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During
the sequence where Spock is drifting through V'Ger's
interior chamber, at the same point as he states "The
Epsilon 9 Station stored here with every detail", the
viewer is seemingly treated to a likeness of Star
Wars' Darth Vader (ominous black triangle in the
centre of the shot) and Miss Piggy from The Muppet
Show . |
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It took almost 3 weeks to get the shot
where the camera moves over the top of the Klingon ship
and ends up behind the ship (at the beginning of the
movie). |
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The model of the Enterprise was about 8
feet long. |
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It looked like the Vulcan's
lip synch matched the English too closely, so Gene
Roddenberry and Robert Wise changed the sentences somewhat
to make it look right. |
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(Director's Edition) In the wide shot of
the tram station, an Original Series shuttle can be seen
taking off in the right corner. |
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The transporter effect was made by
refracting a laser through crystal. The crystal came from
broken candy dishes and the little crystal pieces were
melted on a motion control mover. The laser went through
the crystal pieces and they re-photographed the patterns
they presented on the wall. This was combined with a "slot
gag" (bright spots), which was an effect created by moving
one light pattern against another and re-photographing
that. It was two dimensional, but looked 3 dimensional. |
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The shots of Kirk and Scotty inside the
shuttle were simply made using a rear projected movie
inside the shuttle's model. |
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Initially it was planned to make the floors
of the Enterprise transparent, but it was too
difficult to make work. |
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The extras in the recreation deck during
the briefing were Star Trek fans from a convention;
included Robert Wise's Wife, Grace Lee Whitney's son
(Vulcan), Bjo Trimble, David Gerrold,
and Gene's secretary. |
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Acid etched brass was used to build the 6
foot long Epsilon 9 station model. |
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The V'Ger cloud was made using 2D layers
that were moved against each other to give a 3D effect. |
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Some of the lights on the Enterprise were
achieved by shining on large light on 50 or so little
dental mirrors, which would give small specks of light on
the ship. |
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The wormhole sequence took 9 months to
complete; 3 weeks to shoot because they had to do regular
and slow motion shoots on 35mm and 65mm cameras. |
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The wormhole was accomplished with a
scanning laser beam on a rear projection screen
accumulating over several minutes per frame while the
camera moved in and out of the screen to create a tunnel
effect. |
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A 20W Argon Laser was used for the photon
torpedoes. Also used for Klingon and V'Ger effects. |
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The electrical discharge from V'Ger weapon
was created by photographing a Tesla Coil (~ million and a
half volts - throws a 6 foot arc in a Helium
environment). The crew was filming the Tesla Coil near an
airport, and the airport staff complained it was
interrupting their radio. As a result, the crew had to
build a wire cage around the Tesla coil. Legend was that
if you worked around the Tesla coil for more than 2 weeks,
it would affect your mind. |
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The "probe" send by V'Ger (light beam) was
actually an electrician wearing sunglasses holding a light
source. The SFX team used a variation on the Mylar
distortion effect to remove the electrician and the light
source. They then added the bright light back in using a
pattern photographed as a 2D object on an animation
stand. Finally they added in the electrical discharges
filmed from the Tesla Coil. |
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Security guards were filmed being attacked
by the "probe", but this was cut. |
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The new navigator that comes to replace
Ilia when she is taken was Shatner's wife at the time. |
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The transceiver light on Ilia's neck was
connected to a battery pack behind her. |
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Initially, the
script called for Kirk to follow Spock into V'Ger. Inside
they come upon the memory wall and find out V'Ger is a
living machine. It was a long segment and most of it was
shot, but it didn't look good enough, so it was cut. The
rest of the scene was shot in a long set that looked like
a canyon with Kirk and Spock floating around poking into
various sections of the memory walls. At one point Kirk
becomes covered with tiny probes and Spock saves him. This
was all cut. |
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The V'Ger set was elevated, and sometimes
crew members fell through the floor. |
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The original ending called for V'Ger
to upload all the ships and other objects it had
"digitized" on the course of its journey, including the
three Klingon ships from the opening of the film. The
Klingons were supposed to fire on the Enterprise
and attempt to flee, only to fail; their engines being
cold. Kirk was supposed to order the Enterprise
saucer to separate with the stardrive section returning
to drydock and the saucer module giving chase to the
Klingons. This would have been the first (and only)
actual saucer separation performed by the original
Enterprise. The manuever had originally been
mentioned in TOS: "The
Apple." |
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In the V'Ger set at the end of the movie,
they rigged a large disk and used a bulb from a drive in
movie projector to get the bright light; it was so hot
that they had to have huge fans blowing to keep the actors
cool and prevent sunburn. |
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For a previous unproduced TV series of
his called "Genesis II", Gene Roddenberry had created a
story he called "Robot's Return". This was now rewritten
for "Star Trek" by Alan Dean Foster under the title "In
Thy Image", and proposed as the two-hour premiere
episode of "Star Trek Phase II". However, Paramount
executive 'Michael Eisner' responded, "We've been
looking for the feature for five years and this is it",
and made the final decision to forget the new series and
produce the story as a movie. |
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The decision was made in August 1977, but
in order to keep the team together during the necessary
renegotiation of contracts, Paramount kept it secret
until March 1978; when Rona Barrett broke the secret in
December 1977, they denied it. Meanwhile, they pretended
that the TV series was still going to happen, even
soliciting scripts for episodes that would never be
made. Sets built for the TV series were used in the
movie, but model work had to be redone after the
changeover was made public, due to the need for finer
detailing in a movie. |
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Director Robert E. Collins, whose
background was mostly in television, was hired to direct
the two-hour premiere, but after the change to a movie,
Paramount wanted a more experienced director and
replaced him with Robert Wise. |
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Gene Roddenberry wanted Alan Dean
Fosterto write the final script for the film, but Harold
Livingston thought him too inexperienced and tried to
hire Steven Bochco, who was unavailable; 'Michael Cimino'
, who wasn't interested; and Bill L. Norton, who
initially accepted but found it beyond his capabilities.
In the end Livingston did the job himself. He disagreed
repeatedly with Roddenberry over rewrites and other
matters, and quit and returned several times. |
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The TV series was to have three new
regular characters. Paramount was concerned that William
Shatner might ask for too much money to continue playing
Kirk if the run of the series was extended beyond the
initial order of 13 episodes; the character of Decker
was created so that if Kirk had to be written out,
Decker could become the series' new lead role. Decker
was played in the movie by Stephen Collins. |
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Leonard Nimoy declined to return as Spock
for the series, so a new Vulcan character "Xon" was
created to be the new science officer. An employee of an
agent was dating a young actor, David Gautreaux, who had
no agent of his own; she suggested him for the part and
he got it, then was told that it was actually for a
movie. When Nimoy finally agreed to do the movie, Spock
replaced Xon in the script and Gautreaux was given the
smaller part of Commander Branch. |
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The character of Lieutenant Ilia, played
by Persis Khambatta, was also intended as a continuing
role in the TV series. |
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The V'ger prop was so large and involved
so much work that one end of it was being used in scenes
while the other end was still being built. |
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It was understood in the script, but not
in the movie, that Commander Will Decker was the son of
Commodore Matthew Decker, the half-crazed starship
captain who committed suicide in the Star Trek
television episode "The Doomsday Machine." |
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Jerry Goldsmith's Academy Award-nominated
score featured a special musical instrument called "The
Blaster Beam", an instrument 15 feet long, incorporating
artillery shell casings and motorized magnets. It was
used as part of any scene featuring V'ger. Said
instrument was invented by former child star turned New
Age musician Craig Hundley who, in his youth, had
portrayed Captain Kirk's nephew in an episode of the
original "Star Trek" television series. |
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Because of the need to re-build sets and
models when the production switched from a television
series to a big-budget feature film, the production was
already ten weeks behind schedule before a single frame
was shot. Director Robert Wise repeatedly considered
quitting the production, and at one point even suggested
that Paramount cancel the project altogether. |
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Robert Wise was convinced to accept the
position as director by his wife, who was a huge fan of
the original "Star Trek" (1966) television series. His
wife was also instrumental in convincing Wise to
campaign for Leonard Nimoy's return to the project. |
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James Doohan's twin sons, Montgomery
Doohan and Christopher Doohan, appear as extras in the
movie. |
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Uhura's communications earpieces are the
only original props from the original TV series. They
were dug out of storage when it was realized someone had
forgotten to make new ones for the movie. |
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The Klingon words spoken by the Klingon
ship's captain were actually invented by actor James
Doohan (Scotty). Later, linguist Marc Okrand devised
grammar and syntax rules for the language, along with
more vocabulary words, and wrote a Klingon dictionary. |
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Post-production went on right up until
the day before the film's world premiere. Because time
was so short, all the prints of the film were shipped
"wet" - fresh from the duplication lab - and were
airlifted directly out from a warehouse on the Paramount
lot as they were assembled. Rewrites took place daily
during filming, most of them on the order of William
Shatner or Leonard Nimoy dropping lines that were
superfluous ("My character wouldn't say that"). The
logistics of the very end of the film - Decker merging
with V'Ger - was devised more or less on the spot. |
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Gene Roddenberry had asked Majel Barrett
if she would don fur and a tail to "reprise" the role of
Lieutenant M'Ress from the animated "Star Trek" (1973).
Barrett refused. |
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Many story ides were considered during the
early planning stages, including the Enterprise meeting
God, preventing Kennedy's assassination, becoming the
Greek Titans, and trying to prevent a black hole from
swallowing the galaxy. |
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For the DVD release, the producers toyed
with the idea of digitally inserting a shot of the NX-01
Enterprise (Jonathan Archer's ship from the prequel series
"Enterprise") into
the rec room scene where Decker shows Ilia a display of
previous ships named Enterprise. The idea was eventually
dropped, possibly since the shot would not be able to be
seen clearly anyway (the pictures were not easily legible
onscreen). The NX-01 would have replaced the shot of the
'ringed' S.S. Enterprise - which eventually appeared on
"Enterprise" anyway (in the bar scene in the episode "First
Flight"). |
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Leonard Nimoy agreed to appear in the film
only after Paramount agreed to a settlement of his lawsuit
against them for allowing his TV series likeness to be
used by advertisers. |
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The producers and the cast were very
worried about their appearance after being away from "Star
Trek" (1966) for over ten years. Special lighting and
camera tricks were used to hide the cast's aging, and
William Shatner went on a near-starvation diet prior to
filming. However, in all subsequent Star Trek movies it
was decided to make the aging of the crew part of the
story. |
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Jerry Goldsmith's famous theme for the
movie almost didn't happen. One of the first scenes
Goldsmith scored was the scene when Kirk and Scotty do a
flyover of the refit Enterprise. Robert Wise liked the
music that Goldsmith composed, but in the end, he rejected
it, saying it didn't fit the movie because it lacked a
theme/motif. Goldsmith went back to the drawing board and
composed the famous theme that has become a staple of the
Star Trek universe. |
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Orson Welles narrated
trailers for the film. |
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After the original "Star Trek" (1966) TV
series proved a success in syndication, Paramount became
interested in making a "Star Trek" movie. Writers who
contributed ideas or draft scripts in 1975-77 included
Gene Roddenberry, Jon Povill, Robert Silverberg, John D.F.
Black, Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, and Ray
Bradbury. A story called "Star Trek: Planet of Titans" was
selected; Chris Bryant and Allan Scott wrote a script,
which was then rewritten by Philip Kaufman. At this point
Star Wars (1977) burst upon the world, and Paramount
reacted by canceling "Star Trek: Planet of Titans" before
pre-production started. Allegedly they thought there
wasn't a sufficient market for another big science-fiction
film. |
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Visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull
claims that although the models built for the film were
quite large, they were in fact not large enough to
facilitate shooting many of the desired camera angles. The
production had to commission a special periscope lens
system from Panavision which allowed the shots to be
accomplished. To achieve maximum depth-of-field, many of
the shots also required very long exposure times of up to
several minutes per frame. |
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The images of the interior of the V'ger
cloud were created using airbrush paintings. Led by
animation supervisor Alison Yerxa, a team of animators
created thousands of air-brushings using white paint on
black paper. These were then photographed, made into
transparencies, and used as positive and negative masks on
a special multi-plane animation camera. Color tints were
then added using filters during the optical composting
process. The sequence was inspired by a Canadian
documentary called Universe (1960), which visual effects
supervisor Douglas Trumbull had seen during the making of
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). |
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At one time, according to the Guinness Book
of Records, this was the most expensive film ever made
with a total production cost of US$46 million |
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In the original version of this story, "In
Thy Image", Captain Dylan Hunt goes up into space to
confront a probe that has been enhanced by an alien
civilization. When the probe realizes that Dylan is a
member of NASA, the group that created it, it shuts down,
having received its answers. This basic premise was
retained for the finished film, with the exception that in
ST:TMP, Commander Decker merges with V'Ger when he gives
the probe the signal, and V'Ger transforms into a higher
state rather than shuts down. "Dylan Hunt" never became
part of the Star Trek universe, but later got his own as
captain of the Andromeda Ascendant in Gene Roddenberry's
Andromeda. |
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Originally, Captain Kirk was supposed to
receive the V'Ger mission assignment in Admiral Nogura's
office in Starfleet Headquarters, but that scene was
scrapped from the shooting order and never filmed. |
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Chekov was originally going to be killed
by an exploding console during V'Ger's attack on the
Enterprise. It was later changed so that he was just
injured and Ilia uses her telepathic/empathic ability to
stop the pain in his burned hand. |
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James Doohan wrote all of the Klingon and
Vulcan dialogue lines for the film. The Vulcan dialogue
was originally given in English, but Gene Roddenberry
eventually decided the scene would play better in native
Vulcan. Unfortunately, the scene had already been shot
and would have proven to be too expensive to reshoot it.
The solution was to "invent" Vulcan words that would
closely match the English words being spoken by the
actors. The subtitles were also significantly reworded
as to not make the similarities obvious. |
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Visual effects supervisor Douglas
Trumbull had previously created the models for "2001:
A Space Odyssey." |
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There are many parallels or "homages" to
"2001: A Space Odyssey" during the course of the
film, including:
- A musical overture playing over a
black screen (which was replaced by a CGI starfield
in the Director's Edition)
- The long introduction of the new
Enterprise is similar to the long
introduction of the Earth orbit satellites in
"2001."
- The visualizations on the
Enterprise viewscreen are similar to the
visualizations seen by Dave Bowman during the "stargate
sequence."
- Camera angles on Mr. Spock during
his V'Ger entry are similar to that of Dave
Bowman during the aforementioned "stargate
sequence."
- Mr. Spock floating back to the
Enterprise after being injured by V'Ger
is similar to Frank Poole's murder where he floats
away from the Discovery.
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In the original "television pilot" script
for "Star Trek: Phase II", V'Ger was called "N'sa." |