Movies - TV
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Was In A Rush To Reshoot The Spacewalk Scene
By JEREMY SMITH
In 1979, visual effects expert Douglas Trumbull delivered cinematic awe for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” but the processes behind the scenes were complicated.
As Trumbull shared in an interview with TrekMovie.com, he thought Spock’s spacewalk scene looked “completely unusable and just not serviceable at all.”
"Badly lit, badly designed, and it just looked like guys hanging on wires,” Trumbull said, adding that they also “didn't pay any attention to weightlessness" when filming it.
With a $44 million budget, Trumbull couldn't let something this old school make the final cut. With little time, he asked director Robert Wise to let him reshoot the entire scene.
He stated Wise’s trust in him and said, “We redesigned and re-imagined the entire spacewalk sequence with Spock.” Visual artists and fans praise the scene to this day.