Star Trek Insurrection by J.M. Dillard Review Thread (27th Anniversary)

[Admiral_Young]

True. Novelizations are written from non-final scripts (see Kirk getting shot in the back in the hardcover edition of the Generations novelization), and the studios in general became tighter on timelines and more restrictive on access. I feel like I've heard an account of a novelization that was written in a sealed room under lock and key, and even one where the author could read it on premises but not have it in front of him when he wrote so scenes had to be written from memory. I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday, so I'd be useless for a gig like that.

I wonder if that was Gregory Kynes for his excellent INTERSTELLAR novelization?

 

[Christopher]

I wonder if that was Gregory Kynes for his excellent INTERSTELLAR novelization?

I've heard Greg Cox tell that story about his novelization experiences more than once. But I gather it's pretty standard these days.

 

[JD]

In modern times, studios in general only want the novelizations to be a straight 1:1 adaptation of the script with no embellishments or deviations whatsoever. It's odd, particularly since embellishments are the one thing a novelization could have going for it in modern times, but it's what the studios want for some reason.

One of the rare examples are the Disney Star Wars movies, but that's like because they have the Lucas Story Group supervising things.

This approach seems really odd to me, the whole appeal of novelizations is getting extra scenes or at least new bits of backstory and worldbuilding that we didn't get onscreen. Getting rid of all of that really defeats the whole point of even doing a novelization.

 

[Christopher]

I gather that studios got complaints from some people who were upset that scenes they read in the novelizations were not in the actual movies, so the studios apparently got mad at novelizations for creating false expectations, or something like that, and started insisting that they not embellish the films.

Yes, the appeal of novelizations is what they add to the movies, but the people making the decision are the people in charge of the movies, and they only care about what serves the movies, seeing novelizations merely as merchandise to promote the movies. So they don't want the novels to raise expectations that the movies can't meet.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I vaguely recall that there was a recent (relatively speaking) ST or SW movie for which fan expectations of a novelization were completely disappointed (as in no novelization being issued).

I could be misremembering; it could be that a soundtrack recording was expected, but never issued.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Maybe Star Trek Beyond? I don't recall a novelization for that.

All of the recent Star Wars novels had novelizations. I'm not sure if The Mandalorian and Grogu will have one; the Disney-era Star Wars novelizations have come well after the movie release, IIRC.

 

[DonIago]

All of the recent Star Wars novels had novelizations.

It's pretty cool when a novel gets a novelization. ;P

 

[Daddy Todd]

I vaguely recall that there was a recent (relatively speaking) ST or SW movie for which fan expectations of a novelization were completely disappointed (as in no novelization being issued).

I could be misremembering; it could be that a soundtrack recording was expected, but never issued.

Knowing what a big fan of Alan Dean Foster you are, I’m kind of surprised you don’t remember ADF was supposed to novelize the third Kelvinverse movie. When preproduction on Orci’s version of the film was shut down just before shooting, a substitute script was quickly provided. There wasn’t time for ADF to novelize that movie. That’s my recollection of why there was no novelization of Star Trek Beyond.

 

[Greg Cox]

I've heard Greg Cox tell that story about his novelization experiences more than once. But I gather it's pretty standard these days.

Security has gotten much tighter since I first started writing novelizations, back in the day. The days when you would just sign an NDA and they would FedEx you the script for Daredevil are long gone. With both The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel, I had to fly out to Burbank to read the script on the Warner Bros. lot, where I was given a few days to take copious notes. And all files and manuscripts had to be encrypted and password-protected. Code names are also sometimes assigned to projects to hide their true identies. (Godzilla was codenamed Nautilus.)

I blame the internet. Now that the internet has made spoilers a cottage industry, the studios are understandably paranoid about the plot of their $200 million movie being leaked -- and critiqued -- all over the internet months before it even opens. Can't really blame them there.

And, honestly, I think the worries about added material have less to do with the prospect of moviegoers being disappointed by "missing scenes" than with the actual movie being condemned on-line for bits that aren't even in the movie.

Because, yes, there have been incidents where a big upcoming movie got "reviewed" on-line by somebody who hadn't actually seen the movie yet, but had somehow managed to get their hands on an advance copy of the novelization--with the distinction between the movie and the book getting lost completely: "Space Mermaids IV: Return of Pacifica sucks!"

So, the studios may figure, if people are going to judge the movie based on the book, the book had better damn well be identical to the movie.

(This is also why novelizations no longer come out weeks or months before the actual movie, as was once standard practice.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

This is also why novelizations no longer come out weeks or months before the actual movie, as was once standard practice.

It was? I don't remember. The only cases I remember of the book being out first were when the book actually came first. But then again, my little grey cells are not what they were, and at the time, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to novelization timing.

But as to justifiable paranoia about leaks, I will say that I only grudgingly permitted my editor to put my novel on Google Docs, and each of the four PDFs I sent her were protected with passwords that she had to deduce from something in the previous PDF (or from something else only she and I would know).

 

[Greg Cox]

It was? I don't remember. The only cases I remember of the book being out first were when the book actually came first. But then again, my little grey cells are not what they were, and at the time, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to novelization timing.

Oh, yeah, you definitely wanted to put out the novelization before the movie debuted, in order to cash in on all the hype and anticipation regarding the upcoming movie -- and, not incidentally, to sell copies to impatient folks who couldn't wait for movie.

And this worked for the studios because it meant tens of thousands of miniature billboards in airports, train stations, supermarkets, and so on, creating advance awareness of the movie.

Plus, of course, all movies are hits until they open, but afterwards . . . ? Let's just say the ideal time to sell the book was before it could prove to be a flop, critically or commercially. You didn't want to put out the novelization after the movie bombed at the box office -- or so much later that the movie was old news.

(FYI: the original Star Wars novelization came out months before the movie, as did the first three issues of the Marvel Comics adaptation. Indeed, the comic-book was how I first became aware of Star Wars, months before the movie opened in 1977.)

 

[Christopher]

I blame the internet. Now that the internet has made spoilers a cottage industry, the studios are understandably paranoid about the plot of their $200 million movie being leaked -- and critiqued -- all over the internet months before it even opens. Can't really blame them there.

I kind of can, because nobody used to mind if the plot was known ahead of time; it was even welcomed, back when a movie being based on a well-known novel or play was a major selling point. That's the whole reason why, as you say, novelizations of original movies like Fantastic Voyage or Star Wars got released 6 months before the movies came out -- the studios wanted people to know the stories in advance, because it would give them an incentive to see the movie. So this modern idea that the moviegoing experience is somehow destroyed if you don't go in completely ignorant is bizarre.

While we're at it, the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back came out a month before the movie, and I think David Prowse revealed Darth Vader's identity in an interview a year before the movie came out, and nobody thought it ruined anything. (Although I remember mentioning it loudly to my family on my way out of the theater in 1980 and getting an annoyed look from a passerby going into the theater. Though at the time, I assumed Vader was lying about being Luke's father.)

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

. . . So this modern idea that the moviegoing experience is somehow destroyed if you don't go in completely ignorant is bizarre.

While we're at it, the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back came out a month before the movie, and I think David Prowse revealed Darth Vader's identity in an interview a year before the movie came out, and nobody thought it ruined anything. (Although I remember mentioning it loudly to my family on my way out of the theater in 1980 and getting an annoyed look from a passerby going into the theater. . . .)

Back in elementary and high school, my relationship with most of my classmates was always one of mutual contempt (that might very well be why, in my novel and various "Organ Princess" short stories, I've always gone to such great lengths to portray my protagonist as an ordinary girl of the 1970s and 80s, who simply had an extraordinary musical talent [and an IQ to match]). At any rate, though, from first grade to my senior year of high school, I had more friends among the faculty than among my fellow students. And so it should come as no surprise that my pre-calculus classmates gleefully delivered the spoiler about Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father, directly to my face, before I'd had a chance to see the damn picture.

I was indeed profoundly annoyed at that. So I can sympathize with your annoyed passerby.

On the other hand, I also remember a sitcom episode in which the "Dad" character, who (for reasons I don't remember) was unable to watch some major sporting event (football, I think) live, and so he recorded it, and went to extraordnary lengths to avoid spoilers. And failed.

I also recall a lecture, and a textbook reading, in (I think) one semester of Short Story Workshop at OCC, that discussed the three ways to build tension. I don't remember what the middle one was, but the cheapest, easiest, lowest-level, and least-satisfying was something like "mystery and surprise," while the most difficult, but most satisfying (and most amenable to re-reads) was something like "tension and anticipation," in which the reader knows damn well how it's going to end, and the fun is how we get there.

(I've written myself a note to look that up this evening. It helps that I can count on one hand the number of college textbooks I've sold back, and have fingers left over.)

Personally, it seems to me that if a story can't tolerate the audience knowing the ending in advance, then it's relying far too much on surprise, and far too little on anticipation. And of course, it also tends to kill the demand for repeat business. Not a big deal for a book, since re-reading is free (and I've lost count of the number of times I've re-read DD's The Wounded Sky), but definitely a big deal for a movie (I paid to see Merrily We Roll Along three times in movie houses, then bought the DVD, and all that after I'd already seen three different stage productions, years earlier).

 

[Christopher]

And so it should come as no surprise that my pre-calculus classmates gleefully delivered the spoiler about Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father, directly to my face, before I'd had a chance to see the damn picture.

I was indeed profoundly annoyed at that. So I can sympathize with your annoyed passerby.

I think the difference is that people don't want to have the secrets given away on their first exposure to a complete story, but that doesn't mean they can't enjoy seeing a movie version of a book they've already read, or a novelization of a movie they've already seen, even if they already know how it turns out. So if someone had read the TESB novelization a month before they saw the movie, they would've had the surprise at the appropriate moment in the book, and it would've been part of the experience of the full story rather than an out-of-context detail revealed ahead of time. And then when they saw it in the movie, they could relive how they'd felt the first time they experienced the moment in the book.

But for three years after TESB, I didn't understand why everyone was so convinced Vader was telling the truth about being Luke's father. I mean, he was the bad guy! You don't take bad guys at their word! I figured he was just trying to trick Luke into joining the Dark Side. That might be why I didn't think I needed to be quiet about it at the theater, though mainly it was just lack of situational awareness, focusing on what I was saying to my family and not registering my surroundings.

I also recall a lecture, and a textbook reading, in (I think) one semester of Short Story Workshop at OCC, that discussed the three ways to build tension. I don't remember what the middle one was, but the cheapest, easiest, lowest-level, and least-satisfying was something like "mystery and surprise," while the most difficult, but most satisfying (and most amenable to re-reads) was something like "tension and anticipation," in which the reader knows damn well how it's going to end, and the fun is how we get there.

I've said before, the most effective of the Star Wars prequels for me was Revenge of the Sith, because knowing how it turned out cast a palpable sense of dread and inevitability over the whole thing.

Personally, it seems to me that if a story can't tolerate the audience knowing the ending in advance, then it's relying far too much on surprise, and far too little on anticipation. And of course, it also tends to kill the demand for repeat business. Not a big deal for a book, since re-reading is free (and I've lost count of the number of times I've re-read DD's The Wounded Sky), but definitely a big deal for a movie (I paid to see Merrily We Roll Along three times in movie houses, then bought the DVD, and all that after I'd already seen three different stage productions, years earlier).

Even mysteries, which depend so much on the surprise reveal, can be worth experiencing again and again if they have more going for them than just surprise. A while back, after watching the Kenneth Branagh Murder on the Orient Express, I wanted to compare it to other versions, so I watched the classic Albert Finney version and read the original novel (not necessarily in that order), and then not too long thereafter, I saw the David Suchet version as part of his full Poirot series. It was a worthwhile exercise, because there's much more to the story than just the surprise ending, and seeing how different versions reveal and depict the surprise is worthwhile in its own right.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Personally, I've never understood why the "murder whodunit" is the most popular format of detective fiction. I'm into Sherlock Holmes; while the novels all involve murders, very few of the short stories do (and some don't even involve crimes, and in one notable short story, a death turns out to be at the hands, uh, tentacles of a jellyfish. Likewise, I like Columbo movies -- the quintessential murder howcatchems. And I like Banacek movies, where murder almost never comes up (the central event is an act of insurance fraud), and the mystery is how (and sometimes why) the disappearance was engineered.

Even mysteries, which depend so much on the surprise reveal, can be worth experiencing again and again if they have more going for them than just surprise.

Exactly.
(And I really need to get out that textbook. Fortunately, none of my old textbooks are packed away in boxes, and they're easier to find than Forgotten History was.)

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I've never understood why the "murder whodunit" is the most popular format of detective fiction.

I guess because it has the highest stakes. Also because they can't just ask the victim who the culprit was, unless it's something fantasy/supernatural like Pushing Daisies (although the temporarily revived murder victims' testimony was rarely that helpful there).

Still, I agree it's nice when there's more variety and the crime isn't always a homicide. Banacek was pretty cool, the whole thing about figuring out how impossible thefts were committed.

Poker Face, which was normally a Columbo-style howcatchem series, played around with the format in its second (and unfortunately final) season last year. There was one episode set at a private grade school where the "victim" was a gerbil, and there was a con artist episode where the only death was a victim of the con committing suicide offscreen. I appreciated that, because the premise of the show had the wandering protagonist keep coincidentally stumbling across one murder after another, which beggared belief (though I guess no more so than Poirot or Marple or Jessica Fletcher stumbling upon murders every time they take a trip), so I liked it that they varied it up a bit.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Also because they can't just ask the victim who the culprit was

Well, in the very first Holmes tale I'd ever read (it was in my 7th or 8th grade reader), "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," Jabez Wilson didn't have a clue that "The League of Red-Headed Men" was a ruse to get him out all day, so that Vincent Spaulding (alias for John Clay) and Duncan Ross (alias for ??) could use his basement to tunnel into the basement vault of the City and Suburban Bank.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I kind of can, because nobody used to mind if the plot was known ahead of time

I'm not entirely sure what timeframe you're talking about where "nobody" used to mind, but I've always personally disliked knowing plot details prior to watching something.

Although I remember mentioning it loudly to my family on my way out of the theater in 1980 and getting an annoyed look from a passerby going into the theater.

Wait, you did the Homer Simpson thing in real life?!

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[Set Harth]

And so it should come as no surprise that my pre-calculus classmates gleefully delivered the spoiler about Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father, directly to my face, before I'd had a chance to see the damn picture.

I have no one to blame but myself: I read the damn comic book adaptation before seeing the movie. ( My memory of the specific details of that time period is not great and I possibly might have already been spoiled by something in the media, but in any event it wasn't classmates or other kids as far as I know. )

It's pretty cool when a novel gets a novelization. ;P

But then does the novelization get a novelization? WHERE DOES IT END

 

[DarrenTR1970]

I remember when the Aliens and Alien3 novels came out both with scenes in them that didn't make the final cut of the movie.
In the case of Aliens, several of those scenes wound up reinstated in the Director's Cut; while Alien3 was based off of the script where the alien came out of the cow instead of the dog and the ending didn't include the scene of the chestburster coming out of Ripley; instead she just dove straight into the foundry.