Captain's Blog pt. 43: Ten Treks That Never Happened

FROM THE BULLPEN: I started transcribing this post over five months ago, when my baby daughter was still en-wombed. As it simply consists of info transcribed from various source materials and not much in the ways of analysis, I just added a little bit to it at a time. Can't believe it's been five months and all these Trek-blogs later.

My work on this phase of the Captain's Log is more or less finished. There'll be a guest post (or posts) covering Deep Space Nine by my brother and his wife, and a back-and-forth on the Power Records with Into the Dark Dimension blogger Jeff B and maybe a wrap-up best-of/ Fiesta Bowl sort of post, but besides that, there remains only TOS posts, which I think I will group together under a different moniker. (Don't have one yet, so feel free to leave suggestions for such in the comments.)

Which is not to say any of the above (or the below) is incidental! Far from it. Thanks for coming all this way with me and hope you enjoy what remains. And without further ado, let's turn things over to:

I am the Guardian of Forever. I am my own beginning, my own ending. Behold! A gateway into ten Star Treks that never came to pass...

1. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (by Gene Roddenberry)

Around-about 1975, Paramount told Roddenberry to come up with a story for a big-screen Trek. His first attempt has become known as The God Thing, although no bona fide completed version ever materialized.

"Somewhere out there, there's this massive entity, this abstract, unknown life force that seems mechanical in nature, although it actually possesses its own highly advanced consciousness. It's a force thousands of times greater than anything intergalactic civilization has ever witnessed. It could be God, it could be Satan, and it's heading towards Earth. It demands worship and assistance, and it's also in a highly volatile state of disrepair.

"The original crew of the Enterprise have been embraced as heroes all over the galaxy. Spock has gone back to Vulcan to head their Science Academy. McCoy's married and living on a farm. Everyone else has been given hefty promotions and continues to serve on active duty. Starfleet has offered Kirk a prestigious but deskbound Admiralty, but he's passed, preferring to retain his rank as captain while acting as a sort of consultant / troubleshooter aboard Federation spacecraft. As we find him, he's visiting the recently overhauled Enterprise, supervising her new captain, Pavel Chekhov.

"Kirk rounds up the old crew while studying and battling this "God thing." We finally approach the craft, and the alien presence manifests itself on the Enterprise in the form of a humanoid probe, which quickly begins shape-shifting while preaching about having traveled to Earth many times, always in a noble effort to law down the law of the cosmos. Its final image is that of Jesus Christ.

"'You must help me!' the probe repeats, now bleeding from hands, feet, and forehead. Kirk refuses, at which point the probe begins exhausting the last of its energy in a last-ditch violent rampage. It summons up the last of its remaining strength to blast Sulu, severing his legs in the process. When Spock attempts to comfort him, he, too, is blasted and left for dead. With that expenditure of energy, the vessel is weakened to the point of vulnerability, and the Enterprise unleashes a barrage of firepower that destroys the craft.

"With that, we begin pondering the notion that perhaps humanity has finally evolved to the point where it's outgrown its need for gods, competent to account for its own behavior, without the religiously imposed concepts of fear, guilt, and divine intervention."

Can't just one of these God-returns stories be about Kali?

I'm not sure if the story Roddenberry describes justifies these conclusions at the end, but it is of course only a treatment. Many of its rough edges were smoothed into what became The Motion Picture, a picture I very much enjoy, so, really, this does exactly what a treatment should do: point the way towards a worthwhile destination and establish some method of getting there.

Paramount passed, somewhat understandably, but the idea for a movie remained hot, so Roddenberry approached Jon Povill to take a crack at it.

2. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (by Jon Povill)

"Our tale begins by finding the Enterprise and her entire crew dead, the victims of an imploding black hole. Suddenly, however, they're mysteriously reanimated, repaired by some sort of glowing intergalactic goo. What follows is a wildly complicated tale involving repeated time travel, heated arguments with Einstein, Hitler, Churchill, and Mao, clandestine meetings with JFK, and culminating with the Enterprise ultimately being responsible for the start of World War Two."

This idea was met with even less enthusiasm than Roddenberry's original one, but Paramount still wanted to do a bigscreen Trek, so they tried again.

3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (by Chris Bryant and Alan Scott)

Note: Not this Alan Scott

"Planet of the Titans opens with the Enterprise hurtling through space to answer the distress call of a fellow Federation ship.

"Upon arrival, however, there is nothing to be found. The Enterprise has been duped. Strange energy waves blast across the bridge, searing Kirk's brain in the process. Althoguh the captain initially appears to have escaped injury, he slowly goes mad, eventually hijacking a shuttlecraft and blasting towards what seems to be an invisible planet. When rescue efforts fail, Spock - logically presuming the Captain to be dead although intuition tells him his friend has indeed survived - moves on.

"Three years later, Spock journeys back to the invisible planet and discovers it was once home to the Titans, an ancient, once-believed-mythical race of supremely intelligent and advanced humanoid creatures. Beaming down to the surface, Spock becomes convinced he's also closing in on Kirk. At the same time, his preliminary studies of the planet are horrifying, revealing that it will soon become engulfed by an enormous black hole.

"Meanwhile, a Klingon Bird of Prey has intercepted communications that detail the findings and is now speeding towards the Planet of the Titans, intent upon pillaging the vast intelligence and resources of the super-race. Spock ultimately finds his captain alive and well upon the surface of the planet. Kirk explains that the planet is not inhabited by the Titans at all but by the vicious and brutish Cygnians. They mindlessly destroyed the Titans long ago but were far too primitive to reap the rewards of their teachings. Very soon, the Cygnians decide the crew of the Enterprise must meet the same fate.

"What follows is a three-way battle against time, with the crew of the Enterprise trying to salvage the surviving riches of the Titans while simultaneously surviving attacks from the Cygnians and the Klingons. In the end, with no way out, Kirk orders the Enterprise through the Black Hole. Everyone else is destroyed, and the Planet of the Titans implodes."

At this point, Paramount, aggravated with the rising cost of development in absence of a script they liked, downgraded the project from big screen outing to small screen ongoing series, one they hoped would be the flagship of its own to-be-launched television network. That story with its many twists and turns and starts and stops is the subject of this book.

Eventually, in the wake of the mega-success of Star Wars, the show/ network idea was scrapped, and Paramount resurrected the idea of a motion picture. Back to the drawing board. Enter Harlan Ellison.

4. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (by Harlan Ellison)

No written treatment exists for Ellison's idea - he pitched it in monologue to an assembly of Paramount execs - but as pieced together from various sources:

"The story starts on Earth where strange phenomena is inexplicably occurring. In India, a building where a family is having dinner vanishes into dust. In the U.S., one of the Great Lakes suddenly vanishes, wreaking havoc. In a public square, a woman suddenly screams and falls to the pavement where she turns into some kind of reptilian creature. The truth is suppressed, but the Federation realizes that someone or something is tampering with time and changing things on Earth in the far distant past. What is actually happening involves an alien race on the other end of the galaxy. Eons ago, Earth and this planet both developed races of intelligent humanoid reptiles as well as humans. On Earth, the humans destroyed the reptile men and flourished. In the time of the Enterprise, when this race learns what happened on Earth in the remote past, they decide to change things so that they will have a kindred planet.

"For whatever reason, the Federation decides only the Enterprise and her crew are qualified for this mission, so a mysterious figure goes around kidnapping the old central crew. This figure is finally revealed to be Kirk. After they are reunited, they prepare for the mission into the past to save Earth.

"The Enterprise goes back to set time right, finds the snake-alien, and the human crew is confronted with the moral dilemma of whether it had the right to wipe out an entire life form just to insure its own territorial imperative in our present and future. (The story) spans all of time, all of space, with a potent moral and ethical problem."

Legend has it that after Harlan's pitch, some suit suggested putting the Mayans in there somewhere, an idea Harlan found offensive. Harsh words ensued, and Harlan stormed out. No lizard-men Star Trek.

Much to David Icke's disappointment, one imagines.

As with Roddenberry's original pitch, it's unfair to evaluate the merits of the story based on this alone, but the idea has a lot of problems. I'm not sure if there's actually a compelling ethical dilemma at the heart of it, for one. When an alien species invades your past (for very unconvincing reasons - it wants a kindred planet? That's it? From across the galaxy?) to wipe out your race, you're not really at a moral crossroads. I suppose discovering that your distant ancestors once committed genocide against intelligent reptilians is somewhat disturbing, but... what are you supposed to do? Sit back and allow it to happen? Condemn the future to oblivion to play missionary/ politically-correct with the distant past? 

But: it probably would've been tightened up in revision.

Speaking of Ellison, his original script for "City on the Edge of Forever" is quite a bit different than the TV episode it became. It's available as a book (and probably for free out there on the internet - I haven't looked) with an introductory essay from Ellison that blasts everyone from Roddenberry to Shatner to Joan Collins, and ending essays from David Gerrold, Walter Koenig, Peter David and others.  

Without getting a list of all the differences, the TV version is immeasurably better. It is to the TV version what Roddenberry's original pitch for TMP is to the finished version of The Motion Picture. Characters and concepts from Ellison's original are compartmentalized to much greater effect in the finished version. Count me on the side of the Genes and D.C. Fontana on this one.

5. Star Trek II (by Harve Bennett, Mike Minor, Sam Peeples, and Jack Sowards)

Harve Bennett started off his tenure as Trek's cinematic overseer with an idea to bring Khan back and to provide Nimoy with a great death scene for Spock. But things went through quite a few revolutions before Nicholas Meyer corralled all ideas into one workable script that met with approval from all quarters. The first attempts centered around the following:

"Khan rallies the youth of the entire galaxy (!!!) into a full-blown revolution against the Federation. In a no-holds barred quest for revenge, Khan frames Kirk as the intergalactic equivalent of Public Enemy Number One. Kirk gains a full-grown son named David (who is involved in Khan's rebellion against him/ the old guard) and romances a beautiful redheaded fellow officer named O'Rourke. (Later, O'Rourke is changed to a young female Vulcan named Saavik, and the steamy romance transferred to David.) Khan seeks control of the Genesis Device, a powerful technology capable of terraforming a planet in mere minutes. At the end, Khan and Kirk fight on a lava-planet with sword/ whips that can take the shape of a variety of stupid things."

Sensing that something was not coming together correctly, Bennett had sci-fi vet Sam Peeples take a crack at it. Peeples jettisoned all but the Genesis Device and kept that only as a minor subplot "amid a rather strange storyline focusing on a formless and unfathomable pair of villains from another dimension."

At that point, Meyer took the best points of the above and hammered out what he titled The Undiscovered Country. This was changed to The Vengeance of Khan and then to The Wrath of Khan, under which moniker it entered the world and cinematic history.

Cool Mondo poster for Khan.

6. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (by Steve Meerson, Peter Krikes, Leonard Nimoy, Harve Bennett, and Nicholas Meyer)

Although much of what was originally devised for The Voyage Home made it onto the screen, a significant portion of the story had to be reworked when Eddie Murphy passed on the project:

"Eddie Murphy was to play a rather eccentric college professor, one who firmly believed in the existence of extra-terrestrials, ghosts, ESP and the like. After a series of embarrassing and very public false alarms, Murphy's job would have been hanging by a thread. And at that point, he and some of his students (not nearly so open-minded on these topics) would have gone to the Super Bowl.

"Occupying the worst seats in the house on a typically foggy San Francisco afternoon, Murphy's professor character would've been enduring the game's stereotypically overblown halftime show when he would've become one of sixty thousand witnesses to the first appearance of a Klingon Bird of Prey in the twentieth century. He would be the only one to believe it was real.

"Later, when Murphy was alone in his classroom, listening to a series of recorded whale songs, the Klingon ship's computers would lock on to the sound, and shortly thereafter, Murphy would have found Kirk, Spock and company beaming into his classroom, asking questions, bidding him good day, and ultimately high-tailing it away from their wide-eyed observer. Many plot-twisting scenes and about three centuries later, Murphy would have been in full Starfleet regalia, having joined the force, and saluting his new friends."

Alas, the Eddie Murphy Trek was not meant to be. He went to do The Golden Child and his part was reworked for Gillian Anderson. (*EDIT: Not really Gillian Anderson.)

Additionally, George Takei was meant to have a scene where he meets his great-great-grandfather on the street, but the child actor hired to play the role was unable to perform. (I remember reading the novelization of this movie and coming across this scene and wondering, in those pre-internet/ deleted-scenes/ commentary-track days, whose bright idea it was to cut such a cool little scene.)

7. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (by William Shatner)

Is it possible that this movie started off as kind of a cool idea? Let's find out:

"Zar, a holy man driven by a genuine belief that God was speaking to him demanding he accumulate as many followers as possible and provide a suitable vehicle with which he might better spread his ideas through the universe.

"Spock surprises his shipmates by stating he knew the renegade holy man back in Vulcan seminary. (???) Surprise turns to shock when Spock makes it clear this man is so brilliant, so advanced, that he could genuinely be the Messiah.

"The crew of the Enterprise travels to Paradise City, battles with the forces of the holy man, and is ultimately overwhelmed by the sheer numbers within his command. In a last-ditch effort to regain control, Kirk sets a fatal trap for Zar but is thwarted by Spock, who warns the holy man of the danger. Kirk is furious, and he is not mollified when Spock explains his actions by stating that he now truly believes Zar to be the Messiah. Bones, too, becomes convinced, and they both tell Kirk that they cannot in good conscience allow any harm to come to the man. 

"Upon arrival at God's homeworld, they meet The Man. God is surrounded by a host of angels with flaming swords. They argue. The image begins to transform, ultimately becoming unmistakably satanic. The angels change into hordes of gargoyles, the Furies of Hell.

"Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, still suffering the effects of their first adversarial relationship, each run in a different direction. McCoy falls and breaks his leg and is surrounded by the Furies, as is Spock. Kirk is able to escape but risks his life to return and help his friends. Descending into the river Styx, they fight off the hideous attacks and eventually make their escape."

Well... I think adding the Furies/ angels business might have been kind of cool, and at least there's a point to the character tension between our trinity of heroes. But it still runs into the same problem the final product / Roddenberry's "God Thing" does: these ideas of God/ Satan are terribly limited to only one specific culture on Earth and therefore hardly compelling material for a universal-theology sort of story. The Motion Picture succeeds by positioning "the God Thing" the way it does via V'ger; here we get... I don't know, some lamer version of Q/ the Squire of Gothos. 

But as the failings of The Final Frontier are well-known, let's move on.

8. Starfleet Academy / The Academy Years (by Harve Bennett)

After the 2009 Star Trek came out, Harve Bennett made some waves by telling convention audiences they ripped off his idea for Starfleet Academy/ The Academy Years, the film he wanted to do after The Final Frontier:

"The last thing I did at Paramount before I left was a prequel. It was the best script of all and it never got produced. Ned Tanen, who was Paramount’s head of production, had green lighted it before he left. We even had location scouts and sent feelers out for the cast. It was Kirk and Spock aged seventeen entering Starfleet Academy. Montgomery Scott would have been their Engineering instructor. Kirk falls in love for the only time in his life. The cadets save the world. The premise of the film was racial tension. Spock becomes the first green-blood to enter the Academy, which is a red-blooded organization, and he is discriminated against. And there was a planetary cabal against green-bloods and the cadets at the Academy are the ones that save the day. Kirk’s love is killed heroically saving the planet from the ship.  I had an eye on John Cusack for Spock, which would have been great. Ethan Hawke could have been Kirk. There were so many possibilities. But basically it was a love story and it was a story of cadets, teenagers. And, in order to get Shatner and Nimoy in, we had a wraparound in which Kirk comes back to address the academy and the story spins off of his memory. At the end, Kirk and Spock are reunited and they beam back up to Enterprise, which would have left a new series potential, the academy, and a potential other story with the original Trek cast. All the possibilities were open, the script was beautiful, and the love story was haunting, but it didn’t happen.

"And the first sequence of that movie was Jim Kirk in a crop duster bi-plane, stunting about while his brother and his mother are "Jim, you wild ass – set down!" And he finally ends up crashing into a haystack."

Harve goes on to say it's this last bit that convinced him that Abrams et al. ripped off his script, changing the bi-plane to a "futuristic motorcycle thing." 

Which of course belongs to the policeman chasing Kirk, not Kirk himself, but don't tell Harve.

It actually came very close to being made, but Paramount's upper management - as it often did - changed hands, and the new studio heads did not want to celebrate the franchise's 25th anniversary without Shatner, Nimoy, and the gang reprising their roles.

Would it have worked? In 1991? Tough to tell. My instincts say no, but I have no doubt it would have been interesting. The racial tension story seems out of place to my eyes and ears, but it was developed well enough in Into Darkness. Which makes me wonder if Harve thinks that one, too, was drawn from his never-used script.

9. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (by Nicholas Meyer, Leonard Nimoy, Denny Martin Flinn, Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal)

  
Star Trek VI also went through many revisions before it congealed into the train wreck we know and love:

"As originally scripted, the film would've opened upon the USS Excelsior, under the command of Captain Sulu. From there, we would've found Kirk in bed, making love to yet another conquest. Not all that unusual, except for the fact that this woman is Carol Marcus, and as this  thing moves forward, you'd have gotten the distinct impression that these two had not only reconciled but were now well on their way to spending their autumnal years together while making love like newlyweds at every opportunity.

"However, when a knock on the door brings the news that the old crew of the Enterprise has been ordered to reassemble once more, Kirk risks his relationship and leaves Carol's embrace, finding even greater seduction in the opportunity for one last adventure. With that in mind, he sets out to round up the rest of his crew. Though Starfleet describes Spock's whereabouts as "highly confidential," Kirk would nonetheless locate the rest of the crew rather easily.

"He'd have found Scotty bored out of his mind to the point where he's now spending his days taking apart the Klingon Bird of Prey seen in Star Trek IV in a futile attempt to at last beat this damn horse to death uncover the secrets of her cloaking device. Uhura is next, equally bored, working for a Federation radio station as the host of a call-in advice program.

"Chekhov, too, is uneasy, yawning his days away at a chess club while repeatedly trying in vain to defeat higher life forms with special Russian strategies. Finally, Kirk finds McCoy most unhappy of all. Hailed as a conquering hero, Bones is nonetheless drunk and disorderly at a high-scoety medical dinner in his honor. Disgusted by the money-hungry (???) healers he's forced to endure in the civilian world, even the dependably cantankerous Bones jumps at the change to once again become useful aboard the Enterprise."

It really is remarkable how many of the Trek features' original scripts go through this "got to round up the crew, Magnificent Seven-style" business, only to cut it from the final draft. Moreover, it is suggested so repeatedly that the only excitement or fulfillment the crew ever has comes aboard the Enterprise and everything else is a pitiful substitute. Kind of a depressing idea!

10. Star Trek: Insurrection (by Michael Piller)

One paragraph from the introduction to Piller's memoir detailing the making of this movie covers many of the ideas developed and ultimately discarded:

"Would your movie be about the girl who broke our heo's heart and the best friend he's sent to kill, the rag-tag army of space mariners, the mysterious society of alien children, the trecherous Romulans, the Douglas-Fairbanks-esque Joss, who duels with Worf and lusts after Troi, the mutes who project illusions, the holographic stand-up comedian, the lecherous three hundred year old munchkin, the masked race of Generation X aliens, or Quark's trying to open a fountain of youth franchise amidst the Ba'ku? The Alamo stand-off? Heart of Darkness?"

When reading Piller's book, one is struck by his frequent callbacks to Hollywood's Golden Age: Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, Jane Wyatt in Lost Horizon, or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., etc. I, too, love old movies, but his lack of contemporary reference points is interesting... I can see why Spiner and Burton felt he was so out of touch.

Time has resumed its shape. All is as it was before. 

(All what-might-have-been plot summaries from William Shatner's Movie Memories, except for Harlan Ellison's from his book The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay that Became the Classic Star Trek Episode, and Fade-In: From Idea to Final Draft: The Making of Star Trek Insurrection by Michael Piller)

Captain's Blog pt. 41: The Fan-Made Productions

We are pleased to welcome to the studio today Mr. Bryant Burnette, King scholar, a Bond aficionado of double-O-distinction, potential freemason, and fellow Trek navigator. Let's give him a warm Dog Star Omnibus welcome as we delve into (some of) the world of Fan-Made Trekdom.

We begin with:

STAR TREK CONTINUES 

Here's the website proper for all production info, let's just jump into impressions and screencaps. (Bryant's remarks are denoted by BB; my own, by BKM.)

BB: I'd say that it's worth checking out for someone who liked Phase II.  The writing was surprisingly solid.  The performances...a mixed bag.  The guy playing Kirk (Vic Mignogna) seems badly miscast (self-miscast, of course, since the whole project is his); the guy playing Spock is decent; the guy playing McCoy is flat-out bad. So bad that it's almost like they hired an amateur! (Ahem.) On the plus side, everyone else is good, especially Chris Doohan taking on his poppa's role. 

Chris Doohan's cameo in Into Darkness

Best of all, the sets are phenomenal, and the lighting is outstanding.  I guess I should also mention the screenplay, which is really strong, at least for a fan film. But even judged against professional productions, it is a crisp, efficient, nicely-paced screenplay. The story is a sequel to "Who Mourns for Adonais?" and even co-stars the guy who originally played Apollo; he's very good, too. The episode is a mixed bag overall for me thanks to the performances of Kirk, Spock, and (especially) McCoy, but I'll definitely watch the next one whenever it happens.

BKM: I'll be tuning in, as well. I thought it might be a fan-made-bridge-too-far after spending time with Phase II, but I’m also of the opinion, hey, there’s plenty of room in this pool.  The production value of this is pretty spot-on and even dare-I-say striking. Maybe not Avatar-striking, but The Final Frontier striking? Absolutely. 

I agree on the performances. And on a meta level, so bizarre to see the Adonis-like Apollo (redundant, I know) humbled by age, like the rest of us mere mortals.

His oversensitive bipolarness made a big impression on me as a teenager. I confess to thinking Fuck Theeeee! a few times while watching "Pilgrim of Eternity."

STAR TREK: PHASE 2

BKM: Probably the most well-known of all the fan productions; have a look at their website for all the pertinent info. All are available for free and immediate download or to stream.

Also a nice contemporaneous touch, this in-living-color business starts every show:

BB: I had a really complicated reaction to these episodes. On the one hand, they're terrible; on the other hand, they are totally delightful, and the bottom line is that I ended up really enjoying these. What astonishes me about them is that I was able to just take them on their own terms. It took a little adjustment; a realigning of the old mental warp coils, if you will. But once I'd done that, Phase II ended up feeling like legitimate Star Trek to me, and that kinda blows my mind.

Theoretically, this is the sort of thing I ought to be hyper-critical about.  I really have no tolerance for fan-fiction whatsoever, and even sometimes when I'm reading the Trek novels from the seventies -- which, themselves, are basically just fan-fic -- I frequently find myself growing really grumpy. Why? Because it doesn't seem like real Star Trek; it feels like something written by someone who has no conception of what Star Trek actually is, apart from knowing the names of the characters. 

Not so with these Phase II episodes. They were obviously made by people who really, truly understand Star Trek. They don't quite have the talent to pull it off 100%, but they've got SOME talent, enough to pull it off - pardon the wonky math headed your way - 100% about 25% of the time, and to pull it off 50 - 75% the other 50% of the time (with maybe 25% of the time finding them pulling it off at a less-than-50% level.) That's - let me check my math here (that plus that, then carry the one and... yep...) - more win than fail, with the occasional major win thrown into the mix. Plus, their passion for the project is compelling enough that even when it fails, it fails in interesting ways.

And really, who can resist the fact that Kirk is played by an Elvis impersonator?  That's so genius you almost expect Shatner himself to have come up with it.

BKM: James Cawley is kind of a standout, isn't he? I actually quite enjoyed his Captain Kirk. All in all I'm impressed with how seriously he takes the role and how quickly I went from What is this guy doing? That's not Shatner to I may like him better than Chris Pine. (And I like Chris Pine's Kirk.)

 

 

BKM: On one hand, the amateurishness mixed with CGI (a lot of which was done for free by the Enterprise fx team, and score one for Paramount: I guess they just looked the other way and let them do it, even though they were using Paramount's facilities to do this. The fx team, not James Cawley and the gang, I mean.) and fan-fic should press my buttons. But I ended up just enjoying myself and cheering them on. Like you say, most of the enjoyment comes from the recognition of Trek-fans-like-yourself/myself behind the camera/ writing it, etc. A feeling of relief came over me as I got about halfway through "In Harms' Way," which was the first one I watched, that feeling of "Oh, these guys know and love Trek... this could be fun."

BB: What it reminds me of a bit is when you see the plays Max is putting on in Rushmore: they're terrible, but everyone is so committed to it, and clearly having so much fun, that you kinda just want to give everyone involved in it a big hug and tell 'em what a good job they've done, even if you don't entirely mean it.  Except in a way, you kinda do mean it.

 

BKM: The Rushmore analogy is perfect. That's it exactly.

BB: A part of me wonders if New Voyages / Phase II (NOTE: they started off calling these things New Voyages, then changed to Phase II after a few episodes) can't be considered canon, of a sort.  This is an exceptionally nerdy conversation, but hey, when in Rome. I mean, like, what makes canon canon? It can't purely be authorship, because at this point there's been way more Trek not written or produced by Roddenberry than Trek he was actively involved with. Is it purely -- in the case of Star Trek -- the legal right to produce Trek? If so, CBS has sort of granted that to the Phase II crew, simply by virtue of allowing them to continue to exist (provided they don't try to earn money from the product they are producing.) A part of me wonders if that semi-legally-sanctioned status, combined with the appearance of genuine original-series stars like Takei and Koenig, plus the involvement of writers like David Gerrold and DC Fontana, who worked on the original series alongside Roddenberry, doesn't equal canon. Or if not canon, per se, then something that is non-canon but nevertheless can be considered to be "real" Star Trek (the same way the books and comics are considered non-canon but, in their own way, official.) I think it's a really interesting case.

BKM: Canon is such a slippery slope. And always ephemeral. But I agree: this one by virtue of the folks involved really does seem like more of a Year Four than anything save DC Fontana’s IDW series. (And unlike that one – which I like very much, don’t get me wrong – it doesn’t (for the most part) do what a lot of these things do and tie too many threads together. Be it the Shatnerverse, Fontana’s Year Four, or Of Gods and Men, there’s a tendency to make every story tie into every aspect of the Trekverse, which can weigh things down. Too many flavors in the stew, or something. The pacing is sometimes erratic in Phase II, but there’s a lighter quality to it. It concerns itself more with just providing episodes that feel, sound, and look like TOS.

BKM: Let's talk the other actors. Jeffrey Quinn's Spock isn't bad. I accepted him as Spock, and I liked him better than the other guys they got. (Though I had no trouble accepting Ben Tolpin, either.)

Ben Tolpin

Jeffrey Quinn.

BB: I really like Quinn as Spock.  A few shaky moments, but otherwise, he's rather good.  Like you say, I ended up just accepting him as Spock.  Same goes for Ben Tolpin in "Blood and Fire." I was initially dismayed to see that Quinn had been replaced, but Tolpin is solid.  He sounds more like Nimoy, and -- like Cawley with Shatner -- does a good job of mimicking without turning the performance into parody.  In other words, he sorta just inhabits the role.  The guy who plays Spock in "Enemy: Starfleet!" is nowhere near as good; that's one of that episode's weak points, in my opinion.

Cawley is still producing the show, but Kirk is now played by Brian Gross. (Seen here with Carol Marcus, played by Jacy King)

BB: The dude who plays McCoy, John Kelley, is fairly awful, but he gets better as the show progresses.  And he is at least not trying to ape DeForest Kelley.  He just did his own thing, and while there isn't much to it, it's at least consistent. I thought that by and large, as far as urologists playing major roles on Star Trek goes, he acquitted himself admirably. He's actually good in "The Child" and in "Blood and Fire;" I have ended up being glad that the role has not been recast.

BKM: Scotty in particular is just kinda bad/ unbelievable in spots. They really played up his penchant for booze, as well.

He goes to sleep with the bottle, now?

BB: All of the Scotty actors are so bad that I honestly don't even know how many of them there are.  BUT...I'll say this about that: it's given me a new appreciation for James Doohan.  He gets ribbed for the quality of his Scottish accent, but seeing amateurs fail at doing it really drives home the fact of how consistent Doohan was with his.  Turns out it's NOT just something anybody can do.

BKM: Let’s cover the episodes, from worst to best:

8. 

BB: I didn't much care for "Enemy: Starfleet."  It's a decent idea, but it doesn't really work.  A lot of this comes down to the fact that the actress playing the villain (Barbara Luna) just made me feel queasy. Gross; she's just plain gross; she's a 70-year old woman playing the sort of sexpot you would typically see a 30-year-old woman playing.

"Okay, Cawley, just close your eyes and think of 'Mirror, Mirror..."

BKM: Careful! Remember, Marlena’s got one (admittedly gnarled) finger on the Tantalus Field! You’ve got to hand it to Barbara Luna to come on board for these things. Ultimately, tho, the “Septuagenarian Sexpot” thing doesn’t come across all that well. I liked aspects of this episode, but it’s the weakest of the bunch for my money.

BB:  That said... from a philosophical standpoint, there is something to be said for what's going on here. Because while the side of me that is prone to sexually objectifying women based on their attractiveness (as I perceive it) looks at her and goes "Eww...!" the side of me that thinks objectifying women in that way is skeevy and unfair and maybe even culturally detrimental...? Well, that side of me thinks it's nice to see an old lady get to play a sexpot. In a curious way, that's extremely progressive thinking, which makes it prime Star Trek material. So, to sum up: I disliked this element of the episode, but for reasons that I recognize as being fundamentally unworthy, and that recognition - while not changing my gut-level reaction - actually makes me appreciate the episode more intellectually.

I have nothing to add to Bryant's thoughtful comments, so here's more Michael Forest. Fuuck Theee!

BB: Apart from the sexy-time-with-Grandma aspect of this episode, I thought there were some decent ideas, but not enough to really make it work. The whole captured-starship-leading-to-an-enemy-fleet thing was a nice concept, but the writers didn't make much of it.

7.

BKM: A good establish-the-series story: what it can do, what it’ll look like, gives a hint of how all subsequent continuity can be referenced meaningfully within the time frame of Phase II. But, not much happens. It’s not a particularly bad story, just not particularly exciting.

BB: Obviously, this is the roughest of the bunch. It was -- if I understand this correctly -- filmed more or less as a proof-of-concept type thing, so the team behind the series doesn't really even count it as an official episode any longer. But I think it's better than they are giving it credit for being. Onabi seems like the kind of antagonist TOS would have actually used; the actress playing her is not that great, but hey, I've seen worse. And the conversation between Kirk and Spock about "Amazing Grace" seems like something that I'd have loved to see Shatner and Nimoy play, frankly. All in all, I rather enjoyed this episode.

I also have fond memories of seeing it playing on the closed-circuit convention channel at Dragon*Con one year. I stopped and watched it for awhile with a "What the hell is this?" vibe in my brain. I thought it was crap, but impressive crap: years later, I think much the same, but with a greater emphasis on the "impressive" part of the equation.

6.

BB: Not a bad episode.  Koenig is...well, let's be generous and say that he is an actor of limited range.  But it's cool to see him getting to play a role that has some substance to it.

BKM: I like that Mary Linda Rapelye from "The Way To Eden" came back, and it's nice DC Fontana wrote one last story like this for Koenig. But, yeah, he's not exactly Ed Norton. Not one of my favorite episodes, but it's undeniably kind of cool to see Koenig interacting with Faux-Pavel. Who's actually not too bad.

 

BB: I'm with you.  I like the guy playing young Chekov; he's thoroughly acceptable. He is consistent with his accent, and he brings some genuine emotion at times.

Mary Linda in "The Way to Eden."

 

BKM: Also, I just love that they kill Chekov off and then there he is, back at his post in the next episode. (Spoiler alert, I guess? Does it even count?)

BB: I forgot about Chekov dying but then being incongruously alive in the next episode.  I don't know what's weirder: that they did it, or that I just rolled with it 100%. It's sad that it had to come via an amateur film; but it's better than nothing, and it gives him some good moments.

5.

BB: I liked this one a lot.  The Deltan chick doesn't seem terribly Deltan, but I've only got Persis Khambatta to compare her to, so it's probably not a fair comparison.  I liked her, though, and this particular episode makes it clear that the Deltans were a race that real potential as a species Trek could use for interesting storylines.  Maybe the franchise will return to them one of these days.

BKM: The Deltans were definitely under-used. I don't think they ever appear again, do they? Certainly not as major characters, anyway. (Though... is she wearing a wig? Aren’t Deltans completely hairless? This seems like a detail they'd not have glossed over, so I imagine I missed a line covering it. And if not, no biggie. After all, Klingons don't have ridged foreheads here, either.)

 

 

Watching this really makes me re-evaluate the TNG episode of the same name (which for those who don’t know is based on the same script originally commissioned for the 70s Phase II.) Isn't it a little odd that Troi has this profound experience and never mentions it again? Not odd for tv of the time, I guess, where characters meet long-lost brothers/ sons, they die and then it's back to normal week after week, but it really nullifies the "this is the most important thing I've ever experienced" dialogue in the damn story, doesn't it... I think I prefer this version, to be honest. At least we don't have to see Isel (Anna Schnaitter) week after week never mentioning it again.

Watch the preview here.

The guy who plays Xon reminds me so much of your comparison-to-the-plays-of-Max-Fischer remark. I love every scene he's in for that, now.

I don't mean he was bad, just that there's something so... Max Fischer about his whole performance. It endears him to me and cracks me up at the same time.

BB: I agree totally. There's something damned charming about it. Also, I have to say: I really like the idea of there being two Vulcans on the series, one of whom is a pureblood, the other of whom (obviously) is Spock. That would be a hell of a fine dynamic for the Abrams movies to pick up, to be honest.

4 and 3.

BB: I was also impressed by both parts of "Blood and Fire."  The guy playing Kirk Jr. is a bad actor, but otherwise, those episodes are pretty damn good.  And while watching them, I realized that at some point, I had entirely accepted James Cawley as Kirk.  I'd say the same for some of the other cast members, too.  I like both Uhuras, for example; they're both actually pretty good actresses.  And hot.  (What can I say?  I like attractive women; so sue me!  I don't dislike unattractive women, so I figure it balances out.  Somehow.)

BKM: This one drags a bit in spots, but it’s a solid story. (I keep getting this stuck in my head.) And the allegedly controversial depiction of a gay relationship (gasp) is handled very well. It’s kind of sad that the amateur Trek is more with the times than the professional one when it comes to sexuality. Not just with alien races (Trek-proper has provided us with a few awkward examples of different species’ sexualities – and more than a few that are the essence of “hetero-normative,” a term I can’t stand,  really, but it applies, here) but on the ship itself.

Here’s what David Gerrold (incidentally, the new Phase II showrunner) has to say:

“My "Blood And Fire" script never made it into production for reasons too complex to list here, but had a lot to do with the homophobia of one or two people in a position to throw monkey wrenches into the works.

Twenty years after that script was written, James Cawley and the fantastic team of volunteers at Star Trek: Phase II produced "Blood And Fire" as a wonderful two-part episode. I co-wrote the shooting script and directed it. We had to shoot 80 pages in ten days, so some scenes were rushed, but the story was well-written, competently acted throughout, methodically edited, brilliantly mounted and produced, and ended up looking at least as good as any of the episodes of the original series. It ain't as perfect as I wanted it to be -- and I still dream of the chance to do a proper edit on it -- but I'm proud of what all of us accomplished. At least a hundred and fifty people worked their butts off to make it happen.

Throughout the entire process of production, we had some fans questioning whether or not it was right to do a gay story on Star Trek. Speaking as one who knew Gene's intentions for the series, who has some claim to understand that Star Trek is about questioning everything -- yes, it was not only right, but important, to put the gay characters in. Recognizing their relationship is important to Kirk recognizing the strength of his own relationship with his ship, his crew, Spock, and his nephew.

Yes, I'm a gay man. Yes, I wrote a gay love story. Out of some 700 filmed episodes of five different TV series, at least one story should acknowledge the existence of Star Trek's millions of LGBT fans. I post this information here not as an angry screed, but simply as an example of how hard some people will work and to what lengths they will go to make LGBT people invisible.

Sorry, closets are for clothes. Fabulous, fabulous clothes.

We're here, we're queer, and yes -- we are part of Star Trek. We are writers, actors, directors, costumers, and crewmembers both in front of the camera and behind the camera. And those who can't deal with it are the ones who have truly failed to understand the vision that Star Trek represents -- a future that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out. And that means respect for the diversity of the human soul.”

Hear, hear.

BB: I think modern Trek has badly missed the boat on not including a gay character. If I were JJ Abrams, I would have - partially to satisfy the oversight, and partially as a wink towards George Takei - made the new version of Sulu a gay man. It'd be worth doing if only to annoy the types of people who get annoyed by that sort of thing.

2.

BB: I thought "In Harm's Way" was sort of genius.  Sure, the old sudden-reveal-of-who-the-first-officer-is trick is stolen from "Yesteryear," but so what?  The reveal is still done quite well.  And the idea of an alternate timeline wherein the doomsday machine not being destroyed leads to a sort of apocalypse for the Federation is...well, let's put it this way: if I found out something like that was going to form the basis for the next movie, it wouldn't upset me in the least.

BKM: That is now my frontrunner for what I hope they do with NuTrek 3! Think of the lens flare opportunities.

 

Spock with "Gateway," i.e. the Guardian of Forever. No one tell Harlan Ellison.

I love this one, too. The guest stars are so surprising.

Barbara Luna (again) and Commodore Decker, among others.

the Klingon science officer is just a fun idea, and I get a laugh when he gets his close-up when they score a direct hit:

K'PLAGH! Played by John Carrigan. Malachi "The Menagerie" Throne plays his Dad, and the scene between them might be my favorite bit of the episode.

 

The sudden speedboat-esque flips and turns of the starship models, taking the Farragut through the Guardian/ Gateway, the deft handling of so many Treklore-threads, the garage door opening in suburbia to reveal the shuttle, popping the Commodore's taped last will and testament into the VCR... so many little moments packed into fifty-one minutes. Good stuff. I'm kind of amazed they pulled this one off; even the awkward moments have a quality to them that is downright surreal with The Original Series music and sound f/x accompanying them.

 

Boxing poster look familiar? It should.

Captain Pike's Enterprise even comes with a yelling Spock, for the purists.

I’ve read some quibbling about the space battle stuff, but for me it felt like watching friends' home videos or student films: you have to grade on a curve, i.e. extra points for “absence of suck” more than anything.

1.

BKM: Either "World Enough and Time" or "In Harm's Way" is my favorite. The ending with Sulu's Generations daughter and the nice coda naming the child (and Takei's performance in general) are all really well done.

 

 

I was a little meh on Kirk's and Sulu's daughter having an implied romance, but then it occurred to me how perfectly in keeping it would be for TOS for that to be at least hinted at. (Takei’s reaction shot to the news is priceless.)

Actually, I think that might be a different reaction shot altogether. But hey, something to hunt for. I'm going to make the requisite crazy wrap-up statement and say I prefer this to Voyager’s “Flashback,”and maybe (maybe) even to “Relics.” Though I’m likely overreaching.

BB: Oh, I don't think you're overreaching at all. "World Enough and Time" is just flat-out good.  Period.  It's still an amateur production, of course, but with enough inspiration in it to make it easily better than a great many "real" episodes of Trek I can think of. And I think I might agree that it's better than "Flashback;" "Relics," maybe not, although it's not less good to any meaningful degree.

Part of what makes it work for me is that Takei is good. Unlike Koenig, who - let's face it - is simply not a very good actor, Takei has some genuine screen presence. Not to Shatner's level, or Nimoy's, but it's there and by virtue of it, he clearly elevates the whole production. You can practically feel everyone around him stepping up their game in response, and it's fascinating to see these amateur actors actually managing to hang with Takei. In particular, I thought the guy who played young Sulu did some strong work, especially at the end of the episode. And I really liked the actress who played Sulu's daughter.

OF GODS AND MEN 

Check out the website here.

 

BKM: Of Gods and Men is... interesting. It says something about Phase II that I have an easier time with it than I do with this, despite so many Trek alumni donating their time. It’s cool that James Cawley gets a bit part as Peter Kirk. I love that Cawley keeps shoehorning Peter Kirk into things! That cracks me up.

BB: Time to be honest: I hated this thing.  So much so, in fact, that I wonder if I gave it a fair shake.  I disliked it so much that I actually stopped watching after about ten minutes and just listened to the rest while farting around on the computer.  From what I could tell, it sounded like there was at least some decent acting from Nichols and Koenig and Russ and Wang, etc. -- but in service of nothing.  Bottom line for me is that this movie just didn't do anything for me at all.

Lots of familiar faces, to say the least.

The Wrath of... Charlie X?

BKM: I understand Gary Lockwood was likely unavailable (to say the least) to reprise Gary Mitchell, but it's a tonal misstep seeing the other actors (down to Charlie freaking X) reprise their roles and then have someone else; it robs the reveal of a lot of its punch. 

BB: It isn't the original actor playing Charlie. Robert Walker, Jr. played the part in "Charlie X," but here it is someone named William Wellman. Walker is still alive; I wonder if they approached him and he said "Uhh... no."
 

BKM: ... (pretends to rifle through notes) I, uhh... ...

BKM: I'm so happy you caught that, as good lord, Charlie's played by the son of Wild Bill Wellman, and this slipped my notice completely. If Martin Scorsese ever gets wind of this, I can forget about his ever taking my cinematic opinions seriously.

It may be Koenig’s finest performance. How odd, when you really think of it. 

 

I have two main problems: 1) the style of filming. Not necessarily the lack of finesse (I'm not sure if it's a lighting or color correction issue) but the quick-cuts-style of editing. It seemed like there was an awful lot of cross-cutting going on in dialogue scenes that didn't need to happen, and 2) the disorganization of the story. The Charlie stuff doesn't seem to fit. Worse, it announces itself so forcefully and then disappears for most of the second and third acts. I'm not sure there even is a second or third act. I see traces of them, but mainly it's a lot of exposition from Uhura and Chekov. (I already forget what Chekov's alternate timeline name is in this one.) 

And Uhura marries Stonn? "Amok Time" Stonn? I, uhh... what now? And could that "set" at the end look any more like a Bel Air/ Brentwood backyard and less like Vulcan? Reminds me of an episode of The A-Team where they went to the Philippines or somewhere that wasn't LA yet looked exactly like LA. I'd like to read more about the production detail… Whatever the story is, though, it doesn’t work.

I did like seeing Gary Graham and Garrett Wang  in different roles. The twist with Garrett Wang's character wasn't bad. The whole basic plot of the film with the big reveal being Mirror Gary Mitchell (more on that in a second) is the big baddie just didn't work too well. 

BB: Totally agreed about the Stonn thing.  None of the Vulcan/Uhura stuff made the slightest bit of sense to me, in fact. And I agree on the Gary Mitchell thing, too.  First of all, he'd be powerful enough by then that there'd be no need for him to fight anyone.  He'd probably just think 'em out of existence.  So using him as a villain simply doesn't work.  Secondly...well, really I've got no secondly.  It just didn't work for me at all.

BKM: I found myself incredibly distracted by Chase Masterson, as, I think, did Tum Russ as director. I don’t mean in a slobbering sense, I mean it was distracting because it seemed the camera kept finding a way to cut to her when it didn’t need to.

 

 

This is one of the less shameless screencaps, believe it or not.

BB: Hard to criticize anyone for being distracted by Chase Masterson. If you weren't, there'd be something wrong with you. I bet even gay dudes and straight women get a little distracted by her. If nothing else, though, it makes for an excellent comparison film to the Phase II stuff, and points out how incredibly important plot/concept/tone are.  Of Gods and Men is loaded with Trek professionals, whereas "In Harm's Way" is just a bunch of Elvis impersonators, urologists, and video-game store clerks doofusing around in a garage -- but one of them feels like Trek to me and one doesn't.  That wouldn't be the universal opinion, of course, but it's definitely my opinion.

Here's one of the Orion gals from ST: E "Bound," Crystal Allen. She doesn't have many lines.

 

BKM: They'll be doing another one of these things soon; not sure who all is returning but more details can be found at Star Trek Renegades.

~

And there we have it, folks! Thanks again to The Artist Formerly Known as the Honk Mahfah for co-hosting this overview with me. Any typos, etc. are my own; this blog will self-destruct in ten seconds, so please get to a safe distance. I'll leave you with some of the fun images from the end credit sequences of Phase II.