It says META-something but the resolution is too low to make out the rest.
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Starship, the proposed 1970s Series
- Thread starter Doctor Jeffrey
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It looks too short to say Metatransit, and it looks the right length to say Metaflier. I remember from when I had the paper copies that Metatransit referred to the entire teleportation system, and the sphere was called the Metaflier, and was a spherical chamber with a circular door with a hatch that slide down to seal the entrance. I got the impression that instead disintegrating and reintegrating the people traveling by Metatransit, it was a process more similar to quantum entanglement or quantum superposition. Sounds farfetched, I know, but that was the impression I had from the description. Metaflier is also a confusing name since the sphere did not "fly" from the rest of the ship, but teleported the contents of the sphere (members of the crew) to a destination, such as a planet or another ship.
At the top of Page 6 here, King Daniel posted a link to a useful article by Greg Tyler. In the article, Tyler states that the ring ship design has 6/77 for the date. It might have been soon after that I acquired the blueprints, although I thought it was a year or two earlier, but it might have been 1977. The catalog blurb for the prints I read at the time specified that the design was for a Roddenberry series that he proposed following TREK, probably in the early 70s in the wake of the high syndication ratings for TREK.
Tyler also stated, “It seems likely that the "Starship" project was not based on Star Trek, since Roddenberry created a number of non-Trek science-fiction television productions in the 1970s, and since his primary focus with respect to Star Trek at that time seemed to be a revival of the original television series, rather than a totally new concept with a radically different starship Enterprise.” Tyler was spot on.
Tyler added: “This is why the Federation has Commodores instead of Lt. Colonels, and Admirals instead of Generals.” Lt. Colonels are equivalent to Navy Commanders (O5). Brigadiers (British) and Brigadier Generals are equivalent to Commodores (O7).
Can somebody with better eyes than mine make out the dimensions of the cylinders in the nose of the ship? It appears that the upper habitation pod is 26’ in diameter and the lower Enviropod is 16’ in diameter and 65 feet in length (making the upper habitation pod around 80 feet in length).
A 26’x80’ habitation pod with 2 levels would likely be large enough for the proposed 6 or 7 cast members for STARSHIP, plus their labs.
Thanks, King Daniel, for that article and the sharper images of the ring ship drawings.
Tyler also stated, “It seems likely that the "Starship" project was not based on Star Trek, since Roddenberry created a number of non-Trek science-fiction television productions in the 1970s, and since his primary focus with respect to Star Trek at that time seemed to be a revival of the original television series, rather than a totally new concept with a radically different starship Enterprise.” Tyler was spot on.
Tyler added: “This is why the Federation has Commodores instead of Lt. Colonels, and Admirals instead of Generals.” Lt. Colonels are equivalent to Navy Commanders (O5). Brigadiers (British) and Brigadier Generals are equivalent to Commodores (O7).
Can somebody with better eyes than mine make out the dimensions of the cylinders in the nose of the ship? It appears that the upper habitation pod is 26’ in diameter and the lower Enviropod is 16’ in diameter and 65 feet in length (making the upper habitation pod around 80 feet in length).
A 26’x80’ habitation pod with 2 levels would likely be large enough for the proposed 6 or 7 cast members for STARSHIP, plus their labs.
Thanks, King Daniel, for that article and the sharper images of the ring ship drawings.
Well, I'm down off the mountain and exhausted. Some pix from our shoot here (link) and here (link). I won't be back home till Weds to look at the Starship stuff.
I've never seen the movie.
I was referring to the U2 song...
I saw VERTIGO in the 80s when it was re-released for the first time in about 20 years. On film and on a big screen, the opening sequence looks 3-D. . . WITHOUT needing 3-D glasses. The black background became a void and the color spirals and shapes looked like big objects floating in a theatre stage. I've never seen anything like it since then (without wearing 3-D glasses). If any of you ever get the chance to see VERTIGO or ROPE on film and in a movie house, do it! Even if you don't like the stories for those films, the visual effect on the big screen, using film---not digital, is surprising and worth the trip. If you ever get the chance to see DIAL M FOR MURDER on the big screen with 3-D glasses, you won't be sorry. Many film historians have called it the best use of old school 3-D. Hitchcock showed how do use 3-D to build suspense rather that as a startling gimmick. Unfortunately, he did it just as old school 3-D was fading away.
Maurice, I'm glad you had a good (and safe) trip. What kind of film project will come of it?
Maurice, I'm glad you had a good (and safe) trip. What kind of film project will come of it?
One of the things I've wanted to do is a mash up of different places.
Know what hasn't been done with vasquez rocks? A mirror image where the two inclined, multi-layered stones look like a temple/steeple.
I'd have morphed The Wave to flow under it.
https://www.touropia.com/natural-rock-formations/
In the early seasons of Power Rangers, the establishing shot of the Rangers' Command Center was a shot of the Brandeis-Bardin Institute building (aka the base of Lore's Borg cultists in TNG: "Descent") superimposed on top of the Vasquez Rocks cliff. There were some episodes where they did exterior shooting at both locations and cut them together as a continuous scene.
To do it and make it look convincing you'd have to try to get the sun in two opposite positions so the mirror image doesn't have shadows going the wrong directions.
All of this is OT, so we should get back to Starship.
An example (link). Note the 2007 update notes section.
It's a short subject that will probably end up being entered in film festivals. It's largely shot handheld with an anamorphic lens to get a 2.4:1 aspect ratio. We went out on a rocky outcropping on a precipice for some shots, including a drone shot that starts just in front of the actor and then retreats back and back and back revealing this vast landscape. The drone has an operating radius of 3 miles, but I don't know how far back they took it. The crew was all in hiding during that shot because if we could see the drone we risked being seen by it and ruining the shot.
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Thanks, Maurice, this is helpful. Even with 23 films being removed and 23 being added, 2001 is consistently in the top 25, which fits the original point in this thread for mentioning the constant inclusion of 2001 high in the AFI list. 2001's position and consistency are even stronger than I thought. The list that Maurice provided shows the status of 2001 rising from 22nd place to 15th place. Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Graduate, On The Waterfront and The Wizard of Oz all dropped in status, but 2001 jumped ahead 7 places. As I said, this fits the original point in this thread. Much appreciated Maurice.
We have had a few postings of the Starship design. One as a blueprint and one with sienna lines on white background. In both cases the text of the dimensions are difficult to read. Can somebody with better eyes than mine make out the dimensions of the 2 cylinders in the nose of the ship? It appears that the upper habitation pod is 26’ in diameter, and that the lower Enviropod is 16’ in diameter and 65 feet in length (making the upper habitation pod around 80 feet in length).
A 26’x80’ habitation pod with 2 levels would likely provide enough living space for the proposed 6 or 7 cast members for STARSHIP, plus their labs and control/observation spaces.
A 26’x80’ habitation pod with 2 levels would likely provide enough living space for the proposed 6 or 7 cast members for STARSHIP, plus their labs and control/observation spaces.
From ’73 to ’77 Gene Roddenberry produced 4 pilots: GENESIS II & PLANET EARTH (the first 2 Dylan Hunt pilots), QUESTOR (a variation on “Assignment: Earth”) and SPECTRE. He was also involved with 2 attempts at STAR TREK: PHASE 2 during this period. With 6 attempts at series during roughly 5 years, I wonder why STARSHIP was not made into a pilot. I can see 3 red flags, but one of them does not seem to come up until the attempt at the animated version a couple of decades later. Otherwise, it seems to have checked a few boxes from production lessons learned from TOS.
Do any of you have thoughts as to why STARSHIP was never made into a pilot in the 70s?
Do any of you have thoughts as to why STARSHIP was never made into a pilot in the 70s?
Nobody sells everything they come up with. In David Gerrold's The World of Star Trek, he mentions that Roddenberry was also developing a cop show called The Tribunes, about a high-tech, futuristic police division upgraded with cutting-edge technology and methods. That one evidently never went anywhere either (although we've had a couple of similar shows in the past decade or so with Canada's Flashpoint and FOX's short-lived APB). Roddenberry probably had more ideas he never sold.
The better question might be, why have we even heard of Starship out of all his unmade pilot concepts? The answer may well be because the concept art of the ship existed and was publicized by Lincoln Enterprises.
I remember THE TRIBUNES and also his 1967 pilot, POLICE STORY, that did get produced, but not bought. The latter has a character named Questor and DeForrest Kelly and Grace Lee Whitney were part of the team of 8 for that show, which was kind of a predecessor for THE TRIBUNES. I agree that Lincoln Enterprises selling the concept art was key to the memory of the idea being kept alive, but of all the series he was pitching, the die hard Star Trek fans I knew at that time found STARHIP and the 2 versions of STAR TREK Phase 2 to have been the most interesting. More of them talked more about STARSHIP (which was not produced as a pilot), then about THE QUESTOR TAPES, GENESIS II and PLANET EARTH, which were produced as pilots. And, nobody was talking about SPECTRE.
Even this thread in this BBS has produced far more responses than I expected when I started it.
Even this thread in this BBS has produced far more responses than I expected when I started it.
Probably because there were more unanswered questions about Starship. So little was known about it that there was enormous room for speculation and wondering. When you already have the answers, there's less to talk about. Also perhaps because Trek fans were intrigued by the idea of another space show, whereas the others were Earthbound. (Similarly, since Spectre was supernatural/horror, it wasn't aimed at the Trek audience anyway. Maybe if you'd known some Hammer horror fans at the time, they might've been talking about it.)
Actually, I knew a LOT of Hammer horror fans in both high school and college, and they particularly did NOT like SPECTRE because they thought it was done poorly. But, you are right. SPECTRE was not aimed at a TREK audience, and so did not attract one. And, you are also right: the Hammer fans I knew WERE talking about SPECTRE, but negatively. Good call on both points.
I also agree with you about the intrigue of STARSHIP and wanting to know more answers, but I knew die hard TREK fans in HS, college, summer stock, and a couple of science fiction conventions at the time, and there was more buzz about the STARSHIP series that was NOT produced than the Dylan Hunt and Questor pilots that WERE produced.
With that much buzz from 3 blueprints and a one page synopsis, I feel that STARSHIP was a missed opportunity. A STARSHIP pilot might have succeeded where the other 4 pilots failed to ignite a series.
I also agree with you about the intrigue of STARSHIP and wanting to know more answers, but I knew die hard TREK fans in HS, college, summer stock, and a couple of science fiction conventions at the time, and there was more buzz about the STARSHIP series that was NOT produced than the Dylan Hunt and Questor pilots that WERE produced.
With that much buzz from 3 blueprints and a one page synopsis, I feel that STARSHIP was a missed opportunity. A STARSHIP pilot might have succeeded where the other 4 pilots failed to ignite a series.
Not necessarily. Just because people are curious about something they know little about, that doesn't mean they'd like it if they actually got it. When little is known, people can imagine whatever they want. They project their own desires into the gap, so of course they like what they see.
Conversely, the network execs who presumably did know the details of the pitch decided to pass on it. Which suggests that the reality didn't live up to our projected desires. Or maybe it did but it was just too expensive or logistically difficult. (A space show would naturally have been more expensive than an Earth-based show.)
Also, The Questor Tapes actually did get a series pickup, but the network insisted on retooling it into a Fugitive clone and losing the most important parts, so Roddenberry chose to walk away from the project.
You could be right on both points in your middle paragraph. While I think the show had potential to be a worthwhile series, I did see at least 3 red flags. I also agree that Earthbound series might have been more appealing financially, and I can't remember any prime time/live action space series in the early-mid 70s. However, STARSHIP seemed to have learned some lessons from TREK on how to produce a space show more economically, and TOS was the second highest rated show in syndication, and daytime audiences were accepting videotaped live action space series, so if network execs were thinking carefully about profit margins, then STARSHIP would have been well worth considering.
One the one hand, they might have been knee-jerking about a space based series and not thinking through the profit margins or audience development. On the other hand, they might have been thinking very clearly and saw red flags: the 3 or more that I've perceived and other possible and the possible ones that you speculated. They might have seen built in problems that prompted them to pass on even making a pilot.
One the one hand, they might have been knee-jerking about a space based series and not thinking through the profit margins or audience development. On the other hand, they might have been thinking very clearly and saw red flags: the 3 or more that I've perceived and other possible and the possible ones that you speculated. They might have seen built in problems that prompted them to pass on even making a pilot.
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