Star Trek’s Silver Screen Glory Was Born From Misery and Desperation

Between the first run of Star Trek in the late ’60s and the long-running film series in the ’80s, Trek languished in the ’70s, defunct. Coming to an unceremonious conclusion after three seasons, it was abandoned, living only in the heads of the hardcore fans. Along with the show and its roster of TV veterans William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley, the creator was no better off. Gene Roddenberry was Star Trek, and vice versa. By the mid-’70s, Roddenberry had exhausted every creative outlet, leaving hope of a live-action revival in limbo.

Roddenberry’s life was in shambles by 1970. A divorce left him paying a large alimony, he was burnt out by overwork, his TV ideas weren’t selling, his movie scripts were bombing, and at one time he was so hard up for cash he had to ask his old friend James Doohan (Scotty) to help him offload his boat. The dream was over. Then a sudden change in film trends saved him. Two huge factors explain how Trek survived and was given a new lease on life, which allowed it to be a cash cow: the stubbornness of Trekkies and the desperation of Paramount to exploit the space craze of 1977.

It’s a miracle that Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan, The Next Generation, or Deep Space Nine exist at all when parsing the ridiculously dysfunctional production history of the first film. The last-ditch monetization ploy resulted in an explosion of media: TV, movies, games, books, etc., the brand weathering necessary reinventions and retcons. Star Trek battled back from cancelation to forge its place in pop culture history, no thanks to its creator’s notorious lack of people skills. The universe that Roddenberry envisioned back in 1966 might have eliminated hatred, ego, and division, but behind the scenes of the space utopia, the atmosphere was one of simmering rage, clashing personalities, and backbiting.

Star Trek: The Original Series

Release Date September 8, 1966

Cast William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , Deforest Kelley , James Doohan , George Takei , Nichelle Nichols , Walter Koenig , Frank da Vinci , Eddie Paskey , Roger Holloway , Ron Veto

Seasons 3

The Star Trek Solar System Formed in the Nebula of Network TV Failure

Look magazine

None of the profitable movies we associate with Trek lore could be imagined back in 1969 when Star Trek aired its final episode on NBC. Churning out 100s of teleplays about everything from cops to Marines, sailors, and gunslingers, Roddenberry had a knack for digging deeper into subject matter, even if it provoked the ire of producers and execs. Perhaps as a vestige of his prior gigs, he initially approached his new show, Star Trek, as a kind of space western, constantly fluctuating from action adventure (chucking rocks at a man in a lizard costume) to cerebral sci-fi. Leonard Nimoy went on the record claiming he invented the “Vulcan Death Grip” out of scorn for the early scripts because he thought the idea of an advanced space-going race pistol-whipping an alien with his phaser too “archaic” and befitting a cowboy show.

Soon the show had run afoul of the network, and the writer’s best was not good enough for NBC. He was crushed. As detailed in Lance Parkin’s biography of the author, The Impossible Has Happened, Roddenberry struggled to land steady work, his TV pilots rejected and lone movie project ridiculed. “My own feeling is not to go back into television,” he once told a reporter, after his run of bad luck. “I’d like to have a series of Star Trek feature films in the theaters, like Planet of the Apes has done.” By chance, he realized that sci-fi conventions were very successful at moving merchandise, and decided it was a terrific time to milk Trek to beat back the creditors banging on his door.

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Conventions Come to the Rescue

NBC

Oddly, the first sci-fi conventions were an enormous windfall for all involved, despite the small scale. Trekkies didn’t invent the fan convention, but they deserve credit for turning it into its own ancillary side industry. Keep in mind, at this point, Nimoy and Shatner were shuffling by, releasing novelty songs, and starring in pseudo-documentaries to pay the bills. By the second annual Star Trek convention, the event grew exponentially, selling out thanks to curious Trek stars stopping by to mingle with attendees. As the concept of syndication began to build steam, the show, in all truth, had never really died.

The rabid fandom was remarkably influential, not only responsible for convincing NASA to dub their reusable space vehicle Enterprise but also staving off the first cancelation scare in 1968 through the first ever viral fan-mail lobbying campaign, notes Time magazine. Forced to return to Trek out of the threat of poverty, Roddenberry pitched the idea of a movie series to studios for years, encouraged by the grassroots reaction he witnessed. The best he got was a brief cartoon show, though he didn’t throw in the towel.

Trek was never supposed to be a movie franchise, and resigned to television and provided a modicum of control, Roddenberry wouldn’t have complained. It got promoted to movie format by a fluke; the two-hour TV pilot script was recycled for the 1979 film. A decade after the show premiered, a redo was already being shot by Paramount, actors were hired, and sets were being constructed. Star Trek: Phase II was terminated at the last second, but for Roddenberry, it was finally good news. Shatner was one of the few original cast members to sign on to the never-filmed TV reboot, with Nimoy harboring an uneasy relationship with Roddenberry from day one.

Shatner contends the demise of Phase II was a blessing in disguise. The show was going off the rails and faced an uphill battle with a new cast. Roddenberry and creative producer Harold Livingston hated each other’s guts. “Livingston makes no secret of the fact he thought Gene was a fairly lousy writer,” Shatner explained in his book Star Trek Movie Memories. Roddenberry thought Livingston was trying to shove him out of his own show. The timing of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, released within two years of Star Wars, wasn’t a coincidence.

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Boldly Going Into Financial Solvency

It was movie theaters or bust, the budget ballooning as Trek was now competing against Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The upgrade to film status was probably despite Roddenberry, not because of him, the journeyman writer ceaselessly causing headaches. Through doggedness, he spawned a universe of influential characters and stories, but along the way, he made many an enemy of writers, producers, actors, and directors. He famously angrily penned letters to Shatner trashing The Final Frontier, a film which the Cpt. Kirk actor directed and co-wrote. Shatner’s passion project turned very bittersweet knowing his friend didn’t have his back.

His scheme worked, and led to a trickle of highly-respected new shows, as the Roddenberry juggernaut was soon staking a claim in the world of TV syndication, novelizations, board games, and video games in the eighties. For Roddenberry, he could finally retire in security, knowing his legacy was etched into the annals of sci-fi forever (excluding Nemesis or the movie with the whales).

In a strange bit of history repeating itself, his first wife would later claim she deserved a piece of the Trek empire 20 years after the alimony settlement, ready to clean out the guy one more time. In a morbid way, she was the catalyst behind the film franchise, nearly bankrupting the guy at his lowest. The trajectory from the small screen to the theaters was harrowing, but its longevity is a testament to the tenacity of fans who wouldn’t let the show succumb to an ignoble finale without a fight.

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