Did they ever release The God Thing?
- Thread starter EnriqueH
- Start date
BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!
Um, no.
Steve Roby maintained a page that chronicled the tortured history of The God-Thing, and it's archived here if you want to read the whole sordid thing.
It is unlikely ever to be released, mostly because it was never really written.
I recommend clicking on the link, though, it's fascinating stuff.
Um, no.
Steve Roby maintained a page that chronicled the tortured history of The God-Thing, and it's archived here if you want to read the whole sordid thing.
It is unlikely ever to be released, mostly because it was never really written.
I recommend clicking on the link, though, it's fascinating stuff.
It can't be released because it was never finished. That tends to be a necessary step on the road to publication.
I suppose it could one day see publication as a "non-fiction" book, with all the notes, early drafts, etc. included along with supporting background info to give it all context, but that seems a remote possibility at best.
I suppose it could one day see publication as a "non-fiction" book, with all the notes, early drafts, etc. included along with supporting background info to give it all context, but that seems a remote possibility at best.
"Never finished" doesn't explain it for you? If it had ever been in a releasable form, it would've been released ages ago.
Every writer does a lot of stuff that never gets finished or released. And a lot of it doesn't deserve to be released. It's just part of the job.
Maybe its just burning curiosity about archival material. I love a lot of archival stuff from Star Wars, like the art books. Sometimes I've felt that alternative concept art would have been better than the finale result. I think I like every alternative concept of General Grevious better than the actual General Grevious, for example. I was really excited about the comic adaptation of the rough draft of The Star Wars, which really is rough; but I regret nothing, I love looking at the alternative prototype conception of that story.
i know we're talking about incomplete material. I don't know if it's comparable, but there has been a lot of archival material of Tolkien's writing that has been made available by Christopher Tolkien. I read and took seriously the warnings about The Silmarillion, and the concerns Tolkien had about it in the foreward, but reading it really did enrich my follow up re-reading of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
i know we're talking about incomplete material. I don't know if it's comparable, but there has been a lot of archival material of Tolkien's writing that has been made available by Christopher Tolkien. I read and took seriously the warnings about The Silmarillion, and the concerns Tolkien had about it in the foreward, but reading it really did enrich my follow up re-reading of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The linked post outright says in the “in conclusion” section at the bottom that there is no finished manuscript. There is maybe a few outlines and pieces of rough drafts out there - MAYBE, considering that these would be from the early nineties at the latest, so most likely stored on hard copy at best, which means the pages have been buried in storage for literal decades.
This is an idea that never got off the ground, not some grand lost story that we’ll someday find a buried copy and see a public release. It just got more enthusiasm behind it due to the novelty of “a Star Trek story direct from Gene Roddenberry.” But it’s really just another leftover plot bunny from a man dead near thirty years and in position to ever really be completed.
Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.
Im glad you have the clarity.
How do you release that which is not finished?
I think Desert Kris summed it up well.
They released a Donner Cut of Superman II as well. It’s a curiosity, granted. But I’d check it out.
Well, there is that one symphony by Schubert.
And of course, Christopher Tolkien managed to put a lot of his father's unfinished stuff into publishable form.
From what I read in the article I don’t think it’s any great loss. At best it would have had the novelty of being a novel by Trek’s creator but given the ST:TMP novelisation I don’t think it would have been very good.
Yes, that's another good example. I really enjoy having the opportunity to see more of Marlon Brando's performance of Jor-El. There's some really good material featuring the three supervillains, too, it's nice to see how they might have alternatively been as characters. There are also some fun whimsical moments of Lex interacting with his cronies.
And continuing with the music idea, Mahler’s tenth symphony existed in outline form only but a music scholar orchestrated it.
I guess if the will was there, The God Thing could be completed by another author.
They could try and get Alan Dean Foster to complete the story and expand it like he did with the last four of his Log book adaptations. The final volume is a monster in terms of page-count, as an adaptation of a twenty minute cartoon story.
Exactly. At this point, there's no actual book to publish, just various partial drafts, outlines, and notes. A full novel based on Roddenberry's old script does not and has never existed. Just a bunch of false starts.
And as for having it completed by another author, that's apparently been tried at least four times now--by Koenig, by Sackett, by Friedman, and by Alexander.
Not sure why we'd think a fifth attempt would succeed any better.
And as for having it completed by another author, that's apparently been tried at least four times now--by Koenig, by Sackett, by Friedman, and by Alexander.
Not sure why we'd think a fifth attempt would succeed any better.
Alan Dean Foster! Great idea!
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