All language subtitles for The Center Seat 55 Years s01e03 Trekking through the 70s.eng

[announcer] The Star Trek USS Enterprise
gift set with command chair,

console, three telescreen cards,
and five Star Trek action figures.

[Gates McFadden]
Years after its cancelation,

the only new Star Trek characters on TV

were about six inches tall
and made of plastic.

[announcer] Star Trek action figures
also sold separately.

[McFadden]
With no new series,

Gene Roddenberry could only watch
as other people got rich off his idea.

They sold $12 million worth of toys
the first year,

on a toy line of a television show
that was off the air for half a decade.

[McFadden] Desperate,
Gene went cap in hand to Paramount,

looking for a piece of the action,
but instead...

They said, "For 150,000,
why don't you just buy everything?"

[McFadden] A good deal for a franchise
that's now worth $4 billion dollars.

[Larry Nemecek] He could've been
the George Lucas of Star Trek,

but right at that time,
he couldn't come up with the cash.

[McFadden] But don't worry,
help is on the way.

Somebody's gotta write
the goddamn script.

[McFadden]
Sort of.

So beam aboard and hold on tight

as we boldly go into the depths
of Star Trek.

And you can see it all from here
in The Center Seat.

Unable to come up with that cash,
Gene looked to create another cash cow

in the form of sci-fi pilots.

Pumping them out one after the other.

Phasers set to stun
and jumpsuits set to kill.

That thing is from your century?

Yeah, we call them automobiles.

[McFadden]
But no matter how fetching the jumpsuits,

nothing fit quite like Star Trek.

The reruns were doing gangbusters.

It went into syndication.

They kept running it and kept running it
and kept running it.

So we watched that show all the time
because it was on.

I grew up watching the original series
and, you know, reruns whenever it was on.

Come home from school,
you watched Star Trek.

It was a perfect sales demographic.

It was a show that appealed to 18-49,
and they just ate it up.

[McFadden] The networks
were crying out for new Star Trek,

but the show
had already been consigned to history.

Because they had destroyed the sets,

they had given away the Enterprise
to the Smithsonian Institute.

[McFadden] But Paramount could no longer
ignore the show's growing legion of fans.

[Marc Cushman] It's everywhere.
Fan fiction, books, it's just selling.

The merchandising is selling.

So they finally said,
"Okay, let's do a Star Trek movie."

[McFadden]
Well, that was easy.

The idea that a dead TV series
would come back as a movie

because the fandom demanded it,
that was revolutionary.

[McFadden] But for Gene,
it was an opportunity,

or even an answered prayer.

So he wrote a feature film script
entitled The God Thing.

In which Kirk fights Jesus
on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Which involved the crew of the Enterprise,
in essence,

meeting what is perceived to be a god
but not being God.

[McFadden]
But this wasn't to be God's chosen script

because in 1974,
The God Thing wasn't a thing.

Barry Diller, who was running Paramount,
was Catholic,

and this script dealt with religion,
and so he was bothered by it.

[McFadden] But Gene wasn't the only one
to pull up a pew,

and another script
had caught Paramount's eye.

Called Star Trek: Planet of the Titans,

a planet that the Klingons,
the Federation,

and a new alien race
that was being introduced

were trying to develop.

Several versions of the script
were written.

[McFadden]
And Gene didn't like any of them.

He keeps having to tell them that
everything they wrote is not Star Trek.

The characters aren't right.
The Federation's not right.

The starship's not right.

"Have you seen any of the episodes, guys?"

There were about a dozen scripts
that were written

that were never produced.

[McFadden] After two years of false starts
aiming for the silver screen,

Paramount gave up, deciding it was
now time to return to the small screen.

Paramount decided,
"Let's do what we know how to do."

[McFadden]
Uh, make movies?

"Let Gene make another TV series
on Star Trek."

[McFadden]
So no movies, then?

Which isn't as odd as it sounds

because Paramount did have big plans
to make content for the small screen.

By the time you get to 1977,
the only networks that existed

in the United States
were CBS, NBC, and ABC.

Paramount decides it wants to try its hand
at a fourth network.

Now, you know, a decade before Fox,

here's Paramount
trying to add to the Big Three.

Star Trek was going to be
the flagship of that network.

They realize what their strength is,
and they're gonna lead with that.

[McFadden] They thought they needed
TV people to make a TV show,

and that's why this man
entered the fray.

I'm Harold Livingston.

[McFadden] Harold was hired to produce
Paramount's new Star Trek TV show

called Phase II.

All I know is Roddenberry
called me in one day.

They offered me this job.

[McFadden] Harold had just one
sci-fi credit, but it was a doozy.

I was the story editor
on a show called Future Cop.

[McFadden]
But now he'd be the writer

for this perfectly named
second Star Trek series, Phase II.

We were going to do 13 one-hour episodes.

[McFadden]
There was just one rather pointy problem.

Spock was not going to be in Phase II.

That, sir, is illogical.

[McFadden]
It was all to do with differences

regarding a chocolate breakfast cereal.

Mr. Spock!

My search for something super chocolatey
has led me here.

They'd let Pebbles cereal have
Fred and Barney wearing pointed hears

and making quasi-Vulcan jokes.

Fascinating!

There had been legal disputes
involving royalties from the series,

involving the use of the actors' faces
in merchandising.

[McFadden]
Nimoy refused to sign on

until the dispute over licensing his image
was resolved.

Ironically, the script he passed on
was called In Thy Image.

Everyone else is, "Yes, sign me up."

[McFadden] And although the screenplay
writing duties fell to Harold...

The idea of the story
came from Alan Dean Foster.

Alan Dean Foster has been published
in science-fiction magazines

and has written science-fiction books.

He also wrote the novelization books
based on the animated Star Trek series.

Fascinating.

[McFadden] Well, hopefully,
Harold would make it so

as he began working on the script.

I went home and locked the doors
and wrote this script.

[McFadden]
And what a script.

[John Tenuto]
There's a supreme intelligence

on its way to Earth to meet its creator.

The Enterprise is sent to intercept it.

[McFadden] But then,
another supreme intelligence

intercepted Harold's script.

Roddenberry, he said, "All right,
you've done your job, now I'll do mine."

And Gene Roddenberry
rewrote Harold's script.

It was about 40 pages longer
and very poor.

Just dreadful.

[McFadden] Possibly because Gene
had replaced his beloved Spock

with an inferior facsimile.

The character of Xon was a full Vulcan

but wanted to be on a mostly human ship

because he wanted to explore
the human element more.

[McFadden] The man lined up
to replace Spock wasn't from Vulcan,

he was the man from Atlantis.

Oh, not the Man from Atlantis,
a different one.

My list of credits, other than
the theater plays that I'd done,

was the Man from Atlantis.

Oh. Pass freely. I haven't the heart.

[McFadden]
It was just a humble guest spot,

but it led to this.

Will Decker.

How do you do, sir?

[McFadden]
With so little experience,

David was brought in
for a full makeup screen test,

to see if he had the chops...

Lieutenant, you're erasing those tapes.

[McFadden]
...and the ears for the role.

Sir, if I am to function efficiently
as science officer,

I must become intimately familiar
with each circuit in this system.

Carry on.

Thank you, sir. I will.

[McFadden] But just as the new kid
was about to be cast,

a new kid on the block
arrived for sci-fi,

and he had people queuing around the block
for his movie.

Mr. Roddenberry told me that he was
very wistful one day in 1977

when he drove by the theater

and saw the long line around the block
for Star Wars,

wishing that it could have been
for a Star Trek film.

[McFadden] Even if Paramount
was having second thoughts

about doing TV instead of a movie,
it was too late to change course.

When Star Wars became a hit,
they didn't wanna do a movie

because they said,
"Now it's been done.

Who needs another?
It's a one-time thing."

[McFadden]
Well, then a TV series it is.

Well, that's the real trick, isn't it?

[McFadden]
Actually, yes,

because Paramount's plan
to turn on a fourth network

was about to be turned off.

Because no one wanted to really commit
the dollars for a fourth network.

[McFadden]
The TV network was faltering,

and if Paramount thought
George Lucas was a one-trick pony...

They didn't think there'd be sequels
to Star Wars.

They didn't think
there'd be Close Encounters.

I wanna speak to someone in charge!

[McFadden] Along came a film
whose dazzling lights

proved just how hypnotic
science fiction at the movies could be.

[musical tones playing]

[McFadden]
There was no denying it,

the big money in sci-fi
was moving to the big screen.

After seeing Close Encounter's success,

Paramount executives called
David Gautreaux to their offices

for a close encounter of their own kind.

I'm brought right up
to Gene Roddenberry's office now.

I'm in a big room, a lovely office,
and there's a lot of men in this room.

[McFadden]
Including Paramount's top brass.

[David Gautreaux] There was
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner,

and there's Gene,
and he's got a drink in his hand,

and he's offering me,
"What would you like, David?"

I go, "Well, I happen to like bourbon."
"Pour David a bourbon."

So Gene is really the master of ceremonies
for this.

And so it was two things
going on at the same time.

"David, congratulations,
you are our Xon. Hurrah!"

A big toast.
I'm so happy I'm standing there.

"Now we have another announcement
we wanted to make with all of you here.

We're going to be a motion picture!"

[McFadden]
So not a TV show, a movie, again.

"Huzzah!"

[McFadden] And so now all they had to do
was repurpose Harold's pilot...

[coughs]

[McFadden] ...that had been repurposed
by Gene for the big screen.

So we all go and we read it.

And he's sitting there, he had a desk
that was about two feet higher

so he looked down on you
like Mussolini.

He had this grin on his face, expectantly.
"What'd you think?"

So I said, "Gene, it is shit."

And the grin fades.

We had a few words,
and he got a little angry.

"Well, we'll let the studio decide!"

[McFadden] That gave studio head
Michael Eisner the deciding vote

between Gene's rewrite
or Harold's original pilot.

He says, "This is a good script, Gene,
but it's a television script."

He says, "Harold's is a movie."

I though Gene was gonna faint.

[McFadden] By the mid-1970s,
it seemed Star Trek the TV series

was suffering an identity crisis.

What was always meant to be
a TV series became...

The movie that was a movie,
but then it was a TV show,

but then it was a movie again.

[McFadden] Nearly everyone
had lost track of the trek until...

The decision is made to take In Thy Image
and turn it into a motion picture.

The pilot that we were commissioned to do

is being morphed
into a major motion picture.

[McFadden] And in more ways than one,
Paramount was shooting for the stars.

They were aspiring to do 2001.

[Dr. Dave Bowman]
Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL.

[McFadden] George Lucas had shown
sci-fi could pull a crowd,

but Paramount didn't think movies
were the way to keep them.

People think Paramount said, "Oh,
we gotta have a movie like Star Wars."

And it's gonna cost you something extra.

[Cushman] The reality was
Star Wars had very little to do with it.

Science fiction was not by any stretch
of the imagination a guaranteed thing

just because Star Wars
had been successful.

The concept of a sustained, profitable,
growing science-fiction franchise

had never really existed before.

[McFadden] So Paramount planned
to make one and one movie only.

"With big money, big box office,
no reason to every make a second one.

The fans will never come out
to watch a second Star Trek movie.

And then we'll launch our network,

and then doing the series
off of the strength of the movie."

[McFadden]
But no matter how much Paramount said,

"May the fourth network be with you,"
it never would be.

But in any case...

You still have a lot of money
that has been invested.

[McFadden] The studio's Star Trek project
resembled a real-life space program,

and felt almost as costly with sets,
props, and even a brand-new spaceship.

An entire overhaul and update
of the Enterprise itself.

[McFadden] They had a new ship
for a new production,

but who would captain this risky mission?

Robert Wise.

[McFadden] Paramount thought
veteran director Robert wise

would be a safe pair of hands.

Robert Wise was the first
and only director on the list considered.

[McFadden] Wise couldn't make a flop
if he tried,

not after this song and dance.

West Side Story.

This is the guy who made
The Sound of Music.

[McFadden]
And he knew sci-fi from way back

when it was lasers, not phasers.

He had done
a classic science-fiction movie

called The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Which is still regarded as one of the
greatest science-fiction movies ever made.

[McFadden] The pieces
were falling into place for Paramount,

but there was still something,
or someone, missing.

Mr. Nimoy was still not involved
in the project.

Robert Wise, he agreed to do the film.

His wife was a Trekker
and her son was a Trekker,

and they told him,
"It's crazy to do it without Spock.

It'd be like doing it without Kirk."

And so Wise went to Paramount
and said exactly what they had told him

and said, "There's got to be a way
that we can get him."

[McFadden]
Scheduling conflicts and a bigger conflict

over licensing and royalties
had taken it down to the wire.

Days before the press conference
to announce Star Trek: The Motion Picture,

all of those issues
were quickly resolved,

and Leonard Nimoy came on board.

Science Officer Spock,

reporting as ordered, Captain.

[McFadden] The movie
was announced to huge fanfare.

Leonard Nimoy
was already getting into character,

and when asked why it had taken him
so long to confirm...

And probably the thing
that took the most time was the fact

that the mail service between here
and Vulcan is still pretty slow.

[audience laughs]

[McFadden] But Paramount
still had a mountain to climb.

Since Star Trek last took to the airwaves,
science fiction had gotten real.

Now audiences are expecting
Star Wars-level and Close Encounters-level

quality special effects.

[musical tones playing]

[McFadden] Aggressive presales
had also painted Paramount into a corner,

with a terrifyingly close release date.

The distributors were promised that
there would be a Star Trek movie

that they could show in their theaters
on December 7th, 1979.

They had penalty contracts where if they
could not deliver this movie by the 7th,

because these theaters
are holding open the space for them,

they were out the wazoo
for millions of dollars.

[Tenuto] So that only gives them
18 months, basically,

to take what was a television show
and turn it into a motion picture.

[McFadden] At least they had
a brilliantly inventive title.

This motion picture would be called...

Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

[McFadden] Huh?

[John Dykstra] The body politic
that was making the movie went,

"You better let everybody know
that this is a motion picture,

as opposed to an adapted TV show."

[McFadden] The fact was
this was an adaptation.

[Tenuto] You had what was
meant to be a teleplay for a TV show

has to become a major motion picture
for large screens.

[McFadden]
Which brings us back to Harold.

Somebody's gotta write
the goddamn script.

There was a deadline looming.
They had to start shooting.

So Roddenberry
invited Harold Livingston back.

[McFadden]
Harold's original script

seemed to have gotten its DNA
mixed up in the transporter.

In fact, it had gained a whole new Gene.

"In Thy Image,
written by Gene Roddenberry."

He took all the credit.
He didn't share it.

His name is on top.

[McFadden]
Harold felt his script was now a rewrite,

and a write-off.

So he decided to draw a line in the sand

when meeting Roddenberry
and director Bob Wise.

[Harold Livingston]
The first thing Wise says to me is,

"What'd you think of the script?"

I said, "What I think, Mr. Wise,
is you ought to take cyanide.

Total crap."

And that one brought a big laugh.
[laughs]

So they asked me if I would rewrite it.

I said, "I'll rewrite it as long
as it is contractually agreed

that Gene Roddenberry
does not put word on paper."

I mean, I hated him because
he couldn't keep his fingers off a script.

He had to rewrite everything.

"Agreed."

And they gave me a lot of money.

[McFadden]
Harold set about writing a script

the whole franchise was riding on,
safe in the knowledge

that Gene Roddenberry
would not have his way with it.

[Livingston] I write a first draft,
which Eisner wants to see.

I give it to Gene's secretary
to send to Eisner.

About three days later,
my phone rings.

It's Eisner calling me from Paris.

He said,
"What kind of shit did you send me?"

Honest to God.

I said, "What are you talking about?"

I said it was a good script.
I said Bob liked it.

He said, "Nobody could like this crap."

We find out what happened was
I gave the script to Gene's secretary,

and she sent Gene's rewrite
to Eisner in Paris.

[McFadden]
You can't write this stuff,

which is why
director Bob Wise was amazed.

Wise said to me, direct quote,

"Harold, I've been in this business
for 40 years,

and I've never had
an experience like this."

[McFadden]
Not for the first time,

Star Trek, the fourth iteration
was back to square one.

We threw Gene's rewrite out
and went back to what I did.

[McFadden]
The signing of Leonard Nimoy as Spock

had Star Trek: The Motion Picture
headed in the right direction...

Well, so help me,
I'm actually pleased to see you.

[McFadden] ...and Paramount
breathing a sigh of relief.

[Tenuto] Because we're not
gonna risk Star Trek property

that doesn't have its most recognizable
and one of the most popular,

if not the most popular character.

[McFadden] But Spock's return
was still throwing a wrench in the works.

In essence, you have to
write Spock into the movie, right?

He wasn't even in In Thy Image.

[McFadden]
What was good for Leonard Nimoy

was not so good for David Gautreaux.

[Will Decker] Are you trying to tell me
all that work was done for nothing?

That is the logical conclusion, sir.

[McFadden] Whose Johnny-come-lately
Vulcan character, Xon,

was suddenly on the chopping block.

Spock is vital to this core.

[McFadden]
And knowing Xon wasn't,

David met with Gene for reassurance.

[Gautreaux]
And he gave me a thousand assurances.

"We're definitely, definitely, definitely,
we're building this to go into series."

[McFadden]
Executives insisted Xon was a Vulcan

who would live long and prosper.

"Xon is key to the future
of this franchise."

I went, "Okay."

[McFadden] So all David had to worry about
was learning his lines.

[Gautreaux]
They send me the script.

There is no Xon in the screenplay.

And I realize, "Oh, it's over."

[McFadden] Fortunately for David,
another envelope arrived,

and it contained the next best thing
an actor can hope for.

"Here is your payoff. You're free."

All in one gesture,

and a very large check
well above what the pilot figure was.

I felt completely liberated.

[McFadden] But Mr. Spock himself
was feeling anything but relief

over the Spock-versus-Xon debacle.

So Nimoy summoned David
to ask him...

[imitating Leonard Nimoy]
"How did it affect you

when I took that role away from you?"

[McFadden] For David,
Nimoy's olive branch

was compensation enough for his loss.

I certainly never, ever once said,

"That Nimoy guy coming back
and taking my role."

I never viewed it that way because...
he's Spock.

You are correct.

[McFadden] And even by the standards
of a Vulcan, this was...

It was very human, very humane,

that he would ask
such a challenging question.

[McFadden] And David still got to learn
some lines for the movie.

That's within Klingon boundaries.
Who are they fighting?

Unknown, sir.

They did say, "David, we'd like you
to play Commander Branch."

So I agreed.
I played Commander Branch.

[McFadden] Here he is commanding,
albeit briefly.

[alarm sounds]

We are under attack!

[McFadden] And while Xon,
the new Vulcan didn't make it,

for the first time in nearly a decade,
the original cast was tight again,

like peas in a space pod.

I appreciate the welcome.

[McFadden]
Including Mr. Chekov.

Aye, sir.

[McFadden] Walter Koenig
finally came in from the cold

after missing the animated series.

I thought were in for a grand time.

When we came back to do
the first really big one that we did

after being away so long,
it was amazing!

They're the same people.

[McFadden] And there were
mysterious new characters too,

smuggled in
from the original Phase II TV pilot.

She's Deltan, Captain.

[Tenuto]
A Deltan, which was a new alien race.

Her species was bald.

They possessed a pheromone
that was something

that humans just could not
steel themselves against.

[McFadden] Which was especially
inconvenient for humans because...

My oath of celibacy
is on record, Captain.

[McFadden] Lieutenant Ilia
was played by a new face,

and not just any face,
Miss India 1965.

Persis Khambatta
was an exceptionally beautiful woman.

[McFadden] It wasn't just her looks
that set Persis apart.

Unlike a lot of actors,
she was willing to part with her hair.

[McFadden] This was no simple matter
of a few hours of makeup and a bald cap.

Persis was prepared to go baldly where
no Star Trek actress had gone before.

There are really heartbreaking images
of her crying

while they were doing that,
but that's how committed she was

to playing the character
and bringing an authenticity to the role.

[McFadden] Also new,
the character of Commander Decker.

But actor Stephen Collins
got to keep his locks.

But getting the part
was a bit of a close shave.

Because at this point in his career,
his biggest film role had been

as one of the many men
in All the President's Men.

Now Stephen had a meaty role,

playing a character
with deep ties to Star Trek.

Who's the son of Will Decker
from "The Doomsday Machine"

from the original series.

Commodore Decker,
you are relieved of command.

[McFadden] The cast for the motion picture
was in shipshape,

but unfortunately the script wasn't.

[Tenuto] It was not perfect
because it had been rushed

to convert In Thy Image
to Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Ready or not,
she launches in 12 hours.

[McFadden] So much so that
principal photography began in 1978

before a script had even been finished.

Paramount was also behind
on commissioning special effects.

[screams]

[Cushman] They wanted to give it
to Industrial Light & Magic,

but they weren't available.

[McFadden]
Meaning there was a risk

their special effects
might not be so special.

And so...

Paramount hired
Robert Abel and Associates.

[McFadden] Which in movie circles
was not an obvious choice.

Had never done a movie.
They were doing TV commercials.

[announcer] Enough of this kissing,
little registered mark.

[McFadden] Not just any TV commercials,
but effects-heavy extravaganzas.

And they had just gotten a lot
of attention for a 7UP TV commercial,

which had a lot of effects in it.

♪ We see the light of 7UP ♪

[McFadden]
While it was more soda than Yoda,

it wasn't
a million light years away from sci-fi.

So Robert Abel was hired.

To do all these
mind-blowing special effects

that are, in an industry perspective,
having to compete with Star Wars.

[McFadden]
Desperate for fresh ideas,

Robert Abel hired
a hotshot young designer...

I was recommended right out of school
to work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

[McFadden] ...and gave him
a suitably entry-level job to start.

Build a whole new Enterprise.

[McFadden] Completely redesign
one of television's most iconic vehicles,

and do it fast.

The Enterprise had already been built,
but it was too small.

It was like six feet long.
They decided on maybe a 10-foot model.

[McFadden] For the big screen,
Paramount needed a big ship.

So the Enterprise was upsized.

And they build this
beautiful model. Huge.

[Cushman]
He rebuilt most of the miniatures.

And the ones he didn't rebuild,
he had to redesign in some way or another.

[McFadden] But with the script
still in flux and with shooting underway,

who knew which of the new ships
would even fly?

They were rewriting that script
as they were filming it.

We were shooting without pages at times.

[McFadden] None of this
helped director Robert Wise,

whose vast experience counted for little
in the Star Trek universe.

He did not know Star Trek,
and he was at the mercy of people

who said, "This is the way
this should be done."

[McFadden] And at the mercy of people
pestering him for close-ups.

Each time I tell this,
I hope I tried to relieve myself

of the embarrassment,
the humiliation,

the guilt that I felt at the time.

[McFadden] A shocking burden
that Walter carries with him to this day.

We were shooting.
It was very early in the shoot.

And I went up to...

I called him Mr. Wise
from start to finish.

I said, "Mr. Wise, are we gonna come back
and do a close-up of Chekov?"

[dramatic music playing]

I can't. [laughs]

He said to me, "Please don't.

Please don't talk about
those actor things to me."

Ugh. It destroyed me.

I mean, he was absolutely right.
Absolutely right.

You know,
I was thinking of me, me, me, me, me.

[McFadden]
You can't blame a guy for trying.

[Walter Koenig]
Me, me, me, me.

[McFadden]
But under the circumstances,

Robert Wise had much bigger issues
monopolizing all of his attention.

There were changes
coming down by the hour.

We had to do all kinds of scenes.

[McFadden] Soon, the movie's right hand
was no longer talking to its left.

Script pages were coming down to the set
after the scenes had already been shot.

And any kind of script or vision
that you have causes problems.

You may need to set up that scene
in a different location,

do the camera movement in a different way.

That's all time. That's all money.

Both of which the film
didn't have enough of.

[McFadden] The writer and producer
were barely talking either.

[Livingston]
Gene would continually rewrite.

Somebody would sneak it back to me,
and I'd rewrite him.

The rewrite of the rewrite of the rewrite
would get rewritten.

And it became script wars.

He wouldn't stop.
He was just maniacal about it.

[Koenig]
I guess that was a trademark of Gene's.

He had to rewrite everybody's work.

And he was a bad writer.

[McFadden] Ironically,
some of the best dialogue

and the most electrifying scenes
were playing out between Harold and Gene.

We'd sit there, insulting each other,
calling each other "stupid"

and "a piece of shit"

and, "You don't know
what the hell you're doing.

Get out of my sight."

We are at each other's throats.

[male voice] Emergency alert.

[McFadden]
But Star Trek: The Motion Picture

now had a problem
money alone couldn't solve.

I said, "I'm not gonna put up with this
and I don't care, and I quit!"

[McFadden] Star Trek: The Motion Picture
was now months into shooting,

but fast running out of script.

They gave us an unfinished script.

[McFadden] And the only thing worse
than not having a script

is not having a writer to fix that.

So I get a call from Katzenberg.

[McFadden] Writer Harold Livingston had...

Quit!

[McFadden] And Paramount executives
rushed to save their production.

Katzenberg sends a car for me,
brings me to his office at 7:00 PM.

I walk into his office.
The secretary locks the door.

"Would you like something to drink?"

So I said, "Yeah, I'd like
some gin on the rocks."

Brings me a full glass.

So I'm sitting there, I'm drinking.

I drank.

Half-hour later,
Katzenberg comes in.

"All right,
you're gonna come back to work."

I said, "No, I'm not."

And I'm drunk,
I'm whacked out of my head.

[McFadden]
Perhaps the gin had not swayed Harold,

but it had given him some courage.

I said, "I want $10,000 a week."
"Got it."

"And I want a picture commitment,
a script commitment."

"You got it."

So that's what I had to do.

[McFadden] But just as Harold
had tied one on with Katzenberg

and been tied down,
Gene was unraveling.

Gene was already starting to show
signs of substance abuse.

He was on drugs all the time.

He smoked a lot of pot,
and I know he was on cocaine,

and he was a prodigious drinker.

[Gerrold]
Gene Roddenberry was probably

one of the most complicated people
I've ever met.

He had power,
he had authority, he had ability.

He wasted it by being a substance abuser.

But when he was at his best,
he was the best.

And when he was at his worst,
he was the worst.

[McFadden]
Sidelined from his own production,

Gene was losing touch
with his life's work.

[Livingston]
I understand that this was Gene's baby.

It was his whole life.

And without Star Trek, he was gone.

He was nothing.

[McFadden]
The creator of Star Trek

tried harder
to force his will on the production.

Roddenberry was always trying
to imbue his own ideas into the script,

into the picture.

He drove everybody crazy.

He was more than a pain in the ass,
he was a monumental nuisance.

[McFadden]
On set, director Robert Wise

was feeling stymied
by his overreaching producer.

[Gerrold] Robert Wise was used to having
a much greater degree of autonomy

to getting things to work,

and Roddenberry's
meddling and micromanaging

was not working well for him.

It was not a happy experience for him.

Roddenberry was the worst producer
he ever had to work with.

[McFadden]
Adding to the trouble,

Katzenberg and Harold's
gin-fueled accord had already broken down.

I got so disgusted with everything that
I didn't care about the money or anything.

I just walked out.

[McFadden] Again.

Which was not the end of the story

because the story still had no end.

They didn't have an ending
for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

They gave us a two-act script
in a three-act movie.

I had trouble writing the ending myself.

I mean, I can't blame anybody for that

because I couldn't come up
with a decent ending.

[McFadden]
And without a writer on board,

the only writing being done
was a series of angry memos.

Lots of memos going back and forth,
including from Paramount.

"What's the ending gonna be?"

And nobody could agree on
what the ending was gonna be.

[McFadden]
Literally at a loose end,

they even turned
to the movie's two stars for ideas.

Bill and Leonard joining the party,
there's a trap there of self-interest.

[McFadden] Meaning roles that were
written for other characters.

"I'll do that part." [chuckles]

That's what I was imagining
that was going on.

You know, there were so many voices
and so many... so much self-interest

that it interfered with them
finding the end of the story.

[McFadden] But actually, rumor has it
Shatner was a little more generous

than previously suggested.

"I'll do that part." [laughs]

[McFadden] No. Actually...

Bill Shatner said,
"Let's have Chekov do this"

on a couple of occasions.

That would have
substantially boosted my part.

[McFadden] Maybe Walter
would have that close-up after all.

They didn't.
They didn't go for it.

[McFadden]
Ooh, right.

But Bill Shatner had come out
in favor of Walter Koenig.

[McFadden]
Well, whoever got the close-ups,

it was pretty obvious
that not having a third act was bad.

But there was another problem

that couldn't simply be solved
with a typewriter.

The special effects people
were not producing what he needed.

So the question would be,
why wouldn't they come forward and say,

"Hey, we're having a problem"?

Well, because you don't wanna get fired.

They were feeling that they would
somehow find a way to pull it through.

[McFadden]
The director was getting nervous.

Paramount presold this.

There was a locked premiere date.

[McFadden]
With the movie already booked in theaters,

Wise knew how true
the teaser poster really was.

The adventure was only just beginning
when it should have been nearly finished.

They were opening the movie
in nine months.

She needs more work, sir!

Bob Wise finally said,
"Come show me what you have."

He'd been asking to see it for a while.

[McFadden]
The effects crew played a test reel,

hoping the director would see the light.

And so they brought it in,
and they screened it.

[McFadden]
Robert Wise saw the light all right.

The probe itself,
which was a physical thing,

putting out a huge amount of light.

[McFadden]
But that was all he saw.

[Cushman] And he said,
"Okay, show me what else you have."

They said, "That's everything."

And they failed terribly.
They were over their heads.

They didn't know
how to do something like this.

[McFadden]
Worse, this humble on-camera effect

was not what Robert Abel had promised.

Bob had bitten off a huge chunk.

He had proposed and pursued
doing the effects for the movie

in a digital environment

with computers that were
not even as powerful as your cellphone.

[McFadden] Unbeknownst to the director,
the digital effects had failed.

And the only stunning visual effect
Robert Wise saw

was the disappearing budget.

About five million was squandered.

Robert Wise had a meltdown,

to just storm out and say,
"I never wanna see that man again."

[McFadden]
That man was soon-to-be-replaced

special effects supervisor Robert Abel.

"Find me somebody else.
I don't care who.

I will never have anything to do
with that man again."

[McFadden] The numbers were all bad
for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Six months until the premiere,
only two of three acts scripted

and just one miserable minute
of special effects.

[McFadden]
Nearly a year into production,

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
still had no special effects,

no ending, and seemingly no hope.

Systems overloading, Captain!

[McFadden] Only one thing could make
this classic Hollywood nightmare worse:

lawyers.

Exhibitors put a lot of pressure
on the studio

in the form of a potential lawsuit

to make sure that the movie was completed
on the date that they had proposed.

[McFadden] There's nothing like the threat
of legal action to get things moving.

Fearing the worst,
Paramount made plans to shift liability.

I believe they had to have a fall guy.

[McFadden] Overwhelmed and underachieving,
Robert Abel was cast in that role.

Bob Abel became the force majeure
that the studio had to have

in case they were sued by the exhibitors

to avoid a $100 million class-action suit.

[McFadden] Dreaming up
legal strategies was one thing,

but what Paramount needed was someone
to dream up an ending to their film.

[Cushman] And John Povill,
who was associate producer,

came up with the ending
in the 11th hour

with this idea that V'Ger is trying
to achieve consciousness.

[McFadden] That's V'Ger,
the giant, amorphous energy cloud.

And how better to do it
than to merge with the Creator?

-And who is the Creator?
-A human.

[McFadden]
That's this human.

[Cushman]
And Decker can merge with Ilia.

[McFadden]
That's this woman.

The Creator has not answered.

[Cushman]
Which is also merging with V'Ger.

Who is V'Ger?

V'Ger is that which seeks the Creator.

Which allows V'Ger
to merge with humankind.

It became a living thing.

[McFadden] If that sounds confusing,
that's because it is.

And Paramount felt the same way.

Paramount hated it, hated it,
but Robert Wise said, "I like it."

And of course, when Bob Wise liked it,
then Paramount liked it,

and so it got filmed.

[McFadden]
Working out the end was a start.

But in June of '79,
Paramount still had

an incomplete film
with no special effects.

[Tenuto]
Paramount brings in Doug Trumbull,

who is one of the special effects world's
most amazing artists,

working on 2001.

[McFadden]
Stanley Kubrick's classic opus

had virtually defined the look and feel
of space on film.

Nobody knew how to do space effects
better than Doug Trumbull.

[McFadden] Paramount needed Trumbull
to do the same for Star Trek,

and at warp speed.

What Star Trek needed
was a new way of doing things.

And luckily for Trumbull,
John Dykstra had invented just that,

courtesy of Star Wars again.

Here's where the fun begins.

When we did the Star Wars stuff,
it opened up a whole new realm

for lots and lots of material.

[McFadden] Motion control,
still a new technique,

had made it possible
to realistically depict spaceflight.

Take us out.

We were using technology
we designed for an earlier project

to achieve a new result,
but there was so much work to do

in such a short period of time.

When I joined them, it was triage.

Suddenly, there was a crash rush at
the end of coming up to the release date.

[Dykstra]
We immediately went into a nightmare.

Everybody's hair was on fire.

We were working three eight-hour shifts.

They brought beds in.

I think the quote
was from Michael Eisner was,

"You're coming out on the release date
we have set.

I don't care if there's black leader
in place of where the effects should be,

the movie's coming out."

Don't worry,
she'll launch on schedule

if we have to tow her out
with our bare hands.

[McFadden]
With the hardest of hard deadlines,

John and Doug divided the work
between their studios.

Doug was really, I think,
focusing on the Enterprise.

[McFadden]
The iconic and now redesigned mothership

was destined to be the centerpiece.

Doug did the drydock sequence.

And they do the tour
around the Enterprise.

And if you're a Star Trek fan,
it's ahh...

The introduction of the Enterprise
had to be orgasmic.

I'm in heaven. You know,
you could stop now, I'll die happy.

[McFadden]
This cinematic climax was made possible

by some ingenious smoke and mirrors.

[Dykstra] Trick is, is that
we're trying to create an illusion.

You put a light source on the ship,

and you want it to focus
on a particular thing.

[Andrew Probert] So much white lighting
on the side of the ship

kind of took away
from the scale of the ship,

and he thought it'd be better
to neutralize all of that lighting down

and just use these spotlights
to give the ship more scale.

[McFadden]
That epic scale came from something

small enough to fit in your mouth.

There was dental mirrors,
a lot of dental mirrors.

Take a new light source,
it's a focused beam

bouncing off a dental mirror,
and it puts a spot of light over here,

and it looks like that light
is sourced from here.

[McFadden]
But to get the party started,

it wasn't the Enterprise
that needed to look imperious.

John Dykstra's outfit
did the opening shot,

which was of the Klingon ship
looming into view.

They knew how important it was
for the picture.

[McFadden] If the Enterprise
was going to be majestic,

her enemies needed to be electrifying.

We had lots of weird stuff.

We had a Tesla coil,
which is a lightning generator.

It would throw a six-foot arc in helium
with the no vacuum,

which is a long piece of lightning.

It used 60 amps at 440 volts,
which is a lot of electricity.

And we had to build a cage around it
because we're near the airport there,

and when we fired it up,
it would interfere

with radio transmissions
from the tower with the airplanes.

Maybe that wasn't the best way to do it,
but it was the way that we figured

we could get it done
in the time that we had.

[McFadden] While incredible explosions
were being rendered to film,

something else was exploding
like a supernova, and it wasn't pretty.

It went way over budget.

It doubled and then tripled,
and then eventually was $45 million.

Money wasn't an issue.

And worked around the clock

and finished the last
of the special effects

about a week before
the movie was going to open.

[McFadden] A lot had gone into
Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Nobody had seen the movie.

[McFadden]
And a lot of it ended up on screen.

It was an incredible human effort.

[McFadden] So it was no surprise that,
following their first screening,

the L-word was used.

And suddenly, it's feeling long.

[McFadden]
Along with the B-word.

It's feeling a little boring.

[McFadden]
However, somewhat ironically,

Robert Wise just didn't
have enough time to fix it.

He wanted more time to shave off
some of those moments

that people complained about where
there's a little too much special effects,

add a little bit more
of the humanity into the film.

[McFadden] But with the premiere looming,
Paramount had the bigger problem

of finishing their final cut,
or any cut, in time for the opening.

They were just hoping
that they could get it done.

[McFadden]
December 7th, 1979.

There was a red carpet thing.
Everybody was in tuxedos.

[McFadden] As everyone
made their way to the premiere...

Robert Wise is carrying with him
the print, and it's still wet.

They just made the print.

[Gerrold] They came out of the developer
into the can still wet

with the idea that they would be dried off
by their first trip through the projector

when they got to the theater.

The last roll of visual effects
had been done the night before.

They got into the theater.

[McFadden]
The feeling in the room was euphoric.

The opening to Star Trek:
The Motion Picture is glorious.

There's so much going on,
the effects are marvelous.

The audience cheered and applauded
when they saw the Klingon ships.

[McFadden]
Paramount had a hit on their hands.

It's amazing. It's insane.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
was extremely successful.

It's insane that the movie
made as much money as it did.

It made a fortune.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
makes $139 million.

[McFadden]
After crawling over the finish line,

the film still managed
to take first place.

It was number one
at the box office for about three months.

It made more money than
any Star Trek film until Star Trek 2009.

[McFadden]
But critics were split.

[Cushman] About half of them
were very positive. Half weren't.

[McFadden]
For some, the rebirth of Star Trek

was an achievement itself.

[Tenuto] What a towering achievement
Star Trek: The Motion Picture was

that it was able to take a 1960s
television show

produced on a 1960s budget
with 1960s special effects technology

and transform it into something
realistic and believable.

It looks like you found a way.

[McFadden] But for some, the film
still moved at a 1960s pace.

"Star Trek: The Motionless Picture"
and things like that.

[Koenig]
The papers, they were brutal.

They just said we were these old guys
who should have stuck to television.

It was just awful.

The only thing was, I evidently
was so anonymous in the picture

that when the reviews came
and they started naming the actors

who were out of their league
by being in this picture,

they ignored my existence entirely.

I-I was grateful.

We're out of it.

I always see all the flaws in it
because I was there

and I know where the compromises are.

[McFadden]
For Leonard Nimoy,

the motion picture
was like a faraway planet.

V'Ger is barren, cold.

It was cold, it was distant.

It had very little to do with Star Trek.

No meaning, no hope.

Characters were not in shape in place,
playing off of each other

and with each other
the way we did best.

There were some reviews
that called into question

the missing sort of humanity
of the characters.

[McFadden] Then, there was possibly
the most confusing ending

to a sci-fi picture since
2001: A Space Odyssey.

I wasn't crazy about the ending.

What V'Ger needs in order to evolve
is a human quality.

And that's not because I didn't write it.
It's because it made little sense to me.

They all do a merge or do something.
I don't know.

But if it worked
for the Star Trek people, okay, good.

[McFadden]
For director Robert Wise,

it turned out to be
one of his biggest hits,

and one of his least favorite films.

He said, "I've never made a movie before
where we were rewriting the script

as we were shooting
and waiting for the special effects."

Making Star Trek wasn't fun.

[McFadden] The success
of Star Trek: The Motion Picture

had saved the franchise.

[Cushman] Star Trek: The Motion Picture
was such a big hit,

of course there was gonna be
a second movie

and a third movie and so forth.

It made it of worth to continue
the Star Trek franchise.

[McFadden] But this larger prize
came at the expense of the TV show.

So their Phase II
went away for that reason,

because of the success of the movie.

[McFadden] For Gene Roddenberry,
the motion picture was another example

of Star Trek taking off
without him on board.

[Nemecek] You know, there were
a lot of problems with the motion picture,

both structurally and as a film,
and a lot of that was not Gene's fault,

but he was blamed.

And he was demoted.

After the motion picture,
Gene was kicked upstairs.

They gave him a new contract
that said

that he would be
a very well-paid script consultant.

[McFadden] For perhaps
the first time in its history,

but not the last,
Star Trek had broken through

despite its creator,
as well as because of him.

We wouldn't be here
discussing Star Trek

if it wasn't for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Somebody had to go boldly
where no one had gone before,

and Robert Wise did it.

It would be churlish
and self-aggrandizing, I think,

to not acknowledge the debt,

even if, you know,
I just learned things watching the movie

that I didn't understand
or wanted to change

or thought could be done differently.

It was also a sociological
pop culture landmark.

What do you make of all this?

[McFadden] Just as the motion picture
split critical opinion,

fans were also split
and still debate its worth today.

The very first debate among the fans:

Is Star Trek: The Motion Picture
good or bad?

It just didn't have the dynamics,
didn't have the drama.

I think it's a good movie.

Most people excoriate it,
but I like the first Star Trek movie.

[McFadden] But for every fan
of the original series

who lamented the lack of a good villain
or driving action...

[grunting]

[McFadden] ...there's a fan
who sees pure science fiction.

[Tenuto] It's a very cerebral,
thoughtful commentary.

It comments on the concept of faith.

It deals with something that
we are dealing with right now,

in a profound way, which is the merger
of humanity and machines.

V'Ger and the Creator will become one.

And so in some ways, again,
like really great science fiction,

ahead of its time.

For all the slings and arrows that the
motion picture takes as a piece of cinema,

Star Trek broke so many norms.

It broke so much new ground
on so many levels.

We are inside a living machine.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
goes into who we are.

What is life?
What is the meaning of life?

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
keeps in line with Roddenberry's edict

that Star Trek is us.

I think we gave it the ability
to create its own sense of purpose

out of our own human weaknesses.

[McFadden]
Whatever its human weaknesses,

Star Trek: The Motion Picture had put
Star Trek, the franchise back on track,

even if its makers felt like
they had just survived a war.

I've been in three wars.
I've had the shit kicked out of me.

My worst war was with Roddenberry.

I don't know who else
could have taken all that shit.

[McFadden]
Well, Harold would not be the last.

[theme music playing]

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