IIRC, The Terminator movies were based on some stories by Ellison.
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is this true?
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what stories were they?
mod, please move to “general questions.”
thanks.
I’ll go ahead and answer before it gets moved:
Harlan Ellison felt strongly that The Terminator was based in part upon two episodes of “The Outer Limits” that he had written as well as a short story. I believe that a member of Cameron’s staff admitted under deposition that Cameron had spoken on the set (quite proudly) about having been influenced by Ellison’s work.
The two “Outer Limits” episodes in question were:
Soldier, involving a battle between two soldiers from a war occurring in Earth’s future, and;
Demon With A Glass Hand, which concerned the efforts of aliens from the future to kidnap a man whose computerized hand contained the secret of human survivial following a future war.
The short story was the classic, “I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream,” the story of the terrorization of the last five humans alive trapped inside a giant, insane, self-aware supercomputer called AM.
All prints of The Terminator now contain a line credting Ellison for the story ideas; and apparently mention of his name is enough to give James Cameron an apopleptic fit.
A hangnail gives Cameron an apopleptic fit.
From what I’ve seen, the same applies to Ellison. Two narcissistic peas in the egomania pod.
[hijack]
Speaking of Harlan Ellison, I think “The Diagnosis of Doctor Darqueangel” is the coolest vampire story ever written. Harlan Ellison may be an egomaniacal son of a bitch, but he’s earned the right to be. His stories rock[/hijack]
Thea, if you’re going to like Harlan Ellison, you’re going to make it hard for me to be mad at you in the other thread! I’ve been reading Harlan since I was in the 7th grade (cripes, 18 year ago), and I agree that no matter what his disposition, he’s a heck of a good writer.
ObUselessFactoid: Harlan and my mother attended the same school (Lathrop Elementary) in Painesville, Ohio, albeit about a decade apart.
[Moderator Hat ON]
Moving to General Questions.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
I’m a compulsive end-credit reader. They stick the most INEDIBLE jokes in there (The first time I saw Robocop I caught the line “Unauthorized copying …etc… may result in prosecution by law enforcement droids” in the tiny legal psycho-print at the tail end of the credits. Unfortunately, it’s too smal to read on the home video editions – you’ve got to see it in the theater.) The first time I saw “The Terminator” I do NOT recall seeing a credit for Harlan Ellison in the end credts anywhere.
The first time I saw The Terminator on home Video (shortly after it was released) there was a brief credit stating “Acknowledgment is made of the works of Harlan Ellison”. This was in the middle or at the end of the end credits.
Sometime later I saw a later video release of The Terminator. The “Acknowledment” was now the VERY FIRST thing in the end credits. In other words, it’s been made progressively more and moe prominent. I’d be willing to be that this is the result of legal action, ‘cause I can’t see Cameron or the studios doing on their own, out of the goodness of their hearts.
To be perfectly honest, much as I admire Ellison and his work, and admire his stand aganst exploitation of authors, it’s always bothered me that he took this stand against The Terminator. Yes, I can see the resemblance to “Soldier” and “Dmon with a Glass Hand” (to my mind the best episode of sf TV ever), but I can’t call Cameron’s work “stealing”. In the first place, time-travel paradoxes and stories about The Evil of Future War were comonplaces in 1950s magazine sf. In the econd place, can’t call Terminator a direct rip-off of either. In the third place, I beleve that Cameron acknowledged his appreciation of Ellison’swork in an interview shortly after Terminator was released. I think this was cited as evidence that Cameron owed Ellison for Terminator. See if any director or screenwrier EVER acknowledges a science fiction author AGAIN, now that this has happened.
Ellison’s tirades about “City the Edge of Forever” and “The Starlost” and “A Boy and His Dog” are wonderful readng, and your sympathies go strongly with him in those cases. I sure as heck don’t want to see sf authors ripped off without compensation – and there are plenty of cases (I think Hal Clement (“Needle”) should’ve sued over “The Hidden”. The movie “Brain Damage” seems to me to owe a LOT to Robert Bloch’s story “Enoch”.I’ve said before that “Total Recall” feels as if it took a lot from Robert Shcley’s “The Status Civilization”. A lot f people evidenty felt, as I did, that there was an awful lot of Sheckley’s “Dimension of Miracles” in Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe”. And Adams had, like Caeron, acknowledged a love for the work of his predecessor! I notice that he backed away from that rapidly after The Terminator case.)
Bottom line: lthough I usually agree with Elison, I don’t think his case is so strong this time (The magazine Cinefantastique made a case for Terminator owing its deby mainly to the works of Philip K. Dick!). I think that the result of the case is going to be less acknowledgement of ideas, rather than more, and a more difficult atmosphere for all to work in.
And I still think film makers are going to rip off the easy ideas from more accomplished writers, no matter what is done.
If memory serves, Ellison also included a scene from the televised version of “The City on the Edge of Forever” in his suit, stating that the scene wherein McCoy confronts the old bum in the alley, passes out, and the bum accidentally phasers himself out of existence was also plagiarized by Cameron. It has been a while since I’ve seen “The Terminator,” but I don’t recall a similar scene.
I too admire Ellison, the writer, but must point out that the “bum in the alley” scene was never, to my knowledge, in any of Ellison’s “City” drafts, and was most likely the work of D. C Fontana, who ultimately did the final shooting draft of the script.
Sir
When Reese first appears in “The Terminator” he DOES encounter a bum – and takes his trousers. That’s the closest thing to the “City on the Edge of Forever” “Bum” scene.
You’re right – the scene in Ellison’s draft is very different (See “Six Science Fictio Plays” , Roger Elwood, editor; or Ellison’s own recent book on TCOTEOF.) I really would rather have seen Ellison’s scene of “The Old Guy from Verdun” than the bum who accidentally gets zapped. It makes the same point (in either version, the bum getting zapped DOESN’T change history – only Edith Keeler’s death does), but much more effectively.