The book covers the film career of Robert Wise. It contains forty chapters, one for each film Wise directed. Only one chapter therefore discusses Star Trek. It may not be worth it for you to purchase, unless you have an interest in any of the other films directed by Robert Wise. I will say this, though, the interview with Alan Dean Foster is incredible.
Alan Dean Foster and Star Trek: The Motion Picture
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The book covers the film career of Robert Wise. It contains forty chapters, one for each film Wise directed. Only one chapter therefore discusses Star Trek. It may not be worth it for you to purchase, unless you have an interest in any of the other films directed by Robert Wise. I will say this, though, the interview with Alan Dean Foster is incredible.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the book includes an introduction by Douglas E. Wise, the nephew of Robert Wise. He served as a crew member on the set of several Star Trek films, beginning with TMP. Some online booksellers include a free preview of the book, and you should be able to read the introduction in its entirety.
What's that irritating buzzing sound I keep hearing? Scalosians? 
I fixed a few typos in my previous post that muddied a few details.
Here's the most thorough of several accounts I have in my files of the plot of "Robot's Return", albeit its particulars disagree with some others I have read. As I stated upthread, we currently have only secondhand accounts of the story outline so who knows what it actually was or if there were multiple drafts. But have a read and consider the source.
I fixed a few typos in my previous post that muddied a few details.
Here's the most thorough of several accounts I have in my files of the plot of "Robot's Return", albeit its particulars disagree with some others I have read. As I stated upthread, we currently have only secondhand accounts of the story outline so who knows what it actually was or if there were multiple drafts. But have a read and consider the source.
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.
One sentence in "Robot's Return" is noteworthy here. It sums up what went on to become the most controversial, yet highly essential, theme in ST—TMP—and one over which battle was waged with the Paramount Studio Executives, as we shall shortly see.
One sentence in "Robot's Return" is noteworthy here. It sums up what went on to become the most controversial, yet highly essential, theme in ST—TMP—and one over which battle was waged with the Paramount Studio Executives, as we shall shortly see.
Humanity, whether in Pax's time or ours, must ultimately face the fact that intelligent machines will be created and relationships between living intelligence and machine intelligence must be anticipated and its advantages and dangers analyzed.
—Susan Sackett & Gene Roddenberry, The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p.57–8, 1980, Wallaby
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Very interesting. Thank you for posting. It certainly bears many similarities to TMP.
Which "one sentence" was that? The boldfaced??
Which "one sentence" was that? The boldfaced??
Yes. it's in a different typeface in the book, as are most of the memos and script excerpts.
I always knew it wasn't Foster ghosting TMP, it's not Foster's voice and very Gene Roddenberry in style.
Oh, I didn't think to check my copy of The Making of ST:TMP for information. I didn't remember it covering "Robots Return." Would've saved some time if I'd realized it might.
So anyway, the antecedents to TMP are self-evident, but the differences from "The Changeling" are also pretty clear. Basically the only common elements are the AI latching onto the lead character as a creator and the hybrid human/alien origins of the AI. Although the above summary is unclear on the relationship between the alien machinery on Neptune and the AI that sees NASA as its God and thus would presumably be of Earth origin.
And the "creator" angle is handled very differently. Not only was there no religious element in "The Changeling," but in Nomad's case, it wasn't searching for its creator as its primary mission; its mission was to "sterilize imperfections," and its acceptance of Kirk as its creator was just an incidental bit of luck that saved the ship from being summarily destroyed.
So anyway, the antecedents to TMP are self-evident, but the differences from "The Changeling" are also pretty clear. Basically the only common elements are the AI latching onto the lead character as a creator and the hybrid human/alien origins of the AI. Although the above summary is unclear on the relationship between the alien machinery on Neptune and the AI that sees NASA as its God and thus would presumably be of Earth origin.
And the "creator" angle is handled very differently. Not only was there no religious element in "The Changeling," but in Nomad's case, it wasn't searching for its creator as its primary mission; its mission was to "sterilize imperfections," and its acceptance of Kirk as its creator was just an incidental bit of luck that saved the ship from being summarily destroyed.
Reading this discussion, I think i can see how Roddenberry's script for "The God-Thing" played a role in the development of "Robot's Return."
In the early 70s, Roddenberry writes a script for a Star Trek film. The crew went their separate ways years ago, a new Enterprise has been built, an alien probe is on a direct course for Earth, and the crew reunites to meet the threat.
Around the same time, Roddenberry develops a television series, Genesis II, and one of the plot springboards for an episode is "Robot's Return." The network doesn't pick up the series, so "Robot's Return" goes unused.
A few years later, Paramount wants to launch a new television network, and they want it to be anchored with a Star Trek television series. Roddenberry thinks the "Robot's Return" idea from Genesis II has some promise as a possible Star Trek story, so he asks Alan Dean Foster to flesh it out into a story treatment. Roddenberry and producer Harold Livingston see promise in Foster's treatment and think it can be fashioned into a pilot for Star Trek Phase II. Roddenberry's hook for "The God-Thing" -- a new Enterprise and reuniting the crew to meet a probe approaching Earth -- is grafted onto "Robot's Return" for the first act as a way to bring audiences up to speed about what's changed about Star Trek, and thus "In Thy Image" is born.
This is all speculation on my part, but it would explain why there are similarities between the two stories, though the nature of the probe the Enterprise must confront are radically different. Alien probes and gods seem to be where Roddenberry's head was in the 70s.
In the early 70s, Roddenberry writes a script for a Star Trek film. The crew went their separate ways years ago, a new Enterprise has been built, an alien probe is on a direct course for Earth, and the crew reunites to meet the threat.
Around the same time, Roddenberry develops a television series, Genesis II, and one of the plot springboards for an episode is "Robot's Return." The network doesn't pick up the series, so "Robot's Return" goes unused.
A few years later, Paramount wants to launch a new television network, and they want it to be anchored with a Star Trek television series. Roddenberry thinks the "Robot's Return" idea from Genesis II has some promise as a possible Star Trek story, so he asks Alan Dean Foster to flesh it out into a story treatment. Roddenberry and producer Harold Livingston see promise in Foster's treatment and think it can be fashioned into a pilot for Star Trek Phase II. Roddenberry's hook for "The God-Thing" -- a new Enterprise and reuniting the crew to meet a probe approaching Earth -- is grafted onto "Robot's Return" for the first act as a way to bring audiences up to speed about what's changed about Star Trek, and thus "In Thy Image" is born.
This is all speculation on my part, but it would explain why there are similarities between the two stories, though the nature of the probe the Enterprise must confront are radically different. Alien probes and gods seem to be where Roddenberry's head was in the 70s.
Well, not exclusively, since he was pursuing a lot of ideas in the '70s. In addition to Genesis II and Questor (which was basically Assignment: Earth take 3), he also made the supernatural-detective pilot Spectre and scripted and produced Roger Vadim's dark sex comedy Pretty Maids All in a Row, and had several other pilot ideas in development, including an SF cop premise called The Tribunes, which was vaguely similar in concept to last year's FOX series APB in that it involved a special unit of the police using cutting-edge technology to improve their methods. (At least, David Gerrold mentioned that one in The World of Star Trek, though it never seems to come up in any other discussions of Roddenberry's '70s work.) There was also that Starship proposal that was the source of the "ringship" artwork seen in TMP, and that somehow involved the sentient-starship idea that ended up as a component of Andromeda. Plus Battleground Earth, the alien-invasion premise that was the basis for Earth: Final Conflict, and an underwater-society pilot called Magna One -- per my Lincoln Enterprises catalog, "Future Earth, its land civilization stagnated by overpopulation and ecological disaster -- under the oceans, a new breed of water-breathing humans live in perfect harmony with all sea life -- in an incredibly lovely new society."
So you could argue that the '70s were really the peak of Roddenberry's creativity, because he had a ton of promising and varied ideas, even if he was unable to get any of them to series (except Questor, which he voluntarily abandoned when the network insisted on dumbing it down), and even if the execution didn't always live up to the concepts. It's interesting, though -- most of his pre-ST work was Westerns, cop shows, and contemporary dramas, but pretty much everything he created after ST was science fiction or fantasy, even when he was trying to move beyond ST. Was that because he was trying to build on his established reputation as an SF producer, or was it just that he'd always preferred doing SF but had needed to build his career with more conventional stuff before he could get to the point of doing what he wanted?
By the way, nobody ever talks about the other story springboards for Genesis II aside from "Robots Return" and "Poodle Shop," the basis for the second pilot Planet Earth. Here's how the others are described in the Lincoln Enterprises catalog:
"Company B": "A 'Trojan Horse' suicide squad from the days of the Great Conflict comes out of suspended animation and attacks PAX. They represent the 1995 ideal of a perfect soldier." -- Maybe a bit of this showed up in Q's future-soldier cosplay in "Encounter at Farpoint"? I'd be tempted to compare it to "Space Seed," but it's an obvious story premise for a show about the aftermath of an apocalyptic war to deal directly with the warriors at some point.
"London Express": "A hair raising journey through submerged portions of the North Atlantic subshuttle tube to mysterious London of 2133 AD. Dylan Hunt and Team 21 meet Lyra-A there and the mad monarch King Charles X." -- Lyra-a was Mariette Hartley's character from the pilot. A bit of a thin premise, but clearly an attempt to get some use out of the subshuttle concept.
"The Apartment": "Trapped inside 20th century ruins by a mysterious force field, Dylan Hunt is catapolted [sic] through a time continium [sic] back to 1975 where he can be seen as a 'transparent ghost' by the girl living in her apartment there. A bizaare [sic] love affair with a surprise twist ending." -- Maybe the surprise twist is that he was there to help the girl study for her spelling test? I think one of the unused Star Trek: Phase II story outlines was a variation on this.
"The Electric Company": "Dylan and his PAX team encounter a place where a strong Priesthood holds a society in bondage through the clever use of electricity. The simple inhabitants see the flashes of light and the amplified voices as the sight and sound of 'God', but Dylan's team ends the dominance of the Priesthood when they come up with still better tricks." -- A pretty standard sci-fi plot done many times before and since in various SF works, including "The Return of the Archons" and "The Apple" in Trek. Anyway, it illustrates why so many SF writers go for post-apocalyptic premises -- because it lets you do what's essentially historical fiction and pass it off as futuristic. It's easier to write about cultures that have regressed to the past than to imagine future innovations. It's also more attainable on a TV budget.
The Enterprise being massively refit also factors into Kaufman's treatment for the aborted Star Trek—The Motion Picture (which started as Planet of the Titans), as the ship gets refit and redesigned after the opening action of planets being sucked into a black hole.
I found this bit so far:
"Robot's Return," featured cyborgs coming to 2133 earth looking for the "gods" that created them. The cyborgs were 20th century astronauts who got cyborg-ized along the way.
Source:
http://classicscifi.blogspot.com/2013/04/genesis-ii.html
"Robot's Return," featured cyborgs coming to 2133 earth looking for the "gods" that created them. The cyborgs were 20th century astronauts who got cyborg-ized along the way.
Source:
http://classicscifi.blogspot.com/2013/04/genesis-ii.html
I have my doubts about the accuracy of that essay. It says "A season's worth of scripts were written," but I don't think they did anything more than the half-dozen story treatments listed in the Lincoln Enterprises catalog. Those are priced at only $2.50 each, suggesting they were much shorter than the full scripts LE sold. It also fails to mention that the third iteration of the premise, Strange New World, was made without Roddenberry's involvement.
Susan Sackett is a bullshit artist of the highest grade, so I'd take anything she wrote with a grain of salt.
'In Thy Image' script outline can be read here:
http://cinetropolis.net/the-great-unmade-star-trek-phase-ii/#disqus_thread
That artwork of the Phase II Enterprise by Mike Minor sure does have a lot of red pinstripes everywhere.
http://cinetropolis.net/the-great-unmade-star-trek-phase-ii/#disqus_thread
That artwork of the Phase II Enterprise by Mike Minor sure does have a lot of red pinstripes everywhere.
Well, I did say "consider the source".
That was what the ship looked like under the Abel group. When they tweaked the model under Trumbull he elected to drop most of the pinstriping.That artwork of the Phase II Enterprise by Mike Minor sure does have a lot of red pinstripes everywhere.
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One version of the script was reprinted in the Reeve Stevens' Star Trek Phase II : the Lost Series. It might be this:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/268211507/Star-Trek-Phase-II-In-Thy-Image-1977-10-20-Rough-Draft#scribd
If it's not clear, I was talking about Genesis II's story treatments above, not Phase II's.
I wonder if Jim Van Hise might have a script for "Robot's Return" hanging around?
It's times like these that Forry Ackerman is sadly missed. It's virtually a cinch that he would have had a copy....
It's times like these that Forry Ackerman is sadly missed. It's virtually a cinch that he would have had a copy....
I liked the Planet Earth versions of Dylan and Harper-Smythe much better than the Genesis II versions. The improvement in charisma from Alex Cord to John Saxon is reminiscent of that from Jeffrey Hunter to William Shatner.
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