How many of those have there been? I have the Insurrection one, William Shatner's Movie Memories covered the first six or seven to some degree, as did the Captain's Logs book, and there was a chapter in one of the novels (Generations?), but I'm not aware of any others.
How many books are planned for the movie's release?
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How many of those have there been? I have the Insurrection one, William Shatner's Movie Memories covered the first six or seven to some degree, as did the Captain's Logs book, and there was a chapter in one of the novels (Generations?), but I'm not aware of any others.
The "Star Trek Files" was excellent value, as it came out week by week for 304 weeks at about $4.90 an issue. (Just don't add up your total outlay for the whole thing or you might gag; I guess some fans assumed the partwork was only going for 70-odd weeks?) But I always found the modest weekly cost to be well worth the time I spent browsing it and interfiling the pages into the free binders.
The only price rise in all its years in Australia was 10% to cover the introduction of GST in July 2000. The UK price held steady at under two pounds for its entire run.
They did stop publication after ENT Season One, and the only way to obtain "Nemesis" update pages was to get the booklet that accompanied the rebooted magazine/DVD issue. But hey, don't slam the "Files", or blame anyone but yourself if you now resent buying all 304 issues.
The licensed ones:
Susan Sackett did the wonderful "The Making of ST:TMP" with Gene Roddenberry's input.
The hilarious "Chekov's Enterprise: A Personal Journal of the Making of ST:TMP" by Walter Koenig.
Allan Asherman did "The Making of ST II".
Lisabeth Shatner wrote "Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account on the Making of ST V" with her Dad, the director.
There was also a UK "The Making of ST: First Contact" by Lou Anders (Titan Books). This was often a tricky one for US fans to find.
"ST: Action!" and "The Secrets of ST: Insurrection", both by Terry Erdmann, cover "Insurrection".
The "Generations", "First Contact" and "Nemesis" novelizations all have "Making of" chapters at the back.
Yeah, but they do something else to keep their hands busy.
(Although, really, with the Internet, anybody who still buys their porn in magazine format really must want to read the articles!)Ah, now trying to exploit media hype does makes sense to me as a market strategy. Thanks Therin.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Editd for gross mispelling.
I ran out of time to retrieve that link earlier.
I didn't mention the ST VI "making of" book because it was unlicensed.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Man, I think that was one of the worst making of books I've ever read (and up till recently, I think I'd read all of them.) It is like what Brick Price said about the chapter on props. Sackett interviews the prop master (who is basically the guy who hands you the prop for the scene and then takes it back) about how things were built that he had no hand in, and then she doesn't use any of her interviews with the non-Paramount employees who actually did the work (like Price, who didn't even get screen credit.)
Except for the set budget stuff and the PLANET OF TITANS summary, I don't think there was a single thing in that book of interest to me.
Usually the best making of books are about movies that are messed up. Trouble is, these days there is too much spin control so you don't get to discuss the problems on a production. I think MAKING OF EXORCIST II is a really informative book; you get an idea of what these people were thinking, which helps offset what YOU think when you actually try to watch the movie.
But for me, with TMP being my first real exposure to ST beyond TAS, it was all the stuff about the cast, "ST: Phase II", the new UFP aliens, the costumes, the memos, etc. I can understand it wasn't as techie as you may have liked, but that's what the excellent "Cinefex" #1 was for. (Not to mention the never-published "Cinefantastique" TMP double issue that company kept promising.)
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Well, the first two issues of CINEFEX covered the vfx aspect in detail (but still didn't present the whole vfx story, which has been hinted at in some ENTERPRISE INCIDENTS articles), but what I was expecting of a MAKING OF ST book was something along the lines of TV book, something that covered a lot of territory instead of just seeming like an expanded Sackett report for STARLOG. The CFQ thing you mention is still the presumed definitive piece, though nobody has read it to the best of my knowledge. The author has got something like 1600 pages on TMP, interviews with everybody under and over the sun, but I guess Pocket won't publish wartsNall stuff, so I don't know the guy will ever do anything with this. Shame.
^ He's had many opportunities to self-publish it over the decades but then he's taking all the legal risks himself, when people want to sue him, and not enjoying the support of lawyers from "Cinefantastique", "Enterprise incidents" or Pocket.
I'm not so sure TMP "warts n all" is essential reading after all these years; we know it was a bun fight! I, myself, thoroughly enjoyed Susan Sackett's TMP work, even if it was akin to her "Starlog" TMP reports.
I'm not so sure TMP "warts n all" is essential reading after all these years; we know it was a bun fight! I, myself, thoroughly enjoyed Susan Sackett's TMP work, even if it was akin to her "Starlog" TMP reports.
So who's doing the book? Is it Dorling Kindersley? please pretty please? 
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Not DK, probably still only Pocket, unfortunately. DK lost money on some projects, and only seems to bet on sure things. They were going to do a big comprehensive book on ALIEN several years ago (I was in the running to do the captionwriting for it), but that wasn't a sure enough thing for them.
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