The Screenplay to "Planet of the Titans"

[Nightowl1701]

Wait, I can't tell if you're just joking or if this was actually an idea Gene had. If it's the latter,

Remember the era we're talking about here - Zardoz, A Boy and His Dog, Rollerball, Flesh Gordon, Shivers, Invasion of the Bee Girls. Of course the ol' horndog who brought you Pretty Maids All in a Row four years prior was going to want to get in on some of that for his big-screen sci-fi extravaganza (as much as the studio/censors would allow)!

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Remember the era we're talking about here - Zardoz, A Boy and His Dog, Rollerball, Flesh Gordon, Shivers, Invasion of the Bee Girls. Of course the ol' horndog who brought you Pretty Maids All in a Row four years prior was going to want to get in on some of that for his big-screen sci-fi extravaganza (as much as the studio/censors would allow)!

Gene would surely love an R-rated Star Trek and show as much skin as he possible could with the Full Roddenberry kink on display!

 

[Firebird]

Wait, I can't tell if you're just joking or if this was actually an idea Gene had. If it's the latter,

When I first got my copy of TGT script, I kept saying “what the fuck” to myself about every 5 pages or so the first time I read it. It’s... an experience, I’ll say that much.

 

[Maurice]

When I first got my copy of TGT script, I kept saying “what the fuck” to myself about every 5 pages or so the first time I read it. It’s... an experience, I’ll say that much.

That's a pretty fair assessment!

 

[Lord Garth]

I think I might've found the long-lost soundtrack.

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Starts really picking up at the two-minute mark.

 

[publiusr]

Shades of the Jodoverse Dune

 

[Kor]

On the other hand, GR's "vision" was dollar signs. So if he had limited the viewing audience with overt adult content, that might have cut into his paycheck.

Kor

 

[Maurice]

On the other hand, GR's "vision" was dollar signs. So if he had limited the viewing audience with overt adult content, that might have cut into his paycheck.

Kor

Not quite sure the point you're trying to make. If Roddenberry only cared about the money and adult contact risked the money, why would he write that super-sexualized Tarzan script, do Pretty Maids All In A Row, and let alone write the sexy sports scene into a potential Star Trek cash cow?

 

[Kor]

Not quite sure the point you're trying to make. If Roddenberry only cared about the money and adult contact risked the money, why would he write that super-sexualized Tarzan script, do Pretty Maids All In A Row, and let alone write the sexy sports scene into a potential Star Trek cash cow?

Well, by the time TMP came around, it didn't have anything like that. So apparently he dialed it back, even though he had an earlier idea to include it a Trek production.

Kor

 

[Maurice]

Well, by the time TMP came around, it didn't have anything like that. So apparently he dialed it back, even though he had an earlier idea to include it a Trek production.

Kor

Ha. You haven't seen his earlier ideas for Ilia then. Can you say "succubus"?

I think others toned him down, and he didn't write the TMP script (thank goodness), thought he apparently kept trying to rewrite it.

 

[Christopher]

On the other hand, GR's "vision" was dollar signs. So if he had limited the viewing audience with overt adult content, that might have cut into his paycheck.

I think you're making an assumption there based on modern sensibilities, the perception that R-rated movies can't make as much as PG-13 blockbusters because of the smaller audience. But TMP came along just at the start of the modern age of blockbusters, so that perception hadn't settled in yet. There were a lot of R-rated, adult-oriented movies at the time that were successful; the market just hadn't yet been so thoroughly overtaken by the huge blockbusters that dwarfed the kind of profits most movies usually made in those days (aside from a few like Jaws and Star Wars, but those were considered less reputable than they are today).

Indeed, it was only when the MPAA ratings system was established in the late '60s that it became permissible for movies to have frank adult content, nudity, sexual themes, and the like. So in the '70s and '80s, that was still a relatively new market that filmmakers were eagerly exploring, which was why we got so many raunchy sex comedies and erotic thrillers and nudity-laden slasher films and the like in those decades. Pretty Maids All in a Row was one of the earlier examples, and one of the tamer ones compared to what followed. I'm sure Roddenberry would've been glad to be part of all that. He always wanted Star Trek and his other work to be taken seriously as adult drama. He wanted respectability as much as he wanted profit.

Indeed, we know he walked away from doing Questor as an ongoing series because he refused to compromise and dumb it down as the network wanted. He chose to give up the money he could've made from the series rather than compromise its intelligence. If anything, that shows he cared more about respectability than profit.

 

[Kor]

I think you're making an assumption there based on modern sensibilities, the perception that R-rated movies can't make as much as PG-13 blockbusters because of the smaller audience. ...

I was thinking more of the 1980s than the modern day. See for instance Universal Pictures pushing for Conan the Destroyer to be PG in an attempt to be more successful than Conan the Barbarian. I realize that's still a few years later than the filmmaking environment that TMP was produced in.

Kor

 

[Christopher]

I was thinking more of the 1980s than the modern day. See for instance Universal Pictures pushing for Conan the Destroyer to be PG in an attempt to be more successful than Conan the Barbarian. I realize that's still a few years later than the filmmaking environment that TMP was produced in.

Yeah, but those aren't the only kinds of movie that exist. As I said, Roddenberry wanted Star Trek to be seen as adult and sophisticated, not to be lowest-common-denominator action and spectacle.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Indeed, we know he walked away from doing Questor as an ongoing series because he refused to compromise and dumb it down as the network wanted. He chose to give up the money he could've made from the series rather than compromise its intelligence. If anything, that shows he cared more about respectability than profit.

Do we have any objective, third party evidence of this, or is it part of Roddenberry's eternal self PR?

 

[Christopher]

Do we have any objective, third party evidence of this, or is it part of Roddenberry's eternal self PR?

Hmm, it's unclear. This article is my main source, and it interviews multiple people involved about how the retool happened and how several people in the production were upset by the mandated change. But all it says about Roddenberry is that he eventually got tired of another fight with a network and decided to walk away. Mike Farrell says Roddenberry told him "we have to bow... to the powers," but he admits he doesn't trust his own memory of the conversation.

I'm certainly not blind to Roddenberry's self-promotion, but not everything about him was a lie. As I said, he did care about respectability and wanted his work to be seen as sophisticated and adult. And he wanted that to include explorations of sexual themes, as is quite clear from his actual output in the '70s and '80s once it became more permissible to address them. So the idea that he'd prefer to avoid sexual content because he was only concerned with profitability seems to me to be a misunderstanding of his character and his priorities. Certainly he had a mercenary side, but he was still an individual who should be evaluated on his own record rather than just generic low expectations.

 

[Maurice]

Roddenberry was in poor financial shape in the early 70s and had Questor been picked up he could just have handed it over to another producer and taken the paycheck. This is what makes me suspect he conflated his issues with network notes/desires with the show not actually going forward for whatever reason.

Here's a totally cruel tease for y'all...

The boy's father stumbles towards his child, his face twisted, his eyes strangely opaque, words slurred as if the man had suffered a stroke. The boy cries out. His mother is similarly afflicted. As are the other adults on the little colony. Only the children are unaffected, calling to their parents for understanding and comfort. But none is forthcoming.

The strange planet slips silently away. ​

...that's paragraphs 3 and 4 of the so-called "Titans" treatment from Oct. 1976

 

[Christopher]

Roddenberry was in poor financial shape in the early 70s and had Questor been picked up he could just have handed it over to another producer and taken the paycheck. This is what makes me suspect he conflated his issues with network notes/desires with the show not actually going forward for whatever reason.

Hmm, maybe. The article does talk about other producers fighting the network for a purer vision of the show and deciding it would be better to walk away than compromise. Maybe Roddenberry just went along with that and took credit.

Still, he was notoriously stubborn about getting his way, insisting on his pure vision of his creations, more and more so as he aged. And he was notoriously hard to get along with because of that and other things. So maybe it's more that he threw so many tantrums over the network's attempts to compromise Questor that they decided to walk away.

 

[Maurice]

Hmm, maybe. The article does talk about other producers fighting the network for a purer vision of the show and deciding it would be better to walk away than compromise. Maybe Roddenberry just went along with that and took credit.

Still, he was notoriously stubborn about getting his way, insisting on his pure vision of his creations, more and more so as he aged. And he was notoriously hard to get along with because of that and other things. So maybe it's more that he threw so many tantrums over the network's attempts to compromise Questor that they decided to walk away.

Perhaps so. It's entirely possible he was just bullheaded.

You can only get away with that if you're a successful producer in Hollywood, which he was not. His career was floundering, and given his propensity for portraying the network as his mortal enemy I suspect the full truth isn't necessary the one he told. We'll probably never know the truth for certain.

 

[Christopher]

Well, there is corroboration from others that the network wanted to drop Jerry Robinson and erase the ending of the movie. So that much appears to be true, even if we can't be certain how Roddenberry really reacted to it. And I'm in agreement with the people who said those changes would've ruined the concept.

 

[ChallengerHK]

Perhaps so. It's entirely possible he was just bullheaded.

There is a source, I can't recall which, which said that the real reason that Trek was moved to the Friday death slot in the last season is that NBC wanted to force Roddenberry's hand and essentially bully him into leaving the day to day operation of the show. The claim is made that they were just sick of his behavior, not the least of which was making speeches attacking them. Most of the people who could corroborate that version of events are dead now, so we'll likely never know.