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Takei Sword Antics

K

Kamdan

Commander
Red Shirt
I’ve seen George Takei clarify in many interviews about how James Doohan claimed that Takei attacked him with his fencing foul during the making of The Naked Time when it was really just an inopportune moment of Takei rehearsing. Has this story ever been told from Doohan’s perspective?

Was this a popular convention story from the 70’s that got out of hand? I first heard about it on the William Shatner Star Trek Memories VHS from the mid-90’s and only heard of other elaborations of the story from Shatner on the Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition where he claimed that he has a scar from Takei’s foil.
 
How funny, I never heard this story. I can’t imagine any set where the foil would be sharpened or dangerous… and given the alleged animosity of the secondary players and Shatner I can definitely not imagine any “playful” interaction with a foil between Takai and the Star of the show.
 
I'm sure I remember either reading in his autobiography and/or in TV interviews, Doohan told the story. Apparently Takei was practicing with the sword. I seem to remember Doohan saying he poked his nose in through a curtain, and the sword missed his nose by just an inch!
 
Methuselah Flint said:
I'm sure I remember either reading in his autobiography and/or in TV interviews, Doohan told the story. Apparently Takei was practicing with the sword. I seem to remember Doohan saying he poked his nose in through a curtain, and the sword missed his nose by just an inch!
Click to expand...

From the autobiography Beam Me Up Scotty:

dnt.jpg
 
PCz911 said:
… and given the alleged animosity of the secondary players and Shatner I can definitely not imagine any “playful” interaction with a foil between Takai and the Star of the show.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure the animosity was barely there during production, and not expressed at all. 1966 to '69 was when Takei and the others thought they were supposed to just do their jobs. Most of the resentment was nursed into existence in the 1970s and beyond, when egos started inflating on the convention circuit.

But we know Bill didn't concern himself with the supporting actors and befriend them, either. Whether it was Uhura or Palmer in that chair, Sulu or DePaul, he didn't give a whiff. He had his own job to do and it was a big, demanding part. Even in the movie era, he (hilariously) couldn't come up with Walter's name during a Star Trek V photo opp, the one in costume on the bridge set. That's when you knew Bill wasn't kidding when he said they were practically strangers.
 
I remember that moment and Walter Koenig's more than slight annoyance at the star of the movie by telling William Shatner his name with a slight chuckle!
JB
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Even in the movie era, he (hilariously) couldn't come up with Walter's name during a Star Trek V photo opp, the one in costume on the bridge set.
Click to expand...

That moment, preserved forever, is absolutely painful. The entire presentation is terrible. Harve Bennet 's stand up is terrible, he can't land a joke on autopilot. Then all of the intros (Takei doing his Vulcan salute always kinda annoys me a bit) capped by Shatner's "and....the man who plays Chekov!"

I actually find the whole thing hard to watch.
 
Methuselah Flint said:
I'm sure I remember either reading in his autobiography and/or in TV interviews, Doohan told the story. Apparently Takei was practicing with the sword. I seem to remember Doohan saying he poked his nose in through a curtain, and the sword missed his nose by just an inch!
Click to expand...

Upon hearing of this, potential guest stars Danny Thomas and Jimmy Durante cancelled out.
 
In regard to Sulu's sword in The Naked Time, I remember another anecdote regarding this episode in which George Takei successfully championed for Sulu to use a foil as opposed to a katana (as was originally intended) in order to push back against Asian stereotypes. I'm pretty sure this is why I grimaced years later when John Cho's Mr. Sulu whipped out his katana in the first J.J. Abrams film.
 
I always thought that Shatner and Nichelle Nichols got on okay during production of the show? I know she was less thrilled with some of his antics but she seemed to be one of the four main people in the photos. James Doohan was always on the James Blish novel covers but we know that outside of a few early jokes between the two on set, Shatner kept himself distant from the secondary actors and especially Doohan! :scream:
JB
 
In each case of Nichols, Doohan, Takei and Koenig I think Roddenberry sold hem each a bill of goods as to how important they would be to the series. When little of that panned out instead of getting steamed with Roddenberry somehow they directed their ire toward Shatner. “He’s stealing the limelight. Just who the hell does he think he is?”

Uh, he was hired to be the star of the show. And he worked his ass off to make it work.

Seems to me the day cast should have had a beef with Roddenberry rather than Shatner. “Hey, Gene, you douche, you fucking lied to me!”
 
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Wasn't it Walter who, one day, said to the others, "Look, you realize he was the star and we were just day players, don't you?"
 
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