac Arthur Theater in Washington, DC. Roddenberry, Wise, and the principal cast members attended the function, which served as an invitational benefit for the scholarship and youth education fund of the National Space Club. While thousands of fans were expected to attend, rain reduced the fan turnout to around 300. The premiere was followed by a black-tie reception at the National Air and Space Museum. More than 500 people filled the museum, consisting of the cast and crew, working members of the space community, and the few "hardcore Trekkies" who could
afford the $100 admission price.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture opened on December 7 in 859 theaters and set a box office record by for highest weekend gross, making $11,815,203 in its first weekend (generally considered to be a slow time for the movie business). The film beat the previous record set by Superman, which had opened in a similar number of theaters but had been released in late December at a busier time. The Motion Picture earned $17 million within a week. It grossed $82,258,456 in the U.S. and $139 million worldwide. Though it made a fair amount of money, the film's gross was considered to be disappointing, considering its large $46 million budget. (Although it should be noted that to a certain extent, that figure is an accounting fiction, and the film itself did not actually cost $46 million to make. Reportedly, when Paramount decided to scrap their plans for Star Trek: Phase II and a fourth TV network, the accounting department decided to apply the development costs of those projects against Star Trek: The Motion Pictures budget, on the assumption that Star Wars-like box office figures would make up for the losses on the former projects.) The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Harold Michelson, Joseph R. Jennings, Leon Harris, John Vallone and Linda DeScenna), Best Effects and Best Music.
Critical response
The Motion Picture met with lukewarm reception from critics.
Time magazine gave the film an unfavorable review, criticizing the slowness of the film and its reliance on special effects. A 2001 BBC review claims the film was a critical failure. The Washington Post called it a "passive adventure", while Gene Siskel felt the film "teeters towards being a crashing bore" whenever Persis Khambatta was not on screen.
James Berardinelli, reviewing the film in 1996, mirrored these criticisms, also finding that it bore too close a resemblance to the original series episode "The Changeling", but considered the start and end of the film to be strong. The slow pacing, extended reaction shots, and the film's lack of 'action' scenes led Star Trek fans to nickname the film The Slow Motion Picture,, or sometimes The Motionless Picture.
Home video
An extended cut of the film on videotape and ABC network television released in 1983 included a number of small character moments that had been trimmed. This was one of the first occasions in which an extended version of a film was created for television and the then-new home video market. The additional footage included a thruster-suited Kirk leaving the Enterprise in pursuit of Spock. This scene had no special effects applied, so viewers were clearly able to see the scaffolding and ceiling of the soundstage in which the sequence was filmed. (This sequence can still be viewed among deleted scenes included on the 2001 DVD release.)
In 2001, a Director's Edition of the film was released on VHS and DVD. Robert Wise was given the opportunity to re-edit the film to better match his original vision, and also to use computer-generated imagery to complete sequences which had been curtailed due to shooting deadlines. The new effects were based on storyboards from the original production and produced to appear as if done using the effects technology of the time. Several continuity errors were also corrected, but some were also added. Edits to improve the film's pacing were made, especially effective in the film's second half, where segments were trimmed to curtail prolonged reaction shots of the actors to the interior of V'Ger. This Director's Edition of the film also has a proper sound mix, which was lacking in the theatrical presentation.
Annotations
Special effects refers to live effects done during filming, while optical effects are done in postproduction after the completion of principal photography.
The largest part of production had been completed by this time, but three live-action scenes (the San Francisco tram sequence, the Klingon bridge sequence, and the Epsilon 9 scenes) were filmed after the party during postproduction.
The authorship of the book was debated for a time, with incorrect rumors in the 1980s that it was actually ghost written by Alan Dean Foster.
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