Hollywood Reporter's TMP anniversary story

[gottacook]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/h...ar-trek-movie-almost-killed-franchise-1258930
This includes long, evidently new, quotes from Shatner and Doug Trumbull, who says a few things I hadn't heard before, such as that he reconceived and directed (with Robert Wise's approval) the Spock mind-meld with Vger scene.

(The story includes a minor error: "Livingston would ultimately share screenplay credit with Roddenberry, with story credit going to Foster." The 1978 "23rd Century Odyssey Now" ad/poster credited the screenplay to Roddenberry and Livingston (no separate story credit; Foster's name not mentioned), whereas the final film credits the screenplay to Livingston and the story to Foster.)

 

[Khan 2.0]

Another 40th retrospect
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...-kirk-gene-rodenberry-star-wars-a9234541.html

 

[Procutus]

^
Interesting article, just finished reading it.

Brought back a lot of memories of those days in 1979, the anticipation of the movie at the end of the year and the thrill of actually finally seeing it on December 23 (for reasons that still escape me, TMP opened on December 21 in Cleveland).

I plan on pulling out the blu-ray for another look at it in two weeks.

 

[Procutus]

Here's another rather interesting article, this one about the work that went into building the Enterprise:

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/1...tmp-enterprise-refit-drydock-douglas-trumbull

 

[Amasov]

I've always heard Shatner say how they destroyed the sets after every movie. Was that even true?

I know something can easily be rebuilt, but, between the first four, the Enterprise/Enterprise-A bridge set stayed pretty consistent.

And plus most of those standing sets were pressed into service for use on TNG. I'd always heard the bridge set we saw at the end of TVH was destroyed from being temporarily stored outside, but, that set ended up getting used multiple times early on in TNG doubling as the Stargazer bridge, the Enterprise D's battle bridge, and I think it was severely stripped down and used in Measure of a Man as the courtroom.

So, unless I'm mistaken, the only time the bridge set was actually rebuilt from scratch was between for TFF.
Sorry, rambled.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I've always heard Shatner say how they destroyed the sets after every movie. Was that even true?

It can't be. I believe that the TMP sets started out as Phase II sets, and most of them were redressed for the movie. And yeah, the bridge set was reused & redressed for II, III, IV, the TNG battle bridge, and a few other things. I don't think that TWOK would've been financially feasible if they had to rebuild the bridge from scratch. They barely had enough money to redress the sets and give the leads new uniforms.

So, unless I'm mistaken, the only time the bridge set was actually rebuilt from scratch was between for TFF.

I'm wondering if perhaps Shatner is conflating two different memories here. Maybe he's thinking about how they had to rebuild the bridge for TFF because of the damage to the TVH bridge pieces being stored outside and that's somehow grown in his memory to "They destroyed the sets after every movie."

I have read that the rec deck set was struck after TMP, because it was too big to store. That sounds very plausible and explains why we never saw a redress of that set in the subsequent movies.

 

[Maurice]

The Enterprise standing sets (bridge, corridors, sickbay, Kirk's quarters, and engine room) And the Klingon bridge (which was designed to come apart) made it through ST3, and only the bridge got reused in ST4. Everything else built for TMP was struck: command airlock, Spockwalk airlock, cargo deck, officer's lounge, rec deck, cargo deck, Enterprise "wing walk" and V'ger, V'ger trench and memory wall, Vulcan and SFHQ.

 

[plynch]

So all the important stuff was not burned after every flick. I'm surprised he said that.

 

[DonIago]

Kind of a shame really...given some of the creative uses they came up with for the extant sets, one wonders what they could have done if they'd had more material to work with.

Then again, might as well ask what the other films might have looked like with decent budgets...

I will say seeing TMP on the big screen for the first time earlier this year gave me an appreciation for it that I don't think I had previously. Of all the Trek films it seems to suffer most significantly when scaled down for TV.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

So all the important stuff was not burned after every flick. I'm surprised he said that.

I don't think he was consciously lying about it. He's likely just misremembering. It happens.