Did they ever release The God Thing?

[EnriqueH]

WAIT A MINUTE.

I’m i’m listening to William Shatner‘s Star Trek movie memories and he says that Gene finished his God thing script in 1975 to present it to the head of paramount.

So there has to be some sort of completeed script.

further I would have to imagine that Planrt of the Titans is also finished.

Maybe the novel was never finished but surely there’s got to be a way of publishing the script

 

[Christopher]

Maybe the novel was never finished but surely there’s got to be a way of publishing the script

If it got rejected in that many forms, though, maybe there's good reason it hasn't been published.

 

[EnriqueH]

I’m sure there was a good reason CBS turned it down before NBC picked it up.

I’d rather make up my own mind.

 

[BillJ]

I’m sure there was a good reason CBS turned it down before NBC picked it up.

CBS decided to go with Lost in Space, IIRC.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I’m listening to William Shatner‘s Star Trek movie memories and he says that Gene finished his God thing script in 1975 to present it to the head of paramount.

So there has to be some sort of completeed script.

...Yes? We said this earlier in the thread. It was the novelization of the script that was unfinished, not the script itself.

 

[EnriqueH]

Release the damn thing!!!!! I’ll buy it!!!!

 

[BillJ]

Release the damn thing!!!!! I’ll buy it!!!!

Probably went through Barry Diller's shredder.

 

[EnriqueH]

Like Kermit’s script in Muppets Take Manhattan ?

 

[EnriqueH]

You can use your will to keep Gene’s script from me, but I have money in my wallet. MINE is the final command!

 

[JD]

I'm thinking at this point there's probably a good reason it hasn't seen the light of day.

 

[KRAD]

Keep in mind that the rights to this thing are jointly held by either Lincoln Enterprises or the Roddenberry Estate -- whoever it is who controls Gene Roddenberry's works -- and CBS/Paramount/Viacom/whoever -- who controls the rights to anything that is "Star Trek."

They have to both be willing to approve the publication, and someone has to be willing to pay for the rights to publish such a niche novelty item.

 

[EnriqueH]

With Picard helping Star Trek make waves, there will never be a better time.

Plus, if some of you guys are still writing Trek books and people (Like me) are buying them, then why wouldn’t they buy something like this?

 

[Steve Roby]

I'm not a pro-writer... but for comparison, Harlan Ellison published his earlier teleplay for "City on the Edge of Forever" through White Wolf Publishing, independent of Paramount or Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, or whoever.

The White Wolf edition was the third time the original "City" was published. It had been done the year before as an expensive small press hardcover by Borderlands Press. The first was in a 1976 paperback called Six Science Fiction Plays, edited by Roger Elwood and (surprise!) published by Pocket Books.

Over in the world of Doctor Who, writers have been finishing scraps and bits by Douglas Adams, but Adams was -- still is -- a bestselling author. Roddenberry, not so much. What we'd get in a final published God Thing would be either just Roddenberry' unfinished version (as Friedman said, more like a script than a novel, far from finished, but already having some plot inconsistencies) -- and few people would buy that; or something that was at least 75% the work of an another author -- and anyone wanted the pure Roddenberry tale probably wouldn't be excited about that.

In my perfect dream world, we'd get a book with Roddenberry's original pages followed by the work done by the various co-writers, except that not only would few people buy it, in the real world, a lot of the material is probably lost. Sackett thought she might have had some work on an ancient floppy disk somewhere. An anonymous collector (not me, alas) has Koenig's pages. Who knows what Alexander got done. At this point, who knows whether a copy of Roddenberry's own version, untouched by collaborators, even still exists?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I'm thinking at this point there's probably a good reason it hasn't seen the light of day.

Probably because the Roddenberry estate knows that it wasn't Gene's best work.

 

[EnriqueH]

It must be exposed and be brought out into the light...

 

[Nightowl1701]

I've seen the first twenty pages of the script, posted online by the Mission Log Podcast. At the very least, it would need a dialogue polish.

It occurs to me that a better option might be to simply turn Roddenberry's original script into a graphic novel, as was recently done with Rod Serling's original script for PLANET OF THE APES, or Ellison's original script for "City on the Edge of Forever."

Heck, Salvador Dali's unfilmed script for a hypothetical Marx Bros. movie recently got a graphic-novel adaptation.

Not to mention George Lucas's 1974 first draft for Star Wars, William Gibson's 1988 attempt at Alien3, and (soon) the first-draft versions of both Alien and Predator. Hell, we may end up seeing Jodorowsky's Dune after all if Villenueve's remake is a success.

 

[David Weller]

William Gibson's 1988 attempt at Alien3,

This is available as an audio drama from Audible.

 

[JD]

With Picard helping Star Trek make waves, there will never be a better time.

Plus, if some of you guys are still writing Trek books and people (Like me) are buying them, then why wouldn’t they buy something like this?

I really have to wonder if the interest is really there from the general public. At this point the franchise is so far removed from Rodenberry that I can't really see a huge demand for it.
EDIT:
If an unused movie concept was going to be turned into a book, I'd be a lot more interested in the original Renaissance First Contact than I would be in this. The only problem with that one is that I'm not sure if it ever made it beyond a general idea.

 

[Greg Cox]

I'd be curious about a book based on the aborted fourth Kelvin movie in which Kirk meets his dead father for some reason.

 

[EnriqueH]

I really have to wonder if the interest is really there from the general public. At this point the franchise is so far removed from Rodenberry that I can't really see a huge demand for it.

I disagree vehemently.

Why is Marc Cushman still releasing TOS era books? Why was there a Phase II tome? Why is Susan Sackett still running a website for her book?

There’s a market for it.