I really like the book, but think it would have helped considerably if they'd been able to obtain the rights to use images, to help liven it up a bit.
The (big) Making of TMP book....
- Thread starter Warped9
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I like the book, too. I got sidetracked reading it last year when I had an illness in the family, though. I think I was about 50-75% of the way through the book, and I still need to go back and finish it.
Absolutely. I know this is from the wrong film (TUC, not TMP), but the only thing I changed was the hair:
I think it Shatner looks much better with the original style hair he wore, and it also shows how little he had changed facially in 25 years.
Agreed. He got a bit puffier, is all. It was largely the darker & wavier hair that made him look different.
Oh, that would have looked so much better.Absolutely. I know this is from the wrong film (TUC, not TMP), but the only thing I changed was the hair:
I think it Shatner looks much better with the original style hair he wore, and it also shows how little he had changed facially in 25 years.
Reminds me of this I did several years go.
Oh, that would have looked so much better.
Reminds me of this I did several years go.
He looks great like that!
Why on earth he thought that dark curly hair suited him is beyond me!
Absolutely agree, Shatner/Kirk in TOS looked so much better if only they had him keep the look for TMP, WOK, SFS etc.
As a kid I pretty sure I remember thinking movie Kirk was a different guy to TOS Kirk! (same for Scotty - they both looked like different people to me back then)
Yes, I definitely had that thought about Scotty. He looked SO different to me at age 7 that I thought the character had been recast. Now when I see the movie, he just looks like youngish James Doohan with a mustache.
I've been reading this off-and-on given it can sometimes be a slog. But I finally came across a couple of points of interest.
Firstly, a line from Harold Michelson on the overall approach to designing the ship's interior: "All through the picture, we were trying to get across the feeling that the 23rd century people had conquered the piwer of gravity, or minimized it."
Nice. I like that as an overall idea to design.
Secondly, a revealing line from Nichelle Nichols regarding he part and that of her fellow secondary characters: "There are eight stars on that show..."
No, sorry Nichelle, there were three. In the beginning there was one (Shatner), soon two (Shatner and Nimoy), then finally three (Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley). The rest of you were supporting characters.
Granted those secondary characters did add to the flavour of the show and reinforce the multi-ethnic idea in Star Trek, and you received a good deal of fan adulation over the ensuing decade, but you were never major players in the show.
Having said that it would have been nice if Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Chapel and Rand had each been given a wee bit more to do.
Firstly, a line from Harold Michelson on the overall approach to designing the ship's interior: "All through the picture, we were trying to get across the feeling that the 23rd century people had conquered the piwer of gravity, or minimized it."
Nice. I like that as an overall idea to design.
Secondly, a revealing line from Nichelle Nichols regarding he part and that of her fellow secondary characters: "There are eight stars on that show..."
No, sorry Nichelle, there were three. In the beginning there was one (Shatner), soon two (Shatner and Nimoy), then finally three (Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley). The rest of you were supporting characters.
Granted those secondary characters did add to the flavour of the show and reinforce the multi-ethnic idea in Star Trek, and you received a good deal of fan adulation over the ensuing decade, but you were never major players in the show.
Having said that it would have been nice if Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Chapel and Rand had each been given a wee bit more to do.
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It is an interesting quote, but I have no idea what it means. Starting with the original series, it's taken for granted that there is artificial gravity on space ships, but what does it mean to "conquer the power of gravity," and how did they get that "feeling" across in the movie?
I'm sorry I don't have the book, but was he quoted in more detail? Thanks.
^^ It was in context of how certain elements of the sets (like the Sickbay) were designed to suggest advanced materiels and other aspects of manufacturing allowed for certain shapes to be used that appeared to defy gravity and look more unconventional to our sensibilities.
We assume a table must have at least three or four legs except when only one or two legs are used in conjunction with a large base to assure a table will remain stable. But what if that one sole leg is offset from the centre of the table or if a heavy looking structure is supported from the wall rather than the floor? In Sickbay the medical tables were given an unusual shape that doesn't really show up onscreen, but they were intended to look unconventional to our current sensibilities.
In like manner early on in the film we see a crewman supported by a platform in midair without support (implying some form of antigravity decice) rather than using a simple step ladder that would require no energy consumption at all. All these small touches are meant to suggest a world where many exotic things (to us) are taken for granted as commonplace and never given a second thought. This is little different than the many examples of tech we accept without thought today yet would be considered almost magical a hundred or so years ago.
We assume a table must have at least three or four legs except when only one or two legs are used in conjunction with a large base to assure a table will remain stable. But what if that one sole leg is offset from the centre of the table or if a heavy looking structure is supported from the wall rather than the floor? In Sickbay the medical tables were given an unusual shape that doesn't really show up onscreen, but they were intended to look unconventional to our current sensibilities.
In like manner early on in the film we see a crewman supported by a platform in midair without support (implying some form of antigravity decice) rather than using a simple step ladder that would require no energy consumption at all. All these small touches are meant to suggest a world where many exotic things (to us) are taken for granted as commonplace and never given a second thought. This is little different than the many examples of tech we accept without thought today yet would be considered almost magical a hundred or so years ago.
This bears repeating. I know that it's got to be a bit galling for your best-known part to be one that's not terribly well-developed, but it's the truth. Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov were supporting characters, not stars. Heck, most of them were day players who were only in a certain number of episodes per season, not full co-stars. It's not any reflection on their abilities; that's just the way it was.
If I'm watching a TOS rerun and Scotty isn't in it, my reaction isn't "OMG, where is Scotty?", it's "Huh. Scotty isn't in this one," if I notice at all.
Yes, absolutely. I think that part of the reason that both "Mirror, Mirror" and "The Trouble With Tribbles" are so popular with fans is that they're episodes that really utilize everybody in the cast.
Actually, I enjoy episodes that focus on the Big 3 less if the supporting characters are not present. It may not be a true ensemble but whole including the supporting players was far greater than the sum of its parts. The nuTrek movies do try to give each of the supporting characters scene of their own. I wish the TOS movies had done the same. Uhura gets a couple of decent lines, Scotty gets a few brief moments with Kirk, and Sulu and Chekov get to interject a tiny bit of personality into otherwise dry dialogue. It would have been nice if Rand had been given some scenes on the bridge and if Chapel had been been made head of life sciences rather than a second-fiddle MD.
LoL, it seems he didn't have much luck with his hair pieces in the 70's and 80's.The more I see it, the more I wish he'd kept the old hair:
