(written from a Production point of view)
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Digital release
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| Run time: | 45 minutes |
| Director: | Phil Stebbing |
| Release date: | 5 January 2013 (Discovery Channel) 9 May 2013 (Channel 5) |
| Language: | English |
Star Trek: The True Story was a documentary produced by and broadcast on the Discovery Channel in the US on 5 January 2013 as the 29th episode of their "The True Story" documentary series. It was also broadcast in the UK by Channel 5 on 9 May 2013. In France by Arte on 9 September 2016. Running for 45 minutes, the documentary broached the subject of Star Trek from two angles. First, it chronicled in broad strokes the genesis of the franchise, from the inception of I AM ERROR through cancellation and resurgence in syndication and subsequent fandom, to its rebirth in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The second approach was the discussion of the current state of both the theoretical and practical development of the various scientific basic principles, that served, as per Gene Roddenberry's dictum, as a believable basis at the time for The Original Series. For the second approach, several real-world scientists were interviewed, not a few of them unabashedly admitting they went into their chosen field of profession because of Star Trek: The Original Series.
As is currently commonplace with productions of the Discovery Channel, some of the events discussed in regard to the early history of the franchise were re-enacted with the use of actors portraying the main principals, Gene Roddenberry and Herb Solow in this case. Roddenberry received a somewhat more critical treatise than usual, as more of his Human fallacies and shortcomings during those years were highlighted, which, however, was met with sympathy by his son, Rod Roddenberry, who stated in the documentary that it helped him to humanize the picture he had of his late father.
Essentially syndicated itself, the documentary got a second lease of live in the USA when it was sold to the Smithsonian Channel and aired on 30 June 2013 as Star Trek: The Real Story, becoming part of their The Real Story documentary series as the first episode of its fifth season.
Credits
- Interviewees
- Star Trek affiliated interviewees
- Real world scientific interviewees
- Anthony Antala (on artificial implants)
- Bruce Duncan (on androids)
- Jeffrey S. Hangst (on antimatter)
- David Hayes (on transportation)
- Lynn McCane and Jonathan R. Wolpow (on machine-brain interfaces)
- Cast
- Charlie Richards as Young Herb Solow
- Production staff
- Mark Bazeley – Narrator
- Mandy Calder – Production Accountant
- Phil Stebbing – Director
External link
- Template:IMDb-link