It was quite educational, how TV shows (and movies) are shot out of sequence, how things like props only need to look right for the camera and not be right in reality, and all the memos that flew back and forth. Gene Roddenberry took credit with Whitfield and in this case it was justified — have the books was memos from him and interviews with him.

I didn’t know that it was the first “making of” book on a TV show. Another piece of ground broken by Star Trek.
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I think the Garfield-Reeves did a great job on making of Phase II and Star Trek the Motion Picture. Throw in Shatner’s Movie Memories and you get a pretty good picture of the disarray that led to a very mediocre film that fell way short of the Star Trek Potential.

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I believe that the title of Shatner’s “Star Trek V” book should have been “William Shatner Being Held Personally Accountable for the Making of Star Trek V”. Nothing, nothing would have helped that movie.

Speaking of David Gerrold, there is also the excellent “Making of ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’”.

The magazine Cinefantastique did some great issues on original trek as well – there were several on TOS (20th, 25th and 30th anniverasry tribute issues)

plus movies issues on Trek II, the Genesis Trilogy (big double issue about II,III,IV) , Trek VI (those issues contained alot of what was eventually put into the Making of The Trek Films and Making of VI books) plus issues on Gen, FC and Ins…think the mag had pretty much finished when Nem came out as the guy who founded it killed himself in 2000 or thereabouts :(

On the back it has a quote from a journo that states ‘this may very well be the best book ever written about Star Trek’ and I have to agree 100%…very candid – goes into depth about what went wrong with Trek V (as recounted by Shatner, Bennett etc etc), Bennetts Starfleet Academy Trek VI, and explores the possibilities (at the time) for a Trek VII (with the original crew) and an eventual TNG movie…

And don’t forget ‘The Making of the Trek Films’ from Image Publishing – again I think that was by Altman and Gross around 1992 and charted the evolution of the original six films (but only a few pages dedicated to VI as there was the separate Making of VI)

Both books are great….and far supieror to any of the ‘offical’ making of books…

Though, even he cites Whitfield and Roddenberry’s “Making of Star Trek”

One of the best!

Now I know a lot of folks would of just wanted the Big E to torpedo V’ger and be done with it, but the film was about the big idea, an idea so big that even a mere film can’t contain it, The Human Adventure of course.

Also was about how ‘obsession’ can blind you to enjoy The Human Adventure, like how Kirk was obsessed with getting command of the Enterprise back, how Spock, yes Spock, was obsessed with achieving ‘Perfect Logic’ at it’s core it’s a story about coming to grips with ones ‘obession’ and overcoming it to see what’s really going on around you.

Like how some fans are ‘obsessed’ to see Shatner in the new film, they won’t be happy even if it’s the greatest Star Trek film ever, for Shatner isn’t in it, blind ‘obsession’ isn’t a good thing.

Just remember folks – The Adventure Continues

Thanks for the detailed response, John. I appreciate the time and thought it took to compose.

It does answer my question to the best extent I suspect it can be answered. I concur that the Whifield book is quite good (although I have no idea which storage box my copy resides in and haven’t seen it in years). I’ll have to get in touch again at some point re: the details of the courses you mentioned. I’m curious as to enrollments, student interest level, class procedure, et. al., but don’t want to get into a long off-topic exchange in this forum. Note to Anthony: Perhaps if it hasn’t been done yet, this might be an interesting piece to ask John to write for the site. If it has already been done, perhaps you could provide the article link.

Thanks again for getting back to me, John. I look forward to reading more of your work.

You can check out the following issues of Cinefex which cover Star Trek: The Motion Picture:

#1 March, 1980 “Into the V’ger Maw with Douglas Trumbull”

#2 August, 1980 “Star Trekking at Apogee with John Dykstra”