WNMHGB Question

Right, thanks. Never heard that particular TLA used; I wondered if Rodney King had F as middle initial or something.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Who is WNMHGB?



All right all right, I'm just kidding.

Robert

 

Peter David's novel "Q-Squared" does postulate that Gary was infused with a piece of Q and that's what drove him binky-bonkers. It's an excellent read that gets a bit whacky, as Peter David novels tend to do.

 

Speaking of this episode, does anyone know what happened to the unique conference room set and furniture they used?

 

Within the context of the episode itself, I don't think there are really any indications that Mitchell was being influenced by an intelligent entity of some kind. He just sort of became a different person with all that power.

Kor

 

Outside of that one "Jim..." behind the force field, Gary didn't seem all that different when his eyes faded to normal. Note that during the fight, after Elizabeth drained his powers temporarily, he didn't say "hey, whoa, Jim, I'm normal again!" He was getting right into the fight. That meek "Jim" exclamation could have been anything from "old" Gary asking for help to a trick on God Gary's part to confuse Kirk before he had the advantage.

Nah, Gary wasn't being influenced by an alien entity, he was corrupted by power. The whole message was shouted to the cheap seats in the dialogue: "absolute power corrupting absolutely!"

 

The plot is similar to an episode of the Outer Limits called "The Sixth Finger" where an ordinary man is put in an "evolving machine" and so becomes what man is expected to be in thousands and even millions of years, surprisingly not a salamander.

But someone with an enormous head and six fingers on each hand (hence the title). Anyway, his girlfriend instead of following his instruction of pushing the machine to the maximum, makes him come back to what he was before (by pulling the lever instead of pushing it) and for an instant, he looks at her like he used to do and dies because this was just too much for his poor human brain...

 

I think the whole lore behind the galactic barrier is very interesting in Trek. I know that it's something the novels explored to some extent...but it's funny to think that the barrier makes 3 distinct appearances in TOS, a series not exactly focused on or known for continuity or "returning elements."

Aside from Romulans, Klingons and Harry Mudd...it's right up there with TOS's most prominent "recurring features." It's interesting in that it's sort of an "out of left field" concept....and that it was never mentioned or explored again in any of the later series.

I just find it fascinating.

 

You sound like a Vulcan.

 

McCoy: "And PLEASE....don't say it's fascinating!!"
Spock: "No. But it is....interesting."

 

It seems clear it was done as an economical re-use of barrier fx footage from WNMHGB. I don't usually favor "material" changes in the TOS-R fx, but I like the way they made the void look different in "Is There in Truth No Beauty." That's not the galactic barrier, it's somewhere else and something other.

Regarding Gary's change of character from good to evil, I still say the power was involuntarily distorting his brain functions, and not just tempting him to go bad on purpose. Ssosmcin makes a reasonable case, but we'll have to disagree on this one. Gary is a good officer who suddenly has literally galactic energies pouring through his brain.

If it were just a matter of will, he'd at least take a lot longer to stop caring about people. I say his brain gets messed up by the energy.

 

It wasn't meant to be a trick. We were supposed to recognize that just for a moment, the old Gary was back.

 

I always thought that reading books superfast was cool!!! I think we've only seen this with two people Gary and Data. But Data doesn't understand simple expressions even though they are used thousands of times in the books he reads. That's a puzzler...What does he get from these books exactly?

Gary on the other hand thinks that Spinoza is simplistic...

 

And it wasn't supposed to be the barrier in dialogue, either. There, "the barrier" is said to be something the heroes have to brave (that is, "re-cross") on their trip back from wherever they are. Also, and explicitly, they had gone through it in the other direction already ("re-").

Indeed, the whole thing about "re-crossing" is supposed to be in direct reference to the pilot episode, a minor plot complication to add to the whole when the heroes recall from the events of the pilot that impulse engines are not enough for moving across the barrier and therefore won't help in the current predicament where warp apparently fouls sensors.

It's a nice touch, even though it's also stupid: impulse engines would never have been an option in any case, since the ship got stranded relatively far beyond the barrier, having traveled at very high warp for a long time before the heroes regained control.

Changing the VFX was a good move. That is, only a short introductory shot in "In Truth" was a reuse of the "No Man" purple haze even in the original version, but it's a good thing that it's now gone, and it's also fine that the rest of the VFX, while fine, now loses all its red hues and goes this distinct blue-green instead.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm going to go with what others have said regarding the line "I Don't understand ... " in that if you were suddenly given god like powers you might not understand everything just yet. As for the second line as it's supposed to a story about power corrupting poerhaps on some level he realised what was happening to him and it was a plea to help/stop him.

Besides the barrier most of have been made of microscopic objects measuring 1:4:9.

 

I disagree; he was not a "puppet" from the barrier's effects, but it magnified traits inherent to humans--namely viewing power as justification for influencing / controlling / abusing the lives of others. Some will deny that trait is not a part of who they perceive themselves to be, but that's the problem, its not about an individual's subjective perception, but what naturally manifests itself once one has access to power. So, Kirk while Kirk was correct with his somber observation that Gary did not ask for what happened to him, the barrier's effect zeroed in on traits that were still in Gray--like all people.

If you recall, Kirk knew that was happening to Gary, as expressed in his argument with Elizabeth:

Kirk: "You know the ugly, savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dare expose. But he'll dare. Who's to stop him? He doesn't need to care. Be a psychiatrist for one minute longer. What do you see happening to him?"

What we keep buried--deliberately, or by societal conditioning--are traits such as desire, arrogance and hubris which the barrier releases from said conditioning, even at the expense of an individual personalty who would--under normal circumstances--never give in to, or even express those traits. So again, Gary was not really a "puppet" but the victim of a force that specifically exploits human traits tied to unimaginable power as its platform.

 

The "infliction" of god-powers seems to have the same progression on the three cases we know about. The first case is on the Valiant where its Captain blows up his ship to stop the inflicted crewman. Second case is Gary Mitchell. Third case is Elizabeth Dehner. All go crazy with this god-power. The last thoughts of the last victim prove that god-powers became the only thing that matters to each victim:

DEHNER: I'm sorry. You can't know what it's like to be almost a god. (then she dies)​

In the end, even Dehner couldn't resist the influence on her to be a god. Kirk's initial appeal to her humanity failed to bring her back to his side. She only attacks Mitchell after Kirk points out that their egos will only allow for one god to survive. After she realizes that truth, she finally attacks Mitchell because she sees that Mitchell will eventually kill her, too, and/or she wants to be the one god to survive.

 

You know, a lot of that is inspired by Forbidden Planet.