I'm still trying to get past the Abrams boiler powered Enterprise in the reboots. Or the Discovery doing barrel rolls when using the spore drive. I sure hope they don't let Eugene destroy anymore of his fathers legacy by rebooting any of his fathers other shows with his Saturday morning cartoon special effects.
@@CaptRobau I was going to answe, but Maciek just did it right :) I think it would have aged badly, as science fiction often does. Among other problems, things quickly turn into a cliché of sorts. The whole 'Astronaut-Gods' von Daniken thing was pretty much 1970's, as the original Battlestar Galactica proved. We would probably watch it nowadays with a embarassed smile of sorts, if we were fans enough, more in acceptance rather by its own merit.
At 0:22, that shot is of the "Federation Trading Post" in New York. The guy in the t-shirt and beard (back to camera) is none other than Doug Drexler, who would become the designer of the NX 01 for ST:E (among many other accomplishments in the Trek art dept.)
@@ProjectFlashlight612 Yeah, but the way he says it it seems to be some desperate emergency maneuver that the ship probably wasn't really intended to do. If I remember correctly, his line is, "Jettison the warp drive nacelles and crack out of their with the main section if you have to!" That actually suggests just losing the nacelles themselves and keeping the rest of the ship together. Nonetheless, it was the obvious inspiration for the saucer separation scenes in two early episodes of Next Gen. They were very wise to drop all reference to to it in future episodes since the portrayed use of it, as a standard battle maneuver, was incredibly stupid.
According to "blueprints" published by if not before 1975, the TOS Enterprise ...COULD... do it, but really didn't want to. I thought I read that the sections could only be reattached at a Starbase/spacedock. Oh, though we can't consider it canon because we never saw it happen, blueprints also claim the D7 could do it (disconnecting between the boom and main hull.)
Yeah, This script, with its hackneyed "YOU were the ancient gods!" plot twist, wouldn't have stood up well in comparison with most TV episodes. =9[.]9=
TMP would use some decent editing. Because despite ugly uniforms and some painfully boring scenes, it is actually really good concept. This, not so much.
Hard pass. TMP wasn't the Trek everyone wanted but it set the stage for Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer to mostly do things right with the TOS films from then on. Sounds like a wacky film though.
Interesting- I was one of the generation of kids who first knew Star Trek in 70s reruns, and my dad took me to see TMP. I later learned about its origins in the failed Star Trek II TV series plan, but never knew about this script at all. Thanks! I'd watch this movie if it had ever been made. Though I don't thank them for the fugly new ship design.
OK- looking on it, the script does seem to straddle the line between an attempt to bring a lot of classic SF tropes into the Trek universe in one epic saga, and a hackneyed hodgepodge of just too many such tropes.
Interesting! I feel like I'm still one of the few who actually liked the movie we ultimately got, and Star Trek Titans seems more like a TV episode story arc.
WOW -- Fascinating bit of trivia that I had never known about! I knew about the scrapping of Phase II and how McQuarrie's design made its way into STD, but I didn't know about the original concept for the first movie. Personally as I get older I like The Motion Picture more and more. It moves slightly faster than 2001 a Space Odyssey, and is actually well done. To add, McQuarrie was the one who did the original concept art of Star Wars (which is largely why he was tapped to do the concept art for Star Trek). Paramount wanted to ride the coattails of the success of Star Wars and that's in part, why Phase II never got anywhere because Roddenberry didn't want an action packed Space Opera (which is why JJ Abrams Space Time Adventure Movies, and Kurtztrek are awful and not Star Trek). But to add even more, Star Wars was heavily influenced by a French Comic called "Valerian" (as in the mediocre Luc Besson movie). If you ever looked at the old 1970's styling in that comic it is all over the place in the aesthetic of Star Wars. The Movie "The Fifth Element" was actually more-so based on Valerian, rather than Star Wars, but everyone called The Fifth Element the "Star Wars of the 90's" while never actually knowing Luc Besson's connection or affinity for the comic. Early days of sci-fi were great and had so much cool crossovers!
Thanks I never heard of that script before. I think it’s got more potential than what they did with the giant space cloud idea. The poor actors had to react with awe to nothing on set, and apparently no one directed them very well, as no one knew the full story. Space cloud has good elements and I liked the Spock story of Kohlinar failure.
Well, Planet Of The Titans doesn't sound any better than ST: The Motion Picture. But, what we ultimately got was essentially a dressed up retelling of The Changeling episode from the original Star Trek series. Thankfully, Wrath of Khan came along a few years later and saved the franchise.
Different is an understatement, it would have been a crazy movie. Done right though, and it could have been interesting. I think Gene would have been a problem though because even though he is known as this big thinker, he is a too big a thinker for tv but too limited for movies. I think we would have ended up with a similar issue to TMP where he kept changing things and not always for the best. In the end, I don't know if it would have worked as you can't have a movie that is part 2001 and part action/adventure and successfully work - we haven't had one yet that could do both and that was the aim here.
Too big for TV, not big enough for film. Really good description of Gene 😀 That being said with TMP the TVness of the movie we got was also in part because of its troubled history. First it was a movie, Titans, then a TV show, Phase II and then the pilot of Phase II was redone as a movie. TWOK probably had an easier time in development 😁
I finished watching TMP last night and for the first time in my life, I REALLY enjoyed it. But I had the same thought, that they were trying to make a 2001 movie and the Trek elements that popped up here and there were incompatible.
I think all the concepts are blurred recycles of each other because Gene was a salesman who just wouldn't give up. He'd rewrite again and again, he'd pitch to Big Names with Big Money again and again. Not every component of his "vision" worked out well. Some of his ideas and meddling really stank. But I'm thankful his stubborn persistence is what kept getting Star Trek on screen.
I’m a fan of McQuarrie (by way of Star Wars) but the design for the Enterprise is odd. I would have enjoyed seeing a whole McQuarrie trek universe where that design could stand alongside other designs. It feels out of place in the trek we got, so I’d be very curious to see it within the context of its own coherent design framework.
Excellent video, Captain! That’s by far the most detailed summary of Planet of the Titans I’ve come across. Interesting how this wholly original story somehow evolved into a thinly veiled, bloated remake of “The Changeling.”
Planet of the Titans story carries a lot of mystical elements that are perhaps too powerful like time travel. All to lead to an ending that is a big flat soda. Additionally it would have taken Kirk out of a majority of the movie. Also why would Westlake turn the Enterprise over to Kirk, even if he was healed?
Seems like it was written with no thought of a possible sequel either unless you have them travel back through the wormhole somehow and back into the future again at the beginning of the next movie which would be dumb.
TMP actually seemed rather dull and plodding, almost timid. A little predictable (by today's "sophisticated" sci-fi standards). Where Nomad Has Gone Before. But it was certainly better than this Titans thing would've been. It revived Trek instead of putting it into a dead end.
First & foremost, I liked TMP. I thought it was a good movie. This would have been an interesting movie as well but for the fact that it would have ended with the Enterprise left in the distant past. It wouldn't leave the storyline open to a potential sequel.
Whether it would actually be good or not Planet of the Titans is still fascinating to me for the designs, the story and where the Trek franchise would have gone after it's release.
At the end of TMP and everything was returned to normal after V'gers return, the three Klingon ships found themselves in earth obit and attacked the Enterprise. The Enterprise was damaged and saucer separation occured. But this was ruled out by Paramount as being too costly.
Everything? If that means the Klingons came back then what about that station that was taken? And all the countless ships stations and people over the years? Would they all have appeared over earth?
As for the haters of the Ken Adam design of the Enterprise let me explain. It was designed in the mid 1970's the state of the art design criteria was sharp edged wedge shapes most of the automobile design of that era reflected that. So trying to update the design would make it look more modern. Even if you look at Star Wars-A New Hope the ships were more sharp edged and angular. Also the miniature effects were going to be supervised by Derek Meddings who produced the miniature effects for most of the Gerry Anderson shows and the James Bond movies. And the Ken Adam design had the approval of Gene Roddenberry. It would have been interesting to see the finished product.
On Titan, Kirk discovered it was Thanos who used the Infinity Stones to bring him to Titan. Thanos warned Kirk the 1st script's biggest problem was less support for follow up movies. The ship designs were too radical also.
Interesting to see various plot points lifted from this script and used in other movies and series. Saucer separation and crash landing on planet was used in Star Trek Generations. Characters with mythical gods and heroes names reach Earth to find a primitive ancient population of homo sapiens and become the inspiration for those very gods like in Battlestar Galactica.
I loved TMP. The whole V-ger thing being one of our probes was great sci-fi. The pacing was terrible for general audiences though, could have used more action. Like Blade Runner 2049, which I absolutely loved, it needed better pacing to appeal to more people. Wrath of Khan was the perfect follow up.
I think the the Star Trek Titans movie would of been too complicated. star trek TMP was too much special effects and a slow story. Th e Wrath of Khan had the right balance of special effects and story.
I don't think I care very much for the story of Planet of the Titans. I am glad it was scrapped in favor of The Motion Picture. As much as i love the work of Ralph McQuarrie, his Enterprise design is hideous.
They could have used the Titan story idea as another movie in the series. I think the Titan story should have been Star Trek V. Otherwise, it could have easily been Star Trek VII.
@@CaptRobau Just the aspect of going to a planet filled with ruins of an ancient civilization with powerful technology and the saucer separation while facing destruction to fly in and land on the planet. The circumstances leading up to and after are different, but there's enough similarities to make it feel like someone in charge was familiar with this plot at the time... Also see echoes of this in Star Trek V with the lost planet vibe, stone henge structure, and Klingon involvement as well.
I think this kind of thing happens a lot - ideas shelved or discarded, but elements used in later projects. Also, if I may, I think that you might look into slowing down a bit when presenting. I had to go back several times in order to catch everything you said. A slightly slower cadence would be extremely beneficial to your videos and widen their appeal.
Star Trek is notorious for recycling abandoned scripts and repurposing abandoned ideas. Sometimes there's a lull in the season, a drop in the budget, a shortage of material ... so they pull old junk out of the waste bin for quick rewrites. It gets confusing when games, novels, and fan films based off the "original" scripts develop things along their own diverging paths ... then "official" Trek productions steal material from these "unofficial" sources to put on screen.
the main problem with Star Trek: The Motion Picture was that it was boring to kids. I was 8 when Star Wars: A New Hope was released; me and most of my friends saw it multiple times. None of us begged our folks to let us go see ST:TMP more than once. Star Wars became a legend of science fiction film making precisely because children and young adults paid to go sit in a theatre 5-10 times to see it. As an adult I grew to appreciate ST:TMP for what it was, but I still think it's a snooze fest.
Both refit hull sep paintings were by Andrew Probert, and he did it as a storyboard suggestion for TMP (only) that when VGER dissipates at the end, it rematerializes the Klingon ships that were digitized at the beginning. They begin to attack the Enterprise, damage the sec hull, requiring a hull sep and then the saucer chases the Klingon ships into deep space; "the end". Andy told me this story and showed me this original art back in 1981.
It's interesting how so many of these younger generation people make the mistake of assuming just because someone at a studio threw out an "idea", it doesn't mean it was something that ever had any chance of actually being made. UA-cam is full of these videos of who was _going_ to "star" in something, or what they were _going_ to do, or why someone isn't hired to act, anymore...it's every bit as sad as it is laughable.
How many movies have been ruined by the studio having cold feet and course correcting? I always thought it was a more modern thing but after hearing stories about Dune, Aliens, and now this it's painfully obvious Hollywood just isn't learning from their gaffs. I like the motion picture, but compared to the rest of the series it always felt off. This Planet of the Titans sounds more accurate to the Trek formula, whether that would have been good or not is obviously up for debate but It sounds like a story I'd be interested in watching.
This would have been good in ways in a tv series. Just a thought over let's say 4 part episodes. Cliffhanger at part 2 or if in 2 parts nearly 2 hours long yup it could work. Just need more stuff obviously to happen either way.
I thought ST-The Morion Picture's plot was corny even at that time (almost on par with the initial season of Buck Rodgers). But, ST-Planet of the Titans sounds like its outside of ST cannon, and moving through a black hole is hokey, like Gilligan's Island. After "Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)" I had hoped Hollywood would have figured it out. However, to get good SiFi, it seems that you have to go to Vancouver; and, for good Fantasy, you have to go to New Zealand. // There is a big difference between a sitcom, the Science Fiction genre, and the Fantasy genre.
I have to say, I dont like those triangular ship designs. Far too clunky. The thing about the best Enterprises is that they were always very sleek, smooth and sexy.
The problem was McQuarrie had triangular ships on the brain around the time of this story idea. They worked for Star Wars but not Star Trek so much. His design for the original Battlestar Galactica was thankfully utterly different than his Star Wars work. I've never been a fan of the McQuarrie Enterprise and it still doesn't work as the Starship Pizza-Cutter in STD...
It could _almost_ pass for some kind of klingon-based or klingon-inspired starship evolution. If you squint right. Although STD mangled the klingons. So I guess squinting is a self-defeating attempt at validation.
You pose a interesting question. "Would Planet of the Titans have been a more interesting film tha TMP?" In short, no. Hypothetically more interesting? Sure. In practicality? No. Would it have been good? Debatable. The simple fact is that "Planet of the Titans" never would have been made. It has too many ships/model shots, too many locations, and too many characters. To pull it off and not be campy or look decidedly low budget, would have been cost prohibitive. The script would never have survived Paramount's budgetary analysis. The story is actually like three or four stories strung together and it would have been trimmed back to no more than two. Additionally, there is no way William Shatner's ego would have let Kirk be benched off-screen for that much of the film. He would have forced re-writes to even return which would have shifted the focus off of Spock, the Enterprise refit and the Cygnans, back to Kirk. Then it would have just been a rehash of several TOS episodes that you so easily used as placeholders during your synopsis breakdown. Lastly, that Enterprise redesign was hideous. It was even hideous on Discovery until they refit the ship with programmable matter in the third season. Even still, eagle-eyed viewers of Discovery will have noticed that they rarely do up close exterior shots of Discovery in space anymore because it just does not look good from most angles. That design barely works for Discovery and would have had the fans out with pitchforks and torches if that had been the "new" Enterprise. I do like that concept models ended up screen used though, but it has taken me a long while to warm-up to the Discovery. Even if they had made "Planet of the Titans" as described it would have been very much a product of it's time and look a lot more like "Planet of the Apes" than the "Star Trek" film franchise that began with TMP. While PoA remains a key touchpoint of Sci-fi cinema, there is no denying that it's visuals and storytelling style are painfully dated and are a barrier to entry for a lot of the modern audience. While it is very few fans favorite Star Trek film, "The Motion Picture" remains largely timeless. Yes, the costumes and hairstyles scream 1970's, but the sets, model work, visual/audio effects and story still work. In fact, like fine wine, I find myself appreciating it more and more the older I get. Live long and prosper.
I'd still love to see someone make this movie even if the story line would have made the whole series of movies afterwards a bit awkward. It would still have been worlds better than anything JJ Abrams or the current cast of pay per view reject writers and producers have come up with....just awful.
Sounds like a very busy, bloated, pretentious retelling of the Prometheus myth. I'm very fond of TMP. I'm probably the only earth human who likes it. The effects (mostly) still hold up many decades later, and the story's ending is very touching -- and romantic, given that Decker and Ilia are forever merged into a new superbeing.
As far as I know they were developing a new Star Trek series called phase 2 in the 70s when Star Wars came out. So they decided to cancele that and do a movie.
The refit Enterprise we got in TMP was definitely a nicer ship than what was envisioned here.
Definitely! I can't believe anyone actually thought that hideous concept was worth revisiting, but that's NuTrek for you.
I'm still trying to get past the Abrams boiler powered Enterprise in the reboots. Or the Discovery doing barrel rolls when using the spore drive. I sure hope they don't let Eugene destroy anymore of his fathers legacy by rebooting any of his fathers other shows with his Saturday morning cartoon special effects.
They hot-rodded the hell out of the original Enterprise
So this is where that stupid Discovery design came from.
Yes. V'ger is so interesting.
Toshiro Mifune as a Klingon would've been incredible!
I think you meant "Kringon".
ABSOLUTELY
New keyboard required dude. That was awesome.
Rotsa Ruck!! ( 1941 )
What Mifune said to Peter Cushing after throwing him off the conning tower!
I like TMP, Planet of the Titans seems more kampy, but Mifune as a Klingon would be glorious! (edit: grammar)
Yes he would have been glorious!
@@CaptRobau I was going to answe, but Maciek just did it right :)
I think it would have aged badly, as science fiction often does. Among other problems, things quickly turn into a cliché of sorts. The whole 'Astronaut-Gods' von Daniken thing was pretty much 1970's, as the original Battlestar Galactica proved.
We would probably watch it nowadays with a embarassed smile of sorts, if we were fans enough, more in acceptance rather by its own merit.
At 0:22, that shot is of the "Federation Trading Post" in New York. The guy in the t-shirt and beard (back to camera) is none other than Doug Drexler, who would become the designer of the NX 01 for ST:E (among many other accomplishments in the Trek art dept.)
Really? Interesting tidbit. Just looked for early Trek convention images.
Pretty much all those plot elements got spread around into future Trek properties. That's pretty neat.
2:14 the Saucer Seperation used to exist before Picard and it's mind boggling that they used the same place during Generations, TNG.
Kirk referred to saucer-separation during one ep of the original series but the first time it was actually shown was in the first ep of TNG.
Kirk mentions saucer separation in "'The Apple", an episode from TOS's second season.
@@ProjectFlashlight612 Yeah, but the way he says it it seems to be some desperate emergency maneuver that the ship probably wasn't really intended to do. If I remember correctly, his line is, "Jettison the warp drive nacelles and crack out of their with the main section if you have to!" That actually suggests just losing the nacelles themselves and keeping the rest of the ship together. Nonetheless, it was the obvious inspiration for the saucer separation scenes in two early episodes of Next Gen. They were very wise to drop all reference to to it in future episodes since the portrayed use of it, as a standard battle maneuver, was incredibly stupid.
According to "blueprints" published by if not before 1975, the TOS Enterprise ...COULD... do it, but really didn't want to. I thought I read that the sections could only be reattached at a Starbase/spacedock.
Oh, though we can't consider it canon because we never saw it happen, blueprints also claim the D7 could do it (disconnecting between the boom and main hull.)
I personally think the motion picture was better. And I also think it stood the test of time better than this would have.
Yeah, This script, with its hackneyed "YOU were the ancient gods!" plot twist, wouldn't have stood up well in comparison with most TV episodes. =9[.]9=
Agreed. That script fell into the trap that later TNG movies fell into. Basically a long episode.
enterprise incidents with scott and steve ua-cam.com/video/g8KBpsfEtuw/v-deo.html
I wholeheartedly agree
TMP would use some decent editing. Because despite ugly uniforms and some painfully boring scenes, it is actually really good concept. This, not so much.
Hard pass. TMP wasn't the Trek everyone wanted but it set the stage for Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer to mostly do things right with the TOS films from then on. Sounds like a wacky film though.
STD sucks.
@@StsFiveOneLima Cool. Not at all related to what they were saying though.
@@mainstreetsaint36 What else you expect from pretender, who doesn't know it is DIS, not STD?
@@StsFiveOneLima dont worry im sure you'll be fine after a course of antibiotics.
@@TheRezro call it whatever the fuck you want, the show still sucks and cbs took a dump on the franchise as a whole
Interesting- I was one of the generation of kids who first knew Star Trek in 70s reruns, and my dad took me to see TMP. I later learned about its origins in the failed Star Trek II TV series plan, but never knew about this script at all. Thanks! I'd watch this movie if it had ever been made. Though I don't thank them for the fugly new ship design.
OK- looking on it, the script does seem to straddle the line between an attempt to bring a lot of classic SF tropes into the Trek universe in one epic saga, and a hackneyed hodgepodge of just too many such tropes.
They complained of the expense yet spent 2times that much on TMP
Interesting! I feel like I'm still one of the few who actually liked the movie we ultimately got, and Star Trek Titans seems more like a TV episode story arc.
WOW -- Fascinating bit of trivia that I had never known about! I knew about the scrapping of Phase II and how McQuarrie's design made its way into STD, but I didn't know about the original concept for the first movie. Personally as I get older I like The Motion Picture more and more. It moves slightly faster than 2001 a Space Odyssey, and is actually well done.
To add, McQuarrie was the one who did the original concept art of Star Wars (which is largely why he was tapped to do the concept art for Star Trek). Paramount wanted to ride the coattails of the success of Star Wars and that's in part, why Phase II never got anywhere because Roddenberry didn't want an action packed Space Opera (which is why JJ Abrams Space Time Adventure Movies, and Kurtztrek are awful and not Star Trek).
But to add even more, Star Wars was heavily influenced by a French Comic called "Valerian" (as in the mediocre Luc Besson movie). If you ever looked at the old 1970's styling in that comic it is all over the place in the aesthetic of Star Wars. The Movie "The Fifth Element" was actually more-so based on Valerian, rather than Star Wars, but everyone called The Fifth Element the "Star Wars of the 90's" while never actually knowing Luc Besson's connection or affinity for the comic.
Early days of sci-fi were great and had so much cool crossovers!
Thanks I never heard of that script before. I think it’s got more potential than what they did with the giant space cloud idea. The poor actors had to react with awe to nothing on set, and apparently no one directed them very well, as no one knew the full story. Space cloud has good elements and I liked the Spock story of Kohlinar failure.
Well, Planet Of The Titans doesn't sound any better than ST: The Motion Picture.
But, what we ultimately got was essentially a dressed up retelling of The Changeling episode from the original Star Trek series.
Thankfully, Wrath of Khan came along a few years later and saved the franchise.
THANK YOU!!! When I saw this when it first premiered, I thought, “Wait a minute, IVE SEEN THIS BEFORE!!!” I was a bit disappointed to say the least.
We would never have had the wrath of Khan without the motion picture. Enough said.
Different is an understatement, it would have been a crazy movie. Done right though, and it could have been interesting. I think Gene would have been a problem though because even though he is known as this big thinker, he is a too big a thinker for tv but too limited for movies. I think we would have ended up with a similar issue to TMP where he kept changing things and not always for the best. In the end, I don't know if it would have worked as you can't have a movie that is part 2001 and part action/adventure and successfully work - we haven't had one yet that could do both and that was the aim here.
Too big for TV, not big enough for film.
Really good description of Gene 😀
That being said with TMP the TVness of the movie we got was also in part because of its troubled history. First it was a movie, Titans, then a TV show, Phase II and then the pilot of Phase II was redone as a movie. TWOK probably had an easier time in development 😁
I finished watching TMP last night and for the first time in my life, I REALLY enjoyed it. But I had the same thought, that they were trying to make a 2001 movie and the Trek elements that popped up here and there were incompatible.
I think all the concepts are blurred recycles of each other because Gene was a salesman who just wouldn't give up. He'd rewrite again and again, he'd pitch to Big Names with Big Money again and again.
Not every component of his "vision" worked out well. Some of his ideas and meddling really stank. But I'm thankful his stubborn persistence is what kept getting Star Trek on screen.
It’s hard to believe that McQuarrie is responsible for anything as ugly as those triangular starships. He really missed the mark with that design. 😖
I’m a fan of McQuarrie (by way of Star Wars) but the design for the Enterprise is odd. I would have enjoyed seeing a whole McQuarrie trek universe where that design could stand alongside other designs. It feels out of place in the trek we got, so I’d be very curious to see it within the context of its own coherent design framework.
Excellent video, Captain! That’s by far the most detailed summary of Planet of the Titans I’ve come across. Interesting how this wholly original story somehow evolved into a thinly veiled, bloated remake of “The Changeling.”
Would've been better as an episode. TMP is one of my favorite ST films. I know I'm an oddball
You are not alone.
Not at all.
Planet of the Titans story carries a lot of mystical elements that are perhaps too powerful like time travel. All to lead to an ending that is a big flat soda. Additionally it would have taken Kirk out of a majority of the movie. Also why would Westlake turn the Enterprise over to Kirk, even if he was healed?
Seems like it was written with no thought of a possible sequel either unless you have them travel back through the wormhole somehow and back into the future again at the beginning of the next movie which would be dumb.
Actually, after hearing what they were planning for this, I will never criticize ST:TMP again - ever.
ST: The Motion Picture wasn't great, but after a decade without Trek (not counting the animated series), it was thrilling.
TMP actually seemed rather dull and plodding, almost timid.
A little predictable (by today's "sophisticated" sci-fi standards). Where Nomad Has Gone Before.
But it was certainly better than this Titans thing would've been. It revived Trek instead of putting it into a dead end.
@@pwnmeisterage I remember thinking of Nomad when TMP first came out. Apropos of nothing, The Voyage Home is still my favorite ST movie.
First & foremost, I liked TMP. I thought it was a good movie. This would have been an interesting movie as well but for the fact that it would have ended with the Enterprise left in the distant past. It wouldn't leave the storyline open to a potential sequel.
TMP remains my favorite Trek movie, but this is a wild protoscript...I can see why it was scratched.
Whether it would actually be good or not Planet of the Titans is still fascinating to me for the designs, the story and where the Trek franchise would have gone after it's release.
I always liked TMP, probably my favorite Star Trek movie. It may have been a little slow in places but it was about exploration.
I thought that concept for the Enterprise was ugly before and I still think it is ugly now as the Discovery.
2:27 fascinating… they reused this idea for *Star Trek III* but with Spock.
I'm sure there are extraordinary elements in both rejected scripts. Only Paramount & CBS knows how much carried over...
A Klingon character played by Mifune? That would have been something special.
Thank God they changed the script
Well, Kaufman did give us a fine remake of "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers."
At the end of TMP and everything was returned to normal after V'gers return, the three Klingon ships found themselves in earth obit and attacked the Enterprise. The Enterprise was damaged and saucer separation occured. But this was ruled out by Paramount as being too costly.
Everything? If that means the Klingons came back then what about that station that was taken? And all the countless ships stations and people over the years? Would they all have appeared over earth?
As for the haters of the Ken Adam design of the Enterprise let me explain. It was designed in the mid 1970's the state of the art design criteria was sharp edged wedge shapes most of the automobile design of that era reflected that. So trying to update the design would make it look more modern. Even if you look at Star Wars-A New Hope the ships were more sharp edged and angular. Also the miniature effects were going to be supervised by Derek Meddings who produced the miniature effects for most of the Gerry Anderson shows and the James Bond movies. And the Ken Adam design had the approval of Gene Roddenberry. It would have been interesting to see the finished product.
I feel like ive just been transported to another timeline after watching this and I like it, yes planet of the Titans would have been awesome.
On Titan, Kirk discovered it was Thanos who used the Infinity Stones to bring him to Titan. Thanos warned Kirk the 1st script's biggest problem was less support for follow up movies. The ship designs were too radical also.
That ship looks like a hybrid between the Enterprise and the Imperial Star Destroyer.
Interesting to see various plot points lifted from this script and used in other movies and series.
Saucer separation and crash landing on planet was used in Star Trek Generations. Characters with mythical gods and heroes names reach Earth to find a primitive ancient population of homo sapiens and become the inspiration for those very gods like in Battlestar Galactica.
Man, I don't know if there are enough drugs to watch a film like that.
i don't know how they could have made sequels to the story as it was first envisioned, it leaves the crew in quite a corner
This was a really nice video. I like how you told the story of The Planet of The Titans.
Thank you!
I feel in the minority here but, I LOVED the concept!! This would've been really cool! PLus somehow connect vger story too
Sounds more like a three part TV mini series.
I loved TMP. The whole V-ger thing being one of our probes was great sci-fi. The pacing was terrible for general audiences though, could have used more action. Like Blade Runner 2049, which I absolutely loved, it needed better pacing to appeal to more people. Wrath of Khan was the perfect follow up.
This may have done better box office than what we got as TMP. Even though I like TMP, I agree it was a very slow moving film.
It shows again all the Star Trek projects that were scrapped. And, that can be used in upcoming Star Trek shows.
You can kind of see elements from this story in Star Trek Beyond. I wonder if Simon Pegg took some influence from this concept.
I like the Star Trek Movie we got, but I like to see this idea of Titans in future movies or the TVSeries in development.
I think the the Star Trek Titans movie would of been too complicated. star trek TMP was too much special effects and a slow story. Th e Wrath of Khan had the right balance of special effects and story.
I don't think I care very much for the story of Planet of the Titans. I am glad it was scrapped in favor of The Motion Picture. As much as i love the work of Ralph McQuarrie, his Enterprise design is hideous.
Truth be told, that first version of the script sounded really terrible. I think it was a good thing it wasn't filmed.
We need to see Gregory Westlake and this magnificent storyline in Strange New Worlds .
Ent-002 looks like one of those delta wing bombers from the late 1950s! Not a bad design, actually.
They could have used the Titan story idea as another movie in the series. I think the Titan story should have been Star Trek V. Otherwise, it could have easily been Star Trek VII.
I personally think that the movie about the Titans would’ve been better than Star Trek the motion picture was!
Am I the only one who feels like some of this was mined for Star Trek Beyond? Not in it's entirety, but at least partially.
Interesting. How so? Dont remember Beyond' s plot very well anymore.
@@CaptRobau Just the aspect of going to a planet filled with ruins of an ancient civilization with powerful technology and the saucer separation while facing destruction to fly in and land on the planet. The circumstances leading up to and after are different, but there's enough similarities to make it feel like someone in charge was familiar with this plot at the time... Also see echoes of this in Star Trek V with the lost planet vibe, stone henge structure, and Klingon involvement as well.
@@KertaDrake I get it now thanks
I think this kind of thing happens a lot - ideas shelved or discarded, but elements used in later projects.
Also, if I may, I think that you might look into slowing down a bit when presenting. I had to go back several times in order to catch everything you said. A slightly slower cadence would be extremely beneficial to your videos and widen their appeal.
Star Trek is notorious for recycling abandoned scripts and repurposing abandoned ideas. Sometimes there's a lull in the season, a drop in the budget, a shortage of material ... so they pull old junk out of the waste bin for quick rewrites.
It gets confusing when games, novels, and fan films based off the "original" scripts develop things along their own diverging paths ... then "official" Trek productions steal material from these "unofficial" sources to put on screen.
This video reminded me the crash of disc section in "Generations" and "Beyond".
This would have been a good 'one-off' movie but if we hadn't had TMP we would never have had TWOK .
the main problem with Star Trek: The Motion Picture was that it was boring to kids. I was 8 when Star Wars: A New Hope was released; me and most of my friends saw it multiple times. None of us begged our folks to let us go see ST:TMP more than once. Star Wars became a legend of science fiction film making precisely because children and young adults paid to go sit in a theatre 5-10 times to see it. As an adult I grew to appreciate ST:TMP for what it was, but I still think it's a snooze fest.
Great stuff. 2:19 Where is this gorgeous drawing of the separated engineering hull of the Enterprise Refit from?
It's concept art for Planet of the Titans. Most of the pictures are. But it's various different artists so there are multiple styles
Both refit hull sep paintings were by Andrew Probert, and he did it as a storyboard suggestion for TMP (only) that when VGER dissipates at the end, it rematerializes the Klingon ships that were digitized at the beginning. They begin to attack the Enterprise, damage the sec hull, requiring a hull sep and then the saucer chases the Klingon ships into deep space; "the end". Andy told me this story and showed me this original art back in 1981.
It's interesting how so many of these younger generation people make the mistake of assuming just because someone at a studio threw out an "idea", it doesn't mean it was something that ever had any chance of actually being made. UA-cam is full of these videos of who was _going_ to "star" in something, or what they were _going_ to do, or why someone isn't hired to act, anymore...it's every bit as sad as it is laughable.
The triangle Enterprise is such an ugly design. Glad we got the design we did.
IMHO. When you realize that TMP and the idea of Planet of the Titans is better than Jar Jar Trek and STD.
How many movies have been ruined by the studio having cold feet and course correcting? I always thought it was a more modern thing but after hearing stories about Dune, Aliens, and now this it's painfully obvious Hollywood just isn't learning from their gaffs. I like the motion picture, but compared to the rest of the series it always felt off. This Planet of the Titans sounds more accurate to the Trek formula, whether that would have been good or not is obviously up for debate but It sounds like a story I'd be interested in watching.
That movie sounded pretty dope
So Discovery actually used the precognitive death trope for Pike
Mifune! Now that would've been awesome!! 🇯🇵
TMP is a slow story with a strange aesthetic, but the soundtrack is transcendent,
It would be cool to watch this video in English!
I hope this script is released one day. What source was in the video showing the concept at?
When concept art looks better than the final product...
Hope one day "The God-Thing" novel which later became the screenplay to _The Motion Picture_ is published and released. Or, in audiobook format.
This would have been good in ways in a tv series. Just a thought over let's say 4 part episodes. Cliffhanger at part 2 or if in 2 parts nearly 2 hours long yup it could work. Just need more stuff obviously to happen either way.
The Superbrain Stonehenge would have been a b*tching name for a Prog-Rock Band!
Definitely!
I thought ST-The Morion Picture's plot was corny even at that time (almost on par with the initial season of Buck Rodgers). But, ST-Planet of the Titans sounds like its outside of ST cannon, and moving through a black hole is hokey, like Gilligan's Island. After "Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)" I had hoped Hollywood would have figured it out. However, to get good SiFi, it seems that you have to go to Vancouver; and, for good Fantasy, you have to go to New Zealand. // There is a big difference between a sitcom, the Science Fiction genre, and the Fantasy genre.
Oh look its the discovery!
Well done!!
Thank you
I would like to have seen this as Star Trek 5. Only TMP (which I love) could get us to Khaaaaaaaan!
Darn...That was a good idea for a movie.
Well I’m glad this didn’t get approved
I have to say, I dont like those triangular ship designs. Far too clunky. The thing about the best Enterprises is that they were always very sleek, smooth and sexy.
The problem was McQuarrie had triangular ships on the brain around the time of this story idea.
They worked for Star Wars but not Star Trek so much.
His design for the original Battlestar Galactica was thankfully utterly different than his Star Wars work.
I've never been a fan of the McQuarrie Enterprise and it still doesn't work as the Starship Pizza-Cutter in STD...
You know, we can in all craziness is to add another Mirror universe... :D
Yes. Love this story
Wow. I've never seen this before
The triangular ship design was just awful. That ST: Discovery used it is just one of fifty reasons that show is a disaster.
It could _almost_ pass for some kind of klingon-based or klingon-inspired starship evolution. If you squint right.
Although STD mangled the klingons. So I guess squinting is a self-defeating attempt at validation.
You pose a interesting question. "Would Planet of the Titans have been a more interesting film tha TMP?" In short, no. Hypothetically more interesting? Sure. In practicality? No. Would it have been good? Debatable.
The simple fact is that "Planet of the Titans" never would have been made. It has too many ships/model shots, too many locations, and too many characters. To pull it off and not be campy or look decidedly low budget, would have been cost prohibitive. The script would never have survived Paramount's budgetary analysis. The story is actually like three or four stories strung together and it would have been trimmed back to no more than two.
Additionally, there is no way William Shatner's ego would have let Kirk be benched off-screen for that much of the film. He would have forced re-writes to even return which would have shifted the focus off of Spock, the Enterprise refit and the Cygnans, back to Kirk. Then it would have just been a rehash of several TOS episodes that you so easily used as placeholders during your synopsis breakdown.
Lastly, that Enterprise redesign was hideous. It was even hideous on Discovery until they refit the ship with programmable matter in the third season. Even still, eagle-eyed viewers of Discovery will have noticed that they rarely do up close exterior shots of Discovery in space anymore because it just does not look good from most angles. That design barely works for Discovery and would have had the fans out with pitchforks and torches if that had been the "new" Enterprise. I do like that concept models ended up screen used though, but it has taken me a long while to warm-up to the Discovery.
Even if they had made "Planet of the Titans" as described it would have been very much a product of it's time and look a lot more like "Planet of the Apes" than the "Star Trek" film franchise that began with TMP. While PoA remains a key touchpoint of Sci-fi cinema, there is no denying that it's visuals and storytelling style are painfully dated and are a barrier to entry for a lot of the modern audience. While it is very few fans favorite Star Trek film, "The Motion Picture" remains largely timeless. Yes, the costumes and hairstyles scream 1970's, but the sets, model work, visual/audio effects and story still work. In fact, like fine wine, I find myself appreciating it more and more the older I get.
Live long and prosper.
I'd still love to see someone make this movie even if the story line would have made the whole series of movies afterwards a bit awkward. It would still have been worlds better than anything JJ Abrams or the current cast of pay per view reject writers and producers have come up with....just awful.
Roddenberry created a great future that I hope comes about. But he was one of the worst enemies of trek, He almost ruined TNG
But, was Titans going to have an 8 minute fly-around of the Enterprise?!
I would have liked to have seen "Planet of The Titans instead of a biggest longer version of "The Changeling"
Sounds like a very busy, bloated, pretentious retelling of the Prometheus myth. I'm very fond of TMP. I'm probably the only earth human who likes it. The effects (mostly) still hold up many decades later, and the story's ending is very touching -- and romantic, given that Decker and Ilia are forever merged into a new superbeing.
I nearly dropped the phone on face and found this video stopping it
TMP sounds better. Glad they walked away from PotT.
Edit: TMP and TWoK are my favorite ST movies.
Looking at the quality and depth in some of the concept art it makes me wonder why they didn't use more of it or go down that route
Wow, I like it.
Cross of Iron and Star Wars would make a great double feature...
I noticed a lot of parallels with Star Trek V: the Final Frontier
Story sounds WAY better!
Meh, I dont know. I think the first draft script would have made a good TV series episode, but its not quite up to level for a theatrical release.
As far as I know they were developing a new Star Trek series called phase 2 in the 70s when Star Wars came out. So they decided to cancele that and do a movie.