Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Greg, we have something amazing for the listeners today.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: What is it? What is it?
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Well, we're going to talk about a script that was unfairly cut by somebody and the studio just shortened it.
And then, like, we get the longer version and it's going to be so much better.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Are we going to really drop this bombshell? We're going to talk about this. We're going to do it.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: I think we're good. I've got an advanced copy.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: You have it?
[00:00:39] Speaker A: I have it right here.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Did you get this from the Overlords over at the Johns and stuff? Is that where you got it?
[00:00:50] Speaker A: No, I got it directly from at and T. What?
[00:00:54] Speaker B: No.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Yes. I've already watched it.
Are you ready to watch this live?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: I don't have a choice, dude. I mean, if you're going to make me do this, and I have to.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: I mean, we have to, right? Like, who wouldn't want more league?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Let me grab my pretzels, because those are the best Snyder's cuts that we've.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Cause.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Snyder's pretzels. Not affiliated with our podcast, but gosh darn it, if you want to sponsor us, please do, because I do love pretzels, even though I'm gluten free.
I can't tell you enough about how good of a cut of pretzel these are. The honey mustard, the buffalo wing. They make such a good product and it is so dang tasty. And when you start chewing on these things, they just cut your mouth up.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's pretty amazing, if you think about it. Snyder's pretzels. The best cut of anything named Snyder we'll see this year.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Oh, delicious. Put that in a bag, seal it, wrap it, send it off.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: But we are going to talk about something that was cut, maybe unjustly, maybe fairly, but we're getting into some dangerous waters here.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Oh, dangerous waters.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Because we're already there. Well, we are. And we're going to read something from one of the. Granted he died so he can't sue us anymore, but from one of the most litigious authors in history.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Oh, could it be? The one, the only, the man himself?
Harlan Ellison.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: It is Harlan Ellison. And you have how many books on your bookshelf behind you?
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Quite a few. Quite a few. But namely, most importantly, the beast that shouted love at the heart of the world, which contains a number of stories in various styles that he writes in and various themes and other things. But one of the things that is noted in here is a boy and his dog. So if you haven't seen that movie. You should go check it out. The story that's in this book much better than the movie that was put out in the artwork on this book that I have, because it's a paperback and it's in very good condition for the fact that it's from that time frame. It's got some delicious artwork on there of a skull and a lady inside the skull and some crazy wiring and other things like that. It looks like a pinball machine in the skull's head. It is fantastic. And I bought it purely, like, one, because I like Harlan Ellison, but two, because this artwork is amazing.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: And see, yeah, I don't know how to follow up on that except to say, Harlan Ellison, one of the most prolific science fiction writers in history. And also, like I said, one of the most litigious ones. But legitimately, people did take away from his vision, sometimes without crediting him.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: If they had made Santa Claus versus S-P-I-D-E-R into something I don't even know, my mind would have exploded. It's a Christmas story about Santa Claus fighting what? We don't know. It's inside this book, but it's not a book that we're going to talk about. No. No.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Well, I do also like the fact that I do love Harlan Ellison's writing. Did you know that Harlan Ellison is also friends with a very controversial comic book and TV writer? Or was friends?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: I am unaware who is.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Oh, did you know that Michael Strasinski and him were very close friends?
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Even to the point that Strasinski was the executor of his.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Wow, that is. That is interesting.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And so you're talking about controversy. We can just spin all the controversy. We don't need anybody named Snyder. We have Strazinski and Ellison, and we don't need any.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: And that can, um, take it as you will or as you want, but let that not muddy the waters of today's discussion at.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: YOu know, he did win a lawsuit against, and he being Harlan Ellison, against the creators of Terminator.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: What?
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah, for stealing his story soldier and making into Terminator. He even got his name in the credits.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Amazing.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: And I shouldn't say one. I believe they settled, but his name ended up in the credits.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: And then I believe they made another follow on movie that was set in the same universe that was about a soldier on a.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: There were a few of those movies.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: I think, with a star from the 70s who has a prolific fame to him as well.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Well, and he also wrote lots of things, but in this case, he wrote a teleplay for Star Trek, the original series, which ran in the first season.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: What? He wrote Star Trek stuff? No way.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Well, he wrote one because it didn't go real well.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: I mean, it's a good episode.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: It's my favorite episode of the original series called City on the Edge of Forever.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: It sounds so delicious.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Amazing.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: The title is awesome. It's definitely my favorite episode. And the reason I picked this one is because there was controversy. So we like talking about controversy here because he did actually sue CBS Paramount, seeking 25% of the net receipts of merchandising and publishing and other income from the episode since 67.
And he settled in 2009. So he did get his due on that because obviously it is a super popular episode.
Additionally, it didn't go well because Gene Roddenberry and other script writers on the show actually rewrote the entire script, and he wasn't too happy with that.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Though apparently it was like 300 pages.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. That would be like in TV time, movie time, a page a minute. That's like 300 minutes. It would be a very long run episode. That's like multiple episodes.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Well, but luckily for us, since there are other mediums, IDW Publishing worked with Harlan Ellison and artist Juan Ortiz, and they put together, they got a couple of writers to adapt it to comic book form. So we actually get to see in graphic novel form, the actual original story, which I think is really cool.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: That is good.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: And over the next couple of weeks, we'll review the original teleplay that was made into the graphic novel, and then we will finalize up about four weeks from now. So we'll do the first two issues, another two issues, and then we'll do the last issue with some commentary at the end, and then we will get into and actually watch the episode that aired and do some comparisons, because admittedly, even though this was changed, it's still my favorite episode of Star Trek, at least the original series.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: It is a good episode. When you presented this to me and I cracked this thing open and started reading through it, the episode started flooding back as if I was just a wee youngster watching Star Trek with my dad again and just sitting there with the knob turning TV on its rolling tray, because that's how we watch TV and sitting on the floor, just amazed because of all the different things that were happening in this episode that didn't seem like anything I'd seen before in the show.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Yeah, well, and we're not the only ones that liked it.
From the perspective, it's really interesting. I am on Wikipedia. But I pulled the other information from a variety.
Know Variety, the premier magazine source for all the information I get. And everything was a. You know, they did a eulogy for Harlan Ellis, or Eulogy, I guess not a eulogy, but an article.
I'm a good host. You know, the article you write after somebody dies, that's called a.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Eulogy.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: We both have degrees in communication.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: The word escapes me, but that's okay. I call it the 2020 2021. Stuck in the home. My brain is not working 100% because life takes up a lot and the struggle is real.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. I do think the cool thing here, though, is that this script, Ellison's original script, won the 1968 Writers Guild Award for Best Episodic Drama in Television. And the shooting script that was rewritten won the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Traumatic Presentation, the ScI-Fi Awards. So both scripts were the best script, which makes it even more confusing.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Well, it just goes to show that Both scripts had their own pedestal to stand on, and they stood well by both Harlan Ellison and the team that rewrote it.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: But definitely inspired by Harlan Ellison, because there's a lot here that made it to the show, and then there's a lot that didn't make it to the show. So we won't run a full comparison yet. We'll do that when we watch the show because we just want to get into the fun of this story.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: There we go.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: So let's get started.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Okay. What do you think of the COVID Oh, man. I like it because it's very cosmic.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: It is. It has that super cool, like, if I pulled this book out of a bookstore close to you that I don't want to name, and I got dusted all the dust off of it and made it to the book without being accosted for looking in the book score, I would pull this off and I would think, man, this is right out of the.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah, now it has that feel, that look to it. The colors, the tones that are used in here definitely have that feel.
The way that the titling is done on it.
It harkens back to an older time.
It really is living on the edge of forever.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yes. And so we are reviewing, of course, Star Trek, Harlan Ellison's the City on the Edge of Forever, the original teleplay art by Juan Ortiz.
And I do want to say, before we get into this, Harlan Ellison wrote a nice letter at the start of the story.
And I do want to note that Scott and David Tipton adapted the story.
And it does also cite art by JK Woodward and anything else that you got out of the story here, out.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Of the little story up there in the front, just, you know, it was, it was just.
I want to leave some of the keep it all high points. So.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Okay. And then, of course, the COVID artist.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Over the moon.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: He was over the moon. He was excited. And of course, Woodward did the interior art. And of course, we cited Juan Ortiz as the COVID artist, at least what we're working at. There was one more cover artist. There was four covers by a Paul shipper, too. So I do want to mention that before we get into story, because especially when we're doing an episode with HarlaN Ellison trademark R, we do want to make sure that we give credit to everyone that contributed to the story.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Correct.
Creep back out from.
To roll in the grave or to just come back out of the nethers and get us.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: No, we don't want him. So should we go back and get the letterers, too? Because we might as well get everything. Here it is a Harlan Ellison book. Letterers by Neil Utake. Hopefully that's correct. And editor Chris Ryle. Covers by Juan Ortiz and edits by Justin Essinger and Alonzo Simon. And collection design by Claudia Chong. So there we go. There's everyone. That's everyone that IDW lists. Nobody can come after us now.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: That's right. Now you can forever stay his pal. Your pal Harlan Elson.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: Trademark R. Trademark R.
Don't forget it's trademarked.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Trademarked.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: I don't want to be sued. Make sure.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Okay.
No suing.
You know a good lawyer.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: We do know a good lawyer, but I don't want to be sued.
Okay. So ship's log start, 831 34. Six.
I'm so excited right now. Tell you how excited I am.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Dan is excited.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: NCC 1701. Are we really talking about Star Trek on the show?
[00:15:11] Speaker B: We are.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Okay.
I think I'm going to cry.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Are you okay? It's okay.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: You can cry.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Happy tears. Happy tears. Let them out.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: All one of our listeners, they're going to love the fact that I am talking about Star Trek.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Sadly, they're not Trekkies.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: That may be true.
We don't really know.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: We don't know.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: I'm going to tag everyone. I'm going to tag Star Trek all over this when we put it on Twitter. I just want you to know.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Do it.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: So now we're in and the ship's out and we get a box of crystals that I've never seen before.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Crystals. They do look love. They're really cool looking gems.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: They're called Jewels of Sound, I guess.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
What do you do with them?
[00:16:02] Speaker A: I don't know. Apparently, like, eat them or listen to them. Not sure this guy really wants some, though.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah, he does. He's like, I beg you. I won't beg, but I want some.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: I think an interesting start that we get here. We have two characters we'd never seen in an episode before, both wearing yellow shirts.
That means they're higher up, not red shirts.
Does that mean they're higher up? Do you understand how Star Trek works?
[00:16:30] Speaker B: The higher the shirts?
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Red shirts. No.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: It was a joke, Dan. It was a joke.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. I mean, yellow is command line. Yeah, you're correct. But that doesn't mean you're high up yet. You might just be, like, an ensign.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, they wield some sort of power. They're not typically going to die. Wait, not typically going to die? Oh, my God.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Just because redshirts are security and engineering and some other things.
Stop it.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: I don't write the stories for Star Trek. I just watch them. And I know, generally speaking, red shirts tend to go faster than most.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: That's fair. Red shirts don't do well on the original series. That's correct.
But that's not because they're not good at their job or they're not commanders, potentially, right. They might just be in engineering or security.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Things blow up, things get shot. Things happen.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Yeah, like, blue is science. You got this. Yellow is command red. Like security and engineering.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: I just want you to understand.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: I understand.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Okay, so now we have blue, red and yellow crystals. So maybe he gets the yellow one for command, maybe.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Passing them out.
Beckwith is a crystal dealer.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Yeah, and who are these guys? So Beckwith? Never heard of him.
And I don't know who this other guy is at all.
He's a lieutenant, and apparently not a very good.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: I mean, he's. He's chomping down these crystals, man.
Gets a yellow one.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Apparently, these crystals caused something really terrible to happen.
The slaughter you caused on Harper Five. Wow. That's. Okay.
I don't know about the slaughter on Harper Five. We might have to look that up.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: We might have to.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Well, he does get a yellow crystal for command. That's true.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: And he puts it in his mouth.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Okay, it's either his mouth or his nose. We really can't tell.
It's somewhere in his body. He puts it in his body somehow.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: And he goes some. All sorts of painted crazy here. Oh, yeah.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: This is a really cool panel, though, I have to Say. I like the way it depicts Crystal use, man.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah, apparently crystals are really good. This painted artwork, by the way, is absolutely beautiful.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: So we get in, and he's all over the place, and now he's on.
What is it? Lebuch. Lebuque.
We find out Lieutenant Lebuquet. Lebluque.
Spock's not happy with him.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: He's got some problems, and he gets thrown off the bridge.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: He's blown the entire drive, man.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, apparently Spock just thinks he's sick, but he freaks out thinking Spock knows something more because he's a drug addict.
And he goes running back to Beckwith to tell him. He's going to tell on him. And you know what happens when you tell on the dealer.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah. All heck breaks loose on the ship.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: It doesn't go so well. Beckwith grabs one of those Styrofoam things that's always sitting around to hit people with on the.
[00:20:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It looks like one of those Mexic's cubes from Rick and Morty.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it does, actually.
And he runs over and hits Le Bouquet and presumably kills him.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: It doesn't look.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Well, he's been.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: You know, he does it out in the corridor, so that's not the best place to kill somebody.
And then he starts taking people out because there's one of your red shirts. He beats him up with his own gun.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Yes, because that's what you do.
He's got a gun. Smack him with it.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: And heads to the transporter.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: And sprinting toward the transporter, we have Captain Kirk, Spock, Yeoman Rand, and Dr. McCoy.
Rand's got to get the door open, so she shoots it, because that's what you do.
And they hear the transporter. It's been activated. And they get in there, and the Transporter chief's been knocked out, and Beckwith is gone.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Bad news.
And that's how we start our story. So, nice little preliminary setup there. They introduce the characters effectively. Right? I know who the two characters are that I've never heard of before. I know their place in the story. And then we get into the mainline characters, who obviously will be the protagonist in the story.
I mean, I'm assuming Captain Kirk will be the protagonist.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
And you get your landing party and.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: Lots of red shirts.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you got a guy who's jump ship and onto a place where you need to have security, so you got to go with the detail. And made it up. Consistent of his red shirt detached a.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Little while later, I will be questioning their decision on how they deal with their security, but we will move forward. So they get down to the planet and start 831. Three, three, four.
And they say, this cinder, this empty death of a world. And so they get down and they're tracking footprints in this reddish sand.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Red sand.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Looks kind of cool.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Supposed to emulate Mars, I guess.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Has that feel.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: And so they're moving right along, trying to track down Beckwith, and they come across these really cool looking mountains, craggy.
And Yeoman Rand, leading the mission, cites it as a source of radiation.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: That's bad.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: And I just think it's.
I'll just say Harlan Ellison has Yeoman Rand doing more than I've seen her do in almost any.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: True, true.
Giving her some agency right off the know, giving her the blaster to take down the door, leading the away party. All these different things.
And hopefully it. Unheard of at the time. Yeah.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: I'm always wondering if that was one of the reasons the script got rewritten, besides. Of its length. Besides its length?
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Or maybe just in the rewrite.
I don't remember if she has a part, actually, because I haven't watched the episode yet.
[00:24:13] Speaker B: When we watch the episode, we will compare and contrast.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: I don't recall her having a large part in the episode, though.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Just large hair.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: She does have large hair. Her hair is amazing.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yes.
I want to say that the ladies in the B 52s modeled their beehive hairdo.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: It's entirely possible. It is glorious hair.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Yes. You could probably hide another phaser in there.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Probably.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: She has.
It's her backup.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: It's her backup to her door melting phaser.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah, she's got another door melter in there.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: It's actually a phaser rifle. And then there's a.
Okay, so the story.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: So the story. Yes. It looks like a city.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: I may have a book just full of weapons.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: I don't doubt it.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: You know I have a mechleth, right?
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: We've had this discussion before.
You're giving me a tough time because I didn't know the difference.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: You said between a batleth and a mechtlith, which is disgusting. You should definitely know the difference.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: You keep one on your side, you hold one on your back.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Oh, my. Okay. So anyway, we get to these cool looking mountains. Yeoman Rand leads them there, and we get the punchline already. Mr. Spock, do you see the city up there? I can't do it. Can you do it, Mr. Spock? Do you see the city up there.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Do you see it too?
Like a city?
[00:26:05] Speaker A: A city on the edge of forever.
Forget the name of the story, but, yeah, it's cool. So there's this big city up in the mountains. It's a very crystal looking city. Very fantasy looking with the art.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: I love the mix of the fantasy and the Sci-Fi at the same time.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: It's pretty sweet.
They make their way up.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: Make their way up. And then they see all of the looks. Like they see some guys with beards.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And some cool hair or hats. Hat hair.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
They kind of remind me, like, there's these old guys sitting out kind of with gray beards and hair gnomes called the Guardians.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Okay. The Guardians.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: They are the Guardians of Forever. Now, I know that Harlan Ellison liked to sue people, but maybe since this won the award for Best Screenplay in 1968, I mean, I don't want to call out Harlan Ellison anyway, because he is the best. But is there another group of Guardians you've ever heard of?
[00:27:42] Speaker B: The Guardians of the Galaxy?
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: We're not talking about trash Marvel Comics here.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Oh, the Guardians then.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The Guardians of the universe.
And do you want to guess what year their first appearance was in?
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Was it earlier than this episode?
[00:28:08] Speaker A: 1960.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: So good.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Eight years before, created by John Broom and Gil Kane. Remember our favorite John Broom, our favorite author of Green Lantern? Yeah.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: But we, of course, remember Gil Kane, who drew amazing Guardians of the universe.
And so I did find the parallel really interesting of the white haired Guardians of the universe. And here we have the Guardians of forever. So that's totally different.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Very different. Two different words, meaning two different things. Forever, universe.
These guys have different sleeves.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Of course, Green Lantern was taken from lensmen, so we could just keep going back. I guess my point is, a lot of good authors draw from what they read and what they experience, and they incorporate elements of that into their.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Mean there. If. If you don't take something from what you know or what you enjoy and put it into something that you're producing and putting out there into the world, then you have to read, watch, and digest things to be able to create.
You can't create in a vacuum, because if you do, then it doesn't work very well.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: And of course, you're going to run into some parallels, too. So it'll happen especially in science fiction. Right.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: And I think in science fiction, too, you need links to now, otherwise. And you need links to understanding. Otherwise, people can't conceptualize it. Right.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Very true.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Because if science fiction offer yourself.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: I might have dabbled occasionally on some things that might be science fiction or science fiction adjacent, but, yeah.
When creating things that are within those realms, there's always going to be similarities to things that people can understand or accept as a reality, if you will, or there's a common knowledge that makes sense. It's kind of.
Not to delve too much, but, I mean, when you're telling a story that has different types of elements in it, that makes sense for a reader or watcher to just be able to go back and go, oh, okay, that makes sense. You have to put those things in there if it ties back to something that they might understand and know from the past, so that it makes it more believable or at least enjoyable.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I think here we have some fun.
I would also say they're sort of like the wizard of Oz type character, too.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, definitely.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: And they've got, we are the Guardians of forever. Do you want to do this?
I think you're going to do it better than I can.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: We are the Guardians of forever, since before your sun burned, not in space, before your race was born. Only on this world do the million pulse flows of time and space merge. Only mirror do the flux lines of forever melt.
Only here can exist the gateway to the past, where the time vortex of the Ancients can work.
Only here.
And we were set to watch the Time Vortex so many hundreds of centuries ago that even we do not have clear memories of it.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: I cannot tell you how happy I am at this moment. Okay. So Kirk starts questioning them and gets know about their time machine, and they're, no, no, it's a vortex.
And of know, Spock starts figuring it, um, because Spock quits asking them about their time vortex and starts trying to figure know where Beckwith is at.
Because that's logical, therefore, right?
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Yes. He's all about the logic, while Kirk is all about the time vortex.
That was terrible.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: But they do note that their vortex was built by a science man cannot understand, of course, because we can't replicate it. Because if we could replicate a time vortex, we could just go anywhere we want in time and freeze time, and that would mess up everything. And then we wouldn't get, like, Voyager and species. ABCD AFGH 196734 Remember those guys?
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: And so now we're getting in here, and it's super cool because they keep having this conversation about the vortex, and that time is weary. For craftsmen who cannot demonstrate his craft, we have nothing to do but desire to show you. And so we can kind of get these wizard of Oz type riddles to continue. I think it's super neat and super fun. And then Kirk just asks them a question. Can you show us the past of any world? They're like, sure.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: We can do boom, boom.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: And so Kirk gazes in, and they start showing the past of Earth. And we get dinosaurs and tall ships, and we get some looking like cars that gangsters are going to jump out of with Tommy guns.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: And then Kirk asks, could we go back? Any of us say, to this time, 1930 of Old Earth?
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yes. But it is not wise man. And now man must live in their present or their future, but never in their past, save to learn lessons from it. Time can be dangerous.
If passage back is affected, the Voyager may add a new factor to the past. And this change is time all.
Oops, sorry, I messed up. Alter everything that happened from that point to the present, all through the universe.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: So Harlan Ellison's kind of awesome as a writer, which we're already aware, but I love this passage because it's Sci-Fi cheesy, right, in the way it's written, but it also has a great messaging. Right. And especially to now, this whole notion of, you need to live in the present or the future. Don't dwell in the past. So there's the inherent lesson inside the story, but you also get the lesson through the story. Right. Because obviously they're setting up something here. I don't think going into the past is going to be a good idea.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Yeah, because you have to. I mean, like they're saying, if you go back and change things, then it will affect everything. And you don't want that.
[00:36:21] Speaker A: But we see Beckwith hiding behind a big crystal rock pillar.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Cannot be good. No, can't be good.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: And of course, now we get Spock getting involved because Spock's like, then time is not a constant. It is not rigid.
[00:36:38] Speaker B: Time is elastic. It will revert to its original shape when changes are minor. But when the change is life or death, when the sum of intelligence alters the balance, then the change can become permanent and terrible.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And so they get in, and we find out that they ask if people have gone back, and they said they don't we guard this?
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Nobody does. I mean, why would mean. We just told you why. You don't do it. It's bad. You don't do the bad thing.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: They're clearly very effective guards, too, since they have the time stream open there.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: For them to look mean. Well, it's kind of like when you're going through Netflix, and you're like, what do I want to watch? And you're just, like, scrolling through, and you're just like, oh, hey, look at this. And then all of a sudden, you click on something and it starts playing.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: But you forget about it.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: And then all of a sudden, you turn it off because you want to watch something else on regular TV or on a different app or something like that. And then you come back, and now you've watched, like, eight episodes of a season of some show you didn't want to watch, but now it's messed up your whole entire, every suggestion from that point for Forever because you now have all these suggestions based off of watching eight episodes of some show you didn't want to watch. That's basically what they're telling you. Don't do it.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: It's bad. It's going to do that.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: It's going to mess you up.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: I'm totally with you. I thought I was on my roommate's HBO Max feed, and I pulled up Batman Forever and the Green Lantern movie, but I was actually on my feed.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: You wanted to mess with his and not with yours. And now all you're getting is those.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: And when life, what's a life or death situation like being forced to watch Batman Forever?
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's not really that bad of a movie.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: What?
[00:38:45] Speaker B: I said it. I know my words.
Yeah, I didn't say that about the Green Lantern movie. I said it about Batman Forever.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: I would say the Green Lantern movie is infinitely better than Batman Forever.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Ooh, really? Batman Forever, a great Christmas movie. Green Lantern. It's got its chuckles here and there, but I mean, come on now.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: At least Ryan Reynolds is there to look at.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: He's there. But that is the only pole. The only draw is Ryan Reynolds. The rest of the movies, the outer.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Space scenes at the beginning were kind of cool.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: The only thing I liked is when he did the A. Yeah. Back to the track that we're on, which is not the hot Wheels track that he made. Yes.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Where we have a plot. So they start talking and they understanding what their chronometers were turning backwards at the beginning of the story.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: And they're in the sphere of.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: You.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Know, they get insulted by the Guardians again, they can't understand this.
And Spock asks one more time to try, but if this is true, how old you are, if time does not move at its normal rate here, how long have you been here to be as old as you are? Which seems like a spinny question. And before they can answer that Beckwith comes running out.
Here's what I don't get. He totally gets smacked by Spock and then knocks him out. I'm like, what?
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:40:38] Speaker A: So Beckwith is apparently a strong, fat drug dealer.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Well, I mean, most are.
That's fair from my own experience.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: So he knocks Spock out, and then he tries to grab Yeoman Rand, and.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: She kicks his ass, of course, as if she wouldn't.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: I love this about Yum and Rand in this story.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Let me.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: I think the problem was Beckwith's technique on the rear necked choke is just not good. You got to have both arms up. He's trying to control the arm, but he doesn't get the other one. She's able to elbow. Yeah, yeah.
So just bad technique.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: That's what we're looking. So soloplexes, man. She hits him right there.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: He blitzes in. Kirk tries to stop him, but since there's no foreign objects for Kirk to grab and he doesn't have a double axe handle, he can't knock him out. No, no Hurricane Ranas today. So he'd be a flying head scissors probably in wrestling back then, a Hurricane Rana now, like, just making it clear it's how he beat Khan in the original episode. If you're not knowing, right. Just to go back or didn't, he hit him with stuff. It was bad.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: It was a few different things.
[00:41:59] Speaker A: He pulled out every wrestling move in the book, even foreign objects. So it's not so good. Anyway, here he goes. And Beckwith's gone.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: It's gone. He's hit that stream, man.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: He's like, everybody, I'm out and gone. Is the first issue.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: Just like.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Get on. We're going to start the second issue here in a second.
Greg, what do you think of the story setup?
[00:42:29] Speaker B: So far, so good. I mean, it is very dialogue heavy, but that goes without saying. It needs to be for a lot of the set up for us as the reader to understand what's going on. And I'm sure that as this plays out, as we start to get into more stuff, the thickness of the dialogue is going to drop down. There's a lot of things that have to get told and explained to us so that we understand what's happening, why it's happening, and to move the story along. The pacing and everything like that is just pop, pop, pop. It moves really quick.
And the choices for panels, they are just beautiful. The way that the pages are laid out for every panel on this, even though it's such a dialogue heavy book or this issue.
The dialogue doesn't eat up the art as much as you would think. So I was pleased to be able to enjoy a lot of that art in these panels and to be able to see so much detail in all the different things that are being shown. Each and every character's face is done beautifully. Even these guardians, I mean, they're all similar, but they're all unique, and that's really cool. And I feel like you nailed it. The marrying of science fiction and fantasy is, like, damn near perfect.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
And to your point, the panel layouts all. They change throughout the story, and they seem to fit each scene.
So I really like, especially. I don't have page numbers in this, unfortunately, but there's scene, the panel they drew. I'm trying to find it. I guess I don't need to go find it, since I don't have a page number to reference. But the panel, when it's going through time, and he has the panel in the middle or toward the bottom of the page, where all of them are looking at it going down. That's brilliant. Absolutely beautiful.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: It just looks so nice, and it's pleasing to the eye. And then just the page opposite of that with all the vertical panels is really nice, too, because you get such a nice look, and it breaks up. So you've got these very nicely done horizontal panels on the page opposite. And then on the next page, everything's vertical and the layout, and you get just great detail on those images as top notch.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Well, we turn the page, and we get another awesome Sci-Fi cover by Juan Ortiz with Kirk in the foreground, Spock in The background.
And they're kind of looking up at a city, and we get right back in. So this would be, for those of you, if you're reading the graphic novel, obviously, it just rolls right through. And then this would be issue two. So there were five issues set. So it'd be issue two starting off with now. And, of course, Kirk gets knocked down because he's Kirk, even though he got beat up too. He turns around and goes, ask Spock if he's.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: I'm undamaged, Captain.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: Yeah, classic. Classic Captain Kirk too, right? I wasn't knocked down. Is everybody else okay?
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Yes. Okay.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: And, of course, now Kirk realizes he went back, and the Guardians let them know that the vortex was open and that the past has already changed.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Oh, man. Say it ain't so.
Everything they know is different. The world is topsy turvy now.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: And, of course, Spock immediately asks, how was it changed? And the Guardians don't give him much of an answer.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: The time flow has been diverted. We are being summoned. The machines of the Ancients are registering traumas in time. We must return.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: And there they go. They're gone.
And so they start looking around and trying to get back to the ship. And so, in the best move of all time, they take Kirk and Spock and Yeoman Rand, stay on the planet, and ship their entire security detail to a new ship.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: Yeah, because that's smart.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it's always good to get rid of all the security people.
And they're also speculating. They think maybe Beckwith killed somebody in the past, and that's what caused the problems.
So they bounce up to the ship and they transport up, and you've got some interesting looking folks. You've got Kazam, but a red Kazam in the background.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: With it looks like Bride of Frankenstein.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it. And then a bunch of cyberpunks from the video game Cyberpunk.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Oh, is that what you're thinking? I thought they were the character. Legitimately. I thought they were the characters from Firefly.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, definitely. It's the crew of Firefly, or. No, the guy in the middle, definitely from the Matrix. He's the guy that turncoats on them.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: Okay. And the rest are from Firefly.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: I like it, though. I love the art here still, again, basically, you got folks in leather, which. Leather and capes, which is always bad news in the Star Trek universe.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely bad.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: And all the security detail have been captured fairly easily.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: Yeah. You would think that they have some sort of training, or didn't. They all have blasters and phasers? I'm pretty sure they had phasers.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: I mean, I hope they walk around with phasers if they're security, you know, security detail, Red shirts. You're right. They tend to get defeated pretty quickly.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: They might have just been engineers, Dan.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: They might have been Engineers. It would have been completely logical to bring 12345 engineers with you on the planet while you're exploring something, trying to capture somebody.
[00:49:18] Speaker B: They had machines down there, Dan.
They had time machines, Dan.
[00:49:23] Speaker A: Time machines, time vortex.
[00:49:27] Speaker B: They wanted to figure them out. They brought engineers.
Well, they didn't know that when they got down there, they saw.
[00:49:34] Speaker A: Their chronometers were messed up.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Yeah. They saw radiation signatures, man.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: So what we find is Spock and Kirk have an amazingly long conversation while they're being captured.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: And Yeoman Rand, the best character in the story so far, shorts out the entire transporter console and knocks everybody back a phaser fight ensues. Captain Kirk, of course, doesn't use a phaser because that would make sense. He starts choking out, and he has much better technique than.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
I mean, he's got to disable these people, man.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: Starts choking out the captain of the Condor.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: Captain Condor.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: No, Captain of the Condor. Not Captain Condor.
[00:50:20] Speaker B: So that make him Condor Man.
[00:50:22] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: Whoa. He's a superhero in the universe.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: No, no. This is not the Disney universe.
[00:50:30] Speaker B: I know.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: Okay.
I want to say something very serious to you right now.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: Do not say that.
Disney. The Disney. The mouse owns Star Trek. They do not.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: I did not.
I just said.
I referenced Condor, man.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: It's fine, but don't bring Disney into this, okay? Disney doesn't have this yet.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:50:58] Speaker A: They're not allowed to.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: They're not allowed.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: Did we understand? Are we clear?
[00:51:03] Speaker B: We are clear.
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: Matter of time.
[00:51:10] Speaker A: All right. So, staring out at the beautiful sunshine outside at the Lake house, I'm at coming into my Zen State. We're now returning to the book. Here we are. And they lock everybody out. They take over the room, and they start planning their way to get people back. So Captain Kirk, in his wisdom, leaves Yeoman Rand in charge to make sure that they can save theirselves. And Spock and Kirk head back down to the planet.
[00:51:47] Speaker B: Hey.
[00:51:48] Speaker A: Summarizes about the last four pages, right?
[00:51:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: It's funny, too, because you said the first issue, how the action moved really fast, and then we get this kind of four panel, four page thing where nothing's moving fast. It's just like.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: And it would be all action.
All of this right now, I'm sure, in the show, happens so quickly.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: Assuming this happened in the show.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Assuming it happened in the show. But if it were to. If this was a show, I mean, this would happen so fast, and a lot of the dialogue would be chopped.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and it was a lot of dialogue. I think it was good dialogue. Right. They're kind of discussing their next steps and what their plans are and this impetus to change things back. And I do like the dialogue for building up Rand as a key character. So I think that's good.
If this is a long term storyline. Right. And this was going to be an episode and we're building Rand for the future, I think a lot of this dialogue makes sense.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. No, totally. And giving her, like I said, that agency, if you're going to build her up as a character and making her someone with importance on the ship and giving her that agency, that is super important, because now they put the trust in her that she's going to hold it down and she's going to lead.
She's a leader.
[00:53:23] Speaker A: Yep.
And so she's going to hold down the fort until Captain Kirk and Spock get back, and they transport to the planet, and immediately, the Guardians tell them the universe you knew never existed came in. Never existed. The men and women you knew never existed. They don't even let Kirk ask any questions. Now.
[00:53:45] Speaker B: They're mad at him, so angry at him.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: Silly humans.
[00:53:54] Speaker B: They just let it go. That's what they say. You got to let it go.
[00:53:59] Speaker A: Kirk wants to go back. They're like, let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. See, I can do Disney reference.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: I'm.
It's in the book, Dan. It's in the book. I didn't make it up. Harlan did. They stole it from him.
[00:54:16] Speaker A: Okay. So Kirk spends some time convincing the Guardians they have a throw down, and Kirk, of course, like he does with everybody, because Kirk is like, he rolled an 18 on charisma and then had buffs to take it up to about 46, and he commits his beings who have lived there forever to let him go back in time.
And then, of course, Spock has to explain, because his intelligence is buffed to 48, he has to explain to Kirk how that's going to work, because Kirk just asked for the thing, but has no idea what he's getting. So, basic physics. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. You cannot send us back to the precise time and back with disappearance, can you? And they tell him they have to send them before or after.
And so they get ready to go, and they make a point out of setting up the tricorder to resonate with the vortex so they can get back there. Maybe the tricorder will become important later in the story. Maybe it's possible.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Tricorders are always important.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: Feel like we're doing some foreshadowing here.
[00:55:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:36] Speaker A: And then Kirk just opines, I just hope we won't have been waiting for years. I didn't even say it right. I just hope we won't have been waiting for years. There we go.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:55:53] Speaker A: And they were still waiting to go back in time. So the Guardians tell them.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: Oh, Guardians tell them.
Sorry.
Yes. But in each time period, there is a focal point, an object, a person, something that is indispensable to the normal flow of time. Unimportant otherwise, but a catalyst.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: Sounds like something went down where somebody was hurt or something.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: There is definitely a point in time. That's fixed there that they have to get back to because there is a person or an object or a thing that they're being drawn to.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: Yes. And Kirk asks, how can we stop him? And the guardians say, no, but.
[00:56:59] Speaker B: Sorry, no, but the stresses of the time flow will draw him to it. The influence. If he influences it, nothing can restore the shape of the past. Bring him back. He will seek that which must die and give it life.
Stop him.
[00:57:21] Speaker A: I don't understand. Can't you tell me more?
[00:57:27] Speaker B: You need to deposit 25 more cents.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: Depositing 25 more cents.
[00:57:34] Speaker B: Blue. It will be blue as the sky of old earth and clear as truth. And the sun will burn on it. And there is the key. Please deposit 25 more cents.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: And then. I love the next scene. I love the rainbow.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: Yes, there's a rainbow. But you didn't deposit 25 more cents. So I can't tell you the rest of the.
[00:58:05] Speaker A: Oh, I'm not ready because I want to talk about this art. And then we can read the rest of the advice. Okay. I love the paneling like you described. We see their looks. They go in. And then we have the rainbow art, which is an homage to comic book and Sci-Fi time travel, which is amazing. And then especially, of course, from my perspective, like the superboy and Legion time travel as they go through time and they break the time barrier. And it's always like these rainbowy circle things. And then here we go. And I deposit 25 more cents. Now.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: As you wish. More detail will be given.
As night falls, they run like hunters. And for all our wisdom, we are helpless.
[00:58:54] Speaker A: Okay, so our clues, what do they have to find? They have to bring him back because he will seek that which must die.
Yes. And give it life. So he's preventing somebody from dying, it looks like.
[00:59:13] Speaker B: And then it's going to be blue like the sky.
[00:59:16] Speaker A: Blue like the sky.
[00:59:17] Speaker B: And there's going to be a sun.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: Like the sky and a sun. Okay, so those are our clues. Somebody is going to keep somebody alive. And there'll be blue and a sun.
Okay.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: All seems reasonable.
[00:59:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
Seems legit to me.
[00:59:38] Speaker A: And then loving it because the time travel sequence is so cool because we flip the page and they're like sideways coming out of the time stream, sort of. And then we see Ellison's theater. Always a nice touch to me when the artist puts things into the book like that.
[00:59:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Little Easter Egg.
[00:59:59] Speaker A: And the CCC. A CCC camp.
Do you know what CCC was, Greg?
[01:00:06] Speaker B: Do tell.
[01:00:07] Speaker A: The Civilian Conservation Corps.
[01:00:09] Speaker B: Ah.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: And so we know we're in the great, the.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: For those who are not familiar, those are when they would bring artists out and people to build roads in national parks.
[01:00:26] Speaker A: Yeah, basically, people that didn't have money would go work. The government was trying to give people jobs. And it's also right next to a free soup kitchen. And we have men going in for soup and of know, here we go.
There's Spock and Kirk are wandering around. They're looking very confused and out of place.
And then Donald Trump's dad shows up.
What kind of country is this where men have to stand in breadlines just to fill their bellies? I'll tell you what kind of country. Run by foreigners, all the scum we let in to take the food from our mouths, from all the alien filth that pollutes our country. Oh, gosh. It's just everywhere, Greg.
[01:01:16] Speaker B: Everywhere. Every time.
[01:01:18] Speaker A: It's literally everywhere. Every time. Like, every time we read something, this shows up.
[01:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's time after time, man.
[01:01:29] Speaker A: But in these unprecedented times where we live in, where people have been racist and bigots, for the first time ever, can we just share some of the things we read with people so they know that people have been bigots and racist, and then we should get rid of all of them.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
And also just the fact that, not to clunk it over the head too much, but you get people that are like, oh, I don't believe that these messages are in the books and in the media that I like. But, I mean, this is original Star.
[01:02:02] Speaker A: Trek on an original script, in this case. Right? Original script on an original script. Because there's also original Star Trek.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: This is the original script for a Star Trek episode that was tackling these.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: Messages and referencing the 1930s, where these messages were being said in a 1968 script. So it's not like we're rewriting history by saying that this existed.
[01:02:28] Speaker B: No, this purely did and was being referenced to drive home a point that it was still relevant.
[01:02:36] Speaker A: And here's one of my favorite things, because I just finished listening to the Kennedy and King book, which profiles, as you might guess, John F. Kennedy's relationship with Martin Luther King and how they were intertwined.
And, of course, during that book, and of course, if you're reading any history of the time period, it was embarrassing for Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson as presidents to go work with other countries, especially the Communist, quote, unquote, enemies. Right.
[01:03:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:03:11] Speaker A: Who would just call us out and we'd say, oh, well, communism is bad, but. Oh, yeah, but, you know, discriminate against your own people. Right. And here immediately Spock just calls it out in horror.
He says, is this the heritage Earthmen brag about? The sickness and the art on it is amazing.
And, yeah, Spock has that inquisitive look where he'll kind of raise one eyebrow, but in this, both eyebrows go up. And it's not a normal look. I get for Spock. This is a very emotional look.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I find this is the beginning of mean. I don't want to call too much attention to it, but I really like how. And we'll get into it more later, but this story definitely brings out so much more of Spock than you see.
[01:04:17] Speaker A: I think, again, he wrote so many words. We referenced the length of the script. Right. So Ellison did get to dig into the characters a little bit.
[01:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: But I do really like how Spock is portrayed throughout the story. I mean, we're about to finish up the second issue, but throughout the story. And Spock's justifications for his own actions through his words.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:44] Speaker A: But anyway, immediately the crowd turns on Spock when they see his ears.
And they think he's one of those foreigners, so they go get him.
And great art. As Kirk and Spock try to get away.
[01:05:06] Speaker B: Kirk.
[01:05:07] Speaker A: Sorry. Shoots a phaser at A light pole and evaporates it, which stuns everybody.
That would make sense. And they run off into an alley past Tipton Bros. Deli, which were the script writers or the adapters of the script for the comic. And then they head down, they knock over some garbage cans. We got a lot of action scene going on now. So I think this is where the action speeds up. And I love the art and the action and the minimal dialogue. But I liked seeing all of the action here, too. Right. It made me feel like I was watching the show.
[01:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
And it shows you that they're literally running through time.
[01:05:54] Speaker A: And they're showing the differences. Right. The brick buildings. It looks like New York too. Right.
And they hop a fence, pass some clotheslines and jump into a cellar.
And they end the story, or this part of the story with Kirk says, down there in the basement. And Spock says, and if the mob follows. And Kirk, in his normal cavalier fashion, just says, one problem at a time, Mr. Spock. And we get to the end of the story. Or the first two issues of the story, I should say. And this is where we're going to stop on this.
On a cliffhanger.
[01:06:39] Speaker B: Cliffhanger.
What other problems will they encounter? When will we talk about them? Next week, I guess.
[01:06:50] Speaker A: We will talk about it next week.
So far, I just want to say really enjoying the adaptation. Can't wait to talk about the rest of it with you. And I hope audience listeners out there, you're enjoying this, too. And when I say I'm super excited, you probably can hear it my voice, because we're doing Star Trek, so I am happy.
[01:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, this is a great issue or a great little series to follow. And everything that we've said so far, the artwork, the words, the adaptation of the screenplay, it is top notch. So if you haven't checked it out thus far, go check it out so you can follow along through the rest.
[01:07:38] Speaker A: Of the episodes with us and watch. You probably will hear this before Greg and I do this. So we will be setting up one of these afternoons when we record a watch along.
[01:07:54] Speaker B: A watch my.
[01:07:58] Speaker A: You can watch along with us. And if we can't pull this off, and if we can't pull that off, we're at least going to track. So it'll be 3123. We'll do three of these and then a fourth episode will be actually watching the show. So if we can't get the actual watch along coordinated, we're at least going to tag the episode where you can start watching with us. So read the book first and then prepare to watch City on the Edge of Forever with us.
[01:08:25] Speaker B: Oh, that is cool.
Where else do you get that? You get that at funny book forensics people at the spoiler verse. That's where you get it.
[01:08:35] Speaker A: Where else do you get it in the spoiler verse? Well, you could go watch the Snyder cut with somebody.
[01:08:40] Speaker B: Yeah, but we're not talking about that unless you're going to eat Snyder's pretzels with.
[01:08:44] Speaker A: And, you know, pretzels get really boring after five.
[01:08:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Unless you got like four bags. Your, you got your honey mustard, your regular, your buffalo wing.
They got the pepper, cracked pepper ones. And then I think there's another, like.
[01:09:06] Speaker A: Isn'T there one that's like a dark side did pretzel.
[01:09:11] Speaker B: I can't remember.
[01:09:13] Speaker A: A dark side would appear if you made the show 5 hours, maybe. Dark side might. The dark side pretzel.
[01:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's just nothing.
[01:09:23] Speaker A: Dark side pretzel.
[01:09:24] Speaker B: Nothing but burned pretzel edges. And then all of a sudden you open that bag last and dark side appear. You get the dark side and the dark side.
[01:09:33] Speaker A: Oh, would it be like nothing but pretzel.
Dark side appearances.
[01:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah, dark side appearances left and right.
[01:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah, well, but we don't get that.
[01:09:47] Speaker B: In the Snyder cut, do we?
[01:09:51] Speaker A: Watch the trailer, Craig.
[01:09:54] Speaker B: I don't want to, Dan.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: Just don't watch the trailer.
[01:09:58] Speaker B: I don't want to, Dan. Don't make me. I'd rather.
I'm not going to. Unless. Unless we get people, like, if we have people that tell me to do it from this podcast, I might do it.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: All right. If you want Greg to watch the trailer, he will TikTok that stuff.
[01:10:21] Speaker B: I'll do a reaction, but I'll do a reaction video. But right now, I'm saving myself from that whole thing because I can't put the time into it right now. I just can't do it. Can't put my time into it.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: Well, that's why at funny book forensics, we chose to read the original Harlan Ellison teleplay and get the Harlan Ellison cut instead of the Snyder Pretzel cut.
[01:10:48] Speaker B: There you go.
[01:10:48] Speaker A: Quite frankly, this is a work of art. And, yeah, this is a work of art.
[01:10:55] Speaker B: It is.
[01:10:57] Speaker A: Or you could have crunchy pretzel goodness.
[01:11:01] Speaker B: You could have that with this. And that's our Snyder cut.
[01:11:05] Speaker A: And you could still wonder why Darkseid wasn't the villain.
[01:11:12] Speaker B: I wonder so much.
[01:11:14] Speaker A: I don't know.
Why would you choose a Darkseid minion as your villain instead of just having Darkseid?
[01:11:21] Speaker B: I don't know. Because Steppenwolf sounds so cool.
[01:11:24] Speaker A: And how would making it longer make it better?
[01:11:28] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, I like Steppenwolf, the musician.
[01:11:31] Speaker A: But how would making it longer make it better?
Why are they doing this to us?
[01:11:39] Speaker B: I don't know. You get the dark Superman suit to.
[01:11:45] Speaker A: Our colleagues on this network that want the Snyder cut. Curse you.
[01:11:50] Speaker B: Curses go to you and you and you and you and. Did I miss anybody?
[01:11:55] Speaker A: I haven't sworn the entire podcast, so it's not going to happen now, okay?
But maybe next time, hear Dan swear about Harlan Ellison.
[01:12:07] Speaker B: Okay?
[01:12:10] Speaker A: And on that note, thanks, everybody, for listening to funny book forensics.
