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In 1977 Paramount Pictures decided to make another Star Trek
television series, A proposed weekly series that would have depicted a second
five-year mission of the Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk.
The series would have been called Star Trek: Phase II. Everyone who stared in
the original series would have stared in this one, except for Spock, because
Leonard Nimoy did not want to be in the series, but was replaced by a character
named Xon, who would have been played by David Gautreaux, but since the series
was canceled, the actor played an extra in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in the
very beginning, Navigator Ilia would have also been in Phase II, and would have
been played by Kim Khambatta, who did show up in The Motion Picture, the
Executive officer Decker would have also been in the Phase II, but that part was
not casted before the series was canceled. There also there would be one other
major difference, the Enterprise would have been redesigned, but not look like
the one in the Motion Picture, the new ship was designed by Matt Jeffries, but
since the series was canceled shortly after being in production, the ship was
tossed out after Paramount Pictures canceled Phase II. Without even realizing
it, Paramount Pictures would have produced the most successful series of movies
the studio have ever made. The Enterprise that was used in the Motion Picture
was redesigned to make it look like the one in Star Trek. There were several
plots for Phase II were used in other Star Trek movies and also used in Star
Trek: The Next Generation; "Devil's Due" and "The Child" are
some examples.
After George Lucas introduced Star Wars, Paramount Pictures
decided to cancel Phase II, George Lucas communicated that which Gene
Roddenberry had tried to communicate himself years earlier. George Lucas even
help worked on Star Trek: The Motion Picture and also helped with Star Trek: The
Undiscovered Country. Once Star Wars had so much success, Paramount decided to
make Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but they only planed on making only one
movie, so Paramount put a whole lot of money into the film, after The Motion
Picture made so much money, they decided to make more until there was a whole
Star Trek franchise.
Phase II would have been aired on a new network owned by
Paramount Pictures, and Phase II was going to be the flagship of this new
network, but when Star Trek: Voyager came out, Paramount started United
Paramount Network (UPN), but this was done years later some time after Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine came out. The two-hour pilot episode which would have been
a made-for-television movie was the plot for The Motion Picture, the episode
would have been named "In Thy Image," but also was an outline story
for a series called Genesis II, a series Gene Roddenberry proposed to CBS, but
was also turned into a movie in 1973, and a remake called Planet Earth in 1974.
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