False Facts About Star Trek You Always Thought Were True

The Shatner accent. "Mr...Spock...lifesign...readings."

Not a real thing. There may be a few instances of a slight staccato accent on some words. But it's rare and barely noticeable. Most of the time Kirk talks like a normal person.

Except for "sabotaaage."

 

Watch the scene where he asks for Corridian/Kodos to provide his voice sample. Between Shatner and Moss, it's a dramatic pause festival.

"Have you gotten... everything you wanted... Captain Kirk?"
"If I had gotten... everything I wanted... youmightnotleavethisroomalive."


But Shatner's explanation of his style is very logical - real people aren't reading from a script. Real people have to think of what they're going to say as they say it. Hence the occasional faux pause. It's an acting technique, and a realistic one at that.

 

So is The Search for Spock.

 

Or the notion that Kirk was always making it with green babes! In the entire original series, there were exactly two green women. Vina, of course, had nothing to do with Captain Kirk. (For that matter, she wasn't even really green.) And Marta from "Whom Gods Destroy" was the one putting the moves on Kirk!

 

Yeah, the "girl in every port" thing is almost entirely third season. And it annoys the daylights out of me.

OTOH, if you're going to do that, Pine introducing himself to every woman he walked by in ST09 was pretty terrific.

 

We see Kirk a few millimeters away from Uhura's lips, and that's it.

 

It was one of the first and most notable interracial kisses on TV, but, yeah, the idea that it was absolutely, positively the very first such kiss is more myth than fact, and comes with lots of qualifiers, even if it is dutifully repeated in pretty much every article or TV special about Trek produced these days.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

 

These days? That's been Trek 101 since the 80's. If not the 70's.

Nice Man Who Shot Liberty Valance quote though. (Right?)

 

Yep. Possibly my favorite western.

 

Shatner had already kissed Barbara Luna in the second season anyway. But that never seems to count for anything in discussions of interracial kisses on TV.

Kor

 

Well sure. But that's just because it's one of the best. (I'm a Stagecoach man m'self. Never did like The Searchers which I'm told is not allowed.)

Maybe Star Trek should do a western...

 

But . . . but The Searchers stars Captain Pike!

 

I am aware of the error of my ways.

 

Here we go. Al Mundy in action.

 

What about Elaan of Troyius? I never hear this one mentioned. Even though it aired 3 episodes after Plato's Strepchildren, It was produced TEN episodes earlier. I've heard that there was all this controversy from TV execs during the production of Plato's Stepchildren. Does that mean there was no controversy when this was filmed a few months earlier???

• The whole "Kirk is a manwhre" thing. Depending on your perspective, it could be considered true. It's usually modern Trekkies or modern pop-culture sources, which tend to only speak in generalizations, and have a hard time NOT using hyperbole in every comment where we get a lot of exaggerated descriptions. I think Kirk had actual intimate relations with maybe 3 or 4 women throughout the series. It could even be lower. The way some people describe Kirk is more fitting of Riker. At least Kirk didn't sleep with subordinates! Riker went from a studly, serious young man in season 1 & 2, to a middle aged, overweight, occasional pervert in season 3-7. And I'm not talking about the beard.

• The "Picard is a professional, well spoken Diplomat, and Kirk is a Rogue, loose canon" thing. This one annoys me. Picard isn't any more of a "poster child" for Starfleet captaincy than Kirk is.

• "Janeway is Bipolar or Schizophrenic" This is more within Trekdom. Each Star Trek show has dozens of different writers and multiple showrunners/EPs. I hear this all the time, and never with any examples. I don't doubt that there are instances where it may seem that she is acting differently than she has before, but that is no different from Kirk, Picard, or Sisko. I can think of a few flip flops already, all involving Worf.

It seems like ST09 and STID(I haven't seen Beyond yet)characterized Kirk & crew more on the popular conception of Kirk & crew than on their actual characterization. I liked those movies and had fun watching them, specifically 09, which I saw in the theatre, but they do portray them so.

Off-topic, but even the new Star Wars film(TFA) seems to portray the characters likewise.

 

When it comes to "interracial," the biggest hangup by far that Americans have is with respect to: ebony and ivory living together in perfect harmony.

 

I can see how people might consider TAS a sequel to TOS. It fits every criteria of that definition, but for some reason I still don't think of it that way. In that respect, even JJ Trek is a sequel. I don't have any sources to back up my perspective on this, but I've always felt TAS, like JJ Trek, was a reboot. It's a different format... of the same thing... In a lot of ways, it was created for an audience of a different time (& possibly a different age). It uses some of the same cast members, but Daniel Craig Bond uses some of the same cast members of its predecessor, (Judi Dench) & we still call that a Reboot. I don't know. It can really be thought of both ways maybe

 

"Playdoh"?

The narrator in the video was evidently incapable of pronouncing the name "Plato."

 

First interracial kiss on TV?

That'll be this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34869452

Although, this would probably be more popular as it was from a popular TV show in 1964 - Emergency Ward 10.

 

Oops, just saw your post after I posted my own. Yeah that's the one.