This is in reference to an early 1970s movie, among whose stars were Gary Lockwood and, I think, the actress who played Zarabeth in Star Trek.

The movie starts with the launch of a fairly ordinary-looking US rocket with three astronauts. However, the US government asks people to leave their lights on that night if they support this launch as being the founding of an independent nation, a space colony. The astronauts use a computer program to scan the country as they fly across in orbit, and the ground computers calculate the high level of support.

There's a dissolve to the future, where we see a beautiful, four-armed rotating structure: Earth II. There are several thousand residents, having come from many nations. The station employs fairly advanced technology, including tugs, and a low artificial gravity.

Even toy guns are prohibited, as the newest immigrants discover when they are held up in Customs.

Well, there's a problem. The "Red Chinese", who tried to sabotage the original launch, have put a nuclear warhead in orbit, and every few hours, it comes close to Earth II, within its "national space" (equivalent to territorial waters), a definite threat. At a meeting on Earth, arranged by the UN, Earth II's delegates ask for the removal of the warhead; China refuses.

Earth II doesn't want this around. The new immigrant asks for a "D&D" - Debate and Decision, one of the country's direct democracy tools. The issue of intervening and doing something direct about the warhead is debated, and the populace votes (electronically) to do something.

A tug goes out and a tech tries to disarm the Chinese weapon, but when he tries to cut the wires, he is electrocuted. The tug pilot recovers the tech (cutting some tools loose to become space junk) and brings the tech and the bomb back to Earth II.

While doctors try to save the tech's life (in this operating room, some of the medics stand on the ceiling and hand things "down" to the surgeon), the guy who initiated the D&D inspects the bomb, and announces he will initiate another D&D: that Earth II should become a nuclear power.

His wife feels threatened by this. She asks another man what will happen if they decide to get rid of the bomb. He says they'll aim it at the sun. Left alone in the control room over the small bay, she blows the bay door (instead of opening it), then when she sees the sun, launches the bomb at the sun.

Well, they explain to her, it isn't that easy. Now the bomb is going to fall into the Earth's atmosphere and detonate somewhere over the Great Lakes. A tug goes out to chase it.

As they close in on the falling bomb, the edges of the atmosphere burn off the delicate casing. Fortunately, the tug grabs it before it gets close enough to explode. They bring it back (and stick it in the same bay as before). Inspected, they see that some of the failsafes have melted. They must now disarm it quickly.

Earth II's rotation is slowed to absolute minimum, and the sun is slowly getting into the bay, warming it up, as the three techs work feverishly. "They're getting a real heat problem in there", they tell a tug pilot on his way to do something about the remaining rotation.

The tug slowly moves up against a main beam, then fires its engines and rotation stops completely. The sun is shining part way into the bay. The three techs put their wrenches in to prevent a circuit connection as the other metal melts.

The bomb is now disarmed. They restart rotation, and the man who wants another D&D relents, and they agree to fire the bomb at the Sun, getting rid of the thing permanently.

I don't know, but it might have been a pilot for a weekly series, and a very interesting one, I think.

This is not to be confused with the mid-1990s TV series "Earth II" about people deserting a dying Earth's cities in space to settle a strange distant planet. (Devon Adair, Uly Adair, other semi-futuristic names.)

I haven't seen this movie in years. Any idea if it is out on video, and was it a pilot?

It was a pilot for ABC. I saw it on its first airing in 1971. I don't think it's been on anywhere for years.

Anyone remember a TV movie titled "Earth II" ? (Not to be confused with the mid-'90's TV series "Earth 2".) This TV movie had some good space ship and space station designs. Basically Earth II was a large, rotating, modular space station in Earth orbit, serviced by "lifting body" type space shuttles and orbiting tugs. In an early scene, a family was going through customs entering the space station, and one of the customs people found the kid's toy gun. It was undeniably a TOY gun, but the kid was not allowed to bring it into the station because the "community leaders" (my term) didn't like war. Later in the film, Red China put up a satellite containing 3 nuclear warheads; when this satellite did a de-orbit burn to attack (whoever), the crew of one of the lifting-body shuttles saved the day by going after it, doing a re-entry into the atmosphere, taking it into the cargo bay DURING re-entry, and then returning to the orbiting station Earth 2. At the end of the film, the community leaders of the station were voting/debating whether to make the satellite, with its 3 nuclear warheads, the beginning of their own arsenal; while the voting/debating was going on, somebody got rid of the weapon satellite by ejecting it into space - because he didn't like war.
Does anyone else out there remember this TV movie, and can anyone tell me where I can find any information about it?

It was a Roddenberry production.

Do a google search for "Earth II" and Roddenberry.

Sorry Scott, but that's a different program. The Roddenberry one takes place solely on Earth.
The one Mike is talking about is this one:
Earth II
I'm afraid the IMDB doesn't have much to add to what you already know though.

Just for everyone's info, the movie Scott is referring to was actually made twice. Once as "Genesis II" and again as "Planet Earth". In both versions the lead character was named Dylan Hunt. The name was re-used when the series Andromeda was created.

I think the one Scott referred to took place after a nuclear war had destroyed the civilization we know, and the main character from our time was awakened from suspended animation and tried to adjust to the new society that had developed. Felt like a pilot movie for a series, as I remember when I saw it as Genesis II around 1980.
The space station one I also saw around that time. I remember a scene where the kid runs too fast in a micro-gravity area and floats to the ceiling, and another where he's holding a blob of water in his hands (complete with the seam in the plastic baggie that ruined the specialness of the effect); he didn't need a cup in micro gravity, see.

Both Planet Earth and Genesis II were pilots for a proposed TV series. IIRC, the role of Dylan Hunt was played by different actors in each film. Genesis II starred Alex Cord as Hunt. Planet Earth starred John Saxon.

Didn't the women in Planet Earth have an extra belly button? I think Roddenberry did that out of revenge for the fact that during TOS, a woman's navel couldn't be shown. Now that the standards had been loosened, he was gonna give the TV viewers two belly buttons to stare at. Talk about navel gazing.

Majel Barrett co-starred in both films. She played different characters in each. Ted Cassidy was to have been a series regular, playing the character Isiah.

Mariette Hartley played the twin-navelled woman.

And she was also in Earth II.

Earth II starred Tony Franciosa and Gary Lockwood. It was a pilot for an ABC series that never happened. Franciosa was just coming off The Name Of The Game at the time. I remember seeing it in 1971, when it first aired, but recall little else about it,
Saxon also did a pilot for ABC called Strange New World. It took some of the themes from Genesis II and Planet Earth, but Roddenberry was not involved with it.

The effects for Earth II were good for a tv movie of that time, but they are rather unimpressive today. The space station looks too much like a miniature. The space model work is similar in style and effect to 1979's Meteor. The scenes featuring the shuttle are a bit better.
Interior scenes in the space station depicted weightlessness by using split-screen shots. People were shown standing both on the floors and the ceilings.
All the intrigue about the Red China missile was really a drag. It was a boring plot device.

Earth II - also starred Gary Lockwood, who played Kirk's friend Gary Mitchell on "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and also was in "2001: A Space Odyssey".

The movie opens with the launch of what might seem to be an ordinary Apollo-type mission, except it has a habitat. It is announced that it is intended to be the first part of a space colony that will eventually be independent. More modules will be sent up in the years to come. The president asks people to turn their lights on if they approve, and as the astronauts fly over, they take images that are processed on Earth to calculate the level of public support.

Time shift to the near future, and a family, new immigrants (I'll call them the Smiths), are riding up to the large complex that now exists: Earth II. In customs, they're held up: a toy gun found in the luggage, and not allowed. Mr. Smith says, c'mon, don't be ridiculous. The boy jumps for his toy and floats in the microgravity off the deck plates. He's offered the bubble of water instead.

Anyhow, Mr. Smith is getting involved with the community leadership, and about this time, the People's Republic of China ("Red China") launches its nuclear warhead. Every few hours, it comes into Earth II's "national space". (200-mile limit?) The UN sets up a meeting between delegates from Earth II (a UN member) and China (not a member - I suspect this movie was produced before Oct 1971), but the Chinese refuse to remove the warheads and warn Earth II against interfering with it.

Mr. Smith calls for a D&D - Discussion and Decision, a part of Earth II's citizen-involving government. Should they do something about this threat?

The decision is taken to do something. A tug goes out, and a Russian emigre (I'll call him Igor) proceeds to work on the Chinese weapon, trying to disengage ground control over the weapon. The Chinese detect tampering, and while they decide what to do, Igor proceeds to quickly cut the control wires, but he gets electrocuted.

The pilot of the tug recovers Igor (although letting his tool caddy become orbiting space junk), grabs the warhead satellite in its bay doors, and hurries to the colony so that Igor can be operated on. (He dies right after the surgery ends.)

Mr. Smith inspects the warhead, and tells his colleagues in the leadership that he's going to call for another D&D - that Earth II should become a nuclear power. Another fellow speculates to Mrs. Smith, when she asks, that they'll probably launch the Chinese weapon toward the sun to get rid of it.

Mrs. Smith doesn't agree with her husband, and takes matters into her own hands. She blows the cover on the handling bay, and when she sees the sun, fires the Chinese warhead at it. Mr. Smith and others arrive as the warhead is going out.

Mrs. Smith says she launched when she saw the sun, and is told that it is more complicated than that. The warhead is falling into Earth's atmosphere, and will likely go off over the Great Lakes region. A tug goes out to fetch it again.

The tug is chasing it as the outer skin of the satellite flakes away, then it catches up to it, bringing it back (and putting it, inexplicably, in the same bay it was in before, although there's that gaping hole in the main hatch). Three techs go to work in space suits, trying to disarm it. They're working against time: although rotation of the colony has been slowed to minimum, it is still turning and the sun's rays are slowly angling toward the warheads.

A tug goes out and positions its nose against one of the main struts, then fires its engines to bring rotation to a complete stop. The sun's beams are stopped at an angle.

The men have to work on partly melted triggers: on complete fusing of those triggers, the bombs explode. They need to position wrenches that will keep the circuit intact.

When the job is done, and the station's rotation is restarted, even Mr. Smith is willing to go along with sending the satellite off out of the Earth's environment on a course that will plunge it harmlessly into the biggest nuclear reactor around.

One thing I disliked right off: the telephone set in a residence is positioned on the same place of the room as the TV set. That sure would be a pain if you had to engage in a long phone call, and that one-playing-only episode of Itchy and Scratchy is on and the kids will hate you forever if you don't let them see it.

Earth II has an interesting premise. However, it presupposes that we quickly develop things like artificial gravity (including the operating room where support staff stand on the ceiling and hand things to the doctors). A more sensible place for a colony is L-4 or L-5, although it presents slightly greater challenges for shuttle support.

If the space program had continued to be properly funded through the 1970s, we would have seen continued moon landings, a lunar base, and the reality of launching the beginnings of a civilian colony in space.

I wouldn't mind having the movie in a video collection, but it doesn't seem to be available.

Okay, I found info on the imdb website.

Mr. Smith is actually Frank Karger (Anthony Franciosa), and his wife is Lisa Karger (Mariette Hartley), and their son is Matt (Brian Dewey). The Russian "Igor" is Anton Kovalefskii (Edward Bell), and his wife is Ilyana (Inga Swenson).

Gary Lockwood plays David Seville.

The movie was made in 1971, perhaps months before the United Nations, in our reality, voted to expel the Republic of China (known familiarly as Taiwan) and admit the People's Republic in its place, and eight years before the Carter administration shifted its recognition likewise.

GCapp

Saw this first around 1984, and then a couple of years ago when it surfaced on YouTube.

"Genesis II" (Roddenberry) - pilot. Double-naveled people show up as a race called Terraneans, but they do not show again in Earth II.

"Planet Earth" (Roddenberry) - I took it for a sequel follow-up to the first. Hartley's character was not double-naveled, but the movie had the Kreegs, who had head features later used in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" for the Klingons. Diana Muldaur (Star Trek classic, Star Trek: the Next Generation) appears as one of the women living in the Confederacy of Ruth, and briefly was Dylan's owner.

I took it for a sequel as they didn't show how Dylan Hunt came to the future, and I assumed that since his arrival, Pax had started building a city on the surface.

Earth II does not appear to have had anything to do with Roddenberry. It is not the only early 70s pilot movie intended to launch a series; "The Stranger", with Glenn Corbett and Cameron Mitchell, is another.

Second paragraph above - the double-naveled people do not show up again in .... PLANET EARTH.

I wonder what would have have happened had this gone to series. It seemed too grounded in reality for aliens to show up.

Probably it would have been mostly political intrigue and stuff like that. Like would China have retaliated for Earth II disposing of their missile.