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{{Infobox Film
<!-- BE AWARE that (in common with many notorious murderers) much apocryphal information on Fish has been recycled by various tabloids, and "encyclopedias of murder". Part of this article has been researched from contemporaneous New York Times news reports, and other reliable sources. Before adding additional details, please ensure that they are well sourced, and please cite your sources. -->
|name = Star Trek: The Motion Picture
{{for|the Canadian politician|Albert Fish (politician)}}
|image = Star trek-the motion picture.png
{{otherpersons|Hamilton Fish}}
|caption = Theatrical release poster by [[Bob Peak]]

|writer = '''Screenplay:'''<br>[[Harold Livingston]]<br>'''Story:'''<br>[[Alan Dean Foster]]<br>'''Characters:'''<br>[[Gene Roddenberry]]
{{Infobox Serial Killer
|starring = ''[[#Cast|See table]]''
|name=Albert Fish
|director = [[Robert Wise]]
|image=Albertfish-full.jpg
|producer = [[Gene Roddenberry]]
|caption=Mugshot of Albert Fish from December 13, 1934
|distributor = [[Paramount Pictures]]
|birthname=Albert Hamilton Fish
|released = [[December 7]], [[1979]]
|alias=Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, Brooklyn Vampire
|runtime = 136 minutes ([[Director's cut]])
|birth={{birth date|mf=yes|1870|05|19}}
|music = [[Jerry Goldsmith]]
|location=[[Washington, D.C.]]
|editing = [[Todd C. Ramsay]]
|death={{death date and age|mf=yes|1936|1|16|1870|5|19}}
|cinematography = [[Richard H. Kline]]
|cause=[[Electric chair]], [[Sing Sing Correctional Facility]]
|country = United States
|victims=6
|country=[[United States|USA]]
|budget = [[United States dollar|$]]46,000,000 (estimated)
|gross = $139,000,000 (worldwide)
|states=[[New York]]
|amg_id = 1:46515
|beginyear=1924
|imdb_id = 0079945 |
|endyear=1932
|apprehended=1934
|penalty=[[Capital punishment|Death]]
}}
}}
'''Albert Hamilton Fish''' (May 19, 1870 &ndash; January 16, 1936) was an American [[sado-masochist]]ic [[pedophile]], [[torture murder]]er, [[serial killer]] and [[cannibalism|cannibal]]. He was also known as the '''Gray Man''', the '''Werewolf of Wysteria''', the '''Brooklyn Vampire''', and '''The Boogeyman'''.<ref name=katekray>Kray, Kate - "The World's 20 Worst Crimes: true stories of 20 killers and their 1000 victims</ref> He boasted that he had "had children in every [[U.S. state|state]],"<ref name=katekray/> putting the figure at around 100, although it is not clear whether he was talking about [[child molestation|molestation]] or [[cannibalism|cannibalization]], less still as to whether it was true or not. He was a suspect in at least five killings in his lifetime. Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known [[homicide]], and confessed to stabbing at least two other people. He was put on trial for the kidnap and murder of Grace Budd, and was convicted and executed via [[electric chair]].


'''''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''''' is a [[1979 in film|1979]] [[science fiction]] film from [[Paramount Pictures]]. It is the first feature [[film]] based on the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' [[television series]].
==Biography==
===Early life===
He was born as Hamy Fish in [[Washington, D.C.]], to Randall Fish (1795-1875).<ref>The records of the [[Congressional Cemetery]] show that Randall died on October 16, 1875; and was buried on October 19, 1875 in grave R96/89. Randall was married to Ellen (1838-?) of Ireland</ref> He said he had been named after [[Hamilton Fish]], a distant relative. His father was 43 years older than his mother.<ref name=1870census>[[Media:1870 census Fish.jpg|Albert Fish]]; [[1870 US Census]]; [[Washington, D.C.]]</ref> Fish was the youngest child and he had three living siblings: Walter, Annie, and Edwin Fish. He wished to be called "Albert" after a dead sibling, and to escape the nickname 'Ham and Eggs' that he was given at an [[orphanage]] in which he spent many of his early years.


The third science fiction film directed by multiple Academy Award-winning director [[Robert Wise]], ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' revitalized the [[Star Trek]] franchise, spawning nine motion picture sequels, with a prequel currently in development as of [[2008]].
Many members of his family had [[mental illness]], and one suffered from religious mania.<ref name=crimelibrary>[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/fish/9.html Crime library: Albert Fish]</ref> His father was a river boat captain, but by 1870 he was a fertilizer manufacturer.<ref name=1870census/> The elder Fish died of a [[myocardial infarction|heart attack]] at the Sixth Street Station of the [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] in 1875 in [[Washington, D.C.]] Fish's mother put him into an orphanage. He was frequently whipped and beaten there, and eventually discovered that he enjoyed physical pain. The beatings would often give him [[erection]]s, for which the other orphans teased him.<ref name=TSK/>


== Plot ==
By 1880, his mother got a government job and was able to look after him. However, his various experiences before this had affected him. He started a [[homosexual]] relationship in 1882, at the age of 12, with a telegraph boy. The youth also introduced Fish to such practices as [[Urolagnia|drinking urine]] and [[coprophagia]]. Fish began visiting public baths where he could watch boys undress, and spent a great portion of his weekends on these visits.<ref name=TSK/>
The spaceship [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)|USS ''Enterprise'']] is undergoing a major refit and its former commander, [[James T. Kirk]], has been promoted to Admiral and is now Chief of [[Starfleet]] Operations on Earth. A powerful alien force, in the shape of a massive energy cloud, is detected in [[Klingon]] space and appears to be heading for Earth. The cloud destroys three Klingon starships and Epsilon 9, a Starfleet monitoring station that it encounters en route. As it is the only ship in intercept range, Starfleet decides to dispatch the ''Enterprise'' to intercept the cloud, requiring its refit process to be quickly finished and tested while in transit.


As part of the mission, Admiral Kirk command of the ship, angering Captain [[Willard Decker]], who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. With many of the former crew members of the ship aboard, the ''Enterprise'' embarks on its journey. Testing of its new systems goes poorly, including a malfunctioning [[Transporter (Star Trek)|transporter]] that kills the science officer. An imbalance in the calibration of the ship's warp engines resulting in the formation of an artificial wormhole causes further tension between Kirk and Decker, mainly due to Kirk's unfamiliarity with the Enterprise's redesigned phasers. Many of the problems are resolved by the arrival of a replacement science officer, the [[Vulcan (Star Trek)|Vulcan]] Commander [[Spock]], who had been on his homeworld undergoing the ''[[kolinahr]]'' ritual. His failure to complete ''kolinahr'' and purge his emotions in the ritual has led him to seek his answers on the ''Enterprise'', explaining, that he felt a consciousness on Vulcan which he believes holds the answers to their mission.
[[Image:Albert Fish 1903.JPG|thumb|Albert Fish's mugshot in 1903]]
By 1890, Fish had arrived in [[New York City]], and he said he became a male [[prostitute]]. He also said he began [[rape|raping]] young boys, a crime he kept committing even after his mother arranged a marriage. In 1898, he was married to a woman nine years his junior. They had six children: Albert, Anna, Gertrude, Eugene, John, and Henry Fish.


The ''Enterprise'' intercepts the alien cloud and journeys inside, finding a vast alien vessel that draws the ''Enterprise'' inside. An alien probe appears on the bridge and attacks Spock after he tries to prevent it from gathering sensitive Starfleet information, as well as abducting the navigator, [[Ilia (Star Trek)|Ilia]]. Ilia is later replaced by a robotic probe that has been sent to study the crew by something called [[V'ger]]. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history, and is troubled to be assigned to get information from the mechanical doppelgänger, which he discovers has Ilia's memories and feelings buried within. Meanwhile, Spock takes a spacewalk into the alien vessel, and attempts to telepathically [[mind meld]] with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'ger itself; a living machine.
Throughout 1898 he worked as a house painter, and he said he continued molesting children, mostly boys under six. He later recounted an incident in which a male lover took him to a waxworks museum, where Fish was fascinated by a [[bisection]] of a [[penis]]; soon after, he developed a morbid interest in [[castration]]. During a relationship with a [[mental retardation|mentally retarded]] man, Fish attempted to castrate him after tying him up. The man became frightened and fled. Fish then began intensifying his visits to [[brothel]]s where he could be whipped and beaten more often.<ref name=TSK>Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman; ''The Serial Killers'', Virgin Publishing Ltd. 2004, page 176</ref> He was arrested for [[embezzlement]] and was sentenced to incarceration in [[Sing Sing]] in 1903. He regularly had sex with men while in prison.<ref name=TSK/>


At the heart of the machine, V'ger is revealed to be the unmanned scientific probe named ''Voyager 6'', which was a twentieth century space probe launched from Earth. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that is learnable, and return that information to its creator. These machines made V'ger into something capable of fulfilling that mission, and on its journey back the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission. Having learned all that is learnable on its journey home, which took V'ger across the universe, V'ger finds itself empty and without a purpose. Only through its creator can V’ger begin to explore illogical things, such as other dimensions. Offering himself to the machine as the creator, Commander Decker merges with V'ger, creating a new form of life. With Earth saved and their mission completed, Kirk commands the ''Enterprise'' out to space for future missions.
In January 1917, his wife left him for John Straube, a handyman who boarded with the Fish family.<ref>http://www.prairieghosts.com/fish.html Prarie Ghosts: Albert Fish; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> Following this rejection, Fish began to hear voices; for example, he once wrapped himself up in a carpet, explaining that he was following the instructions of [[John the Apostle]].<ref name=TSK/> It was around this time that Fish developed a desire for masochism. He took cotton balls, soaked them in alcohol, and set them on fire in his anus. He also hit himself repeatedly with a nail-studded paddle. He also shoved needles into his body. He would place these between his rectum and his scrotum. Normally, he would remove them afterwards, but soon he began to insert them so deep that they were impossible to take out. Later x-rays revealed that Fish had 27 needles lodged in his pelvic region.


== Cast ==
At the age of 55, Fish began to experience delusions and hallucinations. He said that he believed God had ordered him to torment and castrate little boys. Doctors said he suffered from a religious psychosis. It is believed that this bizarre mental state led him to the murders and mutilations he performed.
[[Image:Star Trek TMP cast.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The cast of ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'']]


;[[William Shatner]] as [[James T. Kirk]]
===Early attacks and attempted abductions===
:The former captain of the USS ''Enterprise'' and an Admiral at Starfleet Headquarters.
Fish committed what may have been his first attack on a child named Thomas Bedden in [[Wilmington, Delaware]] in 1910.<ref>{{cite news |title=No record of Bedden case |quote=[[Wilmington, Delaware]]... police said today that they had no record of an attack being made on a Thomas Bedden, as related by Albert H. Fish, convicted slayer ... |publisher=[[New York Times]] |date=March 26, 1935, Tuesday |accessdate=2007-07-02}}</ref><ref>The movie "Albert Fish" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486544/ IMDB] uses the name "Kedden" in the credits for the name of the child, although the [[New York Times]] uses the name "Thomas Bedden". </ref> Later, he stabbed a mentally challenged boy around 1919 in [[Georgetown, Washington, D.C.]].<!--He was tortured and mutilated to death. (NYT says that its not known if he lived or died)--><ref name=NYT03261935/> Consistently, many of his intended victims would be either mentally challenged or African-American, because he believed they would not be missed.<ref>[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/fish/20.html Fish entry at Crime Library.com]</ref>
;[[Leonard Nimoy]] as [[Spock]]
:The ''Enterprise''{{'}}s science officer.
;[[DeForest Kelley]] as [[Leonard McCoy]]
:The chief medical officer aboard the ''Enterprise''.
;[[James Doohan]] as [[Montgomery Scott]]
:The ''Enterprise''{{'}}s chief engineer.
;[[George Takei]] as [[Hikaru Sulu]]
;[[Walter Koenig]] as [[Pavel Chekov]]
;[[Nichelle Nichols]] as [[Uhura]]
:The communications officer aboard the ''Enterprise''. Nichols noted that she was one of the most opposed actors to the new uniforms Wise added, because the insisted drab, unisex look "wasn't Uhura". Wise appealed to Roddenberry, who sided with Nichols.<ref>Nichols, 239.</ref>
;[[Persis Khambatta]] as [[Ilia (Star Trek)|Ilia]]
:The new navigator of the ''Enterprise''.
;[[Stephen Collins]] as [[Willard Decker]]
:The captain of the ''Enterprise'', and the commander overseeing the ship's refit.


==Production==
On July 11, 1924 Fish found eight-year-old Beatrice Kiel playing alone on her parents' [[Staten Island]] farm. He offered her money to come and help him look for [[rhubarb]] in the neighboring fields. She was about to leave the farm when her mother chased Fish away. Fish left, but returned later to the Kiels' [[barn]] where he tried to sleep for the night before being discovered by Hans Kiel and told to leave.
===Origins===
The original ''Star Trek'' series was cancelled due to low ratings. In the wake of ''Star Trek'''s popularity in the early 1970s as a result of newborn ''Trek'' [[fandom]] and [[television syndication|syndication]], there were several failed attempts to produce a ''Trek'' feature film, starting in 1974. A number of ideas were seriously pitched for a film to be entitled ''Star Trek II''. These included "The God Thing" by Gene Roddenberry about a vessel visiting [[Earth]] claiming to be God, a story by [[Harlan Ellison]] about alien reptiles changing Earth's past to make snakes evolutionarily dominant, and "The Planet of the Titans."<ref name= CL>''Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages'' Little Brown & Co, 1995.</ref><ref name= mostmp>''The Making of Star Trek--the Motion Picture'' Pocket Books, 1980.</ref>


"The Planet of the Titans" was nearly produced as the first ''Star Trek'' motion picture. Written by [[Allan Scott (American screenwriter)|Allan Scott]] and [[Chris Bryant (writer)|Chris Bryant]], the script involved the crew of the ''Enterprise'' rescuing the starship ''Da Vinci'' from a disaster. During the rescue, Kirk suffers a shock to the [[brain]] causing him to go mad and disappear. Years later, the ''Enterprise'', now under Captain Gregory Westlake, is dispatched to a planet near where Kirk disappeared. This planet is slowly being sucked into a [[black hole]], and contains a wealth of information that the Klingons (who have also dispatched ships) want as well. Kirk is found, but the planet and the ''Enterprise'' are pulled, via the black hole, into Earth's past, where they become the [[Titans]] of [[Greek mythology]] (a plot reminiscent of "[[Who Mourns for Adonais? (TOS episode)|Who Mourns for Adonais?]]," a ''Star Trek'' television episode that had aired in the '60s). It was to be directed by [[Philip Kaufman]]. [[Ralph McQuarrie]] did pre-production art and [[Ken Adam]] storyboarded the script. The second issue of ''[[Starlog]]'' magazine trumpeted the production of the film on a front cover headline. The movie was abandoned in late 1976 when Paramount finally rejected Scott and Bryant's [[Screenplay|script]].<ref name= mostmp>''The Making of Star Trek--the Motion Picture'' Pocket Books, 1980.</ref>
===Grace Budd===
[[Image:Grace budd.gif|thumb|Grace Budd (1918-1928)]]
On May 25, 1928 Edward Budd put a classified ad in the Sunday edition of the ''[[New York World]]'' that read: "Young man, 18, wishes position in country. Edward Budd, 406 West 15th Street." On May 28, 1928, Fish, then 58&nbsp;years old, visited the Budd family in [[Manhattan]], [[New York City]] under the pretense of hiring Edward. He introduced himself as Frank Howard, a farmer from [[Farmingdale, New York]]. When he arrived, Fish met Budd's younger sister, 10-year-old Grace. Fish promised to hire Budd and said he would send for him in a few days. On his second visit he agreed to hire Budd, then convinced the parents, Delia Flanagan and Albert Budd I, to let Grace accompany him to a birthday party that evening at his sister's home. Albert senior was a [[porter]] for the [[The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States|Equitable Life Assurance Society]]. Grace had a sister, Beatrice; and two other brothers, Albert Budd II; and George Budd. Grace left with Fish that day, but never came back.<ref>[[Media:1920 census Budd.jpg|Grace Budd]] [[1920 US Census]]; [[Manhattan]]</ref>


Instead, in 1977, attention was turned away from a film and toward a second television series, to be entitled ''[[Star Trek: Phase II]]'', as part of a fourth [[Paramount Television Service|television network]] to be created by Paramount. Work began on scripts for the series, including a 2-hour pilot titled "In Thy Image" (based on a pitch script for Roddenberry's ''[[Genesis II (film)|Genesis II]]'' called "Robot's Return"). In the midst of preparation for shooting, [[Michael Eisner]], then-head of Paramount, called a landmark studio meeting. Eisner was said to declare regarding the pilot, "we've been looking for a ''Star Trek'' motion picture for five years and this is it!" Despite already-existent casting, costuming, set production, and 12 written scripts, the new series, along with the new Paramount network, were both abandoned. Paramount's idea to launch a new broadcast network with a new ''Star Trek'' series would eventually be revitalized in 1995 with the 2 hour pilot episode "[[Caretaker (Voyager episode)|Caretaker]]" of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', which ran for 7 seasons and 172 episodes.
The police arrested Charles Edward Pope on September 5, 1930 as a suspect of the kidnapping. He was a 66-year-old apartment house superintendent, and he was accused by his estranged wife.<ref>[[New York Times]]; September 5, 1930; Wife Accuses Caretaker as Abductor Who Vanished With Girl Two Years Ago; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> He spent 108&nbsp;days in jail between his arrest and trial on December 22, 1930.<ref>[[New York Times]]; December 22, 1930; Charles Edward Pope, who has spent the last 108&nbsp;days in jail after his arrest in connection with the disappearance of Grace Budd, 10&nbsp;years old, who was last seen at her parents' home, 406 West Fifteenth Street, on June 3, 1928, will go on trial today before Judge Allen in General Sessions on a charge of kidnapping the missing girl and ate some cheese!
.; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref>


Work commenced on rewriting the ''Phase II'' pilot episode ''In Thy Image'' as ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''. At this point, [[Alan Dean Foster]] (one of the authors) was shut out of any work on the screenplay, and, despite ongoing problems with the developing script, his input was never solicited. {{Fact|date=February 2007}} In fact, an attempt was made to keep his name off the final screen credits, and it was only the threat of arbitration with the Writer's Guild that restored him as author of the screen story.<ref name= mostmp>''The Making of Star Trek--the Motion Picture'' Pocket Books, 1980.</ref>
===The letter===
Seven years later, in November 1934, an anonymous letter was sent to the girl's parents which led the police to Albert Fish. The letter is quoted here, with all of Fish's misspellings and grammatical errors:


All this couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. By the end of 1977, ''[[Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Star Wars]]'' had become a huge box-office success, and Paramount put ''The Motion Picture'' into pre-production. Rather than follow the [[space opera]] feel of ''Star Wars'', ''TMP'' instead emulated the mood and format of the 1968 film [[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|''2001: A Space Odyssey'']], in which [[Douglas Trumbull]] also supervised special effects. The film follows the story of "In Thy Image" only generally, as multiple disputes between screenwriter Harold Livingston and producer [[Gene Roddenberry]] (as well as numerous changes requested by Paramount Executives and the actors) led to extensive and even daily rewrites of the movie right up to the end of filming.<ref name= mostmp>''The Making of Star Trek--the Motion Picture'' Pocket Books, 1980.</ref><ref name= STMM>''Star Trek Movie Memories'' Harper, 1994.</ref>
{{quotation|Dear Mrs. Budd. In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from [[San Francisco]] for [[Hong Kong]], China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was [[famine]] in China. Meat of any kind was from $1-3 per pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak—chops—or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girl's behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price. John staid [sic] there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys, one 7 and one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet. Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them &ndash; [[torture]]d them &ndash; to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11&nbsp;year old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except the head—bones and guts. He was roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried and stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 St. near—right side. He told me so often how good human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it. On Sunday June the 3, 1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese—strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them. When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma. First I stripped her naked. How she did kick &ndash; bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9&nbsp;days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her tho I could<!-- OK here: don't correct it--> of had I wished. She died a virgin.<ref name=crimelibrary/>}}


Major cuts from the ''Phase II'' pilot episode include: Scenes of Kirk trying to recruit McCoy in a park in [[San Francisco]], a conference of admirals discussing the intruder, Lieutenant Xon's entire role, the destruction of the cruiser ''Aswan'', an invasion of the ''Enterprise'' by mechanical probes, scenes of the Ilia-probe attempting to seduce Kirk and Sulu, and scenes of Kirk and Ilia beaming down to San Francisco to show her footage of [[NASA]]'s [[Voyager program|''Voyager'' program]] at [[Starfleet Command]]. The director of the pilot episode, [[Bob Collins]], was briefly set to be the director of the motion picture.<ref name= TMP:DE>''Star Trek: The Motion Picture Directors Edition'', [[Paramount Pictures]], 2001</ref><ref name= STMM>''Star Trek Movie Memories'' Harper, 1994.</ref> The film was directed by [[Robert Wise]], after the studio decided they wanted a big name director attached to the property, and released ''Phase II'' pilot director Bob Collins.<ref name= STMM/> It displayed state-of-the-art (for the time) special effects, set design and use of models.
Mrs. Budd was illiterate and could not read the letter herself, so she had her son read it instead.<ref>Harold Schechter and David Everitt, ''The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers'', Pocket Books, 2006. Page 163</ref> Fish later admitted to his attorney that he did indeed rape Grace.<ref>Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman, ''The Serial Killers'', Virgin Publishing Ltd. 2004, page 69</ref> Fish was a compulsive liar, however, so this may be untrue. He had told the police, when asked, that it "never even entered his head" to rape the girl.<ref name=SerialKillers>Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman, ''The Serial Killers'', Virgin Publishing Ltd. 2004, page 70</ref>


===Capture===
===Effects===
The letter was delivered in an envelope that had a small [[hexagon]]al emblem with the letters "N.Y.P.C.B.A." standing for "New York Private Chauffeur's Benevolent Association". A janitor at the company told police he had taken some of the stationery home but left it at his rooming house at 200 East [[52nd Street (Manhattan)|52nd Street]] when he moved out. The landlady of the rooming house said that Fish had checked out of that room a few days earlier. She said that Fish's son sent him money and he had asked her to hold his next check for him. William F. King,<ref>[[New York Times]] July 16, 1944, Sunday; William King Dead.; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> the lead investigator, waited outside the room until Fish returned. He agreed to go to the headquarters for questioning, but at the street door lunged at King with a razor in each hand.<ref>[[Harold Schechter]]; Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer. ISBN 0671678752</ref> King disarmed Fish and took him to police headquarters. Fish made no attempt to deny the Grace Budd murder, saying that he had meant to go to the house to kill Edward Budd, Grace's brother.<ref>Fish supplied the following biographical information in captivity: "I was born May 19, 1870, in [[Washington, D.C.]]. We lived on B Street, N.E., between Second and Third. My father was Captain Randall Fish, 32nd-degree [[Freemasonry|Mason]], and he is buried in the Grand Lodge grounds of the [[Congressional Cemetery]]. He was a [[Potomac River]] boat captain, running from D.C. to [[Marshall Hall, Maryland|Marshall Hall]], [[Virginia]] [sic]. My father dropped dead October 15, 1875, in the old [[Union Station (Washington, D.C.)|Pennsylvania Station]] where [[James A. Garfield|President Garfield]] was shot, and I was placed in St. John's Orphanage in Washington. I was there till I was nearly nine, and that's where I got started wrong. We were unmercifully whipped. I saw boys doing many things they should not have done. I sang in the choir from 1880 to 1884, [[soprano]], at St. John's. I came to New York. I was a good painter, interiors or anything. I got an apartment and brought my mother up from Washington. We lived at 76 West 101st Street, and that's where I met my wife. After our six children were born, she left me. She took all the furniture and didn't even leave a mattress for the children to sleep on. I'm still worried about my children, you'd think they'd come to visit their old dad in jail, but they haven't."</ref>


The special effects for the movie became one of the biggest production problems. Half way through production it was decided that original effects company working on the project, [[Robert Abel and Associates]], were not up to the task of producing the large number of scenes. In March 1979. Paramount offered [[Douglas Trumbull]]'s effect company, Entertainment Effects Group, a virtual blank check if they could get all the effects work done by the Christmas release date. Most of the work done by Robert Abel up to that point was scrapped (the wormhole sequence seems to be the only "Abel" effects scene that made it into the final film). Trumbull went ahead with the job to re-visualize and rework most of the effects scenes, using the same crew and equipment from the just finished ''[[Close Encounters of the Third Kind]]'' and even subcontracted work out to [[John Dykstra]] (''[[Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope|Star Wars]]'').<ref name= mostmp>''The Making of Star Trek--the Motion Picture'' Pocket Books, 1980.</ref>
==Postcapture discoveries==
===Billy Gaffney===
A child named Billy Gaffney was playing in the hallway outside of his family's apartment in [[Brooklyn, New York|Brooklyn]] with his friend, Billy Beaton on February 11, 1927. Both of the boys disappeared, but the friend was found on the roof of the apartment house. When asked what happened to Gaffney, Beaton said "the [[boogey man]] took him." Initially [[Peter Kudzinowski]] was a suspect in the murder of Billy Gaffney. Then, Joseph Meehan, a motorman on a [[Brooklyn]] [[tram|trolley]], saw a picture of Fish in the newspaper and identified him as the old man that he saw February 11, 1927, who was trying to quiet a little boy sitting with him on the trolley. The boy wasn't wearing a jacket and was crying for his mother and was dragged by the man on and off the trolley. Police matched the description of the child to Billy Gaffney. Gaffney's body was never recovered.<ref>Billy Gaffney's parents were Elizabeth and Edward Gaffney.</ref> Billy's mother visited Fish in Sing Sing to try and get more details of her son's death.<ref>[http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring03/Rawlins/fishvict.htm Fish Victims]; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> Fish confessed the following:


The entire segment of Spock entering V'Ger alone was filmed at the last minute (in June 1979) by Douglas Trumbull, who wrote and directed the sequence. The original sequence, showing Spock and Kirk entering V'Ger's memory core, had been in production but abandoned when it was determined that the sequence brought the movie to a halt and that the costs of the wire-removal and other effects would consume much of the entire effects budget for the film.<ref name= TMP:DE/>
{{quotation|I brought him to the Riker Ave. dumps. There is a house that stands alone, not far from where I took him. I took the boy there. Stripped him naked and tied his hands and feet and gagged him with a piece of dirty rag I picked out of the dump. Then I burned his clothes. Threw his shoes in the dump. Then I walked back and took the trolley to 59 St. at 2 A.M. and walked from there home. Next day about 2 P.M., I took tools, a good heavy cat-of-nine tails. Home made. Short handle. Cut one of my belts in half, slit these halves in six strips about 8 inches long. I whipped his bare behind till the blood ran from his legs. I cut off his ears -- nose --slit his mouth from ear to ear. Gouged out his eyes. He was dead then. I stuck the knife in his belly and held my mouth to his body and drank his blood. I picked up four old potato sacks and gathered a pile of stones. Then I cut him up. I had a grip with me. I put his nose, ears and a few slices of his belly in the grip. Then I cut him through the middle of his body. Just below the belly button. Then through his legs about 2 inches below his behind. I put this in my grip with a lot of paper. I cut off the head -- feet -- arms-- hands and the legs below the knee. This I put in sacks weighed with stones, tied the ends and threw them into the pools of slimy water you will see all along the road going to North Beach. I came home with my meat. I had the front of his body I liked best. His monkey and pee wees and a nice little fat behind to roast in the oven and eat. I made a stew out of his ears -- nose -- pieces of his face and belly. I put onions, carrots, turnips, celery, salt and pepper. It was good. Then I split the cheeks of his behind open, cut off his monkey and pee wees and washed them first. I put strips of bacon on each cheek of his behind and put them in the oven. Then I picked 4 onions and when the meat had roasted about 1/4 hour, I poured about a pint of water over it for gravy and put in the onions. At frequent intervals I basted his behind with a wooden spoon. So the meat would be nice and juicy. In about 2 hours, it was nice and brown, cooked through. I never ate any roast turkey that tasted half as good as his sweet fat little behind did. I ate every bit of the meat in about four days. His little monkey was a sweet as a nut, but his pee-wees I could not chew. Threw them in the toilet.<ref name=crimelibrary/>}}


This is the first time in ''Star Trek'' when Klingons are seen with their trademark 'bumpy forehead' look rather than the hooked eyebrows and twirled moustaches seen in the original television series. This change of appearance sparked debate (some even stated the Klingons' behavior in the film was unlike the previous behavior seen in the original series), and a quarter century of fan speculation (and a joking reference in the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "[[Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9 episode)|Trials and Tribble-ations]]"), until a [[canon (fiction)|canonical]] rationale for the change was finally provided in a [[Affliction (Enterprise episode)|2005 episode of ''Star Trek: Enterprise'']].
===Previous incarceration===
Fish married on February 6, 1930 at [[Waterloo, New York]] to "Mrs. Estella Wilcox" and divorced after one week.<ref>[[New York Times]]; December 14, 1934, pg 3; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> Fish had been arrested in May 1930 for "sending an obscene letter to a woman who answered an advertisement for a maid."<ref>[[New York Times]], December 15, 1934, pg 1; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> He had been sent to the [[Bellevue]] psychiatric hospital in 1930 and 1931 for observation, following his arrests.<ref>[[New York Times]]; March 13, 1935, pg 40; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref>


==Trial and execution==
===Audio ===
The score for ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' was written by [[Jerry Goldsmith]] in a bold, sweeping style. This was the beginning of his long association with ''Star Trek'', which would lead to him composing the scores for ''[[Star Trek V: The Final Frontier]]'', ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Insurrection]]'', and ''[[Star Trek Nemesis]]''. Goldsmith would also compose the theme for ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' (which was adapted from the main title music for ''Motion Picture'') as well as the [[Emmy award]]-winning theme to ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''. Gene Roddenberry had originally wanted Goldsmith to score ''Star Trek''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s pilot episode, "[[The Cage (Star Trek)|The Cage]]", but the composer was unavailable.
[[Image:Fish9.jpg|thumb|Fish inserted over a dozen needles into his pelvis and [[perineum]] as seen in this x-ray used at his trial]]
The trial of Albert Fish for the premeditated murder of Grace Budd began on Monday, March 11, 1935, in [[White Plains, New York]] with Frederick P. Close as judge, and Chief Assistant District Attorney, Elbert F. Gallagher, as the prosecuting attorney. James Dempsey was Fish's defense attorney. The trial lasted for ten days. Fish pleaded [[insanity]], and claimed to have heard voices from God telling him to kill children. Several [[psychiatrist]]s testified about Fish's [[Sexual fetishism|sexual fetishes]], including [[coprophilia]], [[Urolagnia|urophilia]], [[pedophilia]] and [[masochism]], but there was disagreement as to whether these activities meant he was insane. The defense's chief expert witness was [[Fredric Wertham]], a psychiatrist with a focus on child development who conducted psychiatric examinations for the New York criminal courts; Wertham stated that Fish was insane. Another defense witness was Mary Nicholas, Fish's 17-year-old stepdaughter. She described how Fish taught her and her brothers and sisters a "game" involving overtones of [[masochism]] and child molestation.<ref name=crimelibrary/><!--
{{quotation|"He went into his room and he had a little pair of trunks, brown trunks, that he put on. He put those on and came out into the front room, and he got down on his hands and knees, and he had a paint stick that he stirred paint with. ... He would give the stick to one of us, and then he would get down on his hands and knees and we would sit on his back, one at a time, with our back facing him, and then we would put up so many fingers, and he was to tell how many fingers we had up, and if he guessed right, which he never did, why, we weren't supposed to hit him. Sometimes, he would even say more fingers than we really had. And if he never guessed right, why, we would hit him as many fingers as we would have up."<ref name=crimelibrary/>}}-->
The jury found him to be [[Sanity|sane]] and guilty, and the judge ordered the [[death sentence]].


For ''Star Trek'', Goldsmith was charged with depicting a universe with his music, and so it is extremely expansive. Goldsmith's initial main theme was not well-received by the filmmakers (director Robert Wise felt "It sounds like sailing ships").<ref>''Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition'' DVD commentary track by [[Robert Wise]].</ref> Although somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial ideas.
After being sentenced Fish confessed to the murder of eight-year-old Francis X. McDonnell, killed on [[Staten Island]]. Francis was playing on the front porch of his home near [[Port Richmond, Staten Island]] in July 15, 1924. Francis's mother saw an "old man" walk by clenching and unclenching his fists. He walked past without saying anything. Later in the day, the old man was seen again, but this time he was watching Francis and his friends play. Francis' body was found in the woods near where a neighbor had seen Francis and the "old man" going earlier that afternoon. He had been assaulted and strangled with his suspenders.<ref>[[New York Times]]; December 17, 1934; Fish Denies Guilt in Gaffney Crime.; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref><ref name=NYT03261935>[[New York Times]]; March 26, 1935; Fish is Sentenced; Admits New Crimes; Death in Electric Chair Fixed for Week of April 29, 1935. Move to Set Aside Verdict Denied. [[White Plains, New York]], March 25, 1935. As Albert H. Fish was sentenced to die in the [[electric chair]] at [[Sing Sing]], Westchester authorities revealed today that he had confessed to a series of other crimes in various parts of the country.; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref>


[[Alexander Courage]], who composed the theme for the original ''Star Trek'' television series, was a friend of Goldsmith's, and served as his orchestrator on several scores. Courage also provided a new arrangement of his theme from the original series for use in ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''. Another of the original series' composers, [[Fred Steiner]], provided a few minor cues based on Goldsmith's original material (as deadlines prevented Goldsmith from completing every last scene). A considerable portion of the score for ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' was conducted by an uncredited [[Lionel Newman]] (as Goldsmith, owing to the unusual instrumental blends, preferred to monitor the balance in the recording booth).
Fish arrived in March 1935, and was executed on January 16, 1936, in the [[electric chair]] at [[Sing Sing]]. He entered the chamber at 11:06 p.m. and was pronounced dead three minutes later.<ref>[[New York Times]]; January 17, 1936; Albert Fish, 65, Pays Penalty at Sing Sing. Bronx Negro Also Is Put to Death. [[Ossining, New York]], January 16, 1936. Albert Fish, 65&nbsp;years old, of 55 East 128th Street, Manhattan, a house painter who murdered Grace Budd, 6, after attacking her in a Westchester farmhouse in 1928, was put to death tonight in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison.; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref> He was buried in the Sing Sing Prison Cemetery. He was recorded to have said that electrocution would be "the supreme thrill of my life".<ref>Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman, ''The Serial Killers'', Virgin Publishing Ltd. 2004, page 173</ref> Just before the switch was flipped, he stated "I don't even know why I am here." According to one witness present, it took two jolts before Fish died, creating the legend that the apparatus was short-circuited by the needles Fish previously inserted into his body. <ref name=SerialKillers/>


''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' is the only ''Star Trek'' film to have a true [[Overture#Film|overture]], using Ilia's love theme for this music. ''Star Trek'' and ''[[The Black Hole]]'' would be the only feature films to use an overture from the end of 1979 until the year 2000 (with the movie ''[[Dancer in the Dark]]'').
==Victims==
* Francis X. McDonnell, age 8, July 15, 1924
* Billy Gaffney, age 8, February 11, 1927
* Yetta Abramowitz, age 12, 1927
* Grace Budd, age 10, June 3, 1928
* Mary Ellen O'Connor, age 16, February 15, 1932
* Benjamin Collings, age 17, 1932<ref name=NYT12151934>[[New York Times]]; December 15, 1934, Saturday; Police Try To Link Budd Girl's Slayer To 3 Other Crimes; Fish Questioned On O'Connor, Collings And Gaffney Cases. He Denies Part In Them.; Retrieved on February 14, 2007</ref>


After the overture the film launches immediately into the title music, which was later adapted as the theme for ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''. As the credits end, "Klingon Battle" theme is introduced, a clarion call introduced by woodwinds, accompanied by angklungs (bamboo rattles from Indonesia). Both the opening theme and the Klingon theme would make frequent appearances in Goldsmith's other ''Trek'' scores, appearing in ''Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' (throughout the film), ''Star Trek: First Contact'' (in "Red Alert" and the end credits music), ''Star Trek: Insurrection'' (in the opening and closing music), and ''Star Trek Nemesis'' (in "Repairs" and the end credits music), with the Klingon theme being used briefly in the Next Generation episode [[Heart of Glory]], as Capt. Picard awaited the arrival of an allied Klingon battlecruiser.
==See also==

*[[Peter Kudzinowski]], a serial killer who committed his crimes in the same timeframe and location
Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (''Advanced Digital Synthesizer'') 11, manufactured by [[Pasadena, California]] custom synthesizer manufacturer [[Con Brio, Inc.]] The movie provided major publicity at the time and was used to advertise the synthesizer, although no price was given at the time.<ref name="VS">''Vintage Synthesizers'' Backbeat Books, 2000</ref>

The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the [[Blaster Beam]], an electronic instrument about 10 feet long, stringed, and played with an artillery shell. Jerry Goldsmith used it to create the eerie signature V'Ger sound. The Blaster Beam was developed by musician [[Craig Huxley]], who, as a child actor, had appeared on two episodes of the original ''Star Trek'' TV series. Goldsmith also utilized a large pipe organ, which required the score be recorded at 20th Century Fox (which had the only scoring stage in Los Angeles equipped with such an organ).

Jerry Goldsmith's score was nominated for an [[Academy Award for Original Music Score]], although the award went to [[Georges Delerue]] for ''[[A Little Romance]]'' instead. This was the only ''Star Trek'' score to be nominated for an Academy Award other than ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home]]''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s score by [[Leonard Rosenman]].

When the film was originally made, the rush to get it into theaters on time left much of the sound design unfinished. When the DVD ''Director's Edition'' was released, Robert Wise and Foundation Imaging took the time to complete the sound mix, adding in many of the previously unfinished elements, as well as create a [[Dolby Digital]] 5.1 mix.<ref name="DB" />

==Release and reception==
''Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' grossed $82,258,456 in the U.S. and $139,000,000 worldwide. Though it made a fair amount of money, the film's gross was considered to be disappointing, considering its large $46,000,000 budget. The film was nominated for three [[Academy Awards]], for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Effects and Best Music.

''[[TIME (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine gave the film an unfavorable review, criticizing the slowness of the film and its reliance on special effects.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920726,00.html|title=Warp Speed to Nowhere|date=December 17, 1979|publisher=Time Magazine}}</ref> A 2001 [[BBC]] review claims the film was a critical failure.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/09/04/star_trek_the_motion_picture_1979_review.shtml|title=Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)|author=William Gallagher|date=September 4, 2001|publisher=BBC|accessdate=2006-12-28}}</ref> James Berardinell, reviewing the film in 1996, mirrored these criticisms, also finding that it bore too close a resemblance to the original series episode "[[The Changeling (TOS episode)|The Changeling]]", but considered the start and end of the film to be strong.<ref name=berardinelli>{{cite web|url=http://www.reelviews.net/movies/s/st1.html|author=[[James Berardinelli]]|title=Review: Star Trek: The Motion Picture|date=1996|accessdate=2006-12-28}}</ref>
===Home video===
An extended cut of the film on [[videotape]] and ABC network television released in 1983 included a number of small character moments that had been trimmed. This was one of the first occasions in which an extended version of a film was created for television and the then-new home video market. The additional footage included a thruster-suited Kirk leaving the Enterprise in pursuit of Spock. This scene had no special effects applied, so viewers were clearly able to see the scaffolding and ceiling of the soundstage in which the sequence was filmed. (This sequence can still be viewed among deleted scenes included on the 2001 DVD release.)<ref name=TMP:DE/>

In 2001, a ''Director's Edition'' of the film was released on [[VHS]] and [[DVD]]. Robert Wise was given the opportunity to re-edit the film to better match his original vision, and also to use [[computer-generated imagery]] to complete sequences which had been curtailed due to shooting deadlines. The new effects were based on storyboards from the original production and produced to appear as if done using the effects technology of the time. Several [[Continuity (fiction)|continuity]] errors were also corrected, but some were also added. Edits to improve the film's pacing were made, especially effective in the film's second half, where segments were trimmed to curtail prolonged reaction shots of the actors to the interior of V'Ger. This ''Director's Edition'' of the film also has a proper [[sound mix]], which was lacking in the theatrical presentation. This version of the film is generally considered a significant improvement over the original film.<ref name=DB>[http://www.thedigitalbits.com/reviews2/startrektmp.html"The Digital Bits"]</ref>

==Novelization==
To coincide with the release of the film [[Pocket Books]] published a novelization of the film written by ''Star Trek'' creator Gene Roddenberry. This book, which was published in both paperback and hardcover editions, is significant for several reasons. It was the first and only ''Star Trek'' novel published by Roddenberry himself, and it launched Pocket Books' literary ''Star Trek'' franchise, which has spanned hundreds of volumes covering all subsequent spin-off TV series, into 2008. The authorship of the book was debated for a time, with incorrect rumors in the 1980s that it was actually [[ghost writer|ghost written]] by [[Alan Dean Foster]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Ayers, Jeff|title=Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion|publisher=Pocket Books|date=2006|id=ISBN 1416503498}}</ref>

Roddenberry's novel adds elements to the film story and social mores to the Star Trek universe that are not referenced on screen. According to Gene Roddenberry's novelization of the film, [[Willard Decker]] is the son of Commodore [[Matt Decker]] from the original series episode "[[The Doomsday Machine (TOS episode)|The Doomsday Machine]]", which was also the plan for the ''Phase II'' television series. Despite not being mentioned onscreen in the movie, this relationship has assumed at least semi-canonical status, considering its Roddenberry origins, and the fact that it has never been officially contradicted in the years since. He also introduces the Klingon ships as "the new K't'inga-class" and says that some Starfleet technicians feared that they might be more powerful than Starfleet's "First Line Constitution-Class ships."


==Notes==
==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}
{{Reflist}}


==External links==
== External links ==
{{wikiquote}}
*[http://richard.arthur.norton.googlepages.com/albertfishbibliography Albert Fish bibliography]
*{{imdb title|id=0079945|title=Star Trek: The Motion Picture}}
*[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/fish/index.html Crime Library Article: Albert Fish]
*{{amg movie|id=1:46515|title=Star Trek: The Motion Picture}}
*[http://www.prairieghosts.com/fish.html Prairie Ghosts: Albert Fish]
*{{rotten-tomatoes|id=star_trek_the_motion_picture|title=Star Trek: The Motion Picture}}
*[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wjhonson/Famous/AlbertFish.htm Fish family history]
*{{imdb title|id=0478329|title=Wisteria: The Story of Albert Fish}}
*{{mojo title|id=startrek|title=Star Trek: The Motion Picture}}
{{Memoryalpha article|Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture|''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''}}
*{{imdb title|id=0486544|title=Albert Fish}}
*[http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/series/MOV/001/index.html ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''] at StarTrek.com
*[http://www.albertfishfilm.com/ Albert Fish the film]


{{Star Trek}}
{{Persondata
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|NAME=Fish, Albert

|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
{{DEFAULTSORT:Star Trek 01: The Motion Picture}}
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=Serial killer
[[Category:1979 films]]
|DATE OF BIRTH=May 19, 1870
[[Category:Adventure films]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Washington, D.C.]], United States
[[Category:Drama films]]
|DATE OF DEATH=January 16, 1936
[[Category:Family films]]
|PLACE OF DEATH=[[Sing Sing]]
[[Category:Films directed by Robert Wise]]
}}
[[Category:Films set in the 23rd century]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fish, Albert}}
[[Category:1870 births]]
[[Category:Star Trek films]]
[[Category:1936 deaths]]
[[Category:American serial killers]]
[[Category:American rapists]]
[[Category:Sing Sing prison]]
[[Category:Executed serial killers]]
[[Category:People executed by electric chair]]
[[Category:People from Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:20th century executions by the United States]]
[[Category:American cannibals]]
[[Category:Bisexual people]]
[[Category:People executed by New York]]
[[Category:American murderers of children]]
[[Category:Executed American people]]


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Revision as of 16:57, 12 October 2008

Star Trek: The Motion Picture
File:Star trek-the motion picture.png
Theatrical release poster by Bob Peak
Directed byRobert Wise
Written byScreenplay:
Harold Livingston
Story:
Alan Dean Foster
Characters:
Gene Roddenberry
Produced byGene Roddenberry
StarringSee table
CinematographyRichard H. Kline
Edited byTodd C. Ramsay
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release dates
December 7, 1979
Running time
136 minutes (Director's cut)
CountryUnited States
Budget$46,000,000 (estimated)
Box office$139,000,000 (worldwide)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film from Paramount Pictures. It is the first feature film based on the Star Trek television series.

The third science fiction film directed by multiple Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture revitalized the Star Trek franchise, spawning nine motion picture sequels, with a prequel currently in development as of 2008.

Plot

The spaceship USS Enterprise is undergoing a major refit and its former commander, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and is now Chief of Starfleet Operations on Earth. A powerful alien force, in the shape of a massive energy cloud, is detected in Klingon space and appears to be heading for Earth. The cloud destroys three Klingon starships and Epsilon 9, a Starfleet monitoring station that it encounters en route. As it is the only ship in intercept range, Starfleet decides to dispatch the Enterprise to intercept the cloud, requiring its refit process to be quickly finished and tested while in transit.

As part of the mission, Admiral Kirk command of the ship, angering Captain Willard Decker, who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. With many of the former crew members of the ship aboard, the Enterprise embarks on its journey. Testing of its new systems goes poorly, including a malfunctioning transporter that kills the science officer. An imbalance in the calibration of the ship's warp engines resulting in the formation of an artificial wormhole causes further tension between Kirk and Decker, mainly due to Kirk's unfamiliarity with the Enterprise's redesigned phasers. Many of the problems are resolved by the arrival of a replacement science officer, the Vulcan Commander Spock, who had been on his homeworld undergoing the kolinahr ritual. His failure to complete kolinahr and purge his emotions in the ritual has led him to seek his answers on the Enterprise, explaining, that he felt a consciousness on Vulcan which he believes holds the answers to their mission.

The Enterprise intercepts the alien cloud and journeys inside, finding a vast alien vessel that draws the Enterprise inside. An alien probe appears on the bridge and attacks Spock after he tries to prevent it from gathering sensitive Starfleet information, as well as abducting the navigator, Ilia. Ilia is later replaced by a robotic probe that has been sent to study the crew by something called V'ger. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history, and is troubled to be assigned to get information from the mechanical doppelgänger, which he discovers has Ilia's memories and feelings buried within. Meanwhile, Spock takes a spacewalk into the alien vessel, and attempts to telepathically mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'ger itself; a living machine.

At the heart of the machine, V'ger is revealed to be the unmanned scientific probe named Voyager 6, which was a twentieth century space probe launched from Earth. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that is learnable, and return that information to its creator. These machines made V'ger into something capable of fulfilling that mission, and on its journey back the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission. Having learned all that is learnable on its journey home, which took V'ger across the universe, V'ger finds itself empty and without a purpose. Only through its creator can V’ger begin to explore illogical things, such as other dimensions. Offering himself to the machine as the creator, Commander Decker merges with V'ger, creating a new form of life. With Earth saved and their mission completed, Kirk commands the Enterprise out to space for future missions.

Cast

File:Star Trek TMP cast.jpg
The cast of Star Trek: The Motion Picture
William Shatner as James T. Kirk
The former captain of the USS Enterprise and an Admiral at Starfleet Headquarters.
Leonard Nimoy as Spock
The Enterprise's science officer.
DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy
The chief medical officer aboard the Enterprise.
James Doohan as Montgomery Scott
The Enterprise's chief engineer.
George Takei as Hikaru Sulu
Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
The communications officer aboard the Enterprise. Nichols noted that she was one of the most opposed actors to the new uniforms Wise added, because the insisted drab, unisex look "wasn't Uhura". Wise appealed to Roddenberry, who sided with Nichols.[1]
Persis Khambatta as Ilia
The new navigator of the Enterprise.
Stephen Collins as Willard Decker
The captain of the Enterprise, and the commander overseeing the ship's refit.

Production

Origins

The original Star Trek series was cancelled due to low ratings. In the wake of Star Trek's popularity in the early 1970s as a result of newborn Trek fandom and syndication, there were several failed attempts to produce a Trek feature film, starting in 1974. A number of ideas were seriously pitched for a film to be entitled Star Trek II. These included "The God Thing" by Gene Roddenberry about a vessel visiting Earth claiming to be God, a story by Harlan Ellison about alien reptiles changing Earth's past to make snakes evolutionarily dominant, and "The Planet of the Titans."[2][3]

"The Planet of the Titans" was nearly produced as the first Star Trek motion picture. Written by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant, the script involved the crew of the Enterprise rescuing the starship Da Vinci from a disaster. During the rescue, Kirk suffers a shock to the brain causing him to go mad and disappear. Years later, the Enterprise, now under Captain Gregory Westlake, is dispatched to a planet near where Kirk disappeared. This planet is slowly being sucked into a black hole, and contains a wealth of information that the Klingons (who have also dispatched ships) want as well. Kirk is found, but the planet and the Enterprise are pulled, via the black hole, into Earth's past, where they become the Titans of Greek mythology (a plot reminiscent of "Who Mourns for Adonais?," a Star Trek television episode that had aired in the '60s). It was to be directed by Philip Kaufman. Ralph McQuarrie did pre-production art and Ken Adam storyboarded the script. The second issue of Starlog magazine trumpeted the production of the film on a front cover headline. The movie was abandoned in late 1976 when Paramount finally rejected Scott and Bryant's script.[3]

Instead, in 1977, attention was turned away from a film and toward a second television series, to be entitled Star Trek: Phase II, as part of a fourth television network to be created by Paramount. Work began on scripts for the series, including a 2-hour pilot titled "In Thy Image" (based on a pitch script for Roddenberry's Genesis II called "Robot's Return"). In the midst of preparation for shooting, Michael Eisner, then-head of Paramount, called a landmark studio meeting. Eisner was said to declare regarding the pilot, "we've been looking for a Star Trek motion picture for five years and this is it!" Despite already-existent casting, costuming, set production, and 12 written scripts, the new series, along with the new Paramount network, were both abandoned. Paramount's idea to launch a new broadcast network with a new Star Trek series would eventually be revitalized in 1995 with the 2 hour pilot episode "Caretaker" of Star Trek: Voyager, which ran for 7 seasons and 172 episodes.

Work commenced on rewriting the Phase II pilot episode In Thy Image as Star Trek: The Motion Picture. At this point, Alan Dean Foster (one of the authors) was shut out of any work on the screenplay, and, despite ongoing problems with the developing script, his input was never solicited. [citation needed] In fact, an attempt was made to keep his name off the final screen credits, and it was only the threat of arbitration with the Writer's Guild that restored him as author of the screen story.[3]

All this couldn't have come at a more opportune moment. By the end of 1977, Star Wars had become a huge box-office success, and Paramount put The Motion Picture into pre-production. Rather than follow the space opera feel of Star Wars, TMP instead emulated the mood and format of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which Douglas Trumbull also supervised special effects. The film follows the story of "In Thy Image" only generally, as multiple disputes between screenwriter Harold Livingston and producer Gene Roddenberry (as well as numerous changes requested by Paramount Executives and the actors) led to extensive and even daily rewrites of the movie right up to the end of filming.[3][4]

Major cuts from the Phase II pilot episode include: Scenes of Kirk trying to recruit McCoy in a park in San Francisco, a conference of admirals discussing the intruder, Lieutenant Xon's entire role, the destruction of the cruiser Aswan, an invasion of the Enterprise by mechanical probes, scenes of the Ilia-probe attempting to seduce Kirk and Sulu, and scenes of Kirk and Ilia beaming down to San Francisco to show her footage of NASA's Voyager program at Starfleet Command. The director of the pilot episode, Bob Collins, was briefly set to be the director of the motion picture.[5][4] The film was directed by Robert Wise, after the studio decided they wanted a big name director attached to the property, and released Phase II pilot director Bob Collins.[4] It displayed state-of-the-art (for the time) special effects, set design and use of models.

Effects

The special effects for the movie became one of the biggest production problems. Half way through production it was decided that original effects company working on the project, Robert Abel and Associates, were not up to the task of producing the large number of scenes. In March 1979. Paramount offered Douglas Trumbull's effect company, Entertainment Effects Group, a virtual blank check if they could get all the effects work done by the Christmas release date. Most of the work done by Robert Abel up to that point was scrapped (the wormhole sequence seems to be the only "Abel" effects scene that made it into the final film). Trumbull went ahead with the job to re-visualize and rework most of the effects scenes, using the same crew and equipment from the just finished Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even subcontracted work out to John Dykstra (Star Wars).[3]

The entire segment of Spock entering V'Ger alone was filmed at the last minute (in June 1979) by Douglas Trumbull, who wrote and directed the sequence. The original sequence, showing Spock and Kirk entering V'Ger's memory core, had been in production but abandoned when it was determined that the sequence brought the movie to a halt and that the costs of the wire-removal and other effects would consume much of the entire effects budget for the film.[5]

This is the first time in Star Trek when Klingons are seen with their trademark 'bumpy forehead' look rather than the hooked eyebrows and twirled moustaches seen in the original television series. This change of appearance sparked debate (some even stated the Klingons' behavior in the film was unlike the previous behavior seen in the original series), and a quarter century of fan speculation (and a joking reference in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations"), until a canonical rationale for the change was finally provided in a 2005 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

Audio

The score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was written by Jerry Goldsmith in a bold, sweeping style. This was the beginning of his long association with Star Trek, which would lead to him composing the scores for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis. Goldsmith would also compose the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation (which was adapted from the main title music for Motion Picture) as well as the Emmy award-winning theme to Star Trek: Voyager. Gene Roddenberry had originally wanted Goldsmith to score Star Trek's pilot episode, "The Cage", but the composer was unavailable.

For Star Trek, Goldsmith was charged with depicting a universe with his music, and so it is extremely expansive. Goldsmith's initial main theme was not well-received by the filmmakers (director Robert Wise felt "It sounds like sailing ships").[6] Although somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial ideas.

Alexander Courage, who composed the theme for the original Star Trek television series, was a friend of Goldsmith's, and served as his orchestrator on several scores. Courage also provided a new arrangement of his theme from the original series for use in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Another of the original series' composers, Fred Steiner, provided a few minor cues based on Goldsmith's original material (as deadlines prevented Goldsmith from completing every last scene). A considerable portion of the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was conducted by an uncredited Lionel Newman (as Goldsmith, owing to the unusual instrumental blends, preferred to monitor the balance in the recording booth).

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the only Star Trek film to have a true overture, using Ilia's love theme for this music. Star Trek and The Black Hole would be the only feature films to use an overture from the end of 1979 until the year 2000 (with the movie Dancer in the Dark).

After the overture the film launches immediately into the title music, which was later adapted as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. As the credits end, "Klingon Battle" theme is introduced, a clarion call introduced by woodwinds, accompanied by angklungs (bamboo rattles from Indonesia). Both the opening theme and the Klingon theme would make frequent appearances in Goldsmith's other Trek scores, appearing in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (throughout the film), Star Trek: First Contact (in "Red Alert" and the end credits music), Star Trek: Insurrection (in the opening and closing music), and Star Trek Nemesis (in "Repairs" and the end credits music), with the Klingon theme being used briefly in the Next Generation episode Heart of Glory, as Capt. Picard awaited the arrival of an allied Klingon battlecruiser.

Much of the recording equipment used to create the movie's intricately complicated sound effects was, at the time, extremely cutting edge. Among these pieces of equipment was the ADS (Advanced Digital Synthesizer) 11, manufactured by Pasadena, California custom synthesizer manufacturer Con Brio, Inc. The movie provided major publicity at the time and was used to advertise the synthesizer, although no price was given at the time.[7]

The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam, an electronic instrument about 10 feet long, stringed, and played with an artillery shell. Jerry Goldsmith used it to create the eerie signature V'Ger sound. The Blaster Beam was developed by musician Craig Huxley, who, as a child actor, had appeared on two episodes of the original Star Trek TV series. Goldsmith also utilized a large pipe organ, which required the score be recorded at 20th Century Fox (which had the only scoring stage in Los Angeles equipped with such an organ).

Jerry Goldsmith's score was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Music Score, although the award went to Georges Delerue for A Little Romance instead. This was the only Star Trek score to be nominated for an Academy Award other than Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home's score by Leonard Rosenman.

When the film was originally made, the rush to get it into theaters on time left much of the sound design unfinished. When the DVD Director's Edition was released, Robert Wise and Foundation Imaging took the time to complete the sound mix, adding in many of the previously unfinished elements, as well as create a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.[8]

Release and reception

Star Trek: The Motion Picture grossed $82,258,456 in the U.S. and $139,000,000 worldwide. Though it made a fair amount of money, the film's gross was considered to be disappointing, considering its large $46,000,000 budget. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Effects and Best Music.

Time magazine gave the film an unfavorable review, criticizing the slowness of the film and its reliance on special effects.[9] A 2001 BBC review claims the film was a critical failure.[10] James Berardinell, reviewing the film in 1996, mirrored these criticisms, also finding that it bore too close a resemblance to the original series episode "The Changeling", but considered the start and end of the film to be strong.[11]

Home video

An extended cut of the film on videotape and ABC network television released in 1983 included a number of small character moments that had been trimmed. This was one of the first occasions in which an extended version of a film was created for television and the then-new home video market. The additional footage included a thruster-suited Kirk leaving the Enterprise in pursuit of Spock. This scene had no special effects applied, so viewers were clearly able to see the scaffolding and ceiling of the soundstage in which the sequence was filmed. (This sequence can still be viewed among deleted scenes included on the 2001 DVD release.)[5]

In 2001, a Director's Edition of the film was released on VHS and DVD. Robert Wise was given the opportunity to re-edit the film to better match his original vision, and also to use computer-generated imagery to complete sequences which had been curtailed due to shooting deadlines. The new effects were based on storyboards from the original production and produced to appear as if done using the effects technology of the time. Several continuity errors were also corrected, but some were also added. Edits to improve the film's pacing were made, especially effective in the film's second half, where segments were trimmed to curtail prolonged reaction shots of the actors to the interior of V'Ger. This Director's Edition of the film also has a proper sound mix, which was lacking in the theatrical presentation. This version of the film is generally considered a significant improvement over the original film.[8]

Novelization

To coincide with the release of the film Pocket Books published a novelization of the film written by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. This book, which was published in both paperback and hardcover editions, is significant for several reasons. It was the first and only Star Trek novel published by Roddenberry himself, and it launched Pocket Books' literary Star Trek franchise, which has spanned hundreds of volumes covering all subsequent spin-off TV series, into 2008. The authorship of the book was debated for a time, with incorrect rumors in the 1980s that it was actually ghost written by Alan Dean Foster.[12]

Roddenberry's novel adds elements to the film story and social mores to the Star Trek universe that are not referenced on screen. According to Gene Roddenberry's novelization of the film, Willard Decker is the son of Commodore Matt Decker from the original series episode "The Doomsday Machine", which was also the plan for the Phase II television series. Despite not being mentioned onscreen in the movie, this relationship has assumed at least semi-canonical status, considering its Roddenberry origins, and the fact that it has never been officially contradicted in the years since. He also introduces the Klingon ships as "the new K't'inga-class" and says that some Starfleet technicians feared that they might be more powerful than Starfleet's "First Line Constitution-Class ships."

Notes

  1. ^ Nichols, 239.
  2. ^ Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages Little Brown & Co, 1995.
  3. ^ a b c d e The Making of Star Trek--the Motion Picture Pocket Books, 1980.
  4. ^ a b c Star Trek Movie Memories Harper, 1994.
  5. ^ a b c Star Trek: The Motion Picture Directors Edition, Paramount Pictures, 2001
  6. ^ Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition DVD commentary track by Robert Wise.
  7. ^ Vintage Synthesizers Backbeat Books, 2000
  8. ^ a b "The Digital Bits"
  9. ^ "Warp Speed to Nowhere". Time Magazine. December 17, 1979.
  10. ^ William Gallagher (September 4, 2001). "Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)". BBC. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  11. ^ James Berardinelli (1996). "Review: Star Trek: The Motion Picture". Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  12. ^ Ayers, Jeff (2006). Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion. Pocket Books. ISBN 1416503498.

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