Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[jeffrey]

According to Jon Povill, each night after filming Robert Wise would drink a glass of straight vodka to cope with the pressures of the production. Povil said Wise never drank in excess or to get drunk; he simply needed a way to relieve the stress of the out-of-control film.

[sylvia]

During the re-write of the final scenes, the studio executives clashed with Gene Roddenberry about the script's ending, believing that the concept of a living machine was too far-fetched. The executives consulted Asimov: if the writer decided a sentient machine was plausible, the ending could stay. Asimov loved the ending, but made one small suggestion; he felt that the use of the word "wormhole" was incorrect, and that the anomaly that the Enterprise found itself in would be more accurately called a "temporal tunnel".

[edgar]

Most of the bridge consoles, designed by Lee Cole, remained from the scrapped television series.

[javier]

The first and only film in the Star Trek film franchise to have a overture before the opening credits.

[miriam]

Paramount announced that they would be creating a new television network (which was considered as the ancestor of the fourth television network later associated with the Fox Broadcasting Company when it launched in 1986), initially operating one night a week showing Paramount television movies and a new Star Trek series about the Enterprise's second five-year mission, with most of the original Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) cast and the title "Star Trek: Phase II". It soon became clear that they could not make a go of the new network, but Paramount continued work on the new series in the hope of selling it to one of the existing networks. Paramount revisited the television network in the early 1990s when its Paramount Stations Group business assets (as part of the Viacom purchase in 1993) evolved into a joint venture with Chris-Craft Industries where UPN (United Paramount Network) was launched in 1995 - when the network was launched, a new Star Trek series (Star Trek: Voyager) was included in the program lineup. UPN ended its run in September 2006, where the CW network has became its replacement (a joint venture with CBS, former assets of UPN, and Warner Bros.).

[oscar]

The producers and the cast were very worried about their appearances after being away from Star Trek: The Original Series (1966) for ten years. Special lighting and camera tricks were used to hide the cast's aging, and William Shatner went on a near-starvation diet prior to filming. However, in all subsequent Star Trek movies, it was decided to make the aging of the crew part of the story.

[victoria]

To inform actors and series writers, Lee Cole prepared a U.S.S. Enterprise Flight Manual as a continuity guide to control functions. It was necessary for all the main cast to be familiar with control sequences at their stations as each panel was activated by touch via heat-sensitive plates.

[eli]

Although the 'pajama' style uniforms were never worn by the main actors, they were reused for the subsequent films for background characters, with subtle changes. The engineering suits were used in all of the films, up to Star Trek VI. Some of the different costumes were also reused during the filming of The Next Generation television series. A majority of the set pieces were used for decades after this film. The Klingon bridge set was turned into the transporter room of the Regula 1 space station, and a majority of the set became the photon torpedo bay area for Star Trek II, and III. That particular set would have sections used in most of the remaining films and television series.

[lonnie]

The Enterprise engine room was redesigned while keeping consistent with the theory that the interior appearance had to match the corresponding area visible in exterior views of the starship. Harold Michelson wanted the engine room to seem vast, a difficult effect to achieve on a small sound stage. To create the illusion of depth and long visible distances, the art department staff worked on designs that would utilize forced perspective; set designer Lewis Splittgerber considered the engine room the most difficult set to realize. On film, the engine room appeared hundreds of feet long, but the set was actually only forty feet (twelve meters) in length. To achieve the proper look, the floor slanted upward and narrowed, while small actors of three, four, and five feet in height were used as extras to give the appearance of being far from the camera. For "down shots" of the engineering complex, floor paintings extended the length of the warp core several stories. J.C. Backings Company created these paintings; similar backings were used to extend the length of ship hallways, and the recreation room set.

[bessie]

Uhura warns Kirk and the bridge crew that their new navigator (Ilia) is a Deltan because the Deltans are highly, sexually-advanced beings. Ilia later states that her oath of celibacy is on record because no human could survive a sexual encounter with a Deltan (with the exception of Decker, who had a past intimate relation with Ilia). Deltans produce extremely strong pheromones which cause sexual arousal in those around them. According to the novel based on the movie, the reason Sulu stands up so awkwardly is because he has an erection. (This scene is featured in the Extended Version, also called "Special Longer Version" on VHS only.)

[leo]

Originally, Captain Kirk was supposed to receive the V'Ger mission assignment in Admiral Nogura's office in Starfleet Headquarters, but that scene was scrapped from the shooting order and never filmed.

[clayton]

Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 11, manufactured by Pasadena, California custom synthesizer manufacturer Con Brio, Inc. The movie provided major publicity and was used to advertise the synthesizer, though no price was given.