Worthless Observation- Elaan of Troyius

[Zycho32]

Anyway, if you have the Episode, go to the Portion of the Episode before the Main Title/Credits and focus on the scene in the Transporter Room.

Operating the Transporter is regular bit player Frank Da Vinci, apparently playing Crewman Vinci. This isn't an uncommon role for Frank- it's quite possible he was shown in as many episodes operating the Transporter as even Lieutenant Kyle was. Anyway, that's not the discovery I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the fact they gave him a Lieutenant Commander Rank for this scene. If you look carefully, you can catch it. Apparently it was meant to match up with the closeup of the Transporter being activated- which naturally are supposed to be Scott's hands. That might very well make Vinci yet another of the anonymous Command Rank personnel that are promptly forgotten.

 

[Christopher]

^^Okay, nice catch. But you might want to change your signature, because it's 100% wrong. The New Horizons spacecraft is already en route for Pluto, slated to arrive in 2015. In fact, it was launched two years ago this Saturday, eight months before Pluto was redesignated a dwarf planet. And either way, there is absolutely no reason why planet status would have any bearing on whether a body gets explored; we have sent probes to many subplanetary bodies, including most of the major moons of the Solar System and various asteroids and comets. Scientists are interested in everything, not just one narrow category of things.

 

[Forbin]

In fact, there's a probe soon to be launched to study Ceres and Vesta. It will be the first spacecraft to orbit a body for a period, break orbit, and enter orbit around a second body.

 

[Christopher]

^^Actually the Vesta/Ceres probe, Dawn, was launched back in September. It's currently in interplanetary cruise mode, and here's where it is now:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/live_shots.asp

 

[Forbin]

Couldn't remember if it was on its way yet or not, tanks.

 

[TGTheodore]

Wouldn't have noticed. This was one of the bottom five TOS episodes for me.

--Ted

 

[Zycho32]

Oh right, my signiture. Haven't changed it in ages.

Question about signitures- is it unpermitted to offer teasers for any Star Trek fanworks I may create?

 

[siskokid888]

Yea I noticed that - I think that they had stock footage of Doohan's hands operating the transporter, and they inserted it here, showing the LT. Cmdr stripes, which caused a continuity error. Part of the carelessness of the 3rd season TOS.

 

[Zycho32]

It wasn't a continuity error- Vinci was seen with the same rank stripes as Doohan's hands. The only real continuity screwup was in the inconsistant rank, but that's happened to almost every bit crewmember on the show (Leslie, Brent, etc.)

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

TOS Wardrobe Guy (yelling to his assistant): "Hey Bob, Frank needs a shirt to wear in this scene. Grab one off that rack...any one will do."

That's propbably close to what happened.

 

[siskokid888]

^^ I'll have to watch it again, because I thought the first shot showed him with no stripes on his sleeves, then the hands with the stripes, then no stripes again. I may be thinking of another ep.

 

[Myko]

The funniest thing is that they don't even use the closeup as I recall... Making the whole "promotion" completely unnecessary.

 

[Zycho32]

Myko:

The version I was viewing- from the Season 3 DVD set- they did.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I'm pretty sure he had the stripes the whole time...First we see a Elaan's goon go over to the tranporter where we see a shot of Vinci's(?) arms with stripes, then the camera moves a bit and we see Vinci himself, with stripes. Then we see the close-up (still with the same stripes) as Vinci beams up Elaan. Then we see a full shot of Vinci again with the same stripes.

The question still stands -- why is he a Lt. Commander (and as I said before, I believe the answer is simply because that is the shirt the wardrobe department gave him.)

 

[cooleddie74]

siskokid888 said:
Yea I noticed that - I think that they had stock footage of Doohan's hands operating the transporter, and they inserted it here, showing the LT. Cmdr stripes, which caused a continuity error. Part of the carelessness of the 3rd season TOS.

Maybe this will get digitally tweaked in the Remastered edit of the episode. It hasn't aired yet, so we have no clue what Okuda and his people did to the transporter console/sleeve shot.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

^
^^ I don't think it will be digitally tweaked because I don't think it was a stock shot of Scotty's hands...I just watched it closely and Mr. Vinci had the same stripes the whole time -- both when we see his arms and face together, and also in the close-up of his hands during the transporting.

His sleeves are consistent throughout the entire scene. I see no error here at all.

 

[Myko]

The error is in continuity to other episodes of the season and series. Vinci was demoted from Lieutenant to Ensign at the start of season 3.

Jason Thyrion said:
Myko:

The version I was viewing- from the Season 3 DVD set- they did.

My note is several years old so you're probably right.

 

[Timo]

It's the old chestnut: Vinci was never called by name in his contradictory onscreen appearances, so are we to assume that there were two (or more) similar-looking but different guys aboard? In this particular case, we could sort out all the inconsistencies by evoking two guys (one stays Ensign or Crewman all the time, the other gets promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander in this high-risk business). These could be brothers if need be.

Too bad the Vinci brothers give us this much trouble, tho. For example Leslie, despite getting such specifics as an actual onscreen name, isn't contradictory in nearly as many ways, merely changing shirt color once or twice.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[siskokid888]

Jackson_Roykirk said:
^
^^ I don't think it will be digitally tweaked because I don't think it was a stock shot of Scotty's hands...I just watched it closely and Mr. Vinci had the same stripes the whole time -- both when we see his arms and face together, and also in the close-up of his hands during the transporting.

His sleeves are consistent throughout the entire scene. I see no error here at all.

My bad then, I must have another episode in mind. I'm pretty sure I saw a continuity error like that though. I'll have to keep a look out for it.

 

[cooleddie74]

I suppose it could have come from another episode. There WERE a few sleeve braid/transporter control snafus in the series, brought about by being forced to reuse stock shots from past episodes in order to save time and money.