News Introducing Fact Trek

[Ssosmcin]

I appreciate what you guys do, and so do most of us here, I imagine. But, I have to say, most fans I’ve encountered out there don’t care. If they read it in a book or a magazine or they heard in 1980, it’s true. I’m not talking the more studious die-hards who go to message boards, I mean the self-proclaimed experts who go as far as YouTube or social media, join Facebook groups and consider the Cushman books the final word. I’ve tried to post links to @Harvey's original blog debunking the Cushman claims and got blowback because it’s a blog vs an official book.

You know the fans I mean: shut-ins who have one profile picture which is a selfie shot upwards from their chest, they’re scowling or looking to the side, and they use the same picture for everything. And all of their friends are spoof profiles of woman with huge breasts. The kind of fans Shatner’s Get a Life skit riffed on, only these people never leave the house to meet at a con.

I would love the ME-TV and Heroes and Icons pages to pick up your posts and run with them instead of just going with the same old crap.

Anyways, sorry, rant over. Keep fighting the good fight. I love getting to the truth through you guys. I actually would have liked to see Roddenberry's second go at a movie.

 

[Neopeius]

Memory Alpha has tried to do that. I don't know what we could offer other than looking at daily production reports (where available) to verify names of actors who might've gone uncredited.

Hey, ya never know. Someone might know something. I know there were some web forums with tidbits. In any event, it'd be a fun exercise, and I've got a week of vacation coming up!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

[...] most fans I’ve encountered out there don’t care. If they read it in a book or a magazine or they heard in 1980, it’s true

I don't care that they don't care.

I care.

(I won't debate whether it's literally "most fans" out there period, or only most of a certain type, maybe those run across, because we'd end up debating in a vacuum, without hard data.)

 

[Ssosmcin]

I did say most fans "I've encountered" because I honestly don't think "most fans" as a blanket statement is a fair assessment.

 

[Maurice]

I think the problem is what we saw here: people repeat what they've read without putting any qualifiers on it, no "assuming this is true, but it might not be."

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I think the problem is what we saw here: people repeat what they've read without putting any qualifiers on it, no "assuming this is true, but it might not be."

Chain letters in the 20th century, web feeds in the 21st. A substantial number of people generally (probably most) are just plain too trusting, especially when it comes to information presented as fact from sources that they've deemed trustworthy.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

We're always more ready to believe information that supports our personal worldviews, too.

 

[Maurice]

Hey, ya never know. Someone might know something. I know there were some web forums with tidbits. In any event, it'd be a fun exercise, and I've got a week of vacation coming up!

As per the article, the production paperwork doesn't identify extras/background, so we're not able to check names for people in the background.

 

[mb22]

So, to button up this JFK thing (which is way OT), here's the relevant excerpts from what The First Star Trek Movie says on the subject:

Despite the largely negative critical reception, the Robert Wise film had been successful enough that Gene Roddenberry submitted a 60-page treatment for a sequel on May 23, 1980. Titled Star Trek III, for he still thought of the 1960s television series as Star Trek I and the Robert Wise film as Star Trek II, it involved the Enterprise having to fix damage done in 1963 by time- traveling Klingons. [...] The Enterprise goes back to 1963, where President Kennedy is still alive because he canceled the Dallas trip. Kirk has to talk Kennedy into giving him a rare isotope the Enterprise needs to travel faster than light in order to both go further back in time to stop the Klingon ship as it first appears in 1963, and then return to the 23rd century.
[...]
In March 1981, a rumor soon spread via Starlog from a Paramount official “who asked not to be named” about Roddenberry’s Star Trek III treatment, claiming that “just about the last scene in the story had Spock walking up to Kennedy’s limousine and killing him with his phaser,” which was not true.​

Having read this, treatment, the above is accurate.

Let's just put that damned rumor to bed, shall we?

"Stay skeptical my friends."

The Klingons raping Amanda and Sarek being killed, as reported in the Trek Movie article -- was this in the treatment?

Any idea who the unnamed "Paramount official" quoted in Starlog was? Was this an attempt by the studio to neutralize Roddenberry's standing with fans unhappy with his being taken away from producing the series? It's more than 40 years later, but someone might know.

 

[Grant]

So interesting that the 1985 Revival of Twilight Zone had a nearly identical episode. A future person came back in the past to save Kennedy but saving him caused a nuclear war so in the end Kennedy had to die after all. Although in this version the time traveler took Kennedy's Place somehow and j.f.k. ended up in the future.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

So interesting that the 1985 Revival of Twilight Zone had a nearly identical episode. A future person came back in the past to save Kennedy but saving him caused a nuclear war so in the end Kennedy had to die after all. Although in this version the time traveler took Kennedy's Place somehow and j.f.k. ended up in the future.

I remember that episode.

 

[mkstewartesq]

Any idea who the unnamed "Paramount official" quoted in Starlog was? Was this an attempt by the studio to neutralize Roddenberry's standing with fans unhappy with his being taken away from producing the series? It's more than 40 years later, but someone might know.

I have no information whatsoever, but I always suspected that it was Bennett, as he seemed to be the one with the greatest need to diminish Roddenberry‘s standing and contribution at a time when (even in that Starlog article), fans were up in arms that Gene was no longer in charge of Star Trek. Wasn’t it also Bennett who later stated that Gene kept bringing up this exact same treatment for every subsequent sequel? And I get that Bennett was not really an officer or other figure of power within Paramount - but the phrase “Paramount official“ is pretty loosey-goosey and gives lots of plausible deniability if the reporter “inadvertently” mischaracterized the speaker’s status.

M

 

[Christopher]

And I get that Bennett was not really an officer or other figure of power within Paramount - but the phrase “Paramount official“ is pretty loosey-goosey and gives lots of plausible deniability if the reporter “inadvertently” mischaracterized the speaker’s status.

That doesn't make any sense. There are simpler ways to keep a source anonymous than making up a false attribution. And it's not a reporter's job to lie on behalf of an interview subject. Keeping secrets is one thing, but actively inventing disinformation crosses a line, and actively lying to take one interview subject's side at the expense of another is even more grossly unprofessional. So this is an incredibly cynical conjecture that hardly seems fair to the reporter, or to Harve Bennett, who never struck me as the sort of guy who'd be so petty toward a professional colleague.

 

[Maurice]

The Klingons raping Amanda and Sarek being killed, as reported in the Trek Movie article -- was this in the treatment?

Something like that.

People get confused because the treatment is titled Star Trek III so they assume this was pitched as the 3rd film, not the second.

 

[mb22]

Something like that.

Not as bad as Spock killing JFK, but extremely unpleasant. I wonder if the rape and murder of these two well liked characters would have stayed in the script had the project been greenlighted. I can see recasting them if the scene remained and Wyatt and Lenard disapproved of it.

 

[Maurice]

Not as bad as Spock killing JFK, but extremely unpleasant. I wonder if the rape and murder of these two well liked characters would have stayed in the script had the project been greenlighted. I can see recasting them if the scene remained and Wyatt and Lenard disapproved of it.

It was a first treatment, so who knows.

I am a little rusty of the two Povill-Roddenberry treatments from 1976 but I recall some common elements amongst them and the 1980 one. I'l have to look.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The Klingons raping Amanda and Sarek being killed, as reported in the Trek Movie article --

This is not the first time I've heard this, but every damned time, it just makes me sick to my stomach. I'm not easily offended or bothered, but this "plot point" disgusts me. Star Trek could be dark, grim, serious and even scary but this is just a level of sick nastiness that really doesn't belong in Trek's kind of pop entertainment. Or maybe it's just me.

 

[Grant]

Sounds fake to me. And Wyatt was never coming back to Trek for that s**t.

 

[publiusr]

So interesting that the 1985 Revival of Twilight Zone had a nearly identical episode. A future person came back in the past to save Kennedy but saving him caused a nuclear war so in the end Kennedy had to die after all. Although in this version the time traveler took Kennedy's Place somehow and j.f.k. ended up in the future.

Now that I like. He deserved to see the future.

 

[urbandefault]

The theme of saving JFK has continued into the 21st.

(Beware: JJ Abrams content )

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