Star Trek Interviews from ’79 & ’86

Geez Anthony how bout’ a “thanks pal” for tipping you off on that old school Motion Picture video. ;)

The hype surrounding that film was incredible – loved it.

Shatners hair looked cool back then.

Ah, fond memories.

The first glimpse of the trailer for TMP with it’s blue and white(!) logo, sadly not eventually used, but which ended up a pale yellow, rather than a lively saturated one…the anticipation of seeing the gang on the BIG screen…with the hint of some fantastic special effects…the disappointment of the new bland, colourless uniforms and Bridge…then finally seeing the, albiet rushed, final version…and discovering it’s terrific soundtrack…and finding that the special effects were indeed mostly fantastic… yes, heady times.

What will the first trailer to the upcoming Movie elicit in me I wonder?

the narrator guy talks about it like it could be as succesful as Star Wars…figures etc

I guess Paramount were hoping it would be on the same level..

It might have made alot more than it did if Wrath of Khan had been The Motion Picture eh?

then again WOK only exists cause of TMP.

Actually if you adjust all the money for inflation isnt TMP the most succesful trek film at the BO? or is it still Voyage Home?

and 40 million budget…isnt that like about 100 million in todays money?

I too remember those days fondly as well. No internet …only information came form Entertainment Tonight type programming. I even taped a segment of the Merv Griffin Show with a cassette tape recorder and listened to the interviews many times before the movie came out. Friends and I even called movie theaters months before the release to see if their current film had Star Trek trailers ,and we went to those theaters regardless of what was showing , just to get a glimpse of the new Star Trek film. Those were the days my friend!

What a shame, at the end of the Shatner interview, that they cut away to show a clip of the movie and we only heard the voice-over of the Shat say, “the part of Captain Kirk is an awfully good one!” It would have been nice to see his facial expression when he stated that sentiment. I cracked up, earlier in his interview, when Shatner expressed concern of whether to reprise the role of Captain Kirk. It’s hilarious when he expressed concern over it maybe presenting “career problems”! Hell, at that point in time, he didn’t have MUCH of a career, so what was the problem??

in that interview Shatner dosnt look that different from how he looked in the 3rd season actually

the lighting wasnt very flattering in some parts of TMP.

Here we just passed the 40th Anniversary and it’s amazing to see Shatner and company in those interviews from 1986 say Star Trek will go on for another 20 years and more.

re 17

yep Shats and Nimoy are quite prophetic arent they..plus De kelley saying its his ‘since feeling that IV will pick up an audience that wouldnt normally go to see a Trek film’

then right at the end Shatner talks about V – oh dear….I feel like shouting at the computer screen “NOOOOO Dont Do It Bill!”

maybe we should all charter a space shuttle go round the sun and back to 1988 to stop Shatner filming Trek V eh or maybe take a dvd and show him

well i think he was up for doing that with the SE dvd..but Paramount said no.

HD? Screw that!

how many times are we supposed to buy the same films?

wow not much talkback on this one – all just from Snake here.

anyway i had an idea today about the new film and all that – and i thought why dont they get Jim Cavizal as Pike? with the jesus/Jeff hunter connection and all

how about that for casting eh? – hes not A list so should cost half the budget – and he’s done SF before…plus is about the right age

SERIOUSLY THOUGH – maybe The Shatner was abit influenced by all the media surrounding Nimoy at the time – about weather he was gonna come back as Spock or not..and thought he’d jump on it too

Nimoy probably got both his and shatners salarys increased significantly by holding out like he did. (werent/arent they on some kind of special joint Star Trek contract? where everything one gets the other has to?)

Wow…I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen Persis with hair!

Great interviews…it is amazing to think about how Trek has endured, considering how the world (and TV) has changed since 1966. I got a chuckle when Shat mentioned that Trek would go “another 20 years!”…thinking all the way out to 2006! :)

It seems that there was something very special about Trek when it was still just one crew…one ship…one captain. (Okay, there was Pike as well. But you know what I mean!) :)

Here’s to another 20 years!

Was really nice to see that gorgeous Enterprise bridge set…we got, what? 2 minutes of it at the end of TVH? And from basically one angle. Always wanted to see more of it!

i am only 20 , and i some times forget how old trek is , that was so 70s, and their making a big deal that star trek is 10 ! years old lol.

and how bad where those star trek figures lol

I always liked Harold Michelson and Jennings production design, but even though Zimmerman is well respected amongst the fans and has a long history associated with the series, I simply never enjoyed his aesthetic sensibilities for Trek.

Trek V is a prime example of Zimmermans minimalist preferences and tastes in visual style.

Contrast the refit bridge of the Motion Picture for example, against the Trek V and VI bridge. Despite the overall similarity- both are round, heh, the devil is in the details, and Zimmerman lacked the final finessing to his sets and design. There isn’t really a fundamental difference aside from decorative to all of Zimmermans bridge designs spanning all of the various series. Enterprise, Enterprise B, Enterprise E, Excelsior, DS9, Voyager, etc, the display graphics alone really established you were on a different ship.
The jump from Jefferies Bridge to Michelsons bridge, look how drastic the contrast was yet they were both fundamentally artistically related. You get no such distinction or contrast between Michelsons refit bridge, and Zimmermans Trek V bridge. There was a perfect oppurtunity to really make a statement and make a nice distinctive new bridge design, and it ended up entirely minimalist and overlit.

Am I the only one who really liked the (then) new gleaming white redress of the bridge set at the end of STIV. I never cared for the quasi Next Gen look of the bridge in STV…although, once again, Meyer improved upon it for STVI.

Back in ’86 at Christmas on a visit to LA to stay with family my wife and I were lucky enough to get a tour (courtesy of Richard Arnold who we got to know at UK conventions in the 80’s) of the sets at Paramount – 1 day after STIV’s release, the sets were open for press visits, all lit for the press, and even had a starfield setup where the blue screen would be on the viewer, and got to sit in the captains chair, gotta say it was a dream come true, and even got to chat with Nimoy… also loved the look of the new re-dress of the set, I also was never a big fan of TNG living room bridge.

Thats when Star Trek was fun, waiting a few years before films dying to see the trailers at the cinema, exciting stuff – the anticipation and only imports of Starlog magazine could give us teaser photos!

All the movie bridges were disappointments. I didn’t like how they moved the stations around and who the heck cares about an extra turbolift on the bridge? No color. The movies could all be in black and white and it would make little difference.

#38 – STV is not all bad. The first hour is pretty good. It just had nowhere to go. Shatner painted himself into a corner with the God script.

A script with Spock’s crazy half brother with mystical powers taking hostages and commandeering the ship was by itself an ok idea. Just leave the god out of it.

Also, his budget was cut back quite a bit as compared to STIV…

# 38 ….Great stuff!!! I laughed so hard I had tears coming down my face. And number 41…Only the first 4 minutes during the credits were pretty good… until Kirk fell off the mountain. It went down hill after that (no pun intended) .As I’m sure the Spock would say, “it’s not the ground that would kill you, but the sudden stop”!

Great memories, I still remember the build up to the new Star Trek movies.

STV is flawed but has some of the most inspiring moments ever created in the whole franchise. I have defended the Godward direction in other posts. Tonight I will touch upon the scene where McCoy decides to discontinue the life support of his critically ill father. That scene is powerfully done, and speaks to me. My dad was a big Trek fan, watching it in its original run in the 60s. Unfortunately he got cancer last summer and passed earlier this year. The cancer ravaged his body and then his brain. So the scene where McCoy says he pulled the life support from his critically ill father to “preserve his dignity” speaks volumes to me.

From an extreme nerd perspective, apart from the interviews themselves, it was cool to see a little more of that shiny birdge set that is actually in the film for all of 23 seconds. I didn’t really like the switch in the next movie, either, which is yet another reason not to talk about the next movie, and its name shall not be spoken. Amen… I guess.

The early movie bridge sets had lots of cool shapes and things all over the place, each spot a little different from the next. It produced a lot of variety for shot composition, adding to the visual fabric of the movie, which helps especially if a lot of time is spent in one set, much like TMP or Khan. Unfortunately in TMP they chose the blandest color scheme imaginable and made it look boring as frak, an ailment which seems to have been in that movie’s genetic material, much to the viewer’s detriment. They seemed to get the hang of it by Khan and later, but it’s disappointing to see that shiny new interesting version abandoned when they really got it going, and didn’t have to destroy the ship in the next movie. The next one is all TV screens in grids no matter where you look. Everything kind of looks the same.

*sorry, I mean STIV was a thoroughly enjoyable film whose mainstream appeal….