Robert Wise

Spock on CUE Magazine, Dec 7, 1979

/ Therese / 3 Comments

As I was sorting through some stuff in my basement, I came across this beautiful, flat cover from CUE magazine, dated Dec 7 1979. New York CUE was a weekly city entertainment guide. (You know, the analog age!) As its focus was the latest in city culture and big time movie and TV releases, it makes perfect sense that our dear Mr. Spock was on the cover! Star Trek: The Motion Picture was just about to be released and the anticipation was high!

I guess I must have bought the magazine solely for the beautiful publicity shot of Leonard Nimoy and his melting brown eyes. “Spock Has the Right Stuff” indeed. Alas, I did NOT keep the rest of the magazine! I was happy to find this cover in beautiful condition though.

My Cover (only) of the CUE magazine

Eager to read the contents of the article, I scrubbed the ‘net for a copy of the article, and fortunately, found these images on eBay. (If you’d like to bid on/buy the whole magazine, here’s the link.)

The entire article 🙂

Excellent article “Star Trekking to Hollywood” by Michael Musto. It includes quotes from Nimoy, Shatner, and Roddenberry, and Robert Wise credits his wife with saying “With no Spock, there can be no Star Trek!”

She was right at the time, of course. But I bet they never realized that this movie would launch a fleet of even newer voyages in Roddenberry’s Universe. Although at the time I was not too thrilled with the final product, in these 41 years since (!) I have found the story of ST:TMP as true to the original source material as it could have been: To explore strange new worlds , one often ends up discovering Themselves. I’m very thankful that ST:TMP was made, it gave Trek to a new generation, and marked it in the foundation of American Pop Culture.

If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend it! (just fast-forward through the overly long close ups of the Enterprise). The only thing I couldn’t get past were the jumbo onesies on the crew; so glad it was changed to something more sophisticated and flattering in Star Trek II!

There’s a bonus side bar by Daphne Davis about the other blockbuster hitting the screens that year too – The Black Hole.

My Weekly Spock: That First Trek:TMP Press Conference (1978) (Gallery)

/ Therese / 1 Comment

136740475And the band got back together! As the latest Trek movie was released the other week, I thought it would be fun to look back on the first press conference for the movie that started the series way back in March of 1978.  Here’s Leonard and company looking splendid on that happy day.  He looks so genuinely thrilled at this impromptu nearly-10 year reunion! Love that velvet blazer! Bless them All!

The Daily Scrapbook: 5/14/13 (8/1979) Progress Report: Star Trek: The Motion Picture

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Here’s today’s flashback:  From Starlog Magazine, August 1979 – the latest progress report on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  We discover here that Trek had now doubled its original budget of 15 million; mainly because special effects alone were costing 16 million, and that it was Robert Wise who was partially responsible for the look of the horrible bland polyester uniforms in the film, mainly because, as Roddenberry mentions : “…Wise kept to the idea that the uniforms should be utilitarian”  Yuck!   And for heaven’s sake, I hated that De Kelley had to wear such revealing mommy stretch pants in his first scene (with the beard).  Thank goodness the tunics covered the uniform hip-areas!  (By the way, this is the last article from my second Star Trek scrapbook! Volume III starts tomorrow!)

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The Daily Scrapbook 2/26/13 March to April 1978 –Trekkies Get their wish!

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V2-02 Here’s today’s flashback:  A smattering of articles and bits about the exciting news that Trekkies would finally get their wish; the new Star Trek movie was finally taking off!  We all waited with baited breath for more details. You can see I must have scrutinized many a magazine for clippings related to the announcement, even The Star (tabloid), for heaven’s sake! (I’ll post that one tomorrow) (God, no wonder I never had a date in High School!)  I recall the initial excitement that our hopes of a Star Trek return were coming true, but despite this, I still had a strange queasiness about it — would it be the same retooled with a ’70’s attitude?  Only time would tell.  Robert Wise, the award winning director of West Side Story and The Sound of Music was lauded as the chosen director here, and note that the movie was  was announced by future Disney President Michael Eisner. Yet in the end, it was painfully obvious that Wise wasn’t the best choice, but at this point, all that mattered to me was  that Nimoy was back, for it truly wouldn’t be Trek without him.  I was cautiously optimistic.
You’ll also notice a book club ad for a Star Trek Puzzle book, only 75 cents!