« Hypnosis | Main | Surprises »
September 09, 2006
Yesterday
With Mausi (not exactly) looking forward to an extremely busy day today and the Monk being away on a (hopefully) pleasurable trip to Ireland this is going to be only a short post. Two memorable things happened yesterday. The first is that Tony Blair has promised to resign within the next 12 months. Congratulations Monk! He must have found this blog and taken your hints at last.
Yesterday was also the 40 anniversary of the first Star Trek episode. Gosh, is it really that long ago? I practically grew up with them in my teens. My parents were always very wary about what we kids were allowed to watch on TV, especially where American films were involved. But Star Trek or 'Raumschiff Enterprise' as it ws called in German seemed harmless enough. I enjoyed these films although I am not exactly a sci-fi fan. But as the Monk wrote some days ago there was enough in this series apart from the science to make it interesting to watch. My favourite character was Mr Spock It took me months of practice but at last I could draw up one of my eyebrows just the way he could. Nice trick, that comes in handy now and then.
It was only when I came across the film 'Galaxy Quest' a couple of years ago that I started to see the extremely funny side of Star Trek. It made me suddenly realise the common pattern that's behind all episodes of the first series and which runs much along the same lines the Monk has pointed out in his post:
Either by enemy attack or some accident the Enterprise is damaged and needs some rare raw material which is conveniently found on a nearby alien planet.
The moment the search party looking for this material is beamed onto the planet's surface something happens to the Enterprise's beaming apparatus.
While the Chief Engineer is busy repariring the damage the party on the planet has an encounter with some hostile aliens and at the very last moment (n-1) persons of the party are able to make it back on board again. One, very often valiant Captain Kirk, is left behind and has to fight for himself. He is always rescued of course after half an hour because that's the end of the episode.
Interestingly when members of the Enterprise crew visit other planets they never need a space suit nor do they have difficulties with for example gravity. Space travel was still in the very beginning at that time.
In Galaxy Quest the never ending trouble with the beaming device is hilariously illustrated when a monster pig is beamed aboard the space ship as a test of the new digital beaming apparatus. Somethings goes wrong, as could only be expected, and the monster pig arrives inside out and explodes 10 seconds later. Bits of of pig are showered over everyone nearby. Hrrrmmmppfffffff!
Another series I enjoyed very much is the Flash Gordon version of the 1930's. Obviously electricity was a big issue then. Laboratories of mad scientists are filled with devices that produce arcs in all shapes. The spaceship looks rather like a WW I U-boat from the outside and like a tram car from inside. People keep standing during take-offs and landings, no strapping down with fancy seat belts! Space travel was still a long way off at that time!
Posted by Mausi at September 9, 2006 04:09 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mt3.mu.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4655