Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Art and Visual Effects

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Art and Visual Effects is an officially licensed reference book from Titan Books. Initially scheduled for a May 2020 release in order to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, its release was postponed due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to firstly 7 July 2020, and subsequently pushed back further to 1 September 2020.

Summary[]

from the interior dust jacket

Forty years ago, Star Trek: The Motion Picture brought Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise crew to the big screen and changed the course of the Star Trek franchise. Celebrate this landmark anniversary by discovering the visual artistry that made this an enduring science fiction classic. For the first time ever, explore archival material created by legendary Star Trek collaborators, including Robert Abel, Syd Mead, Ralph McQuarrie, Andrew Probert, and Ken Adams.

Excerpts of copyrighted sources are included for review purposes only, without any intention of infringement.

Contents[]

• Foreword by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki, p. 06
• Introduction: Aborted Launch - Planet of the Titans and Star Trek: Phase II, p. 08
• Chapter One: Warp Experiment - Bob Abel & Associates, p. 18
• Chapter Two: Refit - Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra, p. 30
• Chapter Three: The USS Enterprise - Evolving the classic Starship, p. 40
• Chapter Four: Strange New Worlds - Designing Vulcan and a new Look at Earth, p. 66
• Chapter Five: Designing V'Ger, p. 94
• Chapter Six: Inside V'Ger - The scrapped Memory Wall sequence and Spock's Space Walk, p. 116
• Chapter Seven: V'Gers's Temple - Revealing Voyager and V'Ger's Origin, p. 140
• Chapter Eight: Angle of the Attack - The Klingon Sequence, p. 160
• Chapter Nine: A Good Beginning - The continuing Evolution of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, p. 178
• About the Author and Acknowledgements, p. 192

Background information[]

• Executed as a landscape oriented hardcover coffee table book in a dust jacket, the book measures 12.3×0.9×11.1 inches, and was ready for release on its second planned release date before being postponed again, as indicated in the book's colophon.
• The delayed release of the title was put to good use however, as it afforded the authors the time to add information pertaining to the 2001 Director's Edition version of the film. Originally planned to run for 172 pages, twenty pages were therefore added to the title as eventually released.
• As already indicated by the subtitle, and contrary to previous "making-of" titles dealing with the film, this book solely deals with the film's production design and visual effects creation. In service of this goal, the book features a plethora of images from the personal collections of affiliated production staff, which were either previously unpublished or sporadically posted on a variety of mostly obscure internet blogs only.
• For the accompanying texts of the heavily illustrated book, the authors made comprehensive use of the six years earlier published reference book Return to Tomorrow - The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture with permission from its author.
• The first chapter of the book was the full, first-time ever, franchise acknowledgement of the contributions Robert Abel and his company had provided the film with, unsuccessfully as it had turned out eventually at the time. This essentially constituted the lifting of the four-decades-old gag order, the franchise had de facto imposed on any author wanting to deal with the Robert Abel subject matter in an officially licensed reference work. (see: main article)
• Susan Sackett, author of the original The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture reference book, had planned to write a companion book that dealt with the same subject matter as the 2020 title. Intended to be released as The Making of the Special Effects of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the book was cancelled in 1980 however, due to the disappointing film merchandise sales at the time. Star Trek: The Motion Picture - The Art and Visual Effects therefore became a by four decades delayed fulfillment of the wish to release such a reference book.

External links[]

• Preview at TrekMovie.com
• Review at TrekMovie.com
• Review at TrekCore