Timewalker wrote:
''I'm surprised nobody was seen picking them up; it's a wonder they weren't accidentally stepped on.
I should hope that Kirk and the others carefully gathered up all the crew and put them away somewhere in a closet or box where they'd be safe from being broken. And of course, I'd hope they were set back in a big enough space when they were restored to human form.''
Do you really expect senior officers like KirkSpockandMcCoy who are joined at the hip to menially take time to pick up disembodied crewmen from the floor? That's a yeoman's job, and at that moment all the yeomans were converted to coke blocks, or worse. So let's have Scotty do it. He's not top-billed, he won't mind.
More seriously, Rojan wouldn't allow Kirk to stow them away. He wouldn't be so stupid as to walk into one (nor would Kirk, Spock or the Kelvans), but if Kirk tried anything else, there's 430 more cessated hostages available if needed. It's rather like being transformed without materializing, when one thinks about it. Wonder whether the Kelvans tested their devices on anyone or anything in the past.
Big spaces for crew restoration shouldn't be a problem if a few are restored at a time. I'm curious whether Kelvan paralyzers or body-erasers have limits in proximity or number of subjects at a time. Since Shea was brought back in the exact same position after basically being thrown upside-down onto the ground as coke, then safe restoration should be easy. But, there's just one more thing.......Chekov and Uhura were wiped from existence while sitting upon their chairs, so having then restored in ANOTHER non-bridge location could lead to the funniest fourth-act conclusion since the all-time yukathon GAILIEO SEVEN. You think?
In other words, they both fall on their asses while Spock barely represses a smirk as we roll credits.
I think there have been examples of characters being beamed away in a sitting position and being rematerialized upright, so it's not a huge stretch.
Case in point: Chakotay being beamed away while piloting the doomed Maquis ship in "Caretaker". We seem him walking off the pad, rather than getting up off the floor.
I thought the "black guy is the first one to die" myth was largely a result of horror and action movies where you have an isolated group of varied characters and it always seemed like the "black guy" was the first or one of the first to be killed off.
IIRC, Wesley Snipes in referring to "Demolition Man" actually made a humorous comment about it referring to himself that "this time the black man lasts an hour and a half".
In the original ALIEN, both women survive the five men but all the white males buy it before Yaphet Kotto. That being said, no black MAN has yet to make it out of an ALIEN film alive.
Anyone who says ''it's always t.b.g.w.d.f.'' hasn't seen LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III. But why would they want to? It stinks.
I remember there was a comedy called "Canadian Bacon" (notable mainly for being directed by Michael Moore and for being one of John Candy's last films) in which they listed various movies in which "the black guy dies". I don't remember most of them, but I remember they specifically included ST2.
I think people have gotten wise to this cliche in recent years, so it may not be as common now.
I only have Asherman's COMPENDIUM. But I remember reading in a STARLOG interview Bixby's cooments that his original script for ''BAON'' emphasized the loneliness of leaving their familiar galaxy. I get the impression the paralysis field may have been a Fontana addition. The cocaine blocks were Roddenberry's idea, according to Shatner. I'm dying to get a hold of this original script, but no luck.
For some reason, I'm skeptical of anything from Shatner. Still, it's not like Gene Roddenberry was incapable of a bad idea. I'd rather not cite examples, but I'm sure we can all think of a few.
I actually liked the idea of the paralysis field. It's a simple effect that made the Kelvans formidable, without necessarily being murderous. I'd prefer the episode dispense with the blocks altogether and simply employ the paralysis field. Instead of coke blocks, we'd have corridors full of frozen crew-members, in the vein of "Wink of an Eye" or "Timescape".
And yes, I know you almost certainly couldn't leave them like that for days, let alone centuries. (The paralysis field probably wouldn't protect you from dehydration or starvation, for instance). It might've been a short term solution to neutralizing the crew until the Kelvans could figure out something long-term.
Best of all, that would prevent the unnecessary murder of Yeoman Thompson, eliminating my main grievance with this episode, leaving us to enjoy a much lighter story.
