The only thing that’s bothering me about the story as reported in the OP’s link is …
… that Kirk really wasn’t that much of a thorn in the Romulans’ collective side. There was a grand total of two episodes where Kirk & Co. foiled the Romulans (two and a half if you count the end of “The Deadly Years”), and compared to the perpetually just-about-to-start interstellar war with the Klingons, they were not major incidents. Kirk didn’t stop the Romulans from conquering like he did the Klingons.
That’s why the DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” made sense: Arne Darvin had a personal grudge against Kirk, who had ruined his career and by extension his life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that something as major as the Guardian of Forever is getting more canon Trek screentime, and I’ll definitely see the movie and probably enjoy it, but I feel they could have done much more with it than what they’re planning.
Are you thinking of Imzadi? It was a TNG novel that centered on Riker and Troi but it involved the Guardian. Time for Yesterday and Yesterday’s Son, as well.
There’s a “Separation of Rights” clause in writers’ contracts. This is Ellison’s “leg to stand on.” He is probably owed money for the use of the Guardian (it is somewhat of a character). He has no say in how it is used, however. Peter David personally asked HE for permission to use the Guardian, so he made no fuss then.
He raised hell last year when some guy wrote a trilogy of Trek novels centering around Edith Keeler and the Guardian. Think the settlement was kept “in house,” not sure, though.
Ah, but see, here’s how I think it’s being rationalized:
If Kirk is killed and never makes Captain, Spocks life is completely changed. Therefore, he probably won’t become the thorn that he is in trying to get reunification.
Now of course, they could just kill young Spock, or Spock at any point in his history, or go back and prevent Kirk and company from rescuing Spock at Genesis, but those wouldn’t…you know…be this movie.
What does the TNG finale “All Good Things” have to do with Harlan Ellison? So much of it is a ripoff of the Doctor Who episode City of Death, which was written by Douglas Adams. Did I miss something?
The Guardian of Forever also figures prominently in the (excellent, IMHO) fan-written short story “Mindsifter” which appeared in the late 1970s paperback Star Trek: The New Voyages. Kor, angry because Kirk played a key role in preventing a “glorious” war on Organia, kidnaps and tortures Kirk, who escapes through the Guardian to Earth’s past.
Nary a word of acknowledgement about HE in that either, IIRC.
I read as far as ‘alternate time lines and time travel’ and stopped and didn’t read any posts in this thread. Those kind of things always interest me, but they are done to death in Trek.
I think Trek writers look for subjects or themes from popular episodes. The City on the Edge of Forever is generally thought to be the best TOS episode, and I think that is why Time Travel is so unfortunately popular in the series and films. These concepts grow on themselves; hence writing about a another TIS episode, The Trouble With Tribbles made the use of time travel logical, if you will forgive the term.
Harlan was hired to write the first movie (but he left after the suit wanted him to stick the Aztecs/Incas in the script because the suit was a fan of Von Danikein). Harlan’s idea was nearly identical to Douglas’s Dr. Who story (and one of the Dirk Gentley books). The gist of it was that the Enterprise winds up in orbit of the primordial Earth, and that there is an alien lifeform which is highly intelligent on the planet, eventually, the crew is forced into a moral dilemma in that if they don’t kill the alien, the conditions for life on Earth will never appear, but if they do kill the alien, then they’re killing an intelligent being. Who came up with the idea first, I’ve no idea. IIRC, Harlan discusses this in his intro to the book version of The City on the Edge of Forever.
And now that I think about it, this idea for the film is pretty damned unworkable. I’m going to NOT spoiler box it, so back out now if this upsets you!
This makes no sense
So, let me get this straight, Spock (who’s been running about on Romulus waiting for Paramount to dangle a big enough paycheck for him to show back up), finds out that the Romulans (they’re saving the Klingons for Star Trek XII: So Very, Very, Tired, BTW) are going to use the Guardian to go back in time and kill Kirk. Apparently, they’re going to try and kill Kirk at the beginning of his career (otherwise, there’s no point in Spock going back that far) Old Spock, then fails to warn Young Spock that they should vaporize the Botany Bay as soon as they spot it, because if they don’t, it’ll set in motion a chain of events which will lead to the death of Kirk’s son, as well as Spock’s death, rebirth, a giant flying log with one testicle, and worst of all (though, after having watched STIII recently, I’m not so sure about this) Shatner being allowed to direct!!!
If Spock is damned loyal that he’d be willing to steal the frickin’ Enterprise to take Pike to Talos IV, then I cannot see how Old Spock could fail to warn Young Spock about this. After all, Kirk & Co. sacrificed their careers just to bring Spock back from the dead! And hell, why doesn’t he warn Young Spock about the accident which will cripple Pike? I fart in JJ Abrams general direction!
Doesn’t the Federation have a Temporal Prime Directive? I seem to recall that being introduced in the DS9 tribble episode. If the Federation doesn’t, they sure as hell should, considering how relatively easy time travel is in the Trekverse. I mean, Spock’s travelled back in time on at least three different occasions, by my count. Probably more. What’s keeping him from going back in time and making all those changes purely on his own iniative? Why wait for the pretext of a Romulan plot to alter history? Because altering history like that is an incredibly bad idea, of course. Who knows what sort of horrible dystopian world he’d come home to, if he altered history as drastically as you suggest? He’s going back to prevent damage to the timestream. It wouldn’t be very logical for him to deliberatly cause more damage to it in the course of his duties, would it?
It was also against Federation rules for Spock to take the Enterprise to Talos IV to deliver Pike, and IIRC, the number of times they’ve obeyed the Federation’s Prime Directive can be numbered on one hand. Heck, didn’t Janeway essentially violate it in order to get Voyager home?
It was actually introduced earlier than that. I know there was mention of it in the “Future’s End” episodes of Voyager (which aired before the Trials and Tribble-ations DS9 episode). That’s the one where Janeway and crew have to go back to 20th century Earth to keep Ed Begley Jr. from screwing up the universe.
The 29th century timeship dude (Braxton, I believe was his name) comes back and starts citing violations of the Temporal Prime Directive at Voyager.
The Memory Alpha page on it claims earlier mentions of it, but the one with Picard was just his mentioning the possible need for such a thing in the future (implying that it wasn’t a formal rule that existed yet).
Not that it’s really enforcible, anyways. Every time they write it into law, just change the timeline to keep it from having been written into law…
