Paramount had a few stops and starts before they managed to get a film off the ground. The Original Series got cancelled after just three seasons, and it was only thanks to an increase in popularity following re-runs in syndication that they got brought back as films, beginning with 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But Gene Rodenberry had designs on the big screen far before then. His original pitch for a Star Trek movie was penned in the early seventies, not long after the show got cancelled. His script, The God Thing, was apparently rejected due to the religious views of executives (according to Rodenberry, anyway). The film was a sort of getting the band back together exercise, not unlike The Motion Picture wound up being when it was finally made. Set years after The Original Series, when the Enterprise crew have gone their separate ways, it involved Captain Kirk tracking down his old muckers so they could take on a new alien entity that claimed to be God. It was weird and philosophical and sort of a mess and its big, peculiar but contemporary themes would totally work stretched out to the length of a TV series, wouldn't you say? Either that or they could just go to Phase II.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
