All Things Star Trek — Page 20

I'd not actually seen the top picture, but noted Khan historian John Tenuto brought that up on an episode of "The Ready Room".

http://trek.fm/the-ready-room/the-ready-room-80-taking-out-the-khan-baby.html

I don't believe it's actually Khan's son as the caption states, but I can't for the life of me figure out why they would have put such incredibly morbid imagery in STII.

Photos of the scenes in question here:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=34153&highlight=khan

And since when was TWOK considered a family film? ;)

Nope, no morbid imagery here...and I couldn't even find a shot of the unlucky Enterprise crew member engulfed in flames when the Enterprise takes a direct hit.

So, just like STID then? ;)

No, that's a movie too unintelligent to have overtones.  Or undertones.  Or any tones other than, "Let's blow stuff up!  Whoo-whee!"

Abrams destroyed Trek.
From now on I'm calling it Star Destroyer
.

Well, strictly speaking, when you abort something, you don't necessarily have to be talking about babies, just like when you rape something, you don't necessarily have to be taking advantage of someone sexually, and when something is retarded, it doesn't necessarily refer to a human with a mental handicap.  Those terms do have broader meanings than are used in popular culture.

Let's not sully our Trek thread with intolerance.

Speaking of intolerance, I'm currently reading Harlan Ellison's "City On The Edge of Forever" for an upcoming Commentary: Trek Stars podcast. That man is a crazy person. He spends over a quarter of the book on the introduction, which reads like a person resprenting himself in court while pleading insanity. It's mostly a "this person said this in his book, that's not true, everyone knows that" over and over again, while insulting everyone including the reader.

I'm in the third draft of his treatments, not into the script itself. Thankfully someone told him that the Federation probably wouldn't sentence a murdering drug dealer to death and take him to the nearest uninhabited planet to shoot him and leave his body behind. Also, it might be more dramatic of the old men "Guardians of Forever" guarding a time portal didn't flat out tell Kirk & Spock that Edith Keeler must die by being hit by a van in exactly 1 week BEFORE they go back in time and Kirk falls in love with her. And that it might be more dramatic if McCoy is the one who tries to save her, instead of the drug dealer who's been trying to kill them since coming back in time.

Like I said, I haven't gotten to the actual script draft that was deemed "unfilmable", so I'll probably end up saving most of my thoughts for the podcast.

TV's Frink said:

He said both abortion AND miscarriage.  I reserve my right to be offended.

Didn't notice the other one.  So I can agree with you on that.

Using terns like abortion, rape, or retarded in these situations is offensive regardless.  It's a fucking movie.

However, I can't agree with you on that.  There is nothing inherently offensive about any of those words.  In certain contexts?  Certainly, emphatically so.  But just taking those words at their literal meanings at face value?  No.  And there's also nothing about any of those words that cannot apply in a valid sense to a movie.

"Kirk's character arc was aborted to make room for more action."

"The high-profile director raped the studio of all of its assets for his dream project so that no equipment was left for the first-time director to make his film."

"The villain's demonstration of his sadistic nature was retarded by the director's choice to show him in a more sympathetic light."

Now, maybe DE meant to use those words in a legitimate sense, or maybe he used them as slurs.  I don't know.  Miscarriage, too, is a word that has other contexts than in reproduction, but, as I said, it does seem to be an unfortunate choice to put abortion and miscarriage back to back.

TV's Frink said:

Having said that, I'd definitely watch Dead Puppy Trek.

Dead puppies aren't much fun.

I'm not trying to be insensitive, Frink, because I know these issues are personal to you, but I just can't get behind limiting legitimate uses of words with broad, far-reaching definitions just because they have been applied in certain contexts as a shorthand to sensitive subjects.  So, yeah, other words could work as well, but so do these.  Honestly, it's as if someone in a science fiction movie said, "In order to solve the problem, we must bombard it with microwaves," only for someone to chime in, "Why do you want to throw that black box in the kitchen at it?"