Fade In: The Writing of Star Trek: Insurrection

[darkwing_duck1]

Ok, someone beat me to it...I'll look and see if I can find the other cite about what he was told about not wanting the old guard on the project.

Ok, this isn't the exact post I remember, but it references the same lack of enthusiasm for the "old guard".

http://johneaves.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/table-tops-and-flying-police-the-art-of-trek/

Great fun recollecting those early days of applying to work on the show. I had talked to the art directors on the show several times and after about a month of this it looked fairly certain I was going to have to let this one go,,, Then one day months later I got a call from Christine who was one of the art department Assistants and asked if would like to interview with the Production designer Scott Chambliss??? Why of coarse I would, I had to put a quick book of work together for him to see, so I used rejected images from past films and shows, as well as some of the Perpetual spacecraft designs instead of recognizable Star Trek concepts. I thought if I showed Trek work that was a little off the beaten path, it might help get me a job on a show that openly banned folks that had worked on the prior films and shows!!! It worked, and I am very thankful That Scott Chambliss broke the rules and brought me on!!! One of the first things he asked me was: Will you be influenced by what you’ve done before or can you move on into a new direction??? I could tell it was a big gamble for him to bring me on and he put me on a two week trial basis. fortunately I passed the test and stayed on for about 5 months.

emphasis added

 

[Therin of Andor]

1) Ignore all the canon evidence that the Federation is breaking it's own rules in Insurrection.

2) don't seem to care if they are or not. They're intellectually about a half-step away from Mao, Pol Pot or Stalin in their absolutist "greater good" mantra.

Exactly, but Dougherty has used misinformation and lies to get permission from the Federation Council to assist the Son'a with what turns out to be their own hidden agenda (ie. revenge against the Ba'ku, not just harvesting a version of unobtainium from the planet's rings). As soon as the Federation Council discovered the truth, the whole deal would be off.

And when one of those pro-fans tried using his prior knowledge to establish a baseline of comparison, he was promptly shown the door, so that means exactly squat.

And yet JJ depended on the prior knowledge of non canonical ST from the screenwriters' memories of numerous Star Trek novels.

 

[BillJ]

Exactly, but Dougherty has used misinformation and lies to get permission from the Federation Council to assist the Son'a with what turns out to be their own hidden agenda (ie. revenge against the Ba'ku, not just harvesting a version of unobtainium from the planet's rings). As soon as the Federation Council discovered the truth, the whole deal would be off.

This is nothing but speculation on your part. Nothing in the film points to what type of information Dougherty used to get the mission approved. Hell... we don't even know if it was Dougherty's project to begin with or if he was merely the 'Mission Commander'.

It actually gets tiresome to watch people make unsubstantiated allegations about Dougherty in order to support their position.

Based on the Star Trek I've watched over the years, I'll never get where people believe that the Federation is this benign entity that never does anything in its' best interest.

 

[Captain Robert April]

And when one of those pro-fans tried using his prior knowledge to establish a baseline of comparison, he was promptly shown the door, so that means exactly squat.

And yet JJ depended on the prior knowledge of non canonical ST from the screenwriters' memories of numerous Star Trek novels.

The accuracy of those memories is open to debate. And since when do novels count anyway?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

And when one of those pro-fans tried using his prior knowledge to establish a baseline of comparison, he was promptly shown the door, so that means exactly squat.

And yet JJ depended on the prior knowledge of non canonical ST from the screenwriters' memories of numerous Star Trek novels.

The accuracy of those memories is open to debate. And since when do novels count anyway?

Novels count to the extent that someone writing a filmed production of Trek wants them to count. Who would have told J.J. Abrams, when he was making Star Trek, "No, thou shalt not touch a Star Trek novel!" More importantly, who high up would have cared if Abrams and his writers had looked at a Star Trek novel?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Maybe the author(s) of said novel(s) who might feel a bit slighted in their stories being used without proper credit being given. Which is a big reason why it was decided way back when that novels don't count.

 

[JarodRussell]

Knowing the attitude of the writers here, they don't give a crap what happens to their stories, since they don't even think it's their story.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Maybe the author(s) of said novel(s) who might feel a bit slighted in their stories being used without proper credit being given. Which is a big reason why it was decided way back when that novels don't count.

I'll be honest, Robert, I don't have a clue what you're trying to say here.

Orci and Kurtzman were very honest and open in interviews about the novels that inspired them. Why Pocket Books didn't reprint those novels, with movie-inspired covers, I'll never understand. (And if the authors of, say, Best Destiny and Prime Directive felt slighted last summer, it was because Pocket deprived them of royalty money by not reprinting their books which were getting free advertising left and right.) If by "proper credit" you mean "What goes in a movie's opening credits," the WGA has very strigent guidelines for what's credit-worthy and what's not; the television series Harsh Realms, which was based on a comic book, didn't even credit the comic book's creators because, per WGA guidelines, they weren't actually creators of the television series.

As for "proper credit" as a reason for why "novels don't count," this doesn't even make sense. For practical purposes, it was easier to treat the novels and the comics and the role-playing games as something separate due to the demands of writing and producing twenty to forty episodes a year, but there was never a brightline that prevented someone on the production staff from reading a novel. (It's known that Ronald D. Moore read Star Trek novels at least on occasion, for example.) And while it's true that the novels-only series couldn't carry a "Created By" credit on the title page because Paramount frowned upon that ("Created by" has a very specific meaning in Hollywood lingo), I'm not sure how that leads to your "proper credit" comment.

In other words, Robert, I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say.

 

[ST-One]

Maybe the author(s) of said novel(s) who might feel a bit slighted in their stories being used without proper credit being given. Which is a big reason why it was decided way back when that novels don't count.

Yes, they don't count. You are absolutely right about that.
But you are forgetting the rest.
They don't count/are not 'canon' until stories, ideas, names or characters are used on screen.

 

[Greg Cox]

Maybe the author(s) of said novel(s) who might feel a bit slighted in their stories being used without proper credit being given. Which is a big reason why it was decided way back when that novels don't count.

Nah. That's not the issue. Everything we write belongs to STAR TREK. It says so right on the copyright page. We all understand that . . . .

The novels don't count because no sensible tv or movie producer is going to worry about what happened in a paperback novel that only 2% of his audience read. And certainly nobody is going to rewrite the script of a multimillion dollar movie or tv production because "Wait! This week's episode contradicts something Greg Cox wrote back in 1992 . . . ."

 

[JarodRussell]

The novels don't count because no sensible tv or movie producer is going to worry about what happened in a paperback novel that only 2% of his audience read. And certainly nobody is going to rewrite the script of a multimillion dollar movie or tv production because "Wait! This week's episode contradicts something Greg Cox wrote back in 1992 . . . ."

Wait... why are they holding back these 4 nuTrek novels again?

 

[bullethead]

The novels don't count because no sensible tv or movie producer is going to worry about what happened in a paperback novel that only 2% of his audience read. And certainly nobody is going to rewrite the script of a multimillion dollar movie or tv production because "Wait! This week's episode contradicts something Greg Cox wrote back in 1992 . . . ."

Wait... why are they holding back these 4 nuTrek novels again?

IIRC, Paramount didn't feel comfortable about publishing books for a branch of the Trek franchise that has only one work associated with it. Plus they might use the books as part of their marketing for STXII once they know what it's going to be about.

What I don't get is why they didn't do a bunch of books based around the Kelvin or Pike while waiting for STXII to get off the ground.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The link in the first post seems to be broken....

 

[PsychoPere]

The link in the first post seems to be broken....

As pointed out in the thread a few times, the manuscript was removed at the request of the Piller family.

 

[Christopher]

Wait... why are they holding back these 4 nuTrek novels again?

IIRC, Paramount didn't feel comfortable about publishing books for a branch of the Trek franchise that has only one work associated with it. Plus they might use the books as part of their marketing for STXII once they know what it's going to be about.

No, that's not it. It appears that the reason is that Bad Robot decided that they want to be the ones determining what happens next for these characters, and don't want there to be tie-in materials that get contradicted by later movies. They're apparently going for a tie-in approach that maintains greater consistency.

What I don't get is why they didn't do a bunch of books based around the Kelvin or Pike while waiting for STXII to get off the ground.

There are going to be several young-adult books set during Kirk's three years at Starfleet Academy.


I think what happened was that Pocket's been used to doing things a certain way for a long time, and now they're in a new relationship with a new set of producers who take a different approach. So Pocket was just doing what it's always done with new Trek incarnations: doing tie-ins that go forward from the premiere, facing the risk of contradiction, and so on. And once the word came down that it wasn't going to be done that way this time, it required starting over from scratch, and in publishing that takes a lot of time.

 

[bullethead]

Wait... why are they holding back these 4 nuTrek novels again?

IIRC, Paramount didn't feel comfortable about publishing books for a branch of the Trek franchise that has only one work associated with it. Plus they might use the books as part of their marketing for STXII once they know what it's going to be about.

No, that's not it. It appears that the reason is that Bad Robot decided that they want to be the ones determining what happens next for these characters, and don't want there to be tie-in materials that get contradicted by later movies. They're apparently going for a tie-in approach that maintains greater consistency.

Really? I hadn't heard that. It sounds like a good idea, but it risks some of issues the Halo franchise has had with tie-ins being required knowledge for the next major part of the saga, particularly First Strike and Halo: Downfall or whatever the Halo 3 prequel comic was called.

What I don't get is why they didn't do a bunch of books based around the Kelvin or Pike while waiting for STXII to get off the ground.

There are going to be several young-adult books set during Kirk's three years at Starfleet Academy.

I think what happened was that Pocket's been used to doing things a certain way for a long time, and now they're in a new relationship with a new set of producers who take a different approach. So Pocket was just doing what it's always done with new Trek incarnations: doing tie-ins that go forward from the premiere, facing the risk of contradiction, and so on. And once the word came down that it wasn't going to be done that way this time, it required starting over from scratch, and in publishing that takes a lot of time.

I see. So where do novels that don't immediately follow up their source Trek material fit into this, like The Eugenics War novels and things like that? Are they sort of side projects that are undertaken to test the waters for expanding the brand (like Myriad Universes and the Mirror Universe seem to be) or are they just one off projects?

 

[Christopher]

No, that's not it. It appears that the reason is that Bad Robot decided that they want to be the ones determining what happens next for these characters, and don't want there to be tie-in materials that get contradicted by later movies. They're apparently going for a tie-in approach that maintains greater consistency.

Really? I hadn't heard that. It sounds like a good idea, but it risks some of issues the Halo franchise has had with tie-ins being required knowledge for the next major part of the saga, particularly First Strike and Halo: Downfall or whatever the Halo 3 prequel comic was called.

Not really. There's a difference between keeping tie-ins consistent and actually having them contribute necessary information. Consistency doesn't have to mean that two things directly reference each other, just that they don't directly contradict each other. For instance, all my Trek Lit novels and stories are consistent with each other, yet the events of, say, "As Others See Us" are not referenced directly in anything else I've written (to date). They just aren't contradicted.

I think what happened was that Pocket's been used to doing things a certain way for a long time, and now they're in a new relationship with a new set of producers who take a different approach. So Pocket was just doing what it's always done with new Trek incarnations: doing tie-ins that go forward from the premiere, facing the risk of contradiction, and so on. And once the word came down that it wasn't going to be done that way this time, it required starting over from scratch, and in publishing that takes a lot of time.

I see. So where do novels that don't immediately follow up their source Trek material fit into this, like The Eugenics War novels and things like that? Are they sort of side projects that are undertaken to test the waters for expanding the brand (like Myriad Universes and the Mirror Universe seem to be) or are they just one off projects?

When I said Pocket did what it's always done with new Trek incarnations, I didn't mean that was its overarching approach to everything and that "exceptions" would need to be justified somehow. I was only talking about its approach to tie-ins based on new screen incarnations of ST. I was saying that Pocket's intended approach to Abramsverse tie-ins was basically the same one that was used with TNG, DS9, VGR, and ENT tie-ins. I wasn't implying some sort of blanket generalization beyond that. Obviously Pocket has plenty of ongoing series that aren't direct show tie-ins, such as New Frontier, Corps of Engineers, Titan, Vanguard, and the like.

 

[Greg Cox]

I see. So where do novels that don't immediately follow up their source Trek material fit into this, like The Eugenics War novels and things like that? Are they sort of side projects that are undertaken to test the waters for expanding the brand (like Myriad Universes and the Mirror Universe seem to be) or are they just one off projects?

It's probably worth pointing out that the Eugenics Wars books were written eight years, four editors, and a whole different Hollywood regime ago. I'm not sure they're a reliable indicator of how STAR TREK books work these days!

The EW books happened because John Ordover thought it was a cool idea, and Paula Block at Paramount agreed. Nothing more complicated than that.

Of course, neither John or Paula are around anymore.

 

[David cgc]

IIRC, Paramount didn't feel comfortable about publishing books for a branch of the Trek franchise that has only one work associated with it. Plus they might use the books as part of their marketing for STXII once they know what it's going to be about.

No, that's not it. It appears that the reason is that Bad Robot decided that they want to be the ones determining what happens next for these characters, and don't want there to be tie-in materials that get contradicted by later movies. They're apparently going for a tie-in approach that maintains greater consistency.

Really? I hadn't heard that. It sounds like a good idea, but it risks some of issues the Halo franchise has had with tie-ins being required knowledge for the next major part of the saga, particularly First Strike and Halo: Downfall or whatever the Halo 3 prequel comic was called.

And on the other side of the coin, I've seen fans that are absolutely apoplectic about contradictions between the novel "Halo: The Fall of Reach" released almost a decade ago after the first game, and the recent "Halo: Reach" video game, which are both prequels to the first game and take rather different approaches to the titular planetary invasion, as well as some other details. How horrifying this is depends mostly on how relaxed and groovy you are towards casual contradictions and fanwanky reconciliations (in fact, I understand the special edition of the game included several such explanations for apparent contractions between the novel and the game in the included bonus material). Still doesn't explain why the novels insisted the human spaceships are either zero-g or have rotating sections, while every one of the games depicted them with space-opera artificial gravity, which should've been a bit of a hint that the books weren't quite the perfectly consistent gospel truth they were advertised as.

So, Bungie kept a tighter grip on their continuity, and they paid the price when they wanted to establish something else in the franchise's primary medium later on.

 

[Greg Cox]

Exactly. With tie-in books, you always run the risk of being contradicted down the road. And few franchises are going to rewrite a major movie or game release because of a paperback novel written umpteen years ago.

My first UNDERWORLD prequel, which was written right after the first movie came, was perfectly consistent with everything we knew about UNDERWORLD at that time. But it's been rendered apocryphal by the subsequent movies in the series--which is just the way it works sometimes. Nobody, least of all me, expected the movie series to adhere religiously to the stuff I invented in BLOOD ENEMY . . ..

When it came time to novelize RISE OF THE LYCANS, I had the singular experience of writing the new "official" prequel--which completely contradicted my own previous book!