"There are always...possibilities" Spock quote?

[M'Sharak]

I had the same problem with the quote I attributed to Spock "A difference that makes no difference is no difference". On another thread I was told it only appeared in some Trek novel. However, when you google it there are numerous references to this quote Spock, yet nobody references the episode where Spock actually says this quote.

It is from SPOCK MUST DIE! It is so old that people think it must be from aired trek, but it is not.

It's even older than aired Trek, technically. William James wrote it down in a book published in 1897, attributing it to an acquaintance. There are other examples of real-world origins for lines spoken by Trek characters, (Soran's "Time is the fire in which we burn" in Generations, for one) but this one does sound particularly like something you could expect to hear Spock say, whether he actually did so on-screen or not.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Yeah, I just got done reading Spock Must Die! . That quote is also in another Bantam novel The Price of the Phoenix too. Omne uses it against Spock only to have Spock end up agreeing with it in a mind meld with James on page 27.

 

[22 Stars]

I love the function where I can block anything that Shatmandu posts. I just wish it worked within the quotes function... Anyhoo, it's just weird that a franchise with so much history and a fan base known for people being able to quote almost every episode verbatim has a major character quoting another major character with something we never ever heard him say!? I guarantee that many of us, me included, believed at the time that Spock said that at least ONCE, and were like, yeah, that's Spock alright... good old Spock... There always are... possibilities.

 

[T'Bonz]

Yeah, I just got done reading Spock Must Die! . That quote is also in another Bantam novel The Price of the Phoenix too. Omne uses it against Spock only to have Spock end up agreeing with it in a mind meld with James on page 27.

Oh God. Price of the Phoenix. One of the worst books I've ever read, Trek or not.

 

[Shatmandu]

I love the function where I can block anything that Shatmandu posts.

Me, too. Every joke he makes, it's like I've heard it before.

Joe, anti-Shatmandu

 

[Mallory]

Yeah, I just got done reading Spock Must Die! . That quote is also in another Bantam novel The Price of the Phoenix too. Omne uses it against Spock only to have Spock end up agreeing with it in a mind meld with James on page 27.

You should be warned for even mentioning that abomination.

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, I just got done reading Spock Must Die! . That quote is also in another Bantam novel The Price of the Phoenix too. Omne uses it against Spock only to have Spock end up agreeing with it in a mind meld with James on page 27.

You should be warned for even mentioning that abomination.

Damn, am I the ONLY person in the world besides Shatner who thought PRICE would have been a million times better a relaunch for trek than TMP? Remember back in the 70s, a lot of films were actually edgy and had subtexts as well as being character-driven (sort of the way some nonblockbusters have been in the last decade.)

EDIT ADDON: the abomination is those same writers with TRIANGLE, which really was a total unmitigated piece of shit.

But I though their phoenix books and THE PROMETHEUS DESIGN really captured the 'voices' of the characters, they say stuff that you can envision coming out of shat's and nim's mouths.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Trevanian, I thought Price would have made a good movie, too...they just need to tighten up the story and get rid of all the philosophical exchanges that would drag a movie along. Triangle was the ultimate Mary Sue story but the characters always sounded real. Prometheus Design had a great scifi feel to the story but for me the characters didn't ring true with all the Vulcan command mode stuff. By the way, isn't Trevanian a character from Fate of the Phoenix?

 

[trevanian]

Trevanian, I thought Price would have made a good movie, too...they just need to tighten up the story and get rid of all the philosophical exchanges that would drag a movie along. Triangle was the ultimate Mary Sue story but the characters always sounded real. Prometheus Design had a great scifi feel to the story but for me the characters didn't ring true with all the Vulcan command mode stuff. By the way, isn't Trevanian a character from Fate of the Phoenix?

Might be Trevanian or Trevize, i don't recall. My monicker comes from the late novelist, a.k.a. Rod Whitaker, who wrote SHIBUMI and SUMMER OF KATYA and THE MAIN among others.

 

[Maurice]

...it's just weird that a franchise with so much history and a fan base known for people being able to quote almost every episode verbatim has a major character quoting another major character with something we never ever heard him say!?

The first time I heard Kirk "paraphrase" Spock watching TWOK in the theater in 1982, I went "Wrong!"

 

[Basil]

I've assumed that it alluded to a line of dialogue that appeared in an earlier draft of the script but was cut. Any chance it appears in the animated series or the first film?

 

[22 Stars]

...it's just weird that a franchise with so much history and a fan base known for people being able to quote almost every episode verbatim has a major character quoting another major character with something we never ever heard him say!?

The first time I heard Kirk "paraphrase" Spock watching TWOK in the theater in 1982, I went "Wrong!"

lol, that's awesome. I thought for sure I had forgotten something!

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Just because we never heard Spock say this doesn't mean he never said it. Perhaps there are many things Spock may have said that we (the audience) were never privy to hearing.

If Kirk said in TWOK that Spock is fond of saying that, then that's good enough for me. I believe Kirk knows Spock better than we do.

If -- to use a silly example -- Spock says in this upcoming film, "Jim Kirk told me he had a pet dog named Fido when he was younger" I would have no reason to doubt Kirk DID in fact tell Spock this, even though Kirk never said this on screen.

 

[22 Stars]

I'm sure he does, but c'mon, with around 100 hours of Star Trek already made back then, and a fanbase famous for being able to recite whole episodes, why make up a quote? They could have easily used 'alternatives', we KNOW he has said that.

And while I'm beating a dead horse, anyone notice that the famous 'I have been and always will be your friend' changed every time. If i remember correctly it starts off 'have been and always will be' then turns to 'have and and always shall be' and finally 'have been and ever shall be'... wtf?

 

[gastrof]

I'm not sure of there being THREE versions of the "friend" quote, but I know there were two. (I picked up on the "shall" difference in ST3.)

My personal explanation is that Spock wasn't clear in his memory of the incident, and came as close as he could to an exact quote.

I mean, come on. He had to ASK Kirk 'Why did you come back for me?' and later had to have his mind re-trained? Something was a bit off, and I think that's the explanation for the "shall" thing.

 

[CoveTom]

The whole "there are always possibilities" thing comes straight from Harve Bennett. If you read Shatner's "Movie Memories" book or watch Bennett on the DVD special features, he refers to remembering Spock's "oft-repeated line" from the original series "there are always possibilities." But Bennett is obviously misremembering this, because near as I can tell, Spock never said that.

Now, of course, it does seem like something Spock would say. And, as others have pointed out, there are one or two examples of him saying something close, like "The Galileo Seven" line about "there are always alternatives." But it seems odd that Bennett would remember this as an "oft-repeated line" when there are only one or two occurrances of it and it's not even the exact same line.

 

[22 Stars]

Amen CoveTom, that's precisely what prompted me to start this thread! Spock is famous for saying, 'fascinating' and 'logical/illogical' but he is not famous/fond of saying 'there are always possibilities'. Why? Because he NEVER said it!?

 

[CoveTom]

I suppose this is yet another one of those cases of someone remembering something that was never actually there. Bennett obviously took a variety of things from TOS and remembered them as "there are always possibilities," even though Spock never actually said it.

Just as Kirk never said "beam me up, Scotty"; Joe Friday never said "just the facts, ma'am"; and no one ever said "play it again, Sam" in Casablanca...

 

[22 Stars]

yep, i thought of those too. but this time it's not the fans, it's the producer/writer inserting that back into the diegesis.

 

[Myko]

A similar issue exists with "It's life Jim, but not as we know it", which I've never heard in an episode either.