Star Trek The Motion Picture View-Master Reels (1979)

Friends, first of all I am not 100% positive that these View-Master reels for Star Trek: The Motion Picture were released in 1979 – as the film itself premiered on December 8th of that year. While marketing, especially these days, for films have rolled out products well before the actual movie has been released – I could see this particular reel set having actually been released to stores in the early part of 1980. What I can tell you without a doubt is that I sadly never owned the Star Trek: The Motion Picture View-Master reel set and I think my life is the lesser for it after watching the video below. Having said that I should point out that the reels for the 1979 film – that big budget return of the original crew of the starship Enterprise – are not quite like the View-Master reels that I cherished in my youth. For one thing as I found out from the video and reading online, the image used on the reels themselves were produced by using publicity photographs and stills and then layered to create a 3D effect – the same was apparently true for the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan reels. In addition it appears that instead of the blister pack – Star Trek: The Motion Picture as well as two other sets that featured the original series episode entitled The Omega Glory and the Filmation animated series were sold in the sealed square envelopes.

Now as I’ve already pointed out, the folks behind the Star Trek: The Motion Picture View-Master set used publicity photographs to make the reels – which totally makes sense – I bring this up again because it seems to be more obvious than some of the other reels produced in the ’80s. For example I own The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension reels and you can see how it looks a little different than the Star Trek version.

Obviously the three View-Master reels in the set tell an abbreviated version of the events in Star Trek: The Motion Picture – although I was shocked to see they even mentioned the horrific transporter action scene!

Did any of you have the Star Trek: The Motion Picture View-Master reel set when you were younger?