I've posted about this in some TMP threads before, but a while back, I had the idea for a what-if regarding the movie, born out of thinking about the script's weaknesses. The movie has a lack of complete character arcs, except for Spock. The supporting cast largely contributes nothing actively to the plot of the movie, and Kirk's conflict with Decker evaporates.
Now to the concept:
It's late November of 1979, all departments on the movie are working at a breakneck pace to get it in on time. Bob Wise is near the breaking point shepherding all the pieces into places. Instead of pushing the production til it breaks, Paramount decides to suddenly push the release date back 8 months to the summer of 1980. There's talk in the industry of why the sudden course correction, but the truth is Barry Diller and Jeff Katzenberg heard the rumblings about Michael Cimino's runaway epic filming in Montana and what it's feared it'll do to United Artists, and decided it wouldn't happen to Paramount.
Diller cancels the star-studded premiere of the movie in Washington DC just a week before, and ask Bob Wise to screen what he's completed. Reluctantly, he runs the movie for them, and surprise - it doesn't go well. To this day, Katzenberg swears he saw Diller fall asleep by the time the Enterprise got pulled into V'ger. The choice is clear - something has to be done to fix this, and no amount of cutting will do the job. They tell Wise to finish his cut, and they'll schedule a series of test screenings to help identify the problems. Secretly, Wise is elated - had this not happened, it would've been his first feature he'd released without testing in front of audiences.
The test screenings go as well as the Hindenburg landing. The movie gets criticized for being overlength, not enough action, and generally being bland. Wise somehow convinces Harold Livingston back onto the lot to help work on rewrites, with the strict promise that Roddenberry never be allowed to interfere with the process. This satisfies everyone at Paramount - they started pointing a lot of fingers of blame at Gene as the schedule kept going over and the budget kept climbing higher when the script still wasn't done.
Wise, Livingston, and editor Todd Ramsay work together to find the parts of the movie to shorten in editing, redub for better characterization, and what needs to be thrown out and reshot altogether. No one has the heart to tell Douglas Trumbull that the wormhole sequence will be dropped and replaced, and new effects shot. Luckily, ILM has some resources to spare, since they're starting to build the company up for George Lucas' next Star Wars film, so they let Trumbull get some badly needed rest.
Ultimately, it's decided to accomplish the following with the reshoots/redubs:
My work, available at the link below, represents my posited version of the screenplay, revised by Livingston and Wise. I integrated my revised pages into the original shooting script as if it were a copy found in the archival papers of Wise at USC. I tried to address the issues that I saw with TMP and rewrite them in a manner that better fits the characters, while also taking into account budgetary considerations. Some material was incorporated from Roddenberry's novelization, as I thought it would work pretty well for little character moments.
https://www.scribd.com/document/356105331/Star-Trek-I-The-Motion-Picture-Conjectural-Reshoots
I'm the first to admit that dialogue is not my strongest suit as a writer, but overall I'm pretty proud of how this all came out. Hope you enjoy reading it!
Now to the concept:
It's late November of 1979, all departments on the movie are working at a breakneck pace to get it in on time. Bob Wise is near the breaking point shepherding all the pieces into places. Instead of pushing the production til it breaks, Paramount decides to suddenly push the release date back 8 months to the summer of 1980. There's talk in the industry of why the sudden course correction, but the truth is Barry Diller and Jeff Katzenberg heard the rumblings about Michael Cimino's runaway epic filming in Montana and what it's feared it'll do to United Artists, and decided it wouldn't happen to Paramount.
Diller cancels the star-studded premiere of the movie in Washington DC just a week before, and ask Bob Wise to screen what he's completed. Reluctantly, he runs the movie for them, and surprise - it doesn't go well. To this day, Katzenberg swears he saw Diller fall asleep by the time the Enterprise got pulled into V'ger. The choice is clear - something has to be done to fix this, and no amount of cutting will do the job. They tell Wise to finish his cut, and they'll schedule a series of test screenings to help identify the problems. Secretly, Wise is elated - had this not happened, it would've been his first feature he'd released without testing in front of audiences.
The test screenings go as well as the Hindenburg landing. The movie gets criticized for being overlength, not enough action, and generally being bland. Wise somehow convinces Harold Livingston back onto the lot to help work on rewrites, with the strict promise that Roddenberry never be allowed to interfere with the process. This satisfies everyone at Paramount - they started pointing a lot of fingers of blame at Gene as the schedule kept going over and the budget kept climbing higher when the script still wasn't done.
Wise, Livingston, and editor Todd Ramsay work together to find the parts of the movie to shorten in editing, redub for better characterization, and what needs to be thrown out and reshot altogether. No one has the heart to tell Douglas Trumbull that the wormhole sequence will be dropped and replaced, and new effects shot. Luckily, ILM has some resources to spare, since they're starting to build the company up for George Lucas' next Star Wars film, so they let Trumbull get some badly needed rest.
Ultimately, it's decided to accomplish the following with the reshoots/redubs:
- Make the nature of V'ger being a vessel Spock's revelation. Having everyone referring to it ruins the mystery.
- Make the supporting cast more active in the story, and not just glorified wallpaper. Little bits of characterization to be added for Chekov, Uhura, Scotty, and Sulu.
- Make Kirk a more active character, clarify and enhance his character arc, his obsession with the Enterprise, and his conflict of Decker. This additionally enhances Decker.
- Dropping the wormhole sequence and replacing it with a shorter, less effects-driven scene that better plays into the Kirk/Decker conflict
- Break up V'ger flyover sequence with bridge crew doing more than just staring at a screen for five minutes.
My work, available at the link below, represents my posited version of the screenplay, revised by Livingston and Wise. I integrated my revised pages into the original shooting script as if it were a copy found in the archival papers of Wise at USC. I tried to address the issues that I saw with TMP and rewrite them in a manner that better fits the characters, while also taking into account budgetary considerations. Some material was incorporated from Roddenberry's novelization, as I thought it would work pretty well for little character moments.
https://www.scribd.com/document/356105331/Star-Trek-I-The-Motion-Picture-Conjectural-Reshoots
I'm the first to admit that dialogue is not my strongest suit as a writer, but overall I'm pretty proud of how this all came out. Hope you enjoy reading it!
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