How the Abandoned Star Trek: Phase II Pilot Became The Motion Picture

Series creator Gene Roddenberry was going to remake his hit show for the small screen in Star Trek: Phase II, but the studio canceled it for a movie.

Ten years after Star Trek was unceremoniously canceled by NBC, The Motion Picture hit the box office. It was a hit financially, but audiences, critics and even the cast felt the film wasn't the universe at its best. However, the hunt for a Star Trek movie was long and fraught, with the studio giving up and going back to television. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was born from the ashes of a pilot episode for the Phase II series that would've brought the Enterprise back to the small screen.

Paramount long wanted to launch its own broadcast network, which it eventually did with its failed United Paramount Network. Still, like Enterprise tried to do, the studio wanted its most profitable franchise to anchor its programming. Thus, series creator Gene Roddenberry was brought in to create Star Trek: Phase II. Other attempts to make a movie failed, like the infamous Star Trek: Planet of the Titans movie. However, the money the studio would lose starting a network compared to what could be made with a movie like Star Wars: A New Hope or Close Encounters of the Third Kind ended the show days before the pilot began filming. The story for the pilot, a script called "In Thy Image," based on a story by Alan Dean Foster, became the framework on which Star Trek: The Motion Picture was built. While fans remain divided about the movie, it was a fortunate break for Trekkies. Star Trek: Phase II was no The Next Generation, and it likely would've failed.

Star Trek: Phase II's Head Writer Was the Wrong Choice for the Show or the Movie

While Roddenberry liked the idea of a movie, he liked the idea of a TV series more. He could retain more creative control as the producer. Roddenberry believed a movie would mark the end of Star Trek. For Phase II, he took an approach like George Lucas did for the second and third movies of his original Star Wars trilogy. He would oversee the entire production, delegating writing and production tasks to others. When Paramount eventually repurposed the pilot episode as The Motion Picture, Roddenberry saw his influence reduced. Yet, it wasn't director Robert Wise he clashed most with, it was a man he hired himself.

He hired Harold Livingston, a TV writer whose series Future Cop lasted on ABC for only five episodes. He disapproved of Star Trek's "geriatric" cast and "allegorical" stories, according to The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman. Livingston "never read" the Star Trek: Phase II writers guide Roddenberry created. He believed he could create a bigger audience for the characters on his own. When Foster brought his scripts, Livingston "thought [they] were terrible" and "didn't want him to write." Everyone else disagreed, choosing "In Thy Image," about an old NASA space probe that returned to Earth wreaking havoc as the story for the film.

Paramount originally thought the low-budget movie would serve as a backdoor pilot for a new series. Livingston was brought back to make Foster's "TV story" into one worthy of the big-screen budget. Instead of working with Roddenberry, whose writing skill Livingston did not respect, he seemed to care more about fighting him than finishing the job. He quit multiple times and admitted in The Fifty-Year Mission that he didn't know how to end the thing. Who actually came up with the idea for Will Decker and Ilia to "merge" with V'Ger remains a mystery, but it was the best ending they could come up with on such short notice. Paramount presold the film and would've released it unfinished to avoid breaking the contract.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Artists Used Phase II as the Movie's Foundation

Star Trek: Phase II was nearly ready to begin production on its pilot episode when Paramount canceled it for The Motion Picture. Costumes, sets and the Enterprise redesigned by Matt Jefferies were all scrapped. A veteran director, Robert Wise was able to handle Livingston's near-constant feuds with Roddenberry. The real problem for the movie was the visual effects production. An upstart visual effects company showed Wise test footage with a potato standing in for the ship because they hadn't built it, according to The Fifty-Year Mission. Multiple people interviewed for the book noted that meeting was the only time they remembered seeing Wise actually angry. Luckily, Star Wars visual effects legends John Dykstra and Douglas Trumbull stepped in and saved the picture.

With such a tight schedule to film (and no completed script), Wise picked and chose Star Trek: Phase II's elements for his film. Xon, the new Vulcan, was left behind, while Decker and Ilia became the tragic heroes of the film. The Enterprise bridge had been redesigned with practical lights and switches to last the run of a show. Wise had it redesigned again to improve the look and reduce the functionality since this was a one-off story. He also had the designers put in the seat restraints because he thought the crew flailing about the bridge was too silly for his serious film. While Star Trek: Phase II had humor like The Original Series, Livingston and Wise wanted the movie to be deadly serious.

At the end of the film, when Dr. McCoy agrees to stay on the ship, Leonard Nimoy improvised a classic Spock line. "If Doctor McCoy is to remain on board," Spock said, "then my presence here will be essential." They told him not to do it again. Luckily, Roddenberry took Phase II leftovers for The Next Generation. The new human-intrigued Vulcan became Data. The original characterization of Ilia was reworked for Counselor Deanna Troi's character. So much of the fraught production during The Motion Picture came from the writer and director discounting the work of the artists who knew Star Trek best.