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TLS signed “Gene,” one page, 8.5 x 11, illustrated 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' letterhead, October 3, 1978. Letter to noted science fiction author Norman Spinrad, in full: “Thank you for understanding the crazy schedule I was keeping during your visit here. Some of the crises we've had on the film are reminiscent of the frantic early days of the STAR TREK series, but in this case they seem to be GIANT-sized problems. On the other hand, we seem to be resolving them as we managed to do twelve years ago, and our dailies really look excellent. The greatest problem has been to find the proper meld between the STAR TREK television format and special requirements of a major wide-screen film — I think we've been successful, and everyone who has seen the dailies has agreed ‘It is still STAR TREK!’ Hopefully, the optical effects and other production values will be magnificent, but you do have my promise I will not let the tail wag the dog.
The MINDREACH situation or at least the Paramount reaction to it is very puzzling to all of us. They don't seem to want to do anything but yet they don't seem to want to let it get out of their hands. Unless we can get something definite from Paramount very soon, I'll probably pull the project from them and go back to square one with some other studio. Sorry it hasn't worked out better for you and for all of us.
Good luck in all of your many projects. Please let me know when you are back in town as I have some hopes that the twelve working hours, seven day a week schedule may level out into something reasonable over the next month or so.” In fine condition.
A marvelous letter between sci-fi luminaries, which dates to two months after Star Trek: The Motion Picture began filming on August 7, 1978. Spinrad wrote the script for an episode of the original Star Trek television series, titled ‘The Doomsday Machine,’ which was nominated for a Hugo Award, and he also wrote an unproduced Star Trek script for Star Trek: Phase II, the planned successor to the original Star Trek television series. The box office success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind convinced Paramount to change course, however, ultimately canceling production of Phase II and resuming work on a Star Trek film.
Around this time, Roddenberry purchased the movie rights to the 1977 book Mind-reach: Scientists Look at Psychic Ability by Dr. Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, which was about their laboratory experiments in ESP, telepathy, and clairvoyance at the Stanford Research Institute. Originally published by Delacorte, Mind-Reach is the book that led to the U. S. Army's psychic spy program and the subsequent prominence of remote viewing. As this letter alludes, the project never came to fruition.
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