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Alternate History in Star Trek part 7: The Final TOS Films, More Novels and Comics
- Thread starter Meadow
- Start date
I hope @Ciclavex doesn't mind the shout-out but I couldn't resist.Discuss this article by @Thande here.
- Location
- Grittysborough
- Pronouns
- he/him
I think I also mentioned that they also did this when Sarek and Amanda first appeared and Spock had not told anyone that the Vulcan ambassador beaming aboard was his father. Or that he was betrothed. Or that he was important enough for T’Pau of Vulcan to preside at his wedding before they showed up to it.I hope @Ciclavex doesn't mind the shout-out but I couldn't resist.
Spock having form for never mentioning his family until forced to is one of his most consistent and enduring character traits that doesn’t show up constantly.
- Location
- In a van, down by the river.
Star Trek V, for all its faults, did contain the funniest line ever from any Star Trek show or film that I saw.
"Please Captain, not in front of the Klingons."
"Please Captain, not in front of the Klingons."
- Location
- North Alabama
even Roddenberry didn’t like it, which surely has to be the first case of Roddenberry disapproving of someone doing a Star Trek plot that’s stupid about religion.
Roddenberry not liking it apparently had less to do with the plot than the fact he hadn't gotten to do it. Star Trek V was apparently thematically quite close to one of Roddenberry's pre-TMP scripts, The God Thing, which essentially crossed the two future TOS movies together. They were so similar apparently that Roddenberry's secretary tried to convince him that Shatner and producer Harve Bennett had stolen his idea. Roddenberry didn't go that far, but his frustration with having the studio approve a variation on an idea for a Star Trek movie from one of its stars and the producer whom he viewed as stealing the film franchise out from under him remained by most accounts.
(The God Thing has its own AH potential since not only was it pitched for what became TMP but had two different novelization attempts. One by Roddenberry before Phase II/TMP took off and then later on under Michael Jan Friedman. The latter was announced and cover artwork solicited but was derailed by Roddenberry's passing in 1991. EDIT: Derailed so late, in fact, it got an ISBN attached to it and has an Amazon listing despite never being released.)
I'll admit I have a soft spot for Star Trek V, to the point I wrote something of a defense for it on Warped Factor a few years back. It's an imperfect film, don't get me wrong, and is almost a dry-run for the Shatnerverse novels that ran from the mid-1990s through the mid-noughties. But, along with TMP, it's also the closest to TOS as a series which, as TOS was my first love as a Trek fan, I very much appreciate. Also, having read the making-of book Captain's Log, which was written before the film became perceived as a failure, and the comments made by particularly Harve Bennett about the film, it's hard not to see how much of a compromise the final film in terms of budget, the studio insisting on trying to balance the serious themes with Voyage Home style humor, and having to cobble together an ending during post-production. There was, and still is, a lot of untapped potential in Star Trek V that didn't get put to use.
After the failure of Star Trek V, the original cast were reunited – this time with Leonard Nimoy directing – for one last adventure in 1991, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
You meant Nicholas Meyer there, I think? Though Nimoy is co-credited with the story alongside the two writers who couldn't make the idea work but convinced the WGA that they deserved credit anyway (much to Meyer's frustration as he wrote about in his memoir A View From the Bridge).
“Final Frontier” (1988) by Diane Carey is another one which will get a Prequel Problems article from me, as it involves the adventures of Kirk’s father George Kirk as he fights the Romulans (you’ll notice that the 2009 film may have been influenced by this).
Oh it was definitely influenced by the novel, as the writers admitted in a 2009 interview for Entertainment Weekly where they cited it and the novel Best Destiny as major influences on how they approached the reboot.
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Bumping this thread because I've actually started reading Spock's World (previously only knowing it through synopses)...in this article I put the following:
I did that as a throwaway joke, but chuff me it's actually so unsubtle I'm starting to second-guess the nature of reality. Not only do the Vulcans all refer to it as "the Referendum" in a way that emphasises it wasn't that commonplace a word at the time this was written, but the book actually opens with Spock gazing at the British Isles and trying to solve our weather with an algorithm while he gets the news that his father's being recalled to the debate. Meanwhile Kirk is on shore leave in Ireland, and on his way via London his shuttle got delayed because he ran into the rush hour of all the City commuters returning home (to other continents, because this is The Future). Oh, and there's a thing about how Irish NIMBYs have restricted the growth of Dublin.
The actual reason for all the British Isles stuff is that Duane wrote the book while staying here, but I could imagine a casual reader thinking there was a connection to the Vulcan secession referendum debate being a Brexit analogue. Well, at least until they see the stuff that reminds them this was written in the mid-1980s - Soviet Moscow is a megacity complex (among others), the Enterprise's library computer gets refreshed with updates from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, data tapes are beamed up, and the ship has an online forum with a rotating sysop where people anonymously debate the news of the day under forum usernames using 'gigabytes' worth of data, which is A Lot, You Know. (Although admittedly the racist screed against Vulcans one crewman posts could come from modern social media).
The paleofuture stuff is actually fascinating now - like the Enterprise beaming up mail and currency for transport to other systems and there's an aside about how there still has to be physical currency because reasons, as clearly digital currencies were already being debated at the time.
“Spock’s World” (1988) by Diane Duane somehow manages to clearly be unsubtly about Brexit despite being written about thirty years before it happened: as Vulcan votes to leave the Federation, Spock’s loyalties are tested.
I did that as a throwaway joke, but chuff me it's actually so unsubtle I'm starting to second-guess the nature of reality. Not only do the Vulcans all refer to it as "the Referendum" in a way that emphasises it wasn't that commonplace a word at the time this was written, but the book actually opens with Spock gazing at the British Isles and trying to solve our weather with an algorithm while he gets the news that his father's being recalled to the debate. Meanwhile Kirk is on shore leave in Ireland, and on his way via London his shuttle got delayed because he ran into the rush hour of all the City commuters returning home (to other continents, because this is The Future). Oh, and there's a thing about how Irish NIMBYs have restricted the growth of Dublin.
The actual reason for all the British Isles stuff is that Duane wrote the book while staying here, but I could imagine a casual reader thinking there was a connection to the Vulcan secession referendum debate being a Brexit analogue. Well, at least until they see the stuff that reminds them this was written in the mid-1980s - Soviet Moscow is a megacity complex (among others), the Enterprise's library computer gets refreshed with updates from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, data tapes are beamed up, and the ship has an online forum with a rotating sysop where people anonymously debate the news of the day under forum usernames using 'gigabytes' worth of data, which is A Lot, You Know. (Although admittedly the racist screed against Vulcans one crewman posts could come from modern social media).
The paleofuture stuff is actually fascinating now - like the Enterprise beaming up mail and currency for transport to other systems and there's an aside about how there still has to be physical currency because reasons, as clearly digital currencies were already being debated at the time.
- Location
- NYC (né Falkirk)
- Pronouns
- he/him
Naturally they would have to transport physical currency, since latinun can't be replicated.
Finished Spock's World. Turns out (um, spoilers for book that's nearly as old as I am) that all the Referendum stuff was actually cooked up by T'Pring due to still being sore about "Amok Time" and blaming Spock for Stonn working himself to death or something, and the entire purpose to withdrawing Vulcan from the Federation was to force Spock and his parents to leave Vulcan out of revenge.
This is like if Brexit had been engineered by Laurence Fox to get back at Billie Piper.
This is like if Brexit had been engineered by Laurence Fox to get back at Billie Piper.
- Location
- North Alabama
Finished Spock's World. Turns out (um, spoilers for book that's nearly as old as I am) that all the Referendum stuff was actually cooked up by T'Pring due to still being sore about "Amok Time" and blaming Spock for Stonn working himself to death or something, and the entire purpose to withdrawing Vulcan from the Federation was to force Spock and his parents to leave Vulcan out of revenge.
This is like if Brexit had been engineered by Laurence Fox to get back at Billie Piper.
Now I’m starting to genuinely regret not buying it when it was part of the Trek eBook deals earlier in the year! I have found an audiobook of it (not doubt abridged) read by Leonard Nimoy I might have to check out, though.
- Location
- North Alabama
For those in the US, Spock's World is among a number of Spock-centric titles marked down to 99 cents on Kindle/eBook via Simon & Schuster's monthly Trek book deals. I also noticed that John M. Ford's The Final Reflection is among the October titles, as well.
- Location
- NYC (né Falkirk)
- Pronouns
- he/him
Beyond Spock's World, anyone have any recommendations (or discommendation) for any of the titles on sale?For those in the US, Spock's World is among a number of Spock-centric titles marked down to 99 cents on Kindle/eBook via Simon & Schuster's monthly Trek book deals. I also noticed that John M. Ford's The Final Reflection is among the October titles, as well.
Never really ventured into Star Trek novels.
"The Final Reflection" is the only other one on the list I've read and I would heartily recommend it. (Watch for the bits of now de-canonised Klingon lore I promptly nicked for the Culvanai in 'Well Met By Starlight' and 'On the Wings of the Morn'...)Beyond Spock's World, anyone have any recommendations (or discommendation) for any of the titles on sale?
Never really ventured into Star Trek novels.