Announced yesterday in the forums on Ellison Webderland:
Tomorrow, at about 8:30 AM, Susan and one of my attorneys, John Carmichael (he of the successful AOL lawsuit, & others), will go before a judge of the California Superior Court for a preliminary conference hearing on my litigation against Pocket Books, Simon & Schuster, Sony, Paramount, STAR TREK, and about a dozen editors and apparatchiks thereto owing allegiance, in the first large step to making the gigantor ST franchise pay me what they owe me for using the elements of my CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER story and teleplay. In the offing, if they choose to continue to be arrogant and non-responsive, is a Federal Suit that will make it possible for ALL past Star Trek writers–such as, notably, David Gerrold–to seek substantial reparations for 40 years’ worth of pillage and greed by Paramount, et al.
Watch this space. I’m old, but not yet senile or frightened.
Harlan Ellison is one maddening little cranky-assed bastard. He’s capable of such brilliance, but what does he do to draw attention to himself? Nutball crap like this. I’m not saying this out of – as he frequently accuses anyone who disagrees with his stance – some kind of fealty to a particular studio, show, or what have you. My biggest beef with Harlan, as he whittles away what’s left of his career complaining about how many times and ways he’s been “wronged” by every other producer in Hollywood who hired and paid him to write stuff, is that for all of his complaints about artistic integrity…where’s Harlan’s integrity? Why the hell does he keep cashing the check if he feels this strongly about it? ‘Cause you know he’s getting some kind of residuals for this one episode of Star Trek he wrote in 1967. Maybe it isn’t as big a check as he’d like, and maybe he’s pissed that the story he created has been absorbed into the Trek legend overall and has inspired novels, comics and whatnot…but you know, most writers would probably wear that as a badge of honor.
It’s funny that he invokes David Gerrold’s name here: Gerrold’s not far behind him in the whole “still cashes the check and does the paid convention appearances while moaning about how mistreated he is” schtick. And invoking Gerrold may sink his whole case, because we’re just a few days away from the fan-film adaptation of Gerrold’s rejected TNG script hitting the ‘net – technically, violating Paramount’s copyright and leaving himself without a leg to stand on. I’m not sure I’d be grateful for Harlan dragging my name into the fray if I were Gerrold.
I’m all for the underdog, but this is just undistilled 100-proof stupid. Harlan could have a fantastic legacy as one of the definitive voices of 20th century fiction, except that he’s spent most of the latter half of his life pulling attention-whore stunts like this rather than creating more works of literary genius that he should be remembered for. I can already hear him saying that he’s forced to do this because the well’s run dry for him and he has to make a buck somehow.
If that’s the case, maybe he shouldn’t have spent decades bitching in public about how awful every studio or producer is who’s ever hired and paid him to write scripts – scripts that he’s frequently abandoned in mid-stream and left for others to rewrite because he disagreed with being asked or told to perform rewrites that would dilute his original vision. Never mind that, barring The Starlost or a few installments of anthology shows like The Outer Limits, these were always works-for-hire, based on someone else’s characters and situations, rather than wrongfully mangled installments of The Harlan Ellison Show. If he hadn’t spent a few decades making himself virtually unemployable as a scriptwriter, maybe he wouldn’t be in dire straits now.
Harlan Ellison’s a brilliant writer – I love his prose and even many of the TV projects that he feels turned out wrong, but I can’t stand this attention whoring routine he’s settled into, especially when it’s turned into a career of its own with books written on the subject. It’s because of his TV credits – TV credits which almost always read “written by Harlan Ellison,” despite his frequent habit of jumping ship (and, I feel compelled to say again, cashing the check) before the cameras even roll – that I’m even aware of his prose to begin with.
The man has had an extraordinary career and has had an extraordinary voice (I feel compelled to put that in the past tense for some reason). I’m awfully sorry he hasn’t gotten his way all along. That just puts him in the same boat as the rest of us.
For starters, given the state of WGA contracts today, I heavily doubt that Ellison (or Gerrold) are seeing any residuals whatsoever from their work on TOS.
On a larger scale, while I take the point that everyone who signs a contract should do so with eyes wide open, that doesn’t change the fact that the way studios and corporations treat the creators on whom they depend is a rank injustice, and to me any effort that calls attention to that should be applauded. (Seriously – how many Trek books have I bought in my life that used the Guardian of Forever?)
On a more specific note, Ellison does indeed seem to have his sense of outrage on a hair trigger. It’s worth noting that when he goes to court, he often has several legs to stand on – see his Terminator lawsuit, for example.
So I think this is one of those cases where I’ll say “That’s not how I’d do it, but I’m kinda glad there’s someone who would.”