The F**k word in Star Trek
- Thread starter Newt
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Perhaps, but being fucking born that year I'm rather partial to it.
Spock abruptly using the f word during his "colorful metaphor" phase in TVH would have been very funny but ST movies were intended to be PG rated family movies at the time so I know they would have never.
As an aside, what are the different "profanity milestones" in Star Trek?
Hell on TOS
Was damn ever used in TOS as an actual expletive and not a religious reference? Might be TMP or WOK
TSFS has bastard and son of a bitch, TVH has shit and ass.
Is there any other one before this? I guess "Jesus" as an expletive in First Contact if that counts.
As an aside, what are the different "profanity milestones" in Star Trek?
Hell on TOS
Was damn ever used in TOS as an actual expletive and not a religious reference? Might be TMP or WOK
TSFS has bastard and son of a bitch, TVH has shit and ass.
Is there any other one before this? I guess "Jesus" as an expletive in First Contact if that counts.
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Get the fuck outta here! On a Saturday morning for children? No fucking way!
Nope, I'm in error. Misread the entry and episode.
Jeepers, I was hoping it was true. @#$%!!!!!
"Damn" was Savik in TWOK.
Even in the G-rated TMP as shown in theaters in 1979 and 1980 Kirk and McCoy said "damn" and "hell" a few times.
Yep. Two officers got turned inside out and died as piles of inverted flesh on a transporter platform. For a G-rated film in 1979 that was pretty macabre.
Paramount seems to push the G-rated envelope with their classic hits. John Wayne calls Robert Duvall an SOB while Plasus from CLOUD MINDERS mutters the big GD just before shooting Matty's father, both in TRUE GRIT.
No. It was a different time. You're judging it by today's standards.
Generally speaking, the same applies to TMP.
That's the best kind!
Fairly often, and the show was sold as "adult science fiction" in early commercials. Usually confined to specific circumstances so that the use of it would remain poignant, with piquancy.TOS has a damn good example of it, yes. Thank Decker for one utterance, Kirk for two... McCoy still gets the filthiest pottymouth with the use of "hell", though Kirk's "Damn him!" moment regarding Spock comes pretty close too. Edgy stuck for "the motionless picture", no?
TWOK was definitely itching to do so as the D-word is used 9 times and the H-word counts up to 5, though seeing all the scenes showing blood spattered ended up having a little more weight as a result. I originally thought that one scene had intended "motherf..." but in a recent rewatch it's just murky acting of the comparatively kindergarten line of "Pin him down, mother!". TWOK also has the comparatively un-kindergarteny "You son-of-a-bitch!" by David reacting to Khan's line of "...captain" as if still thinking Kirk had given the orders (now that's a fun example of "confirmation bias" on screen, squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!).
Out of natural building up of extreme circumstances, rendering it poignant instead of being one of the following words shown below:
Context is part of it, as well as the believability of the moment.
Not many, which is part of the fun.
Or stated by McCoy out of angst.
All in all, the rarity of such utterances only helps, given how much they're otherwise in control. Do it too much and it loses all depth, meaning, and even edginess.
A mild tangent, here's a great B-flick review that is pointed out a few times that it's rated G (and from 1968, woohoo!)...
Seriously, you'll be laughing your socks off over what rated "G" allowed back then. "G" for "Gore", obviously... and probabably some D&H pure pottymouth too... Then again, now we should petition (or not!) that we go back and time and get TWOK reduced to "G"... or, definitely not... fresh out of time machines... if we're not, I'll remember to edit this post in the future to remove this comment, so if you're still reading it then I apologize for not having had the time to get one yet...
But much less of it than the 5th movie.
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Context is always king. Even in Generations, Data's 'Oh shit' was funny, because the audience knows that he is under the influence of his emotion chip, and Data never swears. In PIC, a character is created solely for the audience to dislike because she's mean to Picard (despite being completely justified based on Picard's actions), and her 'sheer fucking hubris' comment is so ridiculously artificial and over-the-top that she might as well have been straight out of central casting.
Which is why Picard's "not good enough, damn it" fails miserably. It's probably the worst of them all besides Data's "oh shit" which works only if you find that Data with emotions going from crippling to swearing hilarious.
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