Time Frame From Star Trek 2 - 4

[Christopher]

^And even despite their best efforts to avoid conflicting with the movies, the Star Wars comics still asserted some things that became problematical later on -- like that annual depicting a flashback adventure in which Obi-Wan went on a mission with both Luke's father and the person who would become Darth Vader, distinctly depicted as two separate people.

 

[22 Stars]

Lol, that is great.

 

[Timo]

No doubt Obi-Wan was recounting the story to the author "from a certain point of view".

I wonder if there was any foreknowledge that ST2 would get a direct sequel when that movie was first released...? A sequel to ST3 would appear a surefire thing from the get-go, so any novel or comic stories taking place immediately afterwards would be written with the full knowledge that odds would be immensely against them really "fitting". But ST2 could well have been the ultimate conclusion of Kirk's saga, in the storytelling sense.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS KG5]

A good thought, but I'm not sure Kirk's line "The death of Spock is like an open wound" fits the "long-term grief phase" idea. (Actually the script -- and the novel and comic adaptations -- had the scene of the Grissom discovering Spock's intact torpedo tube on Genesis first, followed by the initial Enterprise scene; Kirk's log entry was originally "The news of Spock's tube is like an open wound." That would've allowed for more passage of time, because the news could've reawakened pain that the crew was recovering from.

Fair point. Would also have fixed the film's massive plot hole!

Again, the log entry is the problem. Kirk specifically said they were in the third month of their Vulcan exile, which limits it to 2-3 months after the end of The Search for Spock.

Oh yes - forgot that, quite right. It pretty much specifies the gap there.

 

[Timo]

Not quite thread necromancy, but close - sorry about this! Just noticed these questions several pages down the thread, without previous direct answers.

1) Vulcan is a member of the Federation. There were no extradition procedures? They couldn't just insist the crew come back to face charges?

I'm sure they would - which is why the crew would balk, and exploit the already established Vulcan hostility towards Starfleet and the ability to pull a string or two ("Amok Time").

The charges would be pretty serious, and would certainly end the Starfleet careers of everybody involved. The decision to face the charges seemed to have been arrived at by voting. It may have taken a lot of time to reach a unanimous vote - Kirk still feels the need to check when the heroes finally launch. Given the fact that our heroes had demonstrated their loyalty to Kirk over loyalty to Starfleet, they may have seriously considered allowing their careers to end without the formal trial, and proceeding with a different lifestyle where they would remain associated with Kirk and perhaps make use of their prize vessel.

However, I would argue that the stalling was chiefly due to the slow healing process of Spock. The mutiny had been all about rescuing the half-Vulcan, and would not come to conclusion until Spock was back.

Or send someone to get them? McCoy says they "could have at least sent a ship" but why didn't they?

This probably refers to the final few moments: Kirk and pals decide to surrender, tell Earth they're coming, and Earth fails to respond. They shrug and decide Starfleet must be sulking, then board their own vessel.

2) Saavik was not implicated in any wrongdoing. She was the sole survivor of the Grissom. Surely she would need to be debriefed ASAP. Would Starfleet just let her hang around for 3 plus months?

We don't know that she would have been hanging around for any length of time. If she only recently arrived (perhaps with news that encouraged Kirk to return), this would also explain the next point:

3) It took Saavik 3 months to say some vague words to Kirk about David? 3 months to finally get around to telling Kirk what he already knew?

Moving on:

4) I understand the necessity of presenting an operational BoP to Starfleet, but why do all this work to drive home from Vulcan?

Because Starfleet didn't send a ship, and taking one of their own would be just as easy as taking a flight on a Vulcan ship - and possibly quicker, if there weren't frequent regular flights?

Why completely reconfigure the bridge for such a short trip?

Here I'd argue it's just a different part of the ship - the wheelhouse instead of the intelligence operations center.

And what happened that the BoP needed 3 months of repairs?

Probably Scotty happened. It's not that it took 3 months to repair the ship - it was that Scotty had 3 months to spend, and spent them repairing the ship.

5) After 3 months, Chekov is the only person to change clothes? Maybe it's not the Klingon stench McCoy needs to cloak…

Those clothes might have been fundamentally unsuited to the Vulcan climate, and thus never worn during the exile. On the other hand, the local clothes would not be Kirk's first choice for wear when returning to face the charges.

Spock could still be seen as just as recovered in a week as 3 months (those damned Vulcans shake these thing off so quickly).

But making it three months does add to the impact...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Therin of Andor]

Those were fun times reading those comics, trying to figure out how they were going to continue while the new films were being formulated. I think this is the time that Richard Arnold started to direct the licensees on what they could and couldn't do with primary and secondary characters.

No, Richard came on board, vetting the manuscripts, between ST IV and the premiere of TNG. Increased profits from ST IV's success meant that Roddenberry's suggestion of Paramount hiring an "archivist" was met with approval. I think RA's first task was helping with critiques on Vonda McIntyre's ST IV novelization (judging by comments in "Voyages of Imagination") and how she suddenly stops adding her own original material about a third of the way into that book. Such a shame, because her additions to the ST II and III novelizations were so well received by most fans who read them. ST III's novelization is greatly enriched by the original material.

Richard was involved with the removal of Byrce, Sherwood, Konom, Bearclaw and Bernie after the last issues of DC Comics' Series I, forcing renewed attention on what RA called "the big seven" of TOS, and "the big eight" of TNG. With the 1989 memo to licensees from the Star Trek Office, M'Ress and Arex (TAS) were removed from Series 2 at the last minute, as well.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I wonder if there was any foreknowledge that ST2 would get a direct sequel when that movie was first released...?

No. The original plan had been that any movie after ST II would not have followed up on the death of Spock at all, beyond Saavik struggling to replace him, and Kirk (if he signed to do anything) missing his counsel. There was an intention that Saavik and David might headline a series of telemovies, or that Saavik would simply replace Spock's science officer position in a new theatrical movie.

When Nimoy mentioned (at the wrap party?) that he'd consider returning for a ST III if only he could direct as well, because he'd enjoyed the experience of working on ST II, the journalists began joking that such a film could be called "In Search of Spock", a parody title of the documentary series Nimoy used to narrate.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

^And even despite their best efforts to avoid conflicting with the movies, the Star Wars comics still asserted some things that became problematical later on -- like that annual depicting a flashback adventure in which Obi-Wan went on a mission with both Luke's father and the person who would become Darth Vader, distinctly depicted as two separate people.

Not true. Anakin was never depicted visually in that comic.

As you can tell from the photo we have Obi-Wan and Vader on the right. The lady on the bottom is Kharys the Majestrix of Skye. The blue gentleman on the left has been pretty consistently misidentified on the internet either as Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader before his armor.

In truth he is neither. That fine gentleman is Aragh, Lord of the Highlands of the planet Skye. He's also the guy telling Luke the story.

 

[Christopher]

Well, of course he wouldn't have been referenced as "Anakin" because that name hadn't yet been coined when the comic was written. But the text makes it clear that Obi-Wan had two apprentices.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Well, of course he wouldn't have been referenced as "Anakin" because that name hadn't yet been coined when the comic was written.[

Not even remotely the point I was trying to make. I used "Anakin" as shorthand since it's less cumbersome than typing "Luke's father". Of course you damned well know that. You were just trying to deflect my point.

But the text makes it clear that Obi-Wan had two apprentices.

Never said it didn't. Obviously the authors' intention was for the two apprentices to be Anakin and Vader, or just so I don't confuse you, Luke's father and Vader. However the text was vague enough that Vader and Luke's father need not have been different people and the second apprentice could have been someone else entirely. Again, I'm not saying that was the intention, but it could be read that way.

What I was refuting was that there was any depiction of Ana-- er, "Luke's father" and Vader as two different people. The scan shows that it didn't.

In hindsight the reference can now be retconned to mean Anakin and Ahsoka, though that was clearly not the intention circa 1978.

If you really want a valid nitpick, how bout the fact that Jabba the Hutt was not only depicted as a different species than he was portrayed as in Jedi, but that his name was also spelled Jabba the Hut.

 

[Christopher]

^I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to deflect; it's just my nature to be ultra-precise. A lot of people seem to think that BBS conversations are personal, but I see them as speaking to the entire audience who may be reading the board, and so I want to make sure the facts are clear to those readers who might not know things like when the comic was written or when the name Anakin was coined.

And yeah, the skinny green Jabba is a major contradiction (though the spelling doesn't bother me since it's transliterated from Huttese anyway). I once formulated a theory that he was some kind of telepathic alien that Jabba was speaking through in a kind of telepresence.

 

[Timo]

...Or he was a minor player in Jabba's organization, and a low-watt bulb at that - and Solo kept calling him "Jabba" just to drive home the point that this lackey sent to talk to him did not carry a shred of the authority of Jabba himself.

I think the comic (and later Lucas himself) seriously erred in retaining this scene where the big crime boss comes to challenge Solo in person. It makes Jabba look like a two-bit player, and in essence limits his interstellar reign of crime to this single shabby town on this irrelevant dustball of a planet. Dramatically much better if Jabba remains a distant threat that Solo cannot flee from simply by leaving Tattooine behind...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captaindemotion]

Don't forget that Jabba was originally played in ANH by a middle-aged fat Irish actor! It's that unused footage which was re-edited for the 1997 special edition.

I'm trying to remember, does Jabba appear as a humanoid in the ANH novelisation?

 

[Christopher]

Don't forget that Jabba was originally played in ANH by a middle-aged fat Irish actor! It's that unused footage which was re-edited for the 1997 special edition.

Actually the intention was to superimpose a stop-motion animated alien creature over the live actor, who was just acting out the scene for reference. Since the scene was dropped before the creature animation was done, all we have is the raw plate footage.

 

[Harvey]

Actually the intention was to superimpose a stop-motion animated alien creature over the live actor, who was just acting out the scene for reference. Since the scene was dropped before the creature animation was done, all we have is the raw plate footage.

That account, which George Lucas began telling when the Special Edition was released in 1997, has been disputed.

 

[Christopher]

^Ahh, thank you. That's a very solid piece of debunkery. I guess I should've learned by now not to take Lucas's recollections at face value. To be honest, I had wondered in the back of my mind why the guy would be in full costume if he'd just been a stand-in, but I didn't think it through.

(By the way, when I clicked on the link for the homepage of that site to see what else they had, I got a malware warning from my antivirus program.)

 

[T'Girl]

That account, which George Lucas began telling when the Special Edition was released in 1997, has been disputed.

When I hit the word "disputed" to go to the hyperlink, my computer's security system gave a warning of "problem -- attack site."

YMMV, please be careful.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Actually the intention was to superimpose a stop-motion animated alien creature over the live actor, who was just acting out the scene for reference. Since the scene was dropped before the creature animation was done, all we have is the raw plate footage.

That account, which George Lucas began telling when the Special Edition was released in 1997, has been disputed.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/A_New_Hope_novelization

Jabba is described as if he is a fat biped (rather than the familiar slug monster he would later become in Episode VI: Return of the Jedi) with an ugly, "shaggy skull" and "jowels" that shook with his head. His scars are said to be a sign of his ferocious reputation in combat. This differs from other descriptions of Jabba prior to Episode VI: Return of the Jedi—the early A New Hope test footage with a large actor in fur, a familiar alien in a flight suit in Marvel Comics, the large-headed, razor-toothed monster in early sketches, or a slavering creature with "eyes on stalks" in the scripts. When Jabba says "for an extra 20 percent", Han Solo doesn't say "15, Jabba, don't push it."

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I think the comic (and later Lucas himself) seriously erred in retaining this scene where the big crime boss comes to challenge Solo in person. It makes Jabba look like a two-bit player, and in essence limits his interstellar reign of crime to this single shabby town on this irrelevant dustball of a planet. Dramatically much better if Jabba remains a distant threat that Solo cannot flee from simply by leaving Tattooine behind...

Off topic I guess, but...more importantly still, in the context of the film the scene serves no purpose other than to repeat the same information we already got from his encounter with Greedo in the cantina and to spoil the subsequent reveal of the Millennium Falcon. Lucas' editorial instincts were right the first time around.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I think the problem is that once they dropped the Jabba scene, they rewrote Greedo's subtitles to cover the same information that was supposed to be in that scene. And then when they stuck the Jabba scene back in, they neglected to restore the Greedo subtitles to their original form, so we ended up getting the same material twice. At least, that's my impression of what happened.