Subj : Re: Robert Wise Dead At 91
To   : rec.arts.sf.movies,alt.startrek,alt.tv.star-trek.tos
From : Straker
Date : Fri Sep 23 2005 16:14:50

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos

In article <NvidnWZOvK2sua7eRVnyhg@pipex.net>,
<xlator@cix.compulink.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <Xns96D8F23081382Knights.of.our.times@216.196.97.142>,
> my2cents@worth.ca said:
> 
> >>> Anyone remember what the original ending was? :-)
> >
> >No, care to enlighten us.
> 
> The original novelette "Return of the Master" by (I think) Murray 
> Leinster, has Gort carrying the dead Klaatu in his arms into the 
> saucer receiving apologies from the army commander with something 
> on the lines of "We are so sorry for killing your master" (as in 
> the film). But Gort then turns round, draws himself up and replies 
> with "*I* am the master!"

It was a novella, not a novelette. "Farewell to the Master," by Harry
Bates, published in Astounding Stories, October 1940. It wasn't an army
commander, it was a reporter. Gnut didn't take the body back to the
ship, he gave it to the reporter. Gnut took conventional audio
equipment to play back the "perfect" recordings of Klaatu's greeting,
and from the voice alone, Gnut would regenerate a whole new Klaatu. As
science fiction, Bates' story was horribly unscientific. But then, the
movie didn't impress me, either.

.