I thought the Altman/Gross books, especially the 1st Volume about the 1st 25 years, is in my opinion, the best "Star Trek" non fiction book ever. I mean it covers every aspect of "Star Trek" from those 25 years...including !!! the birth of Starlog magazine, The Poster magazines from the 70's, the Photonovels, a Star Trek retail store in NYC in the 70's...I mean...these boys cover everything.
I learned a lot too. I think this book gave you more insider information especially about Gene Roddenberry from the time before, during and after "ST:TMP". He comes off very unflattering here.
But on a different note, I find it peculiar that "Star Trek" was Gene's baby...his pride and joy and yet, he really didn't know what to do to make a good movie out of it.
From this book or the old "making of ST:TMP" book, you can tell that Gene desperately wanted to make this film be so important and it had to have a prestigious director and he DID get one in the legendary Robert Wise. But his demand for a larger than life storyline ...yeah, I know its Sci-fi so it has to be something out of the norm, but that first movie is so much different than the series in just about every imaginable way other than the fact it had the same actors as the ones who appeared on the TV show.
While I found their writings on Gene Roddenberry to be almost downright disturbing, I found the stories of Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer's entrée into the Trek Universe to be quite interesting and fun to re-watch the steps they took while reading about it.
David Gerrold also points out that the verbal thrashing that Bill Shatner has been getting all these recent years from the supporting cast is for the most part unwarranted. He goes out of his way to point how BIll made it a fun set and kept things moving and kept things light.
I really think that George, Walter and Jimmy and maybe even Nichelle to some small degree got a case of swelled head since they went to all the conventions in the 70's when Bill and Leonard only went to a comparative handful...since they were both busy working a lot. The 4 supporting actors thought because of all the praise they got at the conventions that they were the main reason the show was a success when in fact it WASN'T an ensemble show. It had 3 stars. Bill, Leonard and De.
But the book is beyond great and if you had any questions about the history of Trek that you felt was unanswered, in my opinion, Altman and Gross answer all of them in these 2 massive volumes.
I learned a lot too. I think this book gave you more insider information especially about Gene Roddenberry from the time before, during and after "ST:TMP". He comes off very unflattering here.
But on a different note, I find it peculiar that "Star Trek" was Gene's baby...his pride and joy and yet, he really didn't know what to do to make a good movie out of it.
From this book or the old "making of ST:TMP" book, you can tell that Gene desperately wanted to make this film be so important and it had to have a prestigious director and he DID get one in the legendary Robert Wise. But his demand for a larger than life storyline ...yeah, I know its Sci-fi so it has to be something out of the norm, but that first movie is so much different than the series in just about every imaginable way other than the fact it had the same actors as the ones who appeared on the TV show.
While I found their writings on Gene Roddenberry to be almost downright disturbing, I found the stories of Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer's entrée into the Trek Universe to be quite interesting and fun to re-watch the steps they took while reading about it.
David Gerrold also points out that the verbal thrashing that Bill Shatner has been getting all these recent years from the supporting cast is for the most part unwarranted. He goes out of his way to point how BIll made it a fun set and kept things moving and kept things light.
I really think that George, Walter and Jimmy and maybe even Nichelle to some small degree got a case of swelled head since they went to all the conventions in the 70's when Bill and Leonard only went to a comparative handful...since they were both busy working a lot. The 4 supporting actors thought because of all the praise they got at the conventions that they were the main reason the show was a success when in fact it WASN'T an ensemble show. It had 3 stars. Bill, Leonard and De.
But the book is beyond great and if you had any questions about the history of Trek that you felt was unanswered, in my opinion, Altman and Gross answer all of them in these 2 massive volumes.
