Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991)

Gene Roddenberry’s novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture adapts his film story to print. He begins with a preface from Admiral Kirk, setting the novel as Kirk’s own record of events that he wrote to prevent others from mythologizing them as they have the events of the Enterprise’s five-year mission. Roddenberry then includes his own preface in which he explains his goals for Star Trek: “I always looked upon the Enterprise and its crew as my own private view of Earth and show more humanity in microcosm… During its voyages, the starship Enterprise always carried much more than mere respect and tolerance for other life forms and ideas – it carried the more positive force of love for the almost limitless variety within our universe… I have always found some hope for myself in the fact that the Enterprise crew could be so humanly fallible and yet be some of those greater things, too” (pg. x). The novel follows the plot of the film fairly faithfully, with only minor changes here and there. Using the device of Kirk intending this novel to serve as the official record of the Enterprise crew’s encounter with the entity V’ger (here spelled Vejur), Roddenberry includes the occasional footnote as notations from the other characters. Fans of Star Trek will consider this essential reading, as it was the only Trek novel that Roddenberry wrote.

The novel introduces some technologies that did not appear in the final film, such as senceiver implants that Starfleet can use to contact command officers in an emergency. Kirk similarly uses a life-size holographic display for communication. A smaller version of this appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country while the full-size technology appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Discovery, and Picard. In working to link the first film with events from the show, Roddenberry writes that the Enterprise’s refitted medical bay included “Daystrom equipment which used some of the Fabrini medical symbols which McCoy had found and Spock had translated from the writings of a ten-thousand-year-dead civilization” (pg. 63). This references the third-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.” The novel also explains that the Starfleet uniforms feature belt buckles with built-in medical scanners, called “perscan” devices, that collect medical data and securely transmit it to the respective crewmember’s medical records (pg. 64). As for warp, Roddenberry describes the environment in which the Enterprise travels at warp as hyperspace (pg. 68). He also includes some elements of Vulcan mysticism and psysical senses that only appear in this book (pg. 86). Of particular interest is a chapter from the perspective of Vejur (pgs. 148-151).

While cultural and technological descriptions offer more detail than the final film, Roddenberry’s focus on sexuality often seems jarring. Vice Admiral Lori Ciana, Kirk’s commanding officer and former lover, plays a larger role at the beginning of the story. The book also makes clear that she was the other character to die alongside Sonak in the transporter accident. Speaking of Kirk’s love interest, Roddenberry’s description of Kirk’s reaction to seeing her borders on the obscene (pg. 14). While Trek often discussed matters of sexuality, it rarely did so in such a visceral manner, while Kirk thinks of her role in Starfleet politics as branding her “a whore” (pg. 17). The scene with Ilia and her oath of celibacy remains, though Roddenberry spends more time explaining Deltan society and her affect on the male bridge crew (pgs. 52-54). In one footnote, ostensibly from Kirk, Roddenberry appears to address the fanfiction of the 1970s that shipped Kirk with Spock (pgs. 6-7). Perhaps to suggest the evolution of sexual mores, Roddenberry depicts Spock nearly walking in on two members of Enterprise crew in flagrante delicto (pg. 85) as well as Decker communing with the Ilia probe in a more physical manner, such that Doctors McCoy and Chapel must hurriedly depart (pgs. 140-142, 158), Similarly, Roddenberry describes the nudity of the probe in a manner that recalls later memes of male authors’ fumbling descriptions of female nudity (pg. 124). While the film portrayed Kirk and Decker’s rivalry as originating in Kirk’s decision to usurp Decker’s command of the refitted Enterprise, Roddenberry portrays it as a sexual rivalry (pgs. 42, 130).

Just as Star Trek: The Motion Picture awkwardly bridges the televised storytelling conventions of Star Trek: The Original Series with the subsequent films and television series, including elements that feel more in place with a hard science-fiction story examining big issues and unconcerned with pacing, Roddenberry’s novelization is tonally unique. Roddenberry appears to seek to tell a story that distills all the elements of his vision of Star Trek into a single book, adding these details in amid the actual plot of the story. It is particularly difficult to qualify his focus on sexuality in particular, as it might represent his hopes for continuing to break down cultural repression, but it also reinforces the male gaze as he only discusses male desires. Throughout its history, Star Trek has used science-fiction to discuss gender and sexuality in society, but this novel does it in a way that seems to represent fantasies rather than to encourage debate or advance the plot. That said, for all its awkwardness, this was Roddenberry’s only Star Trek novel and it is worth Trekkers taking the time to read it. show less

Have you seen the first Star Trek film? It's great, isn't it? Except for the bit with Spock and Uhura in the turbolift. That was just weird. I especially liked the bit with Sulu and the swords and—

Hmm? What's that? That was actually the eleventh Star Trek film? Now you mention it, I do recall some earlier ones. There was that one with the Borg, right? That one was fantastic. And before that they kind of alternated between being not-so-good and being not-so-bad. All the way back to Wrath of show more Khan, yeah that was a good one. And before that? It's weird, I know there was a film before that but it's like I've repressed it. Maybe if I concentrate…

Agh! Oh God! My eyes! They're bleeding! Well alright, maybe the first Star Trek film wasn't so bad that my retinas spontaneously exploded, but it was close. I think I first saw it when I was only eight or nine, and kind of liked it. I've always had a soft spot for ridiculously big objects in science fiction, and I was into astronomy at the time. These two things combine in the film's antagonist, the enigmatic V'ger. So imagine my disappointment (in the film and my younger self) when I sat down a few years later and discovered that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is in fact two hours of laborious drivel.

The book, on the other hand, is pretty good. It's a second version of the novelisation of the film. It's main conceit is the suggestion that the first novelisation, and by extension the movie itself, is the “official” version of events, and this novel is what really happened, courtesy of James T. Kirk. Mayhap that's Gene Roddenberry's way of saying he didn't like the final version of the film but was powerless against the studio that funded it, so offered this as his cut of the film. Or mayhap not. Some of the flaws of the film are still there, and not all of the new subplots are worthwhile additions to the story. But enough of them add something positive to the mixture to make a minor success of a book out a major travesty of a film. show less

This book was written right after the second season of the original show was finished, back in the 1960s. It's very interesting to see how the show has evolved over the intervening 50 years and it's also a little scary to see just how deeply ingrained misogyny was at that time.

I went for the book of the film after reading terrible reviews of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, only to find that Roddenberry has translated perfectly into prose the out of character tedium of the big screen experience. Kirk is having a mid-life crisis, Bones and Spock have to be practically forced back on board the pimped-up Enterprise, and there is some golden-haired pretender (son of Commodore 'Ahab' Decker, no less, the one who went bonkers and fired himself into the doomsday machine) show more already installed in the captain's chair. At least I was spared the figure-hugging, neutral-tone uniforms. And the plot was a strange mish-mash of two episodes from the original series - Obsession and The Changeling. Someone should have reminded Gene that you can never go home again, even when recycling old plots: the magic of the series is missing from the 'motion picture', and nobody cares about the new crew members. (Saying that, I have downloaded The Search for Spock, just in case!)

What really baited me into buying the novelisation was this quote, however - Jim! Goodbye, my ... my t'hy'la! - and the supporting footnotes about the nature of Spock and Kirk's relationship, from Roddenberry himself. The promise of some weighty introspection is not followed through, though, barring those words from Spock and the sickbay scene, where Spock finally comes around and clasps Kirk's hand. So overall a forgettable translation of the film from 'the Creator' himself. show less