What's Keeping "The God Thing" From Being Published?

[Therin of Andor]

MJF didn't struggle for all that long. As he said (if you haven't looked at the God Thing page), "How much work? Probably two solid weeks, spread out over a few months. I produced an outline and a sample chapter, then went into revisions on the outline." And even then MJF and his editor intended to be faithful to the intent of GR's manuscript, not to try to retrofit it so it would be compatible with TMP and beyond.

Not long after it became obvious that the MJF version wouldn't be happening - despite the cover art of the proposed Simon & Schuster audioworks appearing in the old Capital (now Diamond) Comics Distributor catalogue - I was able to ask Majel Barrett - in person - about it at a Brisbane (Australia) convention. She addressed her answer for the whole audience.

Essentially, she had been asked by Pocket Books to give the GR Estate's perspective on MJF's approach to completing TNT - and had the power of veto - and she said that MJF had proposed adding new characters and events (which, she understood, was an essential thing to do to take Gene's story to novel length) but she wasn't sure it was working. She mentioned that she had no problem with MJF's other writing, but this wasn't how GR would have expanded "The God-Thing". So she asked that the MJF version not proceed and handed GR's material to David Alexander to work on it instead, based on the Estate's satisfaction with Gene's official biography.

That was really the last we heard of it. Alexander had no deal with Pocket Books, ASAIK, so even if he ever finished working on TGT, and it met with Majel's approval, it still wasn't a given that it would be something Pocket Books was willing to publish. And, of course, Pocket had, and still has, the exclusive license on ST text-based fiction.

I reckon the best hope now is if Majel was to put out a "Collected Unfinished Works of Gene Roddenberry", and include the raw, unchanged version of TGT in that. But, I guess, the audience for such a book is much less that the sales TGT would have garnered as a "lost, last novel from the creator of ST" - in hardcover, S&S Audioworks and, a year later, a MMPB - that would have come out at the peak of Pocket's ST popularity/sales.

The horse has bolted. The opportunity has passed.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Steve did a great job, but the following part gave me pause

Then obviously you don't own a copy of "Inside Trek: My Secret Life with Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry" by Susan Sackett.

 

[Steve Roby]

The horse has bolted. The opportunity has passed.

Yup. Ten to fifteen years ago it would have been a really big deal. Unless the Abrams Trek movie is a really amazingly big hit, I don't think we'll see Star Trek being that popular again. (Of course, the new Doctor Who shows that there are always possibilities.)

I sometimes wonder if the real reason no progress has been made in so long is that the thing is just embarrassingly awful and no one can agree on the best way to salvage it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I sometimes wonder if the real reason no progress has been made in so long is that the thing is just embarrassingly awful and no one can agree on the best way to salvage it.

My feeling is that while the concept was something GR was really enamoured by, actually putting it into words was harder than even he thought, hence the number of times he returned to it in his lifetime. I recall many messages from Susan Sackett over the years saying that GR was again "off writing up TGT as a novel".

Also, so much of the original premise did make it into TMP anyway. Had it been a Roddenberry/MJF hardcover, TNG would have had an "alternate universe" feel to it - hey, maybe Marco could chat to Majel about the fragment going into a future "Myriad Universes"? As is?

 

[Rush Limborg]

You think GR thought his story was proof that there is no God? WTF?

You do understand that Star Trek is fiction, right? So it's possible to have a Star Trek story in which an alien claims to be God and actually is, or to have a Star Trek story that establishes that there is no God at all, because as a Star Trek story it has nothing to do with the real world. If Star Trek makes it clear that in its fictional universe God is a plaid turnip, so what? It isn't necessary to say that it's a turnip that thinks it's God, it isn't necessary to to say that in our universe God isn't a plaid turnip, because Star Trek is fiction, its universe is fiction, and its God, if it has any, is fiction.

Yes, I know it's fiction. I'm just saying... GR seemed to enjoy slamming orginized religion. I found pretty amazing his attitude after "Who Watches the Watchers?" came out. He said he was dissapointed when a controversy among Christian Trekkers did NOT start. It sounded like he was taking his creation just a BIT too seriously.

(As far as I can tell any God in this universe is fictional, too, but we're supposed to be talking about a Star Trek book here.)

Oooookaaaaay... I'd love to hand out some good ol'fashioned evidence, but...that would be going off topic.

 

[Steve Roby]

It's okay, I still believed in God when I was a teenager, too.

I can't say I recall GR saying much about "Who Watches the Watchers." I mean, yeah, I was alive back then (hell, I was an adult back then), the year before you say you were born, but I don't remember that.

The fact that Roddenberry didn't write "Who Watches the Watchers" seems kind of relevant, too.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I found pretty amazing his attitude after "Who Watches the Watchers?" came out. He said he was dissapointed when a controversy among Christian Trekkers did NOT start.

ST episodes, movies, books and comics which polarize the audience become memorable because they spark debates that continue - even decades later. And controversy sells. It gets unasked-for free publicity.

This applies to any ST controversial topic, not just those supposedly inferring something about Christian religion. Stories that don't disturb enough people because they played safe tend to get lost. Maybe?

 

[Rush Limborg]

I can't say I recall GR saying much about "Who Watches the Watchers." I mean, yeah, I was alive back then (hell, I was an adult back then), the year before you say you were born, but I don't remember that.

I think he said it in The Humanist magazine. You can probably find the quote in GR's biography.

It's okay, I still believed in God when I was a teenager, too.

Uh-huh. What caused you to stop?

I have a copy of Joshua McDowell's Evedince That Demands a Verdict, as well as Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator. I strongly recommend these two for those who wonder "Why the heck do Christians believe this stuff, anyway?"

These two books have logic that would impress Spock himself. Trust me, you won't be sorry if you read them!

 

[Trent Roman]

^ You can't possibly believe that anybody here would be impressed by those hypocritical hacks, do you?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Rush Limborg]

^ You can't possibly believe that anybody here would be impressed by those hypocritical hacks, do you?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

*Sigh* Why not read them first, and then ask me that?

 

[Geoff]

I have a copy of Joshua McDowell's Evedince That Demands a Verdict, as well as Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator. I strongly recommend these two for those who wonder "Why the heck do Christians believe this stuff, anyway?"

I haven't read the Strobel book, but I'm quite familiar with the McDowell book... and quite frankly, his logic is just flat-out terrible. Every argument he makes is a circular mess full of false premises and fallacious reasoning.

I'm not telling you this to suggest that your faith is misplaced or that you shouldn't try and defend your theistic beliefs with logic. I am, however, suggesting that your chances of convincing the unbelievers will increase tenfold if you don't use McDowell as a reference.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Strobel's book is worse, if for nothing else than the sheer insult to the intelligence of the readership. It advertises itself as a survey of 'scientific' (scoff) evidence that's "nailing the lid in the coffin of atheism" and "concrete facts and hard reason" to dispell 'Darwinism'. Except that the book is actually a series of interviews exclusively with creationists, who are furthermore theologians and philosophers, not scientists. The actual astronomers, cosmologists, biologists and physicists who are supposedly abandoning the naturalistic worldview in droves are noticeably lacking in presence. Absolute scum.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[doublegood]

Why would any religion based on faith need to be be proven?

 

[Procutus]

The Bird's movie idea about "Kirk and Co. save Kennedy, realize their mistake, and then assasinate him again" is evidence that poor Gene was getting a little...odd....

Actually, the JFK/Klingon/time-travel storyline was post-TMP, as reported in a 1980 Starlog article (somewhere, I still have the damn thing kicking around here). According to the article (and I believe Sackett later confirmed this) Gene's JFK idea was his pitch for a second Trek movie, which was summarily rejected as was The God Thing, and then the whole project was relegated to Paramount's TV arm and Harve Bennett was brought in as producer.

 

[Lonemagpie]

The Bird's movie idea about "Kirk and Co. save Kennedy, realize their mistake, and then assasinate him again" is evidence that poor Gene was getting a little...odd....

Actually, the JFK/Klingon/time-travel storyline was post-TMP, as reported in a 1980 Starlog article (somewhere, I still have the damn thing kicking around here). According to the article (and I believe Sackett later confirmed this) Gene's JFK idea was his pitch for a second Trek movie, which was summarily rejected as was The God Thing, and then the whole project was relegated to Paramount's TV arm and Harve Bennett was brought in as producer.

It'd never top the Red Dwarf version anyway

(In which JFK is assassinated by...

an alternate JFK from the future!)

 

[Surak]

Getting back on topic, someone (not me) posted an interview about Star Trek from 1976 on YouTube from Tom Snyder's old show. It is a five-part interview and here's the link to part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P32wGXbNMbo

In one of the parts, DeForest Kelley mentions The God Thing, although not by name. I don't remember which part, but the whole show is interesting, and it is worth watching the whole thing.

Enjoy,

Surak

 

[Biggshow]

GR seemed to enjoy slamming orginized religion.

And rightly so. Organized religion tends to separate people, not unite them. Think church as country club; you don't belong to my church so therefore something is wrong with you. And you're probably going to Hell, too.

My communion with God is direct. I need no middleman. I read that in a book I found in a hotel room (or rooms).

OT; as much as I like the big picture Roddenberry painted for us all, he could get very lost in some of its details. I hate to think what would have happened to ST if "The Omega Glory" were picked instead of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" as the second pilot. It sounds like "The God Thing" probably falls in this category.

 

[Rush Limborg]

I haven't read the Strobel book, but I'm quite familiar with the McDowell book... and quite frankly, his logic is just flat-out terrible. Every argument he makes is a circular mess full of false premises and fallacious reasoning.

Name one.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Steve did a great job, but the following part gave me pause

Then obviously you don't own a copy of "Inside Trek: My Secret Life with Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry" by Susan Sackett.

Obviously, I don't.

And I'm questioning if I do want it now. Oh hell, I do.

 

[William Leisner]

I haven't read the Strobel book, but I'm quite familiar with the McDowell book... and quite frankly, his logic is just flat-out terrible. Every argument he makes is a circular mess full of false premises and fallacious reasoning.

Name one.

Why would you ask him to "name one" when he just named all of them?