The struggles of the special effects staff who created the movie “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and what they left behind, Part 2

vijar design

The design drawings of Villar, drawn when RA&A was participating, were shown to me by art director Richard Taylor when I worked on the liner notes for the laser disc "SFX Museum: CGI in SFX" in 1985. I've had it done before. It looked like a more complicated version of the submarine Nautilus from `` 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea '' (54). Trumbull and Dijkstra disliked this shape and hired Syd Mead, who was still unknown in the film industry, to create a new design for Apogee.

In addition, Trumbull boldly omitted the extremely complex and lengthy depiction of the interior of the Vijar, known as the ``Memory Wall.'' RA&A's work was delayed because the sequence in which Captain Kirk (William Shatner) chases Spock (Leonard Nimoy) overboard the Enterprise and is captured by Viger's defense organs was too long and complicated. This is because, despite spending a million dollars and repeatedly filming, there was almost no usable footage (*8).

So Trumbull ignored the scenario and setting and commissioned space artist Robert McCall to design it completely freely. By showing the abstract images that emerged quickly, I made this scene short and simple. Some of the staff who had worked so hard to get to this point voiced their opposition, but as the deadline for release was approaching, we had no choice but to go with this plan.

A fairly complex miniature (it was apparently designed to look like a sea creature) was made at Apogee for the Vijar with clear clouds, but it broke before filming and there was no time to repair it, so it was not included in the movie. Has not appeared. (*9)

*8 A portion of this footage is included as a bonus footage on the DVD `` Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition Special Complete Edition ''.

*9 On the DVD ``Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition Special Complete Edition,'' you can see images expressed with CG produced by Foundation Imaging. Other scenes that were recreated using CG included the scene in which the shuttle carrying Kirk arrives at the Federation of Planets, the scenery on Vulcan, and the scene in which Kirk and his friends disembark from the Enterprise and head for Vijar. The company went bankrupt shortly after undertaking this work, which is the reason why HD materials are no longer available.

Publication and evaluation of completed works