Spoilers Autobiography of James T. Kirk and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

[retroenzo]

I've been working my way slowly through this book and recently got up to the movie era of Kirk's life. I was amused to see how they worked the events of Star Trek V into his life.

Essentially they return to the planet from 'Bread and Circuses' and watch a movie called 'The Final Frontier'. Chekov finds a book called 'The Making of The Final Frontier' and finds out that it was made based on experiences related to the population by the crews of the Enterprise and the Beagle. Kirk mocks the plot because of the ludicrous idea of going to find God in the centre of the galaxy when everybody knows that the centre of the galaxy is a black hole.

Very brave decision to say that the events of that film didn't happen. Wondered what everyone else thought?

(I tried to spoiler the middle paragraph but can't seem to find how to do it).

 

[TheUsualSuspect]

There was some discussion of it in the review thread. Some people were amused by it; others weren't. I don't remember there being too many strong feelings either way. For myself, I had accidentally seen a spoiler for it before reading the book, so I knew what was coming when I got to that part. The idea is amusing enough, but as a general rule, I think authors should accept all the episodes and movies as canon. It's easy enough to ignore things like TFF and "Threshold" if you dislike them or find them ludicrous.

 

[Extrocomp]

I'm surprised that CBS allowed David Goodman to do that.

 

[Tosk]

It didn't bother me particularly, but of all the stories to pretend "didn't really happen" and it's Star Trek 5? Seems like a weird choice. Why not just leave it out completely like so many other events of Kirk's life?

 

[JD]

I thought it was funny, and I was also pretty shocked that actually got past CBS & Paramount.

 

[Khan 2.0]

I thought it was funny, and I was also pretty shocked that actually got past CBS & Paramount.

Or Shatner!

 

[Defcon]

(I tried to spoiler the middle paragraph but can't seem to find how to do it).

Over the reply window is a series of little icons for bolding, underlining etc. There's also an icon looking like a +. Click on that and a pull-down menu with additional options appears, including the spoiler option.

ETA: In a thread with the spoiler warning in the title an additional spoiler tag within the posts is kind of redundant IMHO, though.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I recall that in the Federation: The First 150 Years book, also by Goodman, a similar trick is pulled... although not striking events established onscreen from the record. There's a sidebar which goes into some speculation, that the relativity we live in, is the result of time travellers preventing the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s. Clearly some thought went into it, down to imagining some scientists commandeering a starship and taking it back to 20th Century Earth, with the express purpose of averting two unimaginably devastating World Wars the Star Trek universe had to endure we thankfully haven't. It's left at those extremists disappearing into time, never to be heard from again.

 

[flandry84]

TBH I would rather forget this book happened and not the movie.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Or Shatner!

Why do you think that Shatner had any sort of approval over the book?

 

[Khan 2.0]

Why do you think that Shatner had any sort of approval over the book?

Its his character. He could've had a say that 'his' movie was being written out of canon (at least in this book).. they even used some personal non Kirk pics of young Shatner in the centre pages too (then again he must've been ok with it as didn't he do a reading of it a while back? Maybe he thought it was funny)

 

[DimesDan]

Its his character.

It's a character he has played, it's not something he owns, that would be CBS.

 

[Christopher]

More to the point, Shatner directed ST V and developed its story. No, he doesn't own it, but his name still carries weight, so if he had objected, the publisher might not have wished to offend him. But as Khan 2.0 suggested, he does tend to have a sense of humor about himself.

 

[Leto_II]

Plus, didn't he read portions of the book live in front of a crowd at at least one convention recently? As Christopher says, he probably wasn't even bothered by this in the least.

 

[jaime]

I've been working my way slowly through this book and recently got up to the movie era of Kirk's life. I was amused to see how they worked the events of Star Trek V into his life.

Essentially they return to the planet from 'Bread and Circuses' and watch a movie called 'The Final Frontier'. Chekov finds a book called 'The Making of The Final Frontier' and finds out that it was made based on experiences related to the population by the crews of the Enterprise and the Beagle. Kirk mocks the plot because of the ludicrous idea of going to find God in the centre of the galaxy when everybody knows that the centre of the galaxy is a black hole.

Very brave decision to say that the events of that film didn't happen. Wondered what everyone else thought?

(I tried to spoiler the middle paragraph but can't seem to find how to do it).

I cancelled my pre order, and refused to even buy the cheaper kindle version. Shame as I was looking forward to it. Bringing your own politics or beliefs to abwork is one thing, writing out someone else's work in the same general canon like this is just...bad mannered. Granted, gene himself once did something similar...but that was gene Roddenberry. From what I later gathered...I didn't seem to be missing much. Retconning something here and there is one thing, but 'it was all...somebody else's dream' is just...rude.

 

[retroenzo]

Over the reply window is a series of little icons for bolding, underlining etc. There's also an icon looking like a +. Click on that and a pull-down menu with additional options appears, including the spoiler option.

ETA: In a thread with the spoiler warning in the title an additional spoiler tag within the posts is kind of redundant IMHO, though.

Thank you @Defcon and because I couldn't work out how to spoiler the paragraph, I added the spoiler tag to the post instead.

As for the book itself, I could have taken it or left it. The fact that I've been reading it slowly and only when in the bathroom tells you how I've been treating the book.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm a fan of STV and when I heard about how it was dealt with in Kirk's Autobiog, I wasn't pleased. But when I actually read it, I giggled.

 

[Ethros]

I haven't posted in the original autobiography thread, but I read this a couple of week ago and have to say loved every word of it. Although I really love the movies I'm not a huge TOS fan (not in that I dislike it at all, just I never really got into it as much as "modern Trek") but this really helped bring it all to life so much and now I have actually gone and hunted down quite a few related TOS episodes I haven't properly seen and I'm really enjoying them more now thanks to this book. So a big from me

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Hmm. I remember Shatner doing a convention while STV was in post production, and when asked what it was about, his stock answer was, "It's a western."

 

[jaime]

Hmm. I remember Shatner doing a convention while STV was in post production, and when asked what it was about, his stock answer was, "It's a western."

To be fair, Star Trek V is indeed a western, Generations years later was marketed to schools in the U.K. As being like a western...there's a western thing in Trek. But ST V....yeah. I can see it.