From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos
From Address: nope@noway.com
Subject: Re: IDW Does Harlan Ellison

In article , Daniel
 wrote:

> 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-ha
> >> rla
> >> n-ellison-and-star-trek-again
> >> or http://preview.tinyurl.com/l4sppdm
> >>
> >> QUOTE
> >> Adapted for the comics by IDWrCUs 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 rCRnosrC# turned into
> >> rCRhmmmms.rC#
> >> 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 EllisonrCOs
> > original script for rCLThe City on the Edge of Forever,rCY 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??


Not a chance.  Nobody's going to touch it.  They don't need the almost
certain litigation.  Even the Pocket Books novels and various comics
don't use or refer to City.  (One exception, I think: Peter David used
City in something after asking Ellison for permission, which he gave.)

In any case, there's nothing to add to City, and there's no reason to
re-do it.  I think they found out with the 2013 movie that remakes of
old Trek shows just won't cut it.
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