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PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES film bits
Hey folks, here's another one of those Don Murphy projects we've been covering and the details on where the film is at. This is an Ellison book I haven't come across, and I must profess I haven't seen this show either, but then we don't get much Canadian TV down here in Texas. But if you want to learn more about that series and the book... well, Click Here To Find Out More!
PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES
STORY:
Based on the novel by Harlan Ellison (with Edward Bryant) which was also the
basis for an incredibly crappy Canadian TV series called the STARLOST. In the
book, the hero lives in a small Amish community and commits heresy by
questioning his elders.... he flees to the hills pursued by the community ....
and finds a metallic "hatch" built into the hill. He opens it, and slides down
a long tube - - - into a space ship. But he's never heard of such a thing-
he's believed all his life that he lived in a world only twenty miles long. The
ship is seriously damaged, but it tells him about a place he's heard of in
legend, EARTH, which hundreds of years ago heard about a comet that would
destroy EARTH. The residents of earth united and built a huge ship, miles long,
and filled it with biodomes, dozens of them, each representing cities and
sections of earth. The ship set off for an inhabitable planet near Alpha
Centurai with a crew and linked biodomes on a voyage that would take 500 years.
Earth was destroyed, but the ship continued onward. A hundred years out, a
meteor storm seriously damages the ship- the crew is wiped out, biodomes are
destroyed or damaged, but the ship sails on. Over time, the sealed off
biodomes become little worlds, and earth becomes a distant memory. Our hero
learns all this, but it is like the ship has summoned him - instead of being
close to their new home, the damage centuries before has subtly altered the
steering and so the ship is close to collapsing into a nearby sun. Where the
controls are and how to use them becomes the problem of our hero- who merely
wants to return to his world and save his beloved. He is chased from world to
world by the elders who believe him to be the devil as he seeks to save the
remainders of Earth's population.
STATUS: On the fast track at Columbia Pictures, David Goyer (BLADE, DARK CITY)
is producing with me and writing and should be turning in a first draft within a
couple of weeks...... Columbia is hoping this can be a big SF franchise....
That's number four, Sir Harold!
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a small victory in my otherwise pathetic life.
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I've never heard of this one before. Granted, I haven't read everything the man has to offer, but at least I know the titles of the books I haven't read - this must have beed out of print for some time. I'll have to look out for it, now. Premise sounds intriguing.
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(yawn) The signs of the apocalypse become more and more apparent with each and every day. Can we classify THIS one as edgy? I think not.
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It's true; in Canada, we see more Canadian series than you Texans do. The industry does some fine, fine work now, but in the 1970s, it wasn't always the case. STARLOST is an example. The principal actor was Keir Dullea, who only a few years before had done Kubrick proud in 2001. The scripts were shallow and predictable, melodramatic even by TV sci-fi standards of the day. The early blue-screenish FX were bad. The sound and cinematography were worse. It had the ragged look of a live show with amateurish production values --- local access with a budget. If it reflected Ellison's vision in any measure at all, I'm not surprised that the original seems to be among his minor works.
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Far be it from me to correct Don Murphy, but I ought to point out that, while his project may be based on the Bryant novel -- and he ought to know -- the novel was *not* the basis for THE STARLOST.
Rather, PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES is in fact a novelization by Edward Bryant of Ellison's original pilot script for the series -- which was subsquently rewritten beyond all recognition by Canadian TV writer Norman Klenman and retitled "Voyage of Discovery" (*snort*). This, among approximately seventeen thousand other extremely thuggish and boneheaded acts by the series' producers, prompted Ellison to walk off the series prior to airing, leaving only his Guild-approved pseudonym, "Cordwainer Bird," to mark his passing.
The whole sordid story is told by Ellison in his foreword to the Bryant novelization, which -- if memory serves and I'm not imagining having seen the thing -- was recently reissued into print after many years and may be available at your local well-stocked science-fiction bookseller.
I believe that same foreword ("Somehow, I Don't Think We're In Kansas, Toto") has also been reprinted, in expanded form, in Ellison's STALKING THE NIGHTMARE, which was recently reissued as part of the EDGEWORKS series.
And for those who want a sense of what it FELT like to work on THE STARLOST, if not the actual facts, check out Ben Bova's comic novel, THE STARCROSSED, which is a thinly-disguised retelling of the nonsense he and Ellison went through as technical advisor and series creator, respectively. -
I remember reading this ages ago, over twenty years ago. Ah, yes, that cover. And I almost wrote a book report on it, but I figured no one had ever heard of Harlan Ellison. And I did know that it was the basis of a Canadian TV series. The back cover of the novel included a photo of the model of the starship, sort of a cross between "2001"'s Discovery and the Valley Forge from "Silent Running". Also, I vaguely remember seeing a photo from the TV show in one of those Scholastic magazines. Nice concept, hope they do it right.
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Ellison's involvement in this project is detailed in GREAT LENGTH in the essay, "Toto, we're not in Kansans Anymore" in the collection "Stalking the Nightmare" (a collection I much recommend).
Basucally, this thing came out of a very bitter battle between Ellison and the studio. The studio successfully mangled "the Starlost", and Ellison managed to keep them from attaching his name to it (he forced them to credit it to Cordwainer Bird, the story goes).
I'm amazed that anything is being considered to be done with the story after the mess that 'The Starlost' became. It only became one project, hated by its author, regretted by the rest of its creators and admittedly not the most original concept to come around the pike. -
The Starlost, the original pilot, won Harlan Ellison some sort of writing award, though not an Emmy. Being at work and not near my Ellison books right now leaves me at a loss, but it's definitely a case of the script being valued far and above the eventual production (which I've never seen, but I hear it fell far short).
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As I recall, Harlan won the WGA award for Best Teleplay for his original script. It made him the first person to win that award three times. I think in the essay he described that moment as 'plucking a rose from the summit of a vast, steaming pile of shit.' The other great story from that whole sordid mess is this: after Harlan (and Ben Bova) had walked, and the series was rapidly headed for the toilet, the goombah in charge phones up Gene Roddenberry and asks him if he wants to take over the show. Gene laughs at him. The goombah then asks Gene if he cam think of anyone who could do the job. Gene says sure. The goombah asks who it is. Gene's response: "Harlan Ellison. If you hadn't fucked him over, he would have done a great job for you." The point is- this is a great story, by a man among legends (or something), which is finally seeing the light of day. Hurrah.
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You too can get e-mail from "famous" Hollywood bigwigs! All you need to do is badmouth a project in talkback. Pretty soon, your mailbox will be overflowing with mail from oversensitive producers and their brethren. Hell, if you're lucky like me, you might even get a veiled DEATH THREAT! (oooooooooooooh!) Maybe this is why Harry never posts a negative review...easier to believe than the idea that he actually likes all crap he sees.
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I read the original teleplay by Ellison when it was published in an anthology titled "Faster Than Light". If you can find it it's worth a read. In fact anyone interested in screenwriting should do themselves a favor and grab a hold of any and all scripts written by Ellison and study the hell out of them. They'll see what great screen writing should be.
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Just want to add any potential writers should also grab any copies of "The Glass Teat", vol. 1 & 2, that they can find. They should be required reading in writing courses.
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