Carol Marcus

[Believer Bob]

Did Carol Marcus ever appear in Trek again after TWOK? (Trying to recall if she was in SFS at all, need to give that one a long overdue rewatch). Or in Trek novels?

I'm wondering about her Prime Universe roles, I'm aware of her appearance in Into Darkness.

I guess a related question would be: was she ever mentioned or reference in the TOS series?

 

[FormerLurker]

She was in the novelizations of SFS and TUC. I'm not familiar with the novelverse enough to know if she showed up there. And no, she wasn't in the film of SFS.

 

[somebuddyX]

There might have been a scene with her in the original script for Trek VI. I remember reading something about a guy with a glowing hand rounding everyone up, with Kirk and Carol in bed together. She wasn't mentioned in TOS but the Chronology suggested that some blonde lab technician that Gary Mitchell mentions in Where No Man Has Gone Before could be her, or that could've been Janet Wallace, who Carol shared a fake last name with. Apparently Marcus WAS Wallace at one point in TWOK's conception. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Carol_Marcus#Conception
Oh, she was in a draft of Trek 09. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Carol_Marcus_(alternate_reality)#Background_information

 

[borgboy]

I haven't read it yet but I know Carol is in TNG's Genesis Wave novels.
Carol is also in the TOS novels Inception and Faces of Fire, and the Vanguard novel Reap the Whirlwind.

 

[Marsden]

I remember reading there was a deleted scene where Carol was either in a hospital or dead from a Klingon attack on a Federation colony which was supposed to be why Kirk was not in favor of helping the Klingons.

 

[cardinal biggles]

In the expanded part of the TUC novelization, yes. The science outpost she was working on was attacked by Klingons, and she spends a good portion of the book in a coma.

She's also in the expanded scenes in the TVH novelization. She goes to Delta IV to make notification on two of her Genesis scientists (Jedda, the guy that Terrell phasers down in the Genesis cave, and a female scientist who I can't recall making an appearance in the movie). It's there that she is told of David's fate, which apparently happened while she was in transit.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I remember reading there was a deleted scene where Carol was either in a hospital or dead from a Klingon attack on a Federation colony which was supposed to be why Kirk was not in favor of helping the Klingons.

That wasn't a deleted scene from the movie. It was something added by J.M. Dillard in her novelization of TUC. As noted above, Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn originally planned to use Carol in a completely different way in the movie, but that sequence was never shot for budgetary reasons.

Carol also appears in several issues of the DC Comics Trek series (I personally recommend The Mirror Universe Saga, as it contains some nice scenes of Carol & Kirk mourning David's death) and in the S.D. Perry/Britta Dennison novel Inception (where Leila Kolomi is working on a terraforming project with Carol).

 

[Greg Cox]

Something to remember: a scene in a novelization that doesn't appear in the movie could be a deleted scene that was filmed but cut, or it could be something from an early draft of the script, or it could just be something the author made up to flesh out the book.

Turning a 120-page script into a 300-page novel requires some creativity sometimes.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Something to remember: a scene in a novelization that doesn't appear in the movie could be a deleted scene that was filmed but cut, or it could be something from an early draft of the script, or it could just be something the author made up to flesh out the book.

Turning a 120-page script into a 300-page novel requires some creativity sometimes.

Yes, I realize this, but what Dillard wrote with Carol Marcus injured in a Klingon attack was obviously NOT a deleted scene from TUC, since Meyer & Flinn wrote a different scene with a perfectly-healthy Carol Marcus as part of their "gathering the crew" sequence. I was just talking about that one specific example, not making a general pronouncement that writers of movie novelizations never use scenes that end up deleted from the final movie.

Personally, I didn't enjoy Dillard's TUC novelization very much, as it was rather obvious she didn't think much of the script and added a lot of scenes to better justify certain things for herself, like

Spoiler: STVI novelization details

Carol being injured in a Klingon attack as an additional "reason" for Kirk hating the Klingons, Valeris having a name of Klingon instead of Vulcan origin, or Spock asking mental "permission" to mind-meld with Valeris at the end, when both the script and the finished movie make it obvious that he was mind-melding with Valeris against her will.

I don't like seeing a novelization writer working at cross-purposes to the movie they're adapting.

 

[Marsden]

Much apologizings.
I thought it was from the movie, not the novelization. It sometimes astonishes me how much a novelization differs from the movie, and I'm not talking about a movie based on a novel being different, but an actual novelization of a movie that the novel wouldn't exist if the movie didn't.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Much apologizings.
I thought it was from the movie, not the novelization.

Easy mistake to make, and, if you didn't know about the deleted sequence that Carol was scripted to be in, not an unreasonable assumption.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yes, I realize this, but what Dillard wrote with Carol Marcus injured in a Klingon attack was obviously NOT a deleted scene from TUC, since Meyer & Flinn wrote a different scene with a perfectly-healthy Carol Marcus as part of their "gathering the crew" sequence. I was just talking about that one specific example, not making a general pronouncement that writers of movie novelizations never use scenes that end up deleted from the final movie..

To be clear, my remark wasn't directed at your comment or STAR TREK VI specifically. Just seizing the opportunity to make a general observation about "deleted" scenes and novelizations, since there can sometimes be confusion on that front.

 

[TOMFAN]

I seem to remember Leonard Nimoy saying that Bibi Besch was quite upset when he told her that Carol wouldn't be coming back for TSFS, and she thought it had something to do with her performance in TWOK.

 

[ClayinCA]

I seem to remember Leonard Nimoy saying that Bibi Besch was quite upset when he told her that Carol wouldn't be coming back for TSFS, and she thought it had something to do with her performance in TWOK.

That's such a shame. She was so wonderful in The Wrath of Khan, and really created a charming and compelling character who it would've been nice to see again.

 

[wayoung]

She is in the novel Enterpris: The First Adventure, which was set during Kirk's first mission as Captain. It also has Scotty's celebrating the birth of Preston in it. Not a particularly good novel, outside of its depiction of Kirk's heroics in saving Gary Mitchell and other crew members on a doomed ship that earned him command of the Enterprise.

 

[borgboy]

I seem to remember Leonard Nimoy saying that Bibi Besch was quite upset when he told her that Carol wouldn't be coming back for TSFS, and she thought it had something to do with her performance in TWOK.

I thought she was likable and interesting.

 

[TOMFAN]

That's such a shame. She was so wonderful in The Wrath of Khan, and really created a charming and compelling character who it would've been nice to see again.

I thought she was likable and interesting.

Nimoy agreed, and he assured her that Carol's absence from the film wasn't anything to do with her, or her performance, but was done purely for story reasons.

It might be on the commentary for STIII where he talks about this, or one of the documentaries, I'll have to see if I can find it.

 

[Dukhat]

I don't like seeing a novelization writer working at cross-purposes to the movie they're adapting.

Then you must absolutely hate Diane Carey's novelization of ENT's "Broken Bow," lol:

In 2012, Brannon Braga recalled to Rick Berman that the novelization for "Broken Bow" was filled from "beginning to end" with passages commenting on how terrible the script for the pilot episode was. Braga remembered that author Diane Carey was probably reprimanded for this. ("In Conversation: Rick Berman and Brannon Braga", ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special feature)

Of course, one must wonder why the editors never picked up on this before the book went to press.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

That's such a shame. She was so wonderful in The Wrath of Khan, and really created a charming and compelling character who it would've been nice to see again.

Agreed! It's a really tough thing to create a character who is immediately believable as a long-lost love interest of a long-running character. Ms. Besch was utterly convincing not only as an old flame of Kirk's, but as someone who could have conceivably been "the one who got away." It would've been great to see her again in TUC as originally planned.

Nimoy agreed, and he assured her that Carol's absence from the film wasn't anything to do with her, or her performance, but was done purely for story reasons.

Yeah, I can see that. The story of TSFS didn't have too much room for extraneous characters.

Then you must absolutely hate Diane Carey's novelization of ENT's "Broken Bow," lol:

Never read it outside of the excerpts I've seen here on the BBS. I watched a few seasons of ENT, but I was never really interested enough in it to read any of the novels.

 

[Dukhat]

Never read it outside of the excerpts I've seen here on the BBS. I watched a few seasons of ENT, but I was never really interested enough in it to read any of the novels.

Actually I was just being facetious. The Broken Bow book is a prime example of what not to do when writing a novelization (i.e. injecting your own personal feelings and interpretations into a work where it isn't your job to do so.)

In my job as an audiobook narrator, I get puh-lenty of books that I hate or strongly disagree with the subject matter. However, I can not put those feelings into my delivery because that would be unprofessional. I have to sound like this is the greatest book ever written.