The City on the Edge of Forever Read Free Page A

now, with Shatner’s pinheaded memoir, and that laughable “biography” by David Alexander that tried to make Roddenberry look like fuckin’ Prometheus…well…I let myself get talked into doing the original, unexpurgated, you-read-it-and-judge-for-yourself teleplay, with additional material, and alternate versions and various treatments…and this is my final word on the matter. If it makes money, that’s terrific: I deserve it. (A lot more than the creeps who’ve fed off my work for three decades.) And if it doesn’t…yeah, well, what are the odds all the brain-damaged Trekkies wanted to hear the truth anyhow?
     
    Here’s the way this Rosetta Stone will be revealed to you. The script you are about to read is the original version. It is not the teleplay as presented by NBC on April 6th, 1967. The episode of Star Trek broadcast on that evening was rewritten. Many times. Some of those times by me. Some of those times by others. For the first time in thirty years, right here in this book, you will discover—as I did only when preparing this manuscript—who it was that had a hand in the rewrites of my script besides Coon and Roddenberry and Carabatsos. You may be mildly startled to learn the name of that person, but I guarantee you will not be nearly as astonished as I was. Because I never had a suspicion for three decades that there had been anyone but the “usual suspects” involved. I knew it wasn’t Roddenberry, even though I was certain he had fiddled around with the final version. How did I know? Because as one well-known tv writer (an award-winner himself) has said, “There are chunks of dialogue speech Edith Keeler gives about how in the future everything will be wonderful because we’ll have spaceships to feed hungry people—which is precisely the kind of dopey Utopian bullshit Roddenberry loved.” So I knew Gene had screwed around, because that’s how he was able to lie to himself (and everyone else) that he was the Great Guiding Intelligence. But I also knew he hadn’t done the massive restructuring that was done to my story, although that expert liar told people from lecture platforms for the better part of a quarter century that it was he who rescued that brilliant script from the inept paws of the Slacker Ellison…when, in truth, Roddenberry had about as much writing ability as the lowest industry hack. A fact. Do with it what you will.
    Oh, and when those I savage here decide they will punish me for my impetuous impertinence in muddying the great and golden icon Star Trek , let me advise you of something salient:
    Though, indeed, I have a letter of permission from Paramount permitting me to publish this teleplay, I never needed it. (I sought out such a letter only because the publisher of the limited edition of this book, in the wholly premature announcements four years ago, sought to strike a deal with Paramount for some sort of commercial tie-in. By the time I learned of the letter, it was clear to me that I had better get Paramount “placed” before they decided to play lawyer with me. So I finessed a “release” that permitted me and White Wolf to do this book.) But in truth, I never needed such a letter. Because this is not the script that is the property of Desilu-Paramount.
    It is the original version. The version they returned to me. It is also the version that was copyrighted by me in 1975. It is the version that was mine from the git-go by the “separation of rights” clause in the Writers Guild of America contract we lovingly call the Minimum Basic Agreement. And it is the version that was published in January of 1976 in the Washington Square Press paperback volume, SIX SCIENCE FICTION PLAYS . Had Paramount wished to do anything about my claims to this property, they should have (and certainly would have) done so more than twenty years ago. But since they didn’t, even the dullest attorney over at Paramount Legal would have to represent to anyone intent on “punishing”