If I remember right, J.M. Dillard also mentions that Sulu is still waiting to take command of Excelsior in the novelization of Star Trek V. Although we've also got someone else commanding it in ST III and no mention of Sulu's promotion in that film.
Star Trek The Wrath of Khan Book Club
- Thread starter Tallguy
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It's been a long time since I read TFF. I'm not sure I ever finished it. I did read TUC.
No, there is no indication in the film of TSFS that Sulu was meant to be Excelsior's captain just as there is no indication that Saavik was half-Romulan. But (spoilers) McIntyre doesn't let the scene with Sulu go and builds a whole subplot off of it. Which continues into TVH and the trial.
If Dillard included it in TFF I would guess that it had more to do with VM's novels than with any knowledge of the deleted scene in TWOK. These books live in the heads of a lot of fans of the era even if they are forgotten curios now.
IIRC, it was pretty common knowledge at the time that there was a deleted scene of Sulu getting a captaincy. Novelizations weren't our only source of information -- we had SF magazines, conventions, and the like.
This might be why I'm thinking that Dillard mentions it in the ST V novelization. I suppose I could go look to see if I can find it . . . or, I can just wait three years until we get to that novelization!
This should have been part of the TMP book discussion, but all this talk about rushing out the untested Enterprise to confront V'Ger and I'm reminded of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales being pushed into service in order to confront the Bismark.
She left port with construction crew still onboard and her main armament untested, leading to frequent gun jams during the battle.
She never had her main guns fully operational during her short service, and was plagued by mechanical problems up until the time of her sinking by the Japanese.
She never had the chance to be pulled from service to be fixed.
The crew that served on her called her an unlucky ship.
She left port with construction crew still onboard and her main armament untested, leading to frequent gun jams during the battle.
She never had her main guns fully operational during her short service, and was plagued by mechanical problems up until the time of her sinking by the Japanese.
She never had the chance to be pulled from service to be fixed.
The crew that served on her called her an unlucky ship.
Vonda was one of my writing instructors at the Clarion West SFF Writing Workshop, which is still held in Seattle every summer, as was Norman Spinrad, who wrote "The Doomsday Machine" for TOS back in the day. I like to think of myself as very much a second-generation Trek writer.
I believe Vonda left her literary estate to the Clarion West as well.
CW '84 was also where I first met David Hartwell, the legendary SF editor who launched the Star Trek book line at Pocket Books back in the day. It was David who actually encouraged me move from Seattle to NYC to pursue a career in publishing.
The phrase "wasting your life in Seattle" may have been used.
(At the time, I was doing the starving-writer thing, washing dishes and bussing tables at Sea-Tac Airport while selling the occasional short story to Amazing Stories and such.)
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I don't have the novelization with me currently, but does it include the line of dialogue where Admiral Kirk says something about getting an earful about the Enterprise being considered a flying death-trap? It's something that seems associated with the later plan in the third movie to decommission the Enterprise.
This is idea, associated with The Wrath of Khan (movie and novelization collectively) caused me to match up with McIntyre's presentation of events that The Wrath of Khan is taking place only a couple years after The Motion Picture (three years in real-time, three-years in-universe). Combined with the idea that Kirk successfully took the Enterprise on a shakedown cruise right after the V'ger incident, and then turned around and let himself be re-promoted back to the rank of admiral again.
It the Enterprise is a flying death trap, and about to be declared obsolete one movie later, it makes the Constitution-class refit (or Constitution II class type by extention?) seem like a failed design, or a failed upgrade. This is painful to contemplate, given that it's one of my favorite versions of the ship, the movie Enterprise of the 1979-1991. The Enterprise was rebuilt and re-worked for two years or so, to become "an almost totally new Enterprise", but then, maybe three years later (according to one possible reading of the novelization's presentation of the passage of time) the Enterprise is old and rundown. Add in the next ship, the Enterprise-A, whether another refitted Connie or a brand-new ship built from scratch, it leave me with the sad impression that the Constitution II Class is failed design.
This is idea, associated with The Wrath of Khan (movie and novelization collectively) caused me to match up with McIntyre's presentation of events that The Wrath of Khan is taking place only a couple years after The Motion Picture (three years in real-time, three-years in-universe). Combined with the idea that Kirk successfully took the Enterprise on a shakedown cruise right after the V'ger incident, and then turned around and let himself be re-promoted back to the rank of admiral again.
It the Enterprise is a flying death trap, and about to be declared obsolete one movie later, it makes the Constitution-class refit (or Constitution II class type by extention?) seem like a failed design, or a failed upgrade. This is painful to contemplate, given that it's one of my favorite versions of the ship, the movie Enterprise of the 1979-1991. The Enterprise was rebuilt and re-worked for two years or so, to become "an almost totally new Enterprise", but then, maybe three years later (according to one possible reading of the novelization's presentation of the passage of time) the Enterprise is old and rundown. Add in the next ship, the Enterprise-A, whether another refitted Connie or a brand-new ship built from scratch, it leave me with the sad impression that the Constitution II Class is failed design.
I always figured that the planned retirement of the Enterprise was due to the expectation that the Excelsior class would supplant the Constitution class, and when the transwarp experiment failed, the Connies were kept in service after all. I mean, Admiral Morrow's "The Enterprise is 20 years old" line doesn't make sense since the ship had to be a minimum of 28 years old (13 years from "The Cage" to season 1, 15 years from season 1 to TWOK) and had been refitted a relatively short time before. So it smacked of a political decision or the like rather than something genuinely motivated by the class's viability. (When I've written Morrow in my Trek fiction, I've thrown in a running gag that he's bad at remembering numbers.)
Although that's undermined a bit by the fact that we never saw a Constitution-class ship in the TNG era, due to the producers not wanting to reuse a "hero" ship class (same reason we never saw a Sovereign in DS9 and didn't see an Intrepid in DS9 until they needed to save money by shooting on Voyager's sets), or perhaps due to the reported cumbersomeness of working with the miniature. But just because we never see something onscreen doesn't mean it isn't there. I mean, we never saw a Denobulan or a Kelpien or a ridged Klingon in TOS, but we now know they were there even so. Since the episodes and movies we see are just a limited sample of the overall universe, we can always assume they're not a statistically representative or exhaustive sample.
Although that's undermined a bit by the fact that we never saw a Constitution-class ship in the TNG era, due to the producers not wanting to reuse a "hero" ship class (same reason we never saw a Sovereign in DS9 and didn't see an Intrepid in DS9 until they needed to save money by shooting on Voyager's sets), or perhaps due to the reported cumbersomeness of working with the miniature. But just because we never see something onscreen doesn't mean it isn't there. I mean, we never saw a Denobulan or a Kelpien or a ridged Klingon in TOS, but we now know they were there even so. Since the episodes and movies we see are just a limited sample of the overall universe, we can always assume they're not a statistically representative or exhaustive sample.
That's always been my opinion, and that there should be as many Constitutions around off-screen in the TNG era as, if not Excelsiors and Mirandas, at least Oberths and Constellations (or even Ambassadors and Norways, which also don't appear as often as you'd expect because of off-screen logistical reasons). There are a couple of canon possibles thanks to the model of the post-destruction Enterprise from TSFS being easier to handle than the hero model, with it appearing as debris of one or two ships at Wolf 359, and as the crashed Olympia in DS9's "The Sound of Her Voice." I've seen at least one fan run with that and build a model of the Olympia as a Constitution-II.
Anyway, I like seeing things that way better than the idea of the Enterprises-refit and -A, and then the class as a whole, being a lemon that had a much shorter lifetime than any of its contemporaries.
And pulling it back on topic, in TWOK, the Enterprise seems to take a hit much better than the Reliant. In both battles, Khan gets the drop on Kirk, but the Enterprise is still able respond effectively when the tables are turned, and both times, she takes Reliant out of the fight handily despite already being damaged. You can argue Khan was toying with them in the first ambush, but it's certain he was shooting to kill in the nebula. Not exactly consistent with the Enterprise bordering on obsolescence compared to the higher-numbered (so likely newer) Reliant.
She also there in what I assumed at the time were her own beliefs into the characters mouths in either this of the TSFS novelization, with at least Sulu saying "oh gods" at some point.
Yep that's been my point all along in the constant on line carping about Kirk "dropping the ball" regarding Khan when it clearly wasn't his responsibility after he dropped off the group. Any more than a bus driver is responsible for my safety after I get off at my stop. Even less so since Kirk's bosses knew the situation.
Khan's motivation in the book is much more reasonable to me, but his cruelty - as you'll cover - is amped up to horror novel levels. Joachim, though, is amazingly fleshed out.
Novels and novelizations were a LOT of fun in those pre-restrictive days. I haven't read a Trek novel since forever, so I have no idea if they've gone back to that since Roddenberry died and Richard Arnold was bounced.
Me neither, the scenes were nearly all cut for good reason.
I guess you weren't a Boy Scout.
On camping trips, it was common to send younger scouts to neighboring sites to get "left-handed smoke sifters." I was the target of one such prank and instead of being laughed at, the older guy at the site gave me some makeshift tool and sent me back to victory.
Yes it's in the book. It's also from the script and it's in the extended version of the film.
It goes in line with my belief that the filmmakers were taking the approach that the Enterprise is OLD. And the shiny refit in TMP is either irrelevant or (more likely) didn't happen. This is more of a spiritual sequel to TOS rather than TMP. Things look different because this is a movie made in 1982 rather than a TV show made in 1966. Not because of any in universe continuity reason.
McIntyre explicitly acknowledges TMP. But I'm sure the filmmakers didn't care and I know that Paramount would be fine with that.
As for Morrow saying the Enterprise is 20 years old: Star Trek was 20 years old (nearly, or including the pilots exactly - i.e. how long Nimoy had been wearing the ears) and they didn't want to bother the audience with the math.
As I say often: The FANS care about these things. A lot of the writers (certainly the writers and directors of the movies) do NOT. Nimoy was openly contemptuous of such trivia as being a kind of gate keeping. Which is why we have Klingons with cloaking devices and bird ships.
So far the only character who is not polytheistic in their oaths is Kirk. I'll keep better track but I've noted at least Sulu and McCoy. At least they have traditions and "many beliefs".
I can hardly wait! Joachim is awesome.
I was many things, but I was never... Well, you know.I guess you weren't a Boy Scout.
Man, I left that door wide open.
I definitely know about it in the extended version of the movie, which is my go-to version most of the time. I like all the additions/changes except for an alternative take of David Marcus on a tirade about Starfleet being up to no good.
The way you word this reminds me of the exact feel of reading TWoK novelization, I do remember it having exactly that feeling. Which make it make more sense that the massive refit is less of a literal transformation (don't need to overthink how much structural re-working was done, comparing the television series's ship model to the movie ship model). I remember reading it and getting the impression that with some stories you are better off imagining the television series Enterprise looked more like the movie Enterprise (or vice versa) because of a kind of meta viewpoint that the television series has "inaccuracies" because of "production limitations" or something. And TWoK novelization gave a sense of a smoother flow between the television series and the movie-era story it is telling.
Thank you.
I remember how McIntyre connects TMP, with mixed feelings.
This is one that I am at home with, as it's a line that's been described as in-tune with the real life history of the series + the movies spanning twenty years of time. The line works in a spiritual sense, and I can and do happily handwave it. But I appreciate you connecting this continuity detail to the feel of TWoK novelization in relation to the television series, it's a parallel that makes sense to me.
Yeah! I cared from the standpoint of really liking the design of movie version of the Enterprise. But I have played the "what if" game that the Enterprise maybe looked more like the movie version in the original television show, and the line "this is an almost totally new Enterprise" can be overthought. Which I sometimes do, lol.
Its a good reminder to me to try and remain open-minded, and try to avoid the gatekeeping tendency, which I try to avoid but sometimes I recognize the impulse emerging in my thoughts. Thank you for this perspective in light of how TWoK novelization presents it's atmosphere being in tune with the television stories, I agree and remember it having that vibe when I read it a couple years ago.
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Not necessarily her own beliefs, but perhaps just her speculation about what religious beliefs might prevail centuries in the future. It's never wise to assume that writers put their own beliefs into their fiction. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby wrote a lot of comics about Thor and the Norse gods even though they were both Jewish. Chris Carter created The X-Files, but he was actually a nonbeliever in UFOs and psychic phenomena; he just thought they'd be fun to write fiction about.
Novelizations are still kept under pretty tight leashes by the studios, but original Trek fiction has been given far more creative freedom over the past 25 years or so than it was under Arnold. We spent the first two decades or so of the century building a whole elaborate post-series continuity, although most of it has now been overwritten by the new canon established by Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and the like.
I guess you weren't a Boy Scout.
What puzzles me is the "snipe hunt" prank. I mean, the basic premise there is that it's a fool's errand, ending with the pranker saying "Ha-ha, I got you, there's no such thing as a snipe" -- but that doesn't make sense, because there actually is a variety of bird called a snipe, which is actually the thing that snipers are named for because they're elusive and it takes great skill to hunt them. So how can the prank be based on the putative nonexistence of a snipe?
I'd understand if it were something like a snark -- but we're not there in the novelization yet.
Right, and the only reason they used the TMP sets and ship design is because they were on a tight budget and had to reuse assets from TMP. Given a higher budget, they probably would've built new sets and miniatures from scratch, same as they did with the uniforms and props.
I'm well aware of their rationale, and have been for decades. You can understand the reason why something was done and still think it was a bad decision. I don't buy the "don't confuse the audience" rationale. I mean, viewers of "The Menagerie" weren't confused by the reference to the Enterprise having been in service 13 years earlier even though it was a first-season episode.
And yes, you can look at it as a metatextual wink to the audience about the series's longevity, but I feel that metatextual references need to make in-universe sense too. Yes, the majority of the audience wouldn't care as much as the hardcore fans would, but I object to the assumption that only the majority needs to be considered and that minorities should be left to go hang. I believe it's important to try to satisfy the whole audience as much as possible, to appeal to a wide range of tastes and perspectives. It's not a binary choice between one audience and another; the ideal should be to tell a story in a way that satisfies both the general audience and the core fanbase.
Several characters do this in her novelizations of TWOK and TSFS. My understanding is that she did this is to show how totally distanced 23rd century society is from any current western-style theistic belief, so that even exclamations use the polytheistic 'gods' instead of 'God' (Roddenberry would no doubt approve). See here for further discussion.
Whoever was in charge of Who Watches the Watchers would not.
Indeed, note that even WOK, which was kinda a soft reboot of the movie series, felt obliged to include some expository dialogue explaining that Vulcans were motivated by logic, not emotion.
Albeit by framing this as something that Kirk doesn't need to be reminded of.
Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong scene, but if it is the right one, I always assumed Kirk's tongue was firmly planted in cheek, and he was only saying that to get a rise out of Preston. Which he did.
I would have never considered taking that line as any kind of indication as to the actual condition of the Enterprise.
Of course, there are clumsier ways of doing this, like Pike's line in Star Trek 2009: "You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada." That line wasn't in the preview clip of that scene released online, and was delivered when Pike was off-camera, so I assume it was hastily written and dubbed in when someone realized that new viewers would need it explained why the Federation was a good thing. I suspect the line we got was edited down from something that mentioned both the Federation and Starfleet, explaining the incongruity of referring to a political alliance as an armada. Or maybe it was just so last-minute a dub that they didn't have time to rewrite it to make more sense.
Oh he's absolutely needling Preston. It's obvious in the movie. Even more so in the book when Preston realizes that he's doing it and gets mad that he fell for it.
It's no indication that this is the state of the Enterprise. But it might indicate that this more the same ship than the storyline in TMP would suggest. And that she hasn't been recently refurbished.
No doubt I'm overthinking it. It's what we do.
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