Roddenberry Vault: Week 7 - Story ideas and scripts

Throughout 2016 the Roddenberry Facebook page will be posting artefacts from their archives, including behind the scenes documents, production artwork, and photos. Dubbed the Roddenberry Vault, there will be new posts every day, some times multiples. To make sure you don't miss any of these insightful glimpses into the production of Star Trek, I will be posting weekly summaries.

In the seventh week's worth of posts we got an in depth look at the development of stories, with notes on unmade episodes, various documents charting the evolution of stories, and complete scripts. Continue below for details of all the week's posts.

Day forty-three kicked off the week with a script, specifically Majel Barrett's copy of Journey to Babel. As with almost all the posts from this week, the Facebook post was just a sample, with the full length pdf documents hosted on the Roddenberry website.

Day forty-four gave us pages of notes by Gene Roddenberry on the first draft of Court Martial, or Court Martial on Star Base 811 as it appears to have been known at the time. Again the full document is hosted by Roddenberry, including the rather brilliant following passages, which give a wonderful bit of futurist speculation on computer technology:

Day forty-five is another script, this time for The Way to Eden, what makes this a bit more insightful into the entire production process is the inclusion of a special effects shot list for the episode too. Once more, the entire document is hosted by Roddenberry.

Roddenberry Vault: Week 6 - Opening words

Throughout 2016 the Roddenberry Facebook page will be posting artefacts from their archives, including behind the scenes documents, production artwork, and photos. Dubbed the Roddenberry Vault, there will be new posts every day, some times multiples. To make sure you don't miss any of these insightful glimpses into the production of Star Trek, I will be posting weekly summaries.

In the sixth week's worth of posts the highlight was a look at the evolution of the opening monologue, perhaps one of the most iconic bits of scripting in media history! Continue below for that and more.

The week started with a three-day run of slide images, the red toned stills from the episodes. Day thirty-six was Spock and the Horta, followed by a shot of Sulu, and then Scotty, on days thirty-seven and thirty-eight.

Day thirty-nine explored another character, in two posts: There was a nice behind the scenes shot of Leonard Nimoy on set from the production of The Cage, plus an interview with Nimoy, discussing how he deals with Spock's emotions.

Roddenberry Vault: Week 5 - Creating the Trekverse

Throughout 2016 the Roddenberry Facebook page will be posting artefacts from their archives, including behind the scenes documents, production artwork, and photos. Dubbed the Roddenberry Vault, there will be new posts every day, some times multiples. To make sure you don't miss any of these insightful glimpses into the production of Star Trek, I will be posting weekly summaries.

In the fifth week's worth of posts we've had another wide ranging selection of posts, including a fascinating insight into the changes between the pilot episodes, and snapshots from several different episodes.

Day twenty-nine took up onto the set of Amok Time, with multiple images of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Day thirty also comes from Amok Time, but this time in the form of a still from a slide.

Roddenberry Vault: Week 4 - Snaps of the cast

Throughout 2016 the Roddenberry Facebook page will be posting artefacts from their archives, including behind the scenes documents, production artwork, and photos. Dubbed the Roddenberry Vault, there will be new posts every day, some times multiples. To make sure you don't miss any of these insightful glimpses into the production of Star Trek, I will be posting weekly summaries.

In the fourth week's worth of posts we've been treated to a wide range of behind the scenes photos, mainly of the cast, each day from a different episode. Continue below for details of all the posts from the last full week of January.

Day twenty-two continued from the previous day, with another set of photos from The Deadly Years, this time with William Shatner, James Doohan and DeForest Kelley all larking about while in aged make-up:

Roddenberry Vault: Week 3 - Talosians on the Edge of Forever

Throughout 2016 the Roddenberry Facebook page will be posting artefacts from their archives, including behind the scenes documents, production artwork, and photos. Dubbed the Roddenberry Vault, there will be new posts every day, some times multiples. To make sure you don't miss any of these insightful glimpses into the production of Star Trek, I will be posting weekly summaries.

The third week has been a fairly even mix of documents, and photographs of the cast and production staff. The last couple of weeks has concentrated on the genesis of Star Trek, and this week continues to explore the pilot episodes, but also gave us glimpses behind the scenes from later in the series too, specifically looking at the episodes The City on the Edge of Forever, and The Deadly Years. Continue below for details of all this week's posts:

Day fifteen gave us a slide, a frame from the TOS opening titles.  On day sixteen there was the story outline for the second pilot episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before. Only the first page was posted on Facebook, but you can find a pdf of the whole document on the Roddenberry website.

Day seventeen was when this week really got good for me though, a delightful picture of Gene Roddenberry hanging out with the Talosians on the set of the first pilot episode, The Cage.

Roddenberry Vault: Week 2 - Making the Enterprise

Throughout 2016 the Roddenberry Facebook page will be posting artefacts from their archives, including behind the scenes documents, production artwork, and photos. Dubbed the Roddenberry Vault, there will be new posts every day, some times multiples. To make sure you don't miss any of these insightful glimpses into the production of Star Trek, I will be posting weekly summaries.

It has been a good time to be starship design fan in the second week of posts form the Roddenberry Vault, with oodles of concept art showing us some quite exotic forms the USS Enterprise could have taken, plus images of the early filming miniatures. Continue below for information on this week's posts:

There were a few pieces of concept art posted in the first week, but the Enterprise has found many more unusual forms in the most recent posts. In this first image, posted on day eight, we can almost see the familiar shape of the Enterprise, yet it is also quite different, and oddly enough seems to pre-empt one of the most recent starship designs, the USS Vengeance!

Roddenberry Vault: Week 1 - Star Trek Begins

A week into 2016, the fifthieth anniversary of Star Trek year, and that also means a week's worth of posts from the Roddenberry Vault, the archive of behind the scenes images and documents being posted on the Roddenberry Facebook page. In this first week we've been treated behind the scenes photos from the production of the pilot episode, The Cage, concept art for the USS Enterprise, and various documents relating to the earliest episodes, including production notes, scripts, and even censorship documents. Continue below for a round-up of contents of the Roddenberry Vault so far:

Day one saw three different posts, including this photo of Gene Roddenberry himself on the set:

There is also a fascinating pitch document for the series. This first page makes note of the diversity of story-telling Star Trek can offer, including outlines for possible episodes, some you might recognise. You can see further pages from this document on Facebook, as well as the third post of the day, the annotated story outline for The Cage.

The Roddenberry Vault opens in 2016

Roddenberry Entertainment has announced their own year long celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Star Trek, with the opening of the Roddenberry Vault. Throughout the year the Roddenberry Facebook page, will be making posts, including "rare photos, memos, script pages, documents, and the like".

To wet our appetites, Entertainment Weekly has posted three advanced extra excerpts from the Vault, which give a good representation of the variety of things we have to look forward to. First up, a storyboard image from The Motion Picture, showing the Enterprise departing spacedock as the sun shines over the crest of the Earth behind: