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The Cage had been cut to pieces, so how could Paramount release the episode?
Paramount Home Video began selling Star Trek episodes on video tapes and laserdiscs in the mid-1980s and the company wanted The Cage to be part of that package. There was a lot of interest in this lost voyage of the Enterprise.
But there was a problem: no complete colour version existed. The film from the episode, shot in 1964, had been literally cut up in 1966 so that some scenes could be used in Gene Roddenberry’s envelope episode, The Menagerie. The rest of the footage had been lost. Roddenberry did have a copy of the complete episode but it was a black-and-white workprint, with a rough soundtrack.
So Paramount took the only option available: it released a hybrid, using the workprint and then cutting in the colour segments that had appeared in The Menagerie. That version was released in 1986 and I bought the VHS immediately. I watched that tape over and over, because the story is great but also because the alternating colour and monochrome scenes give real insight into how The Menagerie was constructed.
Here is a clip that shows these transitions. And while this hybrid version is also available on later DVDs and the Blu-ray set, the videos in this article are all pulled from that original 1986 VHS tape. The quality is not as good but it is fun to experience the episode as home audiences did back then.
Interestingly, the transitions are not always accurate, as some scenes that are in black-and-white were present in The Menagerie, and so should be in colour. Here is an example, first from The Cage and then The Menagerie. Look at Captain Pike interacting with Tango.
Another great reason to watch The Cage is the inclusion of a line that was really risqué for 1964, and which is not in The Menagerie. Here is the original scene and then its reuse in 1966.
“I have to wear something — don’t I?” Excellent.
That line does not appear in the October 6, 1964 revised script but is present in the draft of November 20, 1964 — in a slightly different form. And here, the captain’s name is James Winter, although an inserted page states that is to be changed to Christopher Pike.
And we got to hear from the Great Bird
That 1986 production also gave us an intro and outro from Gene Roddenberry, and it is great to see Star Trek’s creator talking about his first voyage. Again, it’s available in slightly higher quality on optical disks.
Roddenberry talked often about the freedom science fiction gave him to address issues that were not permitted under the TV norms of the 1960s. Roddenberry says here that he realised The Cage:
…was a chance to do the kind of drama I’d always dreamed of doing… Perhaps I could use this as an excuse to…talk about love, war, nature, God, sex, all those things that go to make up the excitement of the human condition, and maybe the TV censors would let it pass because it all seemed so make-believe.
That is vintage Roddenberry. His first episode would, of course, be about a man offered the ultimate sexual fantasy. Vina tells Pike “I can become anything, any woman you’ve ever imagined. You can have anything you want in the whole universe. Let me please you.”
The Roddenberry segment and the hybrid episode are important additions to any collection, and I am glad I kept my VHS tape, even though I own the same content on DVD and Blu-ray.
Postscript
A full colour version of The Cage was broadcast in 1988 and later released on home video after the missing film pieces were found by archivist Bob Furmanek. He wrote on a message board in 2008:
In 1987, I found the original 35mm color negative trims from The Cage in a rusty, un-marked can in a Hollywood film lab. It was in a vault of old, unclaimed material that was supposed to be destroyed. I approached Roddenberry’s office at Paramount and arranged for him to acquire the material.
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Enjoy the intros that almost were
Dedicated Star Trek fans know that the famous “Space, the final frontier…” opening narration was not the first version written. The intro went through a number of revisions, some of which were not great.
The iterations were penned by Gene Roddenberry, Bob Justman and John D.F. Black, with a big assist from Sam Peeples who had written the phrase “where no man has gone before” one year earlier.
But even if you know that story, you probably have not heard William Shatner perform those alternate takes. That’s about to change, thanks to the Star Trek 25th Anniversary Audio Collection. The four CD set from 1981 presents three (abridged) Star Trek novels: Enterprise: the First Adventure, Strangers from the Sky, and Final Frontier. The books are read by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan and George Takei, and include an introduction by Shatner.
And it is that introduction that gives us the opening narrations that could have been, in Captain Kirk’s own voice. Here is that audio:
The versions Shatner read, plus a few more, are detailed in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, by Herbert F. Solow and Robert H. Justman. Shatner’s performances above includes two versions by Black and then Roddenberry’s original take on the words.
The actual writing process kicked off on August 2, 1966, following an urgent memo from Justman.
At least five iterations were then written the next day by Roddenberry, Justman and Black. Here they are, as presented by Solow and Justman.
Another urgent memo, this one on August 10, prompted the recording that afternoon of the famous final version.
Justman wrote about that recording session.
On the afternoon of August 10, 1966, literally minutes after Gene finished his final version, I phoned Bill Shatner on stage, where he was working on “Dagger of the Mind,” our ninth episode to be filmed. I told him “drop everything,” and then I ran across the street to the dubbing stage. Bill raced to meet me and arrived a minute later, slightly out of breath. We rehearsed the dialogue several times and made a take. Due to Bill’s classical training, his delivery was excellent–but the narration sounded too contemporary. There was something lacking; it didn’t seem to “ring out.”
I asked the sound mixer to add reverberation to Shatner’s voice. We made another take and the results were perfect. Bill had become Captain Kirk, the adventurous commander of a spacecraft of the future…
Oddly, Marc Cushman in These are the Voyages, Season One, supplies different versions. Here is an excerpt from that book:
So, hit play on the above audio file again but close your eyes this time and imagine the Enterprise whooshing past to those words instead.
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Journalists kept ruining Spock’s death in ST II
Spock’s death at the end of The Wrath of Khan was a punch to the gut, and it would have been even more effective if the entertainment media had not repeatedly outed the surprise or — weirdly — denied that there was a surprise coming.
For example, The Kansas City Star blabbed the news a couple of weeks before the movie premiered, writing “Spock — the green-blooded alien stoically played by Leonard Nimoy — dies.” I pasted that article into my scrapbook in the spring of 1982, before I saw the movie.
The Toronto Star also addressed the spoiler in the pages of its Starweek TV-guide magazine. The April 24 to May 1, 1982, issue included an interview with William Shatner, fresh off the movie sound stages and about to return to the set of T.J. Hooker. Writer Eirik Knutzen told readers:
Though no amount of money would make Shatner do Star Trek as a television series again, he would love to make the feature film versions forever. “I think this film, which comes out in June, is so good that the possibilities are endless. I’m not contracted for any more of them, but I’ll do them if asked. So will Leonard Nimoy (putting to rest rumors that the pointy-eared Vulcan has been killed off) because we had a grand time.”
So those fans who had not yet heard the rumour about Spock were now saying, “Wait, what?”
I can’t figure out why Paramount would show the movie at a convention two weeks before its premiere (as detailed in the article linked above), and maybe Shatner’s comment about Nimoy was an attempt to fight the stories that were already flying around — but the writer made sure readers weren’t fooled.
Building buzz around a film is important but surely the point of a big plot surprise is to have it be a surprise. I know that Gene Roddenberry himself leaked the news of Spock’s fate because he had been locked out of the film’s production (and that made the simulation fake-out at the beginning really clever), but this is not that: this is the studio and the media wrecking the big reveal. Baffling.
The rest of the Shatner interview is standard fare, except there is a good bit in which he talks about how important the show was for some fans. And reading this piece did make me think I should revisit Hooker. It’s been a long time.
Postscript
And here are the TVs we would have watched T.J. Hooker on back in 1982, from the back cover of Starweek.
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An old Scottish ballad inspired the iconic song in Charlie X
Time spent reading a Star Trek script often rewards you with a real gem. For example, I had forgotten that Uhura’s teasing song about Spock and then Charlie in Charlie X was based on an old Scottish folk song. But it’s right there in the script.
The final draft script, dated July 5, 1966, includes this note in the recreation-room scene:
Spock “clearly wanting to offer amends, he thinks…strikes a chord…in Uhura’s key…a song she knows… (the tune is: “CHARLIE IS MY DARLING”) (Public Domain) (Lyrics by Gene Roddenberry).”
Click for larger imagesCharlie is my Darling is an old Scottish folk song, or really a few related songs, which tells of the arrival of the pretender Charles Edward Stuart to the Scottish highlands in the mid 1700s. Here is what Wikipedia says about the song:
All known versions of the song refer to the figure of Bonnie Prince Charlie of Scotland (Charles Edward Stuart).
The earlier versions focus on Charles as a patriotic hero of Scotland during the Jacobite revolts of the 18th century, and it describes the arrival of Charles, referred to as “the Young Chevalier,” to the Highlands… A later version of the song by Robert Burns contains lyrics that mean to poke fun at Charles’ womanizing reputation. Burns’ version of the lyrics are, in comparison to the earlier ones, considered to be fairly risqué for the times, with a narrative that alludes to the amorous adventures of Charles with the Scottish women of the towns he visits during his battles.
You can read Robert Burns’ words here.
And here are some renditions of Charlie is my Darling: a well-known version by Eddi Reader, a traditional version by Ewan MacColl, and a fun version by Rita and the Runaways
And here is the Star Trek take on the tune.
I think it is fair to characterise Uhura’s version as “loosely based” on the original, but you can certainly hear the influence of the bonnie old Scottish song. And Gene Roddenberry’s interpretation of it gave us one of the best moments of the original series.
Postscript
The bare bones of the idea that became Charlie X appeared in Gene Roddenberry’s 1964 Star Trek is… pitch. The story was called The Day Charlie Became God. His idea: “The accidental occurrence of infinite power to do all things in the hands of a very finite man.”
Then, according to the fine folks at Fact Trek, Roddenberry worked up two outlines called Charlie Is God in April and August of 1964 and further revised the idea in April 1966. Dorothy Fontana took over the project and created two treatments and two draft teleplays. Fontana was credited for the teleplay and Roddenberry for the story.
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Enjoy vintage 1960s commercials
I love vintage Star Trek commercials. I recently digitized a VHS tape of old Trek content owned by fan David Penn. I’ve written about the blooper reels and a Star Trek V phone game from that tape. Today’s post offers up four commercials from 1966 — and an odd story about NBC’s promotional tactics.
The first two commercials are previews, telling viewers about this great new NBC show. The network promised Star Trek would be “The first adult space adventure” — a clear contrast to Lost in Space, which hit the airwaves one year earlier.
These are the promo spots people endured almost 60 years ago, as they waited to get back to Bonanza, The Virginian, and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.
Coming to Fridays this fall
Galaxy premiere, September 15, 1966
Wait, September 15? Yes, sort of. Scroll down for an explanation.
“Trackless journey” season promo
Next Voyage: Where No Man Has Gone Before
A story of two premiere dates
The second video above promised Star Trek would premiere on September 15, but we all know the first Trek episode aired in America on September 8, 1966, right? (And two days earlier in Canada.) Yes, that’s correct. But so is the September 15 date, sort of.
NBC held what it called NBC Week beginning on Saturday, September 10. That’s when its new shows first aired, and an ad in TV Guide promoted Star Trek‘s “Galaxy Premiere!” on September 15.
Also, an article in the Boston Herald promised that “Star Trek, an hour-long drama…will debut Thursday, Sept. 15, at 8:30 p.m.”
Article from the site WendyLovesJesus
So what gives? The Man Trap was on screens one week earlier, and it was Trek’s second episode, Charlie X, that aired September 15. And here is the proof, from the Northern California edition of TV Guide. (Click on pics for bigger versions.)
It seems NBC called the broadcast of Charlie X the show’s premiere, even though it simply wasn’t. The page above from September 8 uses the term “Advance Premiere” for The Tammy Grimes Show and That Girl, and I guess Star Trek was in the same category.
But in addition to “advance premiere” being an oxymoron, this seems an odd way to build buzz for a new show. NBC bought promo space to convince viewers to watch Star Trek on September 15, and those people who listened to the network’s own statements would have missed the first episode. I bet many did.
At least the network paid for some nice artwork.
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Janos Prohaska chased Woody Allen in Take the Money and Run
Janos Prohaska was a talented costume designer and stuntman who played a number of iconic characters in the original series, but his untimely death in a plane crash in 1974 meant he never got to meet fans and sign photos at the conventions that were just then starting. So his autograph is exceedingly rare.
Prohaska was born in Hungary in 1919 and made a living in Hollywood by creating and performing in a series of alien and animal costumes. He was featured in Star Trek in The Cage, The Devil in the Dark, A Private Little War, and The Savage Curtain.
I recently interviewed Star Trek collector Gerald Gurian for an article on his excellent book Autographs of the Final Frontier. Gurian shared with me a real rarity: Prohaska’s signature on a contract for the 1968 Woody Allen comedy Take the Money and Run. Prohaska is on-screen for only a few seconds, for which he received the day rate of $350 plus first-class airfare between San Francisco and LA.
Here is the scene from the movie:
Prohaska’s first scheduled day on set, June 26, 1968, was a few months before he filmed his last Star Trek appearance, as Yarnek in The Savage Curtain, in December of that year.
Gurian also shared these images with me: a scan of a 4 x 5-inch transparency from The Cage that was once part of Matt Jefferies’ Desilu photo collection and a behind-the-scenes image of clapper loader Bill McGovern with Prohaska as the Mugato.
These images are posted here with Gurian’s permission. Thank you, Gerald.
Postscript
Prohaska was once well known for playing the Cookie Bear from 1969 to 1971 on The Andy Williams Show, although his Hungarian accent meant his lines were spoken by someone else.
Here is a brief interview with Janos Prohaska:
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Read the Nazi-themed script that almost got made
I recently watched the season two episode Patterns of Force with my good friends Rob Sawyer and Carolyn Clink. We had not seen it in a while and, as we do, we had an interesting discussion about its message and its place in the Trek canon.
I marvelled again that the idea of the Enterprise visiting an actual Nazi planet was ever greenlit, and especially in the way Star Trek handled it. While the Second World War was a common topic for TV and cinema in the 1960s, sitcoms like Hogan’s Heroes and movies like The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape focused solely on the combat, soldiers fighting soldiers. They ignored the death camps. Star Trek chose instead to address the Holocaust head on, presenting a story about the planet Ekos’ genocidal “final solution” to eliminate the people of neighbouring planet Zeon.
But even more surprising than the production of a Holocaust-themed episode is that Patterns of Force was actually the second such story Star Trek commissioned. The first, titled Tomorrow the Universe and written by Paul Schneider, progressed all the way to a revised second draft script in June of 1967. That same month, TOS producer John Meredyth Lucas submitted his story outline for Patterns of Force, and it was chosen over Schneider’s work. And while the two stories had some differences, they marched over much of the same ground.
Read the rejected script
I have a PDF of Schneider’s first draft script, and you can get your own copy at the download link.
The story opens with the Enterprise visiting the planet Spurlos to retrieve a Federation cultural-exchange team. The inhabitants call themselves “Rikes” and I do not know if that was a deliberate rendering or a misspelling of Reich.
The crew beams down and finds Federation data tapes belonging to team leader Dr. Alana Steele, a prominent astro-sociologist. Spock discovers the tapes cover “ten Earth years: nineteen thirty three to forty three…one of Dr. Steele’s special fields of scholarship.” We learn those dates are no coincidence, as the Nazi connections then really start to kick in.
The temple-like roof of the monument is adorned with a large photograph…DeSalle shakes his head uncertainly, as he gazes at the strangely recognizable face — the visor of the high-peaked cap shading the pinched features, the balefully glaring eyes, the precise little moustache, under the sharp nose.
DESALLE(trying to recall)
Familiar face – but I can’t place it…
KIRK
(frowning deeply)
Think of your Earth history, Mr. DeSalle. A figure from its darkest chapter…
CROWD VOICES (o.s.)
(in deafening unison)
Sieg – heil! Sieg – heil! Sieg – heil!
…
KRIEG’S VOICE
Security units are ordered to bring all prisoners and remaining classes of persons to the Nazi Party Rally! Any refusing to attend will be liquidated!
As in Patterns of Force, the Holocaust is front and centre here. Soldiers wearing SS uniforms goose step into the square with a group of prisoners called “Undermen” — the English translation of the Nazi term “Untermensch.”
Kirk and the landing party are soon chatting with Hitler himself, or at least a wannabe Spurlos version. These local fascists believe Earth’s Hitler won the war and the Nazis formed a world government that became the blueprint for the Federation and Starfleet.
“Hitler” summons Dr. Steele and we learn she is using Spurlos as a large social experiment; she has introduced Nazism to examine “the deepest causes of aggressive behavior in human society.” The planet is her test lab, and she will trigger the death of countless people so she can observe how fascism plays out in her new home.
The same basic idea is used in Patterns of Force: cultural observer Professor John Gill introduced Nazism to Ekos because he admired the efficiency of fascist Germany.
I won’t relate how Tomorrow the Universe ends; read the script if you’re curious. I will say it falters in acts three and four, with Spock pulling a deus out of the machina and — as in Patterns of Force — the misguided Federation representative broadcasting a public admission of wrongdoing.
Ultimately, Tomorrow the Universe is an okay script but Patterns of Force is better. Schneider’s take is a little too on the nose, with a leader who looks and acts like Hitler and even goes by that name. It is like a dour take on A Piece of the Action, in that it depicts an imitative culture but one that is horrifying where A Piece of the Action is funny. Lucas’ story leaned into Nazism as an allegory about evil, while Schneider settled for dressing up a cardboard bad guy in a Nazi uniform.
Both stories also suffer from the unrealistic idea that one person saying at the end “I was wrong and Nazism is bad” would turn around an entire society that had devoted its resources and ideology to victimising its neighbours.
No credit where it’s due
But you have to give Schneider props for coming up with many of the basic story beats first — although he received no actual credit on Patterns of Force. That is despite the many similarities: that Nazism being attractive was not a one-off occurrence, an attack in space as the Enterprise approaches, and of course a Federation representative bringing 1930s fascism to a distant planet.
Paul Schneider himself was surprised and hurt by how this all played out. And angry, I’m sure.
Picture this: he is sitting at home in early February of 1968 and he sees a “Next week on Star Trek” promo for a Nazi-themed episode, and he figures this must be his script. In a letter to Roddenberry, he wrote: “I assumed this to be the production on my third teleplay for ‘Star Trek’ — finished in early 1967. Not an unnatural assumption, I think — since my ‘Tomorrow the Universe’ concerned precisely the same situation.”
He then watched the premiere of Patterns of Force on February 16, 1968. His letter is dated the next day. He continues to Roddenberry:
Yesterday I viewed the segment — now titled ‘Patterns of Force’ — and was flabbergasted to see the credit listed as ‘written by John Meredyth Lucas.’ …Not a clue can I find to the process of reasoning which excluded me from all credit participation — even down to story. I’ve gone over my own original story and two script versions; by no stretch would I deny that changes were made; nor, by the same stretch, could I deny that much remains essentially the same.”
He adds “Of course, the issue must now go to the Guild for arbitration.” Absolutely it must.
Roddenberry sent a reply, dated February 20, 1968, pointing out that he is now acting as Executive Producer only and “confining myself to policy decisions and staying away from the details of day-to-day line production.” He added “One thing I think both of us know for sure is that neither Gene Coon nor John Meredyth Lucas is in the habit of stealing from their fellows.”
I do not think Schneider knew that at all. He had reworked his script over the first half of 1967, with the revised second draft dated June 1. Lucas’ first story outline was dated June 7.
Eight days after his reply to Schneider, Gene Roddenberry sent Gary Ellingsworth at the Writers Guild of America West a copy of Schneider’s first draft script and Lucas’ final draft, and told Ellingsworth:
I double checked with both John Lucas and Gene Coon (who was producing the show at that time) and they assure me that John never read Paul Schneider’s story or script, and in fact John Lucas was only lately aware that Schneider had written a Nazi script.
On the other hand we are all anxious to be fair to Paul Schneider if we have somewhere along the line violated any rules, regulations, or ethical practices. Gene Coon informed me that having paid Paul Schneider full price for the script, he presumed we owned the “Nazi idea” but felt that since he was not using Schneider’s story he had no obligation to clear Lucas’ assignment elsewhere.
I do not have a copy of the Guild’s response, but it sided with Roddenberry — and Schneider then decided to apologise to Roddenberry for his complaint. He wrote on May 23, 1968:
I’ve been told about the Guild-arbitration on judgement that the ‘Patterns of Force’ script for ‘Star Trek’ was strictly by John Meredyth Lucas.
Obviously I was wrong — and I mis-read the situation — and I owe apologies to you and Mr. Lucas.
I think business considerations and not contrition prompted the note. Schneider penned the season one episodes Balance of Terror and The Squire of Gothos, and had been paid for his work on Tomorrow the Universe. Perhaps it was best to swallow the slight here in the hope of future commissions. And, indeed, he contributed The Terratin Incident to the animated series a few years later.
However, the timing of the drafts and the plot similarities make me think it likely Lucas had in fact read Schneider’s script.
In either case, the producers and the network were brave to directly address the Holocaust so soon after the war, in either script. Both takes on the Nazis raise uncomfortable issues and that was, of course, the goal.
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William Shatner reflects on being Kirk, in 1976 and 2004
One of William Shatner’s most intriguing aspects is his introspection. He is genuinely interested in how humans work and how he works.
He has examined human nature in many interviews and autobiographical books, but two pieces of audio separated by almost three decades also provide compelling musings about the actor and the individual.
The first comes from Inside Star Trek, a fascinating album of interviews and character sketches Gene Roddenberry recorded in 1976. The opening track is a chat with Shatner, and here is their first exchange.
Roddenberry: There are some questions I have been wanting to ask you for 10 years. One of them is, how much of Bill Shatner is Captain Kirk?
Shatner: Well, Gene, the act of putting on a…television series is such a backbreaking, all-encompassing task, the hours we put in are so enormous, that to be able to make up a character and sustain that for the years that we did it would be impossible I think for anyone, but certainly impossible for me, so what essentially comes out is William Shatner himself, as himself, saying the lines that were written for me to say… I think that the people you see on television, playing leads in television series, that’s what they’re like. When people ask ‘What is so-and-so really like?’…what you’re seeing is what you’re getting.”
Roddenberry: How did Captain Kirk, the character, the strong, the usually wise commander of the vessel, how much of that influenced you and your personality?
Shatner: I don’t think I carried home any of the characteristics of Captain Kirk, other than as I’ve just said those characteristics that were me. But the wisdom, and the sagacity, and the courage that Captain Kirk evidenced in the play of the week was written as fiction, and I often wished that I could be able to do that in my own personal life, but fallible me is…fallible me.
“I often wished that I could be able to do that in my own personal life.” Shatner revisited that conclusion on 2004’s Has Been, easily his greatest album. And if you think I’m grading on a curve anchored on one end by Mr. Tambourine Man and on the other by Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, you haven’t listened to Has Been. It’s truly excellent.
The second piece of audio is the last track on the album, called Real and performed with Brad Paisley and written by him for Shatner. The song neatly sums up Shatner’s feelings about himself.
And while there’s a part of me
In that guy you’ve seen
Up there on the screen
I am so much more
And I wish I knew the things you think I do
I would change this world for sure
But I eat and sleep and breathe and bleed and feel
Sorry to disappoint you
But I’m real
I’d love to help the world and all its problems
But I’m an entertainer, and that’s all
So the next time there’s an asteroid or a natural disaster
I’m flattered that you thought of me
But I’m not the one to call
Leonard Nimoy obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this same issue; he wrote two books — I am Not Spock and I Am Spock — to work out where he and the character stood. In an interview recorded in 1976, the same year as Shatner’s discussion with Roddenberry, Nimoy said about his first book:
The title is really a simple statement of fact, I am not Spock. In the sense that I am the actor who played the role, of course I am Spock, but in the sense of true identity, I am not. I am someone else.
Shatner would agree, and it’s so interesting that two men with such different approaches to the craft would also be caught up in the meaning of character.
The persona we see on screen is Bill Shatner, because it was simply too much work to do otherwise on a weekly series, but Shatner is not Kirk. Fallible me is…fallible me, he said. Not a hero.
But he is certainly a thoughtful artist who spent decades pondering some big questions, and still does.
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Giant Poster Book two: insights into those amazing special effects
The Star Trek Giant Poster Books were the first professionally published Trek magazines. Seventeen issues were produced between September 1976 and April 1978, plus a 1979 “Collectors Issue” devoted to The Motion Picture. Each delivered six pages of content plus the cover and back cover and folded out into a large poster.
I own the complete set and will cover each issue. The story of the magazine’s genesis is told here.
Here are highlights from issue two, published in October 1976, plus a scan of the magazine.
A personal note: Allan Asherman died in September of 2023. Asherman was a foundational member of Star Trek fandom, a collector of renown, an author, and one of the original team on the Star Trek Giant Poster Books. I had tried for months to get in touch; he had mostly withdrawn from fandom and I hoped we could again hear his voice. I am sad I did not get to speak with him.
How did they do that?
Issue 2 offers an in-depth and fascinating article on how the original series special effects were created. Asherman tells us how Charlie was made to fade away, how Kirk could kneel beside his duplicate, and that Spock beaming down to a planet began with a dissolve, deployed a matte, added in a sparkle of powdered aluminum, and that the effect was completed by combining these elements.
Asherman ends the piece with “The special photographic effects of Star Trek were usually beautifully done,” and it is fun to know how they were accomplished.
The story behind The City on the Edge of Forever
This issue features the first Star Trek Critique, a series of in-depth episode essays. The series began, just as the Fotonovels would do a year later, with Harlan Ellison’s classic episode.
Except that the screened episode was not really Ellison’s story. Author Mitch Green tells readers about the significant changes made to the script, and that “It’s Ellison’s contention that the final aired version is only a ‘watered down’ remnant of the original, the love story having lost much of its intended impact.”
That take is familiar today to serious fans but was likely news to many in 1976. The best way to experience the original story today is in the excellent IDW graphic novel of Ellison’s teleplay.
Exploring the triumvirate
The third article in this issue is a bit of a disappointment. Ostensibly an examination of the most important interpersonal relationship in TOS, most of the article is simply a recap of scenes in which the Kirk-Spock-McCoy friendship is explored, with little analysis of those moments. To be fair, this was written before streaming and Blu-rays, so simply revisiting pivotal scenes may have made an interesting read.
The best bit of the article is the conclusion:
Years after Star Trek’s original airings we are still concerned enough about the relationship for me to write this article, and for you to read it. Why? Because there’s a little of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in every one of us. Which makes them as real as we are!
The poster
The trio confronts The Spectre of the Gun.
Read the other articles in this series.
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Has the three-foot shooting model been found?
The three foot model of the Enterprise — the original shooting model, seen in The Cage and in stock footage in other episodes — has reportedly been found. And it looks like the real thing.
The ship popped up in an eBay listing and the auction was taken down shortly after. The opening price was set at $1,000 and two bids were placed, for $1,500 and $2,500, but they were both cancelled by the seller.
At time of writing, it is unclear why the auction was cancelled but I suspect someone told the new owner that there is big money to be had. Really big. At the recent auction of Greg Jein’s collection, the Galileo model sold for $225,000 and the X-Wing model for more than $3 million. The original Enterprise would come in somewhere in the upper end of that range.
Here is every photo from the short-lived eBay appearance. Click on the photos for larger versions.
The model looks like the real thing and, while no one yet knows for sure, the consensus of the knowledgeable folks at the Replica Prop Forum is that this is legit.
The rumour on the Internet is that the Enterprise was found in an abandoned storage locker, but that is not actually stated in the auction, which said only:
Item description from the seller
This ship is a custom made spaceship by Richard Datin jr
Made by wood and hand painted
It’s a 1 in 1 very rare and very old
It will have its aging like wooden cracks and sticker pealing off
Very nice for a collection
32 inches long
A fuller story will come out soon, but for now it seems that the greatest missing piece of Star Trek history has been found.
Collecting Trek
A TOS collection 40 years in the making
Collecting Trek 