Alan Dean Foster and Star Trek: The Motion Picture

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Susan Sackett is a bullshit artist of the highest grade, so I'd take anything she wrote with a grain of salt.

OK, you've piqued my interest. I'm just about to re-read more thoroughly The Making Of Star Trek: The Motion Picture since it's come in to my local library, and I've only lightly perused it before. Anything I should be specifically ware of in doing so? Maybe just a few examples, or direction somewhere that I can further educate myself as to this "artistry"? Thanks!

-MMoM

 

[Maurice]

I wonder if Jim Van Hise might have a script for "Robot's Return" hanging around?.

My impression is Genesis II never got as far as scripts, just the treatments and story pitches, but I can't say for certain.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

My impression os Genesis II never got as far as scripts, just the treatments and story pitches, but I can't say for certain.

FWIW, since it seems you may have him on ignore—unless I misinterpret your "Scalosian" comment (and if so, my apologies)—@Christopher did earlier clarify that was exactly what he meant:

If it's not clear, I was talking about Genesis II's story treatments above, not Phase II's.

-MMoM

 

[Maurice]

I was just replying to TrickieDickie's comment, not Christopher's.

 

[Maurice]

A twenty mile-in-diameter space vessel has arrived at 22nd-century Earth from its Neptune moon home. It wishes to learn more about the holy home of its Creator, NASA; it seeks its God. Dylan Hunt, Genesis II's "Captain Kirk" type, learns that the last NASA space exploration team, to one of the moons of Neptune sent back a garbled final message about discovering an alien city whose inhabitants were long dead, but whose machinery was still in operation. The space ship now in Earth orbit has zapped one of Dylan's friends, a lady named Harper-Smythe, who suddenly vanished in a blinding flash—only to be returned a short while later—only this is not Harper-Smythe at all, its voice announces, but a perfect machine duplication! Soon the robot is behaving like the real live-girl, having received a "personality imprint." Perhaps Dylan will be able to save the two-hundred hostages the spaceship is holding in orbit by gaining the androids's trust, even affection. They offer it some old 20th-century NASA film; the lovely android responds by smashing the projector with her (its?) fist. This story ends when the android, by now in love with Dylan (who wants the real thing, not a mechanical copy) tricks the intelligent machine-spaceship into releasing the hostages. Android and girl finally swap places again, and the mechanical lady goes on to explain to the machine what happened to NASA during the last two centuries. The machine leaves for places unknown and Dylan's hometown of Pax becomes peaceful once more.
—Susan Sackett & Gene Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p.57–8, 1980, Wallaby​

Okay, I got to read the actual 20-page treatment for "Robot's Return", and, shock of shocks, the above is accurate.

 

[johnnybear]

I always found it odd that Alan Dean Foster was allowed to write the apparent sequel to Star Wars! Splinter of The Mind's Eye and yet it bears no relation to the second film in the series, The Empire Strikes Back? Even down to Luke cutting Darth Vader's arm off and Vader falling to his doom in a pit I seem to remember! Surely George Lucas knew most of what he wanted for his second movie at that time even if his Vader was Luke's Father hadn't yet been added to the mix?
JB

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I always found it odd that Alan Dean Foster was allowed to write the apparent sequel to Star Wars! Splinter of The Mind's Eye and yet it bears no relation to the second film in the series, The Empire Strikes Back? Even down to Luke cutting Darth Vader's arm off and Vader falling to his doom in a pit I seem to remember! Surely George Lucas knew most of what he wanted for his second movie at that time even if his Vader was Luke's Father hadn't yet been added to the mix?

The Wikipedia article on Splinter explains:

In 1976, Alan Dean Foster was contracted to ghostwrite a novelization for Star Wars. Foster was given some drafts of the script, rough footage and production paintings for use as source material in fleshing out the novel.

Foster's contract also required a second novel, to be used as a basis for a low-budget sequel to Star Wars in case the film was not successful. Though Foster was granted a great deal of leeway in developing the story, a key requirement was that many of the props from the previous production could be reused when shooting the new film. Foster's decision to place his story on a misty jungle planet was also intended to reduce set and background costs for a film adaptation. Han Solo and Chewbacca were also left out as Harrison Ford had not signed a contract to film any of the sequels at the time of the novel contract. Lucas's only request upon inspecting the manuscript was the removal of a space dogfight undertaken by Luke and Leia before crash-landing on Mimban, which would have been effects-heavy and expensive to film.

By the time the novel was published, Star Wars had broken records in box office receipts, and the film adaptation of Splinter of the Mind's Eye was abandoned in favor of Lucas' vision of a big budget sequel.

In other words, Splinter was "the contractual obligation album" of Star Wars. It's a good book, it's an interesting book (because it reveals a lot about what the Star Wars mythos was at the time that's not true now), but I think of it as a "road not taken."