How was the first Star Trek film received in the context of science fiction films in 1979?

Star Trek was given new life because of Star Wars. In a sense, George Lucas saved Star Trek just as much as Gene Roddenberry. Star Wars was an absolute smash hit, so all of a sudden there was a reason for studio executives to stop and say, "Okay, what else do we have that might actually mimic the success of Star Wars?"

They realised that they didn�t have to copy anything, they actually had something that had some sort of a fan following. So they did the feature film in 1979 and this was really the only film that Gene Roddenberry had near total control over.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a hugely successful film. Everybody wanted to see this old crew reunited, and another big science fiction movie, and that�s what Star Trek had promised. The flip side of that was that it was regarded as a pretty lousy story.

It was quintessential Gene Roddenberry Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry Star Trek was different from the Star Trek that you�ll find today. There are definitely elements of it, but I will never forget the time that I met Gene Roddenberry at a cocktail party on the set of the Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was like a moment of triumph, because they were able to tie in a new Star Trek production with NASA, and they had NASA officials there, and they had Paramount officials there, and they had the whole cast and crew of The Next Generation.

Gene Roddenberry was there, and he should have been in all of his glory that night. Instead, I will always remember, that at some point during the evening there was this little hubbub because Gene started saying, "Space battles, space battles, space battles, that�s all the studio ever wants is space battles. Space battles, that�s not what Star Trek is about."

It was actually a time when his concept of Star Trek was being stripped away. Instead of the motion picture, where you had a lot of high concepts of Man exploring the galaxy, he was stripped of control over his own product and that led to the feature films later on, where you had lots of space battles.