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Post by finarvyn on Mar 2, 2015 21:55:59 GMT -5
Some chatter about this on the OD&D Discussion boards. I've recently become obsessed with this episode.
I read the new graphic novel scripted from the origial Ellison teleplay, and then have tracked down the White Wolf trade paperback that has the teleplay in it. (Ellison has a 75-page introduction to the thing. Yikes!)
Interesting to see how the two versions (teleplay and actual episode) vary, and also interesting to see that they are a lot more similar than I had been led to believe. I've seen Ellison's version called "unfilmable" and it looks like it wouldn't have been that hard to do, although I've never filmed an episode of anything so maybe my gut is just wrong.
Anyway -- anyone else read the teleplay? What do you think about it?
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Post by blackbat242 on Mar 3, 2015 1:59:47 GMT -5
No, but I wish I could get it.
Actually, I'm not all that surprised that there aren't that many major differences - Harlan does good work, and I don't think he would have written something that was really that "unfilmable".
However, I do know that Harlan was/is a primadonna - and tended to hysterics and exaggerations if an editor changed a single word of his work, so his pulling out in a huff for minor changes is not surprising.
What I suspect is that something wasn't quite "right" with the script - and Roddenberry asked Harlan to change it. Harlan blew up and stalked out, then Gene changed it. Harlan found out and freaked - and the rest is history.
I have great respect for Harlan's work as an author - I have dozens of his books, including an autographed 1st paperback edition of I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream that cost me $120 in 1985 - but I fully acknowledge his sometimes significant flaws as a man.
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Post by finarvyn on Mar 3, 2015 6:21:00 GMT -5
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Post by rredmond on Mar 3, 2015 15:24:45 GMT -5
I think the fact that he wrote a 75 page intro tells you something right there. Fun episode though. I'll track down a copy of the screenplay too, though I think I have it in Text or PDF somewhere. --Ron--
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Post by finarvyn on Mar 4, 2015 6:38:54 GMT -5
The intro tells his "side" of the whole story, how that White Wolf version came to be published, copies of letters from Desilu and/or Roddenberry, and similar background material. It really was an interesting read, perhaps more than the actual teleplay.
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Post by rredmond on Mar 4, 2015 15:07:34 GMT -5
Dang. Now I really have to get it! --Ron--
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Post by finarvyn on Mar 14, 2015 17:05:02 GMT -5
I'm not all that surprised that there aren't that many major differences - Harlan does good work, and I don't think he would have written something that was really that "unfilmable". I should probably elaborate on this a little. Be wary of spoilers.... ... ... ... ... There is a starfleet officer selling a drug to a hooked starfleet officer. This became McCoy and the hypo of unstable medicine. Apparently Roddenberry said for years that Ellison had "Scotty sell drugs" but Scotty's name is never even mentioned in the teleplay. On the show the Enterprise vanishes with the new timeline. In the teleplay it's replaced with a new ship (sort of like in Mirror, Mirror) with a new crew of vagabonds instead of the Federation we're used to seeing. On the show it's Kirk who stops McCoy from saving Edith's life, but in the teleplay he can't do it and Spock has to stop the bad starfleet officer from doing a good thing. That kind of thing. Not so much as to make the story unrecognizable or anything like that, but different enough so that you wonder why they had to change it.
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Post by aramis on Mar 18, 2015 18:00:40 GMT -5
That kind of thing. Not so much as to make the story unrecognizable or anything like that, but different enough so that you wonder why they had to change it. The first change — eliminating the drug dealer — is pretty much essential for a 1966-1970 teleplay. Good guys don't use. The Accidental overdose makes for a much easier time with the network censors (who still took heat over it as was, I've read.) Remember: The TV industry adhered to the Hayes Code far more tightly than the film industry - mostly to prevent being censored by the feds or a central body. Vagabonds would have been filmed as space hippies - and that might not have sat all that well with the audience. After all, The Way To Eden is often panned as the second worst episode of TOS ever... right after Spock's Brain. Kirk succeeding was Shatner's contract, IIRC. (I'd need to check I am Not Spock again.)
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Post by rredmond on Mar 19, 2015 11:02:30 GMT -5
Kirk succeeding was Shatner's contract, IIRC. (I'd need to check I am Not Spock again.) Hah! For real? That's great. Dang you gotta love the awesome that was The Shat! --Ron--
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Post by aramis on Mar 30, 2015 0:46:57 GMT -5
Kirk succeeding was Shatner's contract, IIRC. (I'd need to check I am Not Spock again.) Hah! For real? That's great. Dang you gotta love the awesome that was The Shat! --Ron-- Shatner had a lot of clauses in his contract. Including more lines than, and not being upstaged by, Nimoy's character.
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