When did they decide when it takes place?

[Christopher]

I remember reading books about space published in the mid eighties confidently predicting a permanent moonbase by the year 2000.

Shouldn't that be 1999? Coincidentally, I can think of at least three stories depicting moonbases in 1999. There's Space: 1999, of course, but before that there were two different 1968 films: 2001: A Space Odyssey (the section with Dr. Floyd on the Moon takes place in 1999) and the Godzilla movie Destroy All Monsters.

 

[RandyS]

The first reference that I remember seeing was on the cover of the first issue of Marvel's run, which was part one of their adaption of TMP. It said "A 23rd century Odyssey today!". Wiether or not there was an earlier reference to the 23rd century, I can't say.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

The first reference that I remember seeing was on the cover of the first issue of Marvel's run, which was part one of their adaption of TMP. It said "A 23rd century Odyssey today!". Wiether or not there was an earlier reference to the 23rd century, I can't say.

Boy, those Marvel issues just got better and better, didn't they?

One thing I didn't, even at the time, like about The Motion Picture was that tag-line 'The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning'. I don't know why, but it struck me as un-trek-ish and cold.

 

[Christopher]

One thing I didn't, even at the time, like about The Motion Picture was that tag-line 'The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning'. I don't know why, but it struck me as un-trek-ish and cold.

That is odd. It sounds entirely Trekkish to me -- what is ST about if not the human adventure? And neither humanity nor adventure seems like a cold concept to me.

I suppose it is a little abstract and impersonal, not about any specific character or their motivation. But it's an optimistic message with a lot of implicit promise, so I quite like it.

And there are worse taglines. Like TWOK's "At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance." First off, what does "the end of the universe" have to do with the movie? That's just meaningless. And vengeance may be more personal, but it's a less agreeable thing to be beginning than adventure.

And then there's the infamous STV tagline, "Why are they putting seatbelts in theatres this summer?" Leading to the popular gag response, "To keep the audience from walking out." Really, not many of the Trek movie taglines were all that good.

 

[TalkieToaster]

One thing I didn't, even at the time, like about The Motion Picture was that tag-line 'The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning'. I don't know why, but it struck me as un-trek-ish and cold.

That is odd. It sounds entirely Trekkish to me -- what is ST about if not the human adventure? And neither humanity nor adventure seems like a cold concept to me.

I suppose it is a little abstract and impersonal, not about any specific character or their motivation. But it's an optimistic message with a lot of implicit promise, so I quite like it.

And there are worse taglines. Like TWOK's "At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance." First off, what does "the end of the universe" have to do with the movie? That's just meaningless. And vengeance may be more personal, but it's a less agreeable thing to be beginning than adventure.

And then there's the infamous STV tagline, "Why are they putting seatbelts in theatres this summer?" Leading to the popular gag response, "To keep the audience from walking out." Really, not many of the Trek movie taglines were all that good.

I love that another STV tagline was "The Enterprise is back. This time, have they gone too far?" Did the people promoting the movie want people to snicker? Another one I like is for STIII: "Kirk must battle the Klingons to protect the Genesis Planet and save a friend’s life." Was that supposed to be the TV Guide synopsis or something?

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I remember reading books about space published in the mid eighties confidently predicting a permanent moonbase by the year 2000. Needless to say, reading these in the nineties, it was evident that wouldn't be the case.

Similar ideas (not quite a promise) were found in the pages of Popular Science and OMNI. If you were a Trekker in the 80s, those articles had many dreaming something along the lines of Star Trek III's spacedock somehow being a part of our reality by 2000.

Funny.

One thing I didn't, even at the time, like about The Motion Picture was that tag-line 'The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning'. I don't know why, but it struck me as un-trek-ish and cold.

That is odd. It sounds entirely Trekkish to me -- what is ST about if not the human adventure? And neither humanity nor adventure seems like a cold concept to me.

I suppose it is a little abstract and impersonal, not about any specific character or their motivation. But it's an optimistic message with a lot of implicit promise, so I quite like it.

The Motion Picture was a ST film, so assuming the target audience had already shared a "human adventure" with the characters over the course of three seasons, the tag "The Human Adventure is Just Beginning" seems off--like nothing we witnessed before qualified as being a human adventure worth considering. It seemed sterile.

 

[MacLeod]

And the very same document that first spelled out that conceit as one of the series' primary selling points is also the document that, literally just one page earlier, defines the series' timeframe as potentially being as early as 1995, and no later than 2995 (which would only have been 1031 years in the future).

I guess we can be glad that they decided not to go with the ultra-futuristic 1995!

Although, it was often assumed then that technology would advance at the same rate it had been since 1945, or perhaps even faster. In thirty years we'd gone from flying around in Zeppelins and biplanes to walking on the moon. Think what another thirty years would bring! I remember reading books about space published in the mid eighties confidently predicting a permanent moonbase by the year 2000. Needless to say, reading these in the nineties, it was evident that wouldn't be the case.

Well we saw how a Moonbase Alpha turned out in Sapce: 1999 not that great. 2030 at this time might be more reasonable for a moonabse as for the GA shows

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons set in 2068

Thunderbirds set in 2065 (I suspect the new version Thunderbirds are Go! will be set around the same time)

Fireball XL5 set in 2062

Stingray set in 2065

Terrahawks was set in 2020

Space Precinct was set in 2040

So it would seem as if GA was a fan of the mid 21st century.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Well we saw how a Moonbase Alpha turned out in Sapce: 1999 not that great. 2030 at this time might be more reasonable for a moonabse as for the GA shows

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons set in 2068

Thunderbirds set in 2065 (I suspect the new version Thunderbirds are Go! will be set around the same time)

Fireball XL5 set in 2062

Stingray set in 2065

Terrahawks was set in 2020

Space Precinct was set in 2040

So it would seem as if GA was a fan of the mid 21st century.

That's interesting, and it makes me wonder why Space:1999 wasn't set in a similar time period.

I sort of wish that it had been. Overall I consider myself a fan of it, but the problem I always had with the series was its name. It's too difficult to say!

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Sorry to double-post, but I tried three times to compile these posts, and the site did not cooperate.

One thing I didn't, even at the time, like about The Motion Picture was that tag-line 'The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning'. I don't know why, but it struck me as un-trek-ish and cold.

That is odd. It sounds entirely Trekkish to me -- what is ST about if not the human adventure? And neither humanity nor adventure seems like a cold concept to me.

I think it just struck me as lofty and 2001-ish at the time. And as TREK_GOD_1 mentioned, it seemed to minimize the adventures we had come to know so well on television. I hadn't considered that.

And there are worse taglines. Like TWOK's "At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance." First off, what does "the end of the universe" have to do with the movie? That's just meaningless. And vengeance may be more personal, but it's a less agreeable thing to be beginning than adventure.

I completely agree. It sounds like it was written by someone who hadn't seen the movie, or even read the script. In retrospect, I wonder if it could have been a holdover from the time when the movie was supposedly going to be titled The Vengeance of Khan?

And then there's the infamous STV tagline, "Why are they putting seatbelts in theatres this summer?" Leading to the popular gag response, "To keep the audience from walking out."

Now that is funny! I've never heard that before, which isn't surprising since there weren't many Trek fans where I lived.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"The human adventure is just beginning" always sounded fine to me. By implication, TOS was part of the "human adventure" as well, and the movie tagline is saying, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" It was the first live action Trek in a decade and done on a huge film budget...so there's nothing "off" there IMO.

 

[MacLeod]

Remember UFO was set in what the 1980's, even earlier than Space: 1999

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

"The human adventure is just beginning" always sounded fine to me. By implication, TOS was part of the "human adventure" as well, and the movie tagline is saying, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" It was the first live action Trek in a decade and done on a huge film budget...so there's nothing "off" there IMO.

It didn't inspire me to throw popcorn at the screen or anything, but I guess at the time I assumed this would be the only movie, so maybe it seemed like a cheat to me that we'd never see where things went. Weird to try to remember the days when sequels weren't considered likely, or possible!

Also weird, is that Trek-less decade you speak of seemed like three, whereas nowadays three decades seems like one!

 

[urbandefault]

I'd like to see some of the critiques of Trek by fans in 2364.

 

[Christopher]

And as TREK_GOD_1 mentioned, it seemed to minimize the adventures we had come to know so well on television.

I don't think that was the intent. It strikes me as more like saying that, even with all the space exploration humanity has done in the Trek era, humanity has still only begun its journey of discovery, since beyond that is the transcendence that Decker experienced with V'Ger. So it's sort of in the same vein of what Q told Picard in "All Good Things," that the real final frontier was the exploration of the nature of existence, or whatever.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I don't think that was the intent. It strikes me as more like saying that, even with all the space exploration humanity has done in the Trek era, humanity has still only begun its journey of discovery, since beyond that is the transcendence that Decker experienced with V'Ger. So it's sort of in the same vein of what Q told Picard in "All Good Things," that the real final frontier was the exploration of the nature of existence, or whatever.

I'm sure you're right in that was the intended meaning.

It's interesting, and for me ironic, that you mention the All Good Things... Q scene, for Q saying that really intrigued me as to its implications! Which, unfortunately went unrewarded in the movies...

 

[F. King Daniel]

"The human adventure is just beginning" always sounded fine to me. By implication, TOS was part of the "human adventure" as well, and the movie tagline is saying, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" It was the first live action Trek in a decade and done on a huge film budget...so there's nothing "off" there IMO.

"The human adventure is about to end" would make a fantastic bookend-ish Trek movie tagline.

 

[Christopher]

"The human adventure is about to end" would make a fantastic bookend-ish Trek movie tagline.

That would be pretty terrible for Trek. Sounds more appropriate for The Terminator or some other apocalyptic movie.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Trek 2009: "The human adventure is getting a do-over."

 

[Santa Kang]

Inalien... If only you could hear yourselves?
'Human rights.' Why the very name is racist.
The Federation is no more than a 'homo sapiens' only club.​

I get the whole "the audience is human and they have to relate" thing. But the Federation is a multi species organization of equals, but the writers will forget that at the drop of a hat to have the characters espose on what it means to be human. Or to have some higher life form test humanity. Q was a prime example. He was going to send humanity back to Earth if they weren't "worthy'. Sorry Q there are 149 other members in the UFP, what about them?

 

[mb22]

The first reference that I remember seeing was on the cover of the first issue of Marvel's run, which was part one of their adaption of TMP. It said "A 23rd century Odyssey today!". Wiether or not there was an earlier reference to the 23rd century, I can't say.

That line was first used in the spring of 1979 in this ad:

http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m5i5cC1A9pEyd0xPAb5f6rA.jpg

It appeared in comic books, scholastic magazines etc.