After “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was greeted with critical and commercial indifference, Paramount execs made an unusual decision in their effort to save the nascent film franchise.

“They decided to give it to the television department,” said series star William Shatner, in a phone interview.

Shatner will answer questions after a showing of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” at the Embassy Theatre on February 9.

If you have grown up during the streaming era, letting the television people take over might seem like a “logical’ (pun intended) thing to do. Streaming channels are where one finds some of the highest quality entertainment these days.

But this was 1981. “Happy Days,” Laverne and Shirley” and “The Love Boat” were still limping along, and “Hill Street Blues” (the series that showed network muck-a-mucks that television programming could be both successful and good) came in at 27 on the annual ratings list.

The perceived gulf between television and movies in terms of quality was as wide as the Mariana Trench in those days.

Nevertheless, Paramount brought in Harve Bennett, producer of “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman.” Bennett asked to view all 79 episodes of the original series in a projection room (but not in a 79-hour marathon session, presumably). He was particularly intrigued by “Space Seed,” the episode that featured Ricardo Montalban’s superhuman Khan character.

Bennett wisely hired Academy Award-nominated screenwriter (and director and novelist) Nicholas Meyer to polish up a script about the return of Khan.

Whereas “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” had been made for $45 million ($181 million in adjusted dollars), “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” was made for a paltry $12 million.

That’s $48 million in adjusted dollars, still a pittance for a summer blockbuster set in a starship-filled future.

Not only were models and props from the first film reused, but effects sequences were recycled as well.

The film was an enormous hit and is the reason we are still watching new “Star Trek” content today.

A LONG TIME AGO, IN A SUBURB FAR, FAR AWAY

If you could travel back in time to a Buffalo suburb called Clarence Center in 1973, you might see a chubby kid in a Kirk-like, tan velour shirt rolling around in the dirt near his black-haired friend wearing a Spock-like, blue velour shirt.

There may be worse reasons to travel back in time, but I can’t think of any at the moment.

The release of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was, therefore, something of a religious experience for a slightly older, somewhat less chubby version of that same kid.

Youngsters who mock the film for its slow pace and lack of action today will never understand what it was like in 1979 for fans of that beloved, low-budget TV show to see it given such a luxurious, consequential treatment.

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was the church that we supplicants had long yearned to visit.

I, a chubby man who no longer owns any velour, commiserated with Shatner about this.

“The first film was really good,” he said. “It had a good premise, — a really great science fiction premise. It should have been more popular. But it was rushed. The making of it was rushed. We had this wonderful director, but he didn’t have time to make it properly.”

But it was “Wrath of Khan” that proved the show could work as a big-screen franchise.

“Wrath of Khan” is the reason Shatner is still talking about “Star Trek” today.

The film is characterized by its…let’s just say, “effusive acting.”

But Shatner believes it is the intense emotional content that made it a hit at the time and make it a classic today.

“Wrath of Khan” is as emotional as the first film was chilly.

Shatner portrayed Kirk in five movies after “Wrath of Khan.” The character was dispatched in the middling, rickety entry, “Star Trek: Generations.”

The scene, like a lot of the film, was not narratively or cinematically convincing.

“We shot it twice,” Shatner said. “Because it was unsatisfactory to the brass who saw it. And it never was properly done.”

Shatner eased the discontentment of fans somewhat by having the villainous Borg resurrect Kirk for a series of novels.

HE’S NOT DEAD, JIM

When the show was cancelled in 1969, Shatner assumed it would just be a blip on his acting resume.

He admits he still shocked that “Star Trek” remains such a powerful force in popular culture.

“Shocked is a good word for it,” he said. “Shocked but also thrilled.”

Thanks in part to “Star Trek,” Shatner has had about as varied a career as an actor could hope for.

He starred in two hit two series that weren’t “Star Trek,” wrote novels, recorded albums, starred in a Broadway show, created several memorable comic characters in films where other actors received top billing, hosted a travel series and competed in equestrian competitions.

In late 2021, Shatner became, at 90, the oldest person to travel in space when he took a trip on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle.

Shatner said the voyage filled him with “overwhelming sadness.”

“I wept for our planet,” he wrote in his new memoir, “Boldly Go,” “for the generations that will likely be greeted by ever-worsening environmental disasters that we have helped cause.”

With the help of his frequent collaborator, Ben Folds (who will perform at the Clyde Theatre on March 28), Shatner wrote six songs about his space shuttle experience that were performed at the Kennedy Center last spring.

A recording of that concert will be released sometime this year, Shatner said.

Also in that tome, Shatner wrote this about his first skydiving experience: “My fear of doing it was real but my fear of not doing it was worse.”

Shatner said a life fully lived is one in which a person says “yes” to adventure.

“It’s about saying yes to the opportunities that are presented to you,” he said. “Not taking the safe way. We’ve got to grasp the life that we’re only given once.”

The fact that Shatner is 91 and still touring the country fills many people with wonder, including myself.

I am in my 50s and I am not sure I could do what Shatner does.

I related a story to him: Country singer Toby Keith was at a golf tournament with Clint Eastwood and the former asked the latter what keeps him going.

“I get up every day and don’t let the old man in,” the then-88-year-old Eastwood said.

“That’s a wonderful, wonderful statement,” Shatner said. “Yes, that’s exactly right. You can forget how old you are by doing the same things you would have done at 25. Maybe you can’t do them as adroitly as you did them back then. But you can do them. I swam with sharks recently. I am always looking for the adventures that life can offer.”

William Shatner with a screening of “Star Trek ll: The Wrath of Khan”: 7:30 pm February 9, $29 to $80, 125 W. Jefferson Blvd., 260.424.6287, fwembassytheatre.org