10 Other Times Star Trek Used The Vasquez Rocks

10. Shore Leave - Star Trek: The Original Series

Yes, you Trekademics, you know: the scenes where Kirk fights with Finnegan, reminisces with Ruth, plus the samurai, tiger, Don Juan and strafing fighter plane ...were shot not at Africa USA alongside the glade meadow, as common talk has already told you ... but over most of two days at Vasquez Rocks, about 3 miles to the north. On the backside of the famous Gorn-battle rocks, so they don’t steal the show. 

Or, actually, who didn’t steal from whom? It’s actually the Metrons who must have wanted fresh looks, as Arena was filmed two weeks after Shore Leave, which makes that Star Trek’s first visit to the classic landscape. It would not be the last, thanks, in part, to the variety of landscapes the place offered. 

At the time, it was still within Hollywood’s so-called “Thirty-Mile Zone” radius, negotiated to allow cheaper location shooting without the studio covering the costs of meals, transport, or even mandated overnight travel stays. After two days of filming those scenes here, first-run US audiences originally saw the Vasquez site on Dec. 29, 1966