Enterprising Individuals is back with an all-new season as we begin the human adventure with “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”!
Pete the Retailer of Star Wars Minute and ABCD: TOS returns to the show to discuss the film that launched Star Trek on the big screen! A mysterious and deadly probe is rapidly approaching Earth and Admiral James T. Kirk and the refit starship Enterprise are the Federation’s only hope. Can Kirk mend fences with his scattered crew and solve the riddle of V’Ger or will humanity be destroyed by the very thing it came to space to find?
“Star Trek” died in 1969, but like a lot of its dauntless characters, it refused to stay dead. The success of the Original Series in re-runs and the rising profile of sci-fi in ’70s cinema made a Trek feature possibly inevitable but practically a herculean task. How best to translate the cerebral thrills of the show into a box-office success? And would a viewing public that had become accustomed to space opera accept a film that tasked its audience to question the raison d’etre of humanity itself? On this episode, we talk about the tortuous path of the film to the screen, the sci-fi legends who midwifed its birth, what the film owes to other sci-fi blockbusters and its place n the ’70s sci-fi canon, giving the fans their moment, and what the world might look like without TMP.
We also discuss stopping at TOS, Bill Shatner and Helter Skelter, the Pevney Touch, The Book of Captain Pike, Star Trek Mad Men, “that” scene but the other scene too, shirt no pants, the David Gautreaux screw-job, 2001 DNA, Kirk Star Child, being a good Vulcan, “Thanks, Playboy!”, the OTHER blaster beam, post-Apollo optimism, and a good thing to pull out of your ass!
Where Nomad has gone before!
Follow Pete on Twitter and listen to Star Wars Minute and ABCD: TOS!
https://twitter.com/petetheretailer
https://twitter.com/starwarsminute
https://twitter.com/abcdtos
Learn the story behind your favorite Trek episodes with BackTrekking!
http://www.twitter.com/backtrekking
Merge with us on Facebook and Twitter and the Just Enough Trope Discord!
http://www.facebook.com/eistpod
http://www.twitter.com/eistpod
https://discord.gg/rUtKevDAD2
Buy us a refit on Patreon and Ko-Fi!
http://www.patreon.com/eistpod
https://ko-fi.com/E1E01M2UA
Subscribe to the show on iTunes!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/enterprising-individuals/id1113165661?mt=2