Gene Roddenberry’s STARSHIP

Looking at unmade science fiction, fantasy, horror and superhero films, television shows and episodes.

An unmade animated series.

After Gene Roddenberry’s death in 1991 his wife Majel revived one of Gene’s ideas and it went on to become as Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: The Final Conflict.  With that done, she moved on to other unused material…

BACKGROUND

During the development phase of Star Trek William “Matt” Jefferies came up with a number of designs for the Enterprise.  The second attempt was a design often called the “Ring-ship.”

After the cancellation of Star Trek but before Star Trek: Phase II, the ringship became attached to a Roddenberry concept called Starship (some sources suggest that this was the first time the ring-ship design appeared).

DEVELOPMENT

Revived by John Semper and Majel as a project in 1998 with animators Mainframe Entertainment. In May 1999 Tribune announced it and Andromeda as possible live action series, both with a hero named Dylan Hunt.  It eventually became connected to Stan Lee Media.  At Stan Lee Media the project became an internet series with a possible film and other media to follow.  The project was to be financed with money from Japan.

CONCEPT

The concept for Starship was rather nebulous.  Obviously, it was set on a starship (possibly a living starship).  Majel stated that there “will always be a captain and crew.”  Originally, the series was about human/humanoid scientists, described by Stan Lee media as “the adventures of a young human scientist and a brash alien commander who must work together on the Starship ECO-1, despite their personal differences, to combat intergalactic ecological disasters.”  The show was said have only one or two humanoids and a bug-like creature as the main character.  Majel said that “There is no story to tell you yet, not on Starship. I could go into what we had before, but it’s not going to be the same, it’s not even going to be similar as a matter of fact.”

CANCELLATION

In December 2000, Stan Lee Media ran out of capital and closed operations.

LEGACY

The “Ring Ship” became part of Star Trek lore when it appeared as a painting on display on the Recreation Room in Star Trek: The Motion Picture as part of a display of previous Enterprises.  It appeared again, as a painting in Enterprise and  as a model, in Star: Trek Into Darkness‘s history of space-flight display.

During the development of Starship Robert Hewett Wolfe was allowed access to unused Gene Roddenberry material and created Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda.  Some of the ideas that he used were also being used for Starship and were removed from the animated project, which Majel described as:

“We stole parts of Starship deliberately for Andromeda. We stole names, we stole titles. They were all Gene’s, so it didn’t matter. We’ll be doing that probably until my deathbed. If something works with a particular story, let’s use it here, and save this other element for another place.”

~ DUG.