Star Trek The Motion Picture [1979] (2 discs)

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• The V'ger prop was so large and involved so much work that one end of it was being used in scenes while the other end was still being built.
• James Doohan also devised the Vulcan words heard during the Kolinahr sequence. The scenes were originally shot in English, and when it was decided to change the dialogue to Vulcan, Doohan wrote lines that fit the existing lip movements. Some of the subtitles were rearranged to make this less obvious.
• The producers and the cast were very worried about their appearance after being away from [Star Trek] for over ten years. Special lighting and camera tricks were used to hide the cast's aging, and William Shatner went on a near-starvation diet prior to filming. However, in all subsequent Star Trek movies it was decided to make the aging of the crew part of the story.
• For the DVD release, the producers toyed with the idea of digitally inserting a shot of the NX-01 Enterprise (Jonathan Archer's ship from the prequel series [Enterprise]) into the rec room scene where Decker shows Ilia a display of previous ships named Enterprise. The idea was eventually dropped, possibly since the shot would not be able to be seen clearly anyway (the pictures were not easily legible onscreen). The NX-01 would have replaced the shot of the 'ringed' S.S. Enterprise - which eventually appeared on [Enterprise] anyway (in the bar scene in the episode {First Flight}).
• Uhura's communications earpieces are the only original props from the original TV series. They were dug out of storage when it was realized someone had forgotten to make new ones for the movie.
• The Klingon words spoken by the Klingon ship's captain were actually invented by actor James Doohan. Later, linguist ^[?] Marc Okrand devised grammar and syntax rules for the language, along with more vocabulary words, and wrote a Klingon dictionary.
• Jerry Goldsmith's Academy Award-nominated score featured a special musical instrument called "The Blaster Beam", an instrument 15 feet long, incorporating artillery shell casings and motorized magnets. It was used as part of any scene featuring V'ger. Said instrument was invented by former child star turned New Age musician Craig Hundley--who, in his youth, had portrayed Captain Kirk's nephew in an episode of the original [Star Trek] television series ({Operation - Annihilate}).
• Persis Khambatta became very emotional about having her head shaved for her role. She kept her shorn hair in a box for a time and asked Gene Roddenberry to take out insurance in case her hair didn't grow back. It did.
• Orson Welles narrated trailers for the film.
• It was understood in the script, but not in the movie, that Commander Will Decker was the son of Commodore Matthew Decker, the half-crazed starship captain who committed suicide in the [Star Trek] television episode {The Doomsday Machine.}