A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 1973 Filmation and Paramount Television. STAR TREK © CBS Studios Someone on Quora asked this question: In Star Trek: The Animated Series, why was Chekov replaced by an officer with three arms as the ship's navigator? In 1973, when Filmation got the contract from NBC and Paramount Television (the entity that inherited the Star Trek intellectual property after Paramount Pictures purchased Desilu in 1967) to produce Star Trek: The Animated Series , it faced one of the main issues that dogged creator/producer Gene Roddenberry when he was making the live action show: budget limitations. Television networks are nothing but penurious when it comes to paying for production costs under most circumstances. They are, after all, a business entity and not a charity ward for actors, writers, producers, and directors, and they’re only willing to shell out top dollar for proven genres and well-known talent because, in the suits’ estimation, that’s what gets the audience to park its ...

Why is  Star Trek: The Animated Series  not often spoken of or given the same recognition as the other  Star Trek  shows? Star Trek: The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek,  as it was officially marketed, has a complex history as to its canonicity within the  Star Trek  franchise. When it was created in the mid-1970s, most of the people involved in its creation treated the series as a continuation of  Star Trek: The Original Series. (TOS).  After all, it was created and executive produced by Gene Roddenberry, it featured the voices of  most  of the main cast members (including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley) except Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov), who wasn’t hired due to budget issues. (Koenig  did  participate on the writing end; he penned the script for  The Infinite Vulcan. )  Most of the scripts were written by men and women who had written episodes for the l...

On Quora, Cameron McCall asks: Which came first, Star Trek or Star Wars?  Star Trek, or as it is known today, Star Trek: The Original Series, was created by ex-pilot, World War II veteran, L.A. Police Department police officer, and television writer Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in 1964, sold to Desilu around that time, and approved for a network run on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in late 1965. It premiered (with The Man Trap ) on September 8, 1966 and ran on NBC for three seasons until its cancellation in March 1969. Star Wars began its long creative development as early as 1971, and by 1973 George Lucas, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s film school, had a first draft for a screenplay then titled The Star Wars. After shopping it around to the big studios, including Universal Pictures, he sold the script to 20th Century Fox after finally convincing Fox’s VP for Development Alan Ladd, Jr., who didn’t quite understand the story but nevertheles...

© 2006 CBS Studios. Photo Credit: StarTrek.com On November 21, 2006, 40 years and two months after the premiere of Star Trek (or, as it is now known, Star Trek: The Original Series  or TOS), CBS DVD released Star Trek: The Animated Series: The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek  (also known as TAS) , a four-disc box set that presents all 22 episodes of the NBC Saturday morning cartoon series that continued the adventures of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk. The DVDs also feature audio and text commentary (on selected episodes), a behind-the-scenes documentary, a featurette about the links between TAS and other series in the Star Trek franchise, plus a timeline of the show. TAS was created in the early 1970s by Gene Roddenberry at the request of NBC, the U.S. television network which had broadcast the original live-action Star Trek series from 1966 until its premature cancellation in 1969. In an ironic twist, the same executiv...