Exactly!
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That's even better terms!
Actually, the earliest genesis (no pun intended, given the timing) of that story appears to be the May 1981 issue of Starlog, page 9, wherein they announced that the sequel to TMP would be a TV movie produced by Harve Bennett and written by Jack Sowards. I recall reading this article when the issue came out when I was 11 and being floored by the idea, probably largely because, as noted, I was 11. https://archive.org/details/starlog_magazine-046/page/n7/mode/2up?q=Soward
“Gene wrote a treatment,“ says a Paramount official (who asked not to be named), “in which the Enterprise crew goes back in time to prevent John F Kennedy‘s assassination. After doing that, Kirk and company return to the 23rd century, only to find that they’ve altered the future: there’s no Federation. The Enterprise returns to the early 1960s to let the President‘s death take place, but the crew learns that they’ve screwed up the timeline – Oswald isn’t there to pull the trigger. Just about the last scene in the story had Spock walking up to Kennedy‘s limousine and killing him with his phaser….”
Doing a film about how JFK HAD to die to save humanity's future barely 20 years after he was assassinated in real life is audacious at best and in horrible taste at worst. Thank God it never happened.
Plus the general idea was already done in "City on the Edge of Forever", this following swiping from "The Changeling" in the first movie.
https://trekmovie.com/2016/11/28/gene-roddenberrys-abandoned-star-trek-ii-film-concept/
Was TMP swiped from "The Changeling," that is, was the story written as an intentional adaptation of the episode, or did it just kind of end up being similar?
Not intentionally, as far as anyone knows. TMP was originally "In Thy Image" the intended pilot for the aborted 1977 Phase II television show. Alan Dean Foster adapted that (in a story treatment form) from "Robots Return", an unmade episode of Roddenberry's Genesis II. But the theme is still similar to "The Changeling".
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That is absolutely freakin horrible. I'm glad that never happened.
It could be seen as "ahead of its time," in a bad way, for going super-dark. But back then, it would probably have killed the franchise. GR had a lot of dumb ideas in the late 70's when he was trying to be edgy and daring. Kirk's mother had a love instructor, you know.
Similar idea, but in a lighter vein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikka_to_Ride
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikka_to_Ride
I always thought TMP was most similar to "The Corbomite Maneuver," and that the "Changeling" comparison was more of a stretch. And I was shocked to see that, around the release of the film, fans also thought it was overly derivative of "The Doomsday Machine," though, sensibly, that take had faded down by the time I came on the scene.
I always found the ending of that one to be in quite poor taste, so I would've probably hated Roddenberry's version even more. There's something very ugly about the idea that Kennedy "needed" to die for the greater good.
I'm always surprised that I seem to be the only one who notices the striking similarities TMP has to TAS: "One of Our Planets is Missing." There's a giant cosmic cloud closing in on an inhabited planet, the Enterprise travels through its innards to its brain center, Kirk orders Scotty to ready the self-destruct to destroy the brain, but Spock ends up mind-melding with the cloud's intelligence, and it's persuaded to go elsewhere.
Kennedy was a real person, so it may be "tasteless", but is that really any different from the idea that Edith Keeler 'had' to die? I don't know of anyone who had a problem with that episode.
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There's a pretty big difference. JFK was survived by immediate family members who were alive and well in the late 70's. Do you ever get over having your husband's brains in your lap?
I can't believe that this has to be explained, but the difference is that Edith Keeler was fictional.
I fully understand that Kennedy was a real person with family members, why the idea is offensive, and that it is different with a fictional character. My post was in response to the statement "that there's something very ugly about the idea that Kennedy "needed" to die for the greater good" -- I was thinking of the "idea" as a plot concept, not as whether it is appropriate to depict. Sorry if I misunderstood your point.
In the abstract, it's a straightforward sci-fi idea, yes.
