(written from a Production point of view)
 Cover | |
| Series: | "Pre-air" Star Trek: The Next Generation promo featurettes |
| Run time: | 1.6 minutes |
| Release date: | August-September 1987 (Entertainment Tonight) |
| Language: | English |
ILM Special Visual Effects, Star Trek The Next Generation was a short, 1.6 minute special, produced by Industrial Light & Magic at the behest of the franchise in the summer of 1987 to promote that company's involvement with the upcoming new Star Trek: The Next Generation television series prior to its release.
As a specialty promotional tool, it has been aired on several occasions during the summer by Entertainment Tonight – the syndicated current popular culture affairs show produced by Paramount Domestic Television (a division of Paramount Television) – as one of a, by the franchise commissioned, series of pre-air featurette shorts, mostly consisting of cast and crew interviews, in order to raise awareness for the new upcoming Star Trek show, which premiered on 28 September 1987. [1]
The special featured several ILM staffers at the time of preparation of filming the destruction of the Old Bandi City maquette for the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint". Interestingly, some of the footage of this shoot was edited out for this particular release, though much of it was incorporated later on as part of the much later 2002 TNG Season 1 DVD-special feature, "The Beginning". On the other hand, the only interview in this special, the one with Visual Effects Supervisor David Carson was longer than the one featured on the DVD release.
It was not the first time mother company Lucasfilm had produced a "mini-documentary" on behalf of Star Trek; previously, in 1982, the ILM sister company The Graphics Project of the Lucasfilm Computer Division Ltd. had produced the longer Computer Graphics in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan documentary short, in which the groundbreaking "Genesis Demo" for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was explained in layman's terms.