impossible the script was.
But I wrote that my submission was greeted by raves. Am I deluding myself? Am I trying to save face by saying everyone else is misremembering, lying, altering the past to protect the memory of Roddenberry? Am I simply a writer who wrote a bad script and can’t admit it?
Well, in 1976 I never contemplated writing this book. In 1976 none of the Star Trek memorabilia books had come out. In 1976 none of the cast members or the Paramount staff, or those who worked on Star Trek had spoken out. And in 1976 I had no access to the Star Trek archive of papers—letters, memos, schedules, and on and on—housed at UCLA’s Theatre Arts/Media Library (University Reference Library, 2nd floor).
But it is 1996 as I write this, and all of those sources have been revealed. I wrote in 1976 that I got rave reviews. At that time I was just saying it. Now I have the proof.
Here are some examples:
Robert H. Justman was the Co-Producer of Star Trek . He is co-author with Desilu-Paramount’s Executive in Charge of Production for Star Trek , Herbert F. Solow, of the large recently-published volume INSIDE STAR TREK: The Real Story (Pocket Books, 1976). When I handed in the script he wrote a memo that said:
“Without a doubt, this is the best and most beautifully written screenplay we have gotten to date and possibly we’ll ever get this season. If you tell this to Harlan, I’ll kill you.” (INSIDE STAR TREK, page 278)
William Shatner: “‘City’ is my favorite of the original Star Trek series because of the fact that it is a beautiful love story, well told.” (Direct quote, 9/28/91)
Oh, screw it! I don’t have to justify the quality of the goddam script in footnotes! Go read the damned thing and make up your own mind. But remember, we go in very short order from “this is a brilliant script” to “we can’t shoot this damned thing.”
But Justman—with whom I worked on The Outer Limits prior to Star Trek —on page 277 of the same book describes how we had a similar problem of budgeting a script I had written for The Outer Limits , and how easily we solved it, how amenable I was to suggestions from the very same Justman who later wrote so many memos saying “we can’t shoot this, it’s too expensive.”
I had written “Demon with a Glass Hand” as a cross-country chase. The Outer Limits had the stingiest budget ABC could come up with. Bobby Justman took me one lunchtime to a magnificent building in downtown L.A. called the Bradbury Building. He asked if there was any way I could rewrite the script to be shot there, permitting the production company a way of producing the show within the budget.
Were I the intractable, primadonna pinhead Roddenberry and these other clowns have tried to paint me, I doubt seriously that I would have had the acumen to rethink “Demon” on the spot, and say to Justman, “A chase can be linear…horizontally…or vertically! If I postulate a force bubble around the building, invisible but impenetrable, then when the protagonist is lured to the building, and trapped inside, the chase becomes vertical !” And we shot it, and it won a Writers Guild award, and no one claimed they’d rewritten me, to save my ass.
Same Justman. Same situation.
If I had written it too expensive, if I had written it over budget, why were all these wise heads, all these sage intellects incapable of doing what Justman had done: treat me like a professional, stop running around like hysterical loonies throwing their hands in the air screaming “it’s too expensive!” and just tell me where it needed to be brought back into budget.
I did it with the use of McCoy (Dorothy Fontana’s suggestion) when it was considered by Roddenberry to be imprudent that there could be a corrupt officer on board the Enterprise . Oh, yeah, it was D.C. who suggested McCoy replace Beckwith. Not Coon. Not Roddenberry. Not Justman. Not Solow. It was the woman whose Afterword on page 257 of this book told me
But I wrote that my submission was greeted by raves. Am I deluding myself? Am I trying to save face by saying everyone else is misremembering, lying, altering the past to protect the memory of Roddenberry? Am I simply a writer who wrote a bad script and can’t admit it?
Well, in 1976 I never contemplated writing this book. In 1976 none of the Star Trek memorabilia books had come out. In 1976 none of the cast members or the Paramount staff, or those who worked on Star Trek had spoken out. And in 1976 I had no access to the Star Trek archive of papers—letters, memos, schedules, and on and on—housed at UCLA’s Theatre Arts/Media Library (University Reference Library, 2nd floor).
But it is 1996 as I write this, and all of those sources have been revealed. I wrote in 1976 that I got rave reviews. At that time I was just saying it. Now I have the proof.
Here are some examples:
Robert H. Justman was the Co-Producer of Star Trek . He is co-author with Desilu-Paramount’s Executive in Charge of Production for Star Trek , Herbert F. Solow, of the large recently-published volume INSIDE STAR TREK: The Real Story (Pocket Books, 1976). When I handed in the script he wrote a memo that said:
“Without a doubt, this is the best and most beautifully written screenplay we have gotten to date and possibly we’ll ever get this season. If you tell this to Harlan, I’ll kill you.” (INSIDE STAR TREK, page 278)
William Shatner: “‘City’ is my favorite of the original Star Trek series because of the fact that it is a beautiful love story, well told.” (Direct quote, 9/28/91)
Oh, screw it! I don’t have to justify the quality of the goddam script in footnotes! Go read the damned thing and make up your own mind. But remember, we go in very short order from “this is a brilliant script” to “we can’t shoot this damned thing.”
But Justman—with whom I worked on The Outer Limits prior to Star Trek —on page 277 of the same book describes how we had a similar problem of budgeting a script I had written for The Outer Limits , and how easily we solved it, how amenable I was to suggestions from the very same Justman who later wrote so many memos saying “we can’t shoot this, it’s too expensive.”
I had written “Demon with a Glass Hand” as a cross-country chase. The Outer Limits had the stingiest budget ABC could come up with. Bobby Justman took me one lunchtime to a magnificent building in downtown L.A. called the Bradbury Building. He asked if there was any way I could rewrite the script to be shot there, permitting the production company a way of producing the show within the budget.
Were I the intractable, primadonna pinhead Roddenberry and these other clowns have tried to paint me, I doubt seriously that I would have had the acumen to rethink “Demon” on the spot, and say to Justman, “A chase can be linear…horizontally…or vertically! If I postulate a force bubble around the building, invisible but impenetrable, then when the protagonist is lured to the building, and trapped inside, the chase becomes vertical !” And we shot it, and it won a Writers Guild award, and no one claimed they’d rewritten me, to save my ass.
Same Justman. Same situation.
If I had written it too expensive, if I had written it over budget, why were all these wise heads, all these sage intellects incapable of doing what Justman had done: treat me like a professional, stop running around like hysterical loonies throwing their hands in the air screaming “it’s too expensive!” and just tell me where it needed to be brought back into budget.
I did it with the use of McCoy (Dorothy Fontana’s suggestion) when it was considered by Roddenberry to be imprudent that there could be a corrupt officer on board the Enterprise . Oh, yeah, it was D.C. who suggested McCoy replace Beckwith. Not Coon. Not Roddenberry. Not Justman. Not Solow. It was the woman whose Afterword on page 257 of this book told me
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