A question about the episode 'A Taste of Armageddon'.
- Thread starter jup
- Start date
That's brilliant. Thanks. The bit where he beams down anyway, without Scotty having budged on the shields, has always bugged me, and now we have an out.
The other technical problem with the episode is Eminiar using sonic disruptors to hit the Enterprise with sound waves. The ship should be orbiting beyond the range of sound waves.
Based on "Corbomite Maneuver", the writers would have had Scotty on the bridge acknowledging that it is a bluff when communication with Kirk on the planet is cut off for us the viewer to know. No such dialogue suggested it was a bluff.
I trust if the writers wanted it to be known to the viewers it is a bluff they would state it for the drama of the episode.
Let us consult the Sacred Texts....
In reviewing the Revised Final Draft shooting script for "A Taste of Armageddon," dated December 12, 1966 written by Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon, just after Kirk orders General Order 24 and says "I didn't start it, Councilman. But I'm liable to finish it," there is actually another scene that didnt make it into the final cut of the episode:
INT. BRIDGE
Scott is sitting silently in the command seat. McCoy stands
by, staring sympathetically at him. There is a long moment
of silence.
McCOY
Are you going to do it?
SCOTT
You heard the captain. The order was clear.
McCOY
They'll die down there.
SCOTT
Blast you, McCoy! Don't you think I know that?
McCoy stares at him, shakes his head, turns away and stands
there silently, staring at nothing. The bridge is totally silent.
******************
It doesn't look like it was supposed to have been a bluff.
In reviewing the Revised Final Draft shooting script for "A Taste of Armageddon," dated December 12, 1966 written by Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon, just after Kirk orders General Order 24 and says "I didn't start it, Councilman. But I'm liable to finish it," there is actually another scene that didnt make it into the final cut of the episode:
INT. BRIDGE
Scott is sitting silently in the command seat. McCoy stands
by, staring sympathetically at him. There is a long moment
of silence.
McCOY
Are you going to do it?
SCOTT
You heard the captain. The order was clear.
McCOY
They'll die down there.
SCOTT
Blast you, McCoy! Don't you think I know that?
McCoy stares at him, shakes his head, turns away and stands
there silently, staring at nothing. The bridge is totally silent.
******************
It doesn't look like it was supposed to have been a bluff.
Huh. Scotty would have gotten a very Kirk-ish scene there. Maybe that's why they cut it.
We could argue that sonic disruption is what follows at the target after whatever is coming from the business end of the guns finally hits it. What travels from the guns to the ship need not be sonic in nature.
Then again, if something "sonic" hits 18^12 dB, then it doesn't really matter whether there's air or vacuum in between. That's a louder-than-supernova setting, and would move chunks of stars towards Kirk's poor ship if employed! Imagine a cylindrar plug of Eminiar's atmosphere suddenly jumping up to lightspeed and slamming onto the Enterprise...
That's another true statement regarding the issue. But we don't need to discuss writers when discussing the fictional universe of Trek - after all, what one writer fails to write is even more easily contradicted or reinterpreted by the next writer than what he did bother to write.
So, the dialogue or its omissions don't establish non-bluff. A special scene could have established either bluff or non-bluff. We didn't get that scene.
Similarly, we get plenty of instances of a hero not showing appropriate emotions in a scene, say. The two conclusions are that he's a psychopath or that the event took place without becoming a scene. And most of the centuries of Star Trek go by without a scene of any sort. So probably Kirk does consult his superiors when appropriate, and goes to the bathroom when he must, and Scotty either rolls his eyes in lighthearted preparation for his disingenuous moment in limelight, or wrings his hands in anguish at the thought of having to murder billions - even when the camera fails to follow.
Timo Saloniemi
I'm sure you agree, noise like that would kick the crap out of your own world. So you have to be really, really mad to pull the trigger.
True.
Plus, if the general make up of Eminiar VII's system is like ours, it's not a vacuum anyway. There is interplanetary medium, which although super minute, would provide density in which the "sonic" wave could travel. I believe...
I accept this lost scene as canon, clear evidence of the writer's intent. This carries much more weight than any speculation we may conjure up.
I'm glad that got cut. "Blast you, McCoy! Don't you think I know that?" is not how real people talk. Like, ever. Even re-wording it would be wrong, because the underlying sentiment (anger at McCoy) is baloney. A real person, when fed McCoy's line, would probably just say "Yep." or "Uh huh."
A writer should trust the audience to get it, to understand that Scotty is under stress, without over-wording and over-dramatizing every utterance, to say nothing of veering into unnatural (unmotivated) reactions like anger at McCoy.
I talk like that sometimes.
Scotty has talked like that, both before and since. He's an irascible Scotsman, short-tempered and easily set off. But he's also quick to cool off as well.
Some of Scotty's dialog was terrible, meaning not how real people talk, that's true. James Doohan was a magician when it came to selling it. He could make almost any line seem like something he'd really say, something he genuinely felt.
People speak differently now than 50 years ago, and 50 years before that, more so. People are sliding year by year into a sort of overgrown teenager way of speaking. That had started by the 60s, but it wasn't close to how it is now. Anyone with firm ideas as to how "real people" speak who try to project that onto the past, probably would think I speak "unrealistically"... People and generations are different.
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McCoy would say "blast", but not Scotty....
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McCoy would say "blast", but not Scotty....
I cannot envision or imagine Scotty saying "blast you" to anyone, ever. McCoy, yes, although maybe "blast it" is more likely. Glad this scene was cut or never filmed. It was pretty clear to me that GO24 was not a bluff although I always did think it was an unusual "general order" for an organization of Starfleet's character. In any case it was always refreshing to me when the Enterprise was shown to be a source of awesome power rather than something that could be completely neutralized by the Gamesters, Metrons, Excalbians, etc.
The one reason I can think of at this late date for Scotty to actually use the word "Blast" is '60s era network censorship of language. Scotty, ever irascible, would more likely have said "Damn it, Doctor, ...", but NBC would have never allowed it.
He swore a blue streak in "The Doomsday Machine." It's near the end, when he's climbing into the Jefferies tube to jury rig the Transporter. But he did his swearing Yosemite Sam style.
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