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Trying to define what Star Trek is may be one of the most contentious topics in the fandom. After all, Star Trek is many things and has had many fans and contributors, all of whom have their own perspectives on what is essential to Star Trek. In honor of its 45th anniversary, though, I will argue that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the most quintessentially "Star Trek" of all 13 films.

Themes

There is a lot of Star Trek, and it touches on many different themes and topics. At its core, however, Star Trek is about curiosity and exploration, and the hope that Humanity will one day find ways to face adversity through peaceful compassion, with violence as an absolute last resort.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture not only expresses these themes but makes them central to its plot. The Klingons at the beginning of the film almost immediately resort...

(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"It was not a good working situation." That's how associate producer Jon Povill described the situation behind-the-scenes while working on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in the book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years." Director Robert Wise was told he had control over the film. Creator Gene Roddenberry was also told he had control. What Paramount had was a long-awaited movie adaptation of a wildly popular TV show. On paper, that was a good thing. In practice, it was messy in every way.

The end result was both a box office success story and a financial blunder that only served to disappoint fans. It also allowed "Star Trek" to thrive as a franchise in all new ways for years to come, including...

Image Source: Warner Bros Have you ever discovered a long-lost treasure, a forgotten movie? Brainstorm, a science fiction film from 1983, is perfect for that. Often disregarded, it is full of inspiring concepts and eye-catching imagery. The movie follows a research team’s efforts to develop a novel technology—a system that records and replays an individual’s whole emotional and sensory experiences. Imagine using this gadget to relive the excitement of skydiving, the delight of a first love, or even a person’s last moments. However, as the group tests the limits, they find that it may be abused, especially for military objectives. With a cast boasting talents like Academy Award winners Cliff Robertson, Louise Fletcher, and Christopher Walken, Brainstorm also features the legendary Natalie Wood in her final role. Wood’s untimely death during filming necessitated changes to the ending. Douglas Trumbull, a master of visual effects renowned for...

“You are sitting in the DeLorean (from) Marty McFly’s point-of-view,” explained Steven Spielberg in a promotional video that described the experience of Back to the Future: The Ride. “Doc Brown is guiding you right through the experience, and you are really in Back to the Future. It’s almost like Back to the Future Part IV.”

Debuting at Universal Studios Florida in 1991, Back to the Future: The Ride was a groundbreaking attraction that involved some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Along with Spielberg, who birthed the idea and oversaw the ride’s development as a consultant for Universal Studios, visionary filmmaker Douglas Trumbull was hired to direct the footage that accompanied the ride. Trumbull had made a name for himself creating the visual effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner, and his Back to the Future adventure took riders to Future Hill Valley, the ice age...

The Humble Beginnings of a Master Emmanuel Lubezki is one of the most decorated cinematographers currently working, having garnered three back-to-back Academy Awards for Best Cinematography — an unprecedented feat and something of a victory lap for a man who had become highly sought after by the time the 2010s rolled around. Cinematographers often take the back seat compared to the directors they work alongside, but Lubezki has the privilege of both being a gifted cameraman and having collaborated with some of the finest filmmakers in or out of Hollywood: Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Terrence Malick, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, just to name a few. Lubezki started out, perhaps most consistently, as Cuarón’s go-to cinematographer, with their careers basically starting out conjoined at the hip; with Cuarón’s debut feature, ‘Sólo con tu pareja,’ in 1991, Lubezki was unleashed upon the world — only not quite. He would work with...

A quarter of a century on, Nicole Kidman, co-star of 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, recalls the challenges of working with Stanley Kubrick.

It’s been 25 years since the release of Eyes Wide Shut, the last film by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, who died just six days after delivering his cut of the film to Warner Bros. The erotic drama still holds the record for the longest continuous shoot in cinema history and took stars Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise out of the Hollywood picture for a chunk of their careers.

Still, it’s not every day you get to work with a living legend, and with the recent passing of The Shining star Shelley Duvall, there’s cause to remember how Kubrick’s directorial style could be rather challenging. Marking Eyes Wide Shut's anniversary, Kidman has been reflecting on working with the director and just how he was able...

Directed by Doug Trumbull, 1983 sci-fi thriller Brainstorm could have been deleted as an insurance write-off – but then a London bank intervened.

When Warner Bros announced its plans to effectively delete the films Batgirl, Scoob 2 and Coyote Vs Acme, the reaction was one of outrage. Studios destroying films as a tax write-off is nothing new, however: on the 21st June 1933, the Charlie Chaplin film A Woman Of The Sea (previously called Sea Gulls) was burned on the steps of Chaplin’s own studio. The five witnesses who saw the negative go up in flames then signed a letter confirming that the film had been lost to history.

A film directed and produced by one of the most important visual effects pioneers of the 20th century almost suffered a similar fate. Brainstorm, which went into production in the early 1980s, was directed by Doug Trumbull and featured a superb cast, including Christopher Walken,...

Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has picked up North American rights to the documentary adventure film, Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey, produced and directed by Australian filmmaker, Rob Murphy. The film will be available on all VOD platforms on June 25, after screening at major world festivals and a theatrical run across Australia and Los Angeles based Laemmle Theatres last year.

The doc is described as a love letter to projected film; the survival of the experience and a deep dive into the world of the unlikely characters who are its gate keepers. Murphy, a longtime projectionist himself, led the team that found, restored and installed the 70mm projector at his home city theatre in Melbourne, Australia for the Ultra Panavision roadshow release of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight. This prompted a visit from the auteur himself to the Sun Theatre. Tarantino also briefly appears in the film alongside Leonard Maltin and the late Douglas Trumbull,...

When Gene Roddenberry began developing the screenplay for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1975, expectations for how a science fiction film could look and feel were rapidly shifting. "2001: A Space Odyssey" offered moviegoers a 70mm trip to outer space, while "The Omega Man," "Soylent Green," and the "Planet of the Apes" series fed off the sociopolitical tumult of the times to thrust audiences into dystopian futures of our own foolish making.

Where did a show that was, at its core, a dream of racially and ethnically inclusive space exploration fit in an era of consciousness-raising spectacle and pessimistic earthbound forecasting? Though the series had failed to enthrall a sizable enough viewership to survive more than three seasons during its initial run on NBC in the late 1960s, "Star Trek" had become popular in syndication with 1970s couch potatoes. There was clearly a hunger for more, and there weren't any...

The background is well-known to Trekkies. Throughout the 1970s, "Star Trek" exploded in popularity. This was thanks largely to some sweet eternal syndication deals, which allowed the series to stay on the air pretty much in perpetuity. In the mid-'70s, "Star Trek" conventions were born, revealing to the world that there was a passionate, ultra-nerdy contingency of Trek fans willing to discuss and celebrate their pop obsession in public. It was at these conventions that series creator Gene Roddenberry opened an ongoing conversation with Trekkies as to what made his series so appealing. One could argue that it wasn't until these conversations that Roddenberry discovered the depth of his show, and the pragmatic philosophies of pacifism and diplomacy it represented. 

It was in 1975 that Roddenberry began working on a "Star Trek" movie, although that early concept fell apart over some complex script issues. After that, Roddenberry began work on "Star Trek: Phase II,...

In the late Spring of 1979, Paramount Pictures' production of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was in big trouble. With a looming release date of December 7 of that year, the film was still struggling to be completed, with the bulk of its visual effects work yet to be even attempted, let alone finished.

In retrospect, given the movie's production history, this was an inevitable problem. Ever since the original "Star Trek" series was cancelled in the summer of 1969, the franchise had experienced a number of stops and starts when it came to being revived. Around the mid-'70s, creator Gene Roddenberry had seemingly set up a script and a production for the show's leap to the big screen, only for Paramount to pivot and seek to turn that work into a proposed reboot of the series back on television, to be known as "Star Trek: Phase II." That show was literal...

The story is familiar to Trekkies. When "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was in production in the late 1970s, SFX guru Douglas Trumbull was busy completing work on Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Paramount asked Trumbull to work on their movie, but he turned them down. Not only was not quite done with "Close Encounters," but he was eager to return to a personal project of his, the development of Showscan. Showscan was a new filming process that ran high-fidelity 70mm film through a camera at 60 frames per second, allowing for crystal clear images and more natural movement. Although such a process had the potential to revolutionize the film industry, Paramount didn't care. There was a rumor that Paramount managed to get Trumbull's Scowscan funding cut as revenge for not working on "Star Trek." 

Instead, Paramount hired Robert Abel and Associates to develop then-novel CGI for "Star Trek.

On February 7, 2022, special effect pioneer Douglas Trumbull died at the age of 79. He left behind a massive and impressive legacy of cinematic visuals that might be some of the best in the history of the medium. Trumbull worked on the effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and "Blade Runner." Trumbull was also the inventor of a filming process called Showscan, which involved shooting 70mm film at 60 frames per second. Showscan was meant to increase the visual fidelity of film by a massive margin. Modern-day 8K cameras are close to the visual fidelity of 70mm film, and most movies, despite tinkering by Peter Jackson and Ang Lee, still run at 24 frames per second. 

Trumbull's work on Robert Wise's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" might be the most impressive gig of his career merely because of the circumstances under which he worked. The story goes...

In the late 1960s, Gram Parsons, fresh from leaving The Byrds and becoming close pals with the Rolling Stones, signed on to star in a sci-fi film, Saturation 70.

Directed by Anthony Foutz, who worked with the likes of Orson Welles and Richard Lyford and was the son of a very early Walt Disney exec, the film was shot across Joshua Tree and Los Angeles.

But Saturation 70, which also featured the work of Douglas Trumbull, the pioneering special effects wizard behind 2001: A Space Odyssey and Blade Runner, was never finished, and the footage subsequently vanished.

But a new book tells the wild story of a possible lost classic.

Chris Campion, who rediscovered the film while working on a book about The Mamas & The Papas, is putting together Saturation 70: A Vision Past of the Future Foretold, raising money via Kickstarter for the project with a view to publish next spring via Wolf+Salmon.

These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.

James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...

George Lucas had a bold vision when he set out to make "Star Wars" in the mid-1970s. He did not, however, have the technology to pull it off. No one did, at least not at an affordable price.

Douglas Trumbull had recently vaulted visual effects forward with his optical innovations for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," but his photorealistic presentation of space was based wholly in physical reality. The space stations and ships in Kubrick's masterpiece drifted gracefully in the cosmos. Trumbull replicated this galactic ballet to eerie effect in his directorial debut "Silent Running," on which he employed an upstart technophile named John Dykstra, who was eager to build on Trumbull's inventions with a more dynamic application that would jar sci-fi flicks out of their reality-bound lethargy.

When Lucas commenced work on "Star Wars" (via a go-with-god greenlight from 20th Century Fox's Alan Ladd Jr....

(Welcome to Did They Get It Right?, a series where we look at Oscars categories from yesteryear and examine whether the Academy's winners stand the test of time.)

Few directors hold as large a place in the hearts of cinephiles as Stanley Kubrick. The mythology of the director as this reclusive, micromanaging perfectionist who would drive people insane by doing 100 takes of a scene has become the stuff of legend. Some people stand in awe of what he was able to accomplish throughout his career on such a grand scale, and some, naturally, want to take him down a peg because of his godlike status amongst a certain sector of film fans. I don't hold Kubrick up as god. He wouldn't be on my Mt. Rushmore of directors. But the man did direct some of the best films ever made. That's a little difficult to deny.

Because of this revered status,...

Biosphere feels like a movie Mark Duplass was born to lead. Small sci-fi with a provocative twist. One location, two characters, and a lot of talking. This is one of the pioneers behind the mumblecore subgenre, after all. Most of it works, and some it works really well. Written by Duplass and Mel Eslyn, with Eslyn directing (a longtime producer making her feature directorial debut), it stars Duplass and Sterling K. Brown as the last two living human beings on Earth.

They’re immediately faced with a mortal dilemma: their last female fish has died, spelling an imminent end to their sole supply of food within their tiny biosphere. Only two males remain. It’s a nifty open (preceded by a somewhat-too-cute discussion on Super Mario Bros.) that sets the stakes high. Ray (Brown) is a capable scientist. Billy (Duplass) is decidedly not a capable scientist who may (?) be the...

Two-time Oscar-winning editor Pietro Scalia will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Vision Award honoring technical achievements and advancements in film.

Scalia, who was born in Sicily but grew up in Switzerland and studied film at UCLA, has won Oscars for “JFK” and “Black Hawk Down.” Over the past two decades he’s collaborated closely with top directors such as Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gus Van Sant, Rob Marshall, Sam Raimi and Michael Mann. His recent work includes Mann’s upcoming “Ferrari.”

Scalia will receive the Locarno award on Aug. 3 during a ceremony on the Swiss fest’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande, followed on Aug. 4 by an onstage conversation and screenings of two standout titles from his career: “Good Will Hunting” (1997) and “Black Hawk Down” (2001).

“In the beginning there was the editing, as Eisenstein taught us, and as Hollywood formally defined it,” said Giona A. Nazzaro,...

VFX legend Phil Tippett, whose totally bonkers “Mad God” stop-motion horror film finally got released last year, is a special effects Emmy hopeful this season for an episode of Rian Johnson’s “Poker Face” on Peacock, written and directed by star Natasha Lyonne. He not only contributed old-school monster puppets but also inspired its story about a crusty old stop-motion filmmaker (Nick Nolte). The busy Tippett also supplied hellish cave set designs for Season 3 of “The Mandalorian” (on Disney+).

Both projects came as a result of Tippett’s “Star Wars” fame, which began when he led the Ilm animation department for “The Empire Strikes Back.” On the “Star Wars” sequel, he co-developed the “go motion” animation technique (stop-motion with motion blur) and was responsible for the At-at Imperial Walkers and the hybrid alien Tauntauns. On “Return of the Jedi,” he won his first Oscar for his creature work; with “Jurassic Park,...

Silo has shifted into the next phase of events. From the death of a sheriff to that of many more, finally, we have ourselves in the phase of relics that contain the answer to the mysteries that lie beyond the Silo, maybe the existence of life itself. And just like the beginning of any phase, we find out about new stuff—stuff that the judiciary wouldn’t want anyone to come across. Silo Episode 6 is slow and tests our patience till the very end. But we can accept that because we have made it halfway through. Now we have to see how Juliette finds out about George’s death and Silo’s secrets.

Spoilers Ahead

A Relic Planted

Silo Episode 6 begins with Juliette and her deputies, including Paul Billings, breaking into Doug Trumbull’s place to look for any “strange” evidence. Strangely, Paul finds the same relic that Juliette had...

The following contains spoilers from Silo Episode 5, “The Janitor’s Boy,” now streaming on Apple TV+.

This week on Apple TV+’s Silo, Juliette (played by Rebecca Ferguson) caught Judicial goon Doug Trumbull red-handed, as it became clear that Sims’ (Common) errand boy had planted evidence in the wrong apartment in order to end the investigation into the murder of both Mayor Jahns and Deputy Marnes.

More from TVLineIdris Elba Takes on a Plane Full of Terrorists in Trailer for Apple's HijackTed Lasso's Penultimate Episode Paves the Way for Potential Series Finale -- Plus, [Spoiler]'s Backstory RevealedPlatonic: Did...

Till Episode 4 of Silo, Juliette at least had Sam with her for assistance. In the absence of Holston, Sam was the only one who was ready to listen to her and all that she had learned about the Silo from George. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. Sam succumbs to the attack. We have no idea who the person who killed him was or if anyone sent him to kill Sam. It is up to Juliette to find out. Also, we must remember that she needs to visit Martha. She has repaired George’s relic, the camcorder.

Spoilers Ahead

The List

Bernard, Sims, Paul Billings, who is the new Chief Deputy, and Juliette decide to organize a joint funeral for Sam and Ruth. It is important to make sure that people don’t find out how they died, as it will only add to the panic that has already resulted from the death of Sheriff Holston.

A long time ago, in a small town in USA, a devoted film fan spends his days making movies in his backyard and obsessing over 2001: A Space Odyssey and every other film he loves… but little does he know that he’s about to discover a film that will change his life forever…

That boy is Pat (John Francis Daley – Spider-man: Homecoming, Game Night) and that film is Star Wars.

Now the long-awaited, captivating feature, 5-25-77, based on the true story of Patrick Read Johnson – written and directed by the man himself – is out now on UK digital thanks to 101 Films.

This funny and endearing coming-of-age drama is a love letter to film, filmmaking and the seminal films of the 70s and is a must-see for anyone with a passion for film or just loves a good movie.

Meet Pat, he’s an outsider, a geek with an obsession for film.

Gary Kurtz in 1980 (left) and 2010. Photo: Fairfax Media Archives, Jim Steinfeldt Imagine Star Wars without merch. Or Ewoks. Or another Death Star, just two movies after the first. Imagine if Leia and Luke weren’t related, and might have become lovers. Imagine Han Solo dying in the third film rather than the seventh.

Mark Hamill, Gary Kurtz, and Billy D. Williams in 1980.Photo: Fairfax Media Archives (Getty Images)

Imagine Star Wars without merch. Or Ewoks. Or another Death Star, just two movies after the first. Imagine if Leia and Luke weren’t related, and might have become lovers. Imagine Han Solo dying in...

This story is part of The Hollywood Reporter’s 2023 Sustainability Issue (click here to read more).

In 1970, 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day. One of the more alarming predictions that day was from Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, who foresaw a future in which “population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” resulting in the starvation death of hundreds of millions.

Hollywood took notice and released a string of eco-disaster films in the years to follow.

In 1972’s Silent Running, a science fiction film starring Bruce Dern — and directed by 2001: A Space Odyssey effects master Douglas Trumbull — all plant life on Earth has gone extinct. And 1973’s Soylent Green, with Charlton Heston (who had starred in two other sci-fi hits, 1968’s Planet of the Apes and 1971’s The Omega Man), took Ehrlich’s ideas to scary, if campy, extremes.

Helmed by Richard Fleischer...

There are lots of ways to pitch If You Were the Last. How about “Michel Gondry remakes When Harry Met Sally — in space!” Who wouldn’t want to see that? But for all the ingenious hot takes one can dream up for Kristian Mercado’s ambitious feature-length debut, there’s no escaping the fact that it’s less than the sum of its parts. To be brutal, although it does, for an hour at least, cast a spell, raise interesting metaphysical questions, and center on an odd couple who, for once, actually don’t seem like they’ll get together and then totally convince us when they do — it doesn’t really pass muster as a movie at all.

Which is surprising, because character-based, low-budget sci-fi indies set in the howling existential wilderness of deep space do have a history of working against the odds, like John Carpenter’s blackly...

In 1977, a movie you might have heard of called Star Wars came out and thoroughly shifted the kind of movies Hollywood considered blockbusters. Until then, the idea of an epic sci-fi fantasy grossing hundreds of millions of dollars was considered laughable, and the genre was regarded as B-movie material at best. Star Wars changed that thinking, and suddenly studios were bending over backwards flooding theaters with their own sci-fi epics. This led to Star Trek getting a crack at the big screen, with the original crew headlining a movie that, at the time, was one of the most expensive movies ever made. In this episode of Revisited, we dig into Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Flashback to 1978. Star Wars was still making a mint, and Universal took the pilot episode for a Star Wars-knock-off series they developed, Battlestar Galactica, and released it in theaters. It made a stunning $41.8 million internationally,...

If you want to attract a younger audience, you have to watch what they watch. Not what you think they are watching, says producer Dean Devlin, best known for “Independence Day” and “Stargate.” But he never designs his shows for one market.

“It’s no longer all about gender or age demographic. If you go to a sci-fi convention, they are not just kids, they are not just older people. It’s everybody!”

At Berlinale Series Market Selects, which runs as part of the European Film Market in Berlin, with his latest show, sci-fi series “The Ark,” Devlin continues to pay homage to the kind of stories he loved as a child, from Douglas Trumbull’s “Silent Running” to “The Omega Man.”

“I don’t pay any attention to trends. When we did ‘Stargate,’ every studio in Hollywood said that science fiction was dead. And then we had a hit,...

Melinda Dillon, a two-time Oscar nominee for Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice who also played Ralphie’s mom in A Christmas Story, has died. She was 83. Her family said she died January 9 in Los Angeles but did not give other details.

Dillon and Richard Dreyfuss in ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ 1977

Dillon probably is best known for playing a mother whose young son is abducted by the aliens in Steven Spielberg’s 1977 epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She and Roy (Richard Dreyfuss) inexplicably are drawn to Devils Tower in Wyoming as they struggle to make sense of what has happened to them. She earned a Supporting Actress Oscar nom for the role.

She also played the mother of the young lead Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) in the 1983 holiday classic A Christmas Story, memorably warning the boy who wants a Bb rifle that, “You’ll shoot your eye out!

When "Easy Rider" was released into theaters in the summer of 1969, popular culture had already shifted significantly to reflect the spirit of rebellion swelling up among teenagers across the country. Signifying a real change, it was time for the box office and Hollywood to catch up with the tides; "Easy Rider" would go on to gross 60 million around the world. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda starred as two free-wheeling bikers from L.A. heading to New Orleans, and "Easy Rider" represented the beginning of counterculture and the death of the sixties, simultaneously. The soundtrack featuring Steppenwolf and The Band was instantly iconic, and the sweeping vistas that Hopper and Fonda rode through helped to define a road trip movie for a new generation. Then, the film's tragic ending served as a reminder that America wasn't really the land of the free, after all. 

The surprise success of "Easy Rider" resulted...

Quinn Redeker, who came up with the original script and Russian roulette idea for The Deer Hunter before starring as shady characters on the soap operas Days of Our Lives and The Young and the Restless, has died. He was 86.

Redeker died Dec. 20 of natural causes in Camarillo, California, his daughter, Arianne Raser, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Early in his career, Redeker appeared in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962) and Jack Hill’s Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967), then graduated to more prestige fare, working with Robert Redford in The Candidate (1972), The Electric Horseman (1979) and Ordinary People (1980).

Inspired by a Life magazine article about a man who played Russian roulette for the camera, Redeker contacted screenwriter Louis Garfinkle in 1974 about teaming on a movie script about a guy in the Bahamas who made a living at the hazardous game.

Garfinkle saw Russian roulette as “a perfect metaphor for the war in Vietnam,...

It was another difficult year in 2022, and the sadness extended to many beloved and groundbreaking people in the show business and media worlds who died during the past 12 months.

Scroll through a photo gallery above, which also includes the obituaries.

The acting world lost giants including Sidney Poitier and Angela Lansbury, along with such big names as James Caan, Anne Heche, Bob Saget, Kirstie Alley, Ray Liotta, Nichelle Nichols, William Hurt, Louise Fletcher, Robert Clary, Emilio Delgado, Sally Kellerman, Robbie Coltrane, Monica Vitti, Leslie Jordan, John Aniston, Tony Sirico, Charlbi Dean, Tony Dow, Irene Papas, Howard Hesseman and Seinfeld moms Estelle Harris and Liz Sheridan.

We also pay tribute to directors including Ivan Reitman, Peter Bogdanovich and Marvin J. Chomsky.

Musicians who left us this past year include Jerry Lee Lewis, Loretta Lynn, Olivia Newton-John, Meat Loaf, Ronnie Spector, Naomi Judd, Ramsey Lewis, Stephen “tWitch” Boss and Coolio. Many key...

Los Angeles. The land suffocates beneath a cancerous industrial crust that spits flames into a polluted, blackened troposphere. A dark sky weighs heavy on the grim scene, heightening the feeling of hopelessness that plagues this wretched vision. No, this isn't the view of downtown from my apartment. This is, of course, the famous "Hades" shot that opens 1982's "Blade Runner" and establishes director Ridley Scott's vision of 2019 LA.

As former Mythbuster and alarmingly knowledgeable FX dude Adam Savage remarked during an episode of VFX artists react, the "Hades" shot is considered "one of the great effects shots in film history," and includes "every model-making technique there is." What's perhaps most impressive about this and all the other effects shots in "Blade Runner" is that they were all captured in-camera using multiple motion-controlled camera passes on the same piece of film.

Harrison Ford might not be that fond of "Blade Runner,...

Christopher Nolan recently revealed that, in conceiving his next film Oppenheimer, he created the first-ever nuclear weapon detonation without the use of computer graphics. “I think recreating the Trinity test [the first nuclear weapon detonation, in New Mexico] without the use of computer graphics, was a huge challenge to take on,” he told Total Film.

He continued, “Andrew Jackson – my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on – was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself, to recreating, with my team, Los Alamos up on a mesa in New Mexico in extraordinary weather, a lot of which was needed for the film, in terms of the very harsh conditions out there – there were huge practical challenges.”

The director didn’t share any more details, but with the arrival of the new trailer, which screened with James Cameron’s latest,...

The pre-digital age of blockbuster filmmaking was a wonderland of handmade awe. Every astounding image you saw on a movie screen was tactile. Be it a mechanical shark, a model Ferris wheel rolling down the Santa Monica Pier, or a flying saucer crashing into the United States Capitol, you knew these were tangible creations placed in front of a camera. Though great filmmakers know how to dazzle us with the ones and zeroes of CGI, I far prefer the rough magic practiced by masters like Ray Harryhausen, Douglas Trumbull, and John Dykstra.

The practical visual effects revolution kicked off with Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," which flaunted mind-blowing outer space imagery from the legendary Trumbull. The next major leap came in 1977 when Dykstra invented motion control technology to thrust viewers into the nerve-frazzling trench run during the finale of "Star Wars." While moviegoers kept lining up to revisit that galaxy far,...

The Museum of the Moving Image’s will receive 5 million in state funding to advance the non-profit’s educational work in film, television, and digital media. The grant was secured by Senate Deputy Leader Michael Gianaris who will be on hand at the organization’s annual Moving Image Awards Gala.

This year’s honorees include acclaimed filmmaker Sarah Polley, the director of “Women Talking,” novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who wrote the script for “Living,” Academy Award–winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, on the awards trail with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” and “Nope” composer Michael Abels. The special program will take place in the museum’s Sumner M. Redstone Theater. The evening also included a tribute to Douglas Trumbull, a filmmaker and visual effects pioneer whose credits include “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Blade Runner,” as well as a performance by The Harlem Quartet.

“The Museum of the Moving Image...

Newly remastered in 4K! Bruce Dern’s (literally) tree-hugging forest ranger Freeman Lowell commits space piracy to save the trees, dude, and becomes lost in space with only Huey, Dewey and Louie for companionship. The only soul back on Earth who seems to care is Joan Baez. Douglas Trumbull’s technically-accomplished first feature film does 2001 on a tiny budget, and creates something original, if a bit mushy — the bittersweet ending depresses more than it uplifts.

Silent Running

4K Ultra HD

Arrow Video

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date December 13, 2022 / Available from / 49.95

Starring: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint, Mark Persons, Steven Brown, Cheryl Sparks, Larry Whisenhunt.

Cinematography: Charles F. Wheeler

Film Editor: Aaron Stell

Original Music: Peter Schickiele

Special Photographic Effects: John Dykstra, Douglas Trumbull, Richard Yuricich

Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco

Produced by Michael Gruskoff, Marty Hornstein

Directed by Douglas Trumbull

Arrow has been on a two-year roll,...

Despite the intentions of any director or director of photography, the person with the final say in how a film will look when screened for an audience is the projectionist. And if you’re lucky enough to have someone like Rob “Bert” Murphy, you know the show will look and sound as the filmmaker intended. If Murphy is attending Doc NYC this weekend, I hope he doesn’t veer off to an AMC multiplex and find a 3D polarizer permanently affixed to one of those Sony projectors that make films appear darker and slightly more purple than they should––a critical failure that New York audiences have been subjected to for at least the last ten years. But we digress.

Splice Here: A Projected Odyssey, directed and featuring Murphy, is a celebration of cinematic exhibition. This includes the quirky network of projectionists, collectors, and innovators who keep film alive and preserve film history.

Some 44 years after it went into production, Star Trek: The Motion Picture is finally complete.

We don’t say that frivolously. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is one of Hollywood’s most famous “unfinished” films. Rushing to meet a December 7, 1979 release date, with many of the visual effects being completed right up until the last possible minute by Douglas Trumbull (who had replaced the previous VFX supervisor), director Robert Wise pretty much just stopped working on the film, carrying the first available print on a plane to the movie’s Washington D.C. premiere.

The complicated story of how St: Tmp – the first major motion picture based on an existing TV series — was developed, written, filmed, and released is a long, winding one that has been told before. It’s also well-known that the original theatrical version of the film – the one that Wise had to deliver finished or not...

The late stars of “Star Trek: The Original Series” will live long and prosper in space, thanks to a pioneering new mission.

After legendary “Star Trek” actress and NASA collaborator Nichelle Nichols died in July 2022 at age 89, memorial spaceflight organization Celestis contacted Nichols’ son Kyle Johnson about her remains being put into orbit. Named after the fictional U.S.S. Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” series that premiered in 1966, Celestis’ “Enterprise” mission involves a rocket named “Vulcan” that will transport Nichols, along with other “Star Trek” co-stars’ ashes, into space, as reported by Universe Today. The launch is scheduled to take place in December out of Cape Canaveral in Florida.

One gram of Nichols’ ashes, along with a cheek swab sample from her son Johnson, will go into orbit. Remains from fellow “Star Trek” alums James Doohan, Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, series creator Gene Roddenberry, and visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull...

Celestis, Inc., a memorial space flights company, announced Thursday that it will send some of Nichelle Nichols’ ashes to space — a fitting resting place among the stars for the iconic and history-making “Star Trek” actress.

The tribute will involve “launching a symbolic portion of her cremated remains and a DNA sample into deep space” onboard the company’s upcoming historic Enterprise Flight, according to a release.

Nichols, who played Lieutenant Uhura on “Star Trek,” died in July at the age of 89. She was the first Black woman in a leading role in a network television series to portray a character that was not shackled by the stereotypes of Hollywood’s past, breaking barriers for Black women in Hollywood for the years, indeed centuries, to come.

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Nichelle Nichols, Lt. Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89

“We are truly honored to add a legendary actress, activist, and educator to the Enterprise Flight manifest,...

The ashes of actors Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) James Doohan (Scotty), Majel Barrett Roddenberry (Nurse Chapel), and the TV series creator Gene Roddenberry and visual-effects wiz Douglas Trumbull are headed into outer space.

The ashes and DNA from the iconic actors will be part of a special “Enterprise mission,” according to space and astronomy news site Universe Today.

The samples will fly “beyond the moon” on the flight, which will take place at a future date to be determined.

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur mission is planning to deliver a robotic lunar lander in order to scout for NASA’s future Artemis 1 flights. The “Enterprise mission” will be part of the “secondary payload” on that flight. The ashes are provided as part of a joint venture with Houston’s Celestis, which conducts memorial space flights.

The first unmanned Artemis mission is scheduled for Aug. 29. It will be followed by...

The first feature film of the franchise, from 1979, has been rejigged and brightened, the better to enjoy the over-the-top acting

For 10 years after the cancellation of the original Star Trek TV show in 1969, creator Gene Roddenberry’s mission was to seek out ways of getting a movie version, helped by the growing re-run fanbase and a warp-speed boost from the colossal success of Star Wars. The end result was Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, now re-released in a 4K restoration, directed by veteran all-rounder Robert Wise with Douglas Trumbull on special effects. This is the “director’s edition”, first authorised by Wise in 2001: it brightens and clarifies the effects, enriches the sound mix, adds minor expository and ambient scenes and emphasises the unhurried visionary grandeur that Wise was aiming at.

At the time of its original release, I was disconcerted by the Enterprise crew’s silly new uniforms:...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

As a restoration of Three Colors: White begins its run, a massive retrospective of King Vidor gets underway.

Anthology Film Archives

A series on Warhol’s durational cinema runs this weekend; Essential Cinema has Buñuel.

Roxy Cinema

The series “Woman as Witch” offers plenty scintillating—prints of Black Sunday (on 16mm), Showgirls, and Carnival of Souls all have multiples showings this weekend—while Ciao! Manhattan and The Assassination of Jesse James return 35mm and a 16mm animation program runs on Sunday.

Paris Theater

Close Encounters, Suspiria, Cold Water, and Death on the Nile all screen in a “Directors Selects” series.

IFC Center

A series on Los Angeles films is underway—including They Live, The Long Goodbye, and the new restoration of Heat—while the Lost Highway continues; The Shining and Taxi Driver has late showings.

Film Forum...

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Joe Turkel, who portrayed the haunting bartender in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and the creator of the replicants in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, has died. He was 94.

Turkel died Monday at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, his family announced.

Turkel also appeared in two other Kubrick films: as a gunman in the climactic shootout in The Killing (1956) and as a soldier sent to the firing squad in Paths of Glory (1957), which the lanky Brooklyn-born actor called the greatest film ever made. (Only Philip Stone has appeared in as many as three Kubrick movies.)

For Bert I. Gordon, Turkel appeared as Abu the Genie and as a gangster, respectively, in the 1960 releases The Boy and the Pirates and Tormented. He also played a prisoner of war in Robert Wise’s The Sand Pebbles (1966) and was the real-life bribe...

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Gregory Jein, the acclaimed model maker and artist who worked on eight Star Trek properties and earned Oscar nominations for Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941, has died. He was 76.

Jein died May 22 in his Los Angeles home after a long history of health issues that included a battle with diabetes, a family spokeswoman told The Hollywood Reporter. His family elected to keep his death quiet until this week, she added.

According to the website Memory Alpha, Jein began his association with Star Trek in 1977 by designing a Klingon battle cruiser for Star Trek: Phase II, which would have been the first live-action spinoff of NBC’s original Star Trek had it gone forward.

He collaborated with visual effects maestro Douglas Trumbull on Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), then followed with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country...

Let’s face it: Massachusetts is not well-known for its post-production facilities. While there are a few impressive Boston-based companies — including Soundtrack Group for Adr/sound, EditBar for editing, Color Refinery for color and Brickyard VFX for effects — their efforts are mainly focused on commercials projects. Most features and series that film in the state head elsewhere for post.

But that’s starting to change, thanks in large part to state tax incentives becoming permanent last year, and companies including Zero VFX emerging as leaders in New England.

“When we started in 2010, people would look at you very strangely if you said, ‘We’re doing our effects in Boston,’ because there wasn’t a ton of talent here,” says Zero VFX co-founder Brian Drewes. “The incentive has really started allowing us to develop a base of great artists.” And to create groundbreaking work: he says Zero FX is now designing...

Surprisingly, veteran actor Bruce Dern hasn’t done many regular television roles throughout his six-decade career. But he jumped at the chance to work with old friend Billy Bob Thornton on the Amazon Prime legal drama “Goliath.” He played Frank Zax, former pharmaceutical executive during the fourth and final season of the series. That role over the course of the episodes brought him a barnburner of a legal battle with his ruthless brother George, played by J.K. Simmons.

During our recent chat Dern reveals, “I’d never really done a scene in a courtroom. I had been a judge in ‘All the Pretty Horses’ for Billy Bob. Movies and acting are really about photographing, in a really interesting way, conversations. I liked that style in what they were doing… Billy said you’re here because you’re you, and you’re extremely unpredictable and it’s not planned out. You have your ‘Dernsies,...