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Star Trek: The Eden Incident
Updated
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie Title:
Genre:
Franchise:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
1969
Original Running Time:
100
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
83
Time Cut:
25
Time Added:
5
Additional Links:
Brief Synopsis:
An edit combining Star Trek TOS episodes 'The Way To Eden' and 'Requiem For Methuselah' into one extended episode, with the connective tissue being that the Synthococcusnovae disease and 'Eden' planet in the former, are now both represented in the latter, with 'Eden' being Flint's planet.
Intention:
Although not one of the most popular episodes of the series, Requiem for Methuselah is my favourite episode. Maybe because it’s one of the first I remember watching during the 1990s repeats on the BBC, maybe because of the complexity of the character of Flint. I later thought of suggesting the planet in The Way To Eden could potentially be Flint's planet, thus linking one story through to the next.
Flint’s planet is now the Eden planet, which compliments the dialogue. In 'The Way To Eden', Spock detects no life other than that aboard the stolen shuttlecraft containing the hippies. Flint’s planet is surrounded by screens, which he says “create the impression of lifelessness”.
Flint’s planet is now the Eden planet, which compliments the dialogue. In 'The Way To Eden', Spock detects no life other than that aboard the stolen shuttlecraft containing the hippies. Flint’s planet is surrounded by screens, which he says “create the impression of lifelessness”.
Additional Notes:
This edit adds in fan footage of the editor as Kirk at various places. There is an additional version # 2 without the extra footage, should you wish to watch this instead. There is also an optional introduction by the editor - explaining his extra footage - should people wish to watch this.
Other Sources:
- A variety of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes
- Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection
- Star Trek: Sound Effects
- Star Trek: The Original Series Soundtrack Collection
- Star Trek: Sound Effects
Special Thanks:
Benjamin Fidler, my partner, for helping film my additional exterior sequences.
Release Information:
Digital
Cuts and Additions:
CUTS:
- Replacement of the original Act I opening music (used several times throughout The Way To Eden) and Captain’s Log, with the bold 'Ship In Orbit' season two library cue.
- The portion of the Kirk/Spock bridge scene in which Spock tells Kirk what 'Herbert' is. I like that we don't know!
- The first Chekhov/Irina scene has been truncated.
- After McCoy informs Kirk that the disease is a virulent strain, I cut to a close up of Kirk from 'Day of the Dove', with the dramatic 'boom' sting, before dissolving into the following bridge scene, completely removing the scene of Sulu being seduced to become a 'follower'.
- The majority of the hippies' songs. The only major piece I've kept in is Spock playing his Vulcan harp with a hippie who looks like she's playing a bicycle wheel! I had to keep this in as it was the distraction that allowed the hippies to take over the ship.
- I've also cut all references in the plot of The Way To Eden in which Spock and Chekhov help locate Eden. If the crew is endangered by an infection, surely the priority is to head to the nearest Starbase for additional medical assistance? In my edit, the hippies simply take over the auxillary control room because Irina had found Chekhov working in there and sussed out what its purpose was.
- All references to Romulans and Romulan space are cut. Eden/Flint's planet is remote still, but remains in Federation space.
- When the hippies steal a shuttle and head for Eden, there was originally just an orbit shot of the Enterprise. This edit uses a shot of a shuttle exit the hangar deck from The Doomsday Machine.
- Prior to the M4 robot appearing for the first time, a cutaway exterior shot of the shuttlecraft returning to the Enterprise is shown with Chekhov returning with the four surviving hippies.
- A shot of the M4 robot moving away from Kirk and the landing party after being ordered to by Flint, has been truncated. The original shot clearly showed the robot attached to the camera.
- Kirk's reference to Flint's planet being 'Holberg 917G' has been cut.
- Several trims are made to the 'Requiem For Methuselah' segment, to balance out the proportion of both episodes. Amongst others, the following cuts are based on the original syndication edits:
- After a commercial break, the newly introduced Rayna and Flint approach the landing party.
- McCoy wonders what else interests Rayna besides gravity phenomena, and Rayna responds that everything does.
- Kirk entering Flint's lab.
- Rayna indicates that Flint has ordered her never to go into a specific room in the lab. In the original episode, Rayna answers "I do not know" to two of Kirk’s questions. Here, I drop the first "I do not know" and all dialogue until the second.
- Following a commercial break, M4 approaches Kirk and Rayna, followed by Kirk pushing her away before trying to hide behind the screen.
- Flint and Rayna discuss why M4 attacked Kirk. Here, I simply cut back to Kirk and Spock when Flint turns off the monitor.
- A pair of reaction shots after Spock reminds Kirk that the rytelayn should be their immediate concern.
- During the playing of the Waltz, I add in an exterior shot of Flint’s castle, and I 'echo' the music, giving the impression we are hearing the music from a distance outside. It’s one of the few touches I think enhances and differs the edit from the original episode.
- I much prefer the original title music, so this will underscore the remastered opening titles.
- I cut McCoy's dialogue concerning Flint dying. This is because a) he's supposed to be immortal and it kinda ruins the entire story for me, and b) it spoils the idea of an immortal man creating an immortal android to keep him company. If he were dying why worry about creating a lifelong android? I always felt it was done to 'finish off' the Flint storyline.
- The starbase at the end of 'The Way To Eden' is in space rather than planet-side, using Space Station K7 from 'The Trouble With Tribbles'. I would have preferred to use the starbase from 'The Ultimate Computer', but there is less useable footage to play with.
- Newly sequenced end credits, with the alternate variant of the Season Three end theme.
CONTINUITY:
- I’ve adjusted the planet-side scenes so that only the fruit are deadly to human life. I had to keep this in to kill off Sevrin and ‘finish’ the hippie segment of the narrative. Keeping the planet as acidic wouldn’t have worked, else Flint would not be here. Of course, this means that Flint can’t eat any native fruit, but he says his M4 robot is his ‘butler’, so he probably eats replicated food.
- The crew begins to feel the effects of the illness during The Way To Eden segment. I’ve used footage from The Tholian Web to show an engineer beginning to feel the disease’s effects.
- After the hippies take over the ship, I use McCoy’s dialogue from The Immunity Syndrome in which he says the crew are all dying, before a reaction shot of Kirk on the bridge from 'The Lights of Zetar' leading into a newly-compiled Captain’s Log with footage overlaid of the hippies in the auxiliary control room, a hectic sickbay from 'The Immunity Syndrome', and a bridge viewscreen shot of approaching the planet from 'The Omega Glory'.
- Kirk’s opening Captain’s Log from 'Requiem For Methuselah' is used over a shot of the Enterprise orbiting Eden prior to the landing party beaming down. Slightly edited, it informs us that the ship is now in a raging epidemic, and that rytelayn is needed to cure the disease.
- I've included a few clips of Flint watching the landing party on Eden on his monitor screen. In Requiem for Methuselah he does indicate he has watched the Enterprise "since it entered this system". It also helps bridge both segments.
- After Dr Sevrin dies, McCoy locates some rytelayn on his tricorder, and I include a close-up of the tricorder from 'Plato's Stepchildren', and the trio set off, whilst Chekhov returns to the ship.
- I've added audio from 'The Way To Eden' in which McCoy refers to Synthococcusnovae, when he talks to Flint about the disease's effects resembling the buponic plague.
- After Spock removes Kirk’s memories of Rayna, we return to the end of The Way To Eden in which the surviving hippies head to the starbase.
Kirk is himself again, thanks to Spock’s mind meld.
- The final exterior shot of the Enterprise leaving the Starbase now has the final end music from Plato's Stepchildren replacing the original.
- One snag is that the Eden planet and Flint’s planet have different coloured atmospheres – the former is blue, the latter is pink! Exterior shots aren’t a problem – I simply kept all orbital shots as Flint’s planet. For the planet-side shots, I came up with the idea that the crew beams down just before sunset. I will tint the shots a slight orange/pink, and then during the transition between both episodes use a sunset clip, which bridges both episodes. Thereafter, the pink of Flint’s planet makes sense – for it is now dusk. Later, each of the establishing shots of Flint’s castle is minutely darker than the subsequent one to create the impression that the events of the episode take place during early to mid evening. This follows through in the episode when Flint refers to both 'dinner' and 'tonight'.
- To ensure both episodes' planet atmospheres are the same, I use a planet sound effect during all the outdoor footage, except the grounds of Flint's Castle. This is necessary because originally Flint's planet surface had a background sound effect whereas Eden did not.
SHOT CORRECTIONS:
- I’ve removed two poor pieces of editing from The Way To Eden. Originally, two reaction shots of Kirk were flipped – the first has been removed as said scene has been cut.
- The second is two awful flip shots as Kirk watches Sevrin climb an apple tree on Eden. I simply re-structure and trim the scene.
NEWLY FILMED FOOTAGE:
- I have filmed new footage of the Eden planet after the landing party has beamed down, with myself as Kirk. These take place before the hippies are found, and prior to encountering Flint when the trio search for the Ryetalyn, and include cutaway scenic shots of Eden's surface.
- Also, a sunset shot to enunciate the passage of time passing.
- Myself as Kirk, entering the grounds of Flint's Castle, including new footage accompanying Kirk’s line that Flint's home is 'impressive'.
- Two shots of Kirk wondering around Flint's castle, prior to encountering Rayna in the lab.
- Kirk walking up some steps to meet Spock and McCoy in the lab.
- Replacement of the original Act I opening music (used several times throughout The Way To Eden) and Captain’s Log, with the bold 'Ship In Orbit' season two library cue.
- The portion of the Kirk/Spock bridge scene in which Spock tells Kirk what 'Herbert' is. I like that we don't know!
- The first Chekhov/Irina scene has been truncated.
- After McCoy informs Kirk that the disease is a virulent strain, I cut to a close up of Kirk from 'Day of the Dove', with the dramatic 'boom' sting, before dissolving into the following bridge scene, completely removing the scene of Sulu being seduced to become a 'follower'.
- The majority of the hippies' songs. The only major piece I've kept in is Spock playing his Vulcan harp with a hippie who looks like she's playing a bicycle wheel! I had to keep this in as it was the distraction that allowed the hippies to take over the ship.
- I've also cut all references in the plot of The Way To Eden in which Spock and Chekhov help locate Eden. If the crew is endangered by an infection, surely the priority is to head to the nearest Starbase for additional medical assistance? In my edit, the hippies simply take over the auxillary control room because Irina had found Chekhov working in there and sussed out what its purpose was.
- All references to Romulans and Romulan space are cut. Eden/Flint's planet is remote still, but remains in Federation space.
- When the hippies steal a shuttle and head for Eden, there was originally just an orbit shot of the Enterprise. This edit uses a shot of a shuttle exit the hangar deck from The Doomsday Machine.
- Prior to the M4 robot appearing for the first time, a cutaway exterior shot of the shuttlecraft returning to the Enterprise is shown with Chekhov returning with the four surviving hippies.
- A shot of the M4 robot moving away from Kirk and the landing party after being ordered to by Flint, has been truncated. The original shot clearly showed the robot attached to the camera.
- Kirk's reference to Flint's planet being 'Holberg 917G' has been cut.
- Several trims are made to the 'Requiem For Methuselah' segment, to balance out the proportion of both episodes. Amongst others, the following cuts are based on the original syndication edits:
- After a commercial break, the newly introduced Rayna and Flint approach the landing party.
- McCoy wonders what else interests Rayna besides gravity phenomena, and Rayna responds that everything does.
- Kirk entering Flint's lab.
- Rayna indicates that Flint has ordered her never to go into a specific room in the lab. In the original episode, Rayna answers "I do not know" to two of Kirk’s questions. Here, I drop the first "I do not know" and all dialogue until the second.
- Following a commercial break, M4 approaches Kirk and Rayna, followed by Kirk pushing her away before trying to hide behind the screen.
- Flint and Rayna discuss why M4 attacked Kirk. Here, I simply cut back to Kirk and Spock when Flint turns off the monitor.
- A pair of reaction shots after Spock reminds Kirk that the rytelayn should be their immediate concern.
- During the playing of the Waltz, I add in an exterior shot of Flint’s castle, and I 'echo' the music, giving the impression we are hearing the music from a distance outside. It’s one of the few touches I think enhances and differs the edit from the original episode.
- I much prefer the original title music, so this will underscore the remastered opening titles.
- I cut McCoy's dialogue concerning Flint dying. This is because a) he's supposed to be immortal and it kinda ruins the entire story for me, and b) it spoils the idea of an immortal man creating an immortal android to keep him company. If he were dying why worry about creating a lifelong android? I always felt it was done to 'finish off' the Flint storyline.
- The starbase at the end of 'The Way To Eden' is in space rather than planet-side, using Space Station K7 from 'The Trouble With Tribbles'. I would have preferred to use the starbase from 'The Ultimate Computer', but there is less useable footage to play with.
- Newly sequenced end credits, with the alternate variant of the Season Three end theme.
CONTINUITY:
- I’ve adjusted the planet-side scenes so that only the fruit are deadly to human life. I had to keep this in to kill off Sevrin and ‘finish’ the hippie segment of the narrative. Keeping the planet as acidic wouldn’t have worked, else Flint would not be here. Of course, this means that Flint can’t eat any native fruit, but he says his M4 robot is his ‘butler’, so he probably eats replicated food.
- The crew begins to feel the effects of the illness during The Way To Eden segment. I’ve used footage from The Tholian Web to show an engineer beginning to feel the disease’s effects.
- After the hippies take over the ship, I use McCoy’s dialogue from The Immunity Syndrome in which he says the crew are all dying, before a reaction shot of Kirk on the bridge from 'The Lights of Zetar' leading into a newly-compiled Captain’s Log with footage overlaid of the hippies in the auxiliary control room, a hectic sickbay from 'The Immunity Syndrome', and a bridge viewscreen shot of approaching the planet from 'The Omega Glory'.
- Kirk’s opening Captain’s Log from 'Requiem For Methuselah' is used over a shot of the Enterprise orbiting Eden prior to the landing party beaming down. Slightly edited, it informs us that the ship is now in a raging epidemic, and that rytelayn is needed to cure the disease.
- I've included a few clips of Flint watching the landing party on Eden on his monitor screen. In Requiem for Methuselah he does indicate he has watched the Enterprise "since it entered this system". It also helps bridge both segments.
- After Dr Sevrin dies, McCoy locates some rytelayn on his tricorder, and I include a close-up of the tricorder from 'Plato's Stepchildren', and the trio set off, whilst Chekhov returns to the ship.
- I've added audio from 'The Way To Eden' in which McCoy refers to Synthococcusnovae, when he talks to Flint about the disease's effects resembling the buponic plague.
- After Spock removes Kirk’s memories of Rayna, we return to the end of The Way To Eden in which the surviving hippies head to the starbase.
Kirk is himself again, thanks to Spock’s mind meld.
- The final exterior shot of the Enterprise leaving the Starbase now has the final end music from Plato's Stepchildren replacing the original.
- One snag is that the Eden planet and Flint’s planet have different coloured atmospheres – the former is blue, the latter is pink! Exterior shots aren’t a problem – I simply kept all orbital shots as Flint’s planet. For the planet-side shots, I came up with the idea that the crew beams down just before sunset. I will tint the shots a slight orange/pink, and then during the transition between both episodes use a sunset clip, which bridges both episodes. Thereafter, the pink of Flint’s planet makes sense – for it is now dusk. Later, each of the establishing shots of Flint’s castle is minutely darker than the subsequent one to create the impression that the events of the episode take place during early to mid evening. This follows through in the episode when Flint refers to both 'dinner' and 'tonight'.
- To ensure both episodes' planet atmospheres are the same, I use a planet sound effect during all the outdoor footage, except the grounds of Flint's Castle. This is necessary because originally Flint's planet surface had a background sound effect whereas Eden did not.
SHOT CORRECTIONS:
- I’ve removed two poor pieces of editing from The Way To Eden. Originally, two reaction shots of Kirk were flipped – the first has been removed as said scene has been cut.
- The second is two awful flip shots as Kirk watches Sevrin climb an apple tree on Eden. I simply re-structure and trim the scene.
NEWLY FILMED FOOTAGE:
- I have filmed new footage of the Eden planet after the landing party has beamed down, with myself as Kirk. These take place before the hippies are found, and prior to encountering Flint when the trio search for the Ryetalyn, and include cutaway scenic shots of Eden's surface.
- Also, a sunset shot to enunciate the passage of time passing.
- Myself as Kirk, entering the grounds of Flint's Castle, including new footage accompanying Kirk’s line that Flint's home is 'impressive'.
- Two shots of Kirk wondering around Flint's castle, prior to encountering Rayna in the lab.
- Kirk walking up some steps to meet Spock and McCoy in the lab.
An early trailer can be found here:
https://youtu.be/qFqQplxhvO8
User reviews
2 reviews
Overall rating
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
10.0(2)
Audio Editing
9.5(2)
Visual Editing
9.0(2)
Narrative
9.5(2)
Enjoyment
9.0(2)
Overall rating
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
10.0
Audio Editing
9.0
Visual Editing
9.0
Narrative
9.0
Enjoyment
9.0
This edit doesn't seem to have received much attention overall, likely because the episodes used aren't among the most popular of the series. I must say they aren't among my top pics either: in fact "The Way to Eden" is bottom five material for my tastes (reeks of the "young people written by old people" syndrome, and seems like a hippie scare film even though at that point more and more people except for the squarest types were already viewing them as harmless - except maybe to themselves if they went overboard with the "LDS" - see what I did there?), and "Requiem for Methuselah" is one I like more than Bionic Bob does but less than The Warlord does. I like the central concept and the character of Flint (in a way a forerunner to "Highlander") more than the execution, and it's also weighed down by Shatner's performance appearing annoyed all through, no doubt for off-screen reasons.
This said, as expected from The Warlord, they're very well weaved together. "The Way to Eden" has lost the songs (the jam session remains), which is already an improvement and comes across as less annoying, and segues into the "Requiem" material in a very creative way, by use of "Eden" footage on Flint's monitor (which was yet another prophetic element in Trek - other than being 4:3, it looks a lot like our modern flat TV screens). It feels a bit off that once the "Requiem" segment starts, the "Space Hippies" who died on arrival to the planet aren't referred to anymore, as if they don't matter, but you can only do so much with the material. If anything, I'd reverse the two final scenes, and have the "Eden" epilogue first, maybe adding a shot of a sorrowful Kirk (if available) when Chekov and Irina kiss, and follow it with the melancholic "Requiem" epilogue. But that's personal taste.
And of course, The Warlord's ST edits usually come with a twist, and this one presents itself, as stated in the previous review, in a way that makes it part fanedit and part fanfilm. Which is something that some people might find off-putting, but I got a kick out of it: after all this is Star Trek, the pioneer of fan fiction (the self-insertion kind or otherwise), so this feels a lot like a tribute to that. And I've seen less convincing Shatners among the show's stuntmen anyway, so... Technically, I thought that as tricky as it is to integrate modern video footage into vintage celluloid, this was pretty successful, though the color correction was a bit off: too light in the new footage of Kirk through the nature landscapes, and too red and dark in the opening of "Requiem", as if night was suddenly coming. Color correction is always hard to get spot-on, though.
Video and audio quality is absolutely perfect (even though it's a SD edit). Editing was overall well done other than in a spot 24 minutes in in which an establishing shot of the Enterprise has the fanfare fade out to total silence before cutting to the next shot (the start of the jam session). It needed to overlap a bit, a few milliseconds would suffice in order to not interfere with the scene's music, but as it is it feels edited. Other than that, The Warlord's editing was up to his usual high standard.
Overall this was a lot of fun. The episodes used still are what they are so if you hate them this edit might not be for you, but otherwise this is highly recommended particularly for those like me who have seen the show lots of times and enjoy fresh takes on it with one surprise or two along the way.
This said, as expected from The Warlord, they're very well weaved together. "The Way to Eden" has lost the songs (the jam session remains), which is already an improvement and comes across as less annoying, and segues into the "Requiem" material in a very creative way, by use of "Eden" footage on Flint's monitor (which was yet another prophetic element in Trek - other than being 4:3, it looks a lot like our modern flat TV screens). It feels a bit off that once the "Requiem" segment starts, the "Space Hippies" who died on arrival to the planet aren't referred to anymore, as if they don't matter, but you can only do so much with the material. If anything, I'd reverse the two final scenes, and have the "Eden" epilogue first, maybe adding a shot of a sorrowful Kirk (if available) when Chekov and Irina kiss, and follow it with the melancholic "Requiem" epilogue. But that's personal taste.
And of course, The Warlord's ST edits usually come with a twist, and this one presents itself, as stated in the previous review, in a way that makes it part fanedit and part fanfilm. Which is something that some people might find off-putting, but I got a kick out of it: after all this is Star Trek, the pioneer of fan fiction (the self-insertion kind or otherwise), so this feels a lot like a tribute to that. And I've seen less convincing Shatners among the show's stuntmen anyway, so... Technically, I thought that as tricky as it is to integrate modern video footage into vintage celluloid, this was pretty successful, though the color correction was a bit off: too light in the new footage of Kirk through the nature landscapes, and too red and dark in the opening of "Requiem", as if night was suddenly coming. Color correction is always hard to get spot-on, though.
Video and audio quality is absolutely perfect (even though it's a SD edit). Editing was overall well done other than in a spot 24 minutes in in which an establishing shot of the Enterprise has the fanfare fade out to total silence before cutting to the next shot (the start of the jam session). It needed to overlap a bit, a few milliseconds would suffice in order to not interfere with the scene's music, but as it is it feels edited. Other than that, The Warlord's editing was up to his usual high standard.
Overall this was a lot of fun. The episodes used still are what they are so if you hate them this edit might not be for you, but otherwise this is highly recommended particularly for those like me who have seen the show lots of times and enjoy fresh takes on it with one surprise or two along the way.
D
Overall rating
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
10.0
Audio Editing
10.0
Visual Editing
9.0
Narrative
10.0
Enjoyment
9.0
One of the more unique Trek edits I've had the pleasure of watching and contributing advise to. This edit expertly combines two episodes of classic Trek and restructures the narrative so both blend seamlessly as one. To bridge the transitions, there is even original footage, making this edit somewhat of a fanfilm in miniature with the editor exploring Flint's world in the role of Kirk. The locations for the specially filmed portion are well scouted and lit to match the atmosphere in the story, it is fine attention to detail such as this that makes this a true Trekkie's gift to the community
Z