Star Trek: The Motion Picture type Movie

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, and the preparation has already begun. Director Justin Lin will release Star Trek Beyond in July, a massive convention will take place in Las Vegas in August, and William Shatner will set sail as host of the first official Star Trek cruise by January of the following year. Not to mention that new series on the way.

To poke and prod at your nostalgia epicenters even more, EW has obtained three never-before-seen archival images that go behind the scenes of this beloved franchise.

Roddenberry Entertainment, the original creators of Star Trek, is celebrating the anniversary of its brainchild by unearthing rare photos, memos, script pages, documents, and the like from the archives. The initiative, called “The 366 Project,” will see one piece of Trek history posted to Roddenberry Entertainment’s social media channel each day beginning in 2016. Like the title suggests, there are 366 pieces to be released — and we have three bonus ones.

Image zoom Courtesy of Roddenberry Vault

The first is an original storyboard frame from 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which reteamed Shatner’s Kirk and his crew for a mission involving alien androids. The image shows an Enterprise docking sequence as the “sun breaks Earth’s rim.”

Image zoom Courtesy Roddenbery Vault

Also featured in the archives is a rare look at Leonard Nimoy sitting in the makeup chair as Spock for the film. The actor almost didn’t return. “Leonard had said, ‘I’m fed up, I’m not going to put those ears on again,’ ” director Robert Wise recalled, though he eventually persuaded Nimoy to re-Vulcanize himself 10 years after the original series went off the air.

Image zoom

“Where no man has gone before,” is perhaps even more iconic than Star Trek itself, and that’s where our last look into the archives takes us. The third image reveals a draft of the opening narration for the series.

WANT MORE EW? Subscribe now to keep up with the latest in movies, television, and music.

It reads: “This is the story of the United Space Ship Enterprise. Assigned a five year patrol of our galaxy, the giant starship visits Earth colonies, regulates commerce, and explores strange new worlds and civilzations. These are its voyages … and its adventures.”

Producers Robert Justman and John Black worked with series creator Gene Roddenberry, exchanging drafts to fine tune the text. One of Black’s earlier drafts began with the “Starship Enterprise” and continued with its mission “to advance knowledge.” Listen to the final version below.