This year marks the momentous50th Anniversaryof theStar Trekfranchise, which started in 1966 with creatorGene Roddenberry’s beloved TV series. The franchise celebration will include a new big screen movieStar Trek Beyond, along with a 50th Anniversary convention in New York City later this year. Last week, a new book was published entitledThe Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek - The First 25 Yearsfrom Thomas Dunne Books, with the second volume, covering the last 25 years, debuting August 30. This book by journalistEdward Grossand television writer/producerMark A. Altmanfeatures amazing new information about plot details that didn’t quite make it into the firstStar Trekmovie, 1979’sStar Trek: The Motion Picture.
The original TV series only ran for three seasons between 1966 and 1969 before it was canceled, but reruns in syndication were bringing in huge ratings, which lead Paramount to consider the idea of bringing this franchise back on the big screen. Original series creatorGene Roddenberrywrote a script in 1975 for aStar Trekmovie, that went on to be known asThe God Thing, although it was rejected by Paramount’sBarry Diller, who was a devout Catholic.The Hollywood Reporterposted an excerpt from this new book, where authorMichael Jan Friedman, who was brought on to write a novelization ofThe God Thingthat never came to be, revealed that Kirk and his crew were essentially fighting God in this story.
“Genehad written a script for the firstStar Trek movie. Certain elements showed up inStar Trek: The Motion Picture, but most did not. So there was this mysterious script floating around that people talked about as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls. After I had written several successful Trek novels, Trek editor Dave Stern asked me to turn Gene’s efforts into a novel called The God Thing. To the best of my recollection, I received both the script and a short narrative version of it. Naturally I jumped at the chance to translate and expand it. Gene was - and still is - one of my heroes, for God’s sake, no pun intended. As he had already left the land of the living, this was a unique opportunity to collaborate with him. But when I read the material, I was dismayed. I hadn’t seen other samples of Gene’s unvarnished writing, but what I saw this time could not possibly have been his best work. It was disjointed - scenes didn’t work together, didn’t build toward anything meaningful. Kirk, Spock and McCoy didn’t seem anything like themselves. There was some mildly erotic, midlife-crisis stuff in there that didn’t serve any real purpose. In the climactic scene, Kirk had a fistfight with an alien who had assumed the image of Jesus Christ. So Kirk was slugging it out on the bridge. With Jesus.”
This excerpt from the book also features an interesting story fromStar TrekstarWilliam Shatner. The actor was shooting the seriesBarbary Coastat the Paramount lot, and just happened to run intoGene Roddenberry, while he was writing the script forThe God Thingon the same stage they shot theStar TrekTV series. Here’s what the actor had to say about his chat withGene Roddenberryon the Paramount lot.
“He was sitting in a corner, typing. I hadn’t seen him in five years. I said, ‘Gene, the series has been canceled!’ He said, ‘I know, I know the series has been canceled. I’m writing the movie!’ So I said, ‘There’s gonna be a movie? What’s it gonna be about?’ He said, ‘First of all, we have to explain how you guys got older. So what we have to do is move everybody up in a rank. You become an admiral, and the rest of the cast becomeStarfleetcommanders. One day a force comes toward Earth - might be God, might be the Devil - breaking everything in its path, except the minds of the starship commanders. So we gotta find all the original crewmen for the starship Enterprise, but first - where is Spock? He’s back on Vulcan, doing R & R; five-year mission, seven years of R & R. He swam back upstream. So we gotta go get him.’ So we get Spock, do battle, and it was a great story.”
Gene Roddenberrypassed away in 1991, and it isn’t known if there is still a copy of his script forThe God Thingin existence. Four years afterGene Roddenberrywrote that script,Star Trek: The Motion Picturewas released, which was written byHarold Livingston, based on the characters created byGene Roddenberry. We’ll never know what would have happened if Paramount had moved forward withThe God Thingas the firstStar Trekmovie, but hopefully one day the full script will surface for all to see.
