ALL SCI-FI

[bulldogtrekker]

"Return to Tomorrow" shipping this week
by Brian Drew, TrekMovie



Just in time for the film's 35th Anniversary, the long-awaited oral history of Star Trek: The Motion Picture will be released this week from author Preston Neal Jones and Creature Features Publishing. More info after the jump.

The Human Adventure begins again in TMP "Oral History" Book

There was an enormous amount of anticipation leading up to the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in December 1979. Fans had been clamoring for a new movie or show since The Original Series went off the air ten years earlier. The film was a big-budget "event" picture that promised to take Star Trek to places that wouldn't be possible on television.

What many moviegoers didn't know at the time was that the production of the film was a troubled one. Filming began before the script was finished, there were internal battles between Gene Roddenberry and writer Harold Livingston that saw multiple rewrites arrive on the set daily, and the company that was hired to do the visual effects had to be replaced late in production, causing a frantic rush to have the film ready for its release date. All of those factors, as well as several others, resulted in a film that went wildly over budget and was viewed by some as being dull and boring.

"Return to Tomorrow" is a 672-page book that will provide an oral history of the film, compiled from interviews with 60 of the film's cast and creators, conducted as The Motion Picture was being prepared for release.

The interviews include William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and the entire cast, along with director Robert Wise and writer/producer (and creator of Star Trek) Gene Roddenberry. In addition there are dozens of additional interviews with visual effect artists, illustrators, model builders and technicians. According to a press release for the book "no aspect of the film's creation is overlooked" and it also promises the "unvarnished, uncensored truth" of how the first Star Trek feature was created.

The source material for "Return to Tomorrow" was originally intended for publication by Cinefantastique magazine in 1979, and author Preston Neal Jones was given unparalleled access to the cast and crew of the film. However, owing to the late completion of the film and ambitious scope of the manuscript, it was never published — until now. According to the publisher, the entire manuscript has been "laboriously fact-checked" for release in book form.



Link to full site:
http://trekmovie.com/2014/12/08/return-to-tomorrow-shipping-this-week/

[Bud Brewster]

I know what a fan you are of all things Star Trek -- and for Star Trek: The Motion Picture especially -- so this must be really special for you, BDT!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[bulldogtrekker]

BOOK REVIEW: Return to Tomorrow
by Brian Drew, TrekMovie

(BDT:The history of the making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture) My 200th post on New All Sci-Fi)

"Each of us, at some time in our lives, turns to someone — a father, a brother, a god — and asks: Why am I here? What was I meant to be."

This scene from the Director's Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is meant to convey the existential crisis that V'Ger(and to a lesser extent Spock, Kirk, and Decker) is experiencing. The same can be said about the film itself, which was pulled in many different directions from the beginning and, due to numerous outside forces, struggled to find itself.

That struggle is brought together in vivid detail in Return to Tomorrow, an oral history of the film from author Preston Neal Jones and publisher Creature Features.

Working from an unpublished manuscript originally intended for publication in the classic SF film magazine Cinefantastique, the book is an incredibly detailed chronicle of the film's production, from it's beginnings as the pilot for the canceled Phase II series, all the way through it's harrowing post production and theatrical release. It's an extraordinary deep dive into the nuts and bolts of making an effects-driven film in the late 1970's and illustrates the unique challenges inherent in trying to revive a classic television show for the big screen. The book is an absolute treasure trove, and will appeal to both Trek and film fans alike.

Virtually all of the key players involved in the production are present, from then-Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, to Gene Roddenberry, to many of the cast and crew(the notable exceptions being visual effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull and the man he replaced, Robert Abel).

The book is presented as it was intended to be published in 1980, and as such is a remarkable snapshot of an era before Star Trek became a giant multimedia franchise, a time when all there was were three seasons of a cult tv show. There is speculation throughout the book about the film's chances, and whether potential success could portend a sequel or a new series. This complete lack of hindsight makes for a very charming read.

No aspect of the production is left unexplored — details range from the cast reaction to returning to Trek(Shatner didn't completely believe it was truly happening until he was standing on the bridge on the first day) to the ingenious way the Enterprise's "intermix chamber" effect was achieved, to the various drafts the script went through during production.

There are wonderful little nuggets, like Gene finding the new uniforms too militaristic(!), to the extraordinary cost of the main Enterprise miniature(over $1 million), to paths not taken(Gene initially wanted Ilia to survive the meld with V'Ger and return to the Enterprise). There are gems like these, both big and small, throughout the book.

Because this is a book about TMP, much of it is devoted to the film's myriad problems, particularly post production. It was clear to many people early on(including some of the actors) that Robert Abel & Associates, the FX company contracted to do the film, were in over their heads. Paramount, already laying out huge sums to Abel, resisted entreaties from Doug Trumbull to take over the work. By the time he was brought in to consult on and ultimately take over the job, months had passed, and the production had little more than one year to get the effects ready, resulting in a mad dash to meet the film's locked-in release date.

One figure who emerges as a true hero is director Robert Wise, who, with superhuman effort, made sure the Enterprise got out of dry dock. He did everything he could to make Trek into a true cinematic experience, all the while trying to hold together a very difficult production which continually resisted order(and which by the way, never had a definitive budget). Throughout the book, Wise is lauded by virtually everyone for his great skill and his extraordinary grace in dealing calmly with problems that seemed to grow bigger by the day.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I loved this book. The story contained within is as much of an odyssey as the journey the Enterprise takes in the film, and I give it my highest recommendation.

The first print run sold out, and the book has now gone to a second printing. This book is exclusively sold through Creature Features, and is not available on Amazon or any other online vendor, or in bookstores.

LINK to Creature Features:
http://creaturefeatures.com/shop/books/returntotomorrow/

LINK:
http://trekmovie.com/2015/03/18/book-review-return-to-tomorrow/#more-40242

[Bud Brewster]

An awesome post, BDT -- and worthy of being your 200th contribution to All Sci-Fi!

Your two long-sleeved All Sci-Fi T-shirts will be in the mail the first part of next week. You're gonna love 'em!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)