TAS: screen or print?

[Warped9]

Tangental to my TAS: pros & cons thread here's another poser.

Which version of TAS do you prefer: the aired episodes or the Alan Dean Foster adaptations published in Ballantine Books' Star Trek Log series?

For myself in the end I prefer the ADF print adaptations primarily because the stories are more fleshed out and sidestep the shortcuts of the Filmation animation and canned voice work. When I read the stories I can easily envision the live-action characters in my imagination.

 

[Neopeius]

You have to remember that when I was a kid, TAS was just the absolute coolest thing ever. It's hard to wash away those memories to look at it objectively.

That said, I much preferred ADF's novelizations to James Blish's which I found to be far too sparse.

 

[milo bloom]

I'm usually a fan of ADF, but he took too many liberties with the TAS adaptations.

 

[USS Intrepid]

I definately prefer ADF's adaptations. He just did such a good job fleshing them out. Which is not to say I dislike the aired versions either, 'cause I like them too. I just prefer the prose versions.

 

[Warped9]

You have to remember that when I was a kid, TAS was just the absolute coolest thing ever. It's hard to wash away those memories to look at it objectively.

That said, I much preferred ADF's novelizations to James Blish's which I found to be far too sparse.

I recall really liking the ADF versions when they came out and even then I found myself prefering them.

Yes, Blish was sparse, but I still like his historical references to the Earth/Romulan conflict and still accept that over ENT's version of the 22nd century.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

I'm usually a fan of ADF, but he took too many liberties with the TAS adaptations.

Its been a while since I've read the ADF adaptations, which I recall liking a lot at the time. Could you elaborate on the liberties you feel he took?

 

[Warped9]

^^ He added a lot of background detail to some of the characters like M'ress. But while some might take issue with how he elaborated on certain elements in terms of setting and worldbuilding I appreciated how it made the stories fuller, more substantial and three dimensional. For me somehow it felt more connected to TOS and less a fleshing out of an animated episode of which many of the aired versions could feel somewhat edited or abbreviated.

That said sometimes the characters' dialog could seem a bit off or out of character from what we were familiar with onscreen, but certainly no more than many of the Pocket Books Treks I've read.. But overall I think he did a good job.

 

[Mysterion]

^^^^^
I agree. ADF's additons are why I prefer his adaptations to the actual episodes. Even The Infinite Vulcan almost makes sense after his take on it.

 

[Warped9]

^^ And it's easier to overlooked a potential "typo" than rationalize something you've seen onscreen.

 

[Captain Robert April]

He also had the April's choosing not to enter the transporter and remain young.

Some scientific fluke gives you another forty-odd years and you decide to go back to being 75? Screw the backwards universe junk, that's the most unbelievable part of that episode (especially when the word comes through that the mandatory retirement bit had been cancelled; betcha wish you'd listened to Sarah now, doncha Bobby!?!)

 

[Mallory]

I prefer ADF's work myself. As others have mentioned he did a good job of fleshing things out. Also, coming off of reading Blish's adaptations I was used to reading Star Trek at that point.

 

[Warped9]

Back when the TAS dvd set was released I picked it up and sometime about a year before that I picked up the ADF adaptations in collection volumes with two Log books per volume. It was an interesting comparison.

The episodes reminded me of how much creativity was there and the potential of some of the stories while also reminding me of the show's limitations and shortcomings. The ADF versions just affirmed how much better the stories could be (even though there were occasional jarring moments there, too), but without seeing the limitations of the aired episodes.

I must say that I wasn't wholly sold on how ADF really expanded episodes like BEM, Eye Of The Beholder and The Counter-clock Incident. He made those stories better, but then he was practically writing whole new stories in extension of them.

In like manner sometime I'd like to pick up the Blish adaptations again in omnibus form or such. The only Blish volume I have left is a Volume One with "Balance Of Terror" and "Miri" and their cool historical references.

Most everyone is familiar with Blish's references to the Earth/Romulan war, but how many remember the reference in "Miri?" There the planet is sending out a distress beacon the Enterprise attempts to answer. They find a planet that has pretty much identical land mass to water ratio as Earth, but no mention of it being an exact copy of Earth. In fact the planet is a lost human colony that left Earth centuries before, severed contact, but were now apparently calling for help. Now if TOS had been firmly set at least 300 years or more in the future then this could rationalize (to some extent) encountering many human worlds out there. Mind you, in "The Paradise Syndrome" they did somewhat rationalize it with the idea that The Preservers seeded races (including humans) on many worlds.

 

[Tan Ru]

ADF's............

 

[FarDreaming]

ADFs- not only were they more "meaty", but in my head every other voice was not that of Jimmy or Majel!

 

[KirksFlyingFist]

Original aired episodes all the way.

 

[milo bloom]

I'm usually a fan of ADF, but he took too many liberties with the TAS adaptations.

Its been a while since I've read the ADF adaptations, which I recall liking a lot at the time. Could you elaborate on the liberties you feel he took?

It's been a little while since I read them too, but there were just too many instances where ADF outright changed things (like The Good That Men Do levels of retcons). There was even some weird addition where Kirk, Spock, Uhura and Sulu all switch bodies and have to go to some diplomatic conference and make sure they talk and act like the body they're in and it's just so bizarre.

Edit to add: I don't have a problem with TGTMD because it fixes an episode, but is still apart from it. ADF's were supposed to be novelizations of the stories, but with added material that seems out of place to me.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'm not familiar with "The Good That Men Do", other than the Julius Caesar reference...

 

[milo bloom]

I'm not familiar with "The Good That Men Do", other than the Julius Caesar reference...

It's an Enterprise novel that fixes ENT's mind-bogglingly bad series finale by

Spoiler: TGTMD

revealing that Trip faked his death to go undercover in the Romulan Empire

.

It's not without it's own problems, but it's a far sight better than that excrement covered "valentine" that was These are the Voyages.

 

[Kelso]

I enjoy both- but I prefer the novelizations. Log One blew my mind when I first read it as a child. Compared to the (live action) series, those stories were positively epic. Also, that Vulcan Landscape on the cover of the book was fabulous.


Actually, the animated eps. were kind of a let-down when I finally saw them years later.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I remember being flummoxed as to how ADF could pad out the TAS episodes with additional material which almost always involved Klingons, even with episodes (such as "The Counter-Clock Incident") which had absolutely nothing to do *with* Klingons.