Star Trek's Douglas Trumbull - Episode 102

70s Trek: Star Trek in the 1970s

In 1979, visual effects supervisor Doug Trumbull walked into an impossible situation on The Motion Picture and completely turned it around.

Douglas Trumbull

It’s fair to say that when you think about visual effects from the 1970s, two names come to mind: John Dykstra and Doug Trumbull.

During the 1960s and 70s, Trumbull developed an impressive resume. When he finally came to Star Trek in 1979, he had worked on four of the biggest sci-fi movies in the previous 11 years.

And it was that experience that helped him do the impossible on The Motion Picture.

Trumbull came to Star Trek late, and as a result had very little time to execute on a huge amount of work. The company that had previously been hired to produce the effects, Abel & Associates, had produced practically nothing that could be used.

Trumbull joined the production after Abel had been fired. He only had 6 months left until the premiere date and had 525 special effects shots to produce. This was a near impossible task.

Added to this situation was the impending class action law suit that theater owners threatened to bring if The Motion Picture did not arrive by December 7, 1979, its opening date.

So Trumbull needed to produce the needed shots or there would be, literally, hell to pay. The pressure was immense.

In this episode of 70s Trek, we’ll tell you about Doug Trumbull, who could easily be called, “The Man Who Saved Star Trek The Motion Picture.”