Looking at “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” today, one would not be able to tell that the SFX were produced in a hurry. Everything looks grand and sharp and amazing, especially as the U.S.S. Enterprise soars through the massive mechanical V’Ger cloud. Trumbull, working with an already-complete ship model, added a lot more detail and also used a special photographic technique called slit-scan to create psychedelic space sequences. According to Trumbull, Paramount was worried about translating a TV series to the big screen, afraid that audiences would reject the notion (“Motion Picture” was the first time a small-screen show had been adapted to the big screen with the same cast). He said:
“[T]hey just didn’t feel comfortable that you could transport a television series to feature films. That was their really big worry, that’s why the poster says, “There is no comparison,” i.e. to television. And they were trying to differentiate from television and give it some kind of epic qualities […] A feeling for kind of epic spectacle was what they wanted to see.”
It was Trumbull who constructed the notorious four-and-a-half-minute Enterprise flyby sequence in response.
Trumbull considered himself lucky that he and his team were able to complete the job in just six months, though, and that he didn’t get to celebrate as he was in the hospital. He said:
“[I]t was really hard, and it was … a miracle we pulled it off. And I ended up in the hospital for two weeks when we delivered it. I was just a nervous wreck and not in good physical shape. I had gallstones, I had stomach ulcers. I was just really wrung out by the time that was completed.”
Luckily, Trumbull pulled through. He lived another 43 fruitful years.