"We represent the United Federation of Planets; our mission is a peaceful one, and we want to offer you aid and assistance",... chilling.
Worst lines of dialogue in the entire series?
- Thread starter Mister Atoz
- Start date
That one appalls me too. Even for early Spock, it's incredibly wrong. Wrong for anyone. Probably that is the worst line ever. I'd like to have seen that Evil Spock end up with some green scratches on his face.
Though perhaps he was in early pon farr.
"Captain, I accept on your word that I said it, but I do not know why, nor do I remember saying it."
The one I hate the most is from "The Cage", when Pike, exasperated over his flustering yeoman, says "I can't get used to having a woman on the bridge..." then looks over at Number One, "You're different of course, Number One."
I understand the historical and cultural context, and GR might have even thought he was being progressive about pointing out the woman on the bridge...but in the 23rd century, that would be something new and remarkable? That just seems anachronistic even for 1964. And condescending. And it's not as though she was being incompetent, she was just...nervous, like any young officer on the bridge of a starship might be when it was clearly her first assignment. I don't know, it just always bugged me.
I understand the historical and cultural context, and GR might have even thought he was being progressive about pointing out the woman on the bridge...but in the 23rd century, that would be something new and remarkable? That just seems anachronistic even for 1964. And condescending. And it's not as though she was being incompetent, she was just...nervous, like any young officer on the bridge of a starship might be when it was clearly her first assignment. I don't know, it just always bugged me.
Given when the show was written, it would sound like Picard complaining about kids on the bridge. The audience wouldn't have been overly surprised by the line. It is an idiotic comment since he has a woman on the bridge right in front of him. The apology to Number One just makes it sound patronizing and condescending. Perhaps, Pike was meant to be seen as an ass in regards to women, rather than a a reflection of women in Star Fleet as can be so obviously seen in the presence of Number One?
Hmmmm,
Well these 'horrifically offensive" lines, drafted by those equally offensive writers, are part of the STAR TREK scripts for a reason.
Obviously a man as illuminated as Roddenberry (and the individual writers) just might have been bright enough to understand that
"even in the mysogynistic-lauding mid-1960's of the stone-age", these lines would be deemed offensive to many - as the so-called "Women's Movement" was already well underway in MANY kitchens across America WAY BEFORE STAR TREK aired.
Yep, that's right folks.
And Gloria Stienum's first entered the public consciousness through her mass-media article,.... happened back in,.. are you ready?
1963
That's right, 1963,... a 3 full years before 'The Man Trap' would air.
So why would these intelligent men, leave these offensive lines in?
Were the writers just "stupid"? - some like to think so.
Or, just that naturally mysogynistic, being from that era, and all.
Or, both?
If STAR TREK is "supposed" represent a PROJECTED future of "an advanced culture", exploring space in the 23rd Century - which it was never intended to be -
- surely SOMEONE, ANYONE INVOLVED with the show should have had the mental capacity to PROJECT that upon syndication - meaning in this case: As viewed by future generations - that the dialog cited above, would be deemed even more offensive as time went by.
So, obviously ALL the "potentially offensive dialog which may not meet Broadcast Standards" was written-in for a very specific reason.
Granted, the lines like the one about NUMBER ONE, would pass muster in those days - Check out some Dick Van Dyke shows, now here is Accepted Sexism! - but do not kid yourself that those STAR TREK scripts were not Censored with a fine tooth comb.
But the line was written to TELL you something,.. and it isn't "Sexism is Bad" or "Sexism is Accepted".
Number One was written into to the format as a tool to tell you something,.. and is NOT that "In the future Women and Men will have sex equality",.. again those are the cover stories.
The Censors who totally controlled, and often dictated, the OUTWARD content of "Broadcast Programming" would not allow the REAL story - being the one which is not to be told - to be told,...
Which meant the writes had to work twice as hard to "tell the real story of mankind's future" - hidden within the story: Captain Womanizer battles the Alien Rubber Monster, because they had _______, and that's bad for everyone."
So the writers had to find another way to try to get you to pay attention to the details,... and not the blinky lights and overly-obvious "Moral Lesson" of _______ is bad.
And don't watch the Rubber Monster, he is really just there to distract you - why?, so the writers could hide the real message in the background - while the Censors worried about if the "Average TV viewer" might find the monsters 'Cod piece' obscene, and not stay tuned for the Kellogg's commercial.
The answers - and more - are there,........ you just have to not buy into the "oh well it was the 60's" and _____ism was accepted then" thing,....... and ask yourself, what would they be trying to really say to me by leaving this in the script.
Those are the first places you want to go looking for the truth.
And no,.. NUMBER ONE is NOT there to show you how 'progessive' Roddenberry was trying to be,... that's how it was SOLD,.. that's what they wanted the media to think - which is why the scene seems offensive "in even in its day"
Again, that explanation is the PR cover story,.. and not meant for you.
She is there to illustrate something else - something the Censors would not allow you to be told by the writers.
THAT IS WHY: It makes no sense to say: Look how progressive my show is, we have a woman as 2nd in command because we have sex equality",... then turn around and slap her on the tushy.
No. no. no,... THINK IT THROUGH.
Or,... just figure Roddenberry, et al, were just a bunch of stone-age brutes who could type.
I hope you'll choose the former, and think it through.
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TL;DR.
It's not about stretch fabric - the TOS tunics didn't stretch and weren't pulled on and off over the actors' heads.
The conceit was that the clothing opened in some high tech "magic" fashion. In fact there were invisible zippers in the shoulders.
After Miramanee expresses her puzzlement Kirk reaches up and (apparently) causes the seam of his tunic to just open from the neck down the shoulder seam to the side.
It's not about stretch fabric - the TOS tunics didn't stretch and weren't pulled on and off over the actors' heads.
The conceit was that the clothing opened in some high tech "magic" fashion. In fact there were invisible zippers in the shoulders.
After Miramanee expresses her puzzlement Kirk reaches up and (apparently) causes the seam of his tunic to just open from the neck down the shoulder seam to the side.
Ok, this isn't exactly what you're looking for, because it's not bad in context. But this was extremely creepy and actually happened to me.
Back in the summer of 1988, I was an actor in the summer theater company of what is now the Clinton Area Showboat Theater.
Those of us on the low end of the food chain were getting a hundred bucks.
A month.
Even then, it was a paltry sum. I actually budgeted to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I stayed for four showings because I couldn't afford to pay admission again that summer.
For this, we worked from 8am to 11pm, Monday through Saturday, and then a matinee on Sunday. We worked on everything from costumes to scenery to a couple of minor roles.
To be fair, they were giving us free room. The city owned both the theater and some decent public housing. It was old Army junior officers' quarters: two- or three-bedroom apartments, well-built and well-maintained.
But it was still public housing and the people who lived there were ... unsavory. My first day, as I was dragging my meager belongings upstairs, a man burst out of the buillding. Instants later, a woman who would become my next-door neighber stuck her head out the window and shrieked at him:
"Don't you talk to me 'bout GOD !! I be close to GOD -- muthah-REDACTED!!"
Absolutely true. To do it justice you have to hear my impersonation (there was a dialect and I'm still a passable voice actor). The sheer level of classless trashiness was astounding.
It was still a billion times better than the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Unfortunately, 1988 had a summer drought much worse than in 2012. Global warming my ass. The ground a mile from the Mississippi River shore was dry and cracked. You could put your hand in the cracks.
The heat, like all summers in the Upper Great Plains, often exceeded 105 degrees Fahrenheit in early August. The humidity along the Mississippi, even it its depleted state, was damned close to 100%.
Unfortunately, you can't swim the shores of the Mississippi in that area. I didn't know it at the time, but the Mississippi is so enormous that it naturally accumulates debris, dead fish, and dead wildlife. Unlike oceans or seas, there are no tides. Instead, winds tend to push the flotsam to the shores. Beaches are created by dredging sections and dumping in sand every summer.
I discovered this fact one August day when, drenched in sweat for at least the 18th straight hour, I said, "Screw it!" and dove in with my shorts and t-shirt on.
Shortly afterward I rushed to the shower.
We had no air conditioning. In deference to the fact that normal humans would die watching the play, the AC in the theater was turned on two hours before the doors opened. It was agreed that we break for two hours each day and just hang out in the AC.
Our only other relief came when we got the idea to jimmy the lock to the apartment buildings' substructures. The buildings were essentially propped on stilts: they were one step above barracks, after all. The area under the building was enclosed and the ground was bare earth. It got below 72 degrees there, if you could deal with complete darkness, cobwebs, wiring, plumbing, etc.
In August, I read a lot of comics by flashlight.
Naturally, we slept with every single window open and every fan that we could lay our hands on trained on us. The nights occasionally dipped to the upper 80s.
Now, I told you the preceding because the background is important to what happened one morning our first week there.
I absolutely swear to Great Ghu in Eir Holy Purple Robes that the following event actually took place. I am not exaggerating what happened.
One morning during our first week, as I was stirring to consciousness, I realized that I wasn't hearing my roommate's clock radio.
(Did I mention they bunked us two to a bedroom? So four of us in the junior officers' quarters built for two?)
It wasn't his radio that I was hearing, but it was kind of like music. I was really groggy at first, but I could tell it was sort of like chanting.
Then my conscious brain registered what I was hearing. I sat bolt upright, instantly awake. In moments, my roommate was also awake, registered that I was sitting up, registered what he was hearing, and then sat up himself. We kind of stared at each other while we listened.
Outside, in the common area below our window, the neighborhood children were chanting -- very, very, slowly:
"Nyyyaahhh-nyyyyaahhh-nyyyyyaahhh nnnnyeeahhh-nyeeaahh nyeeeahhhhhh ..."
Both of us were Star Trek fans. We knew we were hearing the Cry of the Onlies.
Gradually, over what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably only two, the chanting picked up speed, ending in a crescendo of:
"NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH!"
We just sat there, dumbfounded. Quietly, so the kids wouldn't hear us, we huddled together and confirmed that we'd both heard the exact same thing. For both of us, it had been one of those moments you go from groggy to instantly alert.
When we looked outside, the common area was silent and empty.
Honest to Ghu: true story.
We might've let the matter drop, but one of the guys in the adjacent building asked if anybody else had heard it. A number of us had, though only my roommate and I knew the source material.
That was the first week. It was a very strange summer.
Dakota Smith
P.S. -
Lest you think the place was filled with love-able eccentrics, it wasn't. There was a a dark side to life in public housing.
We picked up a neighborhood kid about six years old as an unofficial mascot. He loved the theater atmosphere, liked watching us rehearse, liked pounding the occasional nail or running for tools.
During rehearsals, it would occasionally reduce us to hysterics when somebody called out, "Line!" and the six-year-old would shout back from the house. We eventually gave him a small part in our last production, a children's show.
His mom was entirely negligent. Drunk or stoned most of the time, she never had any idea where he was.
After we'd seen enough head-cases roaming the grounds, we actively encouraged him to be with us. The women in the company became motherly, the men fatherly. Someone over 18 always had him in sight. It kept our language a lot cleaner than it ordinarily would have been.
It was heart-breaking when we left when we closed for the season. We all knew that there'd be nobody watching out for him any more.
Back in the summer of 1988, I was an actor in the summer theater company of what is now the Clinton Area Showboat Theater.
Those of us on the low end of the food chain were getting a hundred bucks.
A month.
Even then, it was a paltry sum. I actually budgeted to see Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I stayed for four showings because I couldn't afford to pay admission again that summer.
For this, we worked from 8am to 11pm, Monday through Saturday, and then a matinee on Sunday. We worked on everything from costumes to scenery to a couple of minor roles.
To be fair, they were giving us free room. The city owned both the theater and some decent public housing. It was old Army junior officers' quarters: two- or three-bedroom apartments, well-built and well-maintained.
But it was still public housing and the people who lived there were ... unsavory. My first day, as I was dragging my meager belongings upstairs, a man burst out of the buillding. Instants later, a woman who would become my next-door neighber stuck her head out the window and shrieked at him:
"Don't you talk to me 'bout GOD !! I be close to GOD -- muthah-REDACTED!!"
Absolutely true. To do it justice you have to hear my impersonation (there was a dialect and I'm still a passable voice actor). The sheer level of classless trashiness was astounding.
It was still a billion times better than the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Unfortunately, 1988 had a summer drought much worse than in 2012. Global warming my ass. The ground a mile from the Mississippi River shore was dry and cracked. You could put your hand in the cracks.
The heat, like all summers in the Upper Great Plains, often exceeded 105 degrees Fahrenheit in early August. The humidity along the Mississippi, even it its depleted state, was damned close to 100%.
Unfortunately, you can't swim the shores of the Mississippi in that area. I didn't know it at the time, but the Mississippi is so enormous that it naturally accumulates debris, dead fish, and dead wildlife. Unlike oceans or seas, there are no tides. Instead, winds tend to push the flotsam to the shores. Beaches are created by dredging sections and dumping in sand every summer.
I discovered this fact one August day when, drenched in sweat for at least the 18th straight hour, I said, "Screw it!" and dove in with my shorts and t-shirt on.
Shortly afterward I rushed to the shower.
We had no air conditioning. In deference to the fact that normal humans would die watching the play, the AC in the theater was turned on two hours before the doors opened. It was agreed that we break for two hours each day and just hang out in the AC.
Our only other relief came when we got the idea to jimmy the lock to the apartment buildings' substructures. The buildings were essentially propped on stilts: they were one step above barracks, after all. The area under the building was enclosed and the ground was bare earth. It got below 72 degrees there, if you could deal with complete darkness, cobwebs, wiring, plumbing, etc.
In August, I read a lot of comics by flashlight.
Naturally, we slept with every single window open and every fan that we could lay our hands on trained on us. The nights occasionally dipped to the upper 80s.
Now, I told you the preceding because the background is important to what happened one morning our first week there.
I absolutely swear to Great Ghu in Eir Holy Purple Robes that the following event actually took place. I am not exaggerating what happened.
One morning during our first week, as I was stirring to consciousness, I realized that I wasn't hearing my roommate's clock radio.
(Did I mention they bunked us two to a bedroom? So four of us in the junior officers' quarters built for two?)
It wasn't his radio that I was hearing, but it was kind of like music. I was really groggy at first, but I could tell it was sort of like chanting.
Then my conscious brain registered what I was hearing. I sat bolt upright, instantly awake. In moments, my roommate was also awake, registered that I was sitting up, registered what he was hearing, and then sat up himself. We kind of stared at each other while we listened.
Outside, in the common area below our window, the neighborhood children were chanting -- very, very, slowly:
"Nyyyaahhh-nyyyyaahhh-nyyyyyaahhh nnnnyeeahhh-nyeeaahh nyeeeahhhhhh ..."
Both of us were Star Trek fans. We knew we were hearing the Cry of the Onlies.
Gradually, over what seemed like fifteen minutes but was probably only two, the chanting picked up speed, ending in a crescendo of:
"NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH! NYAH-NYAH-NYAH NYAH-NYAH NYAH!"
We just sat there, dumbfounded. Quietly, so the kids wouldn't hear us, we huddled together and confirmed that we'd both heard the exact same thing. For both of us, it had been one of those moments you go from groggy to instantly alert.
When we looked outside, the common area was silent and empty.
Honest to Ghu: true story.
We might've let the matter drop, but one of the guys in the adjacent building asked if anybody else had heard it. A number of us had, though only my roommate and I knew the source material.
That was the first week. It was a very strange summer.
Dakota Smith
P.S. -
Lest you think the place was filled with love-able eccentrics, it wasn't. There was a a dark side to life in public housing.
We picked up a neighborhood kid about six years old as an unofficial mascot. He loved the theater atmosphere, liked watching us rehearse, liked pounding the occasional nail or running for tools.
During rehearsals, it would occasionally reduce us to hysterics when somebody called out, "Line!" and the six-year-old would shout back from the house. We eventually gave him a small part in our last production, a children's show.
His mom was entirely negligent. Drunk or stoned most of the time, she never had any idea where he was.
After we'd seen enough head-cases roaming the grounds, we actively encouraged him to be with us. The women in the company became motherly, the men fatherly. Someone over 18 always had him in sight. It kept our language a lot cleaner than it ordinarily would have been.
It was heart-breaking when we left when we closed for the season. We all knew that there'd be nobody watching out for him any more.
Captain Tracy ~ "Horrifically offensive?" I don't think so.
Star Trek was coping with the absolutely novel idea of women in the military. Not just feminism in general, but it placed women in military roles, command roles. This was a radical idea at the time, and you can see Star Trek grappling with the roles of women EVERYWHERE, especially in the first season.
First, it's the very awkward Pike line about Number One. Number One does a double take. First because Pike says he can’t get used to having a woman on the bridge, and second because he says “you’re different”. The implication of the discourse is that Number One cannot be both feminine and in a command role.
Then Gary Mitchell's crack about Dr Dehner being a "walking freezer unit". Meanwhile Gary Mitchell is hugging that female officer on the bridge as they're just about to get clobbered by the barrier. It was confusing and inappropriate -- affection is something you don't display in a military setting, because it impairs discipline. But in the pilot to the show, (Where No Man), they hadn't quite figured that out.
As with Charlie X and Mudd's Women, the writers couldn't decide whether women were a sexy foil for the stories or something else. They put in sexy Yeoman Rand and that wasn't right either -- she only lasted a few episodes. A female yeoman keeps interfering with the ability to write romantic relationships into the scripts, as we saw with "Dagger of the Mind" and Helen Noel.
Captain Tracy -- I'm responding primarily to your long post.
regards
~ Mister Atoz
Star Trek was coping with the absolutely novel idea of women in the military. Not just feminism in general, but it placed women in military roles, command roles. This was a radical idea at the time, and you can see Star Trek grappling with the roles of women EVERYWHERE, especially in the first season.
First, it's the very awkward Pike line about Number One. Number One does a double take. First because Pike says he can’t get used to having a woman on the bridge, and second because he says “you’re different”. The implication of the discourse is that Number One cannot be both feminine and in a command role.
Then Gary Mitchell's crack about Dr Dehner being a "walking freezer unit". Meanwhile Gary Mitchell is hugging that female officer on the bridge as they're just about to get clobbered by the barrier. It was confusing and inappropriate -- affection is something you don't display in a military setting, because it impairs discipline. But in the pilot to the show, (Where No Man), they hadn't quite figured that out.
As with Charlie X and Mudd's Women, the writers couldn't decide whether women were a sexy foil for the stories or something else. They put in sexy Yeoman Rand and that wasn't right either -- she only lasted a few episodes. A female yeoman keeps interfering with the ability to write romantic relationships into the scripts, as we saw with "Dagger of the Mind" and Helen Noel.
Captain Tracy -- I'm responding primarily to your long post.
regards
~ Mister Atoz
ATOZ - The quotes were used to indicate that was not my personal feeling, but of other posts above mine - mostly citing the line from 'THE ENEMY WITHIN' as offensive; used an an example of reaction people are having, instead of asking why would the writers put kind of dialog in - being, one of the key points of my post.
I grabbed the 'THE CAGE' post not to illustrate that posters comment specifically, but to bring a differnt the scene in question - to make the second point of my post.
Both were drawn together to answer WHY many people feel certain dialog, or character dynamics appear "dated", or "awkward" by today's standards; when in-point-of-fact, the dialog and dynamics chosen very carefully and purposefully to make another point beyond the overtly obvious being stated on screen.
Perhaps, I might suggest you read it again in that light.
I appreciate to your post, and thank you for you input on mine.
To me, those sexist and/or misogynistic lines in TOS always seemed identical in tone and content to many of Gene Roddenberry's memos reprinted in The Making of Star Trek and even to several passages in the original Star Trek Writer's Guide. I always figured it was just vintage Roddenberry, a guy who, even as late as the development of TNG, was allegedly proposing a three-breasted Deanna Troi character.
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Yeah, well, GR was something of a swine. I've never understood the hero worship.
Well, it kind of went down like this: we didn't know he was a swine until the late 1990s. The memoirs and biographies after GR's death shed light on his failings in a way that would have been impossible when he was alive.
It's not over-stating the case that in the 1970s, some fans thought of TOS as deeply spiritual. GR, as creator, became a near-prophet.
It went to his head, I think, and wasn't good for him professionally nor personally.
It was really evident by TNG. By then Star Trek had become "Gene's Vision." It all had to have his personal stamp of approval (or that of his attorney). He went so far as to intentionally make TNG unrealistically devoid of interpersonal conflict.
TNG sucked while GR actively produced it. It wasn't until he essentially retired that it got better.
At the time, it was the culmination of decades of hero-worship. We didn't really know the gory details until after he died. They just couldn't tell the stories while he was alive, and now that Majel's passed as well, even more stories can be told.
What will be really interesting is if Grace Lee Whitney ever divulges the name of the "executive" she claims sexually assaulted her. I have a hunch it was GR.
Dakota Smith
Okay, I give up. What were the writers really secretly trying to tell us? That Roddenberry was a pervert?
BOREDCAPTAIN: "Give up",.. well those are sad words; however, often what phrase is often spoken by those who really do not even try.
I provided you with the questions, and how to look at the stores to understand where to dig for the whispered story being told in the background - but you have to do the digging for yourself.
Too often the viewer has mistaken the misdirection of the overt story as the point of the story the writers are really trying to tell you about.
As I explained before, if something seems out of place, or out of context, THAT is the the first place to begin you search - do the research - THINK IT THROUGH -turn off to the detractors and distractors,.. and do not stop at the "E PLEB NEESTA" common interpretations,.. ANOTHER RODDENBERRY WARNING SO OFTEN MISSED,.. dig until all the puzzle pieces fit to reveal a cohesive picture.
Case in point: MIRROR, MIRROR. If you stop digging at the conclusion that the story was written to only say: "Imperialism is bad" when reflected against the image of our "good" way of 'doing business', you have not dug far enough; thus minimizing and missing the message of this work to a descriptor for the 'Alternate 'evil' universe',..
The major clue lies in the Title itself, but you must dig into its origin (remember these writers word choice is very specific), you will learn it actually is a truncated question from Snow White; being, "WHO IS THE FAIREST IN TH LAND?"
The writer is asking you to answer the question FOR YOURSELF.
By 'turning the telescope around', and answering the questions, the answers will become apparent.
Case in Point: RETURN OF THE ARCHONS. Again, the major clue is missed by those who just except the cover story, and totally miss the literally GLARING ROAD SIGN left (in this Roddenberry original story), being the self-luminous light panel.
Again, if taking the opinion that it is only there as a device to foreshadow the reveal of the Landru Technology,.. again, DIG DEEPER. Research what a real ARCHON is, and do not stop at the greek definition of 'Ruler, Lord, God',.. but dig, dig, dig,.. into the GNOSTIC ARCHON TEXTS,.. then go back and watch the story, and see if you have become "ILLUMINATED" as to the whole story - past, present, and future of mankind Roddenberry is trying to tell, over, and over again.
I will close by paraphrasing Dr. Zaius' final warning to the archeologist Cornelius, from Planet of the Apes: "Be careful what you dig for, you may not like what you find."
Good luck to you, if you decide to do the work for yourself, and seek those answers - that's why they were placed there, for you to discover.
Seek the truth, or simply sit back and go along with the crowd that Roddenberry and company were just clumsy typists and "pigs",.. that requires no effort.
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After researching what that is, I can only say, you have totally missed the point.
That simple MIRROR, MIRROR example serves to illustrate one of the most glaring examples,.. which literally BEGS the answer of the question:
"Between the so-called Evil, and the so-called Good, which is TRULY is the fairest in the Land?
But, I guess if one does not THINK about why these writers choose the words they do, one can also ONLY come to ONE conclusion - which is not the deeper truth.
Exactly why it would make good reasoning to cast LIBERACE as a proposed substitute actor for the role AtoZ,..
Again,, you have to ask the question, you must dig, dig, dig,.... LIBER, a Latin noun (genative LIBRI, 2nd declination) = BOOK,.. ACE a colloquialism for EXPERT,... A BOOK EXPERT is exactly what a Librarian should be
False conclusions, preconceived prejudices of the mind and non-though-out assumptions, make clear vision impossible - and will hide the inner-stories from those who do not have the eyes to see.
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Of course, and in both universes the Spocks are doing everything they can to get their Kirks back. Hence, why she can be cast off so easily, she's gone once they have their respective other halves back.
