Walter Koenig on Shat's Raw Nerve

[Admiral James Kirk]

Re: Takei's Fulla Shit!

Another accusation was his flubbing his lines over and over so the scene about Sulu's promotion to captain had to be deleted from (I think) TWOK.

Such obvious bullshit. Here's the lines:

SULU
(embarrassed)
I am delighted; any chance to go
aboard Enterprise, however briefly,
is always an excuse for nostalgia.

KIRK
I cut your new orders personally. By
the end of the month, you'll have your
first command: USS EXCELSIOR.

SULU
Thank you, sir. I've looked
forward to this for a long time.

KIRK
You've earned it. But I'm still
grateful to have you at the helm
for three weeks. I don't believe
these kids can steer.

Sulu laughs.

How the fuck can he flub those lines? Its two lines. What's more portions of those two lines made it into the movie. The only thing missing is the promotion stuff. How can he partially flub the dialogue? Watching the movie there's nothing wrong with his line delivery in that scene and I'm referring to the portions of this dialogue that made it in. He's not rolling his eyes or speaking woodenly. He's quite good.

So was the reason those lines were cut because Shatner fucked them up?

Not a chance!

Obviously Meyer cut them because they were completely extraneous to the scene and the film. I suspect Meyer wrote those lines to get Takei on board and then cut them in post. He's not above that sort of behavior. Everyone remember the "Let them die!" gripe Shatner has with Meyer on TUC? Meyer will say whatever he has to if he wants you to perform and then he'll do whatever he wants in editing.

Takei bitching about Meyer won't sell books or make headline so it makes sense that he's taking the piss out on Shatner for something that was the director's fault.

 

[Brian]

It's amusing to see how many authorities we have on what really happened, considering none of us were actually there, lol.

Not that it matters either way. It is what it is. It just seems to me that people don't form lifelong grudges out of thin air.

 

[Merky]

The most common one is simply Shatner taking lines or rewriting lines so that his character, Kirk, didn't look like an idiot even if reasonably within the character's expertise. Quoting from "I am Spock" since I have the audiobook on me at work atm:

" Bill's concern was that Spock was getting ahead of Kirk in problem solving. Of course the Vulcan's primary job as science officer was to do research and gather data. But Bill worried that Kirk would seem unintelligent by contrast and so lines of dialogue which logically been Spock's soon became Kirk's.

I addressed the situation in a memo to Roddenberry dated Feb. 21, 1968 which says in part: Believe me I know that peace and harmony is vital in a series situation, but must it be reduced to this?

Spock enters the bridge. He approaches the captain's chair.

Spock: Captain, I believe I found the--

Kirk: The answer, Mr. Spock?

Spock: Yes, Captain. I am convinced the planet is--

Kirk: Infested, Mr. Spock?

Spock: Yes, Captain. With a rare and unique disease which is capable of--

Kirk: Making itself invisible to our sensors, Mr. Spock?

Spock: Precisely, Captain.

Kirk: Exactly what I had expected, Mr. Spock! Good work! What are the odds?

Spock: Approximately 47.1 to 3, Captain.

Kirk: I'll take that chance! Prepare phasers, Mr. Sulu!

Please, Gene. Let Kirk be a giant among men, let him be the best captain in the fleet, let him be the greatest lover in the fleet, let him be capable of emerging from a brawl with five men twice his size but above all let him be a leader which to me means letting his subordinates keep their dignity.

Roddenberry tried to smooth that one over but the problem kept occurring. Those were hectic and exhausting times and both Bill and I were under enormous stress so some tension was inevitable."

Nimoy fought for his character and he had an advantage because he was his co-star. However that may have not been the case for the other actors because they did not have the weight Nimoy had. Again, they were replaceable....

... and of course they became great friends through that tension because they worked with each other for those long hours 6 days a week.

It just seems to me that people don't form lifelong grudges out of thin air.

Agreed. I don't think it's a lifetime of grudges, I think the squabbling died by the time of VI for some. Or at least that's what it looked like on the behind the scene footage with the wrap up party. The stories continue to live on but the personal vendetta is long gone.

" Remember that time when... "

Yeah...

 

[Tomalak]

Good points upthread about the interchangeability of the characters. Well, I say "characters", but clearly that is a generous term. They were caricatures, little else, and the new movie shows this really well I think.

Scotty was the Scot who drank Scotch and called the engines his "wee bairns". Chekov was the hot-headed Russian kid who thinks everything was invented in Russia. Both are comic relief by and large, and are used in precisely the same way in the movie.

Sulu's... kinda boring. Except for that episode where he runs about with his shirt off waving a sword. That's basically the only memorable scene he ever had, which is why Trek 2009's Sulu is a master sword-fighter. Otherwise, what else is there to say? He's the pilot...

Uhura's the interesting one, she was basically just window dressing on the show, but becomes an integral character in the film, because they needed a female lead. She essentially displaces McCoy, who doesn't really do much in the film either. He becomes redundant with the film about Kirk and Spock.

They became memorable and recognisable because they were one-note archetypes. Their roles could have been given to any extra (and often were), but they reinforce the idea that it's an international space ship. That's their only real function on the show. But I think it's also true that Roddenberry sold them a load of lies about the importance of their characters, when he knew full-well it was going to be about Kirk, Spock and to a lesser extent, McCoy.

 

[Merky]

Uhura's the interesting one, she was basically just window dressing on the show, but becomes an integral character in the film, because they needed a female lead. She essentially displaces McCoy, who doesn't really do much in the film either. He becomes redundant with the film about Kirk and Spock.

How does she displace McCoy? She is the McCoy to Kirk's Spock. She turns the trifecta into a Four Temperament Ensemble. Besides having two emotional scenes with Spock, what else did she do that upstaged McCoy? Her character was to be the emotional canvas for Spock, McCoy's was to get Kirk on the ship and say a bunch of cranky lines.

What her characterization did in the movie was to give Spock a partner on his side to counterbalance Kirk and McCoy's relationship. I do not see her pushing McCoy out of the way in the movie and hopefully XII will take advantage of this and make it something great.

I completely blame Uhura's lack of characterization and glorified position as resident bridge set piece on racism and misogyny. White yeomans on the show had more personality in one episode than Uhura did in 79 episodes.

But I think it's also true that Roddenberry sold them a load of lies about the importance of their characters, when he knew full-well it was going to be about Kirk, Spock and to a lesser extent, McCoy.

I agree there. Star Trek was pitched as the Wagon Train in Space, not the whole " Breaking down the barriers story of overcoming racism and living in a peaceful society ". Hell, the Writer's Guide explicitly stated to avoid stories that take place on Earth. Really? Trying to tackle racism? They avoided the issue directly at all costs. Blah... another rant for another day.

 

[Tomalak]

Uhura's the interesting one, she was basically just window dressing on the show, but becomes an integral character in the film, because they needed a female lead. She essentially displaces McCoy, who doesn't really do much in the film either. He becomes redundant with the film about Kirk and Spock.

How does she displace McCoy? She is the McCoy to Kirk's Spock. She turns the trifecta into a Four Temperament Ensemble. Besides having two emotional scenes with Spock, what else did she do that upstaged McCoy? Her character was to be the emotional canvas for Spock, McCoy's was to get Kirk on the ship and say a bunch of cranky lines.

What her characterization did in the movie was to give Spock a partner on his side to counterbalance Kirk and McCoy's relationship. I do not see her pushing McCoy out of the way in the movie and hopefully XII will take advantage of this and make it something great.

You seem to think McCoy had an important role in the film, but I'd argue he's just there because you can't have Star Trek without McCoy. He's never indispensable in this plotline the way Uhura is to the two main characters - decoding the Klingon transmission and backing up Kirk, and then giving Spock an emotional foil.

McCoy's just given a character moment like Sulu is - the business about getting Kirk on the ship didn't have to be McCoy, Kirk could have snuck on some other way.

Uhura's obviously the more prominent character. She's on the movie poster for one thing!

 

[Merky]

Uhura's the interesting one, she was basically just window dressing on the show, but becomes an integral character in the film, because they needed a female lead. She essentially displaces McCoy, who doesn't really do much in the film either. He becomes redundant with the film about Kirk and Spock.

How does she displace McCoy? She is the McCoy to Kirk's Spock. She turns the trifecta into a Four Temperament Ensemble. Besides having two emotional scenes with Spock, what else did she do that upstaged McCoy? Her character was to be the emotional canvas for Spock, McCoy's was to get Kirk on the ship and say a bunch of cranky lines.

What her characterization did in the movie was to give Spock a partner on his side to counterbalance Kirk and McCoy's relationship. I do not see her pushing McCoy out of the way in the movie and hopefully XII will take advantage of this and make it something great.

You seem to think McCoy had an important role in the film, but I'd argue he's just there because you can't have Star Trek without McCoy. He's never indispensable in this plotline the way Uhura is to the two main characters - decoding the Klingon transmission and backing up Kirk, and then giving Spock an emotional foil.

McCoy's just given a character moment like Sulu is - the business about getting Kirk on the ship didn't have to be McCoy, Kirk could have snuck on some other way.

Uhura's obviously the more prominent character. She's on the movie poster for one thing!

I don't actually. His role was pretty much there for what has been expressed. It also helped that Karl Urban played the hell out of that character.

I don't view Uhura's character as one that is upstaging Bones. All her "big" scenes was with Spock as all of Bones' "shining" moments was with Kirk. They balanced out, in my opinion.

As for her being on the cover, girl power? They need to attract females to the movies and since Uhura is the only female in the movie then well... there you go. Besides, when has Bones appeared on a movie poster? TMP had Illia in the center, TWOK had Saavik... etc etc until TOC, then he gets his own top billing head shot.

... but now we are severely off topic... lol.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Okay, I hear so much about unspoken accustations toward Shatner. What are the specific complaints? What are these terrible, terrible actions he took? I want to hear the horror, so that I can judge the merits.

To some, they aren't so terrible. To others, absolutely untenable and unprofessional.

An example: when Shatner did a love scene, or an intimate conversation, his closeup scenes would be filmed first. He was, after all, the star. Then they'd shoot the woman's closeups. As a joke - haw, haw, haw - Shatner would often deliberately go cross-eyed, to make his partner laugh. He would allow people to assume it was a joke but, in the editing room, chances were that Kirk's scenes were more usable than the hapless actress's.

I have heard versions of this story from ST women such as Grace Lee Whitney and a rather bemused/feisty Yvonne Craig (Marta). At the time of the original incidents, it was passed off as jocularity on the set. Decades later, after having swapped anecdotes with other actors at conventions, many of Shatner's co-stars seemed to become aware that this was a common strategy by Shatner to steal scenes.

George Takei tells a similar story about his "promotion to captain of Excelsior" scene in ST II, that had to be dumped because none of Shatner's scenes turned out to be usable. Takei felt that Shatner had seemingly deliberately flubbed his reaction shots so that Takei would get his little limelight scene.

Its two lines. What's more portions of those two lines made it into the movie. The only thing missing is the promotion stuff. How can he partially flub the dialogue?

Easy. Supposedly he slurred parts of the lines he said on-camera; the bits he didn't really want to be said about Sulu's promotion. And (his usual trick) crossed his eyes when Takei tried to deliver his. A small group of us heard this anecdote from several people (including Takei) who were there - years before the feud went public.

Doohan also told stories of Kirk convincing directors that "Scotty doesn't really need to be in this scene". And so on.

Earlier, people mentioned that Robin Curtis and Mark Lenard have practised Shatner bashing at conventions. Considering they were often mentioned as "the nicest of people" by fans who've seen them at conventions, their encounters may have quite horrendous to begin regaling their anti-Shatner tales on stage.

 

[Pauln6]

I completely blame Uhura's lack of characterization and glorified position as resident bridge set piece on racism and misogyny. White yeomans on the show had more personality in one episode than Uhura did in 79 episodes.

That's not quite true. A few of the yeomen had glimmers of personalities but others had very little. And at least two of them were not white. Grace Lee Whitney is in a slightly different category because she was the principle female lead and Charlie X, for example, was a story written to showcase her character. Only half of her appearances could be categorised as more than window dressing but she should get some credit because even in the small roles she managed to stand out (including one scene where her only line was cut).

By comparison, much of Uhura's role was window dressing but she has more than enough personality in those episodes where she was given a larger role e.g. Man Trap, Charlie X, Mirror Mirror etc. Her big scene in Star Trek III was great too - you really can't say that the character had less personality than random yeoman 4! By contrast, Saldana's characterisation seems to have less of a mischievous sense of humour, which is a shame.

 

[Shatner_Fan]

Therin of Andor ... so you're saying that for decades, Shatner was delivering the dreaded eye cross to foil actors all over Hollywood? And in Star Trek II, he was not only crossing eyes, but slurring too?? Wow, who knows what Nick Meyer was thinking when he allowed that? I guess everyone thought Bill showed up for work drunk? LOL.

This all sounds like a bunch of tall tales to me.

 

[Tomalak]

I thought the Takei/Star Trek II conspiracy theory had been debunked? It's simply edited because it's a slightly odd exchange that doesn't offer anything, especially considering no mention is made in subsequent movies until he suddenly appears on the Excelsior in the opening of Star Trek VI. That's why it wasn't put back in the director's cut (along with the Saavik/Romulan scene), because it was no longer valid.

Maybe they should just release the deleted scene once and for all!

 

[Brian]

That seems to assume that subsequent movies were written before TWOK was filmed.

If the scene was cut, subsequent movies had to ignore the promotion, since it never happened.

 

[Merky]

I completely blame Uhura's lack of characterization and glorified position as resident bridge set piece on racism and misogyny. White yeomans on the show had more personality in one episode than Uhura did in 79 episodes.

That's not quite true. A few of the yeomen had glimmers of personalities but others had very little. And at least two of them were not white. Grace Lee Whitney is in a slightly different category because she was the principle female lead and Charlie X, for example, was a story written to showcase her character. Only half of her appearances could be categorised as more than window dressing but she should get some credit because even in the small roles she managed to stand out (including one scene where her only line was cut).

By comparison, much of Uhura's role was window dressing but she has more than enough personality in those episodes where she was given a larger role e.g. Man Trap, Charlie X, Mirror Mirror etc. Her big scene in Star Trek III was great too - you really can't say that the character had less personality than random yeoman 4! By contrast, Saldana's characterisation seems to have less of a mischievous sense of humour, which is a shame.

There are still many episodes where the Girl of the Week had more personality than Uhura. Besides her moments of glory in S1, you can not say that Uhura by the end of S3 became nothing more than a simple set piece with some "tiny" moments to say something more than hailing frequencies. Uhura was simply not treated with the care and consideration as many of the other actresses who came on and left.

And it's sad that Uhura's "moment of glory" took nearly 18 years to happen in Star Trek III. Then she disappears for the remainder of the movie.

I do feel that, compared to everyone else on that cast, she had less lines, less defining screen time, and zero-to-none development in her 3 years. In the movies she gets a lot of development and I'm grateful for that as a fan but in the show? It's sometimes laughable.

But to roll it back on topic...

 

[mb22]

[Besides, when has Bones appeared on a movie poster? TMP had Illia in the center, TWOK had Saavik... etc etc until TOC, then he gets his own top billing head shot.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/004-the_voyage_home_poster_art.png

 

[Merky]

[Besides, when has Bones appeared on a movie poster? TMP had Illia in the center, TWOK had Saavik... etc etc until TOC, then he gets his own top billing head shot.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/004-the_voyage_home_poster_art.png

?

 

[Brian]

Interesting, except for the fact that what mb22 posted was the actual movie poster art, and that's a DVD cover.

 

[Merky]

There's also this one too...

There's several movie posters used, but the primary used on all media is the one that stands out amongst all. The one that the public most identifies with. Which is the point to be made - the poster art used on Wikipedia for STXI features the entire cast yet the one used on all media only features U/K/S.

And even in that one, McCoy still doesn't have top billing head shot like all the other posters which still goes back to my initial argument that McCoy never had top billing headshot until VI. Just saying...

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I thought the Takei/Star Trek II conspiracy theory had been debunked? It's simply edited because it's a slightly odd exchange that doesn't offer anything, especially considering no mention is made in subsequent movies until he suddenly appears on the Excelsior in the opening of Star Trek VI. That's why it wasn't put back in the director's cut (along with the Saavik/Romulan scene), because it was no longer valid.

Maybe they should just release the deleted scene once and for all!

I think the only one in the Trek production community who ever had a hard on for Sulu to captain his own ship was George Takei. It always seemed like a boneheaded idea to me. It would require every subsequent Trek movie to either jump through hoops to figure some way to get Sulu on board the Enterprise, make the movie a "two-ship" story, or simply omit the Sulu character altogther.

I'm reluctant to believe that Takei was so short-sighted and vain that he would damage his character's viability just for the sake of some fictional rank. Which is why I suspect his real intent was to pave the way for a future "Captain Sulu" TV series by showing he could handle the center seat.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I completely blame Uhura's lack of characterization and glorified position as resident bridge set piece on racism and misogyny.

Actually, I suspect Nichols was relegated to the background pretty much for the same reason Majel Barrett was. Don't forget: the first time Roddenberry tried to hire Barrett, it was for a lead role ("Number One") and TPTB at NBC wouldn't have it. Roddenberry always claimed it was because NBC didn't want a woman in command, but just about everyone else in any position to know says it was because they didn't want him trying to make series leads out of his mistresses.

 

[Noname Given]

I completely blame Uhura's lack of characterization and glorified position as resident bridge set piece on racism and misogyny.

Actually, I suspect Nichols was relegated to the background pretty much for the same reason Majel Barrett was. Don't forget: the first time Roddenberry tried to hire Barrett, it was for a lead role ("Number One") and TPTB at NBC wouldn't have it. Roddenberry always claimed it was because NBC didn't want a woman in command, but just about everyone else in any position to know says it was because they didn't want him trying to make series leads out of his mistresses.

Not to mention the fact that they didn'tr think Majel Barret had the acting 'chops' to carry a lead role on a series; and further, what would happen if GR and MB BROKE UP during production of the series - you'd have an EP and a Second Lead with issues on the most costly TV series to date (Yes the Exercs were also VERY aware of the production price tag - and yes I know everyone talks abou Star Trek's 'shoestring budget' - but in 1966 terms the TOS budget was far fron 'shoesting'; and for it's time some of TOS effects shots rival some of 2001: A Space Oddessey; so GR's claimn of "The Execs were unenlightened Mysoginists who did want a woman as second in Command..." was so GR didn't have to say: "They were unconfortable that I cast my Mistress in a second-lead role for my show...", as I doubt that would get any 'fan sympathy'.