Can 'Omega Glory' ever be fully restored?

[ToddPence]

For anyone who still doubts Mr. Laser Beam's veracity.

 

[Chrisisall]

For anyone who still doubts Mr. Laser Beam's veracity.

THANKS Todd! that was, dare I say it, fascinating.

 

[Christopher]

Well, that just doesn't make sense. If that was included in the same script that made them over 10,000 years old, that's a huge and irreconcilable contradiction, which is probably why it was cut. Maybe it was an afterthought Roddenberry threw into a late draft of the script to try to rationalize the absurd premise, but then he or someone else realized that it was incompatible with the established chronology of the episode, and so it was either unfilmed or cut out.

It's odd, though... the date on the top is consistent with the shooting dates of the episode, so it would have to be the final draft, yet the parts of the dialogue that are in the final episode are phrased differently:

SPOCK: There's no question about his guilt, Captain, but does our involvement here also constitute a violation of the Prime Directive?
KIRK: We merely showed them the meaning of what they were fighting for. Liberty and freedom have to be more than just words. Gentlemen, the fighting is over here. I suggest we leave them to discover their history and their liberty.
(Kirk takes one last look at the flag before leaving.)

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/54.htm

That suggests a last-minute rewrite, or perhaps an ad-lib by Shatner.

Then again, I found the episode on YouTube and checked it out, and it does seem that Spock is saying "Doctor" when Kirk says "Gentlemen." And he and McCoy do seem to be coming down from an argument. Which suggests that the lines were filmed and then wisely cut out. But it's clear from the continuous music that that's the way it was edited and shown originally. It's not something that was cut out after the initial broadcast (in which case there'd be a jump in the music), so there's nothing to be "restored." It's simply a deleted scene, something trimmed out during the normal editing process, before the music was laid in. The episode as available on the various home video releases is the complete episode as it aired on March 1, 1968.

 

[Grant]

^^^ I agree 100% with that..........


It probably WAS shot because of the noticable cut in the final version
It probably WAS cut because it made no sense with the understood timeframe at that (1968) point in the series production
There NEVER was a longer cut anyone outside the production crew saw in 1968
The version out now on DVD is the only cut ever released or seen on TV

Glad they caught what would have been a huge error.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So Omega IV's society was created by Berlinghoff Rasmussen, eh?

It could well have been. Either him, or Braxton...

 

[BillJ]

Or Omega IV is actually the original Earth the Preservers took humans from to seed other planets. So we followed their evolution to a point then branched off. Works for me.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I think the lines were cut for time. It's no more contradictory than some of the other boners that made it through, so I think the episode was running long and this was one of the things that was cut.

As for in-universe explanations, Omega IV is a case of a colony ship going back in time several millenia before reaching the planet and starting up their little apocolypse.

892-IV is a clear case of the Preservers snatching up some Romans and other contemporaries (like early Christians) and depositing them on the closest match they could find to Earth. Of course, the Romans being a rather attentive lot, noticed right away what had happened (hell, they probably even brokered a deal with the Preservers) and took steps to keep things going in a proper Roman manner (and with much fewer barbarian hordes to contend with, the Empire got another two and a half millenia to play with). This would be why the Procounsul had no problem dealing with either Merrick or Kirk, since they were well aware of interstellar life and had been for centuries.

And Miri's planet is a case of Magrathea doing a first draft before moving on to the final version. The mice didn't like the fjords in the earlier version (Slartibartfast was rather upset at the time, but since he won an award for the final version, he got over it rather quickly).

 

[Green Shirt]

Don't fret.
If you haven't noticed yet, Christopher's main reason for being here is to patrol the boards looking for people to correct and amend.
At least that's what 90% of his posts are. You'll get used to it.

Can I get an "amen" on that??

What do you expect from someone who has the conceit to list "writer" under his user name like he's above us? Maybe I can get mine changed to crazed postal worker.

Funny part is that his corrections are mean spirited, not to mention just plain wrong (at least the ones directed at me). I posted a light hearted comment in another thread about green tunics (no surprise there, considering my user name) and the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty". He proceeded to lecture me on the fact that the tunic fabrics were changed before the third season to a gold color to match what was seen on screen the previous seasons. Well, he got it completely backward. The fabric and color was selected to be a close match for the green velour and usually photographed closer to what was intended. Fabric samples and publicity photos are proof of that. (unless faked by yellow shirt conspiritors).

His response to my comment about "Beam me up, Scotty" never having been said in just that way was equally head shaking.

Oh well, its all OK. Its what makes this place so fun.

 

[Christopher]

Or Omega IV is actually the original Earth the Preservers took humans from to seed other planets. So we followed their evolution to a point then branched off. Works for me.

It wouldn't work for any evolutionary biologist. There's no question we're an integral part of the same biosphere that evolved on this planet. Even TOS backed away from the "humans seeded on Earth" idea in "Return to Tomorrow": "Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently."

Besides, even if Earth had been seeded from Omega IV, that wouldn't remotely explain why historical events such as the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would repeat themselves exactly more than 10,000 years after their original occurrence.

 

[Chrisisall]

Okay, but out of all this discussion, the main thing I come away with is that "The Omega Glory" is cool.
Good.
'Cause otherwise I'd have to start "Tracyin'" y'all. And I HATE draining phasers.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Where does this thing about 10,000 years come from? I don't remember that bit.

 

[Chrisisall]

Even TOS backed away from the "humans seeded on Earth" idea in "Return to Tomorrow": "Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently."

"That would, however, explain some elements of Vulcan pre-history."

 

[Nerys Myk]

Where does this thing about 10,000 years come from? I don't remember that bit.

TRACEY: "Wu is 462 years old.His father is well over 1,000."

 

[BillJ]

Or Omega IV is actually the original Earth the Preservers took humans from to seed other planets. So we followed their evolution to a point then branched off. Works for me.

It wouldn't work for any evolutionary biologist. There's no question we're an integral part of the same biosphere that evolved on this planet. Even TOS backed away from the "humans seeded on Earth" idea in "Return to Tomorrow": "Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently."

Besides, even if Earth had been seeded from Omega IV, that wouldn't remotely explain why historical events such as the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would repeat themselves exactly more than 10,000 years after their original occurrence.

What if this entire section of the galaxy was a lab for some superior race? Putting humans in similar situations across many worlds and seeing how differently or similar the end product can be? Or giving the rats many different routes to get to the cheese... (Somehow I'm having a much toughter time explaining it than visualizing it in my head).

The only reason I go with these thoughts with this episode is the fact I hate when time travel is used to explain away everything. And even then time travel makes no sense either. Someone interferes somewhere in what would be thier sixteenth or so century and then they evolve exactly like earth for four or five hundred years and then kill themselves in a biological war?

 

[BillJ]

Where does this thing about 10,000 years come from? I don't remember that bit.

I don't think it's in the actual episode.

 

[Gepard]

<snip>

For anyone who still doubts Mr. Laser Beam's veracity.

Now isn't that interesting.

Well, that just doesn't make sense. If that was included in the same script that made them over 10,000 years old, that's a huge and irreconcilable contradiction, which is probably why it was cut. Maybe it was an afterthought Roddenberry threw into a late draft of the script to try to rationalize the absurd premise, but then he or someone else realized that it was incompatible with the established chronology of the episode, and so it was either unfilmed or cut out.

It may have been filmed. That script page answers something I've been wondering about for a long time, namely the answer to this entry from page 210 of Phil Farrand's "Nitpicker's Guide for Classic Trekkers:"

As the landing party prepares to leave, there's a weird spot in the dialogue. Kirk says that they have shown the Yangs that freedom and liberty have to be more than just words. Then he says "Gentlemen, the fighting is over." Between these two statements, Spock begins to say something, and McCoy looks like he's ready to jump into another discussion with the Vulcan. It appears the creators cut a chunk of dialogue. It probably contained one of those Spock/McCoy spats seen so frequently at the end of episodes. That would explain Kirk's second statement.

It's been a long time since I've seen The Omega Glory, so I don't recall how this plays out, but from the sound of it, it seems like dialogue in between those two beats was actually edited out, rather than being written around.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Don't fret.
If you haven't noticed yet, Christopher's main reason for being here is to patrol the boards looking for people to correct and amend.
At least that's what 90% of his posts are. You'll get used to it.

Can I get an "amen" on that??

What do you expect from someone who has the conceit to list "writer" under his user name like he's above us? Maybe I can get mine changed to crazed postal worker.

Funny part is that his corrections are mean spirited, not to mention just plain wrong (at least the ones directed at me). I posted a light hearted comment in another thread about green tunics (no surprise there, considering my user name) and the phrase "Beam me up, Scotty". He proceeded to lecture me on the fact that the tunic fabrics were changed before the third season to a gold color to match what was seen on screen the previous seasons. Well, he got it completely backward. The fabric and color was selected to be a close match for the green velour and usually photographed closer to what was intended. Fabric samples and publicity photos are proof of that. (unless faked by yellow shirt conspiritors).

His response to my comment about "Beam me up, Scotty" never having been said in just that way was equally head shaking.

Oh well, its all OK. Its what makes this place so fun.

Yep...I saw that post.
One of those types who you mention the sky is blue and they respond: "Not at night!"

 

[Christopher]

Where does this thing about 10,000 years come from? I don't remember that bit.

TRACEY: "Wu is 462 years old.His father is well over 1,000."

That's not it. Maybe I'm guessing at the exact figure, but McCoy did say that it took a long time following the bacteriological war for the Omegans to develop their modern longevity.

MCCOY: ... I'm convinced that once there was a frightening biological war that existed here. The virus still exists. Then over the years, nature built up these natural immunising agents in the food, the water, and the soil.
SPOCK: War created an imbalance and nature counterbalanced it.
...
KIRK: ... There are people here over a thousand years old, Bones.
MCCOY: Survival of the fittest, because their ancestors who survived had to have a superior resistance. Then they built up these powerful protective antibodies in the blood during the war

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/54.htm

So the war must've happened long before that thousand-year-old man was born, long enough for that greater longevity to evolve in the first place. So it had to be several thousand years in the past.

 

[SeerSGB]

Or Omega IV is actually the original Earth the Preservers took humans from to seed other planets. So we followed their evolution to a point then branched off. Works for me.

It wouldn't work for any evolutionary biologist. There's no question we're an integral part of the same biosphere that evolved on this planet. Even TOS backed away from the "humans seeded on Earth" idea in "Return to Tomorrow": "Our beliefs and our studies indicate that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently."

Besides, even if Earth had been seeded from Omega IV, that wouldn't remotely explain why historical events such as the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would repeat themselves exactly more than 10,000 years after their original occurrence.

What if this entire section of the galaxy was a lab for some superior race? Putting humans in similar situations across many worlds and seeing how differently or similar the end product can be? Or giving the rats many different routes to get to the cheese... (Somehow I'm having a much toughter time explaining it than visualizing it in my head).

The only reason I go with these thoughts with this episode is the fact I hate when time travel is used to explain away everything. And even then time travel makes no sense either. Someone interferes somewhere in what would be thier sixteenth or so century and then they evolve exactly like earth for four or five hundred years and then kill themselves in a biological war?

A bit of a retcon, but that's the more or less ideal that TNG ran with. Basically the races of at least the Alpha and Beta quadrants were tinkered with by the first [or one of the first] sentient races so that we [the races of the galaxy] would evolve into a form like theirs.

 

[Christopher]

A bit of a retcon, but that's the more or less ideal that TNG ran with. Basically the races of at least the Alpha and Beta quadrants were tinkered with by the first [or one of the first] sentient races so that we [the races of the galaxy] would evolve into a form like theirs.

Not exactly. Rather, the primordial soup of various worlds was seeded more than 4 billion years ago with DNA templates programmed to promote the eventual evolution of humanoid forms. That's not tampering with individual races, because no "races" existed at the time, just organic compounds with the potential to develop into life.