By the time the first space shuttle had been christened Enterprise in September 1976, Paramount officially green-lighted a Star Trek movie with a budget of $10 million. Jerry Eisenberg was hired to produce and Phil Kaufman to direct, with Ken Adam as production designer and Ralph McQuarrie as production illustrator. The writers for this new film venture were Chris Bryant and Allan Scott. Their script was titled Planets of the Titans, and ultimately it, too, was rejected by Paramount. About this time, the first Star Wars film was released and became an instant blockbuster. Paramount executives, believing that the motion-picture audience could support only one major science-fiction franchise, decided that the tremendous impact of Star War doomed any chance of Star Trek's succeeding at the box office.

But they also believed there was still value in the franchise, so on June 10, 1977, Star Trek: Phase II was announced - a brand-new syndicated Star Trek television series to be produced by Roddenberry and Harold Livingston. Paramount had planned to make Phase II the cornerstone of a new, fourth television network, but as the proposed new network was not coming together as securely as Paramount had hoped, and plans for it were canceled, Phase II was left a series without a home. At the same time, 1977's other science-fiction blockbuster, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, opened to box-office numbers rivaling those of Star Wars. All at once, Paramount executives saw the error of their ways. Star Wars had not been a one-time wonder. Determined to tap into the science-fiction motion picture market with a Star Trek feature, Paramount quickly made the decision to geen-light Phase II's pilot episode, "In Thy Image", as a theatrical release, eventually bumping its television budget up to $15 million, of which almost two-thirds would go to special effects.

To recreate the magic of the original series, Gene Roddenberry had gathered together those who had made that magic in the first place. And they did it again. When Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered on December 7, 1979, Roddenberry's creation finally transcended the medium of its creation, ceasing to be a mere television series, at last becoming a true phenomenon.

The level of detail that can appear on a movie model is far greater than that which can appear on a model for television. Thus, the Enterprise built for the unproduced second television series was set aside and a new model was constructed. The movie Enterprise still followed the basic updating intially developed by Matthew Jefferies and Joe Jennings, but new and more detailed modifications were added by a veriety of designers from Abel & Associates and Magicam.

The final appearance of the new Enterprise interiors combines the design input of original designer Matthew Jefferies, as well as Mike Minor, Joe Jennings, movie production designer Harold Michaelson and director Robert Wise. Control details were developed by Lee Cole, and control screen readouts by Cole, along with Minor, Rick Sternbach and Jon Povill. Harold Michaelson was responsible for the design of the attitude dome on the bridge ceiling, as well as the redesigning of the Enterprise corridors, which had been built for the second series. Gene Roddenberry had been unhappy with the new corridors, because he felt they made the Enterprise look too much like an hotel. Ironically, Michaelson's redesigns ended up being used in The Next Generation's Enterprise-D, which was criticized as looking even more like an hotel.

One of Andrew Probert's key concerns was that the sets he designed would somehow conform to the structure of the starship they were supposed to exist within. Here we see Probert's development sketches for an officers' lounge in the saucer section's upper dome, of which an artistic impression by Probert can be seen above.

Thoughts on the new Enterprise cargo decks had already been visualized by veteran Mike Minor, before Andrew Probert had a chance to address it. The thinking, then under production designer Harold Michaelson, was that the cargo bay would be a space 30 feet high that had two walls with twelve holes containing cargo pods. An impression by Mike Minor shows additional cargo pods simply stacked or lined up on the deck, leaving a huge open and unused space above. Furthermore, the walkways along the sides were rather old-fashioned looking.

The cargo bay scene would be part live-action and part matte painting. Matte paintings are begun by filming a plate; a shot of live-action scene in which elements, too expensive to build, are needed. The left image below shows the plate of the cargo bay set, filmed from Kirk's point of view as he enters the Enterprise. What Andrew Probert was required to do was to get a frame of plate film and have it printed at a pre-determined size. A part of this frim, required for the live-action elements, would be cut out and pasted to a piece of illustration board. The remaining blank board, intended to be the matte, would then be painted around that piece, blending the two together.

Following a discussion with special effects director Donald Trumbull on how the cargo pods would get in and out of the cargo deck, Andrew Probert draw an elevation sketch of the Enterprise engineering section. He presented the sketch to Trumbull as a solution to that problem, and Trumbull approved.

The next step was for Andrew Probert to get some plate footage, and start his matte renderings. A matte rendering is simply a painting that illustrates how the final scene might look like. Once that image is approved by the director and the producers, it is sent to the matte department, so that the matte painter can made the actual working matte.

What Probert proposed was that the landing bay and cargo bay be connected, allowing the easy passage of cargo trains. The landing bay doors remain open, but atmospheric integrity is maintained with a force field. The idea is that shuttles would normally take off from and land in the landing bay. They then could be lowered to the hanger bay level, or lowered another level to shuttle maintenance. A multi-panelled two-story door, between the elevators and cargo bay, has been opened to the sides allowing the transfer of cargo.

From a lower angle, one can see the secondary rollaway decks protruding somewhat from the sides of the bay. In their current retracted position, they serve as a walkway at that level. The idea here was that, once the main deck was filled with free-standing pods, the second deck would slide together, doubling the available deck space. Not an ideal solution, but one that worked with the plate footage that had already been shot. The side doors, with red stripe white lettering, would lead to a section of lifeboat stations located along each side of the outer hull.

Throughout most of the filming of The Motion Picture, a final ending had yet to be developed. Andrew Probert provided the producers with his own script suggestions for a visually dramatic conclusion, and storyboarded the key event. The possibility of the original Enterprise undergoing a saucer seperation was first mentioned in the original series episode "The Apple", but it was not until the pilot episode of The Next Generation that the maneuver was finally depicted.

Eventually it was decided the climax of the movie would be the walk to the heart of V'Ger, and the eventual merging of the Ilia-probe and commander Decker. The walk to V'Ger was to convey a sense of the extraordinary and fantastic by using the new visual effects to complement the original film rather than overwhelm it.

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