^Yeah, I've always found it an interesting anomaly that TMP is the only Trek movie in which no phasers are fired. Even in The Voyage Home, the least violent of the Trek movies, Kirk uses his phaser to fuse a lock.
why did the V'ger probe take Ilia?
- Thread starter Borjis
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I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the reason the guard zapping scene was cut was because if it wasn't, Kirk would have had to mention him in the last scene: "List as missing: Captain Decker, Navigator Ilia, and Ensign Redshirt".
^Kirk does include him in the list in the novelization's closing scene, where he's named Security Officer Phillips. The comic has him mention three "missing" crew members without listing names.
"Missing"? Considering that Security Officer Phillips was apparently killed in the line of duty, "missing" sounds like a euphemism. I'm certain his relatives would have liked more substantial information, maybe it's a good thing the scene was deleted to stay clear of such problems.
Bob
Bob
^redshirts don't have relatives.
redshirts aren't real people
redshirts are redshirts
redshirts aren't real people
redshirts are redshirts
Indeed. The Red Shirt has suffered much at the hands of careless writers who saw those people as nothing more than disposable fifth members of the landing party, or phaser/disruptor/knife/spooky alien fodder for invading hostiles. The Red Shirt people are a proud, industrious people who deserve far more than the legacy they've been forced to leave. (Here's a little known fact: Red Shirts were recruited to play the ill-fated crew of the Nostromo in ALIEN! That's right? Ripley was the only gold-shirt! Everyone else? The Company thought: Would anyone really miss them? Would you?
And then, in a misguided attempt to bring some sense of respectability (when Red Shirts commanded it in the first place), the status of the Red Shirt is changed to command status, putting the evil Gold Shirt back down to where the Red Shirts were once forced to exist...cannon/phaser/knife/dark matter fodder....one might see it as justice. But the Red Shirt people were maligned, claiming that they were pegged as demanding "Affirmative Action".
Hey, what about those Blue Shirts?! How come why for they didn't get any kind of mistreatment? Why must the Red Shirt suffer so much? The Red Shirt had its day in the Next Generation...and now...after so much progress had been made, the Red Shirts are set back some fifty years, back to the days of oppression and expendability.
Is....there....no....justice?!!!!!!!
Well, at least nobody used "Redshirts" as the name of a sports team...
(That I know of.)
(That I know of.)
Correct. The closest would be the Red Legs, who no longer exist. Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds and St. John's University's Red Storm are the closest team names I know of today.
--Sran
All kidding aside....it really is a shame we live in such a pussified world, where words cause wounds.
^Or maybe it's a good thing that we live in a world where people stop to think about whether their words are hurtful before they use them.
Perhaps.
I've always tried my best to live by my philosophy that words only last as long as they are spoken. As soon as they are spoken...poof...they vanish. They leave no physical scars or bruises. And only leave other bruises if you allow it.
Most of the time, it works for me. Most of the time.
I've always tried my best to live by my philosophy that words only last as long as they are spoken. As soon as they are spoken...poof...they vanish. They leave no physical scars or bruises. And only leave other bruises if you allow it.
Most of the time, it works for me. Most of the time.
Not to drag things further off topic, but it's rather more complicated when it's an actual ethnic slur like "Redskins," say. Then there's a lot more behind it than just someone being hypersensitive, because in a case like that, the words are just a symptom of actual actions, beliefs, and policies that have harmful effects on a whole culture. One cannot dismiss the impact of hate speech as just a case of the victims being too thin-skinned.
"Redskin" is only an ethnic slur to people who choose to see it that way. The Washington football team was named Redskins partly in honor of their first coach, a Native American (where I come from, Indians still call themselves Indians). My home state of Oklahoma is literally "land of the red man."
People have become soft in the head, and thin-skinned in the process. Sticks and stones, people. Words can't hurt you if you don't let them. Shake it off and come back for another round.
Now, back on topic before some descendant of my ancestors scalps us all.
I can agree there.
Of course, it also doesn't help when folks don't break the stereotypes either.
I have way more Native blood than US Senator Elizabeth Warren, so I will proudly wear the Redskin badge, slur or no. And I will refuse any special treatment from the government or special interest groups because of it. In fact, I'm going to the Redskins website now and buy some merchandise.
That Atlantic article is, in my opinion, trying to sensationalize the issue by using other words that have been rejected by "polite society."
Now, can we finally get back on topic?
That Atlantic article is, in my opinion, trying to sensationalize the issue by using other words that have been rejected by "polite society."
Now, can we finally get back on topic?
Granted, I'll concede that sometimes terms that start out as hate speech can be reclaimed by the groups they were meant to attack, like "gay" and "queer" have been. But that doesn't necessarily make it okay for people outside those groups to use it -- as with the n-word when it's used within the black community versus when it's used by others. I don't see this term being embraced and redeemed by the Native American community -- I see it being used by a white-dominated sports culture to reduce Native Americans to comical mascots, and being too sentimentally attached to their sports iconography to be honest about its problematical aspects.
There can be legitimate grounds for different points of view on this issue, but that's just it -- they're legitimate. On both sides. Lots of people have very genuine reasons for being concerned by such usage, and it's petty and condescending to insult people's intelligence just because you don't agree with them. If you want to explain why you see it differently, fine, but don't dismiss them as "soft in the head" simply for having a different perspective from yours.
There can be legitimate grounds for different points of view on this issue, but that's just it -- they're legitimate. On both sides. Lots of people have very genuine reasons for being concerned by such usage, and it's petty and condescending to insult people's intelligence just because you don't agree with them. If you want to explain why you see it differently, fine, but don't dismiss them as "soft in the head" simply for having a different perspective from yours.
Not to minimize anyone's points about real-world issues, but wow, the wheels have really fallen off this wagon! 
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