After rejecting The God Thing movie treatment and two additional treatments that were referred to as Star Trek II, all from Gene Roddenberry, Paramount execs began looking elsewhere for Star Trek film ideas in January 1976.
They began to interview writers independently of Gene Roddenberry, hoping to find that one story idea that could become the first Star Trek movie and launch a franchise.
Many writers came in to pitch ideas. We focus on the three who had the best stories on this episode of 70s Trek. They include stories from John D. F. Black, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Silverberg.
John D. F. Black served as the story editor for the 1st season of Star Trek and wrote the episode The Naked Time.
Silverberg is a multi-award winning author in the sci-fi genre and a "Grand Master of Science Fiction."
Harlan Ellison is a science fiction author who has written over 1700 short stories, novellas, books and articles. He has also won numerous awards for his work and is known as "Sci-Fi's Most Controversial Figure."
Listeners can read about each of these pitches from our source material, the 1995 book Lost Voyages of Trek and The Next Generation by Edward Gross and Mark Altman.
