That Lucky Kid... Now, Lucky US!

Most of the time, this blog is publishing items in my collection. But sometimes, when something extraordinary from Trek's past shows up, I will feature it, like the time the original Phaser Rifle turned up. Today, I saw a post shared by Trek contributor Doug Drexler that came from one Edward Barocela that revealed a wonderful story of a visit to the Star Trek soundstages and a photo not seen since.

Here is the photo:

And the story behind the photo:

Edward Barocela‎ posted to the group STAR TREK - The Original and ONLY Timeline:

"Nearly 49 years ago, my father Edward Sr., a motion picture engineer, was hired by Film Effects of Hollywood to work on upgrading the optical printers. One Saturday, my brother and I were out with Dad as he ran some errands. He stopped off at work and left us in the lobby of the building as he went inside to do something. Presently, a man walked by and noticed us by ourselves, bored and fidgeting. He said, "Hey, kids, do want to see a real spaceship?" Naturally we said yes, and he gave us directions to a set of double doors. We went through the doors and found ourselves on a small soundstage. And there she was: the Starship Enterprise. They let us work the control console to turn the big model's lights on and off, and to run the engine dome rotors at different speeds. They also let us handle the shuttlecraft and Romulan ship models. Needless to say, this experience made huge impression on me. I was 10 years old. Years later, my mother sent me this photo. I didn't even remember that anyone had taken pictures at the time."

Too cool!

1984 Mike Minor Interview

Mike Minor made some significant artistic and production design contributions to the original series third season, the aborted Phase 2 series, ST: The Motion Picture and ST II: The Wrath of Khan.  In this extensive interview from issue #14 of Enterprise Incidents, published February of 1984, we find out the extent of his involvement. (See his Star Trek wiki page here.) As you may recall, I posted another article on Mike earlier from Starlog, but this one goes much more in-depth. He worked on many other genre productions, not the least of which was Star Wars. It's tragic that he passed away so young in 1987 and we never got to see what he might have done since then.

(Click on images to enlarge. Once open, you may have to click again to view full-size.)

Bonus: from the same issue of EI, comes this fan drawing of the Mutara Nebula battle.

Bonus #2: Publicity photo of Kirk once again baffling Spock with his propensity for somehow inexplicably winning against the Vulcan.

"How does he DO that?"

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!

(Click on the images to enlarge. Once open, you may have to click again to view full size.)

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.

Making of Visual Effects for ST:TMP Part 3

Welcome back (that is assuming you've been here before)! As a reward for your return, here is the promised Part Three of the article on the making of the effects from ST:TMP from Enterprise Incidents #17, from May of 1984. It contains some great images of the models, including one you don't see many behind-the-scenes photos of, namely the K'Tinga Class Klingon Battlecruiser.. First off, the cover of the issue...

(Click on images to enlarge; once open you may have to click again to view full-size.) 

Then, the article itself, full of great photos and informative text.

Below, a larger scan of the above photo, included so that you can see more of the detail.

Another larger scan of an inserted image, I thought this beautiful painting by Probert deserved a closer look.

That's it for this time, come back soon, because I will be posting much more Trek material from this issue, including an interview with "Commodore Probert" himself! (If you recognize that reference you are a sharp-eared Trekker indeed.)

Bonus link: Check out Madman's Shipyards! Cool renderings of various Star Trek ships, including a whole section dedicated to re-envisioning the Franz Joseph Tech Manual ships in the new movie universe style.

"ST:3 The Search For Spock" Effects Article

From issue #28 of Enterprise Incidents (after the format change and national distribution as a sci-fi movie magazine) from April 1985 comes this behind-the-scenes article on the making of the effects for Star Trek 3. I do remember that the anticipation in my mind was much higher for #3 than it was for #2... there seemed to be very little advance publicity for TWOK, except for the furor over the leaked death of Spock. But after the movie was released and so well-received, the fan excitement over the third one seemed to be increased and there was much more in the media about it as it was being made.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

This Kruge miniature was used for the scene where he plunges into the abyss on New Genesis... the cut between the actor and the animated figure was disguised by a flash of lightning.

Ah, the good ol' days of model work.

Below is a detail from the 2-page spread put back together. I didn't want to shrink down the spread by showing both pages connected, so I scanned in the one photo that went across both so you could see it in its entirety. The detail visible on the scale model of the Excelsior is interesting to see, since we didn't get to see it much on screen in the movie.

It was still an ugly ship, though.

1975 Model Rocketry Catalog

Although I never owned the actual model rockets, my 16 year-old self was excited to find this digest-sized Estes catalog in 1975 that featured their new Star Trek model rockets on the cover! We get a great cover painting, and a two-page spread inside about the models... nice. I am also including scans of any pages that mention or depict the Trek models. I was impressed with how accurate the Enteprise model was, without very much in the way of alterations to make it into an actual flying rocket. I know that if I had bought one, I would never have flown it, preferring to keep it in good shape to display (if I had lived in a home with a father that permitted such things). Enjoy!

(Click on images to enlarge.)




Although, the Klingon ship looks like it was built around a barrel.

Anyone familiar with early Trek merchandising remembers how the starship was often erroneously depicted with rocket exhaust coming out of the shuttle bay (which irritated me). In the case of this model rocket, it was actually correct!

UPDATE: I said earlier that I had a newspaper clipping somewhere of a local model rocket club launching the Enterprise. Well, I've found it, and it's below. It was clipped from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel on May 25, 1975. I didn't save the entire article, only the photo and the line in the article about the launching of the Enterprise rocket.

Update: I have heard from a reader who was one of the people in the above photo! Blogger Robert Koenn said... "A friend just gave me the link to your blog. It is funny because I am in that picture. I am the guy standing on the far right side of the picture with my right arm up to my ear. This was a launch back around 1975 down in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I lover ST but never owned a flying Estes ST kit. I do have numerous ST plastic models on my shelf and in boxes to build."

The Monster Times #2: Space Gear/Models Articles

This time we are once again opening up the fragile, yellowing pages of issue #2 of "The Monster Times, published Feb 16, 1972. I've posted several times before from this issue: here, here and here. How I loved this monster mag! More than any other, it covered the things I was interested in. Being a monster, comics, Trek and Apes fan, this newspaper-format publication hit them all and more. We revisit the cover of this fantastic issue again...

(Click on images to enlarge.)

This time we look at two articles... first, on the various props on the show, featuring both some original and fan reproductions. Note well-known fan Joan Winston modeling the original costume and fan-made prop!

Next, an article purportedly reviewing the various model kits available at the time. Who among us didn't have some of these at one time or another? (I'm surprised I didn't get brain damage from the glue fumes. At least, I don't think I did... hmmm. On second thought, that would explain a lot!) Anyway, the article is hampered by the fact that there is no real review of the model kits mentioned, only those handmade by a fan... and although they brag on his Enterprise, they don't actually picture it! Somewhat sloppy.

Bonus: Below, a pre-series publicity shot, taken after "Where No Man..." but before "The Corbomite Maneuver."