‘Woman In Motion’ Doc About Nichelle Nichols And NASA Coming To Theaters For One-Night February Event

The new documentary Woman in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and the Remaking of NASA tells the inspiring true story of how Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols pioneered the NASA recruiting program to hire people of color and the first female astronauts for the space agency in the late 1970s and 1980s. The film will open in movie theaters nationwide for one night only on February 2, 2021, via a special presentation from Fathom Events.

Woman in Motion

Directed by Todd Thompson (The Highwaymen, PRE FAB!), the film chronicles how Nichols transformed her sci-fi television stardom into a real-life science career when she embarked on a campaign to bring diversity to NASA in 1977. Nichols formed the company Women In Motion, Inc. and recruited more than 8,000 African American, Asian, and Latino women and men for the agency. Nichelle and her program continued to influence the younger generation of astronauts as well, including Mae Jemison, the first female African American astronaut in space. Despite an uphill battle against a bureaucracy that was hesitant to let her get involved, Nichols persevered and is credited by NASA for turning it into one of the most diverse independent agencies in the United States Federal Government.

Nichelle Nichols in Woman in Motion

“We are thrilled that Woman in Motion will be getting its U.S. premiere and launching the Fathom Events Celebrates Black History Month series next month! This is a great American story with incredible global impact,” said director Todd Thompson. “Nichelle Nichols helped create the brighter future we are living in today by proclaiming that space exploration is for everyone. It’s a simple but very strong statement that opens doors and allows all humankind to boldly go!”

In addition to Nichols, Woman In Motion features notable celebrities, activists, scientists and astronauts including Neil deGrasse Tyson, George Takei, Pharrell Williams, Martin Luther King III, Al Sharpton, Vivica A. Fox, Walter Koenig, Rod Roddenberry, Michael Dorn, Guy Bluford, Charles Bolden, Ivor Dawson, Frederik Gregory and Benjamin Crump.

George Takei in Woman in Motion

Following the feature presentation, fans will be treated to an exclusive behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Woman in Motion, which includes additional interviews with Nichols and other notable guests from the documentary, deleted scenes, and additional footage from the making of the film.

Fathom Events CEO Ray Nutt said, “We are proud to bring pioneer and role model Nichelle Nichols’ inspiring story in cinemas across the nation. It is an honor to have Woman in Motion as the debut film in the inaugural Fathom Events Celebrates Black History Month series.”

Watch the trailer:

For participating locations and tickets visit www.FathomEvents.com. According to Fathom, the list of participating theaters is being updated and is subject to change, so check back if you don’t find a theater near you now.

There is no news yet on international screenings, or home video or streaming release for Woman in Motion, but TrekMovie will report on any updates as new information becomes available.


See more news and analysis about Star Trek documentaries at TrekMovie.com.

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They say they switched Uhura to red because she looked better in it, but she looks pretty good in gold too.

And, um…no Shatner?

Yes, no Shatner, apparently.

I find that somewhat telling on Shatner’s character…

He was invited several times over the 5 years it took to produce this film, he or his people did not respond.

I learned a lot I didn’t know just from the trailer. This looks like a wonderful companion to the recent film “Hidden Figures” and a well deserved tribute to Ms. Nichols. I hope it streams soon since the prospect of going to a theater during the pandemic is not appealing.

If there wasn’t a pandemic going on I’d go see this in a heartbeat. As it is, no theaters will be open in Los Angeles, so… yay?

Yeah, I’d be suprised if any theater other then the few remaining dive in’s in SoCal are open before fall. If you’re listening, Fathom, set this up at the Van Buren Drive in in Riverside. I’ll go.

Looks really interesting. I hope it does well! Will definitely watch if it gets a physical release or goes on a streaming platform.

One night in February?! During a surging pandemic?!

Very sad to see the wave of stupid, anti-science extends so thoroughly into Star Trek. Ms. Nichols will be proud, I’m sure…

Everyone that shows up to a movie theater deserves everything they get for the price of entry.

While I will not disagree with you in the least bit, maybe, like Phil said above (in response to my comment), these new pop-up drive-ins could do the trick? I dunno, I haven’t been to one of those either during our time in the Twilight Zone. I have no idea if they are safe or not.

no, just in colorado and texas, it’s booked into a number of imax theaters… unbelievable

And the funny thing is some people who are considered “smart” are also in on this. I mean look at Chris Nolan and his stubbornness regarding Tenet playing in theaters. I mean who do you think you are if you think your film is bigger than peoples health?

What a spiteful and vindictive comment. Shame to read it’s from a Trekkie.

Calling out the stupidity and selfishness of people who are encouraging reckless behavior in the middle of a pandemic that kills a 9/11 of people EVERY FU**ING DAY is not being spiteful or vindictive. It’s having two eyes, two ears, and functioning gray matter between said ears. It’s having the common sense to look out the window, seeing the storm clouds, and bringing a bloody umbrella. It’s GD common sense.

I don’t know about stupidity, but someone sounds inordinately pessimistic that the states and the new administration, won’t have enough Trek fans older than 65 or employed in the essential sciences vaccinated by then to make attending NOT a death risk for a masked vaccinatees spaced 6 feet apart only attendance?

You’ve tried to cram way to much in a single sentence – I can’t make head nor tail of what you’re saying…

Merely, that enough Trek fans make up enough of those first vaccinated to make it possible for them to attend a February event without facing a significant threat of death from COVID.

The type of threat that Scott is proselytizing against would be from those vaccinated attendees spreading the virus to unvaccinated theater employees if Fandango, et al, were foolish enough to try to hold the event in a manner without maximum protection for them.

No, most of what you said is wrong. That isn’t how vaccines work at all, especially the amount of post-injection time involved as the human body is ramping up a response to the vaccination foreign chemistry.
You also misunderstand the part that herd algorithms play in vaccination programs and how critically intertwined they are in a successful strategy.
There’s no magic in a single or 10,000 or 100,000 injections. If you or any individual received the amount of vaccination to protect your stand-alone self, you’d be dead before the sun rose again the following day.

I’m not sure what you think I said or how well versed either of us are in the new technology but there’s no perfection in this. It is all a matter of risk assessment. The vaccine does not guarantee that you won’t get infected by COVID, only that your risk of dying from an infection is greatly reduced to a hopefully acceptable level.

I am unclear how you see herd immunity coming into play in a room of vacinated only attendees? Herd immunity achieved or not is not going to have any effect on the severity of a COVID infection for any individual who manages to catch it. A vaccine 7 days prior to getting that infection will offer a measurable increase in the odds of surviving said infection, but it’s always a crapshoot.

If you want a 0% chance of ever dying from the COVID virus, then what you want is for the world to wipe it out like we did smallpox, but that’s a loooooong waiting time in the basement for that to pass.

In this transcript, from the NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/opinion/sway-kara-swisher-sahin-tureci.html?searchResultPosition=1&showTranscript=1

The creators of the Pfizer vaccine, say the first dose protects the vaccinated. Do you dispute this?

Going to a movie theater seems like a bad idea right now, but I really want to see this, so I hope a streaming option comes along!

Only if, as a Trek fan, you haven’t managed to wrangle a second COVID vaccine dose 7 days prior to attending distanced, with your mask.

I’m in the 65+ eligible group, so I’m optimistic with Biden freeing all available doses of possibly getting 1 or 2 doses by then.

Even with only one shot of a dual dose vac, it all boils down to standard risk assessment. While COVID is in no way the flu, the flu is deadly and we’ve routinely faced it maskless with vaccines that are often less than 50% effective.

My understanding is that of the dual dose COVID vaccines, the first dose conveys 50% effectiveness if after 7 days no signs of a possible real COVID 19 virus taking the opportunity to infect by then.

I’m optimistic, that by January 26 some one dose only vaccine will be available. But I stress it is all a matter of personal risk assessment for all. I in no way expect a single dose only vac to convey the maximum protection that a second dose of Moderna provides my age group.

I’d like to see this – this is one Trek-adjacent story I’ve never heard many details about.

Also, I hope Ms. Nichols is doing well.

*not in theatres, tho :)

Wow this is incredible. I had NO idea about any of this. You think after decades of following these shows, you have heard all the major stories by now, but apparently not! I heard the MLK story too many times to the point of ad nauseum, but this I’m hearing about for the first time oddly.

I would love to see this. But when I do it will be at home because even if I wanted to see it in the theater, all of them are still shut down where I live. So that’s not happening. ;)

I’m far from any sort of Anglo-Saxon myself, but even I was pretty offended by that opening. Those were great men, and they did great things. Look at a picture of mission control during Apollo 11 and bear in mind that this documentary is suggesting that that simply couldn’t have happened, because we all know that without diversity we’re nothing.

I’m not a moon-landing denier. It happened, like it or not.

“bear in mind that this documentary is suggesting that that simply couldn’t have happened, because we all know that without diversity we’re nothing.”

Huh? No, it’s not. From what I saw (just the trailer), it’s not denigrating NASA’s accomplishments – or denigrating anyone who contributed to the space program.

It’s a documentary about Nichols’ work in getting women and minorities into NASA – it’s not supposed to acknowledge that, like most other institutions in the 60s, NASA had largely been a (white) boy’s club?

Sure. It could also acknowledge that that white boys’ club landed on the moon.

Nachum,

You seemed confused about how white boys clubs work. It’s not that they don’t use non-white labor and minds to achieve their goals; it’s that they suppress all information and acknowledgement that contradicts their false narrative that only whites achieved it.

To reveal, the stark falsity of this, allow me to state the extremist version of what you assert: We should acknowledge that only Nazis could get us to the moon.

Yes, I know what Hollywood has told us about the black people who made Apollo possible.

And by the way, the Nazis *didn’t* get to the moon. Neither did the Soviets. So clearly exploiting people and presenting as all-white doesn’t do the trick.

This is where you are doing the confusing thing of using Hollywood tales as an excuse to ignore historic fact.

Werner Magnus Maximilian von Braun was a card carrying Nazi that headed Hitler’s V-2 rocket program using slave labor to build his advances in that program. That U.S. white boys club, that you admire so, whitewashed Werner’s Nazi background and those of his fellow select Nazis that Werner declared he needed to build a successful American rocket, and illegally immigrated them to the U.S. to contribute to your white boys club Saturn V.

Also, take another look at your collection of Mission Control photos with their sea of white boy faces. Look closer and you’ll see pretty blond woman. Look her identity up. She wasn’t a secretary.

Of course there are women in that photo, and God bless every one. I think you’re proving my point.

Herbert von Karajan was a card-carrying Nazi too. And…?

Then I don’t understand your point? They were great women, i.e. NOT men.

Or are you trying to assert that 3 great white boys just willed themselves to the moon without the combined collaborative effort of a diverse group of others?

Re:Karajan

There are white supremacists that made/make the illogical leap that in the collaborative effort to get a man on the moon, i.e. only the Nazis mattered instead of the actual diverse group of people that worked together to accomplish it. I was using their extremist posit to demonstrate the folly of making any sort of remotely similar assumption about NASA’s white boys club of the past whose systemic racist whitewashing practices of other diverse groups accomplishments in NASA’s past Ms. Nichols was hired to end among other things.

Yeah, I just looked up the closest location. I’m in central California and the nearest location is in Nevada. Guess this won’t be happening. Almost all theaters are closed in California.

Look forward to to watching this on streaming when it becomes available.