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Harlan Ellison's the City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay That Became the Classic Star Trek Episode

Harlan Ellison's the City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay That Became the Classic Star Trek Episode

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bottled Anger Erupting On Page
Review: For more than thirty years now, controversy has raged over the fan favorite Star Trek episode, "City on the Edge of Forever." Here, Ellison gives us the story of his script, how it was written, then rewritten numerous times, finally to the point where he disavowed it, trying to put his nom de plume, Cordwainer Bird as author.

The book, which starts as an interesting piece of, if not Trekker lore, television behind the scenes, quickly becomes a (likely justified) character assassination of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Plenty of evidence is presented to prove the claims of dishonesty by Roddenberry against not only Ellison, but other creators. "City" is not the first tome to assert Roddenberry's credit stealing or lack of writing ability (although it has never been put so succinctly as when Ellison says Roddenberry, "couldn't write worth sour owl poop.")

In three separate interviews printed here, Roddenberry claims that Ellison's script was unfilmable for two reasons. One, he had several crewmen acting out of character and two he was over budget. Taking these one at a time, Roddenberry was actually quoted as saying, "He [Ellison] had my Scotty dealing drugs!" Scotty does not appear on the script anywhere. Several times Roddenberry had apologized for his mistake, but he never seemed to stop making it.

Although Scotty was not dealing drugs, another character created just for this episode, Lt. Beckwith, is dealing in Jewels of Sound, a sonic narcotic. Roddenberry objected to having any of his perfect crew showing such poor character. Perhaps this was Roddenberry's complaint, and not defamation of Scotty, but Starfleet officers in general, whom Roddenberry never wanted to show with conflicts or flaws.

As for the second issue, budget reports reprinted here show Ellison did go over budget $66,000, which is a negotiable amount. Ellison proved he was willing to rewrite to accommodate expenses; he did so three times without pay, something that is against the rules for producers to ask writer's to do, according to the Writer's Guild of America. Roddenberry's claim of being $300,000 over budget is ludicrous and, I would hope, just a result of bad memory and not a willful lie.

No one else is safe from Ellison's legendary wrath, either. He recounts an incident with William Shatner, who had requested to be the absolute first to read Ellison's completed script for "City". Ellison invited Shatner into his home (after Shatner wipes out his motorcycle showboating in his driveway.) to examine the script. And examine it he does-for several hours. Thus we had the first request for a rewrite, because Shatner had counted the lines he had, and realized that Leonard Nimoy had a handful more. Such were the egos involved here.

What exasperates the point to almost unbearable levels is that the original script, unfilmed and owned exclusively by Ellison, won a Writer's Guild of America award, while the filmed version ("a thalidomide baby version of my script", according to Ellison) won a Hugo in 1967 for Best Dramatic Presentation, the only teleplay ever to do so. Ellison accepted the Hugo award in "memory of the script they butchered, and in respect to those parts of it that had the vitality to shine through the evisceration."

One is compelled to ask, then: Is the script really that great? In a word, yes. As a piece of writing, the original "City on the Edge of Forever" is a touching story. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of a legless World War I veteran named Trooper who becomes a tragic hero, so important and yet, unimportant. He is a very poignant character I would have liked to have seen added to Trek lore.

Ellison's original script has an officer, Beckwith, dealing in drugs and then escaping to a nearby planet. Beaming down after him, Kirk and crew discover the Guardians of Forever, who watch over a beautiful ancient city. As in the filmed version, a portal shows the crew events from Earth history, but Beck with is the one to jump through to escape, not McCoy. He is also the one who saves Edith Keeler and changes history.

The love story between Kirk and Keeler is played up, and becomes all the more tragic as Kirk honestly contemplates sacrificing for love the future, as it should be. In the end, Spock must grab and hold Beckwith as Keeler is killed, there by setting the time stream right again. Beckwith jumps back through the portal and lands in the heart of a sun and is forced to repeat that cycle forever.

This book is worth a read through, particularly just to have a copy of the original script. A good seventy pages is nothing but an angry rant by Ellison that true fans of his will enjoy, but others will think is just fussy and unnecessary. Because of this episode's status in the hearts and minds of fans everywhere, the battle to claim credit for it may never cease. Ellison, however, makes a fine case here.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Loved the Essay and the Episode...The Script? See Below...
Review: Harlan Ellison's bitter introductory essay is the absolute finest reason to buy this book. He handily deconstructs the myth that has been Gene Roddenberry in a literate, angry rant that makes the reader almost experience a vein-throbbing aneurysm as an act of pure empathy. I myself had to be hospitalized for several days after exposure to his acidic version of what went down. That having been said, I'm still a fan of the televised version of The City on the Edge of Forever and I think it was an improvement on Ellison's original draft. The number one reason is (as D.C. Fontana points out in her afterword) that Ellison's script just wasn't very series television friendly. The City and the Guardians as originally envisioned by Ellison could have never been delivered to his satisfaction given the special effects/makeup limitations of the time and would have been a legitimate budgetary concern. Personally, I think it was a stroke of genius to make the Guardian actually BE the gateway and substituting the original antagonist of the drug-dealing Beckwith (what's the street value on a Jewel of Sound, by the way?) with the accidentally doped-up but otherwise decent Dr. McCoy simply made more sense from a TV standpoint. Ellison's addition (okay, okay at Roddenberry's insistence) of space pirates came off as silly and the Enterprise simply ceasing to exist was certainly more profound than having them turn into a ship full of buccaneers. What I find incredibly interesting in the reading of Ellison's essay and the various afterwords are the unanimous suggestions that Roddenberry wanted HIS Starfleet people to be portrayed as perfect and uncorrupt while refusing to address the many episodes made under Roddenberry's supervision that depicted imperfect and corrupt Starfleet personnel. In Charlie X, the captain of the USS Antares passes Charlie off on the Enterprise even though he suspects the young man is a dangerous force and only tries to warn them when he figures his own vessel is a safe distance away. In Court-Martial, a Starfleet officer fakes his own death so as to incriminate Captain Kirk. Don't even get me started on John Gill and his little Nazi-experiment on the planet Ekos. Of all the people involved with this book, only Peter David took the trouble to write about this obvious double standard while not offering a theory to explain it. I have little doubt that Gene Roddenberry did have the most fond desire to have the universe he's credited with creating (he had a LOT of help) populated by the most brave and perfect human beings and I also have little doubt that he paid lip service to this concept throughout his life but it was obviously a desire he was able to put aside when the story demanded it. The simple truth is that The City on the Edge of Forever didn't need the arch-villain Beckwith to set in motion the events that resulted in the brief annihilation of the universe as James Kirk knew it. Point of fact: it was an act of mercy and kindness (the snatching away of Edith Keeler before she met her demise under the wheels of the beer truck) that caused this annihilation and was certainly much more in character for the kindly Dr. McCoy than some evil junior officer dealing space-crack. Ellison made much to-do of the changing of his original ending (which I won't reveal here) but I have to say that the one that was filmed has endured in my mind as more affecting than any thing I have seen on Star Trek to date with the possible exception of Spock's death in Star Trek II. Isn't it human that Kirk had the desire to give up his universe for the woman he loved but in the end sacrificed her and his happiness so that millions would live? Isn't it human that he had the desire but in the end did what was right? Isn't it more heroic? To Ellison's credit, the basic story is all there in his original script so City is his baby, albeit a bastard one with many vying to be the father. I doubt that the multiple fingerprints it endured on its way to the screen could have fashioned such a piece of TV history without Ellison's apt jump-start. For those of you who reviewed the book and wondered if Ellison had ever even seen an episode of Star Trek when he wrote his script, I would suggest that you read the book again and put yourself in the time and place. Ellison turned in his first treatment in March of 1966 and the second in May of that same year. Star Trek hadn't even premiered yet. The only episodes that were probably in the can at that time were the two pilots. It's quite possible Ellison was able to view those episodes in preparation for writing a Star Trek script but bear in mind that Spock was the only character in The Cage who appeared in the series and he wasn't really the Spock that we all know and love. Likewise, the characters as they appeared in Where No Man Has Gone Before were still characters in flux so Ellison had a lot of room to play around. I admit that reading Ellison's script gives one the initial reaction that he missed the characters by a country mile when it came to dialogue and mannerisms and I have no doubt the even the most casual Star Trek fan could summon exchanges between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy so authentic sounding that they would put Ellison's attempt to shame but just bear in mind that he did not have the benefit of experiencing Trek as a thirty-year old cultural icon. This was a guy who was in on the ground floor, folks. And in spite of my personal opinion on what he came up with, he is still the person who built The City on the Edge of Forever.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Finally the truth is revealed!
Review: I found this book to be refreshing and quite stimulating. After all of the worship one must endure that is directed at the "Great Bbird of the Galaxy" it is nice to see just how human (and predictable) he really was. The script of course was brilliant but I got a lot more enjoyment out of the related comments.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Harlan Sets the Record Straight
Review: I have been a fan of Harlan's for years (what he thinks of me I have no idea, and probably shouldn't ask), so I'm extremely familiar with his irritation over the treatment of 'City' -- his entirely justifiable irritation, by the way. Ask yourself how you would feel, seeing something you'd worked very hard on and were extremely proud of...only to be told that it was no good, and that significant portions of it would have to be changed? Worse, how would you react if those changes made your work significantly inferior to the original? And worse yet, what do you think your reaction would be if the one who'd commissioned those changes to begin with, then started blaming the inferiority of the work on you, publicly, again and again, despite all your attempts to set the record straight? For that is what happened to Harlan, year in and year out, as Gene Roddenberry first mangled Harlan's work, then maligned not only his ability but his credibility. Roddenberry, frankly, was lucky Ellison didn't slap him with a defamation lawsuit years ago. As it was, Harlan was kind enough, after a certain point, to not reenter the debate while Gene was still alive. I'm amused at certain reviewers in this section who seem to think that Harlan is denigrating the Great Bird's good name in his 'Perils of the City' essay -- believe me, while Gene was no doubt a nice guy and loved by family and friends, his 'good name' in the industry was nonexistent. (His antics during the writing of Trek: The Motion Picture used up almost all of his goodwill in Hollywood for years. Ask Alan Dean Foster and Harold Livingston if you don't believe me. But I digress.) I'm also amused at those who think that Harlan is whining, too bitter, too full of invective and name-calling to present himself effectively. In the immortal words of Red Skelton, you don't know him very well, do ya folks? I've read a lot, and I mean a lot, of Harlan's work, and believe you me, 'Perils of the City' is mild compared to some of his harshest stuff! Don't believe me? Then you must never have read The Glass Teat or The Other Glass Teat -- which Stephen King compared to "one of those...four-hour rants delivered by Fidel Castro". You want bitterness? Read his narrative about what happened to The Starlost ('Face Down In Gloria Swanson's Swimming Pool'). You want invective? Try Harlan's vicious attack on Frank Herbert and Dune (which I personally disagree with). Harlan is being a pussycat in 'Perils' -- trying to set the record straight. He is not insulting to everybody, and he even has nice things to say about a few people. (Mostly those who take his side, but so what? Again, what would you do?) And, more importantly, Harlan makes several good points in 'Perils', the most important being that he was trying to present the Trek characters as people, not as ivory-tower ideals of what people should be. Honestly now, have you ever in your life met somebody as noble, as downright saintly in his self-sacrifice, as Kirk is made out to be in the filmed version of 'City'? Which brings me to Harlan's original script, and how it compares to the finished product. Well, kids, there's simply no comparison. Harlan's original is heartfelt, intelligently-reasoned, presenting Kirk with an actual choice to make, instead of (as the filmed show does) making the choice for him. Spock is presented at his most truly alien, his most coldly logical -- and yet at the end shows he does indeed have a human side. The character of Beckwith? A distillation of evil, pure and simple, and with the right actor to play him, he could have been a memorable part of the show. The character of Trooper? Beautiful, possibly Harlan's best moment in his entire career of writing for television.The space pirates? Blame Roddenberry. The unnecessary inclusion of McCoy, a supposedly-responsible ship's surgeon, accidentally injecting himself with a dangerous drug? Blame -- well, I'll let you find that out on your own. I don't think Harlan was half so surprised by it as I was! The knowledge of who made what changes matters little, in the end -- the fact remains that the original 'City' teleplay not only leaves the finished version in the dust, it makes that version look like the work of first-year creative writing students, working from a Syd Field screenplay model. It has little of Harlan's intelligence, none of his wit, and only the smallest amount of his heart. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't use his Cordwainer Bird alias for this one -- because if anything was ever a shoe made for a bird, the filmed version of 'City' is it. So thank you, Harlan, for setting the record straight, finally, and for giving us a rare glimpse at how good Star Trek could have been, if only the Great Bird could've kept his grubby wings off it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An essential buy for Ellison and Star Trek fans
Review: I have read Harlan Ellison's books since I was 14, and I started watching Star Trek even before that. One of the things that I enjoyed about about the original Star Trek series that I think fell apart in the Next Generation was it's portrayal of a grittier Federation. You had smugglers like Harry Mudd, and "guru's" and many other representatives from the darker side of civilization portrayed.

Harlan Ellison's original script for City On The Edge Of Forever showed that darker side in a way that I personally would like to have seen filmed. In addition, this book also shows you the darker side of real society in his documentation of the way that his original script was handled. Given that Ellison is the darkest, yet most talented writer I've ever had the privilage to read, this book is a testament to the grim reality of everything he's written over the past 35+ years.

City On The Edge Of Forever has always been my favorite Star Trek episode, long before I ever knew that Harlan Ellison had written it. However, reading the history behind the making of this episode is truly fascinating, whether you like the original script or not. It's a great glimpse into the troubles that many writers, not just Harlan, have to face in a world where they aren't considered to be the stars of the show and others take credit for their hard work.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The truth comes out, though many will still refuse to see...
Review: I'm amazed that anyone who claims to have read the book can still really blame the controversy on budget-problems and keep a straight face. Ellison did more than produce an angry intro to the book; he produces fact after fact to combat the lies that have been told about him for decades. This is both compelling and sickening at the same time... very engaging reading. The scripts themselves were interesting, although it was difficult for me to read essentially the same script over and over. People interested in how scripts change over time will enjoy this, but I think you have to be in the right frame of mind to read multiple drafts of the same work. Don't read this book if you refuse to believe Gene Roddenberry had human failings and ambitions.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Embarrassing.
Review: I'm astounded that Harlan Ellison thought to publish such a work. Not only does he malign the dead, who cannot defend themselves (and notice he waited to publish it until after Gene Roddenberry died), but he dwells in poison over events that happened thirty years ago.

Further, a writer of Ellison's experience should know that in television a writer's scripts are not their own. He was paid to write a script, just as a mason is paid to build a wall in someone else's yard. In this case, Roddenberry's. I no longer respect Mr. Harlan Ellison the way I once did.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An Important Background Plot
Review: In 1966, I was but a glimmer in my father's eye (a condition obviously made bearable by corrective lenses until I was released on the world three years later) and Harlan Ellison was a writer mucking about in Hollywood. Late in that year, his latest muck was a television screenplay for a new series called "Star Trek". The play was entitled "The City on the Edge of Forever," and was destined for a prestigious Hugo award. Thirty one years later-and a bonfire of discord begun then still burns bright to this day. I saw it early in my forays into science fiction, in the derogatory forward that graced all of the 4th incarnation "Doctor Who" novels and the sarcastic undertone of the ostentatious enigma growing from the original "Star Trek" ashes. Ellison, like so many others that have dared blend good literature and the 'pop' frenzy of the television media stalked the years with a bad taste in his mouth; the very kind of tang that comes seeing art reshaped, cut and generally fumbled with to appease the unlikely mission parameters of vacuum-tube entertainment hierarchies. In the essay "Perils of the City", Ellison was not shy about expressing his opinion that his script, along with countless others by fair artists and lackies alike have their originality effected by standards beyond the common ethics of simple editing. The real editing parameters were margined by dollar signs, and still are. The idea was planted in my head by Ellison himself in the preamble I saw a million times (and read perhaps twice) in the first few pages of my Doctor Who novels all those years ago: "... Star Wars is adolescent nonsense and Star Trek could turn your brain into puree of bat guano...". The difference between fine storytelling and the flimflam offered by popular media is the presence of the sales representative in the writing room. Oh yeah... and art is never properly marketable-just ask Thoreau, Shelly, Homer-they'll tell it. So, from writer to writer, let it be a warning: It's us against them. And they're winning.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Beautiful script; Bitter introduction
Review: It is almost never questioned that the best Star Trek episode of all time is Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever." Now, you can see how much better that episode could have been if Ellison's complete and unrevised script had been used. The bittersweet, doomed, romance of Kirk and Edith Keeler, the idea that love alone might be worth a universe, and the thought that a moment of courage could bring a lifetime of pain and destruction are all brought to the fore much more clearly than in the truncated TV version. Ellison is a master storyteller, and he has rarely been in finer form. So why not a perfect ten? Well, the screenplay deserves a ten, but it's packaged with an introductory essay that is one of the bitterest things Ellison has ever written, which is no mean feat. The long, rambling essay exorciates pretty much everyone ever involved with Star Trek. Ellison refutes every word of criticism levelled against his teleplay by Roddenberry, Shatner, et al., and he does it without his trademark black humour. Granted, it's hard to be humourous about things when Roddenberry and the hard-core Trekkies have been spreading mistruths about why your screenplay got hacked to pieces for the last thirty years, especially Roddenberry's blatant lie that Ellison had "Scotty dealing drugs," a lie Roddenberry continued to spread despite being corrected on numerous occasions. Still, Ellison's bitter catharsis is hard going. The seventy-five page forward is in almost a stream of consciousness style, with Ellison leaping from topic to topic, going off on tangents in footnotes that cover three pages, and various letters, memos and other documentation thrown in at what appear to be random intervals. Ellison really could have used a good editor. And White Wolf publishing really could use a good copy editor. The essay is hard enough to follow without the _dozens_ of misspellings and grammatical errors that slipped through. Still, this is a must read for fans of Ellison and Star Trek, and a chance for both to think of what might have been

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Beautiful script; Bitter introduction
Review: It is almost never questioned that the best Star Trek episode of all time is Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever." Now, you can see how much better that episode could have been if Ellison's complete and unrevised script had been used. The bittersweet, doomed, romance of Kirk and Edith Keeler, the idea that love alone might be worth a universe, and the thought that a moment of courage could bring a lifetime of pain and destruction are all brought to the fore much more clearly than in the truncated TV version. Ellison is a master storyteller, and he has rarely been in finer form. So why not a perfect ten? Well, the screenplay deserves a ten, but it's packaged with an introductory essay that is one of the bitterest things Ellison has ever written, which is no mean feat. The long, rambling essay exorciates pretty much everyone ever involved with Star Trek. Ellison refutes every word of criticism levelled against his teleplay by Roddenberry, Shatner, et al., and he does it without his trademark black humour. Granted, it's hard to be humourous about things when Roddenberry and the hard-core Trekkies have been spreading mistruths about why your screenplay got hacked to pieces for the last thirty years, especially Roddenberry's blatant lie that Ellison had "Scotty dealing drugs," a lie Roddenberry continued to spread despite being corrected on numerous occasions. Still, Ellison's bitter catharsis is hard going. The seventy-five page forward is in almost a stream of consciousness style, with Ellison leaping from topic to topic, going off on tangents in footnotes that cover three pages, and various letters, memos and other documentation thrown in at what appear to be random intervals. Ellison really could have used a good editor. And White Wolf publishing really could use a good copy editor. The essay is hard enough to follow without the _dozens_ of misspellings and grammatical errors that slipped through. Still, this is a must read for fans of Ellison and Star Trek, and a chance for both to think of what might have been


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