Welcome to Star Trekking — random intersections in the final frontier.
Sometimes you take a break from catching up on your technical journals and enter “Star Trek TOS displays” into a search engine and click around for a bit and suddenly you strike gold.
This is the Star Trek TOS Displays Project and I have no idea who puts it together but it is my new favorite thing. I mean, come on, look at this:
And this:
And this:
And these are just from the page about the Communications Station. There are also pages dedicated to Spock’s station and to Engineering, with more promised to be coming in the future.
I could scroll through these all day.
If you know who puts this page together, please let me know. I fear it’s been around so long that it’s likely neglected or maybe even abandoned. More scanning required.
Essentially, I’ve been thinking about Star Trek - The Motion Picture constantly since reading the first rumors about it in the pages of Starlog circa 1977.
So I’m always happy to find a new appreciation of the film.
The lingering perception of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is that it was a sluggish misstep from small screen to big, primarily because of the inevitable comparison to Star Wars. That was the initial impression, too, as it was branded with sarcastic nicknames like Star Trek: The Slow Motion Picture and The Motionless Picture, despite a box office haul that more than doubled the film’s sizable budget for the time.
The comparison to that galaxy far far away was (and is), however, demonstrably unfair, one that the original movie posters tried to face head-on with the tag line “There Is No Comparison”. It’s not only unfair on principle but, more particularly, because the two films’ ambitions were entirely different. Moviegoers went in expecting Star Wars, which is why they didn’t know what to do with a more brainy effort aspiring to be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Instead of getting George Lucas, they had to wrestle with Stanley Kubrick. The result is not only the most undervalued Star Trek voyage ever made (one that exists in its own vacuum, never to be referenced in the canon again), it’s one of the best sci-fi films ever made.
It is, to echo Mr. Spock, fascinating.
Do read the whole piece, by Jeff Huston, on his site, I Can’t Unsee That Movie.
Wish I still had this poster.
Thinking about TOS displays of course reminds me of this excellent book: Designing the Final Frontier.
Designing the Final Frontier
Welcome to Star Trekking, my attempt to share points of interest and random intersections in the final frontier. This week I finished reading a new book: Designing the Final Frontier by Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire. A tribute to Star Trek’s set decorators, art directors, and prop masters, the book takes a detailed look at chairs, tables, lamps, and other…
I went on Twitter this week to pretend it was still the old days. And I found this cursed tweet from Thad.
Maybe Thad can find an appropriate beverage recipe in this cookbook.
It's Orion Spice Crumble Season!
Welcome to Star Trekking, my attempt to share points of interest and random intersections in the final frontier. Time to shut down the replicator, channel your inner Neelix, and take a look at the Star Trek Cookbook! As you can see, this is NOT the 1999
Until next time, LLAP.
Neil
I had that ST:TMP poster of the Enterprise on my wall in the 80s. I have no idea what happened to it during all of the moves I have made as an adult. I am right there with you, I wish I still had it. I have a special affinity for The Motion Picture as well. I saw it in the theater in December of 1979 when I was 12. After watching reruns of TOS, it was great to finally get new Trek. I had the movie on VHS, DVD, DVD Director's Cut, Blu-ray, and finally in spectacular 4K. I still watch it at least once a year. It is a shame that the era depicted has been forgotten as there was so much to explore after the events of TMP. I mean The Human Adventure was just beginning.