Star Trek Movie Tie-In by Alan Dean Foster
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Book Reviews of Star Trek Movie Tie-In
Book Review: Underwhelmed
Summary: 3 Stars
I had really high hopes for this novelization when I saw Alan Dean Foster's name on it. I remembered his '70s animated series novelizations as works that transformed bare-bones, half-hour cartoons into textural, layered, vibrant novels full of character insight.
On the other hand, I was 12 at the time.
Ideally, a novelization should give fans who loved the movie something more to love. It should be packed full of glances, observations, exchanges, insights, details, and gap-filling scenes that eluded the visual medium and time constraints of the movie. It should be neither a bare-bones script reprint nor a revisionist re-imagining.
Foster's novelization manages to be both of these things. The result is a dry, detached, cludgy, and conflicted work that seems to only depart from the movie script for the purpose of wrestling with it.
When Foster unnecessarily changes details, it's hard to tell whether he's inattentive, lazy or subversive. It's hard to believe that any script provided to Foster ever contained a line where Winona Kirk tells her husband their baby's eyes are brown (and in case it did, evidently Foster screened the actual movie before writing this novelization - Chris Pine's blue eyes made me blink, too, but there they are). And for an author who's been writing Star Trek for over 30 years to flub Kirk's hometown is inexcusable. Storm Lake, Iowa? Riverside claimed that distinction decades ago. Where was the editor?
Shame on Simon and Schuster for releasing this as a trade paperback. It's not worth the extra money. Since you're going to buy it anyway, pick up the new TOS novel, "Troublesome Minds" by Dave Galanter (if he is a hack, at least he doesn't write like one) while you're here so at least you come away with one good book.
Book Review: Ok, but not great
Summary: 3 Stars
I grew up reading "Star Trek" novels back in the day. I particularly enjoyed reading Vonda McIntyre's novelizations of the second, third and fourth movies and in part that was because they added a lot to what we saw up on the screen. It gave back stories to the characters, gave reasons and rationales that weren't shown on screen and generally helped the movies themselves to make a bit more sense than they otherwise might've done.
I'd hoped that would be the case with this book. I'd hoped it would help me to better understand a lot of what happened in "Star Trek" the movie. I'd hoped to have some of the holes filled in (notably that gaping hole in the middle of Iowa), and learn some things, like what Nero and crew did for twenty-five years while waiting for Spock to show up.
We didn't learn any of those things, nor any of the other stuff I'd hoped to learn (though we did find out why a Romulan has a name like Nero). Basically this is a near letter-perfect rehash of the screenplay without any real changes to the dialogue, no extra scenes, nothing. Even scenes that were apparently filmed but cut from the finished product, like showing what Nero and crew were up to for twenty-five years, aren't in this book.
Movie novelizations are tricky. At their best they open up new paths in the story. At their worst, they suck so hard they make the film unwatchable. This book isn't the latter, but it's also not the former, and I'd hoped it would be.
Basically, if you wanted something that would give you more background and flesh out the movie, don't hold your breath. If you want you want instead is essentially the shooting script with some scenes altered very slightly you'll likely be happy with this book.
Book Review: Alan Dean Foster disappoints for the first time in my memory
Summary: 2 Stars
Star Trek Movie Tie-In
First, let me be clear on one thing - I am a die-hard original series Trekkie. I don't tire of watching the old episodes, and I religiously studied the new FX in the "remastered" versions. I'm not going to rehash the plot lines; if the other reviews haven't done that, or you haven't seen the movie, then I can offer this simplistic advice: see the movie, and skip this book!
With all novelizations of the first six movies, I found the books contained better dialogue, introduced new and interesting plot elements, and took great care to follow the story line. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Foster is the first author to pen his manuscript after seeing the entire movie. So, I would have expected him to enhance, not contradict, the movie. I was disappointed for many reasons, but chief amongst them are as follows.
1. He cut out nearly all of the kitchy dialogue from the characters. Especially absenst is the McCoy/Spock banter.
2. He has some bizzare opening with a star going supernova, which (I believe) is supposed to occur on the date of Spock's birth. I'm not really sure, and it's pointless to the storyline.
3. He completely alters the climactic scene of Spock warping away from Earth before attacking Nero's ship. This would mean that Spock doesn't care overmuch for Earth and that we had a singularity in close orbit over the planet, for a time. There was no reason to change this scene at all.
4. The bit about Pike not being bound in a wheelchair from the Centaurian Slug (which he doesn't even name in the book) flies in the face of the movie. Mr. Foster seems to want to denounce the movie by having Pike make claims about how he feels as if he could run out of Nero's ship; again it makes no sense. If Pike is feeling just dandy, why give Kirk the Enterprise?
5. Why take away Sulu's sword? Again, change just because he could.
I have more, but I will stop. The key point is that I loved the movie, and hated the book. It joins one of a very select few Star Trek novels that I shall likely never read again. I give this two stars (versus one) because Mr. Foster included some nice back matter on George Kirk Jr., Jim Kirk's older brother, which was absent from the movie (although purportedly shot).
Usually I find myself giving these books glowing reviews for supplementing the movie for the massges, but this time I just cannot endorse this unpleasant experience. I was very greatful to finish it and pick up one of the truly good classic Trek novels.
I expected better from Mr. Foster, and recommend using your money on a movie ticket.
Book Review: Trek, But Not Exactly as We Know It
Summary: 2 Stars
I haven't seen the move yet, this is based solely on this novelization.
The story goes back into the past, revisiting the days of the Original Star Trek crew while at Starfleet Academy. This kind of "Muppets Babies" treatment risks being like "Young Sherlock Holmes", which invented a relationship between Holmes and Watson long before their documented first meeting.
The film "First Contact" did something like that, making the story of the excellent novel "Strangers from Sky" impossible (or at least in need of a rewrite to make it fit). This story certainly seems to do something similar. Right at the beginning Starfleet office George Kirk sacrifices himself to save the crew of his ship, which includes his wife, who has just given birth to his son James. This goes against an earlier Star Trek book that has the elder Kirk alive, but mostly in space, during his sons' adolescence.
So it seems like canon is being rewritten, until suddenly a major planet in the Star Trek world is destroyed, and a fairly important person dies. Yet both planet and person are very much in evidence later on in the Star Trek we know.
So obviously time is being messed with here, which explains why straight arrow young Jim Kirk turns into a delinquent, who somehow gets into Starfleet Academy anyway, and how he ends up on the Enterprise with all his future crewmates, and things are just a bit weird.
The expectation, as with previous time-frame altering episodes, is that at the end the proper time-line will be restored. I don't really want to give away the plot, but if the producers plan to make a sequel to this film/book, then we are looking at adventures into a different universe than what we have been experiencing before. Unless the sequel itself is about restoring the time-line.
The film may be wonderful, with great effects and fascinating depictions of Starfleet Academy, the early Enterprise, and Vulcan. But I have a bad feeling about this book and the universe it leaves us in.
Book Review: Big Disappointment
Summary: 2 Stars
I don't know how I let it happen, but I have been disappointed by Alan Dean Foster twice this summer, once with his novelization of Terminator Salvation, and now with this one. I think he may have been a little rushed writing BOTH of these novelizations.
I am a avid reader of the various Star Trek novels, including the Original, Deep Space Nine, the New Frontier, Vanguard, and the Voyager series. There are so many writers working with the Star Trek line that the publishers could have worked with that I don't know how they decided on Foster. He does a good job when he is writing for himself, but this truly is a clunky, poorly written disappointment.
If you can get it for a few dollars go ahead and read it. If not, then please join me in letting Paramount know we expect a little more next time.