Anyone got a copy of the script for "The Slaver Weapon" (TAS)?

[CorporalCaptain]

Personally, I take it that "the Kzin planet" is merely an alternate phrasing of "the planet Kzin." It seems to me to refer to the planet itself by name, even if it is oddly phrased in context. At the most, it possibly indicates that Kzin can also be used as an adjective like Kzinti (see below).

Oh, no, in "the Kzin planet" I think it's definitely a case of Kzin being used as a noun adjunct, which is just another way of saying that the noun is being used as an adjective. Grammar terminology is unfortunately often needlessly complicated, when it's just a simple idea. The only reason I said it was probably an anomaly is because it's like the rest of the dialog was scrubbed to reduce the number of independent terms, perhaps in some attempt (misguided or not) to avoid confusing viewers, and that one case slipped by.

 

[Christopher]

Personally, I take it that "the Kzin planet" is merely an alternate phrasing of "the planet Kzin." It seems to me to refer to the planet itself by name, even if it is oddly phrased in context. At the most, it possibly indicates that Kzin can also be used as an adjective like Kzinti (see below).

There are instances in both Niven and Foster where "Kzin" is used as an adjective in place of "Kzinti." So it's not an inversion of "the planet Kzin," it's a variant of "the kzinti planet" (capitalized per the Trek convention of treating alien species names as if they were nationalities).

For reference, these are all the uses of Kzinti and Kzin in the aired episode:

• SPOCK: ...a Slaver stasis box discovered by archaeologists on the planet Kzin.

I've always found this line a bit surprising. I mean, if the box was found on Kzin, then wouldn't that mean the Kzinti already had a rightful claim to it? The episode does address this -- Chuft-Captain says that Kzinti archaeologists found both boxes, but "the one we managed to keep" was empty -- but it's hard to believe the Federation would engage in the outright theft of another planet's archaeological treasures like that. And it changes the whole complexion of the story, because it means the Kzinti are basically the ones in the right. I guess you could say there's a military consideration in keeping the box's contents out of Kzinti hands, but it's still a pretty lousy move to take it away from them.

In "The Soft Weapon," Nessus (the role Spock plays in the episode) purchased the stasis box from the Outsiders, a mysterious species from beyond Known Space. (By the way, this story summary contains an interesting 1969 illustration for the story, portraying a surprisingly apelike Kzin. Not a bad rendering of a Pierson's puppeteer, though, aside from failing to depict the prehensile knobs of the lips.) In the Alan Dean Foster adaptation, the box was found by a Federation science team on the dead planet Gruyakin VI. So in those versions, the Kzinti were simply trying to steal it and had no prior claim. I wonder, then, why Niven (or whoever revised his script) chose to insert the complication of having the Kzinti be the ones who discovered the box in the first place, especially since it doesn't actually figure into the story.

 

[BoredShipCapt'n]

That reminds me of another question I had for @GSchnitzer: is that line in the script "twist my widdershins" as it is delivered in the episode? I would have thought it would be "twist me widdershins" since widdershins is, in my limited understanding, an adverb that means counter-clockwise.

The lost Chubby Checker single, "Twist Me Widdershins."

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I figure that "Twist my widdershins" must have been a flubbed reading of "Twist me widdershins," by a voice actor who didn't know what the word meant.

 

[GSchnitzer]

Yeah, I figure that "Twist my widdershins" must have been a flubbed reading of "Twist me widdershins," by a voice actor who didn't know what the word meant.

"Twist me widdershins..." is what was scripted in both script drafts I have. It was written correctly but delivered wrong by the voice actor. (It sounds like Majel to me.)

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I am reviewing the episode and it actually sounds like Nichelle Nichols to me, which would make sense since she'd be one of the actors already in the studio recording parts for this episode.

I am formulating some additional questions for you in order to better determine which Kzin is which (in which scenes of which draft) and correlate them to their individual appearances in the episode, where each has distinct facial markings, although there are naturally slight discrepancies in how they are drawn from shot to shot.

I very much appreciate the time and effort you have devoted to my queries, and it is proving most helpful!

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

"Twist me widdershins..." is what was scripted in both script drafts I have. It was written correctly but delivered wrong by the voice actor. (It sounds like Majel to me.)

Maybe she thought it gave the weapon a Scottish affectation.

I have a question, too. How does the final script render Uhura's line about running 100 meters?

 

[GSchnitzer]

Maybe she thought it gave the weapon a Scottish affectation.

I have a question, too. How does the final script render Uhura's line about running 100 meters?

"I'm slowing down. I used to run the 100 in record time. How long was I out? Did I miss much?"

It doesn't specify feet or meters or some other futuristic/alien unit of distance.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Thanks. I just got a new article for MA out of that.