'Star Trek: Roddenberry's Original Concept Paper'

"Fascinating" Nice find Panther. Enjoyed reading his first idea on paper. I am printing it off to send to my father in law. He should get a kick out of this.

Jim
 
Great find P! I watched the first series avidly with my Dad who admired the way this space adventure was based on a military regime but with all the escapism of a sci-fi adventure.
 
I have read most of this letter before. It's nice to be able to read the whole thing. Those who know Star Trek will recognize some of the story lines, most of these ended up on air. Capt April was only shown in The Animated Series. Of the characters in the proposal, Mr. Spock was the only one to make it to the series run, despite the objections of NBC brass. As for the "Number One" character, rumor has it that women in the test audience were offended by her.
 
Number One did make it to the pilot which was later used in regular one episode.
 
traindriver98 said:
As for the "Number One" character, rumor has it that women in the test audience were offended by her.
Click to expand...

That's no rumor; it comes directly from Gene Roddenberry. He stated explicitly that the women in the test group were much more hostile to Number One than the men, the most telling comment being, "Who does she think she is?" I know the interview in which he says this is on YouTube, because I posted it here at least once before, but I can't remember its specific title. I think it's part of the commentary to "The Cage" which can also be viewed on YouTube.


JAMES
 
Back in my nerdy years I had a paperback about the making of ST. I don't remember seeing what got posted above but there were sketches of ideas for the Enterprise, names for Spock, all kinds of fun stuff. It was fascinating.
 
aeromed202 said:
Back in my nerdy years I had a paperback about the making of ST. I don't remember seeing what got posted above but there were sketches of ideas for the Enterprise, names for Spock, all kinds of fun stuff. It was fascinating.
Click to expand...

I still fly my nerdy flag high, aeromed. The book you're talking about is The Making of Star Trek, by Stephen Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry. Another good one is The World of Star Trek, by David Gerrold. The one I wish I still had but lost is The Star Trek Concordance, by Bjo Trimble. I lent it to a friend of mine in 8th Grade, and he moved to Mississippi, with my book.

JAMES
 
I used to work with a girl that took a Star Trek college course! It was designed to take the sociological morals of each episode and generate discussion - or something like that.
 
Very interesting read. I guess by the time they got started "Enterprise"
was a more popular name than "Yorktown" for a space ship?
:ernae:
 
Eoraptor1 said:
The one I wish I still had but lost is The Star Trek Concordance, by Bjo Trimble. I lent it to a friend of mine in 8th Grade, and he moved to Mississippi, with my book.

JAMES
Click to expand...

Oh my! He's due for a good old "Klingon Beatdown" then... :ernae:
 
That show was such a ground breaking show in so many ways. They pushed barriers, and broke the mold many times...all with a very limited budget. It was awesome how they worked the pilot into 'The Menagerie' as a means of filling out their season's contract without going overbudget. I thought Mr. Nimoy's take on the pilot with the development of Spock was quite interesting. The PC world we live in now existed then and for a long time before then.

 
It's nice to see SO many "True Star Trek Fans". I thought people were loosing interest. The "Number One" character did not make it to the regular series run. She was only shown in the First Pilot, which NBC rejected. Some of that footage was latter used in the only two part episode of TOS, "The Menagerie".
 
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/Z1eFdUSnaQM?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/Z1eFdUSnaQM?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

The draft doesn´t mention anything about the guy in red shirt always having a tough day. Or whichever the color was, I haven´t seen a single episode of ST.
 
n4gix said:
Oh my! He's due for a good old "Klingon Beatdown" then... :ernae:
Click to expand...

That's unlikely. He and his brother always towered over me, even when we were little more than kids. He also once broke up a fight between me and another kid; a fight that I was definitely losing. He just grabed the other guy by the arm, and threw him, so I'll stand him the book. Now that I think about it, what I believe happened is he lost the book, and was too embarassed to tell me. Anyway, water long under the bridge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top