Production photographs of the absolutely horrific and memorable transporter accident in Star Trek: the Motion Picture (1979).
Though she wasn’t given a name in the movie, the woman who died in the transporter accident was played by Susan Sullivan, who played Dr. Banner’s girlfriend in the Incredible Hulk television series. She had no dialogue in the finished film, and we didn’t even see her face clearly - amazing since they hired a well known actress. This is because this character, on screen for five seconds, originally was going to have a way bigger role.
In the Star Trek: the Motion Picture novelization, the female transporter accident victim was identified as Lori Ciana, a science officer who was Captain Kirk’s ex-wife.
The finished film didn’t have time to go into this, but Kirk’s grief over her death was meant to be a point where Captain Kirk breaks all ties to his earthbound life, and was the cause of his decision to leave earth and return to his life in deep space exploration. When Roddenberry lost control of the series after the first film, he was never able to return to this character again, along with so many other ideas examined in the Motion Picture novelization (like the very unusual way that TMP’s novelization implies that countries still exist on 23rd Century Earth in some way).
As most Star Trek fans know, Star Trek: the Motion Picture was originally going to be a pilot for a TV series, Star Trek: Phase II. The loss of Lori Ciara would be a defining piece of characterization in that series. The “hero has a dead wife that makes him sad” idea would be used in other Roddenberry TV pilots in the 1970s, notably Andromeda.
The idea that Captain Kirk had a relationship in his past with a blonde lady scientist that went sour was re-used in the very next film, with Dr. Carol Marcus. If I had to guess (and I’m no mind reader), I’d say that these two characters were both ways to counter the baseless belief in pop culture that Captain Kirk was a womanizer or “Peter Pan” incapable of long term relationships.
There’s a comic going around by The Oatmeal that’s very touching and worth looking at. They got one detail wrong, but the full story – including a moment where Gene reflects on his faith – is even more amazing.
How is Loring Christie (1885-1941), Canadian Ambassadorial Envoy to the United States, 1939-1941, related to -~-~ Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), screenwriter, Hollywood Walk of Fame?
If you just tripped over a stack of cash, this Keith Birdsong cover painting for Gene Roddenberry & Susan Sackett’s never-released Star Trek: The First 25 Years is going for $6,600 on eBay.
Or, you know, you could buy it for me. I’m a pretty nice guy.
The book is an interesting lost media item for the franchise; copyright for some of the art couldn’t be obtained so Pocket Books and Paramount decided to scrap the whole thing. Chunks of it would later appear in the (frankly inconsequential) coffee table book Star Trek: Where No One Has Gone Before, credited to J.M. Dillard with a “thank you” to Sackett.
Star Trek: the Motion Picture (1979). When an alien spacecraft of enormous power is spotted approaching Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk resumes command of the overhauled USS Enterprise in order to intercept it.
I love Star Trek a lot,but this is definitely not the franchise at its best. It’s a fairly generic space opera that never really grounds us in the crew we love, instead frequently sacrificing story for a lot of long, languid shots of space and a main plot that never really finds its footing. Not my favourite installment in the series by any stretch of the imagination, but still, it looks pretty good, and it’s still Star Trek. 6/10.
Nichelle Nichols (Uhura on the original series):”Whoopi Goldberg, she’s just marvellous. I had no way of knowing that she was a Star Trek fan. When I finally met her it was her first year on the Next Generation.
She loved the show so much and she told her agent she wants a role on Star Trek. Well agents go ‘Big screen, little screen, no, you can’t do that’. Well you can’t tell Whoopi ‘You can’t do that’.
And so they finally asked, and they had the same reaction at Star Trek office, specifically Gene. And she said, ‘I want to meet him and I want him to tell me to my face. If he tells me he doesn’t want me and why, I’ll be fine.’
Knowing Gene he had to take that challenge, and so he met with her. She said, ‘I just wanted you to tell me why you don’t want me in Star Trek.’
Gene said, ‘Well, I’ll just ask you one question and I’ll make my decision on that. You’re a big screen star, why do you want to be on a little screen, why do you want to be in Star Trek?’
And she looked at him and she said, ‘Well, it’s all Nichelle Nichols’ fault.’
That threw him, he said, ‘What do you mean?’
She said, ‘Well when I was nine years old Star Trek came on,’ and she said, ‘I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, “Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!”’ And she said, ‘I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be, and I want to be on Star Trek.’
I know I’ve reblogged this before, and I will undoubtedly do it again.
It matters. And no amount of saying that we’re post-racial or that racism isn’t a thing or that “they just chose the best actor for the role” or otherwise trying to cover up for it will make it okay to keep relegating actors of color to secondary roles, villain roles, stereotyped roles, or no roles at all, and it sure as hell won’t make it okay to keep whitewashing CHARACTERS of color out of the story by casting white actors to play then.
I said “Dr. King, thank you so much. I really am going to miss my co-stars.” He said, dead serious, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I’m leaving Star Trek,” He said, “You cannot. You cannot!”
I was taken aback. He said, “Don’t you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time on television we will be seen as we should be seen every day – as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance, but who can also go into space, who can be lawyers, who can be teachers, who can be professors, and yet you don’t see it on television – until now….”
I could say nothing, I just stood there realizing every word that he was saying was the truth. He said, “Gene Roddenberry has opened a door for the world to see us. If you leave, that door can be closed because, you see, your role is not a Black role, and it’s not a female role, he can fill it with anything, including an alien.”
At that moment, the world tilted for me. I knew then that I was something else and that the world was not the same. That’s all I could think of, everything that Dr. King had said: The world sees us for the first time as we should be seen.
It matters, man. It honestly does. It mattered then and it still matters.
It. Matters.
This.
REBLOGGING FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE, AND THE BEST THAT AMERICA CAN BE GODDAMN
You don’t have to like Star Trek. You don’t have to be a fan. But you cannot deny its importance in advancing the cause of racial equality in America.
In Star Trek Discovery scientist Lt. Paul Stamets is an “astromycologist” specializing in mushrooms and “spore-drive” technology. The fictional Star Trek scientist is actually based on a real life American scientist with the same name.
Paul Stamets is a Mycologist with a passion for fungi and mushrooms believing that mushrooms can one day save the world. His work focuses on finding extraordinary uses for mushrooms creating applications that seem right out of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek universe. Stamets has shown how fungi can be utilized to clean polluted soil, replacing toxic insecticides and also treating viruses. Paul has invented paradigm-shifting uses for fungal extracts including some that have the ability to boost immunity and fight viruses. These extracts were discovered from a rare, gnarled mushroom found in old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest which protects from small pox.
After two doctors from two pilots failed to take, it was obvious that the role of chief medical officer on the Enterprise was going to have to get a serious re-examination. DeForest Kelley had actually been at the top of Roddenberry’s short list for the position dating back to “The Cage,” but director Robert Butler suggested John Hoyt for the role of Dr Phil Boyce. By the time a second pilot was in the early stages of production, Kelley was filming the pilot of the other show that Roddenberry was working on, Police Story.
Police Story didn’t get picked up, so both Kelley and Grace Lee Whitney found themselves hired for Star Trek. Kelley would replace Paul Fix, whose Dr. Piper had failed to make much of an impression. In Leonard “Bones” McCoy, the producers, writers and directors had found the missing piece of the puzzle, a personality and character that would balance out Kirk’s commanding drive and Spock’s cool, alien detachment. Bones acted as an everyman, and his place outside of the traditional command structure meant that he could be more frank and even provide a voice for the audience on occasion.
Watching the show now, it’s remarkable how effortless Kelley’s performance looks, even by modern viewer’s standards; there’s nary a moment that isn’t pitch-perfect. His avuncular nature and friendliness were apparent on-screen and his very human reactions to the more outrageous moments of the series helped sell the unbelievable. Sadly, he wasn’t well-compensated for his sterling work, especially in the first season, when he made $800 per episode. His agent worked hard, though, and the second season’s star billing came with a hefty raise to match Nimoy’s $2,500 per installment. (Shatner was getting $5,000.)
“What I want, as a co-star, is to be counted in fully. I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve gotten at Star Trek from a parking space at the studio to an unshared dressing room, and sometimes the patience wears raw,” he said in a 1968 TV Guideinterview.
Even as Kelley was taken for granted by accountants, producers and the media — Roddenberry attempted to send him along with Nimoy and Shatner to the Today show in 1967, only to be told that he “wasn’t needed” — his reputation on the set was nothing short of stellar. Always happy to do another take, unfailingly polite to the various craftsmen around the soundstage and seldom heard complaining openly, Dee Kelley was widely considered the best-liked member of the cast, even as the series moved into film and beyond.
