[Music] hi this is jim from weird nashville and when we released our video package on surviving star trek phase 2 test footage the response from our viewers was immediate many folks contacted us via comments and emails with their own stories and questions several even pointed us in a direction where we could find even more test footage now the footage you’re about to see is not necessarily footage that didn’t exist before the footage has been found in a variety of places on the internet but i can tell you this no other video on youtube or anywhere else contains all of this footage together so join us after the break as we revisit even more footage than we did before as well as go over some things we’ve discovered since the first video was released [Applause] now just a quick reminder that this video is part of a series of videos available on our channel as shown in the
collage above be sure to keep an eye out for our new upcoming videos if you haven’t already like this video subscribe to us and then you’ll be notified as soon as these videos are released now ironically one of the most popular pieces of footage from phase 2 is a piece of footage shot of william shatner now it wasn’t in our first video but we got lots of emails and comments saying hey how could you possibly miss shatner’s phase 2 footage well the problem is it’s not phase 2 footage a youtuber put up a video of william shatner wearing what appears to be a star trek command gold uniform while talking to robert reed in what appears to be a star trek engineering red uniform bill’s age is also exactly what you would expect it to be for after the first series but before the movies but it’s not star trek phase two it’s a scene from the tv movie pray for the wildcats the video has been up and active on youtube for nine years 300 000 plus
views it gets viewed still today at the rate of two views an hour so i can understand how these urban legends start now david gatreau was the very first actor hired to appear in phase two he was given the job on september 26 1977 for the first time after he had shot a couple of screen tests the first clip has no surviving audio that can be found we never see the face of the other person dressed in engineering red either now prior to getting this job david’s only acting experience was a single appearance in the man from atlantis he didn’t have an agent but he was dating a woman who worked for one she found out about the role and set up his casting appointment herself i don’t feel an attack is the logical approach at this moment if you will allow me to take forever now remember when we’re looking at this this is a screen test i got a lot of comments about well thank god they didn’t go forward with that hair that’s not vulcan hair but the hairstyle would be adjusted when they actually started filming my readings seemed to indicate some sort of sensor unit attached to each device now in this next clip which is new to this
package we get a special two-for-one screen test david is shown here testing for zan will deck how do you do so we also have an unnamed actor who is testing for the part of decker now the actor we’ve never been able to identify yet lieutenant you’re erasing those tapes his face does look kind of familiar sir if i am to function efficiently as science officer i must become intimately familiar with each circuit in this system carry on thank you sir i will however i will point out decker’s part was never actually finally cast until november finally i think we’re seeing a completely different testing day from the ones we just saw that david did with the engineering red crewmen why would david do a second screen test believe it or not this was because major barrett’s concerned that she may not be able to play realistically against such a young actor in particular she had already identified a british actor that she wanted to have the position so she arranged for that british actor to come in and do a test shot and for david to
do a test shot well the british actor pretty much trashed the test shot so david was reconfirmed for the second time now of course once it was confirmed that nimoy was indeed going to return the role of zan was greatly reduced and because of that david asked to be released from his commitment for portraying zahn by this particular time he had returned to some stage theater acting and he didn’t want to tie up his time waiting in standby for the movie so zan became sonak and sonak became transporter fodder however he was offered a chance to play a different role in the movie he would appear as the commander of epsilon 9. our sensor drone is intercepting this on quad l14 that’s within klingon boundaries who are they fighting unknown sir since this was going to be filmed well after principal photography of the movie wrapped up it would not conflict with his stage work and in the end commander branch had quite a bit more screen time than sonak
we now go into december 22nd 1977 where a series of engineering screen tests were taken now you may notice that these screen tests are actually in widescreen format they are not in the 4×3 television format that the other clips were in this is because by this time in december they had already committed that they were going to be doing star trek the motion picture the purpose of these tests were done to see exactly how well the phase ii engineering room stood up and what would have to be redressed and redesigned for star trek the motion picture now as you watch this test it becomes an obvious reminder to us that this was the way that science fiction looked on tv in the 1970s think of logan’s run the first edition of battlestar galactica buck rogers in the 25th century things like that lots of pastels wide open spaces with little in the way of additional details this was referred to as minimalism in the 1970s the costumes were far more relaxed and loose fitting almost ridiculously so but i have to say there’s no way someone who worked in engineering could ever be taken seriously wearing a combination
overalls jumpsuit just saying now in this series of shots we see two crew members exchange objects and then there’s a brief splice after which they continue on with their conversation in this alternative take at the point where we previously had a splice that connected two discussion scenes together they instead switch to a shot from under the glass floor that is designed to show the height of the central warp core just so you have an idea of the overall size of the engineering set here’s a photo from down on the lower floor where the camera was the set was actually three stories high in order to give forced perspective and it was used in star trek the motion picture after being redressed complete with a glass floor which you can see here with admiral kirk visiting engineering again like in the engineering test we have another test done in movie format rather than tv each of the bridge consoles were actually functional to the point that they would produce audible and visual responses when certain keys were pressed there were instruction manuals that were given to the actors if you’re going to be
interacting with this thing during the movie you actually had a user’s guide to show you how to use it now purse this audition for the part of ilea on october 27 1977 which was the second day of auditions held for that part she was given the role the very next day now i need to make something clear because again we got quite a few emails and comments about this one there’s an urban legend going around about this that said that she was so dedicated to getting the part that she actually showed up bald for the role and unfortunately that is not true she wore a skull cap just like everybody else and if you watch the clip in the lower window here you can actually see fred phillips actually having to shave her hair off in preparation for star trek motion picture now this next shot was done on the same day that purses did her test but it was shot on a different camera using a different actress now who this actress is we’ve never really been able to find out the picture has been circulating since 1998 as far as i know it was actually in a book called star trek phase two the lost series and they actually showed the picture along with
pictures of purses but they did not identify anybody other than purses in those pictures but if you look closely at the filmed footage you can tell that this is probably someone of european descent rather than someone with an eastern descent in india okay that takes us through this again i want to thank you for the time you spent with us and i look forward to talking to you again in the future please be sure to like this video subscribe to us and turn on notifications so you’ll be notified when the very next thing is released and hopefully if everything goes to plan it will be on the shuttlecraft galileo