'Star Trek: Roddenberry's Original Concept Paper' [Archive]

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Panther_99FS

January 30th, 2011, 05:19

Get ready for some surprises here....
--> http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_Pitch.pdf

limjack

January 30th, 2011, 09:43

"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

Roger

January 30th, 2011, 12:23

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.

txnetcop

January 31st, 2011, 04:17

Very cool! great read P!
Ted

traindriver98

January 31st, 2011, 13:01

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.

Willy

January 31st, 2011, 13:20

Number One did make it to the pilot which was later used in regular one episode.

Eoraptor1

January 31st, 2011, 14:29

As for the "Number One" character, rumor has it that women in the test audience were offended by her.

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

aeromed202

January 31st, 2011, 17:08

Eoraptor1

January 31st, 2011, 18:41

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.

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

Tom Clayton

January 31st, 2011, 19:31

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.

Eoraptor1

February 1st, 2011, 08:18

Found it! Here's that clip I mentioned. I'm pretty sure I posted this once before.

VCKkR8iQnvU (http://VCKkR8iQnvU)

JAMES

Eoraptor1

February 1st, 2011, 08:23

The video doesn't seem to be showing up for some reason. Embedding may have been disabled by Paramount or some such thing. The link is HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCKkR8iQnvU

JAMES

fsafranek

February 1st, 2011, 08:36

Very interesting read. I guess by the time they got started "Enterprise"
was a more popular name than "Yorktown" for a space ship?
:ernae:

n4gix

February 1st, 2011, 08:58

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

Oh my! He's due for a good old "Klingon Beatdown" then... :ernae:

pilottj

February 1st, 2011, 10:40

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8M8FK-CE6k

traindriver98

February 1st, 2011, 12:22

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".

wiltzei

February 3rd, 2011, 07:45

FlyingFinn

February 3rd, 2011, 10:12

Yup, it's still the redshirts that end up paying the highest price.

Eoraptor1

February 3rd, 2011, 10:25

Oh my! He's due for a good old "Klingon Beatdown" then... :ernae:

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.