That’s what happened with the adaption of ST: First Contact from Mad or Cracked (not sure which). The version of the script they had was either the first or second draft (they shot with the third draft), and varied quite a bit from the final movie.
The Making of Star Trek (Whitfield)
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So it emerges that MAD had all kinds of help from the studios, rather than being the adversarial gadfly they kind of posed as.
I agree, if you have enough production stills and a script in hand, you don't need a print of the film to draw a detailed parody.
I agree, if you have enough production stills and a script in hand, you don't need a print of the film to draw a detailed parody.
I'd buy any version of The Making of Star Trek. Anything that can give insight from the 1960s into TOS, instead of after the fact, is valuable.
Why wouldn't they? A Mad magazine parody is basically free advertising for their product.
If you poke around Amazon/eBay you can usually find a decent copy for a few bucks.
See DC Comics' "adaptation" of TWOK.
They never adapted TWoK. IDW did a few years ago.
Any opinions on David Gerrold’s “Tribbles” book? I know he wrote it several years after the episode was produced, but there were also some good (or so I thought anyway) behind-the-scenes details in that as well.
In the beginning the studios weren't too happy, but eventually they came around to the 'free advertising' idea.
Plus, Warner Bros and Mad ended up owned by the same conglomerate by the early 70s. So no problem, there.
<Looks at thing that doesn't exist>See DC Comics' "adaptation" of TWOK.
Hmm. That didn't really clear anything up.
It's great and well worth reading. IIRC, I believe he wrote much of the book at the time "Tribbles" was in production and submitted it as his final project in some college class or another. Although I'm sure that he revised it before publication.
MAD was even headquartered in the same building as DC Comics from the mid-90s after Bill Gaines' death until DC moved out west a few years back. So for about 20 years there, they were only one floor apart.
I knew that, too. It was still
I thought the IDW adaptation wasn't bad, but seing Spock's rotting flesh wasn't fun. Actually, DC comic's adaptations of Trek III and IV were pretty dire. Some of the sloppiest art of the run. I get they were probably in a hurry but, III is especially bad. It starts out nicely, but it feels like they just ran out of time and the art just got worse by the page. Kirk would be wearing his uniform one panel and his civvies in the next during the latter portions of the story. The Enterprise bridge was all sorts of craptacular. The first DC run was great from the first issue to their first movie adaptation. Then it went hot and cold but they did some fun and wild stuff.
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IMO, it's a great behind the scenes book both for Star trek, and for anyone interested in writing a script for TV. He really does a good job of showing the whole process from he initial outline to a full script. Also, some fun illustrations by Tim Kirk.
See DC Comics' "adaptation" of TWOK.
Yeah, it was IDW. See above.
It wasn't the art so much as it was the actual adaptation. The film had been out or over thirty years, and they still got the quotes wrong. Not to mention they went for the "let's do an adaptation of an earlier draft script" thing. That was its own kind of dire.
Or they streamlined the dialogue to fit the word balloons? It has never been required for an adaptation to be absolutely exact. That's what the original is for. Adaptations adapt.
This wasn't streamlining, at least not as I recall (I didn't buy it for this reason). There were several iconic quotes that we all know all too well that were just wrong. Some even added words to attempt to sound more profound.
It's not "wrong" to tell a story in a different way. It's the prerogative of storytellers to reinterpret stories; there's no reason to create a different version of a story in the first place if you don't bring something new to it. We have home video now; nobody needs a print adaptation of a movie to be an exact, slavish copy of it, because we already have it in that form.
If, as you said, they chose to adapt an earlier draft, then it should be clear why the lines were different. I don't recall people saying it was "wrong" when they did a comics adaptation of the first-draft The Star Wars script, or of Rod Serling's Planet of the Apes script.
What works as spoken dialogue is often not the same thing as what works as written dialogue. Or so I've heard writers say over the years. Personally, I don't see the big difference.
My displeasure with the IDW adaptation of WoK was that I felt like it was too FAITHFUL to the movie. I mean, seriously, we can watch the movie any time we want. What's the point of a beat-for-beat, shot-for-shot recapitulation? Give me something fresh and new!
Clearly IMHO, and your mileage varies!
My favorite part, frankly, were the alternate covers by Dave Deitrick, who used to do really cool artwork for FASA back in the day. It was nice to see him working on Trek again.
I have done table reads and cold reads with actors and sometimes things that look fine on the page are tough to say or tough on the ear. Good actors will often make suggestions on how to change the line to sound more natural without changing the meaning. That doesn't work for Mamet but it often improves the scene when performed.
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