Harlan Ellison COTEF Lawsuit Gains Momentum

[Maurice]

As Captain Robert April rightly points out, people are comparing Ellison's frist draft (printed because it's that version that won the WGA award) to the completed episode. we have not seen the last version out of Ellison's typewriter, so no one can say with any certainty what changes were by the Trek staff and what were done by Ellison before they started rewriting him...well, ok, we can tell which bits are obviously the work of the staff: the aforementioned "humor" and bland homiles.

Frankly, I can't understand the love for the televised episode. I suspect that people have a soft spot for it because they have seen it so many times and it's conceptually one of the better Star Trek ideas. But it traffics in so many of the tropes that people pillory other episodes for

1. Inappropriate humor. My God, everything they knew, their ship, their families, everyone they ever knew, their entire civilization has ceased to exist, and they are making cutesy with the "mechanical rice picker" and "stone knives and bear skins". Except for Kirk occasionally lamenting over "Edith Keeler must die" there is too much light tone. This is like one of those inappropriate laugh moments at the end of an episode where people have died...only in bigger does throughout the episode. Tonally, it's a mess.

2. Edith's speech. What a pile of drivel. Roddenberry and company give her this leaden donut to spit out:

Now, let's start by getting one thing straight. I'm not a do-gooder. If you're a bum, if you can't break off of the booze or whatever it is that makes you a bad risk, then get out. Now I don't pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love when every day is just a struggle to survive, but I do insist that you do survive because the days and the years ahead are worth living for. One day soon man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future, and those are the days worth living for. Our deserts will bloom...
...Prepare for tomorrow. Get ready. Don't give up.
​

Ellison's Edith gives a speech that is the very kind of thing his model for her (Sister Aimee McPherson) would have given:

Shadow and reality, my friends. That's the secret of getting through these hard times. Know what is, and what only seems to be. Hunger is real and so is cold. But sadness is not. And it is the sadness that will kill you, that will ruin you. You all go to bed a little hungry every night, but it is possible to find peace in sleep knowing you have lived another day, and hurt no one doing it. Love is only the absence of hate.
​

And it's not just that speech, Ellison's characters talk like real people, not in that stilted Star Trek sort of way. Sure there are clumsy places, but for a first draft it's astonishing.

EDITH
There are times when you say things
that don't mean what you said, know
what I mean?

KIRK
Why do you say that?

EDITH
Sometimes you seem, well, disoriented,
Jim, like a man fresh from the country.

KIRK
Iowa?

EDITH
(dead serious)
Further away than that.

KIRK
"When night proceeds to fall, all men
become strangers..."

EDITH
It's true. Who said it, I don't recognize it.
​

etc.

3. McCoy shooting himself with a hypo. Character assassination, pure and simple.

4. They bum vaporizing himself with McCoy's phaser. A pointless bit of business because no one knows it happens, so it serves no dramatic purpose whatsoever. Trooper's death in Ellison's script raises a question about who matters and who doesn't, but what was done in the episode was just pointless.


Finally, as to the Guardian of Forever: As portrayed it is not a creation of Roddenberry or the other writers. By Ellison's 2nd draft he's already made it the disembodied voice of the time vortex, so the idea that the Trek staff made it better ignores that fact that the donut is just the shape they chose for the vortex, which is entirely Ellison's creation.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

The Condor is a good example, though--sure, HE added it because GR said there had to be a threat to the ship but why that threat? Hell, a ship full of Nazis would have made more sense. (I always preferred to think that, in that timeline, humans have either gone extinct or are scurrying about the radioactive ruins of Earth like a croiss between Mad Max and A Canticle for Liebowitz but still...) Granted, GR was full of shit to demand such a plot--he had no trouble excising it--but the solution HE came up with was just tonally off, like the rest of the script.

 

[Maurice]

The Condor is a good example, though--sure, HE added it because GR said there had to be a threat to the ship but why that threat? Hell, a ship full of Nazis would have made more sense. (I always preferred to think that, in that timeline, humans have either gone extinct or are scurrying about the radioactive ruins of Earth like a croiss between Mad Max and A Canticle for Liebowitz but still...) Granted, GR was full of shit to demand such a plot--he had no trouble excising it--but the solution HE came up with was just tonally off, like the rest of the script.

But Ellison's script doesn't explicitly say why Edith must die. Spock speculates on one of the million things her living could do to cause history to change. Kirk even tells him "That's insanity."

 

[Brutal Strudel]

But we see Janice Rand fighting off ye olde spasse pyrats in the transporter room.

 

[Photoman15]

3. McCoy shooting himself with a hypo. Character assassination, pure and simple.

IIRC, McCoy shot himself by accident. He didn't plan on it. The ship rocked as he was administering to his patient on the bridge.

4. They bum vaporizing himself with McCoy's phaser. A pointless bit of business because no one knows it happens, so it serves no dramatic purpose whatsoever. Trooper's death in Ellison's script raises a question about who matters and who doesn't, but what was done in the episode was just pointless.

It did do those who grasped it at the time. The bum replaced Trooper. He died. No change in the timeline (that we could see). He didn't matter. What happened to Edith mattered. Maybe you were too young or not enlightened at the time to realize "the bum" served the same purpose as well as a warning about leaving 23rd century weapons around carelessly.
[/quote]

Finally, as to the Guardian of Forever: As portrayed it is not a creation of Roddenberry or the other writers. By Ellison's 2nd draft he's already made it the disembodied voice of the time vortex, so the idea that the Trek staff made it better ignores that fact that the donut is just the shape they chose for the vortex, which is entirely Ellison's creation.

The set decorators misread the instructions. HE's story (and the script called for a set of Runes and they thought it said ruins. HE says so in his diatribe.

 

[Maurice]

3. McCoy shooting himself with a hypo. Character assassination, pure and simple.

IIRC, McCoy shot himself by accident. He didn't plan on it. The ship rocked as he was administering to his patient on the bridge.

Which still makes him look like an idiot. Let's use a cop show analogy: "Here I am with a 44 magnum and I'll hold it in such a way, cocked and with the safety off, so that when someone bumps me it'll go off."

4. They bum vaporizing himself with McCoy's phaser....

It did do those who grasped it at the time. The bum replaced Trooper. He died. No change in the timeline (that we could see). He didn't matter. What happened to Edith mattered. Maybe you were too young or not enlightened at the time to realize "the bum" served the same purpose...

"Maybe you were too young or not enlightened at the time" is an insult and doesn't merit further comment.

....as well as a warning about leaving 23rd century weapons around carelessly.

You seriously think that was a story point?

Finally, as to the Guardian of Forever: As portrayed it is not a creation of Roddenberry or the other writers....

The set decorators misread the instructions. HE's story (and the script called for a set of Runes and they thought it said ruins. HE says so in his diatribe.

Which utterly misses my point: which is that in these threads there is repeated critique of the Guardians of Forever as portrayed in Ellison's first draft, and the insinuation that Roddenberry & Co. improved it, which ignores that what we got on screen was what Ellison described starting in his second draft: a disembodied voice from the time vortex.

 

[Gepard]

But we see Janice Rand fighting off ye olde spasse pyrats in the transporter room.

Aaaaaand...my opinion of Roddenberry dives another notch.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

As Captain Robert April rightly points out, people are comparing Ellison's frist draft (printed because it's that version that won the WGA award) to the completed episode. we have not seen the last version out of Ellison's typewriter, so no one can say with any certainty what changes were by the Trek staff and what were done by Ellison before they started rewriting him...well, ok, we can tell which bits are obviously the work of the staff: the aforementioned "humor" and bland homiles.

Frankly, I can't understand the love for the televised episode. I suspect that people have a soft spot for it because they have seen it so many times and it's conceptually one of the better Star Trek ideas. But it traffics in so many of the tropes that people pillory other episodes for

1. Inappropriate humor. My God, everything they knew, their ship, their families, everyone they ever knew, their entire civilization has ceased to exist, and they are making cutesy with the "mechanical rice picker" and "stone knives and bear skins". Except for Kirk occasionally lamenting over "Edith Keeler must die" there is too much light tone. This is like one of those inappropriate laugh moments at the end of an episode where people have died...only in bigger does throughout the episode. Tonally, it's a mess.

2. Edith's speech. What a pile of drivel. Roddenberry and company give her this leaden donut to spit out:

Now, let's start by getting one thing straight. I'm not a do-gooder. If you're a bum, if you can't break off of the booze or whatever it is that makes you a bad risk, then get out. Now I don't pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love when every day is just a struggle to survive, but I do insist that you do survive because the days and the years ahead are worth living for. One day soon man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future, and those are the days worth living for. Our deserts will bloom...
...Prepare for tomorrow. Get ready. Don't give up.
​

Ellison's Edith gives a speech that is the very kind of thing his model for her (Sister Aimee McPherson) would have given:

Shadow and reality, my friends. That's the secret of getting through these hard times. Know what is, and what only seems to be. Hunger is real and so is cold. But sadness is not. And it is the sadness that will kill you, that will ruin you. You all go to bed a little hungry every night, but it is possible to find peace in sleep knowing you have lived another day, and hurt no one doing it. Love is only the absence of hate.
​

And it's not just that speech, Ellison's characters talk like real people, not in that stilted Star Trek sort of way. Sure there are clumsy places, but for a first draft it's astonishing.

EDITH
There are times when you say things
that don't mean what you said, know
what I mean?​

KIRK
Why do you say that?​

EDITH
Sometimes you seem, well, disoriented,
Jim, like a man fresh from the country.​

KIRK
Iowa?​

EDITH
(dead serious)
Further away than that.​

KIRK
"When night proceeds to fall, all men
become strangers..."​

EDITH
It's true. Who said it, I don't recognize it.​

etc.

3. McCoy shooting himself with a hypo. Character assassination, pure and simple.

4. They bum vaporizing himself with McCoy's phaser. A pointless bit of business because no one knows it happens, so it serves no dramatic purpose whatsoever. Trooper's death in Ellison's script raises a question about who matters and who doesn't, but what was done in the episode was just pointless.


Finally, as to the Guardian of Forever: As portrayed it is not a creation of Roddenberry or the other writers. By Ellison's 2nd draft he's already made it the disembodied voice of the time vortex, so the idea that the Trek staff made it better ignores that fact that the donut is just the shape they chose for the vortex, which is entirely Ellison's creation.

I'll gladly concede several points there: the "mechanical rice-picker" scene is stupid, unfunny and relects Hollywood's weird obsession with pretending that obvious non-Asians (Nimoy, Carradine) look somehow Asian. ("Stone knives and bear skins" I like--I don't think Kirk and Spock should be entirely dour during the episode; until Kirk is aware that Edith must die, I think it fitting they approach the mission with same sang-froid they appraoch all their missions.)

And yeah, you're right about the Gandalfs vs. the Donut. It doesn't change the fact that the Gandalfs are in the draft that was hyped as being so superior, as was the Condor. I'm an Ellison fan. He's written some great stuff. That draft isn't among them.

(Full disclosure: I think the filmed ep is slightly over-rated.)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I largely agree with what your saying here Dennis, but as you well know, TWZ was an anthology. It could more afford to be inconsistent in tone and even quality. That also brings up production quality. Considering how ambitious Ellison's original story was, did the producer's have the budget to make it?

Ellison rewrote the script several times to bring it closer to budgetary requirements; the version that he favors now is not necessarily what was his final attempt to fit the thing into Star Trek. That said, the thing could have been revised into compliance with budget without the wholesale trashing of character and incident that happened along the way; some wonderful dialogue and character gets lost because someone who wasn't fit to copy-edit Ellison got involved in the rewrite.

Roddenberry initially proposed Star Trek as a show that would combine the advantages of an anthology series with those of having continuing characters. In the long run we got a lot more of the latter than the former and as a result the original potential of the series is seen mainly in the first year.

And Star Trek was quite inconsistent in tone and quality, throughout its run. What it quickly became after the first year, for several reasons including Roddenberry's limited imagination, was static as well.

Would a more dynamic, inventive and challenging version of Star Trek have been as successful? God knows, it might have been cancelled after two years instead of three - and just consider what prodigious works of drama that would have denied us. Beyond that, folks on the Internet probably wouldn't be able to debate the minutiae of warp coil technology with such extensive encyclopedic references for support.

 

[Maurice]

And yeah, you're right about the Gandalfs vs. the Donut. It doesn't change the fact that the Gandalfs are in the draft that was hyped as being so superior, as was the Condor. I'm an Ellison fan. He's written some great stuff. That draft isn't among them.

(Full disclosure: I think the filmed ep is slightly over-rated.)

I happen to like the Guardians as originally described, but that's a matter of taste and I'm not going to argue taste.

I have to disagree about the first draft not being great, it's got plenty of flaws, and I'd be happy to list them, but thematically it's spot-on and many of the scenes are brilliant.

 

[Data Holmes]

The guys over at Phase II should let HE make his version of City.

 

[trevanian]

Why? Who is Trooper? Why would an average television/Trek viewer in 1966-68 care about Trooper? He wasn't a regular character. He wasn't someone in history that people would know about. For the story, it was fine, for the weekly television show "STAR TREK" is was unneeded.

Lets just change the episode and see how this reads:

Why? Who is Kevin Riley? Why would an average television/Trek viewer in 1966-68 care about Riley? He wasn't a regular character. He wasn't someone in history that people would know about. For the story, it was fine, for the weekly television show "STAR TREK"
​

Kevin Riley was the guest "bad guy", but not in the classical sense. He represented the danger to the ship (and characters) that the hero(es) had to overcome. Viewers didn't really care about Riley.​

Baloney, Riley was one of my favorite characters from TOS, even with only two appearances. And he must have registered with others, since he is practically the main character in Gerrold's GALACTIC WHIRLPOOL.

But more on target w/ respect to Trooper. There is a small part in the NOVEL not film of CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, a military copter guy who goes against gov't orders to help Ryan rescue some troops. This copter guy is only there for a few pages, but when he gets terminally wounded and is lying there in the copter dying, wondering how his kids are going to get by w/o him, Ryan leans in and tells the guy that all of his kids are going to college. Now I don't think of Tom Clancy writing as being anything particularly moving, but any time that I recall the passage, let alone reread it, I am moved to tears.

Trooper works like that for me.​

 

[trevanian]

The better version of the story is the one that aired. The drama is far better served having Kirk let her die rather than having Spock do it. I have been asking my NON-trek fans this question for YEARS and most agree; Kirk letting her die was 'sadder'.

I keep saying I like Ellison's version more, but I will concede that the way Pevney shot the 'Kirk holds Bones back' part MAKES the aired version work very well. I'm thinking they were lucky here ... outside of Daniels or Pevney or Senensky (oman, I'd've KILLED for Senensky to do CITY), there aren't many Trek directors who would have made that scene work half as well.

 

[Harvey]

The guys over at Phase II should let HE make his version of City.

Ellison would never let his work be made into a freely distributed fan film. He'd want to get paid for his work.

 

[Red Ranger]

Keep in mind that Harlan Ellison also trademarked his name and now controls all use of his name as a result. No joke.

He's suing you next. You used his name! Shame! -- RR

 

[Ward Fowler]

That said, the thing could have been revised into compliance with budget without the wholesale trashing of character and incident that happened along the way; some wonderful dialogue and character gets lost because someone who wasn't fit to copy-edit Ellison got involved in the rewrite.

Agreed

Roddenberry initially proposed Star Trek as a show that would combine the advantages of an anthology series with those of having continuing characters. In the long run we got a lot more of the latter than the former and as a result the original potential of the series is seen mainly in the first year.

That would largely explain the different feel the first dozen or so episodes had as well as, IMO, their superior quality when held up to to the rest of the series as a whole. Some of the early shows did seem to have an almost "Outer Limits" character about them.

Beyond that, folks on the Internet probably wouldn't be able to debate the minutiae of warp coil technology with such extensive encyclopedic references for support.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That would largely explain the different feel the first dozen or so episodes had as well as, IMO, their superior quality when held up to to the rest of the series as a whole. Some of the early shows did seem to have an almost "Outer Limits" character about them.

Agreed. The problem there, as has been noted by a number of people including, I believe, David Gerrold in his "The World Of Star Trek" book, is that when you have actors under contract who are being paid and promoted by the studio and network as the "face" of the series sooner or later executives start asking "why aren't the shows focusing on these guys?"

Quinn Martin and Roy Huggins specialized for a while in a different approach to melding continuing series stars and anthology stories, the "runner show." Every week Richard Kimble or Paul Bryan or David Vincent would find themselves in new surroundings, involved in the lives of a handful of guest characters and the crux of the week's drama would generally revolve around life-changing events for those people.

 

[Data Holmes]

That would largely explain the different feel the first dozen or so episodes had as well as, IMO, their superior quality when held up to to the rest of the series as a whole. Some of the early shows did seem to have an almost "Outer Limits" character about them.

Agreed. The problem there, as has been noted by a number of people including, I believe, David Gerrold in his "The World Of Star Trek" book, is that when you have actors under contract who are being paid and promoted by the studio and network as the "face" of the series sooner or later executives start asking "why aren't the shows focusing on these guys?"

Quinn Martin and Roy Huggins specialized for a while in a different approach to melding continuing series stars and anthology stories, the "runner show." Every week Richard Kimble or Paul Bryan or David Vincent would find themselves in new surroundings, involved in the lives of a handful of guest characters and the crux of the week's drama would generally revolve around life-changing events for those people.

Huh... reading that made me think of a lot of the shows I grew up watching with my grandfather. Quantum leap, airwolf, a team, knight rider...

This approach seems to have caught on and used up till at least the early 90's before it burnt out.

 

[Ward Fowler]

and let's not forget The Incredible Hulk.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^Or The Magician.