A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Over the past quarter century, the publishing world has released four editions of Michael and Denise Okuda's The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future. The first three editions were published by Simon & Schuster imprint Pocket Books, the same license holder that has produced hundreds of paperback and hardcover books based on Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Original Series since 1979.    The first edition of The Star Trek Encyclopedia was published in May of 1994, just as Star Trek: The Next Generation's seven-season run in syndication wound down. Due to the vagaries of the book's production schedule, this edition - co-written by the Okudas with Debbie Mirek - covers Star Trek: The Original Series in its entirety, the first six theatrical films, most of Star Trek: The Next Generation (but not much of Season Seven), and part of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's premiere season. This edition was published as a hardcover (which was tough to find i

Pros:  Solid script. Great performance by James Sloyan.  Gripping Cold War-style tale Cons:  A few plot holes and other minor errors Although Gene Roddenberry did not conceive  Star Trek  as a "space war" action-adventure series when he pitched it to the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) in the mid-1960s, he realized that if he wanted his show to be an outlet for socio-cultural commentary on American and world society he would need to create interstellar adversaries to his United Federation of Planets. Because in storytelling terms the Federation is a 23rd Century "America-in-futuristic-avatar," Roddenberry and the  Star Trek  writers created two different stand-ins for the now-vanished Soviet Union: the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire. a In  Star Trek: The Original Series  and its six feature film spin-offs ,  the Klingon Empire was the predominant "Soviet" stand-in, appearing in seven episodes of the 1960s TV series and s

Pros:  Gene Coon has some good ideas.  McEveety's direction. Cons:  Gene Coon has some bad ideas. Low budget look and feel. Spectre of the Gun Stardate 4385.3 (Earth Calendar Date: 2268) Episode Production Number: 056 Episode Number (aired): 61 Original Air Date: October 25, 1968 Written by Gene L. Coon (as Lee Cronin) Directed by Vincent McEveety   On Stardate 4385.3, the starship USS  Enterprise,  commanded by Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner) enters a star system inhabited by the isolated Melkotians. Its mission: to establish first contact with this cloistered civilization on behalf of the United Federation of Planets. For Kirk and the 430-strong crew of the  Enterprise,  this assignment is one of the reasons why they’re on a five-year mission to “explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.” To the xenophobic Melkotians, however, the Federation’s intrusion into their space is most unwelcome

In 1991, the  Star Trek  franchise celebrated its 25th Anniversary.  Although the feature films which starred the cast from  The Original Series (TOS)  had lost some momentum due to the lackluster performance of  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,  Paramount Pictures greenlit writer-director Nicholas Meyer’s  Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country  and scheduled its release date for early December of 1991.  Although  Star Trek VI  had a few plot points and one crossover appearance by actor Michael Dorn, the  TNG  producers came up with a clever concept: why not have an episode set in the  TNG era  that obliquely referred to the events of  The Undiscovered Country  which would star Leonard Nimoy as Spock?  For  TNG’s  executive producer Rick Berman, Gene Roddenberry’s chosen “heir” to produce  TNG  and any possible spinoffs, this idea had a lot of appeal.  An episode which featured Spock in a major way would excite the fans and give the show great ratings, while at the same time