Good Behind the Scenes Books
- Thread starter Ceridwen
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According to Memory Alpha, it was the costume designer.
The Aaamazzarites were designed by Fred Phillips and Robert Fletcher for The Motion Picture. With the approval of Gene Roddenberry, the Aaamazzarites, as well as numerous other new species in the film, were named by Fletcher and provided a backstory by him.
Here's one such backstory from Fletcher:
AAAMAZZARITES – Therbians from planet Aaamazzara. They generate their own clothing from out of own mouths, like bees making hives. They manufacture everything they use from their own chemistry, from inside their own body, from clothing to furniture. Costumes for film modeled in clay, cast in sheets of foam rubber.
Anyone who is not an Aaamazzarite will find this race's name much simpler to pronounce if one holds two bumblebees in one's mouth during the attempt. One of a number of insectoid races, they are Therbians from the planet Aaamazzara. An industrious race with a hive intellect, the Aaamazzarites can exist on nearly any planet for they do not depend on surface conditions to provide food or shelter. Everything needed for survival is manufactured through their own body chemistry. The clothes they wear have been produced in a manner similar to a spider spinning a web.
One more:
SHAMIN PRIEST – From O'Ryan's planet, discovered by Paddy O'Ryan in 22nd century. Costume: made of fabric and liquid plastic, solidifies, turns into another kind of material. Bob developed this process more fully for the movie. All gold objects of this process. Rag parts of costume specially worn on hand looms.
The planet, like its people, are in an early stage of social and technological development. It will be a long time, if ever, before they reach the capabilities of space travel. Their society is like the society of America's western Indian civilizations. The smiilarities (sic) are particularly striking when one realizes that no travelers from Earth, in recorded history, had ever set foot on the planet until Paddy's discovery of it.
His undergarment is of a knit material. The tunic is a very plush material that I had woven on a hand loom. The material can't be purchased commercially.
All quite imaginative, if somewhat nonsensical and self-contradictory, but ultimately of no value to the film. So much time, effort, and money put into the wrong things on that movie (probably contributing to why it had to be released in unfinished form).
And yet now I kinda wish the raggedy priests had been discovered by Irish-American dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan.
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Interesting that you mentioned the emphasis on (ultimately background) aliens.Then one of my friends got the soundtrack LP shortly before we saw the film, and I remember the full-color booklet inside showing all the aliens that Gene must have been so proud of. Out of context, not having seen the movie, they seemed bizarre. A bunch of clunky race names that meant nothing to the fans. (Aaamazzarite? Shamin Priest from O'Ryan's Planet? Seriously, Gene?) No information about their relevance. And the makeup & costumes just seemed so... dorky and dopey and kind of lifeless. In context, of course, it turned out that they had no relevance to the plot, and thankfully were barely even seen. (I wondered if maybe somebody in the editing bay also thought they looked bad and were irrelevant, and so cut around them as much as possible.)
(I too attended one of Rodenberry’s speeches in Jacksonville Florida (I can’t even tell you the year or really what he even talked about because I had to have been eight or nine years old – all I remember is being vaguely titillated by the mild cursing in the blooper reel, which he played several times.)
However, in November 1979, as promotion for the movie, they did a traveling show (I assume to several locations across the country) that, in Jacksonville, was held at the Orange Park Mall (local mall with the theater that was going to be showing TMP a few weeks later). It was accompanied by a “create your own Star Trek alien“ contest where people submitted their art to the local newspaper and an award was given out on the day of the show at the mall. (I got an honorable mention, which must’ve been a pity prize given that I was 11 and no Rembrandt).
The main attraction on the day-of was a touring display of costumes from the upcoming film, very much focused to showcase the alien outfits (although I do remember a Vulcan outfit and an Engineering suit as well, and I’m sure there was probably a standard Starfleet uniform there.)
To be fair, it's not like Lucasfilm hasn't produced its share of aliens with dumb names.
I'll let Jar Jar pass. But to give Christopher Lee a character name one letter off from feces.....
With regard to the bizarre aliens featured on the TMP LP sleeve (I still have mine too), were any of these eyesores even seen in the movie at all? Were they milling about when Kirk's tram landed in San Francisco? They're not in the crew as far as I can see.
@Just a Bill, I totally agree that TMP forgot what audiences like, and expended vast resources on things that would never matter. And it wasn't just Cantina Envy. They had shoes sewn into the uniform pants, so they'd be expensive, impractical, and unattractive. It was so many things.
@Just a Bill, I totally agree that TMP forgot what audiences like, and expended vast resources on things that would never matter. And it wasn't just Cantina Envy. They had shoes sewn into the uniform pants, so they'd be expensive, impractical, and unattractive. It was so many things.
The aliens are mostly in the air tram station, to avoid the Federation looking like a homo sapiens only club.
And, be fair, the Dr. Dentons footies in the uniforms were to try to make the costumes look un-20th century, impractical and expensive as they might've been.
And, be fair, the Dr. Dentons footies in the uniforms were to try to make the costumes look un-20th century, impractical and expensive as they might've been.
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