The Making Of Star Trek....

[jaime]

I used to sneak my dad's copy off the shelf to look at the pictures. Both my father and I have a librarian streak towards book care, so I technically wasn't supposed to look at it without him so I wouldn't damage the spine. That and Balok gave me nightmares (the other two books I would pore over with him were a sf illustration book called Worlds of Tomorrow, and the Alien photo story book...now my son pores over my star trek books in much the same way.) I have a copy from the nineties myself, that came free with the first set of VHS tapes in the old two episode a volume collection (along with the extended TMP and The Cage)
Ironically, as in depth making of TV books go, I think the DS 9 one later supersedes it. There's a making of Doctor Who book, from the early seventies, but the two Trek ones really are superior.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Given the more limited and labor-intensive mechanical typesetting techniques of the time, it was probably easier to set large blocks of text in all caps in normal font than it would've been to set them all in bold print or italics or a different font. So doing it that way may have been for the sake of economy or efficiency.

I'd like an authoritative citation that it really would have been more labor intensive, because I'm not convinced that it actually would have been. It strikes me as six of one, half a dozen of the other. In one scenario, they're using one typeface, and in the another they'd be using another. Where's the increase in labor in one scenario vs the other? Plus, there were already italics used in the text, for example every time Poe wrote Enterprise, so it's not like they didn't already have to use italics. Were italic sorts so limited at Ballantine that they couldn't typeset whole pages in italics? I really doubt it.

 

[J.T.B.]

^ I am far from expert, but I'm pretty sure that by that time a mass market book like that would have been set photographically. Those machines could be loaded with a "magazine" of maybe a half-dozen font plates, which the typesetter could select with a few switches. Type size could be changed by enlarging or reducing the same font, but italic and bold of the same typeface were different fonts.

As for TMoST, I picked one up as a kid in the late '70s ($1.95 cover price!) for the photos and the details from the middle section about the ship and crew. There wasn't much of that kind of material around back then. I wasn't interested in TV production stories or details, but after reading a little of it I thought it was pretty interesting! It was a PR job for Roddenberry, of course, but it still has a lot of good stuff and I still refer to it once in a while.

 

[CrazyMatt]

This book was really my first exposure to the goings on behind the camera. It was, and continues to be, an invaluable source of what was happening during the production of the series while it was still on the air. Yes, it is certainly self-serving to GR, and I'm sure he approved of the GODLY ALL CAPS way his comments were represented. But still, its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses.

A must have for those interested in the "whys" of Star Trek.

 

[Warped9]

Re-reading the original storyline for "The Cage" (the one submitted to NBC) shows there really isn't much difference between it and the final filmed story.

Some of the fantasies experienced by Robert April vary from the filmed version. In the outline we see April from the Keeper's point of view when April is in the midst of an illusion, such as April experiencing a sword fight with a savage creature while the Keeper sees April waving a water container in his hand and moving as if fighting an invisible something no one else can see. This changed in the filmed version so that we understood the Talosians experienced the illusion along with April.

In the outline the story started with a shuttlecraft like vehicle docking with the Enterprise for an exchange of personnel. This was obviously dropped to get us into the story faster. In the outline both Number One and Yeoman Colt are punished by the Keeper wherein the filmed version this doesn't happen. Also in the outline April prepares to shoot Number One, Colt and himself with a poisonous dart to escape capture whereas the filmed version we gt Number One setting a hand laser to self-destruct overload.

I wonder how many drafts or how much polishing/rewriting Roddenberry did to get to his submitted version. We know his main character began as Robert April and became Christopher Pike. We know the ship began as the Yorktown and became the Enterprise. In the outline the aliens are non-humanoid crab-like creatures called Sirians yet by the time of filming they had become assexual humanoids with enlarged craniums called Talosians (it's easy to understand this change since the non-humanoid form would have been very challenging to realize and interact with with the resources available back in the day). In the outline Roddenberry specifically references the "telecommunicator" also serving as a translator that allows April to understand the aliens' speech wherein he can communicate with them. In the filmed version they don't bother with the communicator/translator as the Talosians communicate directly via telepathy.

But the outline as printed in TMoST is what sold Star Trek to NBC as a potential pilot.

Again there is no mention of Roddenberry consulting with anyone regarding the ideas he put forth in his outline. Meanwhile we have since learned that Roddenberry did indeed consult with people such as Herb Solow and Samuel Peeples regarding his early ideas for Star Trek.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

In the outline the aliens are non-humanoid crab-like creatures called Sirians

I don't think Syrians would have appreciated that one bit. Granted, very few of them would have heard about it at the time.

Again there is no mention of Roddenberry consulting with anyone regarding the ideas he put forth in his outline. Meanwhile we have since learned that Roddenberry did indeed consult with people such as Herb Solow and Samuel Peeples regarding his early ideas for Star Trek.

I'd guess GR didn't want to acknowledge that and risk having to share his Created By credit.

 

[Warped9]

In the outline the aliens are non-humanoid crab-like creatures called Sirians

I don't think Syrians would have appreciated that one bit. Granted, very few of them would have heard about it at the time.

In the outline the planet is Sirius IV hence Sirians. There's no mention why it was later changed to Talos IV and Talosians.

Again there is no mention of Roddenberry consulting with anyone regarding the ideas he put forth in his outline. Meanwhile we have since learned that Roddenberry did indeed consult with people such as Herb Solow and Samuel Peeples regarding his early ideas for Star Trek.

I'd guess GR didn't want to acknowledge that and risk having to share his Created By credit.

Well either Whitfield neglects to include that information or he was never told. But we can see with what has been learned over the years that GR was already prone to taking credit for some things even simply by omitting mentioning the contribution of others.

 

[Christopher]

In the outline the planet is Sirius IV hence Sirians. There's no mention why it was later changed to Talos IV and Talosians.

Perhaps on the advice of his science consultants. Sirius is a very near star to Earth, less than 9 light-years away, which is not consistent with the outline's statement that it took 14 years (18 years in the final episode) for the radio distress signal to reach human ears. It's also a hot, bright, fairly young star, way too short-lived to host habitable planets (although the same goes for most of the named stars that were mentioned in Trek episodes).

 

[Green Shirt]

Meanwhile we have since learned that Roddenberry did indeed consult with people such as Herb Solow and Samuel Peeples regarding his early ideas for Star Trek.

To me, before Inside Star Trek, Herb Solow was just a barely noticed name on the closing credits. I had no idea what an Executive in Charge of Production actually did, except for maybe signing some checks.

 

[RAMA]

I read it for the first time not long before STNG came out, say 1985 or 1986. I felt this new series was a final vindication for Gene Roddenberry after the tumult pointed out in the book.

Whitfield came back to write the making of ST: Voyager as well: Vision of the Future. http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Voyager-Vision-Future/dp/0671534815

RAMA

 

[Ssosmcin]

In the outline the aliens are non-humanoid crab-like creatures called Sirians

I don't think Syrians would have appreciated that one bit. Granted, very few of them would have heard about it at the time.

They would have printed a hate article in the "youth edition" of the Free Syria News, prompting Roddenberry to add a young Syrian crew member to the cast.

 

[Warped9]

Page 74

Chapter 6: A Blueprint For Starflight

NBC has chosen "The Cage" for Roddenberry to develop a script and here we see the beginning of serious consultations to work out scientific ideas and beginning to work out what the Enterprise could look like as well as working out how to realize certain elements of the script.

Through an Air Force acquaintance Roddenberry is put in touch with a Harvey P. Lynn of the Rand Corporation who subsequently (and apparently enthusiastically) gives GR a lot of scientific and technical feedback. It appears Lynn concurs with GR on the importance of working out a sense of scientific plausibility while avoiding getting bogged down in technical explanations--essentially work out how something is supposed to work and just show it working that way without explanation. The viewer will easily grasp the idea and accept it.

Even at this point Lynn explains how a shuttlecraft docking could work. Although it's not done as Lynn originally describes it we will later see something not that different in the series.

Lynn makes several references to using the names of certain real stars to get that sense of "out there" established while not getting too far out there. He corrects GR on references to planetary gravity in relation to the Talosian body form as well as technical references to "impulse rockets."

Even at this very early point Lynn is suggesting that the term "laser" might not be advanced enough for what Roddenberry is thinking if the story is to be set at least 200 years in the future (Lynn makes some alternate suggestions although "laser" will be used in "The Cage" but will be changed to "phaser" for WNMHGB).

One notable recommendation was to drop the idea of using a beam of light to show the crew being transported to the planet surface. Lynn suggested simply showing the crew dematerialized than cut directly to them being rematerialized. This saved time and cost in visual effects.

Early on Roddenberry had an idea for a three dimensional kind of astrogator on the ship's bridge (he might have gotten this idea from Forbidden Planet where they had such a thing for the C57D cruiser I believe). We never see that in Star Trek, but it's possible the astrogator set between the helm and navigator's stations was the final form of GR's initial idea.


Herb Solow is finally mentioned in this chapter, but only in regard to his position within Desilu and his support for Star Trek in general. There's no mention made of any of his contributions outside of that.

 

[Christopher]

One of the reasons I always considered Star Trek special was that effort it put into scientific plausibility. Of course, it made tons of credibility compromises for dramatic or budgetary convenience -- godlike aliens, psi powers, humanoid aliens, Earth-parallel planets -- but compared to the lazy fantasy nonsense that usually passed for science fiction on TV, Trek was a refuge for those of us who liked scientifically literate, plausible SF. I think the only previous SFTV shows in the US that had bothered with scientific credibility were Men into Space and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet back in the '50s. (Plus the first few years of Doctor Who over in the UK, on and off -- though it didn't last.) And it was a long time after Trek before we saw another American SFTV show that concerned itself with scientific literacy -- maybe not until TNG itself. (I was going to mention Probe, a short-lived science-detective series co-created by Isaac Asimov, but that was from 1988, a year after TNG began.)

 

[Warped9]

There is a quote at the beginning of the chapter (attributed to Gene Coon) that states "Roddenberry invented all these things" in terms of a fictional universe, the science and technology of it as well as the language used. This quote conveys an idea of Roddenberry being this genius that thought up everything while we clearly know that not to be the case.

GR can be credited with establishing the framework and many of the initial basic concepts, but a lot of the realization of what we saw in Star Trek was done by others.


Times have changed as well with much credit going to TOS and subsequent SF properties in television and film over the decades since. The chapter makes a point of trying to get studio people to think outside the box and their cmfort zones in realizing the ideas for Star Trek. In context of the times GR was indeed pushing for something beyond established conventions. GR's unspoken attitude seems to be if you do it half-assed then it will certainly be half-assed and you've wasted a lot of time and money for nothing.

Today I don't think there would be anywhere near the same degree of resistance and confusion precisely because we have had fifty years of being weaned on SF ideas in television and film.

 

[Christopher]

There is a quote at the beginning of the chapter (attributed to Gene Coon) that states "Roddenberry invented all these things" in terms of a fictional universe, the science and technology of it as well as the language used. This quote conveys an idea of Roddenberry being this genius that thought up everything while we clearly know that not to be the case.

GR can be credited with establishing the framework and many of the initial basic concepts, but a lot of the realization of what we saw in Star Trek was done by others.

True, but those others were working under Roddenberry's guidance and approval. It was his preferences that shaped the others' creativity -- as we see in the book's discussion of the Enterprise design process, where Roddenberry's choices determined which of Matt Jefferies's and Pato Guzman's design ideas got rejected or encouraged. So there is some validity to the idea that it was his goals and intentions (I hesitate to say "vision," because of the connotations that can be attached to it) that guided the creative process, that led to the decisions being made one way and not another. That may have been what Coon meant. It's overly flattering to Roddenberry, granted, but not entirely false.

Today I don't think there would be anywhere near the same degree of resistance and confusion precisely because we have had fifty years of being weaned on SF ideas in television and film.

Oh, indeed. We're in a heyday of SF/fantasy now, even if it's being carried largely through superhero fiction at the moment. Even CBS has more SF and fantasy in its lineup now than it's had for decades. I was just talking about this with someone at the Shore Leave convention a couple of weeks ago -- how in our youth, we watched every genre show that came along, good or bad, because we were hungry for whatever scraps we could get, but now there's just such a glut that we can't even keep up with it all. I've been struck by the realization that I'm not even interested in the majority of current genre shows (since so many are fantasy or horror or just dumb), and that's not something that I ever would've thought possible back in the '70s or '80s. There are so many now that I can be more selective, and that I couldn't keep up with them all if I tried.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I was going to mention Probe, a short-lived science-detective series co-created by Isaac Asimov, but that was from 1988, a year after TNG began.

I thought you meant the Probe that became Search, and you had the year wrong and Isaac Asimov didn't do that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_%281972_TV_pilot%29

But you're referring to a different show that I never heard of. Carry on.

 

[Warped9]

SF writer Robert J. Sawyer wrote a book several years ago called Starplex. In the beginning his story felt rather Trek like in some respects yet he also borrowed some ideas from the 1972 series SEARCH particularly in the layout of his control centre which he based on the S.E.A.R.C.H. headquarters control centre.

Two ideas in SEARCH would be ideal for a new Trek (and only glimpsed in TNG). One would be every landing party (or away team) member to have a visual/audio pickup so the bridge (or some related facility) could follow each of the landed personnel in real time. S.E.A.R.C.H. personnel also had an implant/communicator which is more advanced than a handheld communicator or a comm-badge, each of which can be lost or confiscated.

 

[Christopher]

But you're referring to a different show that I never heard of. Carry on.

That's right. Probe starred Parker Stevenson and Ashley Crow, and was produced by Michael Wagner, who was very briefly the TNG showrunner in the early third season. It kind of presaged a lot of the modern detective shows with antisocial genius heroes. Stevenson played a reclusive, antisocial scientific genius, Austin James, who was dragged out into the world by his female sidekick (Crow) to investigate weird-science mysteries -- sort of like Monk crossed with Doctor Who, with maybe a bit of Fringe too, since a number of the problems were caused by Austin's own inventions.

SF writer Robert J. Sawyer wrote a book several years ago called Starplex. In the beginning his story felt rather Trek like in some respects yet he also borrowed some ideas from the 1972 series SEARCH particularly in the layout of his control centre which he based on the S.E.A.R.C.H. headquarters control centre.

That's interesting. Long ago, I came up with my own idea for how I'd do a Trek-style starship-exploration series, and though I never saw Search until fairly recently, it was coincidentally similar to the approach I came up with: a "mission control"-style complex behind the bridge where a team of experts would be constantly monitoring and advising the survey team. Given that Bob Justman produced Search and co-developed TNG, I kind of wish he'd brought that same setup to TNG's away-team approach.

 

[Warped9]

Probe starred Parker Stevenson and Ashley Crow, and was produced by Michael Wagner, who was very briefly the TNG showrunner in the early third season. It kind of presaged a lot of the modern detective shows with antisocial genius heroes. Stevenson played a reclusive, antisocial scientific genius, Austin James, who was dragged out into the world by his female sidekick (Crow) to investigate weird-science mysteries -- sort of like Monk crossed with Doctor Who, with maybe a bit of Fringe too, since a number of the problems were caused by Austin's own inventions.

Interesting. I don't recall this short-lived series. I might check it out.

 

[Maurice]

Frankly, in our current cynical climate, I think people have seesawed from over-praising Gene to under-assessing him. I've read a lot of the actual production memos, and Gene had a LOT of good ideas and suggestions. Bear in mind that even if he didn't write the scripts, he was giving notes on the drafts and suggesting "do this" and "do that". In the early days his fingerprints are all over the thing, for good or ill.