Will Dockery
2003-12-13 21:11:29 UTC
From: pluther
I posted this to my own blog earlier, and thought some here might find
it vaguely interesting. Please don't take this as Star Trek-bashing.
I really do like Star Trek, despite its flaws, especially the original
series. Anyway, as many people know, Harlan Ellison wrote a book
about the episode he wrote, of the same name, trying to "set the
record straight" as it were about what the truth was about his script,
and how it was treated. Included in the book was the complete original
script that he submitted for the episode. I bought the book a couple
of years ago, and just now got around to actually reading it. For
those who are interested in such a thing, here's my review, and I'd be
interested in what anyone else thinks about the whole thing:
I just finished reading Harlan Ellison's book, The City on the Edge of
Forever.
Harlan Ellison has been saying for 30 years that Gene Roddenberry
eviscerated his original script, and that what we got on TV was a
lame, watered down version of his vision. Now, this sort of thing
happens all the time in Television, and my initial reaction on finding
the book a few years ago was "Damn, Harlan, it's been 30 years, get
over it already." I continued with this impression through most of
the introductory essay, which I returned to every few months over the
last couple of years. Even after learning that Gene was never telling
the truth, intentionally lying to his fans by telling us that
Ellison's original script was unfilmable, had all the characters
acting out of character, and even "had Scotty dealing drugs" (though
in the story I originally heard at a convention, it was McCoy who was
the drug dealer). He also, though it's never mentioned in the book,
claimed to have asked Ellison to make sure the Enterprise was put in
danger, as an added incentive to Kirk, which he refused to change.
Turns out none of this was true. In the book, Harlan Ellison included
the complete original script to City. (And, if you read the book, I
strongly suggest you follow his advice and skip the introductory essay
and go directly to the script. Go back and read the rest later.) In
the very first draft, the ship is indeed in danger, in fact has been
transformed by the change in time to The Condor, a ship of brigands,
representing the very worse of humanity. In the revised timeline that
Kirk must fix, humanity still reaches the stars, but not as an
enlightened group of people trying to peacefully build interstellar
communities and "seeking out new life and new civilizations", but as
rough pirates, using their superior technology to exploit and dominate
weaker worlds. (Certainly not an unprecedented situation in human
history.) Never able to overcome our baser nature and becoming the
evil empire similar to what we later see in Mirror, Mirror, is by an
order of magnitude a worse tragedy than the filmed version where the
Enterprise simply vanishes, presumably because humanity hasn't yet
reached out into space, allowing the galaxy to go on its merry way
without us, until we're ready to head out and take our place. A
destruction of the central tenet of the show, that we can be better
than we are, that we have something positive to offer the galaxy. In
the transformation to the Condor, the dream is dead, with the
Enterprise vanishing, it seems merely delayed. The script abounds
with these subtly powerful touches.
As for Scotty, not only is he not dealing drugs, he's not even
mentioned in the script. In fact, the only characters from the
Enterprise who are featured prominently are Kirk, Spock, Yeoman Rand
(who in the script is not only a competent officer who can do more
than serve coffee and lust after her captain, but has a powerfully
poignant scene where she stays behind on the Condor, guarding the
transporter room "indefinitely", to protect Kirk and Spock and give
them time to get back down to the planet and set things right.), and
Beckwith, a new character introduced for the episode who *is* the drug
dealer, not Scotty or even McCoy, who never could be. While reading
the introduction, where Harlan talks about the script, I kept thinking
that perhaps Gene Roddenberry was right. That was out of character for
a Starfleet officer. But, as Peter David pointed out in his
afterword, in the series we've had characters in Starfleet of higher
ranks transform a civilization into a Nazi regime, become an adviser
to a Ceasar and force his men to fight each other to the death in
gladitorial combat, and take over the Enterprise and attempt to
destroy it in a doomed act of revenge against an alien machine. Is
drug dealing for personal profit really that much of a stretch? I was
prepared to say, before I finished the script, that the biggest
"problem" of the script was having so much action hinge on a character
we've never seen before. That he was just the plot catalyst that set
things in motion, and Gene's change to it being a freak accident with
Dr. McCoy rather than the deliberate actions of Beckwith, was a change
for the better. But one of the central tenets of the script was about
human choice. Having the catalyst be a freak accident, without
deliberate forethought, destroys this theme. There are no "inevitable
tides of history". History is made by those who live it. And
Beckwith, a flawed, almost downright evil character, finally does one
selfless act, in sacrificing himself to save Edith Keeler from death,
and it's this act that Kirk must undo. After reading the original
script, I had to change this opinion: It isn't a problem with the
script that he put so much on the new character, Beckwith, but a
problem with Star Trek that this sort of thing wasn't allowed.
Which brings me to my final points, and the reason why I had to change
my opinion of the script after reading it. In Harlan's introduction,
he says that he had Kirk refuse to act in the end, the man of action
paralyzed by his own nature into inaction, neither saving Edith Keeler
nor allowing her to die, but had Spock as the one who finally stopped
Beckwith, and allowed Edith to die. I thought, based on his own
description, that this was a cop-out, allowing a third party to
intervene and neatly tie up the script, the way so many other episodes
did, without the characters having to face consequences for their
actions, because it was taken out of their hands. But, after reading
the script, I realize this was incorrect. Spock in this episode is
not a third party, he is a main character, every bit as important as
Kirk, and Beckwith. Here we are shown the actual characterization of
Spock that is only discussed in other episodes. A man both Human and
Vulcan. As a Human, he understands the stakes, the damage that will
be done to his Captain and his friend if he acts, and as a Vulcan, he
is able to dissect the problem rationally and logically and solve it
and overcome his loyalty to his captain and do it. You get the
impression that Spock isn't acting out of character but that this is
the only episode where he acts *in* character. There's an old adage
for writing: "Show, don't tell." In so many episodes we are told of
Spock's Human/Vulcan conflicts. This is a rarity in that it's actually
shown. It's a powerful and deep image of Spock, providing a glimpse of
what Star Trek could have been had the writers not been so contrained.
And the script shows yet another facet, making a powerful story of
the friendship between two men every bit as important, if not more so,
than the tragic love story it's intertwined with.
</lj-cut>
I posted this to my own blog earlier, and thought some here might find
it vaguely interesting. Please don't take this as Star Trek-bashing.
I really do like Star Trek, despite its flaws, especially the original
series. Anyway, as many people know, Harlan Ellison wrote a book
about the episode he wrote, of the same name, trying to "set the
record straight" as it were about what the truth was about his script,
and how it was treated. Included in the book was the complete original
script that he submitted for the episode. I bought the book a couple
of years ago, and just now got around to actually reading it. For
those who are interested in such a thing, here's my review, and I'd be
interested in what anyone else thinks about the whole thing:
I just finished reading Harlan Ellison's book, The City on the Edge of
Forever.
Harlan Ellison has been saying for 30 years that Gene Roddenberry
eviscerated his original script, and that what we got on TV was a
lame, watered down version of his vision. Now, this sort of thing
happens all the time in Television, and my initial reaction on finding
the book a few years ago was "Damn, Harlan, it's been 30 years, get
over it already." I continued with this impression through most of
the introductory essay, which I returned to every few months over the
last couple of years. Even after learning that Gene was never telling
the truth, intentionally lying to his fans by telling us that
Ellison's original script was unfilmable, had all the characters
acting out of character, and even "had Scotty dealing drugs" (though
in the story I originally heard at a convention, it was McCoy who was
the drug dealer). He also, though it's never mentioned in the book,
claimed to have asked Ellison to make sure the Enterprise was put in
danger, as an added incentive to Kirk, which he refused to change.
Turns out none of this was true. In the book, Harlan Ellison included
the complete original script to City. (And, if you read the book, I
strongly suggest you follow his advice and skip the introductory essay
and go directly to the script. Go back and read the rest later.) In
the very first draft, the ship is indeed in danger, in fact has been
transformed by the change in time to The Condor, a ship of brigands,
representing the very worse of humanity. In the revised timeline that
Kirk must fix, humanity still reaches the stars, but not as an
enlightened group of people trying to peacefully build interstellar
communities and "seeking out new life and new civilizations", but as
rough pirates, using their superior technology to exploit and dominate
weaker worlds. (Certainly not an unprecedented situation in human
history.) Never able to overcome our baser nature and becoming the
evil empire similar to what we later see in Mirror, Mirror, is by an
order of magnitude a worse tragedy than the filmed version where the
Enterprise simply vanishes, presumably because humanity hasn't yet
reached out into space, allowing the galaxy to go on its merry way
without us, until we're ready to head out and take our place. A
destruction of the central tenet of the show, that we can be better
than we are, that we have something positive to offer the galaxy. In
the transformation to the Condor, the dream is dead, with the
Enterprise vanishing, it seems merely delayed. The script abounds
with these subtly powerful touches.
As for Scotty, not only is he not dealing drugs, he's not even
mentioned in the script. In fact, the only characters from the
Enterprise who are featured prominently are Kirk, Spock, Yeoman Rand
(who in the script is not only a competent officer who can do more
than serve coffee and lust after her captain, but has a powerfully
poignant scene where she stays behind on the Condor, guarding the
transporter room "indefinitely", to protect Kirk and Spock and give
them time to get back down to the planet and set things right.), and
Beckwith, a new character introduced for the episode who *is* the drug
dealer, not Scotty or even McCoy, who never could be. While reading
the introduction, where Harlan talks about the script, I kept thinking
that perhaps Gene Roddenberry was right. That was out of character for
a Starfleet officer. But, as Peter David pointed out in his
afterword, in the series we've had characters in Starfleet of higher
ranks transform a civilization into a Nazi regime, become an adviser
to a Ceasar and force his men to fight each other to the death in
gladitorial combat, and take over the Enterprise and attempt to
destroy it in a doomed act of revenge against an alien machine. Is
drug dealing for personal profit really that much of a stretch? I was
prepared to say, before I finished the script, that the biggest
"problem" of the script was having so much action hinge on a character
we've never seen before. That he was just the plot catalyst that set
things in motion, and Gene's change to it being a freak accident with
Dr. McCoy rather than the deliberate actions of Beckwith, was a change
for the better. But one of the central tenets of the script was about
human choice. Having the catalyst be a freak accident, without
deliberate forethought, destroys this theme. There are no "inevitable
tides of history". History is made by those who live it. And
Beckwith, a flawed, almost downright evil character, finally does one
selfless act, in sacrificing himself to save Edith Keeler from death,
and it's this act that Kirk must undo. After reading the original
script, I had to change this opinion: It isn't a problem with the
script that he put so much on the new character, Beckwith, but a
problem with Star Trek that this sort of thing wasn't allowed.
Which brings me to my final points, and the reason why I had to change
my opinion of the script after reading it. In Harlan's introduction,
he says that he had Kirk refuse to act in the end, the man of action
paralyzed by his own nature into inaction, neither saving Edith Keeler
nor allowing her to die, but had Spock as the one who finally stopped
Beckwith, and allowed Edith to die. I thought, based on his own
description, that this was a cop-out, allowing a third party to
intervene and neatly tie up the script, the way so many other episodes
did, without the characters having to face consequences for their
actions, because it was taken out of their hands. But, after reading
the script, I realize this was incorrect. Spock in this episode is
not a third party, he is a main character, every bit as important as
Kirk, and Beckwith. Here we are shown the actual characterization of
Spock that is only discussed in other episodes. A man both Human and
Vulcan. As a Human, he understands the stakes, the damage that will
be done to his Captain and his friend if he acts, and as a Vulcan, he
is able to dissect the problem rationally and logically and solve it
and overcome his loyalty to his captain and do it. You get the
impression that Spock isn't acting out of character but that this is
the only episode where he acts *in* character. There's an old adage
for writing: "Show, don't tell." In so many episodes we are told of
Spock's Human/Vulcan conflicts. This is a rarity in that it's actually
shown. It's a powerful and deep image of Spock, providing a glimpse of
what Star Trek could have been had the writers not been so contrained.
And the script shows yet another facet, making a powerful story of
the friendship between two men every bit as important, if not more so,
than the tragic love story it's intertwined with.
</lj-cut>