Earlier this week Rod Roddenberry’s documentary Trek Nation premiered on the Science Channel. The Star Trek-themed documentary was the result of many years of work and as you would expect there is a lot of footage that didn’t make it into the final cut for TV. Now the director of the documentary is putting up some of these deleted scenes and interviews on YouTube. See below for extra interview clips with Nichelle Nichols, Patrick Stewart and writer Michael Piller. [UPDATED: Added interview clip with Family Guy/Futurama writer David Goodman]
Trek Nation deleted interview clips
The following deleted scenes are being put up on YouTube by Trek Nation director Scott Colthorp, who introduces each clip. They are all part of a series he is calling Trek Nation: Director’s Log, which will continue with more clips in the future.
Actress Nichelle Nichols (TOS: Uhura) talking about the modern impact of Star Trek.
Patrick Stewart (TNG: Picard) on stepping into the shoes of William Shatner.
Star Trek: The Next Generation lead writer (the late) Michael Piller on Gene Roddenberry’s teachings about theme vs. plot in storytelling.
UPDATE: Clip 9 with an interview with Family Guy/Futurama writer (including the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before") David Goodman.
You can see some more deleted scenes at youtube.com/treknation. And you can also follow the release of additional episodes of Trek Nation: Director’s Log on Facebook and Twitter.
Trek Nation repeats this weekend on Science channel
And if you missed the premiere of Trek Nation on the Science Channel, they are running repeat airings. It airs at 9PM and midnight on Saturday and 4:00 AM on Sunday. See the Science Channel schedule for more dates and times.
Thanks for the info and videos in special the interview of Michael Piller.
Ii thought this documentary was great! Thanks for the extras!
Loved the interview with Michael Piller and his conversations about storytelling with Gene Roddenberry. When he relays what Gene’s question on a pitch, “What’s it about?”, one gets a better understanding of what makes great Star Trek. It’s what Roger Ebert said in his review of Star Trek (2009). Star Trek is about ideas, scientific or philosophical. Perhaps it’s about both.
Seeing Michael Piller in the documentary and this bonus clip was a treasure. Thank you.
RIP Michael Piller.
I didn’t like how the documentary didn’t acknowledge Gene Roddenberry’s first marriage, where he two daughters that appeared in the episode Miri, even though they claimed that he cheated on Majel. They use an 80’s clip of Roddenberry talking about he “lost his family” when he was working on the original series and they showed a picture of him with Majel and Rod to emphasis this. How could he of lost that family when he wasn’t remarried until after the show was cancelled? They also tried to make it seem like Roddenberry couldn’t get any work after Star Trek, because of his “bold vision.” BULLSHIT. He produced Pretty Maids All in a Row, three failed pilot and worked on the animated series (which wasn’t mentioned), so he wasn’t starving until he got the deal to do the motion picture.
I thought that Gene Roddenberry actually had two sons, no daughters. The oldest son was born to his first wife, and the second, Rod, was born to his second wife, Majel Barrett.
However, I believe one of William Shatner’s small daughters appeared in the episode, Miri.
The Star Trek TV series was cancelled in 1969, before the moon landing on July 20, 1969. I know this because of what I read in a book by William Shatner, where he said that he was on the road touring with a small theatre group and remembers rigging up some kind of aerial for his small TV so that he could watch the moon landing.
I don’t know when they started working on TMP, but I doubt it would have taken as long to make as some movies today. That film was released in 1979. Allowing for a year to 18 months before release, it is quite possible that GR may not have had much in the way of well paid work for about five or six years. That does not mean that he was necessarily starving – just not being able to easily get the kind of work he preferred to do – until TMP.
My problem is that I cannot watch any of the videos at the moment as my two junior members have used up all our broadband allocation for the month and so nothing loads properly and/or it takes “half a century”. No carrots for those two. Usually there isn’t much of a problem.
Roll on 6 December…
Then I should be able to watch the new Star Trek band and the one or two video interviews posted here.
Nope, Gene only had two daughters, Darleen and Dawn, with his first wife, Eileen Rexroat, who were 18 and 13 retrospectively when the episode they appeared in, Miri, was filmed. You can look them up on Memory Alpha. Rod was Gene’s only son, though his marriage with Majel Barrett. Darleen unfortunately passed away, but Dawn is still alive and apparently tried to file a lawsuit against Barrett, but withdrew. I’d be more interested in hearing her thoughts on the manner. I’m sure she would have much more interesting stories for Rod to hear of how he cheated on her mother with his own mother, which he continued to do after he was remarried, rather than hearing Nichelle Nichols’ MLK story… AGAIN. Also, I wish that he would have spoken with Harlan Ellison about Roddenberry. He always worth a few laughs and doesn’t beat around the bush about people.
yeh gotta admit ellison wouda been a fascinating intervie as well as the daughter although that coulda been painful–wonder if grs ex is still alive? at least we didnt have to also hear the story about whoppi g…seeing uhura when she was a kid…again..hah
I love learning from Michael Piller and great to see the clips from his interview. why does Trek Nation ignore or not acknowledge Piller’s creations in the Star Trek universe…especially DS9??? the setup is totally missing that even as it seems like it’s building toward Piller’s contribution to the Star Trek universe.
Is the doc playing anywhere other than SCI channel, which I don’t get?
Let’s not forget that the purpose of the documentary was not to tell the history of Star Trek. It was primarily about a son attempting to learn more about his father. There are going to be holes and missing elements because it’s from his POV. And that’s ok.
So many of the interviews about Star Trek are -so- ridiculous. All of these people either have rose-colored glasses or decided to drink the kool-aid, and spew forth whatever they think the fans want to hear. The most honest thing I ever heard about Roddenberry was the very, VERY obvious choice to make the inventor of WARP DRIVE an alcoholic who didn’t MEAN to usher in a new era for humanity, he only wanted naked women and money. Gee. I wonder who they were -really-talking about? That’s not to say that I don’t respect what Gene DID contribute, but I honestly don’t believe how every one acts like they knew they were making history, etc. At least Patrick Stewart is honest in saying he didn’t think anything would come of TNG.
@#10: Because everyone would prefer that DS9 be ignored in the pantheon of Trek series. DS9 was/is considered by many to be antithetical to Gene’s “vision”. I never bought into the Roddenberry dream, really. It is unfortunate that the character conflict in DS9 is grounds for its dismissal as a series as it was probably the best written, produced, and acted series of all of them.
#13: So you think that Zephram Cochrane from First Contact was a caricature of Gene Roddenberry? I suppose so, but then that would almost be a compliment: that behind every great man from history is a human with many flaws.
I really liked the documentary. I just think that “Trek Nation” is a bad title. It should be called something like “Trek’s Son” of “The Father of Trek” or something like that.
#3 I’ve read Eberts review of Star Trek and I have to disagree with it. I think for a lot of people who were used to the very traditional Star Trek film, it was a little off-putting because of the camera angles, lense flares, the score, the bright colors, of the youthfulness of it (that some moviegoers seem to automatically assocciate with the dumbing down of a film these days). But Trek 09 was about something, there were themese that rose above the bombastic music or the amazing special effects. There were themes of love and loss and how those two huge things can impact just who we are as young people and adults. The idea that people who yes, are very different than one another can come together to do good things and work as a team/family. Mainly, the idea that jumps out at me every time I watch that movie, that you can forge your own path in life, it’s not about what someone else wants or expects you to do.
I dont say that to say that fans who were disappointed with Nemesis and wanted a do-over dont have a right to be disappointed with JJ’s film. But like TOS in the 60s, and like Star Wars even in the 70s, Trek 09 spoke to a younger audience more-so and put ideas than Gene used in TOS into nuTrek in a way that they would grasp. Personally, I’m a fan of all incarnations of Trek but I genuinely do love what JJ is doing. And look at it this way, it’s film, and thats just one section of Trek. I think once there’s a new TV show, it cant rely on what JJ is doing. It’s got to combine the high profile look with deep storytelling that continues to really pushes great ideas to the viewers/fans. That’s what’s always made Trek great.
Wow. I did not know that Gene Roddenberry had two teenage daughters when he started doing Star Trek. He clearly needed to have a stable income, which was something he was not assured of when he put his ideas forward for this new and novel science-fiction television series.
Although it might have been interesting to hear Dawn’s memory of her father, I think it may have been a bit awkward, difficult for Rod, the child born of the second marriage. I doubt it would have much, if anything, to do with the creation of Star Trek, so it would not necessarily be that relevant anyway.
Being a daughter of a second marriage (my father divorced his first wife), things can be complicated and sometimes painful, when dealing with members of the first marriage. I can quite understand why, for Rod Roddenberry, that may be a no-go area for him, at least on camera. Like it is our business anyway.
The whole point that Rod did all of those interviews was because he wanted to learn more about who his father was. Most of the interviews were the same old fluff we’ve heard and read a hundred times. I hope that there was some kind of an attempt on Rod’s part to try to contact his step-sister. If she said no, then all power to her. I just hope she wasn’t forgotten, but it sure did seem like that way by not acknowledging them at all and when they showed a photo of Gene with Majel and Rod when he was describing that he “lost his family” from working on the original series, when he wasn’t married to Majel until after the show ended. The whole documentary was way to sugar coated for me.
“when they showed a photo of Gene with Majel and Rod when he was describing that he “lost his family” from working on the original series, when he wasn’t married to Majel until after the show ended.”
Holy crap. How old was Rod at the time? I would hazard a guess that he was a small child. What the hell has his parents being married at the time or not got to do with his feeling of having “lost his family”? Young children don’t think in terms of whether their parents are married or not (that is an adult construct); they think in terms of whether those significant people, their mother and father, are there for them often enough and what kind of interaction they have with these two care giving adults.
If there has been tension and resentment to the extent that his half-sister(s), possibly because of the influence of their mother and her anger and resentment, have rejected him, then effectively he is an only child, except that he is not and that has got to hurt. Why all power to her? Rod was no more responsible for his father’s behaviour that his half-sisters were, so why should she reject him? It sounds like you think he should be somehow punished for the actions of his parents, over which he had no control, none whatsoever.
Of course, it is going to be a bit “sugar coated”. These are his PARENTS that Rod Roddenberry is talking about.
Rod’s “mission statement” of the documentary was to find out more about his father from the people who knew him. They make a big point about how it’s reviled that Gene cheated on Majel after they were married. Rod went on to say how it he wasn’t disappointed about learning this, but it made him think of his father being more “humanized.” It irked me, because it made me think how his step-sister would feel, since Gene cheated on her mother with Majel during the duration of the series, leading to a divorce.
Dawn is not his step-sister. She is his half-sister. If Gene Roddenberry was the father of both Rod and Dawn, they are related by blood. Well, we don’t know how his half-sister felt, but it is something that happened a long time ago and hopefully her mother, along with herself, have moved on. What I said still stands.
I understand this isn’t a documentary on the history of the entire Star Trek franchise but to not mention DS9 or Voyager as Piller’s creations (co-creations) does feel like a knock to those shows but they are a part of the franchise. Same with David A. Goodman’s clip…great that he wrote a classic Futurama episode but to not mention his involvement with Enterprise is another knock. it’s just lame that the documentary ignores these aspects of the franchise and their contribution. I’m just pointing out the obvious. Piller’s involvement in creating two of the series is just as important as his involvement with TNG. my love of Star Trek spans the entire franchise. but o well I’m not the executive producer or writer on this documentary and I’ll probably watch it anyway. :)
Great i documentary 2 hours was not enough. It should have been a 2 part 4 hour documenatry.
15. VZX
Thank you for putting that troll in his place.
If I were to hazard a guess, I’d imagine Rod had very little contact with his half-sister until he was quite a bit older. There’s a good 20 years separating their ages, so they may still not be very close. It’s also entirely possible she didn’t want to be interviewed, as her father’s affairs and the subsequent divorce from her mother are probably painful memories.
Also, I think it’s entirely appropriate that they didn’t get into DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise, since Roddenberry didn’t have anything to do with them. This is a doc about Rod learning about his dad, not a doc directly about Star Trek (though certainly indirectly about Star Trek). And I say that as a DS9 fan.
once again…I have no problem that they didn’t go into those shows not created by Gene Roddenberry, but to not mention, in their introductions, that Michael Piller went on to create two more Star Trek shows or that David A. Goodman was involved on Enterprise just makes no sense. it’s a Star Trek documentary and I understand its main focus. all I’m saying is for their intro as individuals involved with Star Trek. :)
#27
And again, I don’t see why that would be necessary. He discusses Piller’s involvement in TNG because that’s relevant to the story he’s sharing about Roddenberry. I think they did that pretty consistently with everyone interviewed. With Goodman they mention him as a writer for Futurama, because that’s the story he’s telling. I think it’s just about the doc staying on point, not a dismissal of anyone’s later achievements.