20 Things You Didn't Know About ST—TMP (by Harvey)

[Maurice]

Whatculture just published the article 20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek⁠: The Motion Picture (1979), written by @Harvey with assistance by me, but he did the bulk of it.

The complete article is here (LINK)

The piece has also been made into a video, part 1 on which is below.

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[Cryogenic]

The text looks great, but that website has to have the most insanely distracting and disgusting amount of adverts I've ever seen -- and worse, because the article is broken into twenty+ pieces, you get more of them on every page. It's like trying to read a newspaper in a Las Vegas strip joint. I don't suppose a text version free of that outrageous clutter is available?

 

[Maurice]

Watch the video then.

 

[Cryogenic]

Watch the video then.

Oh, I will. I watch plenty as it is.

It's just, when there's text, it's normally more substantial, and I can go at my own pace.

 

[Firebird]

Whatculture just published the article 20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek⁠: The Motion Picture (1979), written by @Harvey with assistance by me, but he did the bulk of it.

The complete article is here (LINK)

The piece has also been made into a video, part 1 on which is below.

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Accept third party cookies

Wonderful article! Thanks @Harvey for the shoutout in the special thanks.

 

[Timby]

Watch the video then.

No. I am and always have been a speed reader, and I can process information a lot more quickly by reading than it takes for me to watch a 17-minute video or click through twenty fucking pages of shit that only exist to sell ads.

 

[Harvey]

Wonderful article! Thanks @Harvey for the shoutout in the special thanks.

I couldn't have written it without your very generous assistance.

The text looks great, but that website has to have the most insanely distracting and disgusting amount of adverts I've ever seen -- and worse, because the article is broken into twenty+ pieces, you get more of them on every page. It's like trying to read a newspaper in a Las Vegas strip joint. I don't suppose a text version free of that outrageous clutter is available?

What Culture's business model is based on advertising. I'm afraid there's currently no way around all of the ads like this site's premium membership—except, of course, watching the version that's on YouTube.

--

EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that there's a typo on item #6. Phil Rawlins was the movie's unit production manager. I mistakenly identified him as "Phil Stewart."

 

[Timo]

There was text?

I'll have to dedicate another lunch hour to finding it, I'm afraid. But since I know in advance that it's time well spent...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cryogenic]

What Culture's business model is based on advertising. I'm afraid there's currently no way around all of the ads like this site's premium membership—except, of course, watching the version that's on YouTube.

With all due respect, that's more adverts, and more types of adverts, clustered on one page like that, than I've ever seen in my life. That site is such a mess because of all the ads, it was even causing my computer fans to kick up a fuss.

Anyway, I know my original reply was a bit impetuous -- so my apologies. I just think, even when it comes to people trying to sell me stuff, there are limits.

That aside, I solved the problem for myself by manually scraping the text and copying into a blank document. It's a decent little read. I may still pursue the video regardless.

 

[Maab]

Whatculture just published the article 20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek⁠: The Motion Picture (1979), written by @Harvey with assistance by me, but he did the bulk of it.

Very well done, thanks!

I have a question: it's mentioned in fact number 18 that Roddenberry and Povill wrote two treatments together (https://whatculture.com/film/20-things-you-didnt-know-about-star-trek-the-motion-picture-1979?page=4). This is new to me (and I guess to many others as well). I was aware only of one single attempt they did together (described in Altman & Gross books). What the source for it? Any chance to read the second treatment?

 

[mb22]

Great article!

If you need pictures of Planet of the Titans screenwriters Chris Bryant (Christopher Dobson d.10/27/08) and Allan Scott (Alan Shiach) here they are below (taken in their later years). I recall seeing a contemporary (1970s) photo of the two together in a 1977 All About Star Trek Fan Clubs magazine, but don't have ready access to it.

 

[Maurice]

We work with someone who has a lot of scripts and treatments whose shown us various documents. We'll discuss if it's possible to get any of those out there. Sometimes people pay a lot of money in auctions to get these things so it's understandable they often don't want to just put them out there.

But, yes, there are two versions of the Povill-Roddenberry treatment, each the same basic story but big sections are very different in the particulars.

I tried contacting Scott and Bryant some years ago to no avail. Someone I knew who did contact one of them was basically told off.

As to WhatCulture, like it or not, they paid for the work, so we can't put it out in another form.

 

[mb22]

I tried contacting Scott and Bryant some years ago to no avail. Someone I knew who did contact one of them was basically told off.

They refuse to talk about Trek, or just didn't want to talk, period?

From what I've seen on the internet, neither were particularly reclusive. Bryant died in 2008. Scott/Shiach seems quite happy to publicly discuss his script of Don't Look Now and other films.

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[Maurice]

They refuse to talk about Trek, or just didn't want to talk, period?

From what I've seen on the internet, neither were particularly reclusive. Bryant died in 2008. Scott/Shiach seems quite happy to publicly discuss his script of Don't Look Now and other films.

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I don't recall. I just know it was a rude-ish reply. Frankly, I have heard a number of people who worked on Trek projects who refuse to discuss it because some overzealous fans have bothered them too much.

For the record, Don't Look Now is wonderfully creepy.

 

[Maab]

If you need pictures of Planet of the Titans screenwriters Chris Bryant (Christopher Dobson d.10/27/08) and Allan Scott (Alan Shiach) here they are below (taken in their later years). I recall seeing a contemporary (1970s) photo of the two together in a 1977 All About Star Trek Fan Clubs magazine, but don't have ready access to it.

Here is a picture of them togheter at the time of "Planet of the Titans".
http://www.marcellorossi.info/02-BryantScott.jpg

We work with someone who has a lot of scripts and treatments whose shown us various documents. We'll discuss if it's possible to get any of those out there.

Well, I would certainly like to meet this mysterious benefactor.

 

[Maurice]

Hey thanks for that photo!

 

[mb22]

Here is a picture of them together at the time of "Planet of the Titans".
http://www.marcellorossi.info/02-BryantScott.jpg

Well, I would certainly like to meet this mysterious benefactor.

That photo is much more appropriate than mine when discussing the subject .

 

[J.T.B.]

That was great and, as usual, I learned something! Two questions:

1. What is the editorial process for something like that? Is there any fact-checking by the publisher etc.? I know @Harvey and his high standards, and even if I didn't the writing is specific enough that, as a reasonably experienced non-fiction reader, I would have some degree of confidence in the accuracy. But there are no traditional citations or bibliography. Where I am going with this is: Could a similar article by a writer with not-so-high standards also be published on such a platform, leading to repetition of inaccurate material, possibly to such an extent that it ends up needing to be debunked? As you can tell I am somewhat skeptical of the medium, as well online information consumer literacy, but are some platforms more responsible than others?

2. "According to an analysis in Daily Variety, of the 1.1 billion movie tickets purchased at the U.S. box office in 1979, nearly one in four was for Star Trek—The Motion Picture." Since the movie only played for 25 days in calendar '79, does this perhaps mean tickets sold for movies released in 1979? Or did it actually do that much business from Dec. 7 to 31?

 

[Harvey]

What is the editorial process for something like that? Is there any fact-checking by the publisher etc.?

An editor has to read a post before it's published, but based on a lot of the other content on the site, fact-checking is minimal at best.

"According to an analysis in Daily Variety, of the 1.1 billion movie tickets purchased at the U.S. box office in 1979, nearly one in four was for Star Trek—The Motion Picture." Since the movie only played for 25 days in calendar '79, does this perhaps mean tickets sold for movies released in 1979? Or did it actually do that much business from Dec. 7 to 31?

This is sourced from The First Star Trek Movie, which cites Daily Variety from January 9, 1980 ("79 Holds U.S. Box-Office Record," p.1, 8) and is specifically about box office performance in the calendar year 1979. Here's the relevant passage from the book:

"By the last day of 1979, Roddenberry’s novelization had reached no. 1 on the New York Times list. As for the movie itself, Daily Variety calculated that U.S. box office hit a new record that year of $2.806B, and approximately 1,100,000,000 movie tickets had been purchased. In what may be an example of Zipf ’s Law in action, three films were responsible for 40% of those ticket sales: Kramer vs. Kramer accounted for 7%, The Jerk for 10%, and the remaining 23% was ST—TMP. Put another way, approximately one out of four of the more than one billion movie tickets purchased in 1979 was for the Robert Wise film."​

 

[J.T.B.]

This is sourced from The First Star Trek Movie, which cites Daily Variety from January 9, 1980 ("79 Holds U.S. Box-Office Record," p.1, 8) and is specifically about box office performance in the calendar year 1979.

Thanks for the info, I've just started reading that book. That is astonishingly brisk business!