A Look Back: Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home
If you wanted movies news in the 1980s, you had limited avenues. There was no internet. I’m sure there were magazines, but as a teenager I had no idea what they were. I – and so many others – had to rely on Entertainment Tonight (1981), a television magazine about movies and TV series. I’d watch Entertainment Tonight for three things: interviews with actors I liked stories on movies I was interested in, and any clips. Back then, there wasn’t simultaneous release of movies. Often, they would open in Australia months and months after they’d opened in the US. So Entertainment Tonight was a valuable tool for a nerd such…
A Look Back: Star Trek – The Motion Picture
Before looking back at Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), I have to go back even further for context. The original pilot for Star Trek: The Original Series (1966 – 69), “The Cage” didn’t sell because it was considered too cerebral. Out went Captain Christopher Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) as the commanding officer of the USS Enterprise 1701, and in came Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) for the new pilot as the series became a little more action-oriented. The struggles of The Original Series – including the letter-writing campaign that resurrected it after it had been axed following season two – have been well documented. But it lasted only one…