The Tiny TMP Credits

[CoveTom]

Here it is ladies and gentlemen, the minutiae to end all minutiae. Join us, won't you?

In the end credits for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (scientifically proven to be the best of all the Star Trek films), nestled amongst the hundreds of names, there are two -- and only two -- people who, for some reason, get an extra-tiny credit. One is second assistant director Doug Wise and the other is Marvin Paige, who is credited simply as "casting." To wit:





Any idea what these two people -- one of whom was Robert Wise's nephew! -- did to warrant extra-tiny credits?

 

[Orac]

When you say any idea, are you inviting us to speculate?

If so, here's my speculation; Bob Wise made sure their credits were tiny because he thought they were both dicks.

 

[Tosk]

I don't know the answer, but I will note that when they did the Director's Edition (both times) the credit remained smaller than the others, but not as small as it was on the theatrical release.

 

[Christopher]

Doug Wise, as noted, is Robert Wise's nephew. When I searched for Marvin Paige and Robert Wise together, I didn't find any clear connection, but I found a number of photos of Wise from The Andromeda Strain that were credited as "From the Marvin Paige collection" (even though that film is not among Paige's credits), so there seems to be some connection. It's possible that maybe those two people accepted pay cuts to work on Wise's film, and thus got reduced credits to reflect it, or something.

 

[CoveTom]

That's interesting. I assume when they did the DE, they were required to keep all of the credits the same, since those would have been specified by the contracts that each person has. I've just never seen another credit like that on any other film that I can recall.