History of Star Trek
2 12 2003 It was 39 years ago today
Roddenberry taught the band to play
They’ve been going in and out of style
But they’re guaranteed to raise a smile…
It was 39 years ago today that cameras began to roll for the first time on Star Trek. It was the first pilot, on December 12, 1964, that began at the Desilu Studios. The pilot, “The Cage” starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike was seen 2 years later inside a later, 2-part episode called “Menagerie”. The pilot also featured a female “Number One” and an excitable pointed-ear “Martian” named Mr. Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy.
The NBC executives asked for some changes and called for a second pilot. This second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, starred William Shatner as Captain Kirk. The network said, “Get rid of the woman and the guy with the pointed ears”. So he married the woman, Majel Barret, and kept the guy with the pointed ears. Leonard Nimoy would not have had it the other way around. The woman dyed her hair blond and waited in her husband’s reception office so that when he walked in even he didn’t recognize her. She became Nurse Chappel. The guy with the pointed ears, this “Martian”, became less emotional, more logical, and Vulcan green rather than Martian red (which wouldn’t photograph correctly).
The series lasted for 3 of the “5 year mission” of the Starship Enterprise, a victim of poor ratings. Ironically, the following year, demographics were used and it was discovered that Star Trek was appealing to exactly the kind of audience that advertisers wanted!
The show remained incredibly popular in syndication, spawning 19 years later another TV series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, and again in “ST: Deep Space Nine”, “ST: Voyager”, and now “Enterprise” (which is in it’s 3rd season.)
On December 7, 1979, a day that will live in infamy, the first full length movie opened, “Star Trek: The Motionless Picture”. Despite a plodding plot, the movie did amazing well, and led to 6 more films. The second, “Star Trek II” The Wrath of Kahn” was considered the best by the faithful, featuring a return engagement of a popular opponent from Kirk’s past. When it was leaked that Spock would die, a futile boycott was called. A hasty tag-on was filmed and put on the end of the movie.
This movie was followed by the Leonard Nimoy directed “ST III: the Search for Spock”, which was followed by “ST IV: Still Looking for Spock”. Just kidding. “ST IV: The Search For Whales”, I mean, “The Voyage Home”, was considered the most generally popular and successful of the movies, with plenty of jokes and a [then] modern-day San Francisco as a back drop.
Now that Leonard Nimoy had directed his second film, William Shatner wanted a turn. “ST V: What a Mistake” came out, as his first and last excursion. The backdrop of Yosemite couldn’t pull this one out of the fire.
“ST VI: Quoting Lines From Hamlet” was the last of the Classic-era movies, and featured Kirk’s last heard line as Captain of the Enterprise, a line I’ve been waiting for him to say for years… It’s a line quoted by another fly-boy hero of mine: “Second star to the right and straight on til morning.”
The first hybrid/new movie is “Star Trek Generations” a mixture of the old Classic-era generation and an extended Next-Generation episode. Here we see the changing of the guard as Scotty, Checkov, and Kirk inaugurate the Enterprise NCC 1701-B. At the same time, or rather some 70 or so years later we see the Enterprise-D.
