star trek rps notes

[cimorene]

1. chemistry
on-screen. ex: amok time, kirk confronts spock in his quarters about the information about the pon farr he has withheld. spock, in the blood fever, answers shortly and stiltedly, after an initial refusal to do so. there are many pregnant pauses. there is jim advancing on the desk for all the world like a predator, standing not six inches from spock and looking down at him in a dominant posture. yes, these are the characters, yes, they are actors. there's a point beyond which you can't fake chemistry.

2. interesting discrepancies in the official story
are they long-time close friends? was nimoy shatner's best man? did he call shatner in the small hours to wake him on the morning of the release of star trek v to read him positive reviews to cheer him up despite a (hedgy but obvious) personal conviction that the movie sucks?

or did they hate each other? did roddenberry write them closer and closer in desperation after getting outside advice to try to work with, rather than against, bristling hostility, competitiveness and egomania?



-shatner's first marriage ended during the reduced-budget filming of season three. they had multiple children, and he was already extremely depressed.

-shatner's first marriage ended during the filming of the last season when he was in a bout of depression
-weird sex jokes and rewriting on sh and n's part during the filming of st:tmp
-the action of the stii death scene was originally shatner's idea, with some dialogue that made it into the final cut, plus the glass thing
-shatner wanted to involve kirk in the stiii 'remember' scenes with spock and mccoy (quote p. 161) (photos p. 166-167)
-my closest ally through seventeen years of battles against the guys in charge, over scripts and ideas and contracts and dressing rooms, had suddenly changed sides. ...my friend, my peer, the man whom i'd routinely pummeled at the card table.
-'huddled up in one corner of the stage, sat down together, got very close.' 'eyebrows even higher than normal.' 'lowered one eyebrow and performed an absolutely perfect spock take. i actually half-expected him to utter the words 'highly illogical.'' p.180
-during the filming of stiii, shatner went looking for nimoy and found him snoring loudly in spock's quarters. and apparently found that REALLY amusing.
-shatner's lawyers dug in on contract negotiations for their salaries on stiv (both b/c of the favored nation clause which had stipulated equal pay for them from the days of the tv series). according to shatner, they were well in the habit of playing good cop/bad cop (p.193).
-shatner's original outline for stv is too funny for... for anything. it's as bad as some of the worst fanfic i've read in fandoms prone to operas like lotr and hp--lacks only the wedding scene. don't worry, what it doesn't lack is the scene with spock and mccoy betraying kirk, or the one where the devil and furies appear and kirk carries mccoy on his back out of the river styx.

zar (though he'd soon be remonikered as sybok) [was] a holy man driven by a genuine belief that god was speaking to him, demanding that he accumulate as many followers as possible and provide a suitable vehicle with which the deity might better spread his teaching sthroughout the universe... . starfleet orders kirk and company to rescue the hostages and apprehend zar... almost immediately, spock surprises his shipmates by stating that he knew this renegade holy man back in vulcan seminary. surprise turns to shock when spock makes it clear that he feels this man is indeed so brilliant, and so advanced, that he could genuinely be the messiah. ...in a last-ditch effort... kirk sets a fatal trap for zar but is defeated when spock warns the holy man... . kirk, spock and mccoy are at odds while locked up in the brig. zar... through a series of mind-controlling exercises... soon convinces spock and mccoy of his genuine divinity as well. feigning acceptance while remaining the sole holdout against the powers of this man, kirk joins spock and bones on the surface of god's planet.

the planet, located direactly at the center of the universe, could have come from dante's inferno--a fiery, uninhabitable, completely barren wasteland. an awesome godlike image appears, surrounded by angels, and demands that the enterprise transport him.... kirk then challenges 'god,' and... 'god' begins showing his true colors, and his image begins to transform, ultimately becoming unmistakably satanic. the angels simultaneously change into hordes of gargoyles, the furies of hell.

at that point, kirk, spock, and mccoy, still suffering the effects of their first real adversarial relationship, split up.... mccoy falls, breaking his leg, and is surrounded by furies, as is spock. ...kirk has broken free, but even with a clear path toward escape, a last look back at the fates of his friends convinces kirk to go back, risking his life in an effort to save them. ...mccoy, who's already been carried away by the minions into hell. descending together into the river styx, spock and kirk fight off their hideous attackers and save their injured friend, with kirk carrying mccoy on his shoulders as they flee.
-shatner was surprised when de and leonard refused to allow their characters to betray kirk.
-roddenberry, a writer and a producer actually agreed to the idea of sybok being spock's brother.
-shatner 'met with leonard, determined that i could convince him to change his mind. he arrived just before lunch, and by the time the sun was setting, i was still begging, pleasding, cajoling, massaging and going through whatever histrionics i thought might prove helpful to my cause.' bwahahahahah. (nimoy: bill, spock simply wouldn't do that. shatner: how about a blowjob?)
-shatner's adult daughter, melanie, had a part in stv
-'did i wake you?' 'yes.' 'good.' 'why good?' 'that means i'll be the first to give you the news. they LOVE your movie!' and shatner cries. heh heh. p. 266
-harve bennet, that lower-than-snake's-belly slimeball, wanted to make stvi a glorified police academy with teen actors bracketed by a few kirk/spock scenes (plus, of course, kirk's dead gf thrown in to make it het)(i have to wonder, sometimes, and i think most of these suits really didn't know they were making slash. shatner and nimoy knew, in a way--not a sexual way, probably, but a way).
-re: blue squid at banquet:

all: what the hell is that?
prop guy: it's squid! we wash it out in cold water, dye it blue, slice it...
leonard: does it come with a salad?