PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS UPDATE HAS BEEN RETCONNED A FAIR BIT -- THE PROPER VERSION IS BELOW. BUT I'M LEAVING THIS TEXT HERE ANYWAY BUT IN SMALLER FONT SO THIS THREAD IS STILL FOLLOWABLE. KTHNX.
Update #3 -- the making of the Star Trek films
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Plans for a film version of the television show Star Trek had been in the works since early 1975. Over the preceding three years, Gene Roddenberry had written three different television pilots – The Questor Tapes in 1972, followed by two variations on the same concept with Genesis II in 1973 and Planet Earth in 1974 – and each one of them had failed to be developed into a new television series. After three years of failure, Roddenberry finally returned to the old standby which he knew ought to be a guaranteed success.
The Star Trek film – given the working title of Star Trek II – went through several wildly different incarnations during the development phase. Roddenberry’s first script, titled The God Thing, was firmly rejected by Paramount Pictures for being too blasphemous. A story proposal made by Harlan Ellison involving reptilian aliens tampering with the prehistory of Earth sank without a trace after one executive demanded that Ellison include Mayans in the story, despite the Mayan civilisation not being prehistoric. Another rather strange script by Roddenberry and Jon Povill involving time travel, intelligent computers and sentient spaceborne plasma was also rejected as too confusing. Many more different versions were also proposed and rejected.
It was June of 1976 before the film was finally greenlit, based on a treatment by British writing duo Chris Bryant and Allan Scott titled Planet of the Titans. Jerry Eisenberg was assigned as producer alongside Roddenberry, and the role of director went to Philip Kaufman. However, even then the pre-production on the film was anything but smooth sailing: Bryant and Scott would not deliver their first draft script until March 1977, and would quit the film a month later. Their script was deemed unsatisfactory and was rewritten by Kaufman, who eliminated the character of Captain Gregory Westlake (instead making Spock the new captain of the refitted Enterprise after Kirk’s disappearance) as well as introducing a strong Klingon main antagonist. Kaufman’s script was then revised again by Roddenberry before being re-revised by Kaufman. Ultimately, the shooting script would not be ready until August 1977 – and even then, rewrites would keep trickling in throughout principal photography. This delay resulted in the release date being pushed back several months.
The delay also meant that Toshiro Mifune, who Kaufman had hoped would play the Klingon villain, was unable to sign onto the film due to existing commitments. However, thankfully all of the original series’ cast agreed to take part in the film – even Leonard Nimoy, who was in the midst of a long feud with Roddenberry and had come to resent the role of Spock, agreed to return out of concern over bad publicity if he didn’t. The role of the Klingon villain was eventually given to none other than Mark Lenard, who had previously appeared in the series as a Romulan commander and as Spock’s father Sarek.
The Enterprise itself was redesigned for the film, both interior and exterior – although the original Enterprise exterior model and bridge both made appearances at the very beginning of the film; the latter would be recreated before being redressed to become the set for the Klingon bridge. Starfleet uniforms would also be drastically redesigned: the new skintight “jumpsuit” look (which would prove to be very unpopular with the cast) was influenced by Roddenberry, who insisted that all clothes would be single-use and disposable in the future. The new uniforms restricted the departmental colours to the torso only, with the sleeves and trousers made black for a more professional look. The colours themselves were also altered: camera tests found three new colours that would be striking but not garish: burgundy-red (command), white (science, medical) and mustard-yellow (engineering, security, ops). Placing the Captain in red was also intended to eliminate the expression “red shirt”.
The release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in November 1977 caused a tense few days where executives at Paramount Pictures worried that Spielberg’s film had stolen all their thunder. Close Encounters was nothing like anyone had seen before, as a true science-fiction epic-scale film experience (in a very different way to 2001: A Space Odyssey), and would end up becoming the highest-grossing film of all time with almost $450 million earned at the box office (surpassing the record Spielberg had set with his last film Jaws). However, by this time filming for Planet of the Titans was well underway and the results seemed to be very promising, so the film went ahead.
Planet of the Titans: A Star Trek Motion Picture (to use the full title) was released on Thanksgiving 1978, and very quickly became an enormous success. Long-held anticipation and favourable word-of-mouth meant that the film leaped to #1 at the box office straight away, remaining there until it was displaced a month later upon the release of Superman: The Movie. While Superman would be the real success story of the year, breaking the record set by Close Encounters the year before, Planet of the Titans would ultimately earn around $200 million worldwide.
The massive profits from the film guaranteed that a sequel would be made, and meant that Gene Roddenberry’s star was rising once more. However, Philip Kaufman refused to return for the sequel due to Roddenberry’s continual rewrites and creative interference; Leonard Nimoy, whose experience making the film hadn’t been much better, also made it known publically that he had played Spock for the last time. Roddenberry then set forth to write his own sequel, without any other writers and without the character of Spock; the result was The Fall of Camelot: Star Trek II, a time-travel story involving the crew of the Enterprise setting right interference in the timeline by ensuring that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The film was greenlit quickly and given a slightly smaller budget ($15 million) than its predecessor, with Paramount rationalising that the brand alone guaranteed a large profit. Soon after receiving the script, George Takei also announced that he would not return to play Sulu, describing his character in the film as a “walking, breathing prop”.
While The Fall of Camelot: Star Trek II (released in December 1980) was still a solid financial success, earning $74 million internationally, it did not approach the success of Planet of the Titans and was a critical failure. Reviewers criticised the film as being “boring” and labelled its ending “a foregone conclusion”, as well as pointing to the absence of the still extremely popular Mr Spock. But the lower ticket sales were arguably due to competition from a different science fiction franchise, whose second instalment was released at the same time and was being much better received.
Despite the failure of The Fall of Camelot to capture the same audience as Planet of the Titans, a third movie was still approved by Paramount Pictures; Gene Roddenberry was removed from direct creative control and was made the “Executive Consultant” on the film, having been blamed for The Fall of Camelot’s poor returns. However, after scripting problems resulted in the filmmakers missing an important deadline in providing a script to the special-effects company, the project entered development hell and was eventually shut down entirely. For now, it seemed as if Star Trek was finished forever…
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Notes: Planet of the Titans was cancelled in May 1977 in OTL due to the pre-release buzz that Star Wars was getting. With scripting problems still ongoing at the time, and a suspicion that a science-fiction blockbuster was lightning that couldn't strike twice, the project was deemed not worth the effort and abandoned; the new television series Star Trek: Phase II was greenlit instead. It wasn't until Close Encounters was released in November that year and proved that it was possible for there to be multiple science-fiction blockbusters in the world that Phase II was cancelled and The Motion Picture was revived. In TTL, of course, Star Wars hasn't been made yet -- and by the time Close Encounters rolls around too much has been spent by Paramount to justify backing out. Thus, Planet of the Titans survives.
The title "Planet of the Titans: A Star Trek Motion Picture" is just a bit of fun on my part. This is before the "Franchise Title: Film Subtitle" convention had really been codified, so I decided to change it a little. Especially considering that there's not much trekking in either film.
Mark Lenard in OTL played the Klingon commander who gets fried by V'ger at the beginning of TMP. As Toshiro Mifune is... busy, I figured I'd give the role to him.
The thing about the departmental colours for the Starfleet uniforms? That's pretty much what they did in the making of The Wrath of Khan. The burgundy-red is the jacket colour, and the white and the mustard-yellow are the turtleneck colours. By the way, if you're having trouble picturing what the new uniforms look like: they're like Kirk's uniform at the beginning of TMP, but with black instead of dark blue-grey and with the departmental colour instead of white.
The greater successes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Superman: The Movie are just butterfly things from there being no Star Wars yet. It's just the way the viewing public's tastes and desires are shaped by what they have and what they don't have. The greater success of Planet of the Titans in TTL as compared to The Motion Picture in OTL is simply because it is a much better film.
The thing which kills Star Trek III in TTL almost killed The Wrath of Khan in OTL (down to the multiple drafts and everything), but the film was saved by director Nicholas Meyer writing the new shooting script in only twelve days and forgoing his own writing credit. In TTL, no such miracle happens.
Update #3 -- the making of the Star Trek films
---
Plans for a film version of the television show Star Trek had been in the works since early 1975. Over the preceding three years, Gene Roddenberry had written three different television pilots – The Questor Tapes in 1972, followed by two variations on the same concept with Genesis II in 1973 and Planet Earth in 1974 – and each one of them had failed to be developed into a new television series. After three years of failure, Roddenberry finally returned to the old standby which he knew ought to be a guaranteed success.
The Star Trek film – given the working title of Star Trek II – went through several wildly different incarnations during the development phase. Roddenberry’s first script, titled The God Thing, was firmly rejected by Paramount Pictures for being too blasphemous. A story proposal made by Harlan Ellison involving reptilian aliens tampering with the prehistory of Earth sank without a trace after one executive demanded that Ellison include Mayans in the story, despite the Mayan civilisation not being prehistoric. Another rather strange script by Roddenberry and Jon Povill involving time travel, intelligent computers and sentient spaceborne plasma was also rejected as too confusing. Many more different versions were also proposed and rejected.
It was June of 1976 before the film was finally greenlit, based on a treatment by British writing duo Chris Bryant and Allan Scott titled Planet of the Titans. Jerry Eisenberg was assigned as producer alongside Roddenberry, and the role of director went to Philip Kaufman. However, even then the pre-production on the film was anything but smooth sailing: Bryant and Scott would not deliver their first draft script until March 1977, and would quit the film a month later. Their script was deemed unsatisfactory and was rewritten by Kaufman, who eliminated the character of Captain Gregory Westlake (instead making Spock the new captain of the refitted Enterprise after Kirk’s disappearance) as well as introducing a strong Klingon main antagonist. Kaufman’s script was then revised again by Roddenberry before being re-revised by Kaufman. Ultimately, the shooting script would not be ready until August 1977 – and even then, rewrites would keep trickling in throughout principal photography. This delay resulted in the release date being pushed back several months.
The delay also meant that Toshiro Mifune, who Kaufman had hoped would play the Klingon villain, was unable to sign onto the film due to existing commitments. However, thankfully all of the original series’ cast agreed to take part in the film – even Leonard Nimoy, who was in the midst of a long feud with Roddenberry and had come to resent the role of Spock, agreed to return out of concern over bad publicity if he didn’t. The role of the Klingon villain was eventually given to none other than Mark Lenard, who had previously appeared in the series as a Romulan commander and as Spock’s father Sarek.
The Enterprise itself was redesigned for the film, both interior and exterior – although the original Enterprise exterior model and bridge both made appearances at the very beginning of the film; the latter would be recreated before being redressed to become the set for the Klingon bridge. Starfleet uniforms would also be drastically redesigned: the new skintight “jumpsuit” look (which would prove to be very unpopular with the cast) was influenced by Roddenberry, who insisted that all clothes would be single-use and disposable in the future. The new uniforms restricted the departmental colours to the torso only, with the sleeves and trousers made black for a more professional look. The colours themselves were also altered: camera tests found three new colours that would be striking but not garish: burgundy-red (command), white (science, medical) and mustard-yellow (engineering, security, ops). Placing the Captain in red was also intended to eliminate the expression “red shirt”.
The release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind in November 1977 caused a tense few days where executives at Paramount Pictures worried that Spielberg’s film had stolen all their thunder. Close Encounters was nothing like anyone had seen before, as a true science-fiction epic-scale film experience (in a very different way to 2001: A Space Odyssey), and would end up becoming the highest-grossing film of all time with almost $450 million earned at the box office (surpassing the record Spielberg had set with his last film Jaws). However, by this time filming for Planet of the Titans was well underway and the results seemed to be very promising, so the film went ahead.
Planet of the Titans: A Star Trek Motion Picture (to use the full title) was released on Thanksgiving 1978, and very quickly became an enormous success. Long-held anticipation and favourable word-of-mouth meant that the film leaped to #1 at the box office straight away, remaining there until it was displaced a month later upon the release of Superman: The Movie. While Superman would be the real success story of the year, breaking the record set by Close Encounters the year before, Planet of the Titans would ultimately earn around $200 million worldwide.
The massive profits from the film guaranteed that a sequel would be made, and meant that Gene Roddenberry’s star was rising once more. However, Philip Kaufman refused to return for the sequel due to Roddenberry’s continual rewrites and creative interference; Leonard Nimoy, whose experience making the film hadn’t been much better, also made it known publically that he had played Spock for the last time. Roddenberry then set forth to write his own sequel, without any other writers and without the character of Spock; the result was The Fall of Camelot: Star Trek II, a time-travel story involving the crew of the Enterprise setting right interference in the timeline by ensuring that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The film was greenlit quickly and given a slightly smaller budget ($15 million) than its predecessor, with Paramount rationalising that the brand alone guaranteed a large profit. Soon after receiving the script, George Takei also announced that he would not return to play Sulu, describing his character in the film as a “walking, breathing prop”.
While The Fall of Camelot: Star Trek II (released in December 1980) was still a solid financial success, earning $74 million internationally, it did not approach the success of Planet of the Titans and was a critical failure. Reviewers criticised the film as being “boring” and labelled its ending “a foregone conclusion”, as well as pointing to the absence of the still extremely popular Mr Spock. But the lower ticket sales were arguably due to competition from a different science fiction franchise, whose second instalment was released at the same time and was being much better received.
Despite the failure of The Fall of Camelot to capture the same audience as Planet of the Titans, a third movie was still approved by Paramount Pictures; Gene Roddenberry was removed from direct creative control and was made the “Executive Consultant” on the film, having been blamed for The Fall of Camelot’s poor returns. However, after scripting problems resulted in the filmmakers missing an important deadline in providing a script to the special-effects company, the project entered development hell and was eventually shut down entirely. For now, it seemed as if Star Trek was finished forever…
---
Notes: Planet of the Titans was cancelled in May 1977 in OTL due to the pre-release buzz that Star Wars was getting. With scripting problems still ongoing at the time, and a suspicion that a science-fiction blockbuster was lightning that couldn't strike twice, the project was deemed not worth the effort and abandoned; the new television series Star Trek: Phase II was greenlit instead. It wasn't until Close Encounters was released in November that year and proved that it was possible for there to be multiple science-fiction blockbusters in the world that Phase II was cancelled and The Motion Picture was revived. In TTL, of course, Star Wars hasn't been made yet -- and by the time Close Encounters rolls around too much has been spent by Paramount to justify backing out. Thus, Planet of the Titans survives.
The title "Planet of the Titans: A Star Trek Motion Picture" is just a bit of fun on my part. This is before the "Franchise Title: Film Subtitle" convention had really been codified, so I decided to change it a little. Especially considering that there's not much trekking in either film.
Mark Lenard in OTL played the Klingon commander who gets fried by V'ger at the beginning of TMP. As Toshiro Mifune is... busy, I figured I'd give the role to him.
The thing about the departmental colours for the Starfleet uniforms? That's pretty much what they did in the making of The Wrath of Khan. The burgundy-red is the jacket colour, and the white and the mustard-yellow are the turtleneck colours. By the way, if you're having trouble picturing what the new uniforms look like: they're like Kirk's uniform at the beginning of TMP, but with black instead of dark blue-grey and with the departmental colour instead of white.
The greater successes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Superman: The Movie are just butterfly things from there being no Star Wars yet. It's just the way the viewing public's tastes and desires are shaped by what they have and what they don't have. The greater success of Planet of the Titans in TTL as compared to The Motion Picture in OTL is simply because it is a much better film.
The thing which kills Star Trek III in TTL almost killed The Wrath of Khan in OTL (down to the multiple drafts and everything), but the film was saved by director Nicholas Meyer writing the new shooting script in only twelve days and forgoing his own writing credit. In TTL, no such miracle happens.
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