1984 Article on The Making of the Galileo Seven

From the pages of Enterprise Incidents magazine (news-stand version) issue #14, published February of 1984, comes this article on the creation of the original Galileo shuttlecraft. It was made by the model kit company AMT in exchange for the rights to make and market the model kit of the ship!

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Below is an article from issue #18 of EI, that shows the shuttle as it was in the summer of 1984, sitting outside exposed to the elements for years. Over the decades there have been a number of article in various publications that showed where the shuttle was at the time and how bad it looked  from the neglect.

The story of the Little Shuttlecraft That Could has a happy ending, though! The Galileo was in the news last year when a new and definitive restoration of it was completed, and it found a home on display in the Space Center Houston in Texas. Read all about the various homes the ship had over the years, the several re-discoveries and earlier restorations, at the official site.  There is a nice article on it here also. Since then it has even been used in the "Fairest Of Them All" episode of  the fan film series "Star Trek Continues," which you can view below.

Below is a photo of the Galileo, fully restored to her former glory and possibly even beyond!

Bonus: Below, the cover art of the AMT Galileo model. A friend had bought the model and was going to throw away the box, but I begged it, the cover of which I cut out and put in my scrapbook album.

Link: read an earlier post on the Galileo with some blueprints, right here.

1984 Interview With Mark Lenard

 As a regular reader of this blog you may have noticed that a number of recent posts have been from the Enterprise Incidents magazine (as opposed to the earlier versions when I refer to it as a fanzine); well, I had recently taken out a stack from one of my collection cabinets and realized how much Trek material there was left to feature. So, I will continue to post articles from various issues until I feel that it has been properly represented here and not overwhelmed in number by Starlog posts (which are now all available online in a collection anyway).

This time we open issue #18, published in June of 1984 (the year that "Splash" came out; seems like a long time ago now), and we are featuring a nice lengthy interview with "Sarek" himself, Mark Lenard. Thanks again to editor and writer James Van Hise for publishing this. Enjoy!

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Extra: As an aside, I wish to quote writer D. C. Fontana (from a letter to fanzine Spockanalia,) on the subject of other children belonging to Sarek: "Both his mother and father have been married only once... to each other... Spock is an only child... there are absolutely no other siblings..." So, that would put Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier" out the canoniacal window... where, I believe, it firmly belongs. 

Bonus #1: Since the article was released before the movie and there were no images of Sarek in his movie costume and makeup, below is a nice publicity photo.

 

Bonus #2: Below, another one of the1967 Leaf bubblegum cards that continues the trend of nonsensical captions.

Bonus #3: A rare autographed photo of DeForest Kelley that was found along with some others in a record jacket bought at a thrift store. Talk about stumbling onto hidden gold! Go here to view all the others, they are quite amazing!

1984 ST:TMP Special Edition Article

In 2001, fans of Star Trek: The Motion Picture were treated to Director Robert Wise's "finished version" of the film (The Director's Edition), as he had considered the theatrical release so rushed as to not be what he wanted on screen. This is to me the definitive version, the one I take out and watch now whenever I get the desire to revisit the movie. The tighter edit, the more lush sound effects, the cleaned-up visual effects, and most of all the new visuals created for it (for those that could not be added originally due to the last-minute pressures)... all combine to make it a more pleasant viewing experience, in my opinion. (Finally, we know what V'Ger itself looked like in a long shot without the cloud! I never knew in all those years it even had a defined shape. It reminded me of the ship hidden in Halley's Comet in the film "Lifeforce.")

However, back in 1983 we were treated to a longer version of the film that added in cut scenes. Did it improve it? I feel it did in some respects; some of the cut scenes needed to be back in, others are today more rightly relegated to the "Deleted Scenes" extra on the menu on DVD or Blu-Ray. But back then we were so excited to see "more Trek" that even a longer and more drawn-out version of the movie was interesting to see.

In this article by James Van Hise from his Enterprise Incidents magazine, issue #13 (the first to go national after the promotion from fanzine), published in January of 1984, we have a scene-by-scene comparison of the theatrical cut and the extended TV cut, which turned up on home video later. The intense desire by Wise back then to have a "finished version" can be seen in the write-up, and it was something that took over 20 years for him to get to do. I'm thankful we got to see him accomplish that before his passing shortly afterward.

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Bonus: Below are two more pages from the 1976 Lincoln Enterprises "Star Trektennial" catalog that was the Trekker equivalent of Sear's Catalog. I have scanned the cover and first two pages before (page 1 here and page 2 here); and I intend on adding all of them in time. There are so many things on there that I wish I had ordered back then and had now.... 

Bonus #2: Below, the cover to my real introduction to Star Trek and the beginning of my love affair with it. I had never even seen a complete episode of the show up to that point, (only snippets here and there as the parents had me flip channels around) but was starting to become aware of it and absolutely loved what little I had seen. The animated episodes were next, and added fuel to the fire!

 

The cover blurb calls him Scotty, but tell me that doesn't look like Spock that McCoy is attacking with the SpaceVac!

Bonus link: Great poster from this Trekker Scrapbook blog! It looks like Pike and Vina are having fun and doing a great job at entertaining the inhabitants of Talos IV!

The Cage and The Menagerie: A Comparision

Last time, we looked at some content from nationally published fanzine-turned-pro Enterprise Incidents #16, one of the earlier issues (after making the leap from specialty shop to drugstore magazine rack) that still leaned heavily on Trek material, before branching out in later editions to cover other sci-fi films, similar to Starlog. I for one wished they had remained Trek-centric, but I know they wanted to broaden their readership and appeal. This time we mine more from this issue, an article by Hise that examined the differences between the complete first pilot "The Cage" and what was changed or cut out when it was incorporated into the two-part episode "The Menagerie." The color photo of Vina as the Green Orion Slave Girl is one that I have never seen anywhere else, and was a welcome sight to see!

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Bonus: A publicity photo of Kirk with a couple of robotic companions from "I, Mudd." Apparently, these were the 'droids he was looking for.

"Double your pleasure, double your fun!"

Bonus link: Watch the latest New Voyages episode "Mindsifter" here!

"The Wrath Of Khan" Behind The Scenes Article

From issue #16 of Enterprise Incidents (published April of 1984), edited by superfan James Van Hise, comes this behind-the-scenes article on the first sequel. The photos are great, but the really interesting part is the text with the information from the director Nick Meyers!

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The woman in the top photo of the page above seems to be thinking the herself "Wow, what awesome pecs!" Meyer confirms they are real in the article.

Below, two pages of technical drawings of the Enterprise from the same issue, focusing more on the detailing of the model than the parts of the ship.

 

Bonus #1: Below, the best color photo I've seen of Khan's child that was cut from the film. There is another photo of him in this article I posted earlier about TWOK and Nick Meyer.

Bonus #2: Shatner raiding the fridge while shooting the series!

"Welcome to my Dressing Trailer! Care for some sherry before I show you the 'Captain's Log?'"

1984 Interview with Angelique Pettyjohn

Recently I have been posting articles from issue #17 of the magazine  Enterprise Incidents, published in May of 1984 (see the cover here). I am still mining this issue, this time with an interview with actress/model Angelique Pettyjohn that portrayed the exotic drill thrall Shahna from the episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion." (Read her Wiki entry here.)

With a script that just as easily could have been written for "Lost In Space," (with some more dumbing-down) it is nevertheless fun to watch, as Kirk once again uses his sex appeal on an innocent alien woman to achieve escape. Another notable example of this was when he blew the mind of Kelinda in "By Any Other Name," and I'm sure you could think of a few more without really trying. "Cheesy" is the word of the day on this episode. But even bad Trek is good, and this is not as bad as some others.

The character of Shahna is best remembered by the casual viewer of the show as the "green-haired girl in the tinfoil bikini" that critics hold up as a typical example of the exploitation of women in the original series. It's true that the actress was a Vegas showgirl, and her impressive physique was put on full view in the now-famous silver halter that would have looked right at home on a Vegas stage. The voluminous green-tinted wig completed the outfit, and you just know the producers -particularly Roddenberry- were all giggity over her, so for once the detractors who call TOS sexist were somewhat justified. (One has to wonder why a warrior such as Shahna would take such time to tease her hair and apply all that make-up just to go out and fight the other thralls.)

Angelique did some other TV shows and B-movies, and  later went on to act in some adult films, and sadly passed away in 1992 of cancer.

This article reveals the poor layout that was sometimes a problem in the magazine once it went national, with most of the pages mostly empty space with one small photo. But it is a nice interview, and it's just for you Shahna fans out there that were so struck with her as a kid! Me, I was too enthralled (ouch!) with the fact that Uhura got to go on an adventure to be very smitten with Shahna. But I can certainly understand the attraction she must have had on a lot of adolescents, and I won't claim there weren't a few hormones stirred up by her "Jiffy-Pop" outfit!

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Below, a couple of publicity photos taken during the filming.

"One quick flip over the hip, and it's roll in the hay time!"

 
Shahna appears to be directing traffic in this photo, and in that getup she would be a traffic-stopper; but more likely causing some accidents!.

Bonus: Below, from a coloring book put out as a tie-in with ST:TMP (featured only on the covers)  are a couple of pages with activities that will amuse you for hours on end. Or, the kids in your life. Print them out and color away!