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Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Inside the Art and Visual Effects
Forty years ago, Star Trek: The Motion Picture brought Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise crew to the big screen for the first time, and forever 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, Ken Adams, and more.
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, Ken Adams, and more.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 9, 2021
This is a book I have been wondering about getting for a while - finally I decided to take the plunge partly from he growing army of favourable comments and the fact that I will be getting my bonus soon (you have to treat yourself every now and again).
Well the book itself has been quite a surprise - yes there are no end of books on the making of or the behind the special effects books but many of them are rushed through with the intention of exploiting fans eager to peek behind the curtain (to quote the great and powerful Oz).
Well that is not the case here - with the film being over 40 years old (wow that makes me feel so ancient) this book is as much the story of how it came about (from the ashes of failed projects and production failures) to the creative geniuses who pushed forward to art of special effects and the making of science fiction epics.
It feels that each page there is reference to a legend with in the industry to the fact where it feels like the writers are trying to see who and how many names they can drop. But that is not the case - what it really is - is that there were just so many famous and influential people connected to this project you just do not appreciate it - I think one comment summed it up where it mentioned taking the time to watch the end credits and see how many people where involved with the various special effects and art of the film.
So yes this book is so far more than just art and special effects - its almost acts as a witness to the creation of something that has been greatly under-estimated all this time. I have to admit that I have found a whole new appreciation and respect as a result of it.
Well the book itself has been quite a surprise - yes there are no end of books on the making of or the behind the special effects books but many of them are rushed through with the intention of exploiting fans eager to peek behind the curtain (to quote the great and powerful Oz).
Well that is not the case here - with the film being over 40 years old (wow that makes me feel so ancient) this book is as much the story of how it came about (from the ashes of failed projects and production failures) to the creative geniuses who pushed forward to art of special effects and the making of science fiction epics.
It feels that each page there is reference to a legend with in the industry to the fact where it feels like the writers are trying to see who and how many names they can drop. But that is not the case - what it really is - is that there were just so many famous and influential people connected to this project you just do not appreciate it - I think one comment summed it up where it mentioned taking the time to watch the end credits and see how many people where involved with the various special effects and art of the film.
So yes this book is so far more than just art and special effects - its almost acts as a witness to the creation of something that has been greatly under-estimated all this time. I have to admit that I have found a whole new appreciation and respect as a result of it.
April 17, 2021
This is really wonderful. In my 30+ years as a Trekkie I thought I had seen everything related to TMP but the authors and designers of this volume manage to collect an enormous amount of material that has rarely been seen before. Highly recommended.
July 8, 2021
A must read for any fan of Star Trek-The Motion Picture!
December 17, 2021
I just finished reading “Star Trek: The Motion Picture: Inside the Art & Visual Effects” (2020, Titan Books) by Jeff Bond and Gene Kozicki. I highly recommend this book for both fans of Star Trek (the 1979 film specifically) and also for aficionados of how motion picture visual special effects are made (or, at least, were made on now classic films like this).
This is a very nice “coffee table” type book with the requisite ample supply of nice big photos (conceptual art, photos of technicians creating the Enterprise, V’ger, Klingon battlecruiser, and other shooting models, pictures of the actors on set, etc.).
This is a nice history of the entire project, the art and visual effects needed to bring the first Star Trek movie to theaters (reviving the franchise and setting the visual tone for all Star Trek film and television projects to follow even to today).
Included in this history is the well known events (well known to Star Trek fans, that is) of how one visual effects studio was hired at the start of production (Jack Abel & Associates) only to be fired after not being able to produce any useable visual effects sequences on film after a year of work and after spending millions of dollars of the film’s budget.
“Star Wars” visual effects veterans Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra then had to be brought in the create nearly all of the movie’s visual effects in only six months or so (the studio having an ironclad contract with the major movie theater chains as to when the movie would come out, a date that could not be changed without losing millions of dollars in fees). Trumbull’s and Dykstra’s companies had to work around the clock shifts to get all of the work completed in time and the finished film was “still wet” as they say when delivered for the big premiere in Washington, D.C. on December 6, 1979.
The book begins, however, with how the project initially began life as an earlier film script in 1976 titled “Star Trek: Planet of the Titans” and then a planned hour long weekly television series titled “Star Trek: Phase II”. A lot of conceptual art had been created for both of these projects and actual physical studio models and interior Enterprise sets had been constructed for the television series when that idea was then scrapped in favor of a film again (thanks largely to the success of both “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”).
The level of technical detail is high enough to explain how various scenes were shot and the technical challenges that had to be overcome, but not so much as to be overwhelming to most of us readers who are laymen to the film and television visual effects trade.
Also very interesting is learning about scenes that were originally envisaged differently from what was shot and, even more so, entire sequences that were shot but weren’t used in the film (like an entire chapter about the shooting of the “Memory Wall” sequence that would have seen both Spock *and* Kirk enter into the inner chambers of the V’ger spaceship in their EVA suits and Kirk get attacked by V’ger’s defenses. Shot practically on a stage over the course of several days, the practical effects (Shatner and Nimoy hanging from wires, the “antibodies” that would swarm and cover Shatner, etc, just wasn’t working as originally envisaged. (This was while Abel was still doing the visual effects.) They decided to scrap this and when Trumbull and Dykstra took over they (I can’t remember which) decided to go in an entirely different direction, the one we see in the finished movie of only Spock entering into V’ger and witnessing its psychedelic light show.
The last chapter in the book looks at how director Robert Wise became involved in revisiting “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” for the Director’s Cut DVD release in 2001. Doing so enabled them to go back and redo some of the visual effects sequences for the DVD as they had originally been envisaged (but which they were unable to achieve in 1979 for various reasons, mostly a lack of time due to the film’s preset release date and the rush to get everything done in time).
Again, highly recommended. The authors conducted new interviews with as many of the relevant individuals as possible and quoted (with permission) from Preston Neal Jones’ book, “Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (2014) (another book that I’m still in the process of reading) for interview quotes with those important to the subject who are no longer living.
I checked this book out from the public library (after asking them to buy a copy) but this is one book that I will eventually have to get a copy of my own.
This is a very nice “coffee table” type book with the requisite ample supply of nice big photos (conceptual art, photos of technicians creating the Enterprise, V’ger, Klingon battlecruiser, and other shooting models, pictures of the actors on set, etc.).
This is a nice history of the entire project, the art and visual effects needed to bring the first Star Trek movie to theaters (reviving the franchise and setting the visual tone for all Star Trek film and television projects to follow even to today).
Included in this history is the well known events (well known to Star Trek fans, that is) of how one visual effects studio was hired at the start of production (Jack Abel & Associates) only to be fired after not being able to produce any useable visual effects sequences on film after a year of work and after spending millions of dollars of the film’s budget.
“Star Wars” visual effects veterans Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra then had to be brought in the create nearly all of the movie’s visual effects in only six months or so (the studio having an ironclad contract with the major movie theater chains as to when the movie would come out, a date that could not be changed without losing millions of dollars in fees). Trumbull’s and Dykstra’s companies had to work around the clock shifts to get all of the work completed in time and the finished film was “still wet” as they say when delivered for the big premiere in Washington, D.C. on December 6, 1979.
The book begins, however, with how the project initially began life as an earlier film script in 1976 titled “Star Trek: Planet of the Titans” and then a planned hour long weekly television series titled “Star Trek: Phase II”. A lot of conceptual art had been created for both of these projects and actual physical studio models and interior Enterprise sets had been constructed for the television series when that idea was then scrapped in favor of a film again (thanks largely to the success of both “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”).
The level of technical detail is high enough to explain how various scenes were shot and the technical challenges that had to be overcome, but not so much as to be overwhelming to most of us readers who are laymen to the film and television visual effects trade.
Also very interesting is learning about scenes that were originally envisaged differently from what was shot and, even more so, entire sequences that were shot but weren’t used in the film (like an entire chapter about the shooting of the “Memory Wall” sequence that would have seen both Spock *and* Kirk enter into the inner chambers of the V’ger spaceship in their EVA suits and Kirk get attacked by V’ger’s defenses. Shot practically on a stage over the course of several days, the practical effects (Shatner and Nimoy hanging from wires, the “antibodies” that would swarm and cover Shatner, etc, just wasn’t working as originally envisaged. (This was while Abel was still doing the visual effects.) They decided to scrap this and when Trumbull and Dykstra took over they (I can’t remember which) decided to go in an entirely different direction, the one we see in the finished movie of only Spock entering into V’ger and witnessing its psychedelic light show.
The last chapter in the book looks at how director Robert Wise became involved in revisiting “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” for the Director’s Cut DVD release in 2001. Doing so enabled them to go back and redo some of the visual effects sequences for the DVD as they had originally been envisaged (but which they were unable to achieve in 1979 for various reasons, mostly a lack of time due to the film’s preset release date and the rush to get everything done in time).
Again, highly recommended. The authors conducted new interviews with as many of the relevant individuals as possible and quoted (with permission) from Preston Neal Jones’ book, “Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (2014) (another book that I’m still in the process of reading) for interview quotes with those important to the subject who are no longer living.
I checked this book out from the public library (after asking them to buy a copy) but this is one book that I will eventually have to get a copy of my own.
May 23, 2021
For many people, and even among some Trekkies, the first Star Trek film is seen as molasses-slow, talky, lacking in humour and colour. That might all be true, but it's also the only Trek film that feels like a true science fiction epic from its roots to its branches. It deals in concepts like the nature of sentience, the desire to know what created us, and of course it has a massive scale and artistry - not all of which is sold well on screen, for sure. This excellent book feels like a long overdue, luxurious look at the art and special effects craftwork that went into the making of the movie, in a film where the big ideas in the story generated big ideas on the canvas and in the modelmaking studio. I learnt many facts I'd never heard before, and the book has a wealth of new photographs and spectacular art in glossy coffee-table hardback format. A must-read for fans of the movie, of which there are now a surprising number.
December 29, 2020
A gorgeous look at the visuals of Trek’s ambitious first film, and a great companion to _[Return to Tomorrow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2.... Highly recommended for TMP fans. 🖖
Almost five stars - I’d go for 4.5 if Goodreads would let me do half stars - but for some distracting typos and occasional odd organizational choices (like an early mention of the memory wall sequence without any context; for existing die-hard TMP fans it would make sense, but to a new or more casual fan, it would just be confusing). Still, only a few flaws, and a lot of beautiful artwork and photos of a landmark, if flawed, film.
Almost five stars - I’d go for 4.5 if Goodreads would let me do half stars - but for some distracting typos and occasional odd organizational choices (like an early mention of the memory wall sequence without any context; for existing die-hard TMP fans it would make sense, but to a new or more casual fan, it would just be confusing). Still, only a few flaws, and a lot of beautiful artwork and photos of a landmark, if flawed, film.
February 10, 2022
Finally, a "making-of" with excellent text to accompany the unique and interesting behind-the-scenes images. I'm really impressed with this book. And though I always liked it, I have a whole new appreciation for the FX of The Motion Picture.
Also, it's getting increasingly jarring to see pictures of old workspaces and offices where people are working WITHOUT COMPUTERS. My having this thought was especially ironic for ST:TMP since it's production featured trail-blazing, cutting-edge computer use for the time.
Also, it's getting increasingly jarring to see pictures of old workspaces and offices where people are working WITHOUT COMPUTERS. My having this thought was especially ironic for ST:TMP since it's production featured trail-blazing, cutting-edge computer use for the time.
February 13, 2022
This delightful “making of” sidesteps the potential bloat of chronicling a project as convoluted and baroque as the making of Star Trek: the Motion Picture by choosing instead to focus only on the design and special effects.
It’s a wise decision, and one that really allows the reader to appreciate the process of adapting the series to the silver screen for the first time in microcosm. The illustrations are plentiful, the anecdotes are interesting, and as always the “what if” alternatives are intriguing.
It’s a wise decision, and one that really allows the reader to appreciate the process of adapting the series to the silver screen for the first time in microcosm. The illustrations are plentiful, the anecdotes are interesting, and as always the “what if” alternatives are intriguing.
September 19, 2020
Would have been five stars, but I thought that some of the many photos were repetitive, and others were lackluster.
September 26, 2020
This is a beautifully illustrated coffee table book about the art and visual effects of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. If you are a fan of the film, as I am, then this is the book for you.
January 20, 2021
Very nitty gritty special effects discussion that went over my head, but I appreciated all the lavish illustrations and learning about how it was all achieved.
January 4, 2023
This was my favorite movie when I was 11. I'm 47 now. It's still my favorite movie.
That probably tells you more about me than the movie, but oh well.
That probably tells you more about me than the movie, but oh well.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews