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Rating:  -
To hear Harlan Ellison tell it(as well as his butt-kissing entourage, which includes Peter David, David Gerrold and Melinda Snodgrass), his original script for City on the Edge of Forever is the greatest work of literature since Joyce's Ulysses. It isn't. It is, however, a very ambitious and well-written teleplay, but then so is Gene Roddenberry's version that was actually produced. Both scripts have their strong points and weak points. In Ellison's version, the strong points(in comparison to the Roddenberry script) include a drug-dealing officer who causes the temporal displacement, which is more convincing than a doped-up McCoy; a pair of ominous ancients who call themselves the Guardians of Forever, which is far cooler than a single Guardian that looks like a post-apocalyptic video screen; and the final, very moving conversation between Kirk and Spock. The weak points are the silly business with the space pirates(having the Enterprise simply cease to exist is more logical, and poetic), a dated drug trip scene, and the tacky retribution that eventually befalls the villainous time-distorter. Regarding Kirk's actions(or lack of action) at the story's climax, both versions are valid. I disagree with the all the folks(Ellison and his cronies included) who think the original ending makes Kirk more human, less heroic. I never thought of Kirk as especially heroic in the Roddenberry version, just pragmatic, he does what he has to do, what many of us "humans" would do in the same situation. He is still guided by passion, but his passion for the way of life he knew and the people in it, his passion for the millions who would have suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis, wins out. In fact, having Kirk be the one to prevent Edith from being saved is in many ways more powerful than Ellison's ending. They both work for their own reasons, however.
I can't agree with those who act as if even the bastardized version of City is light years beyond anything else Star Trek ever produced. For my money, Amok Time is the most brilliantly written and executed episode, and there are several other episodes in the same league. Even the highly flawed Requiem for Methuselah had the potential, if it had been done correctly, to be as powerful and meaningful a love story as City.
Frankly, Ellison's script, with its quality and its historic value, is the primary reason to read this book. Ellison's bileous introduction is certainly entertaining, but it is also overlong, repetitive and obscenely self-praising. Likewise, the afterword essays are a little too obsequious for my tastes. If Ellison is truly the man of integrity he claims to be, then he should have allowed some negative reactions to his work, just to balance things out. Instead, the author comes across as a man who needs his ego stoked as often as the warp engines on a starship.
Rating: -
Moan, moan, b*tch, whine, whine. It's all too much, as the Beatles sang. I read this book once, a few years ago. Harlan thinks he is making a great case for himself, but in his much speaking, his heart is revealed -- he simply doesn't seem to have understood that he was hired to create a script that fits within the pre-established context of an episodic television series, and was beholden to the vision of its creator, Gene Roddenberry.
He's like Ayn Rand's Howard Roarke who wants to take other people's money and use it to build his own vision of a building instead. No, Harlan, you should dance with the guy who brung ya. Roddenberry paid for a script that fit HIS specifications.
City on the Edge of Forever was one of the great Star Trek episodes, and reading Harlan's "ideal" version of it is of great interest. As a standalone motion picture, it would have been great. The problem is, he took liberties with the characters and story that simply wouldn't fit the Star Trek series.
As I recall, in the end of the book it is revealed that D.C. Fontana re-wrote the script that was eventually filmed. If that is true, then praises for D.C. Fontana. I love Harlan's script, and I love the final TV episode that was filmed. I just don't think all the fuss about the rewrite is justified. It was rewritten, and it should have been rewritten. Harlan, if he wasn't such an egonmaniacal little twit, could have done the rewrite properly himself, had he wanted to. He just didn't want to. His loss, because to my mind, D.C. Fontana deserves as much credit as Harlan for one of the top ten episodes of the pioneering TV show Star Trek (The Original Series).
Harlan Ellison is a great writer. I do not debate that. But it is much better to read his fiction than his endless crabbing about these incidents that happened nearly forty years ago. It matters less than the dust on the balance now.
Rating:  -
WARNING: I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you've seen the award-winning STAR TREK episode "City on the Edge of Forever." If I'm wrong, and you don't want anything given away, maybe you'd better come back when you have seen it.
As Harlan Ellison wants everyone in the world to know, his original screenplay for "City" differed significantly from the final product -- and he is REALLY BURNED UP over the whole affair. This book contains both the original script in its entirety, and a very angry introduction by Ellison, containing all the gory details.
The script is definitely a must-read for any serious trekker, or any serious science-fiction enthusiast. The STAR TREK COMPENDIUM calls it television writing at its finest, and even if you don't care much for STAR TREK, you might be interested in seeing what was in the script before it was turned into a committee effort and forced to conform to the STAR TREK format.
Regarding Ellison's anger and bitterness over the affair, I have mixed feelings.
On the one hand, I once had a similar experience, albeit on a much, much, much smaller scale*, so I know how infuriating it is to have your creative efforts messed with purely to serve someone's personal concerns -- especially when the people doing the messing treat your objections with contempt. Furthermore, Ellison is an established, respected, and acclaimed science fiction writer, who certainly deserved better. Among other things, Ellison was allegedly lied to and lied about by Gene Roddenberry, who kept claiming that Ellison's original script had Scotty dealing drugs, at the same time he kept promising Ellison that he was gonna quit saying that. And as Ellison points out, he had written for television before, so it was unfair to dismiss him as someone who didn't know how the business worked.
I also feel Ellison makes some good points regarding two major script alterations. Regarding the drug addict/dealer crewman Beckwith, Ellison maintains that there would have to be a few "bad apples" in a crew of 430 members. Regarding Kirk's freezing up because he JUST COULDN'T kill the woman he loved, Ellison claims this would have made Kirk a three-dimensional human being instead of a one-dimensional macho man.
On the other hand, if Ellison had written for television before, he should have expected at least part of what happened. He should have known that NO television script is purely the work of a single author. For better or worse, scripts get passed from hand to hand, and everyone makes changes to suit all sorts of different agendas. Furthermore, there's one additional, firm rule when writing for a series where all the episodes use the same characters and the same scenario. Each episode must present the characters and scenario in a manner consistent with every other episode, and no episode may permanently change either, unless it's part of a preconceived plan to change the series format. I confess that I wonder how familiar Ellison was with this rule, since his earlier television scripts were for THE OUTER LIMITS, an anthology series, where each episode contained its own characters and scenario.
So if the drug addict/dealer Beckwith was inconsistent with the STAR TREK universe, he had to go. Furthermore, Roddenberry had the network to answer to, and according to the STAR TREK COMPENDIUM, NBC wasn't wild about the whole drug thing either. And if Kirk's inability to kill the woman he loved changed him too much in the eyes of the viewers, that had to go as well.
Regarding those two points I mentioned earlier, I said they were GOOD points, but I didn't;t say I completely agreed with them. I concede the possibility that Beckwith might have slipped through and made it onto a star ship, but I also feel it's debatable. After all, Star Fleet is essentially a military outfit, and the military tends to have a zero-tolerance attitude to such things. Regarding Kirk being more believable and sympathetic if he's fallible, I think we;re walking a fine line here. Yes, someone who is too perfect and too impervious to pain will give you a cramp, nut someone who is too flawed and too sensitive to do what has to be done at a pivotal moment will fill you with contempt. Ellison's original ending might have made Kirk more human and more sympathetic, but it might have made him appear weak, as Roddenberry feared. And IS it really more believable that Kirk could;t do it. After all, to save the woman he loved meant destroying the entire universe as we know it, and perhaps a person in his shoes might feel that the whole universe as we know it is just a tad more important.
As far as Roddenberry's lying about and to Ellison, Ellison may have rubbed him the wrong way -- which brings me to my final point. The tone of this book very much rubbed me the wrong way. If you;re going to complain about how badly you've been treated, you must be careful how you do so, lest you lose the sympathy of the audience. One way to lose that sympathy is to take a confrontational attitude that says, "If you don't agree that I was treated badly, you're as rotten as the people who did it to me." In general, IF people want to hear you complain AT ALL, they want to be given all the facts and allowed to form their own opinion. Furthermore, in this case, the majority of the readers will probably be trekkers who want to sympathize with Roddenberry. Ellison would have gotten more of my sympathy if he had practiced a little more diplomacy.
*My situation involved a skit I wrote for a high school variety show, which got sabotaged and nearly canceled because someone didn't want to look bad. The concern may have been legitimate, but the person went behind my back to deal with it.
Rating:  -
Since I'd bought the 'Six Science Fiction' plays containing HE's bare bones account of the differences between his script and the end product, I wondered what he could possibly add to a new edition.
It would seem that "City" remains HE's favorite child; and if his new introduction occasionally has a touch of Ahab after the whale, the unrevised script has a rich, strange delicacy that the televised version only faintly suggests. The script is dramatically tight, where the film version is looser; and while Trek, in the Trek-mythos, took on 'tough' topics, the original has takes on drug use in the military, poverty in America, anti-Asian bigotry, feminism, and the real fate of war veterans, any one of which would have caused network executives to faint, much less all five in a single episode. And it's quite possible that all that was a little too close to the reality on the streets and too far from the starry idealism which, after all, was the show's primary appeal.
Rating: -
Do not get the contents of the book mixed up with the delivery. The book was well designed and allows you to start from any point. Now you must purchase the episode (28) also and see that the changes were necessary to keep within the TV parameters. The sleeve on the VHS box suggests that you count the number of people beaming down and the number of pads on the transporter. I thought it was interesting that everyone was addressed as his or her position (MOS).
I will not go through every change as that is the fun of reading the book; however to keep the story and characters consistent with the TV shows several changes have been made. Whether these changes are for good or evil you must decide. Some of the obvious is when Kirk and Spock have to steal close to be unconscious in their new environment. Harlan said whatever you do not make them fit. Sure enough they look like designer duds that were will tailored. The worse case is the final interaction with Edith Keeler. The whole prime of the story is changed in one moment.
Other books/movies that work well to compare are "The Razor's Edge"; see how Larry Darrell changes from the book to Tyrone Power to Bill Murray and Bill pushes Somerset Maugham completely out of the story. I also enjoyed reading about the controversy over the original "Six Days of the Condor" that was changed by Robert Redford to fit his criteria in "Three Days of the Condor." Drugs are out and oil is in. Three days fit better on a two-hour tape.
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