Tuesday 09 March 2010

Behind the scenes on Star Trek: Phase II

After several attempts to bring Star Trek to the screen, in 1977 Paramount decided to produce a second television series, appropriately titled Star Trek: Phase II. Barry Diller, at the time president of Paramount, had grown concerned by the direction in which Star Trek had been taken in the latest movie script–Planet of the Titans, by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott. After the film had been canceled in preproduction, Diller had gone to Gene Roddenberry and suggested it was time to take Star Trek back to its original context–a television series.

As early as the original series' third season, Gene Roddenberry had spoken of making a Star Trek motion picture. At the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention held over the Labor Day weekend in Oakland, California, he drew enthousiastic applause when he told a rapt audience his plans for filming a prequel to the series, telling the story of how Kirk and his crew had met at Starfleet Academy. For that weekend at least, Star Trek was on a roll. But the Tuesday after Labor Day, the real world intruded and kept the opening of the first Star Trek movie at bay for more than a decade.

Yet the idea of a movie continued as Roddenberry's dream throughout that decade, sometimes coming tantalizingly close to becoming reality, only to be snatched away by the capriciousness of Hollywood deal making. In the spring of 1975, Paramount entered into a deal with Roddenberry in which he would write the script for a low-budget Star Trek feature, tentatively to cost between two to three million dollars.

For five years Paramount had tried to put a Star Trek project into production. By 1977, they stopped production on Planet of Titans before it began, then announced Phase II. Then, as far as anyone had known up to now, in March, 1978, another press conference was held to announce that the production of Phase II was changing over to the production of The Motion Picture. Robert Goodwin, producer of Star Trek: Phase II, recalled Star Trek's fate "shifted right at one particular instant."

A new series

Star Trek: Phase II was officially announced on June 10, 1977. Paramount had called a press conference at which the studio's plans for a fourth television network were revealed. The advantage of setting up their own network was obvious: they were eliminating the middle man. As a content provider to the other networks, Paramount would produce a series, license it to a network, typically at a loss; and then watch as the network in turn sold the series to advertisers at a higher price. Only when, and if the series went to syndication would the studio have a chance to earn extra money from its product.

But, in the case of licensing a Paramount-produced series to a Paramount-owned network, one division of the company would be selling to another, so all the added value and increased income wouldstay in the family. That offered the heady possibility that a series could at least break even, without the long wait until syndication. And syndication could be a never-ending stream of income, as Paramount's "seventy-nine jewels" proved year after year. The seventy-nine were, of course, the original episodes of Star Trek. Which brings us to the second part of taht June press conference.

In 1977, unlike the mid-sixties, demographics ruled the quest for ratings and advertiser support. If a network could guarantee a young male audience, ages eighteen to thirty-four, advertisers would line up to pay a premium for the chance to show commercials to them. The demographics of the syndicated Star Trek episodes proved that the show could deliver that all important slice of television audience.

Therefore, an all-new series of Star Trek episodes would anchor the new Paramount network. Star Trek: Phase II was officially a go. A two-hour Star Trek television movie would lead the way in February, 1978, to be followed each week by a brand-new one-hour episode, airing between 8 and 9. The 9-to-11 time slot would then be filled by an original, made-for-television Paramount film—thirty of them in the first year—augmented as necessary by classic films from the Paramount library of hits.

Gene Roddenberry was ecstatic. After five year of go-nowhere talks and false-start films, all the pieces were at least in place. Now it was time for Roddenberry to be Star Trek's lightning rod again, and gather his team around him. Some of it was already in place: At the very top of the organisational ladder was the executive in charge of day-to-day development of projects for the new Paramount network—Gary Nardino. Supervising the thirty television films Paramount was planning to produce was Robert H. Goodwin, at the time assistant to Paramount's head of television production. Roddenberry knew that he needed a strong producer for Phase II, someone well versed in the technical requirements of keeping a series on track. When he heard of Goodwin's new responsibilities—which was a sign of the enormous regard Paramount held for him in—Roddenberry made his decision: Goodwin would be the producer of Star Trek: Phase II. Goodwin was initially reluctant to give up his role as producer of the thirty made-for-telvision films, stemming from the fact that he was not familiar with Star Trek. But over the next few months, as he watched the episodes that were screened daily for the production team, he developed a keen appreciation for the series, which led to important contributions to the bible and the development of the scripts.

Goodwin would be responsible for the technical aspects of the series' production. For the writing side, Roddenberry sought out a second producer—noted novelist and screenwriter Harold Livingston. Another team member whom Roddenberry enlisted at the time was an old friend already working on the paramount lot, in the office just above his own—Matt Jefferies, the Art Director of The Original Series, who was now Art Director for Michael Landon's hit series, Little House on the Prairie, and did not want to give up that position to take a chance on a series with a mere thirteen-episode order. However, Roddenberry was adamant that only Jefferies could update the Enterprise, and with Michael Landon's blessing, Jefferies became attached to Phase II as a "technical advisor". Landon, for his part, made it clear that the moment Jefferies' work on Phase II got in the way of his work on Little House, Jefferies would have to make a decision as to which series he was going to stay with, because he was not going to be able to handle two. Subsequently, as production geared up for Phase II, Jefferies recommended his good friend, Joe Jennings, as the new Star Trek Art Director.

Within a month of the press conference announcing Star Trek's return, the preproduction phase of the series had begun in earnest. A new Enterprise had been designed and was being built. Art Director Joe Jennings was overseeing an Art Department that included Set Designer Lew Splittsberger, graphic artist Lee Cole, and Assistant Art Director John cartwright. (Returning Star Trek artist Mike Minor would join the Art Department later that year.) Original Star Trek Costume Designer William Ware Theiss had pulled out his old patterns and was digging through on- and off-lot storage areas, reclaiming costumes from ten years earlier. Sophisticated new aluminum phasers, following the same design as the original wood and plastic ones, were being built, some with working strobe lights and detachable battery packs.

It was also in that last week of July that the first writing deals were set for the new series. Arthur Heinemann had a pitch accepted by Harold Livingston for a story taht eventually would not be developed. And on July 25, Alan Dean Foster, a young science-fiction writer who was known to Roddenberry for having adapted the animated episodes into a series of succesful Star Trek Log books, was given a deal to write a story, with an option to write the teleplay as well. The premise he would develop was inspired, in part, by an early Roddenberry story for his unproduced science-fiction series, Genesis II. The Genesis II version of the story had been called "Robot's Return". Alan Dean Foster's version was called "In Thy Image".

A motion picture script

Less than a week after getting his story assignment directly from Gene Roddenberry, Alan Dean Foster returned with his story for "In Thy Image". In addition to elements of "Robot's Return", Foster also incorporated Robert Goodwin's suggestion of doing something that had never been done before—threaten Earth. Except for Captain Pike's illusory visit to Mojave in "The Cage", twenty-third century Earth had never appeared in a Star Trek episode. As Foster's story made the rounds of the production team, it also became obvious that if Earth were being threatened, then it made perfect sense that the Enterprise was close to Earth–make that, still in Earth orbit–because . . . it was just finishing its refit.

Though several other stories were in active development by now, consensus quickly favoured Foster's story as Phase II's pilot episode. With revisions, of course. A meeting was called for August 3, to be attended by Goodwin, Livingston, and Roddenberry, as well as Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Arthur Fellows. At that meeting, Robert Goodwin pitched the "In Thy Image" story in great detail, hoping it would receive Eisner's blessing as the Phase II pilot.

But the meeting didn't go the way anyone connected with Phase II had expected. Eisner was excited by the prospects of the "In Thy Image" story, and at the end of Goodwin's pitch, Goodwin recalled that Eisner said, "We've been looking for the feature for five years and this is it." Then, Goodwin continued, "Eisner slammed his hand on the table, and that was when it happenned." Because in Paramount's determination, less than a month after it had been announced, Star Trek: Phase II was already canceled. Before a single set had been built, a single script written, a single frame of film exposed.

Star Trek was going to be a feature. The only catch was, no one in the meeting could talk about it. As complex as a movie is, the paperwork that fuels it is more complicated still. New deals would have to be negotiated with the cast, with producers, with Gene Roddenberry himself. New budgets would have to be calculated. Paramount sales and distribution people would have to extimate how much it would cost to advertise and market the film, and how much the studio could hope to earn. If one piece of the puzzle didn't fit, the project might not come together. Thus, if anyone announced a new Star Trek feature now, and two months later the deals could not be made, Paramount would face another potentially embarressing moment, and Star Trek would be perceived as a three-time loser. Phase II was dead. But it would be five more months before the body stopped twitching.

Until then, a group of dedicated, talented men and women toiled on to create a series they and millions of fans could be proud of, never knowing that the studio had little intention of making it. From the studio's point of view, the scripts might eventually prove useful it, after the film's release, Paramount wished to return Star Trek to its television roots. The sets, props, and miniatures might be used in the film tiself. And certainly the "In Thy Image" pilot story would need further refinement to turn it into a feature script. But all the other work that would be done on Phase II was already beginning ints inexorable spiral into a black hole as voracious as the one postulated by John D. F. Black.

When Roddenberry delivered his motion picture script–The God Thing–in August of that year, Barry Diller, the president of Paramount, rejected it, but asked Roddenberry to write another. At the same time, the studio also invited other writers, including Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg and Star Trek veteran John D. F. Black, to try their hand at pitching a suitable story. In the meantime, Gene Roddenberry went back to work on a second script, this time with co-writer Jon Povill. Once again, Paramount passed. But despite the trouble they were having finding a script, the studio's interest in making a Star Trek movie continued to grow . . .

 

N. Ottens
11 July 2007

Sources for this article include:
• Reeves-Stevens, J. & G., Star Trek Phase II–The Lost Series (1997)
• Cast photographs courtesy of Trek Brasilis.