The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay (Harlan Ellison Collecton)

I think Harlan Ellison believes everyone is entitled to his opinion. As Shatner said on a Saturday Night Live episode, years ago, "Get A Life".
All he does is rant, whine and complain for the first 85 pages of his book. OK, his original script was revised. He loved his more than what was aired. What author doesn't prefer their original version? He was hired to write a script for a show that HE DID NOT CREATE. If Roddenberry felt changes should be made to HIS CREATION, that's his prerogative. If you read the original script, it's very similar to Ellison's version. In my opinion, it was streamlined to fit into a 52 minute slot, and it does it very well. We get McCoy in the original version and fans are concerned about their favorite Doctor...they don't give a crap about Becksworth.

The bulk of Ellison's story is there...it's just revised. He should be grateful to have been given the opportunity to write the episode, revised or not, as no one outside of the television industry, would even know who he was if it weren't for this episode of Star Trek.

Incredibly mean spirited venting. There is a way to make your point without being such a jerk...and certainly in less than 85 pages (no wonder they edited his original script) I'm sure it was therapeutic. Is there some truth to it?...possibly. Did this episode as aired give him a boost in his career?...definitely. Is there anyone he doesn't trash?...only a very few. Is this book worth buying? Only if you want to read his original script. If that's your intent, skip the first 85 pages unless you want to dislike this guy.

I think the episode the way it was aired was outstanding. I give credit to Ellison for his great idea. I also give credit to the team that worked on revising it to make it a better fit in the Star Trek cannon. He really needs to get over it and take an Anger Management Class.

Harlan Ellison is one of a kind. This book takes the reader through the writing process of this classic Star Trek episode from start to finish. It contains the original screenplay as it was intended and shows the many changes it went through to become the award winning TV episode. Awards that Ellison felt the finished product did not deserve.

For years Star Trek fans have considered the episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” the best episode from the original series. Harlan Ellison wrote the episode, and for almost as long as Star Trek fans have loved the aired version of that episode, Ellison has decried the aired episode as a pallid shadow of the episode he wrote. To prove his point, Ellison submitted his original screenplay to the Writers Guild Award and won! Since then Ellison and Star Trek fans (yes, the twain can meet! If you like science fiction you need to read Harlan Ellison!) have wanted to read the Ellison original to decide for themselves whether it was a greater story than the Star Trek aired episode. Now in “The Harlan Ellison Collection ‘City on the Edge of Forever’” finally puts in a volume Ellison’s teleplay plus additional drafts asked for by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.

The edition starts with a couple of forewords, one from a previous edition and one that updates events since the previous one. I’ll admit some of the material in the forewords is a bit redundant in the factual information. In the vociferousness of Ellison’s retorts let us not forget that those who have disparaged Ellison and his script over the years, while at not such a high volume, have had their viewpoint attain the reputation and imprimatur (Roddenberry and others in the Star Trek machine) that takes a loud voice to dispatch these now ingrained and oft repeated allegations.

Included in the text is 3-4 treatments of “City” Ellison wrote between March 21-May 13, 1966, some of which Ellison didn’t have to write (per union contract) but because he was committed to seeing his vision realized. Some problems included Roddenberry disliked that Ellison had an Enterprise officer selling drugs, wanted his crew members to be explorers and bring the best of humanity to the stars (this would imply the aliens encountered are in need of some sort of moral guidance), and Roddenberry disingenuously claimed that Ellison’s script would’ve been grossly over the Star Trek budget.

Television is a collaborative art. Ellison was well aware of that having already written what are now classic episodes of the Outer Limits (“Soldier” and “Demon with the Glass Hand”), so Ellison wasn’t a tyro writer coming in unaware of the process or that he expected his every word to be taken as holy writ. He probably expected some rewriting (and says he was aware of as much) and compromises to make his vision come to life on the TV screen. What he didn’t expect was Roddenberry taking the credit for “fixing” Ellison’s screenplay and the purposeful conflations over the years. It should be noted that every plot point that Ellison has in his original is included in the aired episode and ideas that appear in Ellison’s original treatment do seem to appear in later Star Trek episodes. In later years when Star Trek was moving to feature films, Ellison was consulted for story ideas. While he was never hired to write any of the films, again his ideas did appear in Star Trek films, and again in much more diluted ways.

There are a lot of afterwords. The two I found most enlightening, was one by David Gerrold, who wrote the second most highly regarded Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” He provides some insightful material on the culture behind the scenes of Star Trek. The second is by Dorothy Fontana, who for the first time revealed her input into the “City” screenplay (I’ve always thought there was a female hand in some of the episode’s scenes). The others by Leonard Nimoy, DeForrest Kelley, George Takei, and Walter Koenig are nice, but seem like character witnesses at a trial.

For all the above mentioned excesses in lesser hands these would be detrimental, but don’t forget THIS IS HARLAN ELLISON!

Fun read. A must read for even a causal StAr Trek fan

Script good; rant bad.

There are two parts to the book, the actual screenplay, which is superb, and the backstory about it, which is in turns bitter, hilarious, and repetitive. Did I mention bitter? Boy is he mad--but he has every right to be, based on the unending load of crap that is the "official" story of this Star Trek screenplay. You're likely to not like Gene Roddenberry very much after reading this, and that's a step in the right direction. This would be worth the price even if it was just a mimeograph copy of the script.

Quick service. No problem or complaints. Book was as described. Recommended.

First Star Trek idea. A gift

This book is huge! It is/was very interesting. very touching. I just scanned through it- did not read it yet. Excellent appreciation of held articles around the show. The book now is old and I think overpriced compared to the rest of the collection. I like the paper with the budgets for each episode. There's much much more. The other reviews are correct. I would like to say that in Ellison Wonderland that , the writings make you think of who would be the protagonists, Steve Mc queen, Nick Adams, Paul Newman, the storylines that happened as they happened in that book, made me feel the biker stories, the stories of remote jails, and I believe the writers used Harlan's energies to compose shorter films.

As several negative reviewers have mentioned, the introductory essay by Ellison is an extended rant. Anyone who has read Glass Teat or any other essays and rambles by Ellison should not be surprised by this book's rant. I wasn't bothered by it because it set the reader up to objectively compare the original script to that which was filmed. Also, I usually find his essays/rants to be very entertaining. If I were Ellison or any writer whose work was hacked up by someone who couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag, I would be angry too. I hope anyone who reads this book has a great imagination, because with that I was able to picture how the episode would have been if the original script had been used.