Harlan Ellison Reviews ST:TMP

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered, a lot of people were disappointed, myself among them. I had such high hopes! And we were let down. Although the movie accomplished a lot in terms of restarting the "franchise," and laid the groundwork for the look of everything to come after it, the all-important story and character interaction left a lot to be desired. Writer Harlan Ellison, known best to Trekkers as the author of "City On The Edge Of Forever," reviews the lackluster film in issue #33 of Starlog, published in April of 1980.

Harlan manages to set aside much of his anger at Roddenberry and company over his perceived ill-treatment when writing the TV script, and in much of his review I agree with him, something I rarely do. For example, I felt that the changes made in the filmed script for the series were for the best, and better "Trek" than his original script. Most of his criticisms of the movie, however, are spot-on, and sadly warranted. However, it does end on a note of hope for the sequels, and in that he (and the fans) were rewarded.

Agree? Disagree? Comment! (To read Roddenberry's reaction to this article, read this.)

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"He called me 'lachrymose'? I'll kill 'em! Wait... what does that mean?"

Bonus: below, a page from the same issue, on the comic book adaptation of the movie script.

Bonus #2: Below, an ad from the back cover, for an LED-enhanced jacket movie tie-in.

Bonus #3: Below, the inside front cover, an ad for the light-up movie Enterprise model.

Bonus #4: Below, a one-page write-up by the movie's science adviser on the theory behind the movie's "wormhole" sequence." This sequence, while marred by the crew's "jiggling" in their seats when the camera was not being shaken, was still about the only action scene in the movie that raised a little excitement and suspense. Under that is a single-panel comic taken from the letters page on the same topic.

As an aside, I am not so completely down on ST:TMP that I can't appreciate the good things about it. Seeing the new upgraded Enterprise in loving close-ups was worth the price of admission; the epic score, etc. I still take out the Director's Edition that Wise re-edited occasionally and watch it, as it is the best version. The tightening up of the film and the fixed sound and visual effects add to the experience and allow me to enjoy it more than ever before. But I could still wish for better pacing and story!

1980 DeForest Kelly Interview

 One got the feeling from just watching the original series that "Dr. McCoy" was the most relatable human on the show; the person that represented the "everyman" from our time period, and the actor DeForest Kelly was the one we could be most comfortable around. DeForest Kelley was that kind of person in real-life, as all the interviews bear out. Here's a good one from Starlog issue #38, published in September of 1980.

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Bonus: a candid closeup of De from a movie magazine that came out during the series run.

Bonus #2: a great shot of Bill giving archery lessons to De during the series.

"Okay, De, let's try to hit Leonard in the behind and bring him down a couple of notches."

1991 article: "The Undiscovered Kirk"

 More from the 25th Anniversary issue of Starlog, issue #175, this time featuring an interview with Shatner about the newest movie "The Undiscovered Country." Besides the excitement over the film, Shatner talks a little about the last one which he directed, and explains why he felt it didn't go over as he had hoped. I don't blame Bill for everything wrong with the movie... he was a fair director, and with a better script he could have had better success. But, as with his Kirk character in ST 6, the responsibility for anything that happens on the ship falls onto the Captain... so he shoulders the burden for the relative lack of success of "The Final Frontier." This time, the ship was back under the command of Nick Meyers, who brought it back on course for one final glorious voyage.

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Bonus: Another variation of the "Spock with test tubes" shot from a photo session taken after the second pilot but before the first regular episode filmed.This whole set of pics made him look more like a chemist than a science officer, but at the time, a table full of test tubes and bubbling beakers was the fastest shorthand to suggest that a character was a scientist, "doing science." At least they didn't hand him a clipboard and stick him in front of a bank of old IBM computers with reel-to-reel tapes like "Lost In Space"!

 I still get extra nostalgic seeing pics from this session, since one of them was the first photo of Spock I ever clipped for my scrapbook, or even recall seeing.

1991 article: "Uhura's Mission"

Last time we featured some 25th Anniversary material from 1991, and we continue with the look back to that time period with today's entry; from issue #175 of Starlog comes this article on my favorite communications officer, Uhura, as portrayed by Nichelle Nichols..(Who still owns the role, I might add.)

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Bonus: below, a couple of photos gleaned from around the web from Nichelle's early days as a stage performer, doing what she does best; dancing! 

Bonus #2: Below, from Starlog, a hilarious cartoon that looks at one of the most out-of-character moments for Spock in the entire series. At the end of the great episode "The Enemy Within," Spock, while signing off on a report for Janice Rand, says the line below with an uncharacteristically creepy leer. I know the episode was an early effort, when not all the characters were nailed down yet, but the line is something that would have been unsavory coming from anyone, much less Spock. Even coming from Kirk himself it would have been weird, if not completely unexpected. But Spock? It's like he was mentioning the unpleasantness in such a slimy way in order to see if he could get in on some of that action himself. Not cool.

Bonus #3: below, a page from a magazine article featuring a rare color photo of Nimoy as Spock on the bridge.

1980 Interview with Gene Roddenberry

From issue #40 of Starlog, published in November of 1980, comes this interview with the Great Bird about the Star Trek: the Motion Picture, in which he looks back on what it turned out to be. The points he makes about the differences between a movie and a TV show are still valid when applied to the recent movies by JJ Abrams. Great pic of Gene in the Captain's chair!

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Bonus: below, "Men In Tights,"  a b&w production shot of Kirk and Charlie Evans about to wrestle in the gym. When watching this scene, it might seem like Kirk is bullying him, but he is just trying to teach him social interaction skills and how to take competition without getting angry. Charlie fails to learn the lesson.

Bonus: Another page from one of the coloring books that were put out to tie-in with ST:TMP, but seemed to be recycled material from earlier TOS versions. Can you figure out what they are looking at?

1986 Article: The Writers of Star Trek

From the 20th Anniversary Celebration issue of Starlog, published in November of 1986 (see the cover here), comes this article on a couple of writers of the original show. The pages feature two rare publicity photos of the guest stars from a couple of the episodes.

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Bonus: a full-page ad from June 1992 issue of The Official Fan Club magazine with James Doohan in costume as Scotty advertising the QVC show that he was a guest host on. Did you order anything from this program?

Bonus: A publicity photo of Nimoy taken during the filming of the episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Nimoy's high collar was different from the other costumes, made with snaps on each side so that it could be put on and taken off without messing up his makeup.

 

Bonus: more of the promised TOS original novel covers, this time from "The Abode Of Life," published in May of 1982. The cover art by "Rowena" was from the TMP era, but with brown cowboy boots rather then the built-in footy-pajama type. Also, that pulp-inspired raygun is about as far away from a phaser as one can get. I know some of my readers get a kick out of this non-regulation art, because it came from a time before the Trek merchandise became more tightly controlled. But at the time it just made me scratch my head and wonder why they couldn't get things like this right.

Starlog #1 Color Star Trek Section

When the first issue of Starlog came out in the July of 1976 (see the cover here), fans like me didn't just embrace it, we ran up to it on the magazine rack and placed wet sloppy kisses over it as we wept for joy. Here, at last, was a regular monthly magazine devoted to Star Trek and science fiction film and TV! And with an 18 page COLOR Trek section... it was almost too much to believe. This was back when color photos of the show were hard to come by in a magazine... at least until the first Giant Star Trek Poster Book came out a few months later. 1976 really was a watershed year for Trek-oriented publications. It seemed to be the year that Trek fandom really blossomed and the phenomenon became something more public.

I have posted material from this first issue before; here, here, here and here. But this time I am posting the color section that excited me so much when I saw it. It's probably hard for today's fan to grasp just how exciting this kind of thing was to us back then, but it's how it was. In fact, the magazine itself resorted to photographing the show off of a TV set for the sequence of images from "The Doomsday Machine," something I had done with my Polaroid instant camera. Back then, it was the only way we could "screen capture" images from our favorite show. Now, we can put the disc in a computer and grab all the frames we want. I'm presenting the 16-page color section in two parts, so here goes part one... enjoy!