Star Trek II: The God Thing

[HIjol]

I'm certain I've seen cover art for a novel of The God Thing. I hope it wasn't a fake!

It's not a fake. Pocket printed the dust jackets for Michael Jan Friedman's novel expansion of Roddenberry's screenplay. I've seen one of them; Friedman sold the one he had to a friend of mine.

Steve Roby has the most detailed website on The God-Thing.

wow!...just read the detail at Roby's site...you were not kidding...lot of good stuff there...

 

[publiusr]

Now wasn't there a ST II story treatment of a male and female duo that found Khan?

 

[pfontaine2]

This script excerpt read much better than I ever anticipated. I could never quite imagine how the story description could have been made into a movie but Roddenberry did a nice job here. Yes, it's fascinating to see bits of things that got reused in the first motion picture. I truly hope this entire document gets released as it's certainly an important part of Trek lore.

 

[trevanian]

Now wasn't there a ST II story treatment of a male and female duo that found Khan?

They REPLACED Khan as the antagonist, they didn't feature along with him. Was Peeples' take on things, which also introduced Saavik being female.

 

[JJTrek4ever!]

Soooo.... not that I am in the slightest bit ungrateful, but what conditions need to be met before the release of the full script by the good people at MissionLogPodcast.com? That said, the description of the propellant loading procedure (before the NCC-1701's propulsion reactor was moved to the secondary hull for Phase II/TMP) and Earth's on-orbit infrastructure caused the involuntary ruination of one perfectly good office chair.

 

[Nightowl1701]

That's probably why they only posted the first 20 pages so far (they've certainly got the full script) - they're waiting a few days to see if the full weight of Paramount Mountain comes crashing down on their heads. If nothing happens in, say, a week, they'll presumably put up the whole document. Can't see what harm it could do at this point; Gene and Majel are long gone, and if Rod/Paramount were going to do anything with it they'd have done it by now.

 

[otomo]

Wow this is really cool. Hope we get to see the whole thing.

 

[trevanian]

Even though I bet it is filled with scientific howlers that would make out of date references to Mercury keeping one side facing the sun at all times seem modest by comparison, I am still craving the release of any treatment or screenplay for PLANET OF THE TITANS. The general storyline just sounds like it could make for a decent generic trek adventure movie even if it may not have made a great TOS story.

 

[JJTrek4ever!]

The general storyline just sounds like it could make for a decent generic trek adventure movie even if it may not have made a great TOS story.

Is seems to me that both TGT and PotT owe more than a little to the scribblings of Erich von Däniken, what with the 1970s being the 1970s (*fondly recalls late fashion-obsessed mother thumping her autographed copy of Chariots of the Gods? like a KJV Bible*). TGT in particular sounds suspiciously like The Great Bird was flicking through R.L. Dione's God Drives A Flying Saucer and Barry H. Downing's The Bible & Flying Saucers while at the typewriter.

 

[Kevman7987]

Can't see what harm it could do at this point; Gene and Majel are long gone, and if Rod/Paramount were going to do anything with it they'd have done it by now.

Rod is the one who put their entire podcast together so I highly doubt they will run into any legal issues.

 

[publiusr]

Even though I bet it is filled with scientific howlers that would make out of date references to Mercury keeping one side facing the sun at all times seem modest by comparison, I am still craving the release of any treatment or screenplay for PLANET OF THE TITANS. The general storyline just sounds like it could make for a decent generic trek adventure movie even if it may not have made a great TOS story.

I just wish we could have seen a full sized Ken Adam ship model and not just the study models. Drax's station in Moonraker is probably what Adam had in mind for the Enterprise set

 

[trevanian]

MOONRAKER is definitely the beneficiary of Adam's months on TITANS. But there's a lot of serendipity at work on MR, given that for the first time the Bond people abandoned England to shoot in France, and were able to use Pompidou Centre for some bits, which also fits with the hamster tube approach seen aboard the station and on the ground in Drax's Venice lab.

The Mondrian-style launch complex interior is utterly wonderful, and I could easily see something like that in TITANS if there had been any slight justification to go that route. The 'space brain' TITANS sketches are hard for me to figure out, as it looks like a base made out of rock candy.

 

[Captrek]

Now wasn't there a ST II story treatment of a male and female duo that found Khan?

They REPLACED Khan as the antagonist, they didn't feature along with him. Was Peeples' take on things, which also introduced Saavik being female.

I'm a big fan of Peeples' teleplay for WNMHGB, and have always wanted to read his "Worlds That Never Were" screenplay for the second Trek film. Is it available anywhere?

 

[trevanian]

You got me. I kinda think that maybe folks at STAR TREK THE MAGAZINE may have had a copy, since they included some info about it in an issue that didn't appear in TMOST2, like the polar bear crewmember, but that's just a guess.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

^^^I saw a copy a while back being sold on some ebay-like site for a couple hundred bucks. Not that interested...

Sir Rhosis

 

[Ssosmcin]

How does the novelization compare to the script?

Novelization?

The TMP novelization, I'd assume. And there are several concepts which leaked into Roddenberry's later novel, including the notion of Spock telepathically linking with Kirk while kneeling before the High Masters on Vulcan (in the very opening of the script), etc.

That particular one didn't make it into the final film, and it's clear that Gene decided to reuse several of them when writing the book.

He also used some of the transporter accident description as well.

 

[JJTrek4ever!]

I really don't want to cast into the role of the thread's resident whiny bitch, but what are Rod Roddenberry's intentions concerning the release of the full ST:TGT script? I'd be perfectly happy to purchase a copy (or ten) from Roddenberry.com if that is the plan, but some sort of timetable would be very much appreciated.

 

[trevanian]

He probably needs to find some ghostwriter to take all the italics out of moments like God's wrath PULVERIZES Sulu below the waist, instantly vaporizing his legs!

 

[JJTrek4ever!]

He probably needs to find some ghostwriter to take all the italics out of moments like God's wrath PULVERIZES Sulu below the waist, instantly vaporizing his legs!

*pictures the introduction to Eddie Murphy's character in Trading Places*

Luckily the piece of writing in question is a screenplay (where italics or UPPER CASE are apparently accepted methods of describing sequences not involving dialog) as opposed to a novelization.

 

[trevanian]

I remember getting my spec kicked back from agents just because I had one sentence italicized in 1989 ... I was differentiating from the other big moments that used underline and caps, which were okay, because this was a big big moment (character shot with a Gyrojet, essentially a rocket propelled bullet) but they still mostly said 'can't do that.'