“Star Trek – The Motion Picture Inside the Art and Visual Effects”
By Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki
Review by Scott Lohman
“Star Trek – The Motion Picture” come out in December of 1979. It was the culmination of a decade of attempts to bring out a movie version of the original “Star Trek” series. There had been a number of attempts to make either a TV “movie of the week”, another TV series or big screen movie. “Star Trek: The Animated Series” had gotten produced in 1973-74 with 22 episodes. Fans wanted more.
There were two major attempts to do new “Star Trek”. One potential move almost got off the ground. “Planet of the Titans” was one of those attempts. It had some people who had done a number of movies in the past. The pre-production art included contributions by Ken Adam, a production designer for many “James Bond” movies and Ralph McQuarrie, who was the artist most responsible for the look of the first “Star Wars” movies. Both artists working on ideas for the “Enterprise” and what Starfleet and the Federation would look like. The project was abandoned when the movie idea was not picked up by the studio.
The attempt that did ultimately lead to ST- TMP was a new attempt at a new “Star Trek” TV series. Paramount was working on creating a “fourth” TV network in the mid to late 70’s. The executives approached Gene Roddenberry for a new “Star Trek”. “Star Trek: Phase II” made it all the way to having scripts, a cast and sets completed before the Paramount TV network idea collapsed. This was in 1977. In 1977 “Star Wars” came out to become the biggest movie in a long time, sparking interest in SF concepts. Paramount then remembered they had “Star Trek”.
Gene Roddenberry got to work on bringing Trek to the big screen. The pilot script for “Star Trek: Phase II” “In Thy Image” was updated to be a movie script rather than a TV series pilot. At the initial point all of the original cast, except Leonard Nimoy were signed to do the new movie. When directer Robert Wise joined the project, he considered his first job to bring Nimoy on board.
Robert Abel and Associates were hired as the special effects team for the movie. They did a lot of work including some work on the “Enterprise” and a number of the special effect sequences that would be part of the movie. One of the important personal they brought on board was Andrew Probert. Probert had done some industrial design and was working on spacesuit design, set concepts and the “Enterprise”. The ship model that had been done for “Phase II” was scrapped and a movie quality design was approved and built. The new “Enterprise” has a number of people who contributed to it’s final design: from Matt Jeffries, who designed the original ship, Mike Minor, art designer for “Phase II”, Andrew Probert and Harold Michaelson.
The sets that had been built were redesigned and updated. With the console controls being a mix of actor and technician control. The “warp core tower” idea was changed and modified to become a staple for Trek engine room designs. The corridor designs were varied and the concepts carried on in later Trek productions. One section of corridor was incorporated into both “Enterprise D” and “Voyager” sets.
Fred Phillips returned to do make up. He was able to “upgrade” the Klingons due to changes in make technology. It was cheaper and easier to do prosthetics.
The Vulcan monastery set was shot both on the Paramount lot and featured location shots in Yellowstone National Park with Leonard Nimoy.
The dry dock shots of the “Enterprise” were lit using inspection and dental mirrors to achieve a more realistic light. The travel pod was both a full set and a rather large miniature with dolls standing in for Shatner and Doohan.
“V’ger” had an extensive design process, it’s full shape was not seen until the Director’s Edition release. Concept artist Syd Mead did painting and concept drawings for V’ger. Giving the ship an alien design that was probably an inspiration for Borg designs in the Next Generation era.
Robert Abel and Associates were fired in February of 1979 from the production. Robert Wise said they were good, however he had concluded “It would take 3 years for them to get it done.” John Dykstra, who did the special effects for “Star Wars” and Douglas Trumbull, who did special effects for “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” were brought in to complete the effects. The “memory wall” sequence was scrapped and replaced by Spock’s spacewalk in V’ger. Both teams worked on separate sequences. And despite long hours, were not able to complete the needed effects. ST-TMP went to it’s premiere as a rough draft.
The movie was completed 2001 for the DVD release. Robert Wise was able to do a directors cut and a group of technicians completed and update the missing special effects. And recently it was announced that ST-TMP the Directors Edition will finally come out in Blu-ray in 2022.
This book is a visual delight. It has pre-production and production art, as well as behind the scenes photos of work on the various ship models. There are very cool pictures of the model segments of V’ger that the “Enterprise” flew over. There are a variety of art works from all segments of the movie. For those of you who love movie production art books, this is a perfect addition to your library. It not only gives us insights into the production of the movie, but a look at how a new era of “Star Trek” was created and designed. And kept the franchise alive to move into the 1980’s and beyond.
Notes Along The Way 