star trek 2 genesis

STAR TREK’s “Genesis Trilogy” Proved You Don’t Need a Plan

When people talk about influential sci-fi movie trilogies from the late ‘70s and ‘80s, they usually are thinking of Star Wars . But there was another great sci-fi trilogy of the same era, and in its own way, it’s just as solid from a storytelling standpoint as George Lucas’ original films. We’re talking about the Star Trek “Genesis Trilogy.” Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Hom e (1986). And they were a trilogy of films that were never planned that way at all.

Now, you might say “Wait a minute, weren’t there five Star Trek films in that time period??” Technically, yes there were. But Star Trek II-IV forms a complete narrative trilogy. One that just so happened to have three other films bookend it. At the core of these three films is the creation and ramifications of the Genesis Project , a device that can create life, and the death and return of Spock. Hence, the fan-given “Genesis Trilogy” label. And this trilogy structure all happened by total chance, and wasn’t at all mapped out. And yet, it remains an immensely satisfying bit of cinematic sci-fi storytelling.

Paramount Pictures

Why the Star Trek “Trilogy” Didn’t Begin with Movie One

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the first Trek feature film , came out in 1979. And it was something of a bloated, costly affair. The film had at the time an astronomical budget of $45 million, and Paramount was hoping a big-screen reunion of the original Star Trek TV series cast would be their Star Wars . Especially having a budget three times that of Lucas’ film. And although TMP disappointed most audiences and critics at the time, it did make money. Maybe not Star Wars money, but enough to justify a sequel .

But the powers-that-be at Paramount Pictures decided that a sequel would be completely different from TMP. Trek creator Gene Roddenberry , largely blamed for the creative decisions with TMP , received a “creative consultant” position, but was not allowed direct influence on the production. This allowed the studio to make the Star Trek movie they wanted to make. Something a lot more action/adventure and crowd-pleasing, and a little less ponderous.

Star Trek II : The Genesis of the “Genesis Trilogy”

Enter producer Harve Bennett , who took over the production. Coming from Paramount’s television division, he promised to produce the sequel for a much smaller $12 million budget. They reused many sets, props, and models from TMP to cut costs. Bennett commissioned five original scripts for the sequel, all of which contained very different stories. The hope was that one of these would be good enough to serve as the basis for the film.

Instead of an expensive industry veteran like Robert Wise, who directed TMP , He hired a young director named Nicholas Meyer , who came in and picked five different things he liked from each of the existing scripts. These pieces were the return of the original series villain Khan, Kirk meets his adult son, the Genesis Project, the Vulcan Lt. Saavik , and the death of Spock. In a week’s time, he combined all these elements into one cohesive script that satisfied everyone.

The Needs of the One (Spock) Outweigh the Needs of the Many

The trick was in getting Leonard Nimoy back as Spock, who swore that TMP was his Vulcan swan song. Bennett did the smart thing, and promised Nimoy a great death scene for Spock. Nimoy, as a stage actor as well as an on-screen one, couldn’t resist the prospect, and they were off to the races on the second Star Trek film. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan hit theaters on June 4, 1982.

As we know now, TWOK is Star Trek firing on all thrusters. It contains a great villain in Ricardo Montalban as Khan, a great new crew member in Kirstie Alley as Saavik, and the introduction of Kirk’s former lover Carol Marcus and their son, David. There was also an intriguing sci-fi concept at its core, the Genesis Project, a way of creating living worlds out of dead moons. Brought together with a touching death and send-off for Mr. Spock, TWOK was a huge hit with audiences and critics. Star Trek was officially back in the zeitgeist.

The Resurrection of Spock (And a Franchise)

With the success of TWOK , Nimoy was far less hesitant to play Spock again. Even though his character was dead. When he asked to direct a third film, Paramount was happy to oblige him. Instead of ignoring the death of Spock or telling some kind of prequel story, they picked up where TWOK left off. They looked for plot threads and hints from the previous film on how to bring his character back. They intentionally placed some of these hints as a storytelling “out,” and some were totally accidental. But with a bit of creative writing, Nimoy and Bennett concocted a story on how to bring Spock back.

But The Search for Spock never feels like it was anything but an organic continuation. After all, the previous film did leave Spock’s casket on the life-giving Genesis planet. It completely felt like some kind of setup for a resurrection story. But TSFS understands that if we as the audience are to get Spock back, then we have to lose several things. As Buffy the Vampire Slayer would later use to great effect when Buffy died and later resurrected, such returns from the grave come at a price. Captain Kirk loses his beloved Enterprise , his Starfleet rank, and his son David, murdered by the Klingons. But as Kirk says in the film, “If I hadn’t tried, then the cost would have been my soul.”

Bringing it Home

With TSFS another hit film, a fourth installment was a sure thing. Once again, Nimoy and Bennett delivered another crowd-pleasing hit with The Voyage Home . This time, with Nicholas Meyer back as screenwriter. After two heavy installments with much destruction and death, TVH was all about rebuilding and redemption. It was far more lighthearted, but it remembered to play off important Star Trek signifiers; time travel stories and social commentary. In this case, environmentalism . Ultimately, TVH comes to a rousing conclusion, one which is not only a fitting ending to this impromptu trilogy, but one that could have just as easily been a satisfying conclusion to the entire original Star Trek saga. It wound up being the biggest Star Trek movie hit to date.

You Don’t Always Need a Plan

Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, and Leonard Nimoy purely did all of it on the fly. These days, when a series of films disappoints fandom, they go to social media and cry about how things “didn’t have a proper plan from the start.” You see this especially when it comes to critiques of the Star Wars sequel trilogy . But it’s not just that series. We saw it with the original Matrix sequels, and shows like Lost . But planning things out meticulously isn’t always the key to success either. We’re pretty sure they planned out the ending to Game of Thrones  from day one. And that didn’t exactly please a lot of people.

The Star Trek Genesis Trilogy proves there really isn’t a rule for this kind of franchise storytelling. In the final analysis, these three films cover a metric ton of thematic ground very successfully. They deal with coming to terms with old age and death, and when to let go (and not let go). It has a through line about friendship and sacrifice, and when “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.” And they were also damned entertaining. With so many fans obsessed these days with meticulously drawn-out narrative plans for film and TV, Star Trek’s ’80s heyday proved it simply is not always a necessity.

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Star Trek's Most Ironic Weapon: The Genesis Device Explained

Here's a fun piece of trivia: when Dr. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) proposes the Genesis Device in her proposal video in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," is it accompanied by an animated simulation showing a dead moon being magically terraformed within a matter of seconds. The animated simulation, rendered by Industrial Light and Magic, was the first instance of a fully rendered CGI sequence in a feature film. According to the October 1982 issue of American Cinematographer Magazine , the Genesis simulation was originally envisioned as a more traditionally realized sequence wherein a character turns a rock into a flower. Special effects supervisor Jim Veilleux felt that something more impressive was required to capture the scope of the Genesis Device's power, and the CGI sequence was developed instead. 

The Genesis Device is one of the more magical objects to have emerged from "Star Trek." Introduced in "Star Trek II," it operates like a combination nuclear bomb and food replicator. The device can be fired at a lifeless planet, causing a massive explosion and reducing the entire planet's surface to subatomic particles. A specially programmed reconfiguration wave would then rebuild the destroyed surface into breathable air, mountains, trees, and all the other features typically found on inhabitable Class-M planets. Creating new life-sustaining planets would be a boon for the Federation, allowing them to colonize more worlds and instantaneously create more natural resources out of thin air. 

Several characters in "Star Trek II," however, note that the Genesis Device is essentially a weapon of mass destruction. If it was fired at an inhabited world, all life on its surface would be wiped out in the terraforming process. It could conceivably destroy more life than it creates. 

He tasks me

Naturally, when the vengeance-bent Khan ( Ricardo Montalbán ) steals the Genesis Device for himself, it's a moment of panic for Admiral Kirk (William Shatner). Khan doesn't say he has any sort of doomsday plan for the Genesis Device, but it's likely he'll try using it on Ceti Alpha V, the planet he was abandoned on after the events of the original "Star Trek" episode, "Space Seed" (February 16, 1967). Khan moved onto a remote, uninhabited planet with some compatriots, hoping to start a new master society. An environmental cataclysm, however, reduced Ceti Alpha V to a near-uninhabitable desert world. It's logical to assume that Khan would have restarted his own planet, but it was just as safe to assume that he could fly the device to Earth and wipe out the population on a whim. That Khan was unpredictable. 

Indeed, during the climax of "Star Trek II," he activated the Device for use as a weapon. The device exploded while on board the U.S.S. Reliant and reconfigured the ship and the matter inside the Kutara nebula into a new planet. It seems that the Genesis Device doesn't just reconfigure the surface of a planet, but creates planets wholecloth. In "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock," however, it will be revealed that the Genesis radiation is unstable, and the newly created planet begins to break down and destroy itself. It was posited in a four-book series of "Star Trek" tie-in novels by John Vornholt called "The Genesis Wave" that the reason the Genesis planet was unstable was because it formed from a nebula and not a planet's surface like intended. 

A Genesis Device wouldn't be mentioned again until the events of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" a century later. 

Backward engineering

When making "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock," the filmmakers found they suddenly had a lot of questions to answer about the Genesis Device, and screenwriter Harve Bennett once revealed what a creative conundrum the Device posed to him. In the book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years," edited by Michael A. Altman and Edward Gross, Bennett noted that nitpicking Trekkies would likely want some questions answered about Genesis. He said:

"If you end a film with a Genesis Device that can, in one poof create life where there was lifelessness, you have created an enormous story device that cannot be ignored. Now, the fans would be justified in saying, 'Well, why not just create a planet as a plot solution?' Or, 'What would happen if the Klingons got hold of this? They wouldn't use it to make a planet, they would destroy a planet.'"

Bennett knew he had to, then, erase the Genesis Device as a Plot Device. It was too grand a technology to be a regular feature of "Star Trek." He continued:

"Therefore, the final puzzle solving was the denial of the validity of the Genesis Device. That was — 'as the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away' — necessary or we would have expanded the borders of 'Star Trek,' even subliminally, that it would have had the same impact the A-bomb had on the 20th century, so as to make conventional things no longer viable. That's fine, but who needs to restructure 'Star Trek' on that basis?" 

Hence, the Genesis Planet breaking down. Instant terraforming is too powerful to address. 

It would be like, say, not addressing ship teleportation technology in a meaningful way.

The Ferengi Genesis Device

"Star Trek" is typically analytical and cautious about its technology. Not suspicious, mind you — "Trek" embraces scientific advances — but healthily wary. If a new technology is introduced into the world of "Star Trek," the beautiful eggheads and diplomats of the 23rd and 24th centuries immediately question whether it can be weaponized. If it can, then the technology needs to be more carefully developed. The Genesis Device can helpfully terraform planets, but it can also erase a planet's population. It's a Genesis Device, but also, in essence, a Revelation Device. The Alpha and the Omega simultaneously. 

In the events of the "Lower Decks" episode, "Old Friend, New Planets" (November 2, 2023), it is revealed that Nick Locarno (Robert Duncan McNeill) has come into possession of a new Genesis Device. Although it's century-old technology and was developed by the Ferengi and not the Federation, the new Genesis Device looks pretty much the same as the one from "Star Trek II." Locarno, unlike Khan, had a stated intention for his Genesis Device; he aimed to create a new planet — out of the dead world Detrion IX — where the galaxy's malcontents, the ones sick of their respective unified homeworlds, could live in isolation. The planet was to be called Locarno. Perhaps predictably, Locarno's plan to create Planet Locarno was not pulled off. 

It's notable that the Ferengi, however, are a profit-minded species who frequently work in the black market. Harve Bennett may have limited the scope of the Genesis Device, but that wouldn't stop some bad actors from developing their own. Luckily, the Ferengi Device doesn't do any meaningful harm. 

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Published Aug 1, 2022

EXCERPT: Nicholas Meyer's Wrath of Khan Interview in Star Trek: Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Special

Read the full interview with the famed writer and director, and more in the Anniversary Special, on sale tomorrow!

StarTrek.com

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the release of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan , Titan Magazines is releasing a special edition hardcover, Star Trek: The Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Special . The special in-depth book celebrates the classic trilogy of Star Trek II - IV films, The Wrath of Khan , The Search for Spock , and The Voyage Home . With classic interviews, behind-the-scenes features, and rare imagery, relive the thrills and excitement of these unforgettable movies.

The Wrath of Khan , The Search for Spock , and The Voyage Home – the Genesis Trilogy of Star Trek movies has a firm place in the hearts of Trek fans of all ages. Taking us from a deadly villain, a tragedy on the Enterprise, and to a heart-warming reunion, this special book explores the making of the classic saga. Featuring classic interviews, in-depth features and amazing imagery.

Titan Magazines

Star Trek: The Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Special is on-sale on August 2 . You can grab a copy from Amazon or Forbidden Planet .

Thanks to our friends at Titan Magazines, we have an exclusive excerpt with Nicholas Meyer below!

Nicholas Meyer enjoys telling stories, as anyone who’s read his autobiography A View From The Bridge will know. The famed writer and director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country ; and co-writer of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , cut his directorial teeth on the H.G. Wells vs. Jack the Ripper tale Time After Time , before being brought on board by Harve Bennett for The Wrath of Khan . His TV movie The Day After was the most watched in American TV history, and he continues to write and direct. Over a long lunch in Los Angeles, he reminisced about his time in the 23rd Century…

TM & © 2022 CBS. © 2022 PPC. ARR

Star Trek Magazine : When you were presented with the five different script versions of Star Trek II , was there any stage where you thought, “This could work with a few changes,” or were you always cherry-picking sections?

Nicholas Meyer: You are talking about events that happened many years ago and one has to resist the temptation, even an unconscious temptation, to engage in mythopoesis. To the best of my recollection, I was not taken with any of these drafts. I do not think I would have gone to the place I went if I had seen possibilities. Nobody said anything to me – they had all basically thrown in the towel. And that is not illusory. It was done.

Star Trek Magazine : Why did you reuse Khan, rather than create someone fresh?

Nicholas Meyer: You have to understand something about me temperamentally, and also in a way about Harve Bennett. I love recycling. I’m very big on older buildings that get redecorated: Ghirardelli Square and The Cannery in San Francisco won big architectural awards when they were refurbished. Also, you have to couple this with my abysmal ignorance of the world of Star Trek …

Star Trek Magazine : Which was an advantage coming in at that stage?

Nicholas Meyer: It may have been, but whether it was an advantage or a disadvantage, it was a reality. And the reality was I didn’t even begin to know what the possibilities for villains was in this show. The kind of artist I am, I’m better at being a rag picker and a pillager of other people’s notions and ideas and saying, “This is awfully good but…” Handel was once accused of stealing someone’s tune and he said, “Yes, I stole it – that idiot didn’t know what to do with it and I showed him.” I’m not about to call anybody an idiot, but I think that Khan was ready-made.

Also, Harve Bennett, who I think in the book I credit with a very analytical temperament, a very analytical cast of mind which I do not possess, said, “This is a very good idea for a villain. He’s one dropped shoe – they left him some place. What’s going on? The actor’s still alive.”

Star Trek Magazine : Had they approached Montalban at that stage?

Nicholas Meyer: They hadn’t approached anybody because we didn’t know what we were doing! They had nothing. The first time I ever met Bennett, he said, “Draft five is coming in,” so I went home and thought, “Great, they’ll send me draft five.” Then I woke up and it was something like three weeks later and I never heard from him. I called up and said, “What happened?” At which point he gave me his famous “My tit’s in a wringer” line. With the moribund arrival of draft five, the project was essentially dead. I speculate in the book that it was entirely possible, given how studios then worked – I don’t know if that’s how they work now, because all bets seem to be off – that they would have regrouped, gone on to another draft with another writer and tried again. It would have taken them another year, or whatever…

Star Trek Magazine : Was the world screaming for a second Star Trek movie at that point?

Nicholas Meyer: The funny thing is that the studio thought it was. They weren’t wrong. I don’t know what they would have done, or when they would have done it. But the fact that the first movie was a runaway production but nonetheless had made a substantial amount money, convinced them that even if they did it in a way that was then considered wrong, people would come out. They were very intent on trying to make another one, because they did believe there was a market; they just didn’t want to spend $45 million!

Star Trek Magazine : Ricardo Montalban dominates the screen as Khan – did you ever regret that there wasn’t a physical confrontation between Khan and Kirk in the movie?

Nicholas Meyer: No. I never gave it a thought. I know that Bill Shatner did. I thought it was cheesy. I can point to a number of films, and a number of real-life events, in which the protagonist and the antagonist never meet. It did not concern me over much. I guess I thought that that kind of confrontation with these two people, being gladiators, would be cheesy, stereotyped and familiar.

If there’s a regret I have – which I didn’t have for the first 20 years and then somebody pointed it out to me, and I thought, “There’s an interesting missed moment” – it’s that Khan never sees Kirk get away. He goes to his death believing that he succeeded. I wonder, if I’d thought of it, would I have?

I have some ambivalence about taking it away from him, but it’s very interesting that we didn’t even think of it. You play that moment earlier when he realizes that there is no override, and they can’t do anything about raising the shields. That look of consternation – how different would that have been from his look at the end? Other than the man who goes to his death believing that he’s avenged his wife.

Star Trek Magazine: When you were prepping The Wrath of Khan did you watch submarine movies?

Nicholas Meyer: You bet! I looked at The Enemy Below a lot. Robert Mitchum vs. Curt Jurgens – that’s a great flick. I looked at Run Silent, Run Deep .

Star Trek Magazine : For things to do, or things to avoid?

Nicholas Meyer: Things to do. These were movies that I loved and I wanted to see how they did it.

Star Trek Magazine : What about Khan’s original appearance in “Space Seed”?

Nicholas Meyer: Yes. That was also part of what had intrigued Harve and then he showed it to me. That was the first time that I went, “He’s a cool character,” so mysterious. For so much of it you didn’t know what the hell was going on with that guy, but you knew it wasn’t good.

Star Trek Magazine : Khan has become the gold standard for Star Trek movie villains. Did you have any idea that he would resonate for so long.

Nicholas Meyer: Truthfully, I can’t say that I predicted anything like his preeminence, or anything like the stature which has been accorded this movie as a total construct. Never. I did know as I was watching Montalban in his first scenes in the cargo bays that I was watching a very great actor, and I had had no idea. I remember thinking, as I watched him and he was breaking my heart, that he should play Lear. He made some self-deprecating comment about his accent, which I remember thinking was completely irrelevant. Notwithstanding any Hispanic inflection, his enunciation, his articulation was perfect. That’s as close as I came to realizing that Khan had a kind of Lear-like grandeur when played by this guy. The arrogance and the pain walked hand in hand.

Montalban was not typically an angry guy, not, as some actors, a “squawky bird.” He was a gentleman of a rather old-school cut. Humorous, generous, very smart in a kind of intuitive way.”

Read the full interview in Star Trek: The Genesis Trilogy Anniversary Special , on sale August 2, 2022, to read about Meyer’s experiences on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, meeting Gene Roddenberry, and working with Christopher Plummer.

Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

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Star trek 2's genesis device & picard appearance explained.

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The Star Trek: The Original Series Actor Who Played A Vulcan, Klingon & Romulan

Star wars' next movie breaks 25 years of tradition, eden review: i loved to hate ana de armas in ron howard's completely unhinged thriller [tiff].

Star Trek 's Genesis Device was a revolutionary and dangerous technology introduced in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , and a second version of Genesis appeared in Star Trek: Picard s eason 3. Created by Dr. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and her son, David Marcus (Merritt Butrick) at space station Regula I in 2285, Genesis was intended to solve problems involving overpopulation and food supply in the United Federation of Planets, but it was turned into a weapon by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán).

The Genesis Device was the MacGuffin of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and its influence was felt in the succeeding films, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage . Genesis was the first technology that turned into a deadly weapon in the Star Trek movies; the thelaron weapon used by Praetor Shinzon (Tom Hardy) in Star Trek: Nemesis and the swarm in Star Trek Beyond were all attempts to replicate what the Genesis Device was in Star Trek II . However, Genesis was originally meant as a way to help the Federation, although Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley) prophetically warned of the dangers of Genesis as soon as he learned of the device's existence in Star Trek II .

Related: Star Trek Movies Always Copy The Wrong Thing From Wrath Of Khan

The Genesis Device In Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

The Genesis Device's purpose was to transform dead moons or planets into a living world ready for colonization. Genesis utilized terraforming that turned previously uninhabitable planets into Class M worlds that replicated Earth-like conditions. After successful stage I tests on space station Regula I, Carol and David Marcus tested Genesis stage II on the Regula planetoid. Beneath the surface of Regula, the Marcuses used Genesis to create a habitat of plants and animal life. However, if Genesis was activated where life already existed, it would wipe out that life in favor of its new matrix.

Available To Stream On Paramount+

Khan Noonien Singh and his followers stole the Genesis Device as part of his plan to exact revenge on Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner). After a pitched battle between Kirk's USS Enterprise and Khan's hijacked USS Reliant in the Mutara Nebula, a desperate Khan detonated the Genesis Device to destroy Kirk. At the cost of his life, Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) repaired the damaged Enterprise warp core, allowing his starship to escape. The Genesis explosion destroyed Khan's ship, but the live-giving matrix formed a new planet in the Mutara sector, which was dubbed the Genesis Planet.

The Genesis Planet In Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

The Genesis Planet immediately became controversial, and it was made a forbidden zone until the Federation Council could determine what to do about it. The USS Grissom, with Kirk's son David Marcus aboard, was dispatched to study the Genesis Planet. Beaming down to the surface, David and Lt. Saavik (Robin Curtis) learned that Spock's body, which was launched from the Enterprise in a photon torpedo, landed safely on the Genesis Planet. Further, the planet's energies not only resurrected Spock but accelerated the Vulcan's aging. In fact, the entire planet was unstable and aging rapidly. David confessed he used protomatter in the Genesis matrix, which resulted in its dangerous instability.

Klingons led by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) sought the secrets of the Genesis Planet while Admiral Kirk stole the USS Enterprise on a mission to find Spock and reunite him with his katra, i.e. his Vulcan soul. All parties converged on the dying Genesis Planet, where Kruge killed David, and Kirk retaliated by killing the Klingon leader. The former crew of the Starship Enterprise, along with Spock and Saavik, then escaped the Genesis Planet, which exploded. On Vulcan, Spock was reunited with his katra and completed his resurrection. However, Kirk ultimately faced charges for his crimes of stealing the Enterprise and traveling to the Genesis Planet.

Related: 15 Wrath Of Khan References In Picard Season 3's Premiere

The Genesis II Device In Star Trek: Picard Season 3

A second Genesis Device appeared in Star Trek: Picard season 3. Labeled Genesis II, the technology looks identical to the original Genesis Device. Genesis II is stored in Daystrom Station's vault where Section 31 keeps the Federation's most top-secret technology and artifacts. Among Daystrom Station's other secrets are the corpses of Captain James T. Kirk and Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), which was stolen by Changelings along with a portal-making weapon, Shinzon's thelaron weapon, and a genetically modified Attack Tribble.

The existence of the Genesis II Device means that at some point after David Marcus' death, someone recreated the 23rd-century Genesis technology. It's unclear what happened to Dr. Carol Marcus after Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan so perhaps she was able to perfect the faulty Genesis matrix before the second device was impounded by Section 31. The catastrophe of the Genesis Planet likely resulted in the Federation never attempting to achieve what Dr. Marcus originally designed Genesis to do: solve overpopulation and the food crisis by terraforming planets. The Genesis II Device's existence is a secret in the 25th century, and it likely remains so despite some Starfleet Officers like Captain Worf (Michael Dorn), Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes), and Commander Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) learning of it in Star Trek: Picard season 3.

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

The peculiar thing about Spock is that, being half human and half Vulcan and therefore possessing about half the usual quota of human emotions, he consistently, if dispassionately, behaves as if he possessed very heroic human emotions indeed. He makes a choice in “Star Trek II” that would be made only by a hero, a fool, or a Vulcan. And when he makes his decision, the movie rises to one of its best scenes, because the “ Star Trek ” stories have always been best when they centered around their characters. Although I liked the special effects in the first movie, they were probably not the point; fans of the TV series wanted to see their favorite characters again, and “Trek II” understood that desire and acted on it. 

Time has passed since the last episode. Kirk has retired to an administrative post. Spock is commanding the Enterprise, with a lot of new faces in the crew. The ship is on a mission concerning the Genesis device, a new invention which, if I understand it correctly, is capable of seeding a barren planet with luxuriant life. A sister ship, the USS Reliant, is scouting for lifeless planets and finds one that seems to be dead, but its instruments pick up a small speck of life. Crew members investigate, and find the planet inhabited by an outlaw named Khan, who was exiled there years ago by Kirk, and has brooded of vengeance ever since. 

Khan is played as a cauldron of resentment by Ricardo Montalban , and his performance is so strong that he helps illustrate a general principle involving not only Star Trek but “ Star Wars ” (1977) and all the epic serials, especially the “James Bond” movies: Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph. In a curious way, Khan captures our sympathy, even though he is an evil man who introduces loathsome creatures into the ear canals of two Enterprise crew members. Montalban doesn’t overact. He plays the character as a man of deeply wounded pride, whose bond of hatred with Admiral Kirk is stronger even than his traditional villain’s desire to rule the universe. 

There is a battle in outer space in this movie, a particularly inept one that owes more to “Captain Video” than to state-of-the-art special effects. I always love it when they give us spaceships capable of leaping across the universe, and then arm them with weapons so puny that a direct hit merely blows up a few control boards and knocks people off their feet. Somehow, though, I don’t much care if the battles aren’t that amazing, because the story doesn’t depend on them. It’s about a sacrifice made by Spock, and it draws on the sentiment and audience identification developed over the years by the TV series. 

Perhaps because of that bond, and the sense that an episode may be over but the Enterprise will carry on, the movie doesn’t feel that it needs an ending in a conventional sense. The film closes with the usual “Star Trek” end narration, all about the ship’s mission and its quest, and we are obviously being set up for a sequel. You could almost argue that the last few minutes of “Trek II” are a trailer for “Trek III”, but, no, that wouldn’t be in the spirit of the Enterprise, would it?

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Genesis Device

Not to be confused with the band that launched peter gabriel's career.

The Genesis Device is a convenient plot thread: a kind of bomb, developed by Federation scientists, intended to turn uninhabitable planets into bountiful gardens. Of course, if you launch it at a planet with people (or, you know, sentient aliens) on it, you're going to wipe out the whole planet in favor of recreating Eden.

The parallels to the atomic bomb are obvious. Like Dr. Marcus and her crew, the bomb's creators believed they were doing it for a greater good: ending the Second World War successfully. And like the Genesis Device, the atomic bomb became an apocalyptic weapon with the capacity to destroy a planet.

That might be why McCoy freaks out a little bit at Spock's dispassion over the whole thing:

MCCOY: Logic! My God, the man's talking about logic! We're talking about universal Armageddon!

So we've basically got a souped-up version of the A-bomb kicking around the galaxy and in danger of falling into the hands of a genetically engineered megalomaniac. It aptly demonstrates what the road to hell is paved with…and how good concepts sometimes turn into terrifying realities.

And there's a literary tradition that covers this too, though Star Trek II never makes direct reference to it. Once upon a time, there was a doctor named Victor, who had a great notion about how to bring the dead back to life. And hey, who doesn't want that? Turns out he created a monster who ended up running amok and destroying everything he held dear.

It's a pretty good story …much like The Wrath of Khan.

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Making of the Genesis Sequence from Star Trek II (1982)

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews
• Episode aired Mar 19, 1994

When a new torpedo guidance system malfunctions, Picard and Data go chasing after it into an asteroid field, while the crew is left behind to deal with their own strange behaviors. When a new torpedo guidance system malfunctions, Picard and Data go chasing after it into an asteroid field, while the crew is left behind to deal with their own strange behaviors. When a new torpedo guidance system malfunctions, Picard and Data go chasing after it into an asteroid field, while the crew is left behind to deal with their own strange behaviors.

• Gates McFadden
• Gene Roddenberry
• Brannon Braga
• René Echevarria
• Patrick Stewart
• Jonathan Frakes
• LeVar Burton
• 27 User reviews
• 11 Critic reviews

Top cast 22

• Captain Jean-Luc Picard

• Commander William Thomas 'Will' Riker

• Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

• Lieutenant Worf

• Doctor Beverly Crusher

• Counselor Deanna Troi

• Lieutenant Commander Data

• Nurse Alyssa Ogawa

• Ensign Dern

• Enterprise Computer
• Ten Forward Waiter
• (uncredited)
• Ensign Kellogg

• Ensign Russell
• Sciences Officer
• Ensign Fletcher
• Crewman Diana Giddings
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia Barclay's final appearance on TNG. He would reappear in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and six episodes of Star Trek: Voyager (1995) .
• Goofs When Captain Picard and Data approach Counselor Troi's quarters, the door indicates "Lt Cmr Deanna Troi". She had already been promoted to Commander by this time.

[last lines]

Doctor Beverly Crusher : [about Barclay] He transformed into a spider, and now he has a disease named after him.

Counselor Deanna Troi : I think I better clear my calendar for the next few weeks.

• Connections Edited from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Booby Trap (1989)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: The Next Generation Main Title Composed by Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage

User reviews 27

• Jun 1, 2021
• March 19, 1994 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Forgotten Roddenberry: Genesis II

| November 17, 2016 | By: Mark Farinas 90 comments so far

So little has been written about Gene Roddenberry’s work outside of  Star Trek , and yet the guy produced a movie and four television pilots in the ten short years between the original  Star Trek  and  The Motion Picture . On this, the fiftieth anniversary of his most renowned creation, it’s time to reconnect with Roddenberry’s lost productions and see how they laid down the blueprint for  Star Trek’s  Next Generation.

Starting us off is Roddenberry’s first attempt at a TV show after  Star Trek , 1973’s  Genesis II  which, despite the odd roman numeral at the end, is not a sequel to anything previously produced. Apparently the pilot film did extremely well, ratings-wise, and was green-lit with several story outlines ready to be filmed. Unfortunately, CBS decided  Genesis II  allowed is not and went with a  Planet of the Apes  show instead. I find the pilot’s reported popularity very interesting because it’s not particularly great. The opening is a mixed up jumble of scenes and narration, some of the concepts are downright laughable, and the hero flip flops so often between allegiances it can be hard to keep up. To be really frank, nothing Roddenberry produced outside of Star Trek was flat out amazing, but it’s all still worth watching because they have a very Roddenberry quality about them that’s both familiar and comforting no matter how goofy things get.

Genesis II is the story of contemporary NASA scientist Dylan Hunt, here played by Alex Cord, getting trapped inside his own suspended animation experiment for 160 years. If the name Dylan Hunt sounds familiar to you it’s because it was later used for Kevin Sorbo’s character in the 2000 series  Andromeda .

Hunt sleeps in his stasis chamber until the year 2133. The earth, at this point, has experienced a massive nuclear war and is only now starting to rebuild. Hunt is accidentally woken up by a group of underground dwellers called the PAX. They are amazed to find what they believed to be a dead body still barely breathing. Like Spock telling McCoy how to replace his own brain, a half-conscious Hunt attempts to tell the PAX, through barely audible grunts, how to revive him; however, the PAX have no knowledge of medicine and can’t comply.

Fortunately one of the biological concepts that makes the xenon gas-based hibernation work is – I’m not making this up – the “need to reproduce”. Hunt grabs the shoulder of a leggy blonde PAX, played by Mariette Hartley (Zarabeth from “All Our Yesterdays”), begs her to make him “want to live”, and he soon recovers. Yes, folks, Dylan Hunt survives because he’s horny.

Hunt himself is a fury chested, mustachioed sex god, the like of which can be seen in the previous year’s  Deep Throat  and Roddenberry’s own 1971 film  Pretty Maids all In a Row . He’s the very embodiment of a man willing to screw a brave new world into submission. It’s no secret that Gene’s expression of sexuality had all the poignance and complexity of kid peaking at his dad’s Playboys. It’s splatted all over his 70’s and 80’s work including Lt. Illia’s bizarre vow of chastity in  The Motion Picture , and the various sex-comedy tweaks Gene made to first season  Next Generation  episodes like “Justice” and “The Naked Now”.

Because of this it should come as no shock that Hartley’s Lyra-a drops her robe the moment she’s alone with Hunt revealing her twin belly buttons of doom. The legend Roddenberry created around this aesthetic decision was that NBC wouldn’t allow him to show Hartley’s single navel on  Star Trek.  So when he got his chance he stuck two on her  Genesis II  character. This, of course, seems like nonsense considering there were  many ,  many ,  many ,  many  belly buttons on Star Trek.  Many . Hartley, herself,  can’t remember the incident , so I’d chalk it up to Gene creating another fantasy about his war with the censors.

Like the crew of the Enterprise, the PAX leadership, headed by Percy “Commodore Stone” Rodriguez, is a rainbow coalition of ethnicities and accents. Roddenberry’s belief in a future of racial harmony and cooperation was definitely a legitimate and heartfelt one. It’s a shame, then, that the PAX’s first issue of business is discussing whether Lyra-a can be trusted due to her being a half-breed cross between a PAX mother and a mutant from the city of Tyrania (as in “tyranny”, get it?). There’s an actual genetically reductive discussion about how her twin-naveled evil might override her human purity. “An oath means nothing to a mutant!” exclaims the Greek one. ”Her people practice deceit as a virtue!” says the Asian one.

Later on Ted Cassidy’s character, who’s violent stoicism is an obvious prototype of Lt. Worf, will be referred to as a “White Comanche” who’s very heritage makes him an “ideal warrior”. That description may work ok for you when applied to a bumpy-headed alien, but when it’s pointed at a white guy with a head band playing a Native American it just seems icky. These are some embarrassingly mixed messages from the guy whose more ardent fans consider him the most racially progressive writer to ever grace Hollywood. Gene, no doubt didn’t mean to be so tone deaf and, for me at least, his dedication to racial harmony is nothing but sincere. But if you’re going to talk about a man’s vision you’re going to have to eventually bring up his myopia.

Worst of all, Lyra-a really is an evil, mutant temptress in the same vein of many female antagonists in the Original Series. She convinces Hunt, almost solely with the power of her bare midriff, that the PAX are the villains and that he needs escape with her to the mutant’s city. Much of the discussion of Lyra-a is similar to that of Spock’s dual genetic/cultural nature, but with a lot less nuance. Her mutant side apparently drives her to trick and seduce Hunt into helping her people, but her human half just wants the love, strange love, a well-groomed NASA mustache teaches. It’s all the pain and frustration of a mixed race individual condensed into a good girl/bad girl trope.

What really sets Hunt against the PAX, however, isn’t Lyra-a’s arguments but the fact that the PAX have abandoned all their “animal lust” which they blame for the war that leveled the planet. Their civility stems from their gender egalitarian nature where men and women dress the same, talk the same, and do the same work. All this equality somehow precludes serious boning. This, unfortunately, is a common misconception that still exists today – women are sexless by nature and only through the prowess of a man will there ever be physical love. By extension, a society in which the sexes are equally respected will be bland and passionless as the male libido will be automatically repressed. So when Hunt can’t seduce his pure PAX caretaker he immediately makes a run for the mutant city of Tyrania. Again, the plot literally revolves around Hunt’s fickle pickle.

To his credit, Roddenberry, with the help of master designer William Ware Theiss, was as interested in sexually objectifying men as he was women. While the PAX have their sexless,    brown jumpsuits, everyone in Tyrania, including Dylan Hunt, struts around in barely-there togas that would make Zardoz blush. While the original  Star Trek’s  miniskirts and overly revealing dresses are impossible to defend, it should be acknowledged that William Shatner’s clean shaven chest was on display as often as could be rationalized. This attitude would continue into  Next Generation  where both the guys and the gals wore short skirts and skin tight spandex. It’s interesting to note that in  Next Gen’s  third season, as Gene’s influence waned, the skants disappeared, the alien costumes became more conservative, and only the women continued to wear tight uniforms.

After a few happy days lounging in retro-futurist Roman splendor getting his mustache trimmed and being hand fed by white-clad nymphs, Hunt starts to realize Tyrania is not all it’s cracked up to be. There is a rigid caste system and institutionalized slavery is rampant. When Hunt refuses to fix the Tyranian’s aging nuclear plant one of their luxuriously coiffed leaders attacks him with a sadomasochistic weapon called “the stim” which is capable of delivering pleasure as well as pain (again, shades of  Spock’s Brain ). He’s rescued by undercover PAX agents who are there to foster a slave revolt. Hunt agrees to help them, makes a magic weapon-sensing device, gets captured and freed again, and finally convinces the slaves to rise up and flee.

In the end Hunt tricks Lyra-a into expressing love for him by claiming his “weapon detector” is actually a “truth detector”. Because he sees her feelings are real and “human” he finally agrees to abandon his new PAX friends in order to fix the Tyranian nuclear reactor. Days go by and the PAX consider Hunt dead until he shows up at their base asking if they saw the nuclear blast he set off. Apparently, in one last act of deceit, the Tyranias actually wanted him to fix a left over nuclear warhead that was aimed at the PAX. Several technicians were killed in the blast, much to the disapproval of the PAX leadership who abhor the violence of the olden days.

Pacifism is another of Roddenberry’s core beliefs and it’s the only one that is completely immune to criticism and cynicism. When Hunt insists he did what he had to to save their bacon the PAX tell him they are all willing to give their lives before taking the lives of others no matter what the reason. The discussion is ended when the nuclear shock wave finally hits the PAX base, blowing everyone over and terrifying a group of children. The sight of the PAX children huddling in fear of what Hunt has done convinces him to only reconstitute the best achievements of his time and abandon the violence of the past for this new way of peaceful coexistence.

This is a really well earned and completely earnest moment as well as a very interesting turn for a Roddenberry hero. Kirk and Picard are civilized men who almost always have answers to the big questions. Their pontifications on humanity are legendary. Hunt is a different breed. He is the kind of savage who destroyed this world. Despite all his advanced technical knowledge it is he who will need to be civilized.

Almost all pilots are sloppy affairs. They need to create new characters, worlds, and antagonisms and often, as is the case with  Genesis II ,  in only one hour. This final moment tells me the show, no matter how flawed, would have had real potential to do something different: teach the world Roddenberry’s utopian views by learning with the lead character instead of by being preached to by him. That’s a show I’d happily watch the crap out of.

Of course, Hunt ruins the entire mood in the closing shot  by trapping a PAX woman in an elevator and  making a really gross pass at her with the line “I bet you have a great pancreas”. Nice one, Gene.

Here’s some of my stray, uncategorized thoughts and observations:

• Majel Barrett is part of the PAX leadership. She doesn’t do much, but it’s great to see her.

• “Women’s Country” is alluded to. This will come up again in the second pilot attempt for this series,  Planet Earth .

• The hyperloop style “subshuttle” that can take characters across the world in minutes is a very cool effect that must have cost a lot of the budget. You can be sure stock footage of it would have been used the same way the Enterprise was in future episodes.

• The PAX have no knowledge of medicine or medical equipment. Intravenous needles are alien to them. Percy Rodriguez is utterly shocked that Hunt wants them to “inject an alien substance into his body”. Yet their only hand weapon is a hypodermic needle that delivers a knock-out drug. This is an inconsistency that would have become harder to explain in a long running series.

• It’s also odd that the PAX are so unwilling to take a single life to protect themselves, yet they’re ok with unleashing thousands of armed, blood-thirsty slaves on the Tyranians.

• The show’s opening title font is Rude Extra Condensed Black if you’re the kind of person who cares about such things.

Up next: Spectre .

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If memory serves, the good ratings were because Star Trek was about at its peak in syndication around then, and the Roddenberry name drew in a lot of fans. Genesis II wasn’t all that good, but neither was “Encounter at Farpoint”. It could have turned into a good show if given the chance. Well, probably not. Regarding the racial insensitivity, it was a product of its time. Even the uber-liberal “M*A*S*H” had a character named “Speerchucker” at first.

Not to defend MASH, but it was about a time 30 years prior to its air date. Genesis II was written by someone who was supposed to be ahead of his time. It’s hardly a fair comparison. I’ve never been convinced by the “product of its times” argument for excusing bad ideas. In every backwards era you can find works that don’t do those things. I’d hate for people in the future to wave away our bigotry based on our current political climate.

Spearchucker is also a remnant of the original novel. And I think it jives when you consider that the book is about a bunch of entitled white guys (entitled white SURGEONS) in the 50s making sardonic observations about a world they clearly consider “theirs”. Trapper is so named — if I remember correctly — for literally trapping a girl and not letting her go until she has sex with him. We’d call that rape now, I believe. Father Mulcahey is also nicknamed “Dego Red”. It was kind of a crappy book, steeped in casual mysogny and bigotry. Which I guess helps your point, considering how homogenized the TV show became.

They called him Spearchucker because he threw javelin in college.

Re: he threw javelin in college.

There’s no pussyfooting around about it. It was because he threw javelin in college and was black.

Er, pardon my ignorance, but is “spear-chucker” a racial epithet? I (naively, perhaps) hadn’t heard that before.

Re: is “spear-chucker” a racial epithet?

Yes, scroll down:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs#S

and you’ll find it.

You must be young.

I’ve seen Genesis II in the late nineties when it was shown on the BBC. As the article says and what also my first impression was, is that it clearly had the Roddenberry traits. But also I have to say, it was pretty boring and unlike Star Trek, Genesis II has aged terribly. I wouldn’t even recommend watching it even if you are a die-hard Trek fan, I’d say watch something like Logan’s Run instead.

Logan’s Run hasn’t aged well, either. Very clearly a product of the “don’t trust anyone over 30!” generation. Only in Logan’s Run, they kill you at 30.

LR (the movie) was state of the art at the time, but has aged horribly, a combination of too much chrome, too many colors, and too much hair!

Logan’s Run (the movie) tells a timeless story and has that retro-futurism feeling that I also enjoy with TOS. :)

Let me say that I do not DISlike the LR movie or series at all, in fact Logan’s Run was the very first Blu-ray I watched when I bought a Blu player a couple of years ago. (Talk about optic shock!) I remember when I saw it in 1976 with a “lifeclock sticker” theater giveaway planted in the palm of my hand. I couldn’t go back to my film school classes and mention it without being met with laughter. Still, I enjoy watching it more than I do 90% of today’s movies.

If there was ever a time travel story set in the Motion Picture time period – Earth/Federation fashion would be indistinguishable from Logan’s run. This is demonstrated by the Earth scene in ST:TMP.

Logan’s Run won a Special Achievement Oscar for Visual Effects. That was one year before Star Wars came out.

The same year KING KONG also did, and neither deserved it. The matte shots in LOGAN had us laughing out loud opening day, the characters were like postage stamps stuck on, and there was no attempt to scale the water in the miniature city or put some kind of atmosphere in to take the edge off.Except for the great matte paintings and some practical explosions, the vfx were not at all oscar worthy.

Re: it clearly had the Roddenberry traits

It wasn’t just that. When Gene realized he was going to be allowed to actually put something called STAR TREK back on the air again, he very obviously decided that he was going to use STNG to get his shot down story ideas for GENESIS II and THE QUESTOR TAPES on the air. As Yogi Berra was prone to say, “It was deja vu all over again.”

Well chosen elements of this show along with Logan’s Run tacked

onto Star Trek Discovery could be interesting IF done with the

much needed care and adequate forethought. Thoughts on this…?

My preference was always for the second, “Planet Earth” .

Agreed, PLANET EARTH was at least kinda fun. But I flat-out love the end of QUESTOR TAPES, when the antagonist turns out to be a man of genuine ethical stature. Pure Gene Coon, there, I’m sure.

John Saxon > Alex Cord

Mark Farinas,

Re: contemplating the navel

You are forgetting STAR TREK’s whole raison d’etre, i.e. to use science-fiction to get around Broadcast Standards Department censors, and then confusing the fact that they actually succeeded in winning some battles with there being no battles to win.

The no costume titillatingly revealing a woman’s navel rule at NBC was as real as Barbara Eden’s navel covering harem costume there. Of course, what made a navel reveal titillating was in the eye of whoever was reviewing the show for BSD, and so such things were infuriatingly, arbitrarily and inconsistently applied – but that doesn’t mean the battles didn’t occur and that such inanity didn’t have to be addressed. And yes, such things as a censor finding two navels so odd as to be repugnant and thusly ruled incapable of titillating and given a pass did occur as inane as it now all seems.

FWIW, it is documented in Poe’s, aka Stephen E. Whitfield, 1968 tome, THE MAKING OF STAR TREK on page 360: “The navel is also taboo. Why the navel should be even remotely considered a sensual area is a little beyond comprehension. After all many people feel that the navel is not the most attractive thing in the world. Nevertheless, you are not supposed to show it or call undue attention to it.”

Trek’s costume designer, Bill Theiss, explains his theory of titillation there as “…the degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly dependent upon how accident-prone it appears to be.”

You have to take everything Gene has said with a grain of salt. Some of it is hyperbole, some of it is outright lying. For instance having to fight NBC to get a mixed race crew on the show. The networks were scrambling for multi-culti material at the time. I Spy, Mission Impossible, Laugh In, The Green Hornet are all Star Trek contemporaries with multiracial casts. Gene also probably lied about NBC not wanting a woman as second in command in The Cage. They were fine with it. They just didn’t like Majel’s acting. So when I see a multitude of examples of something Gene said the networks wouldn’t do with the actress herself unable to corroborate on a season Gene had a very small active role on, I tend to toss it in the “myths” pile.

Love Star Trek. Not Wild about Roddenberry

You also have to take everything the networks and their execs put out about their “reconstituted past”, as the writers Bob and Wanda Duncan put it, with just as much salt. William S. Paley comes to mind as notorious for re-spinning things to make him look good when the truth was he was behaving anything but admirably.

And again, I remind people don’t make the mistake of assuming because some 1960s Broadcast Standards Department battles were won in that something taboo aired that such taboos ended because of it, or never existed in the first place.

Except that it’s not the network who called Gene out. Most of that info comes from Herb Solow who was part of Desilu, not NBC, and Robert Justman, who was Gene’s partner all the way into TNG. Their book Star Trek: The Real Story is a very interesting read if you’re interested in a different take from people who were there.

Re: Herb Solow who was part of Desilu, not NBC

I don’t know what you are trying to peddle or what was peddled to you but Herb Solow was hired by Desilu because of his long prior employment as a program director at NBC and for his contacts engendered there.

You are wrong when you tried to infer that because Herb was employed by Desilu that he therefore did not have a very pro NBC executive view.

I have read Herb Solow. His observations for me have the very Paleyesque aesthetic, he had worked for CBS as well, of a network executive of the era which he had been.

This is not to say that either man’s view was all wrong or all right but that the truth lies somewhere between the two.

Solow’s book title makes it very clear that the two co-authors approached it with an ax to grind, which is why I feel it needs to be taken with equal quantities of salt.

And Herb was fallible. He could get things wrong. In interviews, he claimed Lucy didn’t have a funny bone in her body and couldn’t tell an off-the-cuff funny story and get a laugh to save her life. Well, I saw her on CBS’ DECADES network in a 1970s rerun of THE DICK CAVETT SHOW devoted entirely to interviewing her, and Herb was dead wrong. She might not be able to do stand up, but she could elicit laughs responding to Cavett.

Herb also claimed Gene didn’t fool NBC with the Majel/Chapel hair color change but also said that he saved Gene from being fired by Lucy because Gene had gotten away with it.

And as for Justman being Gene’s partner, well, so was Majel.

You’re comparing an opinion – Lucy isn’t funny – to a set of facts that are observable and objective. I also find that axes are ground because they need to be. There is no real reason for these two guys to go after Roddenberry if it wasn’t true. Gene was out for Gene. Everyone else would, therefore, need to be in a vast conspiracy against him – including the facts that are easy to find. I think I take a pretty measured approach to Gene, but some things are undeniable and I’ll touch on them more in later reviews. But, at this point you and I are just discussing who can dole out the best ad hominems against their sources.

Re: Gene was out for Gene

I don’t contest that. Nor do I contest that he spun things to favor himself and got some things things clearly wrong in service to that end.

I only point out that likewise Solow was out for Solow.

Let’s be honest: one couldn’t be a successful entertainment executive in the male dominated industry of the era without the facility to self-promote and spin with a healthy dose of blowing one’s own horn.

And like Gene, Herb could tell contradictory tales. Which version about Majel’s hair color recasting is accurate (Did Gene get away with it or didn’t he?) and why would Solow go to Herculean efforts to battle for Gene’s job with Lucy’s personal publicist, Howard McClay, over it when, I don’t think I’m overstating this but acknowledge the possibility in attempting to properly gauge his spin on Roddenberry and associated events, he claimed Gene was a no talent hack who had one good idea in regards to the production of the first STAR TREK series?

I was born in the 1950s and lived aware in the era of the 60s and beyond. All that I am trying to demonstrate about interpreting facts from back then is, for example, that it is a non sequitur to conclude that because I can show that some writers who claimed they were blacklisted got paychecks writing under pen names that therefore HUAC’s tilled blacklists never existed and no one lost work because of them.

But if it’s documentation you desire, from a tome first published in 1970, FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR By Jerry Della Femina with BELLY BUTTON emphasis from moi:

https://books.google.com/books?id=QL-5lfFsoukC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

“You don’t spend $50,000 or $60,000 to make a commercial and just put it on the air. It’s not that easy. There are rules and regulations and censorship. There is so much of this that it’s goddamn funny and stupid. Sooner or later every commercial is passed on by someone. The National Association of Broadcasters is the national bunch of censors and they pass on commercials on certain sensitive subjects, like cigarette advertising, personal products, feminine hygiene products, and parts of the body like the BELLY BUTTON. The National Association is very strong on BELLY BUTTONS. If you get by the N.A.B., then you’ve got to deal with the networks, which have their own censors. And the individual stations, they’ve got their censors too.

One of the biggest problems that all agencies have is the headache of censorship. There is simply no reason to it. Censorship, any kind of censorship, is pure whim and fancy. It’s one guy’s idea of what is right for him. It’s based on everything arbitrary. There are no rules, no standards, no laws. The problem is, the Code of the National association of Broadcasters changes every week; each week a new directive comes out of the N.A.B. I don’t follow any rules or standards or laws when I do commercials because how can I? What is O.K. this week may not be good next week. There are no rules.” — FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR By Jerry Della Femina, Simon&Schuster, p192

“What they didn’t figure on was the NBC censor, who takes one look at the commercial and says, “That’s a BELLY BUTTON. My God, you can’t show a BELLY BUTTON.” The theory was that kids might be watching and would see the BELLY BUTTON. Of course the NBC censor didn’t realize that when kids go into their tub every night they look down and they see their BELLY BUTTONS. “ — FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR By Jerry Della Femina, Simon&Schuster, pp200 – 201

These passages were also excerpted in newspapers’ of the year 1970.

I might pick that book up.

Re: Gene also probably lied about NBC not wanting a woman as second in command in The Cage.

You really ought to rethink this Gene probably lied bias you have, because in this STARLOG INTERVIEW Solow says:

https://archive.org/stream/starlog_magazine-241/241#page/n73/mode/2up

“Majel Barrett was dropped as Number One because the network had trouble with a female in a position of authority.” – Herbert F. Solow, from THE MAN WHO BOUGHT STARTREK by Ian Spelling, STARLOG #241, P74, August 1997

You really ought to rethink this Gene probably lied bias you have, because in this STARLOG INTERVIEW Solow says [|=i]:

https://arch |ve.org/stream/starlog_magazine-241/241#page/n73/mode/2up

“Majel Barrett was dropped as Number One because the network had trouble with a female in a position of authority.” – Herbert F. Solow, from THE MAN WHO BOUGHT STARTREK by Ian Spelling, STARLOG #241, P74, August 1997

Solow clearly had misconceptions about what it was like to deal with NBC’s censors:

“NBC’s censors were just doing their job. The censors dealt us as they did with every other series on at the time. Roddenberry developed scapegoats. The censors at NBC were the main scapegoats. When we made a deal with NBC, we had to adhere to the NAB Code — the National Association of Broadcasters Code — that this is what you can and cannot do. Gene knew about it and even signed a letter agreeing to adhere to the NAB Code. Every show adhered to it. Roddenberry felt he was above that and would do what he pleased. When they said, “No, you can’t do this,” he went to the fans and said, “They’re terrible human beings. They are stopping my creative process.” He was 100 percent wrong. The book spells that out in detail, and it was about time.” – Herbert F. Solow, from THE MAN WHO BOUGHT STARTREK by Ian Spelling, STARLOG #241, P74, August 1997

Femina in 1970, who doesn’t have a dog in either Solow or Roddenberry’s race for STAR TREK glory, shows that the picture Herb tried to paint that all Gene had to do was adhere to the NAB Code and he’d have no problem was just plain untrue:

“Most of the time, though, you can’t fake a censor out so easily. Smith/Greenland, a very good agency, was doing a commercial for Fresh, which is a deodorant. Why is it such clean products have such big troubles? Anyhow, they got past Miss Cheng [the NAB’s censor], I mean they showed Miss Cheng what they wanted to do and she said, ‘Terrific.’

They wanted to picture a belly dancer at her work, showing that she leads a strenuous, active life. … They cut the commercial at a great deal of money, and when Miss Cheng saw the cut she said swell.

They figured they were in. What they didn’t figure on was the NBC censor, who takes one look at the commercial and says, ‘That’s a belly button. My God, you can’t show a belly button.’” — FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR By Jerry Della Femina, Simon&Schuster, pp200 – 201

Arrival was a great movie. Intelligent science fiction with a good message. Kinda like the last three Trek movies.

Don’t you mean like the last 3 trek movies could have been?

No like the Trek movies BEFORE the last 3 could have been. What wasted potential the last few decades.

I couldn’t even recall if I’d sen this show, or not. Then, I saw the still photo of the double navel…..

Ted Cassidy was a highly underrated talent.

I always would have preferred an ASSIGNMENT:Earth show.

I will say it. Star Trek was a mistake for him. I whole heatedly believe that when looking at the rest of his resume. It was the only thing he wrote or created that was any good. And even then, neither show really hit their stride until someone else took over the day to day running of the show. It happened on TOS and it happened again on TNG.

GR certainly milked it.

I disagree. Like I said in the review I like the show. I think it could have gone somewhere really interesting. Also, Gene was running things day to day on TOS until the third season, which is considered the weakest. TNG under Gene was cringy, corny, and sometimes so wrong, but it was at least fun. After season 3 you can see that fun and whimsy slowly drain out of the franchise in favor of faux serious subplots and tech-the-tech puzzles. Gene was great when he had the right team. Without him at all things rarely flourished.

He was certainly not running it day to day (probably would never have approved TRIBBLES), not after the first dozen or so shows. That was Coon, and then JMJ. Gene’s problem with Coon and the humor (basically, the life in the characters that made the whole thing memorable and a lasting phenomena) seems to be indicative of the fact he didn’t know what he had or how it was developing, or more importantly, WHY.

According to Shatner and other sources the show only started to gel once Gene Coon took over the bulk of the producing.

Join the discussion Gene was a writer on a very popular western series in the late 50’s, “Have Gun Will Travel” starring Richard Boone as Palladin, so Gene did have some success in LA prior to striking gold with “Star Trek” in ’66.

Yes, he had some success. But success doesn’t mean good. I haven’t seen much of his early episodic writing. But I have read a couple of scripts from The Leutenant. They seemed underwhelming to me. And pretty much everything he touched after TOS that wasn’t Trek was terrible. Just my opinion.

I believe the digital channel Get TV actually shows The Lieutenant on weekends, if you’re interested. I just saw of an episode with Walter Koenig.

Indeed it does, and the OTA Digital channel HEROES & ICONS, which airs all the Trek series daily, shows HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL every morning too.

Kind of a snarky review but still always glad to see Genesis II remembered. I guess i’m one of the few Genesis II fans. I love it and finally own it on DVD as well. I was 12 when it premiered on TV and thought it was great. Loved the Sub-shuttle and entire premise. Unlike many of you I did not like the 2nd attempt Earth II with John Saxon.

Ironic that CBS axed Genesis II for the Planet of the Apes series. I was (and still am) a big Planet of the Apes fan and was excited for that series as well but ended up hating it by the 2nd or 3rd episode.

@OldTrekker

You are not alone. I must have been 16 or 17 when it premiered, and I set aside family social commitments to sit glued to our new Magnavox console color TV. I too am a POTA fan, and loved spotting pieces of the LIS sets and props turning up on Apes episodes.

Remember the G-II Sub-shuttle TV Guide article, about the pickup truck pulling the shuttle through the set on a rope? Fun little behind-the-scenes glimpse there. ;)

OldTrekker,

You can get a different take from TrekMovie’s earlier forgotten review of it and its progeny from 2009:

https://trekmovie.com/2009/10/23/reviews-gene-roddenberrys-genesis-ii-planet-earth/

Earth II was TV movie with Gary Lockwood that didn’t involve Roddenberry. The third movie was “Strange New World”.

You are correct. I meant Planet Earth. Thx.

Re:Earth II

Wasn’t there also an unrelated to either TV pilot movie and series also called EARTH II that starred Debrah Farentino?

Earth 2 (not II) lasted a full season on NBC in 1994-95. Also starred Jessica Steen and Rebecca Gayheart. It was okay.

I saw it the night it premiered on network TV; loved it then and love it now, in some ways more than ST-TOS. Sad that G-II never got the chance to explore that world in a season or more of one hour episodes. The two follow-up attempts (Planet Earth and Strange New World) were disappointing.

It was filmed in my backyard with the University of California, Riverside serving the role of Tyrannia. After it aired, I always got a kick whenever I had an excuse to visit the campus and be transported to the future.

Also strangely prescient, as I started attended the local JC and the UC provided remote batch access to their IBM 360 model 30 for the computer classes taught there, and Tyrannia started oppressively adding and hiking up fees for that access such as $1200/mo for “security” (for which there was none).

I was disappointed in losing some of the elements that I liked in the subsequent attempts to get the concept a series commitment, but I found the fact that it essentially got 3 pilot movies made novel, and fascinating that Roddenberry had managed to break the two pilot ground, yet again. It even managed a 3rd with out him.

PLANET EARTH, left me with this odd feeling that it had actually gone to series. I think that was because its movie seemed like a bunch of episodes strung together to make a movie. I like John Saxon but I wanted an opportunity to see where Cord would have taken his character.

@Disinvited

Planet Earth was pretty silly IMHO, but not as bad as Strange New World. I don’t think either Cord or Saxon are anything to brag about, but I find Cord a bit more credible, if somewhat boring.

“Starting us off is Roddenberry’s first attempt at a TV show after Star Trek, 1973’s Genesis II which, despite the odd roman numeral at the end, is not a sequel to anything previously produced.”

Genesis allowed is not!

Hey this wouldn’t be a Roddenberry comment chain if someone doesn’t point out that II is an EVEN Roman numeral. ;-)

http://www.roddenberry.com/media/vault/STIII-Correspondence.pdf

http://www.roddenberry.com/media/vault/CorrespondenceRoddenberryNimoy.pdf

Thanks for those, B!

The more old correspondence of GR’s that I have read, the more annoyed I grow at the people who constantly look for flaws in his work and personality. I think he’s quite diplomatic in most of the memos I’ve seen. Nobody is perfect, and to expect otherwise and actively seek flaws – especially in someone long dead – is more an issue of the one doing the targeting than it is with the person being targeted. The man we call The Bird gave us something often exemplary, and without him there would have been no Star Trek at all. I love these memos and such.

Again, many thanks!

There is nothing which makes Gene admirable & much which shows the opposite. From his rampant infidelity to his total “dick move” of writing unused lyrics for the TOS theme song so he could get half of the royalties (which permanently alienated Courage) and more. Gene was a real piece of work & nothing in these correspondences will change that.

Re: permanently alienated Courage

This is 100% pure prime B.S.:

http://startrekfactcheck.blogspot.com/2013/06/alexander-courages-marvelous-malarkey.html

” There wasn’t any rift, really, with Gene. What happened with Gene was a I got a phone call once…it was Gene’s lawyer, [Leonard] Maizlish. He said, ‘I’m calling you to tell you that since you signed a piece of paper back there saying that if Gene ever wrote a lyric to your theme that he would split your royalties on the theme.’

Gene and I weren’t enemies in any sort of way. It was just one of those things…I think it was Maizlish, probably, who put him up to doing it that way, and it’s a shame, because actually if he’d written a decent lyric we could have both made more money.” — Alexander Courage, Archive of American Television Interview (February 8, 2000)

And another reason why I say the Solow/Justman book needs to be examined with critical eye and its pronouncements NOT just automatically accepted as gospel.

True, the Solow/Justman book doesn’t wash. From a friend of mine who knew one of them too well, I don’t give the book much credibility. It’s mostly a gripe session.

Re: his rampant infidelity

Not admirable, but not unusual behavior in successful creative television talent executives of the era:

https://books.google.com/books?id=QL-5lfFsoukC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=128695927

“Literally, from when we started the agency in 1967, we had an agency sex contest. And what did that mean? So, they would literally get a telephone list, and we’re talking about as many as 300 employees. And they would vote for the person they most wanted to go to bed with. And so the two winners, the male winner and the female winner, even though they might not have voted for each other, won a weekend at the Plaza Hotel. It was quote, our secret, and it was sophomoric, but then we would all gather at a Mexican restaurant and lock the doors and we would have this wild, wild, wild party where I would then get up there and after God knows how many margaritas, I would announce the winners. And everybody’s cheering. And the story I always like to tell was at one point, there was an older executive who I think possibly might have imbibed his first taste of cannabis, and he had a lot to drink. And at one point, his head went right into his dish. And sitting next to him was this woman who was our research director, and she said, it’s okay, it’s okay, he’s fine – the guacamole broke his fall. ” — Della Femina, author of FROM THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS WHO GAVE YOU PEARL HARBOR

Or the Desi for which Desilu itself was named, and I would certainly arch an eyebrow if Solow claimed absolutely none of the NBC executives supposedly complaining about Gene’s had mistresses.

@”Who cares”

But without him and his creation, you wouldn’t be on this page. :)

I’m a fan of the entire Trek franchise, but I’m not going to act like Gene was doing anything prophetic or that he had some vision (other than making money & getting laid) or any of the rest of that “Great Bird” nonsense. As for Courage, considering he never worked on Trek again I’d say its fairly obvious that no matter what diplomatic language people want use now that Gene’s sneaky underhanded moves cost Trek more of Courage’s work. Just as Gene lost several writers in early TNG because he had apparently authorized his lawyer to make rewrites in his name.

Re: he [Courage] never worked on Trek again

Again, 100% pure prime B.S. read the STAR TREK Fact Check:

“Although it is true that Alexander Courage didn’t return to score any individual episodes during the second season of Star Trek, he did record thirty minutes of library music for it — some newly composed — on June 16, 1967. And, during the program’s final season, Courage returned to score two more episodes: ‘The Enterprise Incident’ (recorded August 5, 1968) and ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’ (recorded October 25, 1968). Bob Justman had left the series by the time the score for ‘Plato’s Stepchildren’ was recorded, but he was definitely around during the recording sessions for ‘The Enterprise Incident.'” — Michael Kmet, ALEXANDER COURAGE’S ‘Marvelous Malarkey’, STARTREKFACTCHECK.COM, Tuesday, June 25, 2013

I’m not asking you to not critically examine Roddenberry’s claims about himself. But I am asking you to give the same scrutiny to your other other sources which have led you to make 3 demonstrably false claims about Courage.

@Disinvited:

Methinks “Who Cares” has an axe to grind, but he/she isn’t alone there. Is he? ;)

I think Disinvited has a little too much faith in the Roddenberry myth-making machine, but Courage is something he’s right about. Check the TMP liner notes. Sandy came back to personally orchestrate his theme music in the “Captain’s Log” tracks. That’s hardly “never working on Trek again.” As for the stories about Maizlish rewriting scripts, I have a feeling they are way overblown if not completely wrong. I’ll get into that more in later articles.

Re: Disinvited has a little too much faith in the Roddenberry myth-making machine

Why do you keep going there when I clearly don’t take a faith based approach to him?

“This is not to say that either man’s [Gene Roddenberry or Herb Solow] view was all wrong or all right but that the truth lies somewhere between the two.” — Disinvited

“I don’t contest that [Re: Gene was out for Gene]. Nor do I contest that he spun things to favor himself and got some things things clearly wrong in service to that end.” — Disinvited

“Not admirable [Re: Gene Roddenberry’s rampant infidelity], but not unusual behavior in successful creative television talent executives of the era.” — Disinvited

“I’m not asking you to not critically examine Roddenberry’s claims about himself.” — Disinvited

You, however clearly take a faith based approach in attacking Roddenberry:

“Gene also probably lied about NBC not wanting a woman as second in command in The Cage.” — Mark Farinas

not even supported by the source where you claim you got that faith:

“Attacking Roddenberry”. That line says a lot about how you’re approaching this conversation. There are a lot of reasons to believe the Number One role was created for a lover, not for the love of seeing a woman in command. Roddenberry didn’t think much of women. Number One is a stand out in his career. Not once in any other TV show or movie did Gene create a compelling female character. They were all secretaries, jilted lovers, and succubi. Solow said, “for Gene, a woman’s role was primarily as a decorative tool in a man’s workshop”. Pike said some horribly sexist things in The Cage. The other two women in the episode are an underling pining for her boss and a love doll who won’t leave Talos because she won’t be pretty anymore. His next set of scripts contained space hookers. It’s one thing to to be forced to keep women out of the hero rolls in the 60’s. It’s another to slight them in nearly every episode. When TNG rolled around and he had no reason to not try again he didn’t. He described Crusher as having a stripper walk and wanted four breasts on Troi. Susan Sackett told him “You really put down women a lot for someone who is supposed to be thoughtful and liberal.” (Humanist, April 1991) So to say Gene was going to be a selfless pioneer in the field of women’s lib just doesn’t ring true to me. It’s not faith or an innate hatred that makes me doubt him. It’s a very educated decision.

Re: “Attacking Roddenberry”

Your lines “another [Roddenberry] fantasy” and “Gene also probably lied” betrays an approach as well.

You used “probably” to modify “lied” because you knew when you made that statement that you had nothing to offer by way of a proof for the lie claim. Your willingness to resort to innuendo there, in your article and in other responses to me says a lot about how you’re approaching this topic.

Re: Roddenberry didn’t think much of women.

How do you commiserate this view of the 1960s Roddenberry when, despite being a typical man of this time in the entertainment industry as you would permanently pigeonhole him, his secretary was promoted by him to scriptwriter and then again to story editor? And I certainly hope you realize that she most certainly adopted “D.C.” to address males, other than Roddenberry, in the industry who had problems with hiring women as writers when their place clearly was the secretarial pool where most male network power holding types wanted working women properly consigned both on and off screen?

Re: There are a lot of reasons to believe the Number One role was created for a lover, not for the love of seeing a woman in command.

The one does not follow or preclude the other. Cite one credible reason to believe this contention of yours other than the equally as self-contradictory as Gene, Solow. Heck, even you yourself claim this was an exception and NOT the rule that you are trying to make it out to be, i.e. you claim you can’t name one other mistress, either before or after Majel, for which Gene wrote an equally exceptional role.

Re: Solow said

I have already provided the citation where your source, Solow, indicated it was the NBC network, and not Gene, that proscribed STAR TREK’s female characters from better.

“Majel Barrett was dropped as Number One because the network had trouble with a female in a position of authority.” – Herbert F. Solow, from THE MAN WHO BOUGHT STAR TREK by Ian Spelling, STARLOG #241, P74, August 1997

Solow also falsely claimed, in service to the notion that you are attempting to peddle that Roddenberry only wrote well for his mistresses, that Grace Lee Whitney was one of them. She vehemently denied being his mistress.

Re: His next set of scripts contained space hookers

That you have no compunction repeating Solow’s mischaracterization about Stephen Kandel’s script based on Gene’s idea of Trek exploring the Old West’s mail-ordered brides phenomenon says a lot about how you’re approach, as well.

How do you reconcile your “fact” with one where your purported progressive network, NBC, maintained its untarnished women’s rights halo while not only failing to kill such a hooker tarnishing story, as you characterize it, immediately when it was pitched, but allowing it to develop and be aired zooming right by their uncloaked-belly-button-fearing, Mrs. Messerschmidt, astounds.

Re: So to say Gene was going to be a selfless pioneer in the field of women’s lib just doesn’t ring true to me.

Would you please spare me from these constant strawman introductions. I certainly made no such claim.

I have merely demonstrated that certain innuendos which you claim were highly likely or darn near incontrovertible, were, in fact, not.

However, I do wonder with reflection on your part if you can come to comprehend how Solow saying NBC was going to be a selfless pioneer in the field of women’s lib rings equally untrue for me?

Courage being back for TMP is ENTIRELY due to his friendship with Jerry Goldsmith (and also the latter not wanting to have anything personally to do with using the TOS theme; in 79 he said that if he knew he would be required to incorporate the Courage material in his score, he would not have taken the job.) I’m sure the composers probably figured this was a way to get Courage some money and then some, making up for the business-as-usual GR approach.

Re: Courage being back for TMP is ENTIRELY due to his friendship with Jerry Goldsmith

That’s not exactly what Sandy told STARLOG #107, in June of 1986. According to him it was those pesky letter writers:

https://archive.org/stream/starlog_magazine-107/107#page/n19/mode/2up

“I wasn’t asked to score the [STAR TREK] films because, by that time, I was kind of retired. And there’s a hierarchy involved. Certain people are feature picture scorers. When the first film was about to be scored, an acquaintance asked me if I was going to do it. I told them no, Jerry Goldsmith was doing it. Then, I was asked if they were going to use my theme, and I said, ‘Of course not! Jerry will write a new theme. Which is what he should do.’ When I did The Waltons, which had Jerry’s theme, I didn’t use his theme, except for the first couple episodes. So, why should he use my theme? But, they had so much mail, apparently, that he finally called me, rather reluctantly, and asked me if I would write a 15-second version of my theme and a 30-second version. It was used somewhere in the picture. Of course, James Horner [STARLOG #63] has used it in each of his films because they told him he had to, and that’s all there was to it.” — Alexander Courage in ALEXANDER COURAGE: and the music of STAR TREK by Randy & Jean-Marc Lofficier, STARLOG #107, June of 1986, p19

What you’re addressing is WHY the music was used, not why Courage himself was involved in the writing of it. That’s JG’s call, confirmed in some detail in RETURN TO TOMORROW … otherwise they could have had any hack cough out a variation on the TOS theme.

Re: they could have had any hack cough out a variation on the TOS theme

You are putting too much import on his TMP composing for economic reasons. Courage, along with fellow STAR TREK TV composer Fred Steiner, was already employed orchestrating Goldsmith’s score on TMP because that film’s production chaos created so much work overload as it did in all the other aspects of finishing the film. So he hardly needed to compose the theme for the economic reason you cite. Rather, it made more sense to hire him to compose the theme rather than some outside hack because he was already there arranging and more than familiar with the old and new material in a tight music production schedule that could not even afford the delay of some hack familiarizing his or her self with the theme and the new music in order to churn out an appropriate variation.

And Courage indicated in the article I already cited that he made far more money collecting royalties from the STAR TREK TV theme as it was:

“I told Gene Roddenberry that I was very sorry, but I really couldn’t stay with the show, because I had a much more important thing, to do at 20th Century Fox— I was the associate music director on Doctor Doolittle, and that was the biggest, most expensive, most elaborate musical ever made at that point. I had associate credit before, but never on something that big. So, I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t stay with Star Trek.’ It was very stupid of me, because if I do a musical, I do the musical and that’s it. But if I’m the composer on a TV series, as long as that series is running, I collect royalties on it.” — Alexander Courage

Many thanks for your helpful and accurate posts. :)

Welcome V, LLAP

The Follow up PLANET EARTH for ABC was MUCH BETTER and got the kinks that GENESIS II had – a better lead in John Saxon (Who was hot after “Enter The Dragon” also from Warner Brothers), More REAL Sci-fi (Like STAR TREK Was) rather than this hippy peace-and-love-agrarian Stuff Gene did here. Blame “Six Million Dollar Man” for That not happening.

Found memories. I watched this when it first aired so long ago. Roddenberry tried his hand on a number of different shows. The Questor Tapes was pretty good, but Roddenberry balked at the substantial changes requested by the network and left the project, leading to its immediate cancellation. Spectre was another off beat and completely different supernatural detective type show by The Great Bird. Again this didn’t get very far but was released in theaters in the UK.

Something sad I stumbled across in researching NBC censorship, apparently, Jean Messerschmidt of NBC West Coast Standards and Practices out of the KNBC offices, of Trek memo fame recently passed away:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/peninsuladailynews/obituary.aspx?pid=181270976

The Making of Star Trek, written while the series was in still in production, claimed not that it was navels but the underside of breasts that was the problem for NBC. True or not, you do see more underboob than you’d expect in later Roddenberry productions.

It wasn’t an either/or but both:

https://books.google.com/books?id=QL-5lfFsoukC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA192#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=QL-5lfFsoukC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA200#v=onepage&q&f=false

Gene really did like the name Dylan Hunt. Another pilot, “Planet Earth” from 1974 also had the main character named Dylan Hunt, this time played by John Saxon. Both “Planet Earth” and “Genesis II” are on Itunes.

Planet Earth is the universe as Genesis II and Hunt is the same character but a different actor.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’s EMMYS site did a recent deeper write-up of this and Roddenberry’s other unsold made-for-TV science fiction pilots:

http://www.emmys.com/news/online-originals/universe-beyond

Thanks for the link! The more I watch the GENESIS II pilot, the more disappointed I am that it didn’t get the series nod.

And now Don Marshall, Trek’s Lt. Boma and Nichols’ fiancée on THE LIEUTENANT,

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/don-marshall-dead-land-giants-actor-was-80-943108

has left the stage.

Genesis II Device

The Genesis II Device was a device based on Project Genesis , similar in configuration to the original Genesis Device from the 2280s . As of 2401 , it was stored at Daystrom Station . ( PIC : " The Bounty ")