Review: STAR TREK LOST SCENES Rescues Trek History

Deleted scenes are a valued commodity on home video releases of your favorite show and movies. But what do you do when actual deleted scenes and film negatives have been lost to time and degradation of the source material? That answer lies in Star Trek Lost Scenes, a unique and valuable addition to any Trek reference library.

The beautiful hardcover, over-sized publication has been compiled by David Tilotta and Curt McAloney of StarTrekHistory.com, and includes hundreds, if not thousands of detailed photos of scores of iconic Trek moments lost in time — and nearly all have been painstakingly restored by hand from faded film cells rescued from oblivion.

At 270 pages, the dense book is packed with tons of specific information. While certainly not a light read, it is organized in a way that makes scanning its pages a simple way to learn about a lost Trek history, never before cataloged.

Simply put, Star Trek Lost Scenes is essential.

Examples of text marked on film frames for the post-production team.

The book is categorized in three main sections: Behind the Scenes, Deleted Scenes and Bloopers, and it opens with a must-read introduction from the authors that quickly details the how and why of the original film that was discarded by a studio in a time when extra material of this type had not yet been commodified.

(Of course, Gene Roddenberry was way ahead of the game on this fact and was able to salvage some footage, which can be seen in the excellent Blu-ray, Star Trek: The Roddenberry Vault, which serves as a nice companion piece for Lost Scenes.

There is also a brief reference to “Star Trek Enterprises,” the Roddenberry-led company that revolutionized the market by selling individual film negatives as far back as 1968, as well as a forward from Trek-of-all-trades, Doug Drexler.)

BEHIND THE SCENES

The largest section of the book is dedicated to a breakdown of candid, behind-the-scenes images that highlight everything from production staff readying a myriad of shots to fascinating looks at optical and special effects work. Yep, that’s Michael Forest as Apollo basically standing on a box in front of a blue-screen before being superimposed into a shot of him growing into a giant in “Who Mourns for Adonais?”

And for fans of Sylvia in “Catspaw,” that’s her wrangler placing her into the stone corridor for the iconic shots of her prowling the castle in those climactic scenes of that renown episode. (Uh, that’s Sylvia the cat, of course, not actor Antoinette Bower!)

On the location shoots for “Shore Leave” and “This Side of Paradise.”

This fascinating portion of the book is basically a “how-to” on making Star Trek in the 1960s, and includes detailed sections on matte paintings, split-screens, animation effects, transporter effects and viewscreen effects — to name just a few! — and they are all accompanied with both candid and informative images that capture the history of the moment.

There’s also a section on make-up applications, as well as on aliens and artificial entities. So, if you ever wanted to see a picture of a production person escorting a Metron (actor Carole Shelyne) up to a precipice in Vasquez Rocks, then you’ve found the right book.

In the 119 pages that cram this chapter, there’s also a section on notable slate shots, which you can spend hours pouring over for pieces of hidden history, and an amazing section on exterior shooting locations that encompasses episodes like “A Piece of the Action,” “Shore Leave,” “Miri” and many more. There are also a few pages dedicated to interesting interiors like Balok’s quarters and the lounge on Starbase 11, as well as some of the interior exteriors used for so many planet sets.

DELETED SCENES

Of course, the pièce de résistance in a book called Lost Scenes is most certainly the 85-page section detailing some of the script pages that were actually put on film, but never utilized and never preserved in a way that would allow us to watch them today. This book provides the next best thing.

By taking photos from film frames that weren’t destroyed and excerpts from original scripts, Tilotta and McAloney are able to present a number of standout moments in Star Trek history in a way we’ve never seen before.

A cut moment featuring Spock and Uhura from “Elaan of Troyius.”

The deleted scenes section features cut or expanded variations of scenes from 36 episodes, beginning with “The Cage” (more Orion slave girls!) and presented chronologically all the way to “Turnabout Intruder” (more Spock courtroom drama!).

The many standout moments in the book include notes and rare images from episodes like:

“Balance of Terror” — The Romulan Commander tends to his friend, the Centurion, further cementing their deep friendship.
“Errand of Mercy” — Ayelborne assists Kirk and Spock escape the Klingons, and while those two remain on alert, a never-before seen series of images of the calm Organian not being concerned in the slightest is featured, adding to the mystery of the episode.
“Elaan of Troyius” — Don’t miss the images from this cut scene of Spock playing his Vulcan lute in the Recreation Room if you ‘ship Spock and Uhura!

The great images and notes from this section of deleted history are too many to list, but feature more great moments from episodes like “The Enterprise Incident,” “Space Seed” and “All Our Yesterdays.”

BLOOPERS

The final section of the book contains hundreds of candid photos and details of everyone’s favorites: the blooper reels. The fascinating highlights in this 52-page chapter include errant takes, pranks, technical gaffes and uncontrollable laughter.

No episode, no matter how serious, is off limits for the light-hearted moments on set captured here. Whether it be “Court Martial” or “Metamorphosis,” “The Enemy Within” or “Journey to Babel,” the laughter in the images is contagious and abundant, and features images from probably half of TOS’s 80 original episodes. The hilarious breakdown is the perfect way to close out such a meticulously researched book.

Leonard Nimoy takes a moment to find himself during “I, Mudd.”

Star Trek Lost Scenes is literally a feast for the senses, and one of the greatest research tomes ever published for Star Trek, which is no small feat considering how many books chronicling the series’ amazing history have been produced.

Jim Moorhouse is the creator of TrekRanks.com and the TrekRanks Podcast. He can be found living and breathing Trek every day on Twitter at @EnterpriseExtra and @TrekRanks.