The Lost Star Trek Films

Several years ago Pocket published two Star Trek scriptbooks, one containing every Q script, the other containing Seven of Nine scripts. I gather neither book sold very well, and we haven’t seen other scriptbooks since.

The problem with the scriptbooks, I think, is that there’s nothing really new and unique about them. The episodes will eventually be available on tape, there’s tape trading going on, the episodes are available in their original format. The only people buying the scriptbooks, then, would be either (1) completists, or (2) people who want to see how a script is structured to learn how to write scripts themselves.

What would make a Star Trek scriptbook unique? What would make people want to buy it because it’s something they can’t get in another form?

What about the “lost” Star Trek films?

Off-hand, I can think of a half-dozen Star Trek films that were written and never produced. I would love to have a scriptbook collection of these.

  • “Planet of the Giants.”
  • Sam Peeples’ Star Trek II script.
  • The Eddie Murphy Star Trek IV script.
  • David Loughery’s “Starfleet Academy” script.
  • Maurice Hurley’s Star Trek VII script.
  • Michael Piller’s aborted “Starlight” script.

Trek fans know about these. Others, perhaps many others, are curious about how the road Star Trek followed could have been very different.

I would buy this book.

Would anyone else?

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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