Star Trek TOS & TAS

[James Wright]

I've been trying to figure something out, GR created Star Trek TOS and TAS right!
Why did GR decide TAS wasn't canon, who is Richard H. Arnold and what part did he play in the decision?

James

 

[Therin of Andor]

I've been trying to figure something out, GR created Star Trek TOS and TAS right!
Why did GR decide TAS wasn't canon, who is Richard H. Arnold and what part did he play in the decision?

It was a rather political decision, and was also coveniently intended to avoid red tape and delays in approvals of tie-in manuscripts.

TAS was produced by Filmation, in coordination with Gene Roddenberry's Norway Corporation and the children's division of NBC TV. DC Fontana was put in charge of daily production duties. David Gerrold contributed several TAS scripts. Paramount had nothing to do with TAS, except for taking over distribution to the TV stations after its first TV run.

After a falling out with GR over Season One of TNG, DC Fontana and David Gerrold commenced a lawsuit over co-creator status on TNG. At the same time (1989), Filmation was being dissolved (partly bought out by Hallmark, IIRC), and the rights to all of Filmation's backlist of cartoon series and TV shows went into a state of flux. The first series of DC Comics' "Star Trek" had reintroduced Arex and M'Ress from TAS into the post-ST IV storyline - and for DC Comics to keep using those characters may have caused lots of time and money to be tied up in legal red tape, ascertaining if Paramount actually owned the rights to the Filmation-created TAS characters.

Also, Larry Niven's kzinti appeared in TAS (and the semi-licensed "Star Fleet Battles", not by Niven's choice) and the very real possibility of the kzinti returning to the ST universe (eg. the novel "The Captains' Honor" had to be slightly rewritten) may have prevented Niven from selling his "Known Space" and "Ringworld" stories to a roleplay game publisher.

(Speculation: Politically, the decanonization of TAS may also have been to set out parameters for the upcoming lawsuit: de-emphasizing the creative roles Fontana and Gerrold had played in TAS, to strengthen GR's case over TNG?)

Richard Arnold, a long time ST fan, friend of GR, and LA-based volunteer tour guide of the ST sets, had finally been offered a permanent paid job within the ST Office at Paramount after ST IV, with the title of ST Archivist. He was suddenly in charge of vetting all licensed ST tie-in proposals and completed manuscripts on behalf of GR, taking over one of Susan Sackett's old positions. Because, with the sudden growth of ST product, due to the popularity of ST IV and TNG, the ST Office was concerned to newly-constrain the licensed tie-ins to just the parent TOS and TNG shows.

All existing tie-in licenses were declared null and void, and Pocket Books and DC Comics had to renegotiate new license contracts. RA and GR devised a memo that specified that ST canon was to be made up of live-action ST, as screened on TV or movie screens, and as produced by Desilu/Paramount/Viacom. No longer were the licensed tie-ins to incorporate plots, original characters or tech from other licensed tie-ins, such as novels, comics, RPGs... or, indeed, TAS.

Due to GR's passing in 1991, the ST Office's 1989 memo is no longer restraining the tie-ins; RA was fired from his job - and the first new TAS reference turned up in the novelization of TNG's "Unification"! Arex and M'Ress now appear in the "ST: New Frontier" novels. But Paramount now very clearly owns TAS and its characters, so the legal constrains aren't a problem. Except maybe for Niven's kzinti.

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^

Re: the Kzinti, IIRC, had Enterprise seen a 5th Season, I believe we would have seen their return. A CG mesh made its way around the web a couple of years ago of a new Kzinti ship that the Enterprise would have encountered. If true, the legal constraints between Paramount and Niven looked like they were worked through as well.

 

[James Wright]

Was GR good for TNG or should he have been bought out?

James

 

[WendellM]

Thank you for that summary, Therin. It's funny, just the other day I was flipping through my books from the 1970s and came across this in Blish's Star Trek 11 (hey, isn't that the new movie... ) printed in 1977 :

Note that it's "Star Trek," not "non-canon madeupstuff." Your post explains what happened to change that, then change it back - thanks again.

 

[Therin of Andor]

the legal constraints between Paramount and Niven looked like they were worked through as well.

The legal constraints have not ever been "worked through" - it never got to the point where they had to be - but Niven has also been surprisingly generous re the kzinti.

When he allowed "The Soft Weapon" short story to become a TAS episode, it was as a favour to GR and no one had any idea that the Filmation series would live on in fans' memories. No one realised, either, that the semi-licensed "Star Fleet Battles" (ie. licensed out by Franz Joseph, not Paramount) would be able to appropriate the kzinti from TAS the way they did, or that the fledgling RPG would do so well over many years.

Niven wasn't sure that he was comfortable with Alan Dean Foster adapting his TAS script for "ST Logs", a book that was essentially competing with his own SF omnibus containing "The Soft Weapon". However, Niven did approve of the kzin returning to ST: he and Sharman DiVono did a ST comic strip followup to "The Slaver Weapon" for the LA Times Syndicate, called "The Wristwatch Plantation" - and that comic strip storyline almost become a ST novelization itself. In his book "Playgrounds of the Mind", a collection of short stories, novel excerpts, and commentary, Larry Niven discusses the experience, and the rushed ending (because the artist wanted to quit). See pages 507-510.

What did irritate Niven was that the possibility of kzinti appearing often in ST tie-ins, such as the ongoing Pocket novels or DC Comics, a phenomenon which could easily have eroded his own rights to license out the kzinti elsewhere. He'd only ever "lent" them to ST. Filmation was winding down in 1989, and this coincided with Niven's own plans for "The Man-Kzin Wars" anthology SF series, and also a licensed tie-in RPG based on Niven's "Ringworld" books. That was a tricky era.

Niven has been quoted in interviews that he's happy for the kzin to appear in ST again, although sometimes he'll be quoted as saying he wants it to be him who gets to be the one to bring them back. It seems like Jimmy Diggs at least consulted with Niven before certain proposals were put on paper regarding a possible return of the kzinti in ENT.

But you can be assured that Niven would have been well paid for a renewed kzinti use in ENT.

Note that it's "Star Trek," not "non-canon madeupstuff."

Well, you also need to remember that when TNG was being written, TAS had become an extremely obscure facet of Star Trek. TOS episodes and TOS movies were freely available. TAS was not, and to insist that new screenwriters, Pocket novelists and DC Comics, Marvel, Malibu and WildStorm comic writers stay true to all 22 episodes of TAS when they weren't available in stores, nor being aired on TV, nor even known by new fans brought into the fold by ST IV and TNG, seemed rather silly in 1989 when the new tie-in licenses were being signed.