#idk everything to do with jim kind of hurts my feelings lmao it's all taste based i'm not outright saying it's Bad Writing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sunshine-captain · 7 years

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I finished The City on The Edge of Forever, and I gotta say....I enjoyed it, but I like the episode a lot more. the book has some nice things about it, but overall the episode is much more to my taste.

things I like:

the fact that it’s a graphic novel? I know that’s like, not a storyline thing, but it’s cool! I don’t have any trek comics so the comic is a new experience for me. it’s cool! the art is pretty good, although occasionally goofy (spock and jim are both drawn with their fair share of silly-but-not-meant-to-be faces, lmao)

Jim and edith’s relationship gets a little more screentime, I guess? it shows them spending more time together, and it feels a little natural when they wind up in love. I still like the build in the show though...but they’re sweet together in the book, too

we don’t really get the same domesticity with spock and jim that we do in the show, but there are some moments. spock and jim apparently go to a movie together: “you don’t make a half-bad chinese laborer. they barely looked at you in that ‘movie theater’ last night. Twenty-three skidoo, kiddo.” (don’t even ask about that last part, idfk.)

one part that made me giggle was spock and jim chilling on a roofstop being creepers and watching edith and jim tells spock to go get some sleep, spock asks if there’s anything to eat, and jim responds, “I bought nine pounds of cabbage and asparagus. the grocer’s is beginning to look at me.”

the disabled ww I veteran. I liked him, that made me sad :C

spock inviting jim to come with him to vulcan to heal ;______; “on my world, the nights are very long. the sound of the silver birds against the sky is very sweet. my people know there is always time enough for everything. you could come with me for a rest. you would feel comfortable there.” klfdj;gdfgkjdfgj

things I don’t like:

(under a readmore bc it got LONG and I spoiler stuff...uh...if you can have spoilers for this, anyway, lol. also I get really pissed and idk. but read my reasons for declaring the episode to be definitely superior)

spock is...really unspock like?! it feels like they got him and bones mixed up, honestly. it grated heavily on my nerves tbh because one thing I love about spock is his open mind and curiosity and desire for knowledge. when they go to an alien planet, bones or someone else will be mad about the planet or its customs and spock will be the reasonable one who is logical about it (see: the argument spock and bones have in the apple) and even if he doesn’t like or approve of a custom or whatever he usually can figure out why the people do what they do. he’s taken on aspects of bones’ personality in the book. for example, when they first go through into the past (not the guardian of forever but multiple guardian spirit things, that are just a little too complimentary towards humans and eager to show them the past. I liked how dismissive the guardian was in the show, lol) they run into a mob of people who are pissed about foreigners “stealing their jobs” and then they see spock and think he’s chinese (grit my teeth the whole book through at spock being called “chinee”, that’s gotta be a slur or something, it feels like) and the mob chases him and jim into a basement. where spock precedes to call the humans barbarians and say “tell me earthmen have uplifted my race!” and then jim responds that he should have “left spock for the mob” (?!!?!?!?! has anything ever sounded more out of character for these two!!!! literally just let me recount this conversation to you because I am so offended at its existence.

spock: barbarian world! jim: they were hungry, and afraid. spock: as violent as any aboriginal world we ever landed on. jim: alright, we’re safe now. spock: I would call this anything but “safe”...barbarians!

see what I mean???? that’s my main issue but I actually have a couple others lol.

oh I just noticed spock referred to the main baddie, a gross drug dealer, as a monster. wow. even more unspock like.

the lack of bones. I don’t say that just as someone who loves bones, I think the story genuinely suffered due to him not being there. as I mentioned, the bad guy is a drug dealer lowlife from the enterprise named beckwith. he gets alien races hooked on some crazy drug he’s got, steals their stuff, and profits off of it. he caused a slaughter on some planet. he’s gross, right? well he runs off into the past and jim and spock follow him. they know eventually that edith is the important focal point that can very easily change the whole future, and that she has to die; well at the end, seemingly completely out of character with his greasy lowlife self, beckwith tries to save her when she steps out onto the street. spock and jim stop him, and there’s a moral at the end at how evil can still do good, or something like that. but it doesn’t have the same emotional impact!!! okay, so bones goes into the past through a silly plot device (falling onto his own hypo, lmao), but then edith saves him and takes care of him. and he unknowingly alters the future by saving the life of a woman who was kind to him, and because he’s a doctor that cares about all life and he protects it whenever he can. he doesn’t mean any harm, he was just trying to save the person who helped him. and jim is his best friend, and he has to grab bones and stop him from doing it and he has to hear it happen and bones has to watch her die and spock is watching the whole thing

I JUST REWATCHED THAT SCENE IT’S SO SAD!!!!! “you deliberately stopped me, jim. I could have saved her. do you know what you just did?” the horror in mccoy’s face!!!! obviously this is horrible for jim but I never appreciated how sad that was for bones too (especially if you go back like a minute and see him talking to edith and smiling cutely at her) and for spock (BC HE KNOWS HOW MUCH JIM IS HURTING! AND HE’S BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME WATCHING JIM GETTING CLOSER TO HER EVEN THO HE KNEW IT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA! and he was pining so hard for jim the whole time) I’m honest to god in tears now

anyway as you can see the story suffers very much for the lack of mccoy. it’s less painful and less impactful and they get preachy with morals at the end in the book but IT’S NOT THE SAME

also harlan ellison is annoying af, his high anf mighty attitude about “what was done” to his script. sorry dude, the changes were good and the episode is superior and you don’t know the characters well enough.

tl;dr the book is a neat thing to own (I’m glad I have it and will prolly flip through it again) but the episode is v much superior

#trek merch #trek books #count it as one #i love mccoy #this book made me appreciate him soo much more

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