From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos
From Address: jimgysin{at}geemail.com.invalid
Subject: Re: IDW Does Harlan Ellison

Daniel sent the following on Tue, 15 Jul 2014 21:04:08 +1000:
> On 15/07/2014 12:30 PM, A Friend wrote:
> > In article , Jim G.
> >  wrote:
> >
> >> A classic revisited, just as Harlan envisioned it...
> >>
> >> The City that Never Sleeps or Goes Away: Harlan Ellison and Star Trek,
> >> Again
> >>
> >>
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2014/07/the-city-that-never-sleeps-or-goes-away-harla
> >> n-ellison-and-star-trek-again
> >> or http://preview.tinyurl.com/l4sppdm
> >>
> >> QUOTE
> >> Adapted for the comics by IDWes primary Trek writers Scott and David
> >> Tipton, and with beautiful art by J.K. Woodward (who did slick work on
> >> the Doctor Who/TNG crossover a few years ago) everything about this
> >> release is totally legit. In the debut issue of this limited run (there
> >> will be five in all) IDW Trek editor Chris Ryall writes
fondly about how
> >> this venture was his idea, and one that took some convincing of
> >> everybody to go along with. In his words, over time anose turned into
> >> ahmmmms.e
> >> END QUOTE
> >>
> >> Okay, so how long until Ellison sues IDW over something about this?
> >
> >
> > I read the original script about 35 years ago, and I don't remember
> > anything about a Bizarro World Enterprise.
> >
> > The article asks the question, "And yet, now nearly 50 years later,
> > with numerous Treks behind us, the question still nags: would EllisonAs
> > original script for oThe City on the Edge of Forever,o have been better
> > than what ended up on screen?"  I don't think so.  The story is not
> > about Beckwith, it's about Kirk and Edith Keeler, and Kirk's duty to
> > history and the future.  The story didn't require Beckwith or anybody
> > like Beckwith.  Accidentally overdosing McCoy gets things rolling quite
> > nicely.
> >
> > Ellison's ending -- with Beckwith stuck in a time loop getting
> > annihilated every few seconds inside a nova -- is beyond melodramatic.
> > In the show as seen, Kirk's final line, "Let's get the hell out of
> > here," is powerful, especially in a day when saying
"hell" on U.S. tv
> > was a very rare thing indeed.
> >
> > BTW the really confusing thing about City is just how history was
> > changed.  Everybody thinks McCoy saved Edith from getting run over by
> > that truck, and that wasn't the case.  The creepy little guy at the
> > rescue mission (his name in Ellison's script is Rodent) eventually
> > rapes and murders Edith.  He doesn't do so in the changed history
> > because he fiddled with McCoy's phaser and disintegrated himself.  The
> > significance of this was purposefully obscured, but that's why the
> > phaser scene is in there.  What's also not explained is why Kirk and
> > Spock simply didn't take Edith with them into the future, which would
> > have effectively "killed" her in 1930.  Neither story
ever explains why
> > Edith's death was necessary.
> >
> > Also, Clark Gable didn't make a movie until 1931.
> >
> Hasn't the Edith Keeler story line been mentioned here as a possible ST 
> 13 re-do storyline??

It's almost always mentioned as something worth a revisit, but I think
that everyone is just waiting for Harlan to die so that the chance of a
lawsuit is diminished. I was very surprised not only to see him agree to
this comic book treatment, but for IDW to risk the wrath of Ellison's
lawyers if the little twit ended up unhappy with things. But then again,
I suspect that IDW's own lawyers aren't too shabby, either.

-- 
Jim G. | A fan of the good and the bad, but not the mediocre
"Everyone is relevant to someone." -- Harold Finch, PERSON OF INTEREST
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