Gene Roddenberry’s first try, dated 8’1’1966:
This is the story of the United Space Ship Enterprise. Assigned a five-year patrol of our galaxy, the giant starship visits Earth colonies, regulates commerce, and explores strange new worlds and civilizations. These are its voyages … and its adventures.
I think that’s terrible and, trust me, his next draft was worse. The intro emerged thru collaboration. For 10 days Roddenberry traded drafts with producer Robert D. F. Black and associate producer Robert Justman. Then he wrote out the final and Justman ran it over for Bill Shatner to record. All this was very last minute.
From the memos reproduced by Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, we can see that Black brought in “the final frontier” and the use of “starship,” whereas Justman introduced the idea of a “to do this, to do that” itemized list of what the Enterprise was up to in space. The phrase “where no man has gone before” is claimed by Sam Peeples, who wrote the series’ second pilot and used the phrase for its title.
The full story may be available in the Gene Roddenberry special collection at, I believe, UCLA. Going by the few pages devoted to the subject by Inside, I would guess that Roddenberry got off to a lousy start, collected phrases and ideas like a magpie, then pulled them together into the magnificent final product we now know. At least, if more credit could go to Black or Justman, Inside would definitely send it their way. Justman is the book’s co-author, and in regard to Roddenberry it has a pronounced “bad stuff ’bout” tendency.
A final point is that Roddenberry wrote some of Star Trek’s feebler episodes but is said to have done very good rewrites of other people’s scripts. The same bent can be seen here.
The original Star Wars trilogy was garbage until George started collaborating with others.
Except in this example, we have proof of this in the prequels.
Wait, how were the 70s-80s Star Wars films collaborative? From what I’ve read, Lucas always kept all the power in his hands.
The scripts for 2 and 3 were not Lucas penned. “A New Hope” as its now called was a Lucas script…and is painful on rewatching.
Well, true, and the 2nd and 3rd films had other directors too. I was being a nudge about “collaborative.” Lucas farmed out the work but didn’t collaborate because he’s a fucking control freak and could still meddle and veto as he wished; I suppose that was my position. But films 2 and 3 were better written than 1, so the different hands made a difference to the product, and you’re right that that would be the key point.
But, come on, that first movie isn’t bad, even with the crappy dialogue. For me it’s the only Star Wars film that’s any fun to watch
I’m with you on that, Tom. It’s a fun 30s adventure serial. I don’t think they all turned to crap until someone read Joseph Campbell.
Hey, you hate Joseph Campbell too! Yay!
Empire remain the best SW movie for “grown-ups”. THe first one is hard to watch now because Marc Hammill is sooo bad in it, and the script is miserable. Still enjoyable for nostalgic reasons, but Empire actually holds up. Other than the ghosts at the end of Return of the Jedi, I still enjoy that one too. Even the Ewoks have grown on me (like fungus).
Aw, come on, come on. Hamill’s ok. That first movie is fun.