Check out Star Trek: The First Adventure concept art!
Every Friday I try and feature artwork from a classic of science fiction cinema or television. This week's "Flashback Friday" post is on the unproduced Star Trek: The First Adventure (1991)
After Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, there was a plan to restart the films called Star Trek: The First Adventure, (also Starfleet Academy, Star Trek: The Academy Years) and it has interesting ties to Star Trek (2009).
Co-writer David Loughery said, "Every time they go to make one of these Star Trek movies, the producers and the studio always run into the same problem in getting the original cast together. The reasons for that are money, power, creative differences, ego, health, unavailability...all of those things. Harve [Bennett] always had this ace up his sleeve, which was if we can't get everybody together for one of these Star Trek movies, we should do a prequel."
The plot idea has some echoing in the plot of the JJ. Abrams film. Loughery described it as "Top Gun–Star Trek, in which this rambunctious, willful Iowa farmboy, Jim Kirk, goes to Starfleet Academy and meets up with this misanthropic, misunderstood, brilliant Vulcan, who is the first Vulcan ever to attend Starfleet Academy."
Does that sound familiar? How about this? He added, "In outline form, it was the story of Kirk and Spock meeting for the first time as cadets here on Earth. We've got a young Jim Kirk, who's kind of cocky and wild. He's not exactly what you might think starship captain material might be. He's like one of these kids who would rather fly hot planes and chase girls. Spock is this brilliant, arrogant, aloof to the point of obnoxiousness, genius. It's this mask he's hiding behind to cover his own conflicting human emotions. He's an outcast, he left Vulcan in shame against his father's wishes and, like all adolescents, he's trying to find a place to fit in, but he keeps screwing it up.
"Over the course of this story, which is one year at Starfleet Academy, Kirk and Spock are sort of put to the test and they begin as rivals and end up as friends and comrades who learn that they have to combine their talents for the first time to defeat a deadly enemy. In the final scene, where they say goodbye at graduation and go their separate ways, we're able to see the legends that these two boys are going to grow up to become."
The film was
But we can see what it might have looked like.
Kirk and Spock
Vulcans
Click on the links if you want to see more Star Trek on my blog.
Learn more at Memory Alpha including who they had in mind for Kirk and Spock.
What do you think of the concept art? Would you have watched this film?
Star Trek: The First Adventure
Release Date: 1991
© Copyright 1991 Paramount Pictures. Al1 rights reserved
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That's too wild! That movie really did finally make it to reality.
ReplyDeleteWhoa. That starship looks a hell of a lot like the NX-01 from Enterprise.
ReplyDeleteHoly sh%t! This is a treasure trove. Thanks so much for posting.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Of course, I would have watched it! I'd love to see a Starfleet Academy TV series someday, with original characters or old favorites - plenty to choose from at this point.
ReplyDelete