Abandoned film projects before getting to The Motion Pictures

[Maab]

Hi everybody,
I'm working on a series of articles on a subject which has been frequently discussed, but on which much information is still missing, which is all the abandoned movie/series projects before getting to TMP.
This is the list I'm working on:

[- Roddenberry movie idea on Star Trek academy years 1968]
- The Cattlemen 1973
- The God Thing 1975
- Star Trek II (John Povill) 1975
- Star Trek II (John Povill & Gene Roddenberry) 1975
- Harlan Ellison story 1976
- John D.F. Black story 1976
- The Billion Year Voyage (Robert Silverberg) 1976
- Other writers' proposals (stories unknown) 1976: Ray Bradbury, Ted Sturgeon, Howard Rodman, Howard Burke, Will Loren
- Planet of Titans 1976-1977
- Star Trek Phase II 1977-1978
- Star Trek The Motion Picture

Did I miss something?
Thanks

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Memory Alpha has a page:

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek_projects

It has quite a few things you don't.

 

[Maab]

Well, I wouldn't say so. I meant only those movie projects which led to The Motion Pictures, not all the abandoned Star Trek movie projects. Memory Alpha does not list anything beyond what I reported. It does however mention two more writers whose story ideas were scrapped: Chris Knopf (who wrote a full screenplay, no details available) and Dick Simmons.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I meant only those movie projects which led to The Motion Pictures, not all the abandoned Star Trek movie projects.

 

[Maurice]

Well, I wouldn't say so. I meant only those movie projects which led to The Motion Pictures, not all the abandoned Star Trek movie projects. Memory Alpha does not list anything beyond what I reported. It does however mention two more writers whose story ideas were scrapped: Chris Knopf (who wrote a full screenplay, no details available) and Dick Simmons.

That's vague as heck. Elements introduced in earlier treatments and scripts made their way into TMP, so in a way they all led into that. For instance, the Enterprise got a refit and Spock left the service in Planet of the Titans (officially titled Star Trek—The Motion Picture while the script was being written) and Kaufman's treatment for its replacement when Bryant and Scott left, even though they appeared in different contexts, but virtually nothing else from that project got carried over.

 

[publiusr]

I think one day--someone will do a fan version of Planet of the Titans.

I wounder what the fulled sized (non-study) model would have looked like.

Had I been on the production--I might have sent the study model to folks who do amazing detail: http://architectural-models.com/

A saucer wider than this--but with the same bridge detail
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3243/2872163834_7290dcb4cc_o.jpg
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/planet-of-the-titans-revisited.67493/

One of the things I would like to do--had I money beyond the dreams of avarice--would be the hull to be done by folks who do architectural models..

In additiom, I'd hire watchmakers who do fine movements to have those sections rise out of the model.

Clockwork mechanisms can do amazing things:
https://hauntedpalaceblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/merlin-and-the-silver-swan/

One of the largest models was of Regent Worf's Negh'Var-- Tony Meininger's twenty-five foot model of the underside of the ship.

The PLANET OF THE TITANS ship lends itself to a large size due to simple lines--and my guess is that--right up there with the Cygnus--we might have had the most detailed ship model ever made.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I think one day--someone will do a fan version of Planet of the Titans.

I don't think they could squeeze it all into 15 minutes.

 

[Maurice]

First, had Kaufman's film gone forward the Enterprise in it more likely would have looked like smaller bodied and large nacelled study model as opposed to the wider "McQuarriprise" as the former appears in far more of the released sketches than the latter. Second, I doubt the model would have been that large, since Star Wars proved you could get immense detail on fairly small models if you knew how to shoot them. The Star Destroyer in the original film is all of 3 feet long.

EDIT: Trevanian disagrees with me on the point of the size of the model, as per:

… this is just me theorizing, but I’m pretty sure they’d’ve gone much larger with the models than ILM did for SW … the work was going to be done in the UK, and almost certainly without motion control, as there wasn’t any of that tech over there. Meddings usually built his models pretty big...and when he went small, you could usually tell...

I usually envision TITANS model vfx as looking like something between ALIEN and MOONRAKER, but with the phantasmagoric Belson optical element plussing that up.​

 

[publiusr]

I'd loved to have seen that.