Star Trek The Motion Picture

We are urgently requesting backup and further advice…Intel on the ground indicates that this timeline has been effectively secured by our forces for the moment, though installing a permanent presence here seems unlikely…While they’ve been mostly keeping quiet for the moment, there’s no doubt The Empire will eventually take notice of what we’re doing here and strike back with a vengeance, and skirmishes with the other renegade factions are a constant problem…We followed your instructions and The Prototype codename “VOYAGER” is complete and ready for a shakedown cruise, though we are concerned as to its structural stability and overall viability and worry it may not yet be capable of fulfilling The Purpose for which it was designed, and that activating it will alert The Empire as to our whereabouts…Please inform as to further action ASAP…

At some point it became inevitable.

While a tenaciously niche property throughout the 1970s, Star Trek gave no indication of ever going away, especially once new generations of fans started to get introduced to it. It had a uniquely built-in self-regenerating audience, and one that was big enough to eventually attract the attention of the higher-ups. It was never a question of if Star Trek would come back, but how and when. The answer to all of those questions eventually came in 1977, when Paramount announced plans to enter the television market with their own network, and a new Star Trek series as its flagship programme. The series, chronicling a second five-year mission of the newly-refitted USS Enterprise under the command of Admiral James T. Kirk, eventually got the name Star Trek Phase II and premiered the following year.

Star Trek Phase II was not the first idea Paramount had for ways to revive the franchise: Originally, there were plans for a British-produced feature film called Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, to be handled by a pre-Star Wars Ralph McQuarrie. This film was in development throughout 1976 and 1977, but was eventually abandoned in favour of doing this show instead (and, presumably, due to McQuarrie’s commitments to the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg camp). It was an interesting story, involving heavily redesigned Enterprise following the original five-year mission involved in a territorial dispute with the Klingons over a planet rumoured to be home to a mythical race of cosmic Titans, who apparently were very influential in the history of life in the galaxy. After a brief dust-up involving a black hole and time travel, the Enterprise finds itself back in time and orbiting prehistoric Earth, where the crew soon discover that they are in fact the mythical Titans.

But returning to Star Trek Phase II, the series premier, “In Thy Image”, was a real event: Unlike the Original Series, which sort of just appeared out of nowhere, Star Trek Phase II was hyped up with a big PR machine and took off with a massive two-hour pilot movie. With much of the original creative team returning, as well as the addition of talented and professional new team members like Andy Probert and Robert Wise, who will go on to leave their own marks on the history of the franchise, this is as good an introduction to the new Star Trek as we could have hoped for, showing genuine maturation and development of themes we’ve seen explored before, and that most Star Trek of promises to continue growing and learning along the way.…

Continue Reading