William Shatner Reveals What Went Wrong With ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is returning to theaters for its 35th anniversary, but the film was nearly never made thanks to the poor critical and box office reception received by Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the film that preceded it.

Looking back on the decades later, star William Shatner reveals that the tools were all in place to make Star Trek‘s first movie great, but they didn’t have the time necessary to use tools properly.

“Star Trek, the film, had Robert Wise, who was one of the great directors of his time and had a great deal of prestige, but it was done so hastily.],” Shatner recalls in an interview with IGN. “And I don’t know; I don’t remember whether we fell behind schedule or whether the schedule was already pressed by the time we began. But in any case, the special effects by Doug Trumbull were hastily done and never edited. So the film never had… never got the detailed attention that Wise, who was an editor, a renowned editor himself, would have done. The film never got it.

“And so it… staggered on the screen and would have been much more athletic if it lost several pounds,” Shatner continued. “But we never had the opportunity to do that.”

[Editor’s Note: Producer David C. Fein reached out to ComicBook.com to point out that Robert Wise did, in fact, give the film the “detailed attention” that Shatner says was lacking from the theatrical release when Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition was released in 2001. The Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture represents Wise’s completed film, where the previous releases were unfinished]

That was nearly the end of Star Trek the movie franchise if not for one woman who was particularly appreciative of Star Trek.

“So that was the end of Star Trek as a film. And that was it, they’d lost money, at least at that time, although I understand the film has made money subsequently. And that was the end of it,” Shatner recalls. “Except that the wife of the owner of the studio, whose name I’m trying to remember, said to her husband that Star Trek is so good, you’ve got to do it again. And he said, the gentleman who owned the studio, not even head of the studio, owned it, we’ve got to do it again. And they brought in a television producer, Harve Bennett, who said, I can make it for a lot less money. Which he did. And that gave us the impetus to make a second movie, which we thought would be the last of the movies. And every movie we made subsequent to even Star Trek I, they burned the sets, that was it. There was no reason to store them because there was never gonna be another movie. So they burned them. And they kept burning them right up to Star Trek VI, as far as I know.”

That studio owner’s wife may have saved a franchise that has since gone onto to span 13 movies and six live-action television series. Well done.