Fact-Checking Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

[Harvey]

Another part at least to come regarding A Private Little War.

Justman wasn't unique in his extensive memo writing (Coon did it, too), but his voice was certainly unique. His memos are a highlight of the collection and a major reason why I am less enthusiastic about research on the third season.

 

[Botany Bay]

But he made it all the way to "That Which Survives", so there must be some Justman gold in those first fourteen shows. Or did he get a bit flat with his writing as despondency kicked in? If you ever decide to do a Justman project (and I hope you do : I'd do it myself if I could write), shoot me a PM, I know where you can possibly get a hold of some unpublished interviews with him.

I think its time to call it like it is : Gene Roddenberry was an appalling manager. He worked Coon to exhaustion, treated Justman poorly on many occasions (not asking him to work on the movies, overlooking him for S3 producer, refusing to give him rightful credit on "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"), could not deal with the network, and burned bridges everywhere to the point you can hardly find anyone who worked for him who has a nice word to say. A genius, but just about the last boss you would want to work for.

 

[MikeH92467]

Whitfield's "Making of Star Trek" to my mind gets a little to easily dismissed or at least downplayed by some. Sure it's an authorized job and glorifies Roddenberry, but it does have the advantage of being written before Star Trek became a monster franchise. While the stories are certainly slanted to make him look better, there is a lot of credit given to a lot of people. Certainly there was more to tell than he told in that book and some of what he put in has been thoroughly discredited, but I think it's a valuable piece if you're trying to put together a mental picture of what went on

 

[CrazyMatt]

I think its time to call it like it is : Gene Roddenberry was an appalling manager. He worked Coon to exhaustion, treated Justman poorly on many occasions (not asking him to work on the movies, overlooking him for S3 producer, refusing to give him rightful credit on "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"), could not deal with the network, and burned bridges everywhere to the point you can hardly find anyone who worked for him who has a nice word to say. A genius, but just about the last boss you would want to work for.

GR was a deeply talented and deeply flawed individual. Herb Solow resented him for GR's habit to take credit for the contributions (significant and otherwise) of others and the way he played fast and lose with the truth. Justman was never valued like he should have been, and he and DC Fontana finally had their fill during season 1 of TNG and left. And he burned out the greatest talent he had in his production team, Gene Coon.

Quite frankly, TOS was better when Coon produced than when GR did. The movies were better when Harve Bennett produced than when GR produced ST:TMP. And TNG was better when Rick Berman and Michael Piller produced it than when GR did.

As I've said before on this board, GR was Star Trek's greatest asset and greatest liability all wrapped up in one package.

 

[drmidnite66]

Another deja vu inducing budget-saver was when shows would re-film an old script. The series to do this the most had to be Bewitched. There were some scripts they shot three times during their eight-year run. The Bionic Woman shot at least one Six Million Dollar Man script: "Survival of the Fittest" became "Fly Jaime."

The Battlestar Galactica episode "The Lost Warrior" was recycled into the Tales of the Gold Monkey episode "The Lady and the Tiger" and parts of it seemed to find its way into the Buck Rogers episode "The Satyr" ...

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Whitfield's "Making of Star Trek" to my mind gets a little to easily dismissed or at least downplayed by some. Sure it's an authorized job and glorifies Roddenberry, but it does have the advantage of being written before Star Trek became a monster franchise. While the stories are certainly slanted to make him look better, there is a lot of credit given to a lot of people. Certainly there was more to tell than he told in that book and some of what he put in has been thoroughly discredited, but I think it's a valuable piece if you're trying to put together a mental picture of what went on

True--TMOST has the advantage of being an inside job while the series was in production--and struggling, That is a state free of the 70s convention era revisionist, ego stroking that was turned up by 1000, and continued until GR passed on.

 

[Maurice]

EDIT: Misread the original post. Opps!

 

[Melakon]

Maurice, read that again. It's a bit of a run-on sentence, since it begins with Coon, but suddenly shifts to Justman as the subject.

. . .He worked Coon to exhaustion, treated Justman poorly on many occasions (not asking him to work on the movies, overlooking him for S3 producer, refusing to give him rightful credit on "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"), could not deal with the network, and burned bridges everywhere to the point you can hardly find anyone who worked for him who has a nice word to say.

 

[Maurice]

Maurice, read that again. It's a bit of a run-on sentence, since it begins with Coon, but suddenly shifts to Justman as the subject.

. . .He worked Coon to exhaustion, treated Justman poorly on many occasions (not asking him to work on the movies, overlooking him for S3 producer, refusing to give him rightful credit on "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"), could not deal with the network, and burned bridges everywhere to the point you can hardly find anyone who worked for him who has a nice word to say.

Ah, I see. My mistake.

Still, Justman was not a writer, and all of the "Producers" on TOS were writers. I suspect that, more than anything, is why he was never offered the Producer position.

As to the movies, Roddenberry Executive Produced only one, and had no say in the producing crew on anything else. As to why he didn't bring Justman in on Phase II, that's a different question.

 

[Christopher]

As to the movies, Roddenberry Executive Produced only one, and had no say in the producing crew on anything else.

Actually Roddenberry was the producer on ST:TMP, not the executive producer. The credited Executive in Charge of Production (which apparently is the same thing as an executive producer) was Lindsley Parsons, Jr. The Making of ST:TMP also lists Jeffrey Katzenberg as an Executive in Charge of Production.

I gather that in feature films, the executive producer is a less prominent role than it is in TV, basically referring just to an executive who's responsible for the business and legal side of a production, or to a financing partner -- someone with no direct involvement in the creative or technical aspects in the production. So while the EP is the key creative figure in a TV series, it's the producer and director who play that role in a movie.

 

[Maurice]

Yeah, Executive Producer is frequently a more hands-off thing in motion pictures. I'd misremembered the titles to TMP. Anyway, on Doug Trumbull's website he has a mock TMP title card which reads ACTUALLY PRODUCED BY JEFFREY KATZENBERG, which tells you his perspective.

 

[Harvey]

Well, it's certainly been a while, hasn't it?

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-pickups-and-lifts-in-man-trap.html

Here's a little piece answering a (familiar) reader's question about a couple of pick-up shots in "The Man Trap."

 

[GSchnitzer]

Well, it's certainly been a while, hasn't it?

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-pickups-and-lifts-in-man-trap.html

Here's a little piece answering a (familiar) reader's question about a couple of pick-up shots in "The Man Trap."

Good stuff--as always! Thorough, detailed, and interesting.

Your hard work and pride in your research and writing shows--and is appreciated.

 

[feek61]

Well, it's certainly been a while, hasn't it?

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-pickups-and-lifts-in-man-trap.html

Here's a little piece answering a (familiar) reader's question about a couple of pick-up shots in "The Man Trap."

Good stuff--as always! Thorough, detailed, and interesting.

Your hard work and pride in your research and writing shows--and is appreciated.

Indeed it is!

 

[CrazyMatt]

Well, it's certainly been a while, hasn't it?

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-pickups-and-lifts-in-man-trap.html

Here's a little piece answering a (familiar) reader's question about a couple of pick-up shots in "The Man Trap."

Good stuff--as always! Thorough, detailed, and interesting.

Your hard work and pride in your research and writing shows--and is appreciated.

Indeed it is!

Still waiting for Harvey to write THE book...

 

[Maurice]

Great work as ever.

I'm so sick of Cushman's bullshit. Someone pointed me to an "interview" Cushman did a while back (link) where he literally says...

"Bill Gates has admitted he got the idea for the PC and the Internet from Star Trek."​

Exsqueeze me? What is he smoking? Since when did Bill Gates have anything to do with the invention of either? He's also says "the first type of cell phone" was a flip phone, which is sooooo wrong.

He's the worst kind of "expert": the kind for whom accuracy matters not one whit.

 

[Indysolo]

A reason for the different framing in the "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" outtake could be because the shot starts on Uhura's console, pulls back and reveals Uhura and then pulls back further and pans over to Spock.

Neil B.

 

[Maurice]

Plus, these are human-guided camera movements, not motion control, so the framing between any two takes isn't going to be identical.

 

[Indysolo]

Precisely. It's a complex shot, but as noted, lighting, clothing and positions all match. The slight framing issue is a result of the human element.

Neil

 

[Myko]

Well, it's certainly been a while, hasn't it?

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-pickups-and-lifts-in-man-trap.html

Here's a little piece answering a (familiar) reader's question about a couple of pick-up shots in "The Man Trap."

Great post again, thanks! My only complaint is that it's a little hard to tell where the script excerpt ends and your own text begins. Perhaps the script excerpt can be done in a Courier type font for that authentic look.