What Scene Drives You Crazy

Knives is how the viewing audience interprets the image Sulu was seeing. It was actually something much more frightening and meant to cow Sulu into compliance. To Sulu, the threat it represented was so personal and intimate that he had no choice but to maintain course.

 

The way I thought of the Medusan--was that it was the offspring of Daoloth:

Daoloth (The Render of Veils or The Parter of Veils) dwells in dimensions beyond the three we know.
Daoloth's indescribable shape causes viewers to go mad at the sight of him

More:
http://lovecraft.wikia.com/wiki/Daoloth

 

Nah, there's no indication of that. No dialog or shot supports it. We see exactly what Uhura sees, Kirk describes exactly what he himself sees in his "fear" scene, so Sulu saw knives. As a kid, I merely justified that as "he fences, so he fears Space Swords." I was 4, so that made sense.

 

But I have to wonder, what else could they do? The sight of a Medusan is supposed to cause humans to lose their minds. If they tried to actually present that on screen, much of the audience would say "Oh come on, that's not so bad." I think it pretty much had to be represented abstractly if it was going to be shown. Some productions might just show people reacting to it and never portray what they saw, so I give TOS credit for trying to show something. Some aspects of that episode are problematic for me, but not that.

 

I don't know. I'm presuming that when Ralph Senensky visualized the episode in pre-production, he must have had some other visual representation of the Medusan in mind.

 

I really can't think of any SB... but I agree that there should have been way more nerve pinches...

 

I work with some people that I'd like to neck pinch.

 

Any time Kirk gets grabby. It's positively unpleasant to watch.

 

Don't we all?

And... am I the only one who's tried to do it?

 

I haven't tried the neck pinch, but I have used the Kirk drop kick successfully.

 

^^

 

That interesting because in an episode of Lost In Space called The Golden Man, they encounter two aliens. One is ugly, abrasive and not likeable and one is beautiful, silver tongued, and very likeable. Guess which one turns out to be evil?

 

^ "Herbert! Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!"

 

The scene which never fails to aggravate me is a notorious one from a pretty good episode: the end of "The Galileo Seven." Now, two crew members have just died and five others barely escaped alive. But even so, if they wanted to end on a light moment, I could live with that. But the way they over-play the laughter at one barely humorous line, staggering around, holding their sides, wiping their eyes... I hate it.

 

I don't want to knock a actor but something I have noticed is sometimes when Scotty is talking about how the ship is in danger I get the feeling the actor is reading off a cue card. I never noticed this when I was younger but now it something I have a hard time not noticing.
That also brings up some of the reasons for the ship to be disabled or some tech not to be working really does feel over the top at times, creating a sense of false danger.

Jason

 

One scene that always bothered me was Kirk and Spock's seemingly indifference to the fate of the Scalosians at the end of "Wink of An Eye."

KIRK: What do you want us to do with you?
DEELA: Don't make a game of it, Captain. We've lost.
KIRK: If I sent you to Scalos, you'd undoubtedly play the same trick on the next spaceship that passed by.
DEELA: There won't be any others. You'll warn them. Your federation will quarantine the entire area.
KIRK: Yes, I suppose it would.
DEELA: And we will die and solve your problem that way. And ours.
[Cut to Transporter room]
DEELA: Now, what about your problem, Captain, and your Vulcan friend?
SPOCK: If you will devote yourself exclusively to the concerns of Scalos, madam, we shall be pleased to remain and take care of the Enterprise.

So Deela tells Kirk that the Scalosians will just die off, so 'nothing for you to worry about, Jimmy boy.' and how does the debonair captain reply? By offering Federation assistance? By assuring her that the Federation won't allow them to die off?

No and no! HE. SAYS. NOTHING. In trying to imagine what the silent Kirk must be thinking, somehow George C. Scott's line near the end of Patton about members of the Nazi Party being just like Americans joining the Democratic and Republican parties rings in my ears:

"Yes, that's about right."

Cold!

And what about Spock? The last line of dialog above might as well read:

SPOCK: If you will devote yourself exclusively to dying off, madam, we shall be pleased to remain and take care of the Enterprise.

Again, cold!

 

But, you were crazy before that scene drove you crazy.

 

I like G7 too, but it has one completely idiotic scene. Spock and McCoy are outside the ship with Boma performing a burial service. The Neanderthaloids attack and a spear lands nearby.

Spock yells "go, take off! Leave without me!" or something inane and over dramatic like that all so he can GO PICK UP THE GIANT SPEAR AND MOVE IT 5 FEET. For..no reason.

But drama.

 

#uck the Scalosians, bro. That's why.

 

More along the lines of "Maybe you should try to look for solutions that don't involve harming others who had nothing to do with it."

Kirk's trying not to encourage Deela to continue doing what she did to them. It's another bluff. She's darn fortunate a Federation Starfleet ship happened upon them and not somebody with fewer scruples about what constitutes an acceptable response to the incident. Note that Kirk doesn't answer her question. He lets her think what she does for now. But he does recognize that they ought to have help, and if significant help was offered, they wouldn't feel the need to resort to such tactics. With the water having an antidote, Federation scientists can, in order to interact with the Scalosians in "real time", drink it and be very careful, then take the antidote afterwards. Or they can just communicate in a series of delayed messages. Any samples needed can be taken by the Scalosians and left for the doctors to analyze.