I’m just saying it’s not impossible Gene put his books on screen. Especially when budget was stretched.
I’m just saying it’s not impossible Gene put his books on screen. Especially when budget was stretched.
Almost anything is possible, but likely? No.
Sometimes a bookshelf on screen will just be the bindings of hardcover books, without the actual books. The whole bookcase can be a prop that weighs nothing.
Interior decorators sometimes supplied books in real life to make the nouveau riche look cultivated. They would drive around to estate sales and whatnot just to snap up books by the yard. I'm sure set decorators did the same thing during the book era.
Interior decorators sometimes supplied books in real life to make the nouveau riche look cultivated. They would drive around to estate sales and whatnot just to snap up books by the yard. I'm sure set decorators did the same thing during the book era.
When I was in retail advertising our store had shelf and desk/table props for display. Vacuformed shells painted to look like rows of books, computers, radios...
They looked real, even cĺose up
They looked real, even cĺose up
There's something I've sometimes wondered about in The Wrath of Khan, and then a collection of somethings I never really noticed until today.
So today I went looking. I can't find Spock saying this anywhere using the word "possibilities," but the following is logically equivalent; I assume it must be the justification for Kirk's lines in TWoK.
This is a pretty anti-factual thing for Spock to claim, and in fact he walks it back just before his impending death.
One would think that Spock would not soon forget the details of his near-disastrous first command, and would not keep repeating an ill-advised claim that he himself will disprove multiple times.
So it's kind of bizarre in TWoK that Kirk would treat that one-time misstatement of illogical optimism like it's somehow Spock's catchphrase. If anything, Spock is the just-the-facts wet blanket of TOS (and I love him for it).
(Still love that film, though! Don't take away my true-fan membership card.)
So today I went looking. I can't find Spock saying this anywhere using the word "possibilities," but the following is logically equivalent; I assume it must be the justification for Kirk's lines in TWoK.
This is a pretty anti-factual thing for Spock to claim, and in fact he walks it back just before his impending death.
(Wonderful exchange, by the way. A highlight of the episode.)
One would think that Spock would not soon forget the details of his near-disastrous first command, and would not keep repeating an ill-advised claim that he himself will disprove multiple times.
So it's kind of bizarre in TWoK that Kirk would treat that one-time misstatement of illogical optimism like it's somehow Spock's catchphrase. If anything, Spock is the just-the-facts wet blanket of TOS (and I love him for it).
(Still love that film, though! Don't take away my true-fan membership card.)
I never thought those TWoK lines referred to specific lines in the series. I just thought it was something else Kirk heard Spock say, but the audience hadn't heard it.
TWOK plays fast and loose with TOS continuity. Chekov is not a face Khan should remember, and so on. The far bigger thing for me is that idea that Kirk has never faced death. The film is forgetting Edith, Miramanee, and Kirk's brother Sam. Not to mention people Kirk didn't love but who got killed just following his orders, like Yeoman Thompson in "By Any Other Name." That one hurt.
But the idea was to make a great standalone film, and they did. You have to roll with it.
One bit of implied continuity TWOK gets right is that, after Spock's mind was blown by V'Ger, he mellowed tremendously. Look how gentle and wise he is with Saavik compared to how he treated his juniors in "That Which Survives."
This brings up another (though belated) hey-I-never-noticed moments.
Back when I first saw the film I knew that was a continuity cheat, but like many others I rationalized it away with an unseen Chekov lurking below decks in season 1. Then a couple months ago my wife and I were watching TOS on P+ and this bucket of mid-season-2 cold water hit me:
I think I said out loud, "well, that pretty much answers that." Later I searched some second-season episodes to see what else might have bearing on the issue one way or the other, and also found this in Chekov's very first scene of the series:
This was the seventh episode aired that season (obviously it was decided at some point to save it for the week before Halloween), but it was the first to be produced. So here we have Chekov's (intended) introduction to the viewers, with DeSalle implying the ensign is a newbie and Chekov revealing that he's a little sensitive about it; and then a bit later (several weeks in filming time, one week in airing order, probably something in between when the dialog was finalized) Chekov letting us know that he had no idea who Harry Mudd was. All that makes it clear to me that from a production standpoint this character was played as somebody who had not in fact already been aboard the ship for a year. It's not exactly "Welcome aboard the Enterprise, ensign," but it does play like a more subtle version of that idea.
So yeah, Khan is a continuity glitch; but that's okay, they happen. There are worse ones, like Mr. Leslie inexplicably springing back to life. And I'm okay with that one too (just happy to have gotten more of the "regular non-regulars" rather than less).
How informed is every member of the crew on the particulars of every encounter if it doesn't directly affect them?
"Now hear this" on shipwide is one way, but your point stands.
In general, sure. But the news of these passengers in particular would have spread like wildfire. Every crewman we saw was bedazzled by Mudd's floozies. The ladies were at liberty to wander about the ship, and they made liberal use of that freedom. They got whatever information they wanted from whatever man they spoke to, and Magda had no trouble securing a communicator. Sulu and Farrell practically stagger onto the bridge for their shift, obsessed with the women like a couple of high-school idiots and talking about them for everyone in earshot to hear (which they've probably been doing during their entire journey to the bridge). Even Spock had a weird leering kind of smirk.
It's not like the Enterprise was transporting some boring Gooberdoozian Ambassador who kept to his quarters and would have been ignored or forgotten about a week later by 98% of the crew. This was a red-hot watercooler topic. It's pretty hard to imagine that anyone aboard the ship at that time was unaware of these passengers, especially the men. Even in Roddenberry's enlightened, utopian 23rd century, Harry says "these starships are really something marvelous, but men will always be men no matter where they are."
And let's not forget Martha, Sylvia (Billy Clanton's girlfriend), Irina, Mara ... Chekov definitely has a history of being distracted from his duties by a pretty face. Well, as long as their name ends in the letter a, apparently. So I reckon he would have favored Magda, had he been on the Enterprise in season one.
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Unaware? Perhaps not. As aware or interested in the exact same way as every other person? Not necessarily.
"Mr Scott, permission to go to the commissary?"
"Aye, they're something to behold. Don' be a laggard. Ye still have things to do before Beta shift ends."
Mudd's first encounter with the Enterprise was VERY early that first year... early enough that Uhura was wearing gold instead of her usual red.
Chekov could easily have been first assigned to the Enterprise after "MUDD'S WOMEN" and before "SPACE SEED". (There's a good chunk of time of a year between those two episodes.)
Chekov could easily have been first assigned to the Enterprise after "MUDD'S WOMEN" and before "SPACE SEED". (There's a good chunk of time of a year between those two episodes.)
He may also have done a split assignment - on the Enterprise for a short stint, then off for medical leave or specialized training.
Yes to both of these. The idea that Chekov can only have come aboard during hiatus is ludicrous. He could easily have been a replacement crew for someone that died in an early episode of season one.
Suddenly there's a burst of effort here to debunk arguments that are not being made, so I'm not going to respond to any of that. I'll just leave the straw on the ground for the birds to make nests from. My only point was that *I* changed my mind because of new evidence that *I* hadn't noticed before. Everyone else gets to decide what they think is best for their own headcanon. (My headcanon has a few things in it that aren't directly supportable from the show either.) But I would appreciate it if people wouldn't mischaracterize what I wrote.
One thing I will respond to directly is the stardate argument. It's been established that TOS stardates officially do not determine chronology. For one thing they can't because they're full of inconsistencies. But probably more importantly, Roddenberry instructed authors right in the writer's guide specifically not to worry about this.
And of course the visual evidence of changes among the sets, uniforms, props, and characters pretty clearly demonstrates that the season 1 episodes happened before the season 2 episodes. If we need to explain away a minor TWoK anachronism, then for my money the "unseen Chekov" is a better compromise than trying to make stardates into something they were not intended to be.
One thing I will respond to directly is the stardate argument. It's been established that TOS stardates officially do not determine chronology. For one thing they can't because they're full of inconsistencies. But probably more importantly, Roddenberry instructed authors right in the writer's guide specifically not to worry about this.
And of course the visual evidence of changes among the sets, uniforms, props, and characters pretty clearly demonstrates that the season 1 episodes happened before the season 2 episodes. If we need to explain away a minor TWoK anachronism, then for my money the "unseen Chekov" is a better compromise than trying to make stardates into something they were not intended to be.
Oh my
what is this jewel!!
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