Script blunders!
- Thread starter Don Drutherford
- Start date
The omitted scene took place in sickbay and involved McCoy and Chapel 1). setting-up the diagnostic instruments for Spock's physiology and 2). talking about Chapel's "friendship" with Spock. The scene ends with this exchange:
I don't understand why this scene was cut.
That's like when Sulu somehow found it necessary to explain the mechanics of a police revolver in "Shore Leave":
"It fires lead pellets propelled by expanding gases from a chemical explosion."
Wouldn't people still know the basic principles of firearms in the 23rd century? I mean, nobody has to explain to me how a bow and arrow works.
Ah, the infamous "one to the fourth power" line. Just sloppy writing that should have been caught and corrected. Like this exchange from "The Naked Time":
McCOY: Your pulse is two hundred and forty two, your blood pressure is practically nonexistent, assuming you call that green stuff in your veins blood.
SPOCK: The readings are perfectly normal for me, Doctor, thank you. And as for my anatomy being different from yours, I am delighted.
Of course, it wasn't Spock's anatomy that was under discussion, it was his physiology.
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The person who should have caught it was Kellam DeForest. Seems like he was asleep at the switch.
"He" was a company. He didn't personally review everything.
Anyway, this presumes de Forest Research saw the dialog in question. Many times there were page/dialog revisions that did not get cleared.
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What I love about these researchers was their proprietary libraries. They had so many diverse reference books at their fingertips, packed into modest offices, it must have been a book- and fact-lover's dream job.
Another, similar Hollywood research outfit was run by Lillian Farber, wife of Star Trek TMP pre-production illustrator Harold Michelson. Her career ultimately ran into the time when instant access to any fact on the Internet was destroying the research business model. If you haven't seen the 2018 documentary Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, I recommend it.
Time for some pedantry!
His name is Kellam de Forest (still alive at 93, as far as I know). His company was de Forest Research, Inc. or de Forest Research for short (he sold out to Thompson and Thompson in 1997). My understanding is that Kellam was not one of the regular readers for Star Trek, although he was somewhat more involved during development.
His name is Kellam de Forest (still alive at 93, as far as I know). His company was de Forest Research, Inc. or de Forest Research for short (he sold out to Thompson and Thompson in 1997). My understanding is that Kellam was not one of the regular readers for Star Trek, although he was somewhat more involved during development.
Here's a terminology snafu from "The Cage"/"The Menagerie" [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/16b.htm]:
Um. "Zoological garden" is just the unabbreviated term of "zoo," a place where specifically animals are kept, not specifically plants. Sure, animals may need plants for their habitats, so no doubt plants are kept there too, but....
It's wrong. It's as if it was written to impress with wordiness without having the actual requisite understanding to use the term properly, a not uncommon cause of the misuse of terminology.
---
While none of the following category is definitively wrong in the way the "one to the" "Court Martial" example is, there is quite a bit of Treknobabble that is cringeworthy. Here are two examples.
First example, from "Errand of Mercy" [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/27.htm, https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Richter's_scale_of_cultures]:
A couple of things wrong, there are. First, the teacher almost flunks the Organians' culture; they probably should have studied harder, eh? Second, Richter scale? Really??? I knew Richter was a mover and a shaker, but....
Second example, from "The Apple" [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/38.htm, https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Wortham_unit]:
As everybody knows, the SI unit of power (energy per time) is watt, named after James Watt. This fictional unit of power induces groans, because it sounds about like "Watt, um." James Watt was even Scottish, so Scotty should be ashamed of himself.... The Memory Alpha link just above contains de Forest Research's feedback for the line, but IMO they should have recommended the correction to "watts" as well, and scaled it appropriately. For reference, the Sun puts out about 3.846×10^26 watts [https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Page...ated,radius of approximately 93,000,000 miles, http://www.yourturn.ca/solar/solar-power/how-much-power-does-the-sun-give-us/], and on the order of 10^17 watts of it falls to Earth [second source]. So, saying "ten to the 17th power watts" would have been something like the thing to say, never minding how it is that Vaal is generating enough power to immobilize a starship from the few exploding rocks that this one village tosses in (a problem that's never solved anyway).
KEEPER: That is your choice. To help you reclaim the planet's surface, our zoological gardens will furnish a variety of plant life.
Um. "Zoological garden" is just the unabbreviated term of "zoo," a place where specifically animals are kept, not specifically plants. Sure, animals may need plants for their habitats, so no doubt plants are kept there too, but....
It's wrong. It's as if it was written to impress with wordiness without having the actual requisite understanding to use the term properly, a not uncommon cause of the misuse of terminology.---
While none of the following category is definitively wrong in the way the "one to the" "Court Martial" example is, there is quite a bit of Treknobabble that is cringeworthy. Here are two examples.
First example, from "Errand of Mercy" [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/27.htm, https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Richter's_scale_of_cultures]:
Approximately Class D minus on Richter's scale of cultures
A couple of things wrong, there are. First, the teacher almost flunks the Organians' culture; they probably should have studied harder, eh? Second, Richter scale? Really??? I knew Richter was a mover and a shaker, but.... Second example, from "The Apple" [http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/38.htm, https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Wortham_unit]:
SCOTT: Scotty, sir. We have a reading on the power source Mister Spock requested. When we first monitored, it was generating alternating cycles totalling one hundred to the twentieth power Wortham units.
As everybody knows
, the SI unit of power (energy per time) is watt, named after James Watt. This fictional unit of power induces groans, because it sounds about like "Watt, um." James Watt was even Scottish, so Scotty should be ashamed of himself.... The Memory Alpha link just above contains de Forest Research's feedback for the line, but IMO they should have recommended the correction to "watts" as well, and scaled it appropriately. For reference, the Sun puts out about 3.846×10^26 watts [https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Page...ated,radius of approximately 93,000,000 miles, http://www.yourturn.ca/solar/solar-power/how-much-power-does-the-sun-give-us/], and on the order of 10^17 watts of it falls to Earth [second source]. So, saying "ten to the 17th power watts" would have been something like the thing to say, never minding how it is that Vaal is generating enough power to immobilize a starship from the few exploding rocks that this one village tosses in (a problem that's never solved anyway).
Stardates. And some scripts even painted themselves into knots using the undefined unit of time. One example (and there are many others):
And the Children Shall Lead has Starnes log dates 5025.3-5038.3 on-screen; Kirk's log at 5029.5 has to be after Starnes' death or shortly after Stardate 5038.3. Kirk’s entry should be after Starnes last log at about 5039.5. An obvious script error.
I still find the similarity of his name and DeForest Kelley amusing since they were attached to the same series. It's not like either of these guys had "Pete Williams" style average names.
And despite it being Hollywood, both men were using their birth names. I actually found it confusing and mysterious as a boy, pondering the photo caption with Kellam's name in The Making of Star Trek. This was decades before the Internet, so there was no one to ask.
Edit: I thought it was a photo caption; now I can't find it. But his name is in the book.
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That sounds like a flub in Continuity. I thought that they would have a manual with all of the pertinent information, But, I guess NOT. That probably came later.
Heil the Fuhrer! (See blooper reel)
Is that supposed to be funny?
yes, Remember the clip of Roddenberry standing at the top of the stairs of the "Operation: Annihilate!", and they played the "Hail The Fuhrer!" audio from "Patterns of Force" ?
Specifically this (@04:12) (LINK RIGHT TO GAG IN QUESTION)
I made the visor myself for Halloween at no great expense. Of course no-one understood who I was...
How come the Blish adaption was so different from the filmed episode?
Actually thats not the only case. I think I read in some of his prefaces that he hadn't actually seen the episodes and perhaps I'm thinking he made changes to make the episodes make sense to him.
Anyway Kirk's 'Come With Me..' on the bridge is one of my favourite Trek scenes with its dump de da you're in trouble Mr Spock music. So I'm happy they didn't meet on Deck 5 whatever.
Another error I think is in Naked Time when Spock says there was an imposter on board when Kirk is accused on attacking Rand. Then a later scene has him holding the duplicated dog creature. Surely that scene should have been shown first.
The Enemy Within, but yeah there was a scene juggle apparently
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