.


Originally Posted by Wonder Boy, Oct 25 2020
.

Last night I discovered this 5-issue comics adaptation of Harlan Ellison's Original "City on the Edge of Forever".

https://readallcomics.com/star-trek-harlan-ellisons-city-on-the-edge-of-forever-001-2014/
also at :
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/St...dge-of-Forever-Teleplay/Issue-1?id=92715

I'm sure virtually everyone reading this already knows, the 1967 episode that aired is credited to Harlan Ellison, but is in fact vastly different from the screenplay Ellison wrote. The aired episode was re-written by Gene Roddenberry (and possibly others) to focus on Dr. McCoy as the one who changed time, who Kirk and Spock had to travel through time to 1930 to eliminate the changes to Earth history that McCoy caused. Roddenberry in particular changed the episode's ending.
But even so, it is ranked by most as the best episode of the series.

This new comic version presents the story as Ellison originally wrote it, WITHOUT the changes made in the televised episode. Ellison also had complaints about the appearance of the ruins and city of the time-Guardians, he called the time portal a "donut". I actually thought it was really cool. And the Guardians not having faces made them more compellingly mysterious to me. What Ellison envisioned was considered way too expensive to create, and would have taken the show way over budget, and stretched the production time.

As I recall, it was the screenplay by Ellison that won the award for Best Teleplay from the Screen Actors' Guild for 1967, and not the televised version. And that gave Ellison quite a bit of satisfaction. Ellison severed his ties with the Star Trek series in a big blow-up in 1967 for changing his teleplay, possibly without his consent. I first read Ellison's original script version in a mid-1970's book titled Six Science Fiction Plays. But it has been published in one or two other books since then.

This 5-issue series finally presents Ellison's unused screenplay in a visual narrative form that is comparable to watching the 1967 aired episode, allowing you to fully compare the two.

I like both (the original aired episode, and this 5 issue adaptation of the unused screenplay), but have a preference for the aired episode. But there are aspects of this screenplay adaptation that are superior, I think. Such as the more full development of Kirk and Edith Keeler's love for each other, and the intimate connection they have, that makes the loss in the final scene more impactful. Also, the art has remarkably good likenesses of all the characters, as contrasted with the often horrible likenesses in many other comics versions I've seen.

The banter between Kirk and Spock is much better in the aired episode. It is both funny, and develops both characters quite well, as Kirk pushes Spock's buttons.
For example:

  • SPOCK: Build a pnemonic memory circuit here?!? In this zinc plated vaccuum tube culture?!?
    KIRK: Yes... it would present a rather difficult exercise in logic...
    SPOCK: [ raises eyebrow in surprise and agitation]
    KIRK: I'm sorry... I sometimes expect too much of you...
    SPOCK: [ raises eyebrow in even deeper agitation ]


There are many scenes like that, more polished in the final aired episode. For me what makes the aired episode superior is its focus on the central characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. It eliminated other characters to focus on them. Also interesting is that Scotty and Uhura appear in the final aired version, but are absent from the screenplay version. Yeoman Janice Rand, conversely, was no longer a character on the show when the episode aired in 1967, written out of the series after the first dozen or so episodes (City on the Edge of Forever was episode 28, of 29 first-season episodes).

Ellison in the text lets on that the series was still not fully developed when he wrote the screenplay for the episode. And you can see watching all the first season episodes the changes that occurred in Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Janice Rand, and other characters that could have taken on greater roles but were eliminated.

This was published by IDW in 2014, and I'm amazed I never heard anything about it till now.

Enjoy.

I posted this previously in a Star Trek topic awhile back, and thought I'd re-post it here, being a story written by Ellison. As another example of his comics work.

And like the DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND graphic novel from DC in 1986, it allowed Ellison's altered work in the previous 1964 "Outer Limits" episode to be adapted in a visual medium as close to the aired television episode format as Ellison could ask for. Allowing readers to see Ellison's original vision of both DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND and CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER to finally be seen in a form exactly as the author had originally intended it to be seen.

https://readallcomics.com/science-fiction-graphic-novel-5/
or at :
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Science-Fiction-Graphic-Novel/Issue-5?id=131562

In the DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND graphic novel by Rogers, for example, Ellison had written the maid character to be hispanic. But the network executives didn't like that, and hired a very blonde/Aryan/European looking Arlene Martell to play the role, against Ellison's script. Martell according to Ellison, was quietly true to Ellison's script, and "Played the role as hispanic", beyond her physical appearance.
But in the graphic novel version by Marshall Rogers, Rogers draws the character as much more visibly hispanic, in line with Ellison's original vision of the role.

Likewise, the painted art in CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER in a 5-issue comics adaptation from IDW, allows readers to see Ellison's original script in a format comparable to the aired / altered episode, in a form that allows readers to view Ellison's version in a form that has the same visual and emotional impact as the televised episode. Allowing readers to see both versions (the original script as Eliison intended, vs. the televised version as altered by others) similarly viewable in completed form.