"This was going to be … an international sensation from the moment it was announced," writes project creator Gary Goddard, CEO of Gary Goddard Entertainment and a man not given to modesty. "It would, in one fell swoop, make the downtown THE destination for Las Vegas visitors … It would transform the downtown area, creating new jobs, stimulating growth, and would fill the hotels and casinos. It would create a new "8th Wonder of the World" with an iconic monument that would take its place alongside other "must see" monuments in the world [and] would be around for generations."
Goddard’s enthusiasm was not wasted upon neither Mayor Jones nor casino owners. The City of Las Vegas was prepared to donate land and Paramount’s then-president, Sherry Lansing was also on board. Not so convinced was the chairman of the studio, Stanley Jaffe. Noting that box-office bombs are usually forgotten in months, he noted that if the full-size Enterprise failed, "it’s there, forever. I don’t want to be the guy that approved this and then it’s a flop."
That was the end of the Enterprise. Jones went with her fallback choice – the Fremont Street Experience – and the rest is history. "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds," wails Goddard, quoting Albert Einstein. (The implicit Goddard = Einstein equation is certainly amusing.)
Six years later, Goddard would re-team with Paramount and amusement-park operator Cedar Fair to create Star Trek The Experience, which became history. Its closing helped the Hilton lose Creation Entertainment’s annual Star Trek Convention to The Rio.
For his decision, Jaffe has been pilloried up and down the Internet, as bloggers and Trekkies alike swallowed the Gospel According to Goddard hook, line, and phaser. However … it should be remembered that the casino owners who were willing to back (and share the revenue stream from) GGE’s concept have either subsequently retired (Jackie Gaughan, Bill Boyd) or left downtown altogether (Wynn, Jack Binion). In their wake has come a succession of mostly shallow-pocketed casino dabblers – including Becky Behnen, Barrick Gaming, Tamares Group, Don Barden, Terry Caudill, and Tim Poster and Tom Breitling – most of whom came and went, and some of whom couldn’t even pay their Fremont Street Experience dues.
This raises the serious question as to whether money would have been available to keep the Enterprise in fighting trim or whether she would have deteriorated, much as Binion’s Horseshoe or Fitzgeralds did. The sheer preponderance of the attraction created a potentially enormous eyesore on the downtown skyline. We wouldn’t have outdoor concerts under the Fremont Street Experience canopy, nor the reinvention of Fremont East as a hipster hangout. As to Goddard’s contention that his incredible hulk would endure for "generations," Strip casinos built in the early Nineties already look decrepit and Star Trek The Experience barely lasted a decade. For the latter, GGE must take some of the blame. Goddard’s 1998 short Klingon Encounter, part of the attraction, looked shabby and badly out of date when it was retired in 2008.
But don’t weep for Goddard. He’s collaborating with former CBS executive Jeff Sagansky and X-Men director Bryan Singer on converting the Times Square Theater in Manhattan into "Broadway 4D." It is described as "a 3D film enhanced show incorporating in-theater special effects" that include the sights and, yes, smells of the Great White Way. He’s also started construction on a "Ring of Harmony," in Shenfu, China, a new city that GGE helped design. The 505-foot-tall wheel is intended to be Shenfu’s centerpiece attraction.
