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Star Trek
- Thread starter i2ina69
- Start date
Hey Guys,
In thinking over the new movie I thought I might share one of my favorite stories about the original series. I read it in a Star Trek magazine a few years ago. I hope you enjoy it.
First of all though I'm sure that Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) is happy to see her character in the new movie portrayed in such a positive light. In the movie she is very bright, confident, beautiful, sexy and takes no crap from anyone. Don't get me wrong guys. I don't swing the other way. But I know what a pretty woman looks like! LOL
Anyway... Nichelle Nichols did not have an easy go of it in 1966. She was cast as Lt. Uhura but the character was not written with enough depth to suit her desire to prove herself as an actress. Gene Rodenberry deserves high marks for showing us a multiracial, multicultural and possibly a multiplanetary future. He was way ahead of his time and he was on the right side of history.
Nonetheless Nichols chafed under a character written as a glorified secretary. She really started to resent it. They gave her little to do or say from her point of view. She was always terribly busy "opening hailing frequencies" and putting communications "on screen". She might also have felt like she was just there as a token black.
None of the cast nor even possibly Rodenberry himself knew what they had in the late 60's. They didn't realize that they had captured lightning in a bottle. They had no idea after barely surviving being cancelled one or two years out that they would become a pop culture phenomenon for decades to come. Who knew then that the characters would become household names? The actors had no idea that they were part of something that would make them cultural icons. That they would get residuals from feature films and they could get an income doing sci-fi conventions where they would be treated like royalty by their fans. And all this even when they were well advanced in years.
Nichelle Nichols was so fed up with the lack of good material that she was very seriously ready to quit the show. Then the stars aligned just right and on one fine day she met the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He told her how pleased he was to meet her. He thanked her effusively for her work on the show. He told her that she was a pioneer and a role model for other blacks. Very few blacks up to that time got regular work on network television. The fact that the name of her character "uhura" is the Swahili word for freedom (and all the connotations that carried in the 60's) didn't hurt either. She was dumbfounded by Dr. King's high praise. And from that day on she vowed to stay on the show. Even more fervently so I'm sure after Dr. King was killed.
She was given a little more material as the show progressed and she did get a chance to act a bit more. She was a pioneer in a different sense when Lt. Uhura kissed Captain Kirk in one famous episode. It's considered the first biracial kiss on network television. That was shocking and scandalous stuff at the time. But it was typical Rodenberry who was always eager to pull the public's imagination and attitudes a few centuries ahead.
Wow, wonderful story.
Hey Thomas. Great to see you stop in for a visit. We wish you could do it more often. Yes. The episode of which you speak is called "Mirror, Mirror". In it Uhura is trying to distract Sulu with romantic advances. Which is rather amusing since we know that George Takai is gay.
When I saw the new movie and they showed the new Sulu for the first time I turned to my friend and said with mock disapproval: "He's not gay." We both chuckled.
tucsonjayce
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It's actually better, cause She told Dr. King that she was thinking of leaving the show and he told her that SHE COULD NOT LEAVE. To him, her role was as important as a march because it reached so many people.
Gene's ideas were ahead of his time. But now we see so many things in star trek that have come to pass. I hope Nichelle gets to go to the white house one day and meet the first Black President. That would be some tribute to Gene and Nichelle.
I also remember her at a roast of Bill SHatner. She said she had waited forty years to tell him something............
"Kiss my black ass!"
Jayce
i2ina69
BSB Addict
where can I find the show?
Thanks for adding that Jayce. I thought that she had told him that she wanted to quit the show and that he specifically asked her not to. I didn't include that since I read the article many years ago and I wasn't sure on that point myself.
Another thing that she said at the Shatner roast to George Takei, Takai? was another great one liner. She said: "George I just wanted to tell you how brave it was of you to come out." Pregnant pause... "Thirty years after your career had tanked!"
She took aim at Spock and said: "Why isn't Leonard here tonight? We all know he's not working!"
Shatner gets up and takes on Sulu. He says something like: "George I've waited thirty years to tell you this. No, you still cannot suck my dick!"
The whole Shatner roast was full of gay humor. And funny...
Farah Fawcett made a fool of herself up on stage because she showed up high on drugs and everybody knew it. It reminded me of how she made a fool of herself on Letterman. Bless her heart I shouldn't poke fun because she is dying....
I don't know if they have any clips of the Shatner Roast on Youtube but some of the jokes they said were just jaw dropping with all the gay humor. I sat there thinking that I couldn't believe they were getting away with saying all this stuff. Even on a cable channel. It was Comedy Central but even so...
In another jab at Shatner they set up a joke where Spock was getting ready to fuck Kirk. They said: "As he (Spock) started to go boldly (pregnant pause)... where only a couple of guys back in college had gone before."
It was shocking even for me. But what a hoot! LOL
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Hey Jayce,
I meant to tell you that the scene that shows Kirk in bed with another guy is in the series Star Trek - Phase II. It can be seen on Youtube. Look up the episode "Blood and Fire" Part 1. It is a 2 part episode and the 2nd part has not been released on Youtube yet. They (Youtube) break the 1 hour episode of Blood and Fire, Part 1 into about 4 separate videos. But it's very much worth watching. In it Capt. Kirk's handsome nephew gets very cozy in bed with another guy. It's a love story of sorts on board the Enterprise. I won't give away any more plot spoilers. It's well worth watching guys.
