Editing Star Trek: Phase II (section)

===Cancellation===
A key premise of the "In Thy Image" story was to see Earth itself threatened for the first time in ''Star Trek''.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=33}} Producer Goodwin proposed that this story should be the two-hours pilot of the series at a meeting with Eisner on August 3. He would later recall that this specific meeting changed the direction of the franchise, as Eisner declared that Foster's story was the one that he had been looking for to make a feature, not a television, film. At the same time, Paramount had come to realize that the expected advertising revenues for the Paramount Television Service could not support a fourth network, and so there was no possibility of creating the series. By this point, costs for the series had already reached $500,000, and the studio was looking to recoup those expenses in some manner. The initial concept was to continue with the pilot, and then attempt to sell the series to NBC, [[CBS]], or [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]. But the Paramount executives were concerned about losing control of a potential franchise, and by moving the pilot into a feature film, it gave them the ability to keep it in-house.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=34}}

However, because of the number of times that a ''Star Trek'' film was announced in the 1970s, the Paramount executives decided that they could not lose face once more by making an announcement, only to potentially reverse the decision in several months time. Because of this, production continued on ''Phase II'' for a further five months after the decision was made that it would not go into production.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=35}} By November, Livingston and Roddenberry were no longer working well together. They had each re-drafted "In Thy Image" themselves, and presented these versions to Eisner. The Paramount executive's response was that Roddenberry's version was suited for television, and Livingston's was better for a motion picture – and better overall. Collins was assigned to combine certain elements of Roddenberry's version into Livingston's and to complete that draft by the end of the month.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=60}}

The first public announcement of the cancellation of the Paramount Television Service and ''Phase II'' came at the hands of the [[gossip columnist]] [[Rona Barrett]] at the start of December. In response, Paramount released a statement that said the new network had been pushed back to the fall of 1978, and that ''Phase II'' had its episode order increased from 13 to between 15 and 22.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=67}} Despite this, behind the scenes, production continued on ''Star Trek'' as a film, not as a series. One of the changes around the same time as Barrett's reports was the realization that all the model work completed thus far had to be restarted from scratch, as it was not detailed enough to be blown up on a motion picture-sized screen.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=69}} Two further changes took place in December: Collins was dropped as director, for Paramount wanted a motion picture director and not one with experience only in television; and Livingston allowed his contract to run out and left the production, owing to the poor relationship he had with Roddenberry.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=73}} By January, Paramount no longer pretended that ''Star Trek'' was to be anything other than a feature film.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |p=75}} Livingston was brought back, but only in a writing capacity, and [[Robert Wise]] was hired as director on the film to replace Collins.{{sfn |Reeves-Stevens|Reeves-Stevens |1997 |pp=76–77}}