What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in 79

if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in 79

maybe it wouldve been hailed as a 2001 style SF masterpiece if it had been a non star trek movie set in the far future starring Paul Newman as the captain of a large interstellar starship with someone like Christopher Reeve as his Exo, Robert Shaw as the ships doc etc investigating ‘Vger’ – the monolith style threat to earth.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

A crucial part of the story of TMP depends upon Spock being half-telepathic-alien and half-human, and in that capacity uniquely suited to be receptive to V'Ger's thoughts at a distance. That fact alone makes the story of TMP seem specifically geared for the Star Trek universe, particularly TOS.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

Babylon Five and other sci-fi productions have had telepaths.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

How many Babylon Five telepaths are hybrids between humans on the one hand and beings who strive to make their minds run like machines on the other?

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

yeah the telepath thing would be written out...there would be no Spock like character at all

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

So, lets say that "VGER" was basically the same story, but with a generic spaceship and crew as a stand in for the enterprise right? First off, it wouldn't have gotten near the budget or the effects work, the Cloud concept would have had to have been dropped entirely due to budget I'm sure, it would have just been two models facing off against each other in front of a starfield background. I'm sure this show would have taken it's ranks among the multitude of low budget sci-fi films being made around that time. It would have probably been on your local UHF station by 83, and quite possibly the V'Ger/Voyager Twist at the end would have made it a small time cult film decades after it's release. probably winding up on one of those "50 movie Sci-Fi Action" sets you see at Wal-Mart for 10 bucks.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

^
It would’ve had a big budget (maybe not as big as TMP though)as itd have had Robert Wise directing (returning to SF Ridley Scott style) plus stars Newman and Reeve (hot of Superman the year before)

 

Re: if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in 79

or more likelt a box office disaster, critically savaged for being a shameless ripoff of 2001.

Though of course perceptions of films can change over time, take Blade Runner for example, today it is considered a classic film, when it first came out the perception was different.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

You're making the assumption that TMP got a big budget because it was a Star Trek movie. That's not true. At the time, Star Trek didn't have that much of a cachet. It had gained a fair amount of success in syndicated reruns, but it hadn't yet become as huge as it would later as a result of the movies and TNG.

The reason TMP got a big budget -- indeed, the reason it got made as a feature film at all rather than a TV revival -- was because of Star Wars. After SW was a huge hit, rival studios wanted their own big-budget sci-fi properties to compete with it. So Paramount took the sci-fi property it already had, Star Trek, and tried to position it as a big-budget rival to Star Wars. They even hired the genius behind SW's effects, John Dykstra, to help create TMP's effects. (Note that Disney's The Black Hole, another big-budget, FX-laden space movie, came out in the same year, and Universal's Buck Rogers TV-pilot movie got a theatrical release that year as well, as had its Battlestar Galactica pilot the previous year.)

So if there had been no Trek project in development, Paramount would still have wanted to make a big-budget space opera to rival SW. So as long as this hypothetical non-Trek version of the V'Ger story had come out in 1979, it would still have gotten quite a lot of money thrown at it and would still have had elaborate, top-notch visual effects.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

I rather strenuously disagree with most of this. Trek's recognition as a phenomena was at an all-time high in 76, with the NYT bestseller list evidence along with something like 140 or 150 countries playing it in syndication and the orbiter being renamed. 30,000 folks at a Chicago convention? Thirty THOUSAND! Even when it was planned as Kaufman's PLANET OF THE TITANS, before SW came out and Par retreated (briefly) to the Phase 2 TV notion, the budget was something like 10 mil (Shatner was telling audiences the budget was 8-10 mil in 76 & 77 on tour, when he was describing something that sounded like THE GOD THING or Ellison's pitch, both of which predate TITANS.)

During the ModernTrek era of TNG popularity, the show was certainly known, but it wasn't the electric live-wire effect present in the 70s, where it was like a wild thing that even people who didn't get it were intrigued ...

Anyway, Paramount cancelled TITANS after SW came out, because they though they had blown it and been beaten to the punch. So they didn't see a craze emerging at all, which again points to WTF were they smoking/thinking?

It went to 15 mil when it went back to feature status WITH Wise (apparently budget did not go up with Bob Collins still slated.)

Somebody can check on this, but i think the budget went to 20 while shooting was going on (maybe CHEKOV'S ENTERPRISE has that info?)

They kept throwing money at it because they HAD to deliver on 12/7/79, which is why it was allowed to go from big-budget to INSANELY big budget (plus you have overages from the earlier attempts and all of Phase 2's work, including pay or play contracts with the regulars, all of which might well account for 10-12 mil out of 44-45. Most of the set work was charged to p2, since the published budget for art direction on the movie is actually quite small as listed in TMP, once you discount the huge amount they spent on the memory wall and trench that didn't even appear in the final cut.) That's why you have so much blown on vfx, with triple-time and such for months on end -- they had to get the movie done on time, there was no other option given the advances paid them by cinemas.

If, as a CFQ reviewer pointed out back in 1980, Paramount had released this film as STELLAR VOYAGES and it had no cache or history, it probably would not have been received even half as well as it was critically, and certainly wouldn't have generated the box-office.

AFAIK, the only time Paramount has ever thrown money at a non-franchise space feature is EVENT HORIZON, on which they spent more than they had on any TREK film up to that point (at the time they said 75 mil, but it might be a little less ... significant sequences were dropped or amended to even accomplish that pic on the large budget), and that was a huge mistake b.o wise (give Paul Anderson money?)

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

If TMP had been a non-Trek movie, it's likely none of the later films, series, or this board would even exist, and the thread question never would come up.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

That post really sums it up.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

Farscape had Scorpius, a Scarran and Sebacean hybrid. Sebaceans are (sort of) Humans. So other sci-fi shows had half and half hybrids too.

A new movie could combine a telepath and hybrid, to create a needed character.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

Okay, thanks for the clarification. I don't think it invalidates my fundamental point, though, which is that even if Paramount hadn't been making a Trek movie in the late '70s, they still would've wanted to make a big-budget space-opera special-effects extravaganza to rival Star Wars. Before 1977, studios were fine with making smallish, modestly budgeted genre films, but after 1977, the rules changed and a film like that would've been lost in the shuffle. So in the hypothetical case that Paramount had made the V'Ger story without Trek elements, they still would've wanted to spend the money for the big elaborate Dykstra/Trumbull effects.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

I'm not so sure about that. Granted I was young then but everything around that time was Star Wars. I saw TMP in the theater then and loved it. I had no idea that it was related to a TV show. I may have seen parts of episodes on TV before but it never really registered for me. I didn't really get what Star Trek was until sometime between TWOK and TSFS.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

I'm sure ST was a big deal in certain circles, but my impression growing up as a Trek fan in the '70s was that it was very much a cult series, and Trek fandom was seen as the purview of nerds and weirdos and not something that cool people would admit to. Of course, science fiction fandom as a whole was seen that way as well. SF having mainstream acceptance is a modern phenomenon.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

My experience at the time was that it was largely thought of as a "kid's show" (probably because of the animated series). TMP getting a G-rating didn't help matters, when even Disney's sci-fi movie received a PG.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

Keep in mind that the general public at the time saw all science fiction as kids' stuff. That reputation had been established by shows like Captain Video; Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; and Lost in Space. What made TOS pioneering was that it was the first non-anthology science-fiction television show that was done as an adult drama. (And by the same token, TAS was the first Saturday morning animated series written -- and marketed -- for adults.)

But it's hard to overcome people's preconceptions, so even though Trek was made for adults, it still got pigeonholed as a kids' show because that was the pre-existing perception of the entire genre. TAS didn't cause that, because it had already been around for decades -- and it took a couple of decades more for it to go away. I'm actually gratified that people have forgotten this, because it shows how much more respectability SF has gotten in this generation.

As for The Black Hole, another thing that people forget is that it was Disney's first attempt to expand beyond kids' movies and make more adult content, consciously designed to feature more violence and mature subject matter than their usual fare. They made a number of other PG-rated, adult-oriented films over the next few years, but again, people's preconceptions about what "Disney" meant got in the way, so eventually they created the Touchstone Films imprint to release those films under.

 

Re: What if TMP had been a non Trek SF movie titled 'Vger' released in

A G-rating back then didn't always mean "kid's stuff." "The Andromeda Strain" features a shot of a topless woman and it was also rated G.