The Devil in the Dark
- Thread starter Wingsley
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The first time around, I actually thought it was a bit on the boring side. It also took me a while to get over how silly the monster looked. We have all this build up about a terrifying monster, and then when we finally see it, it looks cheesy as fuck. The kill scenes were also pretty cheesy, like a B horror movie.
Today I like it a lot more.
Today I like it a lot more.
...One wonders about the logistics of killing. Supposedly the beast had killed 50 (!) people before Kirk arrived: 45 hapless miners and 5 alert guards. We see a great example of how the latter deaths went, with the beast pouncing on lone sentinels from behind. None of them had time to report any specifics, understandably; the one we saw die didn't even squeeze off a shot from his gun. But what happened to the miners? Did the Horta first cut communications and escape routes and only then start the slaughter?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I don't know where people keep getting the idea that Star Trek TOS was a "low-budget" show. In comparison to other hour-long filmed TV programs of its day, its production budget was average. Link
True. Expressed in 2016 dollars their budget would seem low, but your dollar went farther in 1966-69.
TOS' challenge was that is was a show that needed a higher than average budget rather than merely an average one.
Some fans say the Horta reminds them of a pizza. With extra cheese, no doubt.
As for me, I thought it looked more like a tomato meatloaf.
I got the idea from interviews, such as when William Shatner compared the budget of The Classic Series to that of a catering bill. Whether it was generous, average, or shoestring, the impression of a tight budget has been promoted for many, many decades by those in-the-know.
Without those arbitrary limits placed on what replicators and transporters can do, our heroes would be able to solve just about every problem as if by magic, destroying most stories. So a pump becomes impossible to sythesize.
Not impossible, just too difficult to immediately solve the plot problem of the day. Clearly, it's not impossible to make such a pump - somebody made one, after all! And a starship might well be equipped to make one, too. But unless it happens in 48 hours, it can't be bolted in place to succeed Scotty's temporary band-aid.
This leaves two implausibilities:
1) that Scotty couldn't do another jury-rig right after the one that will fail in two days, making the "deadline" moot
2) that a pump really takes 100 hours to put together, with the combined resources of a starship and a well-stocked mine
But as said, it's not the pump that really matters, but the catching of the thief. The monster has already killed 50 people in about as many days; Kirk has his tight schedule right there, and never mind asphyxiation or radiation poisoning from an ailing reactor.
Timo Saloniemi
This leaves two implausibilities:
1) that Scotty couldn't do another jury-rig right after the one that will fail in two days, making the "deadline" moot
2) that a pump really takes 100 hours to put together, with the combined resources of a starship and a well-stocked mine
But as said, it's not the pump that really matters, but the catching of the thief. The monster has already killed 50 people in about as many days; Kirk has his tight schedule right there, and never mind asphyxiation or radiation poisoning from an ailing reactor.
Timo Saloniemi
I've read numerous opposing views on these forums about the TOS era technology and replicators. Some suggest Kirk's Enterprise had replicators. Others suggest that transporter technology had not evolved to that point yet, and that "food processors" were of the TOS era were more closely related to the ENT "protein resequencers". If TOS had few, if any, replicators, it would explain why Enterprise-A employed a working galley with actual cooks in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
I remember its seeming obvious to me back when I was a kid, when TOS was new, that those meals were being produced by some variation on the transporter. So, when Next Gen showed replicators in action, I thought "It's interesting that we actually get to see it now."
Meals do not appear instantaneously, upon demand, without a materialization of some kind. Not even if the kitchen staff is VERY VERY good and lightning fast!
The Enterprise-A galley was a ridiculous hallucination we all had. My own fanon may delegitimize the movies entirely, someday.
Meals do not appear instantaneously, upon demand, without a materialization of some kind. Not even if the kitchen staff is VERY VERY good and lightning fast!
The Enterprise-A galley was a ridiculous hallucination we all had. My own fanon may delegitimize the movies entirely, someday.
Well, the Enterprise A had a former admiral in charge of it and was on a diplomatic mission. It left from the space dock for that mission. I say that they plugged the whole galley/dining room complex in for that mission and it was not always there on either Enterprise. Maybe that's why those crewmen were in bunks, their rooms are gone now. I thought that was stranger than the dining room.
And back to the topic a bit more, I believed that Scotty and his staff had access to some excellent machine shop and fabricating equipment rather than a true replicator. So, he needs 100 flintlocks. OK, they don't come out fully formed and functional, but using stock materials Mr. Scott's crew can bore out the barrels and carve the stocks in a few minutes instead of a craftsman taking hours or weeks with computer assisted tools. But maybe a pump mechanism is too complex to fabricate that way, the tolerances may be too great and what Mr. Scott used could have been spare parts for the ship that he didn't have more extras to spare.
And back to the topic a bit more, I believed that Scotty and his staff had access to some excellent machine shop and fabricating equipment rather than a true replicator. So, he needs 100 flintlocks. OK, they don't come out fully formed and functional, but using stock materials Mr. Scott's crew can bore out the barrels and carve the stocks in a few minutes instead of a craftsman taking hours or weeks with computer assisted tools. But maybe a pump mechanism is too complex to fabricate that way, the tolerances may be too great and what Mr. Scott used could have been spare parts for the ship that he didn't have more extras to spare.
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Concerning budgets, Trek's was comparable to, say, "Mission: Impossible". But here was the problem. M:I could go to a prop rental company to get a phone or a desk. Similar arrangement for Bonanza. Prop and set piece businesses had things like saddles and stage coaches available. But Trek had to use that same budget to build most of its items from scratch. That meant money invested in materials and labor. Budget allocated for the props, sets and wardrobe for a specific story meant less money for something else. Thus we saw many things reused for other purposes. Given those items could be rather "distinctive" (like the Salt Vampire reappearing as an "exhibit" in Trelane's mansion), it gave the false impression the show was "frugal".
Sincerely,
Bill
Sincerely,
Bill
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It has been said before and often: another ten to twenty grand per episode (1966-69 dollars) would have made a noticeable difference onscreen.
That translates to about 75-150 grand today. That doesn't sound like much, but your dollar went further then. Some sets and costuming could have been more elaborate and we could have seen a greater variety of spacecraft.
That translates to about 75-150 grand today. That doesn't sound like much, but your dollar went further then. Some sets and costuming could have been more elaborate and we could have seen a greater variety of spacecraft.
Yeah, if you have a show set in contemporary twentieth century United States, then you don't need as big a budget as Star Trek needed. I'm sure Star Trek's budget was very tight for what they were trying to do.
I always assumed that the galley was for special occasions, like preparing state dinners and such, as well as for recreational purposes. Even in the 23rd century, there are going to be people who enjoy cooking and trying out exotic new recipes. "You have to taste this astounding Argellian gumbo I stumbled onto during shore leave. It's apparently a traditional folk recipe, specific to the Voku Mountain region, but I managed to pry it out of one of the locals in exchange for my great-grandfather's top-secret barbecue tips."
Food processors are like fast food or army rations. For special occasions, you want a home-cooked meal or fine cuisine, prepared by hand.
(Remember how excited the galley was to get real turkeys instead of whatever they usually used in "Charlie X.")
This was the first episode of Star Trek I ever saw--at the tender age of 6 in the fall of 1973 (on WLVI-TV, Channel 56 out of Boston). It was a Saturday night, my parents were going to a dinner party and the babysitter plopped me and my 3 year old brother on the couch to watch Star Trek before bedtime. Was hooked then and there.
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