Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. When a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V’ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) assumes command of his old starship—the USS Enterprise—to lead it on a mission to save the planet and determine V’ger’s origins.
When the original television series was cancelled in 1969, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry lobbied Paramount to continue the franchise through a film. The success of the series in syndication convinced the studio to begin work on a feature film in 1975. A series of writers attempted to craft a suitably epic script, but the attempts did not satisfy Paramount, so the studio scrapped the project in 1977. Paramount instead planned on returning the franchise to its roots with a new television series, Star Trek: Phase II. The box office success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind convinced Paramount that science fiction films other than Star Wars could do well at the box office, so the studio canceled production of Phase II and resumed its attempts at making a Star Trek film. In 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since the 1950s to announce that Academy Award–winning director Robert Wise would helm a $15 million film adaptation of the television series.
With the cancellation of the new television series, the 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 new versions of the shooting script were distributed hourly. The Enterprise was completely redesigned inside and out; costume designer Robert Fletcher provided new uniforms and production designer Harold Michelson fabricated new sets. Jerry Goldsmith composed the score, beginning an association with Star Trek that would continue until 2002. When the original contractors for the optical effects proved unable to complete their tasks in time, effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull was given carte blanche to meet the December 1979 release date. The film came together only days before the premiere; Wise took the just-completed film to its Washington, D.C., opening, but always felt that the theatrical version was a rough cut of the film he wanted to make.
Released in North America on December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom criticized the film for its lack of action and over-reliance on special effects. The final production cost ballooned to approximately $46 million. The film earned $139 million worldwide, falling short of studio expectations but enough for Paramount to propose a cheaper sequel. Roddenberry was forced out of creative control for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In 2001, Wise created a director’s cut for a special DVD release of the film; a team remastered the audio, tightened and added scenes, and used new computer-generated effects to complete his vision.
Directed by Robert Wise
Star Trek The Motion Picture Cast
Writers
Television series Star Trek
Gene Roddenberry
Story
Alan Dean Foster
Screenplay
Harold Livingston
Producers
David C. Fein … producer (2001 director’s edition)
Jon Povill … associate producer
Gene Roddenberry … producer
Cast
William Shatner … Admiral James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mr. Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
James Doohan … Cmdr. Montgomery ‘Scotty’ Scott
George Takei … Lt. Cmdr. Hikaru Sulu
Majel Barrett … Dr. Christine Chapel
Walter Koenig … Lt. Pavel Chekov
Nichelle Nichols … Lt. Cmdr. Uhura
Persis Khambatta … Lt. Ilia
Stephen Collins … Cmdr. Willard Decker
Grace Lee Whitney … CPO Janice Rand
Mark Lenard … Klingon Captain
Billy Van Zandt … Alien Boy
Roger Aaron Brown … Epsilon Technician
Gary Faga … Airlock Technician
David Gautreaux … Cmdr. Branch
John D. Gowans … Assistant to Rand
Howard Itzkowitz … Cargo Deck Ensign
Jon Rashad Kamal … Cmdr. Sonak
Marcy Lafferty … Chief DiFalco
Michele Ameen Billy … Lieutenant
Jeri McBride … Technician
Terrence O’Connor … Chief Ross
Michael Rougas … Lt. Cleary
Susan J. Sullivan … Vice-Adm. Lori Ciana
Plot
A Starfleet monitoring station detects an alien force hidden in a massive cloud of energy moving through space towards Earth. The cloud destroys three Klingon warships and the monitoring station en route. On Earth, the starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit; its former commander, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and works in San Francisco as Chief of Starfleet Operations. Starfleet dispatches the Enterprise to investigate the cloud entity as the ship is the only one in intercept range, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.
Persis Khambatta
Kirk takes command of the ship citing his experience, angering Captain Willard Decker, who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprise’s new systems goes poorly; two officers, including the science officer, are killed by a malfunctioning transporter, and improperly calibrated engines almost destroy the ship. The tension between Kirk and Decker increases when the admiral demonstrates his unfamiliarity with Enterprise. Spock arrives as replacement science officer, explaining that while on his home world undergoing a ritual to purge all emotion, he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the cloud.
The Enterprise intercepts the energy cloud and is heavily damaged by an alien vessel. A probe appears on the bridge, attacks Spock and abducts the navigator, Ilia. She is replaced by a robotic doppelgänger, a probe sent by “V’ger” to study the crew. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history. He becomes troubled as he attempts to extract information from the doppelgänger, which 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 massive ship, V’ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a 20th-century Earth space probe believed lost. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned, and return that information to its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its 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 focus other than its original mission; having learned what it could on its journey home, it finds its existence empty and without purpose. Before transmitting all its information, V’ger insists that the Creator come in person to finish the sequence. Realizing that the machine wants to merge with its creator, Decker offers himself to V’ger; he merges with the Ilia probe and V’ger, creating a new form of life that disappears into another dimension. With Earth saved, Kirk directs the Enterprise out to space for future missions.
Trivia
Viewing Spock’s mind meld with V’Ger frame by frame shows images of the Klingons, Ilia, Epsilon IX, and the Voyager VI space probe.
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”, Gene 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 two-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.
Director Robert E. Collins, whose background was mostly in television, was hired to direct the two-hour premiere, but after the change to a movie, Paramount wanted a more experienced director and replaced him with Robert Wise.
Gene Roddenberry wanted Alan Dean Foster to write the final script for the film, but Harold Livingston thought him too inexperienced and tried to hire Steven Bochco, who was unavailable; Michael Cimino, who wasn’t interested; and Bill L. Norton, who initially accepted but found it beyond his capabilities. In the end Livingston did the job himself. He disagreed repeatedly with Roddenberry over rewrites and other matters, and quit and returned several times.
The TV series was to have three new regular characters. Paramount was concerned that William Shatner might ask for too much money to continue playing Kirk if the run of the series was extended beyond the initial order of 13 episodes; the character of Decker was created so that if Kirk had to be written out, Decker could become the series’ new lead role. Decker was played in the movie by Stephen Collins.
Leonard Nimoy declined to return as Spock for the series, so a new Vulcan character called Lieutenant Xon was created to be the new science officer. An employee of an agent was dating a young actor, David Gautreaux, who had no agent of his own; she suggested him for the part and he got it, then was told that it was actually for a movie. When Nimoy finally agreed to do the movie, Spock replaced Xon in the script and Gautreaux was given the smaller part of Commander Branch.
The character of Lieutenant Ilia, played by Persis Khambatta, was also intended as a continuing role in the TV series.
The original version of the “Space Walk” sequence had both Spock and Captain Kirk travelling through V’ger. Because it complicated the flow of the film, the scene was reshot with Spock alone, and that’s what’s seen in the final cut. However, a fraction of this alternate scene remains in the longer version, where Kirk says, “I have him in sight”.
The V’ger prop was so large and involved so much work that one end of it was being used in scenes while the other end was still being built.
In the scene where Kirk addresses the crew prior to launching, much of the crew were extras who were noted Star Trek fans, including Bjo Trimble, co-organizer of the letter-writing campaign that kept the original Star Trek alive for a third season.
It was understood in the script, but not in the film, that Commander Willard Decker was the son of Commodore Matthew Decker, the half-crazed starship captain who committed suicide in the Star Trek episode ‘The Doomsday Machine’.
Jerry Goldsmith’s Academy Award-nominated score featured a special musical instrument called the ‘Blaster Beam’, an instrument 15 feet long, incorporating artillery shell casings and motorized magnets. It was used as part of any scene featuring V’ger. The instrument was invented by former child star turned New Age musician Craig Hundley who, in his youth, had portrayed Captain Kirk’s nephew, Peter Kirk, in the Star Trek episode, ‘Operation – Annihilate!’. He appeared in another episode as Tommy Starnes in ‘And the Children Shall Lead’.
Gene Roddenberry so loved the main theme from the score that he reused it for Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The voice of actress Majel Barrett (who plays Dr. Christine Chapel and was Gene Roddenberry’s wife) was used for Star Fleet computers such as that of the Enterprise throughout the “Star Trek” franchise, from the original Star Trek series through to the Star Trek reimagining. Her voice in this picture is already very recognizable although she doesn’t have a lot of lines.
Because of the need to re-build sets and models when the production switched from a television series to a big-budget feature film, the production was already ten weeks behind schedule before a single frame was shot. Director Robert Wise repeatedly considered quitting the production, and at one point even suggested that Paramount cancel the project altogether.
Robert Wise was convinced to accept the position as director by his wife, who was a huge fan of the original Star Trek television series. His wife was also instrumental in convincing Wise to campaign for Leonard Nimoy’s return to the project.
Prior to production, Gene Roddenberry joked that he wanted Richard Burton for the role of Kirk and Robert Redford to play Spock. The joke was reported as fact by some media. The role of Decker wasn’t cast until days before production started. Actors considered included: Andrew Robinson – who later played Elim Garak on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Jordan Clarke, ‘Richard Kelton (I)’, Lance Henriksen, Tim Thomerson, ‘Stephen Macht (I)’, Art Hindle and Frederic Forrest.
This film marked the first appearance of the ridged-forehead Klingons. In the original TV series Gene Roddenberry wanted the Klingons to look alien, but budget constraints prevented this from being done beyond giving the actors dark mark-up and fake eyebrows. The change in the Klingons’ appearance was partially addressed in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’, establishing the existence of smooth-forehead Klingons. However, ridged-forehead Klingons appeared in the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise prompting a satisfactory explanation to the brief existence of smooth-forehead Klingons. The episodes ‘Affliction’ and ‘Divergence’ showed their existence resulted from a viral mutation caused by Klingon experimentation with enhanced human DNA.
The original TV series theme by Alexander Courage can be heard briefly during Kirk’s log entry after Spock rejoins the crew. It can also be heard during two more “Captain’s Log” dictations. Except for the opening fanfare which became a regular part of later Trek films and a small excerpt heard at the end of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and a significant reference toward the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, this is the only time in the film series that the television theme is heard in a major fashion.
Marcy Lafferty, who plays DiFalco, was married to William Shatner at the time.
In the DVD making of documentary, William Shatner says that at the time they were filming, there was no clear end to the film and that the writers were constantly re-writing the ending. He recalls that at one point he came up with what he considered a good ending and pitched it to co-star Leonard Nimoy who thought it was a good idea. They then went together to Robert Wise to pitch the idea to him. Wise also liked the idea. Now Shatner had to pitch it to Gene Roddenberry. Shatner claims that by the time he pitched the ending to Roddenberry that he was so exhausted from mustering up the energy to pitch the idea (in addition to the energy he use to work on the film) that his pitch didn’t go over so well and Gene Roddenberry rejected it. In his book “Star Trek Movie Memories” (1994), Shatner recalls the story differently: the scene in question is the one in which the Enterprise crew starts to leave the bridge in order to show the Ilia/Probe it is acting like a little child. When Roddenberry rejected it, Robert Wize got Harold Livingston to write the scene instead.
James Doohan’s twin sons, Montgomery Doohan and Christopher Doohan, appear as extras in the movie.
Uhura’s communications earpieces are the only original props from the original TV series. They were dug out of storage when it was realized someone had forgotten to make new ones for the movie.
Persis Khambatta became very emotional about having her head shaved for her role. She kept her shorn hair in a box for a time and asked Gene Roddenberry to take out insurance in case her hair didn’t grow back. It did.
The Klingon words spoken by the Klingon ship’s captain were actually invented by actor James Doohan (Commander Scott). Later, linguist Marc Okrand devised grammar and syntax rules for the language, along with more vocabulary words in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and wrote a Klingon dictionary.
All of the extras in the rec-deck briefing sequence were Star Trek fans called upon to appear in the film. Most of their checks were not cashed; Harve Bennett said that they were probably framed as souvenirs by the fans.
Post-production went on right up until the day before the film’s world premiere. Because time was so short, all the prints of the film were shipped “wet” – fresh from the duplication lab – and were airlifted directly out from a warehouse on the Paramount lot as they were assembled. Rewrites took place daily during filming, most of them on the order of William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy dropping lines that were superfluous (“My character wouldn’t say that”, etc). The logistics of the very end of the film – Decker merging with V’Ger – was devised more or less on the spot.
When Spock mindmelds with the giant Ilia, a number of images are reflected across his spacesuit’s visor. Viewing the sequence in slow motion, you can see pictures foreshadowing V’ger’s identity.
Among the extras in the crew briefing sequence was writer David Gerrold, who had created the Tribbles for the original Star Trek series.
Many story ideas were considered during the early planning stages, including the Enterprise meeting God, preventing Kennedy’s assassination, becoming the Greek Titans, and trying to prevent a black hole from swallowing the galaxy. The Enterprise meeting God was used for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, while preventing the Kennedy assassination was briefly reconsidered for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home before it was rejected again.
Gene Roddenberry had asked his wife Majel Barrett – Christine Chapel – if she would don fur and a tail to “reprise” the role of Lieutenant M’Ress from the animated Star Trek. She refused.
For the DVD release, the producers toyed with the idea of digitally inserting a shot of the NX-01 Enterprise (Jonathan Archer’s ship from the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise) into the rec room scene where Decker shows Ilia a display of previous ships named Enterprise. The idea was eventually dropped, possibly since the shot would not be able to be seen clearly anyway (the pictures were not easily legible onscreen). The NX-01 would have replaced the shot of the ‘ringed’ S.S. Enterprise – which eventually appeared on “Enterprise” anyway (in the bar scene in the episode “First Flight”).
Leonard Nimoy agreed to appear in the film only after Paramount agreed to a settlement of his lawsuit against them for allowing his TV series likeness to be used by advertisers.
The producers and the cast were very worried about their appearance after being away from Star Trek for ten years. Special lighting and camera tricks were used to hide the cast’s aging, and William Shatner went on a near-starvation diet prior to filming. However, in all subsequent Star Trek movies it was decided to make the aging of the crew part of the story.
WILHELM SCREAM: In Engineering when Enterprise is attacked by the V’GER blast (“Special Edition” only), and in the transporter chamber, when Commanders Sonak and Ciani lose their patterns from its malfunction.
So far, this film still has the longest running time of any Star Trek movie. In fact, until the release of Star Trek this was the only one to break the two-hour mark.
Jerry Goldsmith’s famous theme for the movie almost didn’t happen. One of the first scenes Goldsmith scored was the scene when Kirk and Scotty do a flyover of the refit Enterprise. Robert Wise liked the music that Goldsmith composed, but in the end, he rejected it, saying it didn’t fit the movie because it lacked a theme/motif. Goldsmith went back to the drawing board and composed the famous theme that has become a staple of the Star Trek universe.
James Doohan also devised the Vulcan words heard during the Kolinahr sequence. The scenes were originally shot in English, and when it was decided to change the dialogue to Vulcan, Doohan wrote lines that fit the existing lip movements. Some of the subtitles were rearranged to make this less obvious.
Orson Welles narrated trailers for the film.
After the original Star Trek 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; Chris Bryant and Allan Scott wrote a script, which was then rewritten by Philip Kaufman. At this point Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope 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.
Visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull claims that although the models built for the film were quite large, they were in fact not large enough to facilitate shooting many of the desired camera angles. The production had to commission a special periscope lens system from Panavision which allowed the shots to be accomplished. To achieve maximum depth-of-field, many of the shots also required very long exposure times of up to several minutes per frame.
The images of the interior of the V’ger cloud were created using airbrush paintings. Led by animation supervisor Alison Yerxa, a team of animators created thousands of air-brushings using white paint on black paper. These were then photographed, made into transparencies, and used as positive and negative masks on a special multi-plane animation camera. Color tints were then added using filters during the optical composting process. The sequence was inspired by a Canadian documentary called Universe, which visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull had seen during the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
At one time, according to the Guinness Book of Records, this was the most expensive film ever made with a total production cost of US$46 million.
Some of the clothing worn by the aliens in the movie (seen at Starfleet Headquarters) was made from unused bolts of cloth left over from The Ten Commandments
Director Robert Wise’s wife, Millicent, is also part of the crew in the Rec Room scene. She can be seen in front, close to David Gerrold.
In the DVD “making-of” documentary, there is archival behind the scenes footage of tests for make-up, costumes, and sets. Among the footage shown is an early screen test for Persis Khambatta as Lieutenant Ilia. In the test, she is wearing a female uniform from the original TV series: A gold one-piece mini-skirt dress with a Lieutenant stripe, black pantyhose, and black boots. This is due to the fact that it was her screen test for the aborted “Star Trek – Phase II” series, which was going to re-use the “Original Series” costume designs.
The amazing popularity of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope had a definite impact on the storyline, pacing and even marketing of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Many hardcore sci-fi fans (including prominent sci-fi writers) viewed Star Wars as mere fantasy, an updating of Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon level matinee fluff. Gene Roddenberry always saw Star Trek as a more serious endeavor, and did not want Star Trek: The Motion Picture to be seen as “cashing in”. So the story for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was pushed toward more sophisticated and complex ideas, the decision was made to have no battle scenes of any type. In fact, the earliest Presskit promotional material for newspaper ads had as the main line, “There Is No Comparison”.
Almost all of the dialogue in the Enterprise bridge scenes had to be overdubbed by the actors in post-production. This was due to the fact that the animation/graphics seen on the bridge station display monitors was projected from behind the bridge set walls by dozens of 16 mm projectors (one for each display screen), as computer technology was not advanced enough at the time to use real computer monitors on a practical basis. As a result, the clattering sound of the noisy projectors nearly drowned out the voices of the actors, and their dialogue had to be dubbed over later at considerable added time and expense.
Just before the Epsilon IX station is destroyed by V’Ger, Cmdr. Branch (David Gautreaux) mentions that the size of the V’Ger cloud is “My God – over 82 AUs in diameter”. For comparative purposes, the distance between Earth and the Sun is 1 AU (short for “Astronomical Unit”) and the distance between the Sun and Pluto ranges between 30-40 AUs, which would mean the V’Ger cloud could theoretically encompass the entire Solar System! In the Director’s Cut, the line is altered by skillful sound editing, making the size of the cloud only “over 2 AU’s in diameter” – Wise perhaps (Wisely) decided 82 AUs was just too much.
For the Director’s Cut, Robert Wise received permission and a budget to complete the film as he had originally intended. Several special effects scenes, that could not be finished in 1979 due to time and budget constraints, were redone, sometimes with the use of the original models. A completely original model of V’Ger, as it appeared when the surrounding clouds had dissipated, was based on the cross-sectional reading of the ship that appeared on a screen in the movie. A computerized “model” of the Enterprise was created, using the original physical model as reference, to create new CGI shots.
When Spock travels through V’ger and sees all the incredible imagery, Darth Vader and Miss Piggy can be seen. It comes right after his line “Who or what are we dealing with?”. There are not actual photos of the two characters in this sequence. What you are actually seeing is an overhead perspective of the Epsilon IX station. The “Vader” mask is the antenna relays and the “Miss Piggy” snout is most likely the command tower. There are no actual photos of either of the characters.
Had this movie aired as a two-hour TV series premiere as intended, the episode title would have been “In Thy Image.”
Marvel Comics did a three-issue adaptation of this movie to kick-off their new Star Trek comic series. It was a good adaptation of this movie, except that they used the Memory Wall sequence instead of the Spock Walk sequence. It appears that they were using the original script as the basis for their adaptation and didn’t know the Memory Wall scene had been scrapped.
Another theory put forth on the Star Trek convention circuit as to the new look of the Klingons, was that any Klingon personnel that were expected to have any contact with human or other human-like races,(such as any posting near the neutral zone or for diplomatic missions,) were surgically altered to more easily blend in. That is why all the original series Klingons were “ridgeless.” Supposedly, according to the Star Trek rumor mill, by the time the motion picture came out, the story line says that the Klingons had abandoned this practice because they realized that their physical alterations made little difference with regards to how they were perceived.
The story of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is basically the same as “The Changeling” episode from the original series. In the episode, an Earth probe (Nomad) is merged with alien technology and goes on a murderous rampage destroying that which is not “perfect.”
In this movie, Mark Lenard plays a Klingon ship captain; this is the third alien species in the Star Trek franchise that the actor played – the first was the Romulan commander the Original Series episode “Balance of Terror,” then a recurring role as Spock’s father, Vulcan Ambassador Sarek.
The first time in the Star Trek canon that Yeoman Rand and Chekov have appeared together.
-Source(s) IMDB, Wikipedia
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