Obviously not George Lucas, but who else would have done our franchise a service, and who would have done her a disservice by sitting in the chair? Roger Corman, Spielberg, Robert Altman, Kubrick, George Roy Hill, Richard Donner or others as suggestions.
Who should have directed TMP if Robert Wise hadn't been available?
- Thread starter The Salt Umpire
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Kubrick would have insisted V'ger have the dimensions 1:4:9
Kubrick, Spielberg, Altman, Hill, and Donner were all busy with other films during the same period.
Kubrick was at the point in his career where he wouldn't have done a director-for-hire gig regardless. He had a long-term deal with Warners that gave him carte blanche with his pictures.
Corman would never have been seriously considered for a marquee production like Star Trek.
I could see Richard Fleischer getting the nod. He had science fiction experience in his background (Fantastic Voyage) and was available around the same time Wise was when Paramount hired him. Fleischer didn't have a project on his slate until he was brought on to replace Richard C. Sarafian on Ashanti in April 1978.
Kubrick was at the point in his career where he wouldn't have done a director-for-hire gig regardless. He had a long-term deal with Warners that gave him carte blanche with his pictures.
Corman would never have been seriously considered for a marquee production like Star Trek.
I could see Richard Fleischer getting the nod. He had science fiction experience in his background (Fantastic Voyage) and was available around the same time Wise was when Paramount hired him. Fleischer didn't have a project on his slate until he was brought on to replace Richard C. Sarafian on Ashanti in April 1978.
I enjoyed Fantastic Voyage (and the other SF films from that time like The Andromeda Strain and Planet of the Apes which played on TV routinely) and he didn't let stuff drag too much. I do wonder if he would have given TMP a paranoid and dark feeling judging by the opening scenes of FV which felt furitive and secretive. He sure could film sfx, tho.
I'm curious as to how Doug Trumbull would've handled the entire film. Most of the folks I could imagine being involved, yes, had other projects going... Nick Meyer, Ridley Scott, Richard Donner... all of them had films out that year. Fleisher would have been an interesting choice, too. '70s cinema was such a 'whole other vibe' that it's hard to reconcile what I know of the best directors of that decade, and them taking a Trek project on... especially the first film.
If they hadn't been able to get a marquee name in the director's chair, we very likely wouldn't have had a TMP at all.
I'm not so sure about that. Robert Collins stayed on with the production as the director for a while, with his co-writing credit staying on the script through the third draft in February, 1978 which was well after it was switched over from In Thy Image. If Paramount hadn't gotten a name, they were too far down the hole at that point and probably would've kept on Collins.
He had his hands full working on TMP SFX according to Wiki I knew that when his name was associated with SFX in a movie, they were going to be well done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Trumbull#1975–1980
Except that TMP is the most Trek/TOS movie. The color scheme and music didn't feel 'right' for the crowd. But the core of it, the character dynamic.... It was all 100% TOS.
Ridley Scott.
I think that the general consensus is that the character dynamic doesn't feel at all like TOS, at least for a significant portion of the film.
Well, neither Ellison nor Roddenberry were film directors, so either seems unlikely.
Nick Meyer did a fantastic job on Wrath of Khan, but one of the things I like about the TOS films is that they are actually different from one another. Look at TMP, TWOK, and TVH. Those three films are about as far apart from one another as films can be. Just as TOS itself did all types of episodes. I wouldn't have wanted to see Nick Meyer do more than he did.
Oh, I don't disagree. I'm just curious as to what that would have looked like. I suspect TMP wouldn't have had quite the same sense of wonder to it.
Definitely not. Meyer had only directed one movie before making Star Trek II (Time After Time), so he was very much a newbie. He just wouldn't have had the skill set for dealing with something as sprawling and intense as TMP's production schedule and requirements.
So, I'd have to choose between Alien and TMP?! No contest, I choose Alien.
That's very nice for the general consensus. I felt that it was the most TOS of the movies, together with TUC.
You're entitled to yor opinion.
