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Spoilers Discovery and the Novelverse - TV show discussion thread

Christopher said:
That's because the novel was actually released before the film. The hardcover edition came out in March '66, then the film was released in late August and the paperback came out in September to cross-promote with it. It's hard to believe in these spoiler-phobic times, but a lot of movie novelizations used to be released ahead of time to build interest for the film. After all, many films were adaptations of novels, so having prior knowledge of a story from a book was seen as something that would create more interest in a film, not "spoil" it as we assume today.
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Another thing that's worth noting, is the scarcity of multiplex theaters outside of large cities in America in the past. I live in a rural area, and pre 1980 you would be hard pressed to find a theater with more than one screen. That theater might be the only one among a handful of counties. So, if you wanted to see something that wasn't a #1 hit you were likely SOL.

What every little town did have though was a drugstore or a 5 and dime that might carry a selection of paperback books. The novelization might be as close to seeing some of these movies until the rise of the mom and pop video stores.

One other thing: before The Godfather and Jaws most movies were released via slow rollout, I believe. You start in big cities to test the waters and move out from there. So, if you're in Topeka and are looking forward to a new movie, but it bombs in NY or LA you will probably have to cross your fingers and hope that it gets shown on tv in a few years. Or you could read the novel version.
 
marlboro said:
What every little town did have though was a drugstore or a 5 and dime that might carry a selection of paperback books. The novelization might be as close to seeing some of these movies until the rise of the mom and pop video stores.
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You're forgetting that movies would usually premiere on TV a couple of years after their theatrical release, although they'd be pan-and-scanned, edited for content, and broken up with commercials. That was the main way that people got to see movies they missed in the theater.

When I was a kid, my family had a number of movie theaters in convenient range, but we didn't go to movies that often, whereas we were avid readers. So I routinely read the novelizations of movies (a sizeable percentage of them by Alan Dean Foster) well before I ever got around to seeing them, either theatrically or (more commonly) on TV years later.
 
The Wormhole said:
Yeah, I remember the novelization of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes left out the movie's final scene.
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There was another movie, RED RIDING HOOD (2011), where you had to go to a website to download the final chapter . . . after the movie was released. As I recall, that didn't go over well with readers. Not sure anybody has tried it since.

And, yes, back in the day, you could read the novelization if you missed the movie in the theaters--and didn't want a wait a year or two for it to show up on the Sunday Night Movie or whatever.

I remember BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES only played at my local drive-in for about a week, so I ended up missing it. Thank goodness for the novelization by David Gerrold, which I still prefer to the actual movie, which I didn't get to see until a year or so later--and found disappointing compared to the novelization.
 
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marlboro said:
Didn't they explain the differing Trill in Forged in Fire? Augment Virus infection, I think it was.
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Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.

I hadn't thought about it until it was mentioned here, but the serialized nature really does pose a challenge when it comes to writing tie-in novels. It will be interesting to see how that is dealt with.
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A few shows have found a way, some have done what Discovery does and have done prequels, and a few have managed to find gaps to fill. Both Gotham and Arrow's latest novels fill in some time gaps between seasons. Arrow's latest covers what happened between the seasons 5 and 6 and deals with the aftermath of Chase's death, and Gotham's is set between Season 3 and 4 and explores Gordon's early days as a bounty hunter.
Greg Cox said:
What Happened to Mary (1912) is often cited as the first movie novelization, although technically it ran as a magazine serial first before being collected in book form. But many long-forgotten silent melodramas were novelized, enough so that you actually had writers churning out several of them in their careers, while the word "novelization" is possibly older than movies. (There were once novelizations of stageplays.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Happened_to_Mary

Notable movies that got the novelization treatment were The Thief of Bagdad (1925), The Jazz Singer (1927), and King Kong (1933).

Believe it or not, I actually did a presentation on the topic at the Library of Congress a few years back!
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They have recently released two new versions of the King Kong novelization, one was a "complete rewrite" by Joe Devito and Brad Strickland released as a promotion for the Peter Jackson movie, and a new edition of the original version by Edgar Wallace and Marion C. Cooper was released last September.
 
The trend I’ve noticed recently is thst the novelisation comes out at about the time the movie is released; but a prequel novel is published a couple of months before.
 
David Weller said:
The trend I’ve noticed recently is thst the novelisation comes out at about the time the movie is released; but a prequel novel is published a couple of months before.
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Yes, that's what they did with the last two PLANET OF THE APES movies. The prequels preceded the movies, whereas the actual novelizations came out about five days after the movie was released, which is becoming more and more common.
 
JD said:
Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar.


A few shows have found a way, some have done what Discovery does and have done prequels, and a few have managed to find gaps to fill. Both Gotham and Arrow's latest novels fill in some time gaps between seasons. Arrow's latest covers what happened between the seasons 5 and 6 and deals with the aftermath of Chase's death, and Gotham's is set between Season 3 and 4 and explores Gordon's early days as a bounty hunter.

They have recently released two new versions of the King Kong novelization, one was a "complete rewrite" by Joe Devito and Brad Strickland released as a promotion for the Peter Jackson movie, and a new edition of the original version by Edgar Wallace and Marion C. Cooper was released last September.
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King Kong. Two things I just found out: The novelization features the "lost" spider pit scene. Also, there was also a 15 part radio version produced in '33. The scripts exist but no recordings have turned up. Man, I would love to hear that.
 
That original KING KONG novelization tends to get reissued whenever the movie gets remade. They reprinted it when the 1976 remake came out, too, with brand-new cover art by Frank Frazetta. (That was the edition I read as a teen.)

And, yeah, to bring us back OT, you grow up reading novelizations and TV tie-in books, you never expect them to be considered binding by the source material.. I mean, I'm pretty sure THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY AT THE HAUNTED HOUSE was never treated as "canon" or whatever. Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it back in the day.

(And, yes, I still have a copy.)
 
Christopher said:
The novelization of The Empire Strikes Back also came out a month ahead of the film -- yes, they gave away the huge twist a month in advance, and they didn't see a problem with that.
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Which seems ironic considering how secretive that twist was on set, that only like a handful of people in the entire production knew. Not even the actor who played Vader in that scene knew, the line said on set was 'Obi-Wan killed your father'. That actually leaked out IIRC.
 
Greg Cox said:
Yes, that's what they did with the last two PLANET OF THE APES movies. The prequels preceded the movies, whereas the actual novelizations came out about five days after the movie was released, which is becoming more and more common.
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What I found odd is that comics seems to do the novealisations much later?
 
JoeZhang said:
What I found odd is that comics seems to do the novealisations much later?
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What I found odd was that the second and third films were novelised with prequels but the first one wasn’t.

Also, Alien: Covenant was novelised with a prequel but Prometheus wasn’t.
 
Christopher said:
The novelization of The Empire Strikes Back also came out a month ahead of the film -- yes, they gave away the huge twist a month in advance, and they didn't see a problem with that.
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That was before the internet turned "spoilers" into a cottage industry. Heck, that was before the internet . . . .

That being said, a friend actually spoiled me on the Darth Vader twist before I could stop her. She called me in excitement, after reading the novelization, and left a note for me at my dorm room. Before I realized what I was reading . . . it was too late!
 
Greg Cox said:
That being said, a friend actually spoiled me on the Darth Vader twist before I could stop her. She called me in excitement, after reading the novelization, and left a note for me at my dorm room. Before I realized what I was reading . . . it was too late!
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I'm not sure my memory on this is accurate, but I think that when I was leaving the theater after seeing Empire, I was talking loudly to my family about the Vader twist and got some glares from the people going into the theater. Oops!
 
Greg Cox said:
True story: Many, many years ago, a studio wouldn't let me put "Based on the Hit Movie!" on the front cover of a novelization because, "Honestly, Greg, we don't think it's going to be a hit."

(It was clear that the studio had already pretty much written the movie off.)

We compromised on "Based on the Major Motion Picture!" :)
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Well, that’s a lot better than “THE EXTRAORDINARY NEW NOVEL BASED ON PARAMOUNT PICTURES’ SUPREME SPACE ADVENTURE!” that was in the covers of McIntyre’s STII and STIII novelizations.
 
David Weller said:
What I found odd was that the second and third films were novelised with prequels but the first one wasn’t.

Also, Alien: Covenant was novelised with a prequel but Prometheus wasn’t.
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I assume no publisher bought the rights to RISE, or that the studio didn't want to sell the rights.

To make a novelization happen, you need at least three things: a publisher who wants to pay for the rights to do a novelization, a studio willing to sell those rights, and a price both can agree on.

Sometimes the stars just don't come together . . . .

True story: I edited at least two fully-written novelizations that never saw the light of day because the deal with the studio fell through at the last minute. (Both times I made sure the authors got paid in full anyway.)
 
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Christopher said:
I'm not sure my memory on this is accurate, but I think that when I was leaving the theater after seeing Empire, I was talking loudly to my family about the Vader twist and got some glares from the people going into the theater. Oops!
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Hey, if it's good enough for Homer :lol:
 
Greg Cox said:
I assume no publisher bought the rights to RISE, or that the studio didn't want to sell the rights.

To make a novelization happen, you need at least three things: a publisher who wants to pay for the rights to do a novelization, a studio willing to sell those rights, and a price both can agree on.

Sometimes the stars just don't come together . . . .

True story: I edited at least two fully-written novelizations that never saw the light of day because the deal with the studio fell through at the last minute. (Both times I made sure the authors got paid in full anyway.)
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Yeah, I understand that but it slightly irks me that I have book series based round movies with gaps in them.
 
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