A Tale of Two Movies: Star Trek VI and the End of an Era

It pains us all deeply to report that months of research - including reading making-0f books, blogs and interviews - we turned up no hard evidence to support our staff's unwavering belief that Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn only wrote and filmed the first half of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ("TUC") before being kidnapped and held prisoner in an undisclosed location while minimum-wage hacks finished the movie's second half for as-yet unexplained, nefarious reasons.

To anyone watching the movie from beginning to end in one sitting this is very clearly the case. Couldn't be more obvious, in fact. The first half of the film, up through the end of Kirk and McCoy's trial, is brilliant stuff. Superlative Trek. The second half of the film is amateur hour: dumb, nonsensical, pointless. It is the work of people who were brought in to wrap up everything fast, as though time had run out.

1982 through the end of 1986 was a very, very good time to be a Star Trek fan. No Next Generation, Voyager, Discovery, Kelvin timeline, what have you. Just the One, True Trek: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, Checkov. The three movies released during that time - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - were all so good, it seemed wholly inconceivable that a subpar Trek movie (excluding the first one, which is a separate conversation) was possible. Even big-time 80s reviewers Siskel & Ebert concurred. Siskel: "I like (Trek IV) as much as any in the whole series. And it's a good series, particularly Star Trek II." Ebert: "Usually... sequels get worse and worse and worse. This one gets better and better."

The movers and shakers behind the franchise could do, so it seemed, no wrong whatsoever. It was a given - just as gravity keeps objects from floating off into space, just as planet earth orbits the sun - that any next Trek film would totally rock.

But the next Trek film was Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, an abominable movie that brought the whole fantasy of an invincible franchise crashing down around us. How lousy can a movie be? Let me count the ways: the humor is awkward, forced and overwrought, Shatner goes so far over the Shatner Line in this one that it's not even fun, and the film's central premise makes zero sense: cult leader Sybok is convinced that he can reach the planet Sha-Ka-Ree (Eden, essentially) by hijacking a galaxy class starship and flying it to the center of the galaxy, which is protected by the impenetrable "Great Barrier." (You'd be amazed at how easy it is hijacking a galaxy class starship.) Kirk himself says "the center of the galaxy can't be reached. No ship has ever gone into the Great Barrier. No probe has ever returned." Chekov says "they say no ship can survive this." Why is Chekov still making anecdotal observations in the 23rd century, completely unsupported by empirical evidence (who are "they" exactly)? The better question is how is it, when it's clear that humanity's greatest scientific minds (and the Vulcans', and the Klingons', and the Andorians', etc...) can find no way of crossing the Great Barrier, that Sybok simply flies the Enterprise through it, with no special upgrades or shields, taking only a few minutes to reach the planet at the galaxy's center and suffering no damage at all? (A Klingon bird-of-prey also follows them through the Great Barrier with no difficulty.) How is it that no one in the Federation realized that the Great Barrier was no big deal, that flying through it was easy peasy?

Because this movie SUCKS, that's how. I saw every Star Trek movie up until V multiple times in the theater. I saw Wrath of Khan twice in one day. Final Frontier I saw only once, and the disappointment I felt was practically despair. The golden era of Trek movies was officially dead and buried. How could such a thing happen? Did anyone involved in the film's production feel the same way? Would Paramount get the original cast together for one more movie, to set things right?

To the delight of shellshocked Star Trek fans everywhere, they would. With Trek's 25th anniversary coming up in 1991, it was decided to make one more movie with the original cast and make up for the disastrous decision to let William Shatner conceive of and direct The Final Frontier. After wisely rejecting the usually-reliable Harve Bennett's idea of hiring an all-new young cast to portray our beloved characters when they first arrived at Starfleet Academy as cadets in a prequel, Leonard Nimoy hit on the idea of a Cold War analogy: détente between Starfleet (USA) and the Klingons (USSR). Star Trek II director Nicholas Meyer thrashed out a screenplay and then signed on to direct. All the pieces were in place for a spectacular TOS send-off.

Except that, as noted earlier, unidentified, talentless, yea, even malevolent goons interrupted filming halfway through the movie (as doubtlessly the whole movie filmed in sequence, as movies almost always do) and banished Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn, probably handcuffed and deprived of essentials, from the set. Seriously, it's not just that there are a few bum scenes in the movie's second half - everything that happens after the trial is stupid and quite obviously the work of person or persons with no experience in movie making. Not convinced? Take a look:

Cliff Eidelman was all of 26 when he scored TUC but the gravitas he brought to the movie's score, particularly the opening credits, belied his youth. Opening with a POV shot, the audience warping through space, the credits roll quickly and without fanfare - nothing ostentatious here, just Meyer moving us economically through the obligatory credits and on to the movie - while Eidelman's ominous score starts slowly and softly, peaking grandly at the minute-and-twenty mark. But this is just a ruse; the music settles back momentarily, then ramps up with some soaring notes, tricks you into thinking it's over at 2:20, and then ramps up again, building and building to the 3:19 mark when the music stops, the stars stop whizzing by, and BOOM. Great big loud explosion sends giant purple shockwaves ripping through space. 

On the bridge of the Excelsior we see now-Captain Sulu making a standard-issue captain's log about cataloging gaseous planetary anomalies (more on that later) before they get smacked by the purple shockwaves. And they really get smacked - it's jarring the first time you see the ship knocked for a loop.

What commences is a marvelous sequence for actor George Takei. It was always painful for us Trek fans anytime a new movie was announced, reading the inevitable interviews that came around with the four lesser cast members - Takei, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan and Walter Koenig - where they complained about not getting enough screen time in the movies and floating the idea of not even signing on for the latest sequel. And no one would blame them. As beloved as their characters are, they always took a back seat to the Big Three, Kirk Spock and McCoy. But here the movie leads with Sulu and the man shows his chops. He's in total control. He makes quick, intelligent decisions. The whole scene is a joy. It's determined the Klingon moon of Praxis, a key energy facility, exploded. Meyer and DP Hiro Narita move from great shot to great shot here: a low-level angle of Sulu moving towards the viewscreen; a violent image of a Klingon screaming; a brief closeup of Sulu engulfed by the chaos on the viewscreen, looking back over his shoulder in bewilderment at his crew; the outstanding George Takei hissing "An incident!" after the Klingon transmission ends. Quick, beautiful, intense shots succinctly setting up the movie's premise: the Klingons are fucked.

We cut to another exceptional scene, a classified briefing in which Kirk, McCoy, Scotty,  Uhura and Chekov are told by the Federation's Special Envoy - Spock, played with typical brilliance by Leonard Nimoy - that the Enterprise will escort Gorkon, the Klingon Chancellor, through Federation space to a peace conference.

Spock has "personally vouched" for Kirk to act as ambassador for Gorkon, and Kirk is pissed. And Shatner delivers here: no over-the-top, so-bad-it's-funny Kirk, but genuine emotion and the kind of excellent acting he was always capable of (see the last 20 minutes of Star Trek II).

Everyone leaves the briefing except for Kirk and Spock, setting up one of the great Kirk/Spock exchanges, a scene so worthy of the original cast's final bow that it is absolutely worth transcribing here:

"We volunteered?" Kirk sneers, shooting daggers Spock's way.

"There is an old Vulcan proverb," Spock says, setting up one of the great lines in movie history: "'Only Nixon could go to China.'"

"How could you vouch for me?" Kirk asks, completely brushing off this ultimate insult - or is it even an insult to Kirk? "That's... arrogant presumption."

One of the great things about Star Trek is the lack of profanity. In the 23rd century infantile vulgarities are long gone, and people think about what they're saying. They have actual vocabularies. "Arrogant presumption" is cutting stuff. Them's fighting words.

"My father," Spock replies, brushing off Kirk's insult in turn, "requested that I open negotiations-"

"I know you father's the Vulcan ambassador, for heaven's sake," Kirk gently chides. "But you know how I feel about this." He bites his lip in anger and disbelief. "They're animals."

"Jim, there is an historic opportunity here."

Spock thinking on his toes. Appealing to Kirk's vanity.

"Don't believe them. Don't trust them." Kirk is livid, barely able to contain himself.

"They are dying."

"Let them die."

His eye-bulging anger leaves Spock speechless, so Kirk tries a different tact:

"Has it occurred to you," he asks, dialing it back a bit, "that this crew is due to stand down in three months? We've done our bit for king and country. You should have trusted me."

I've been saying "done our bit for king and country" for the last 30 years because of this scene.

"You should have trusted me." Total smackdown. The scene ends with these two men, old friends, partners in myriad crazy, harrowing, more often than not life-threatening adventures, staring at each other in silence across a large room, each wondering how the other could have so totally taken leave of his senses. The economy of words is a wonder here. No lofty, grandiose speeches. Just a brief series of quick exchanges that go right to the heart of the matter.

That's an epic way to begin the final adventure of the Starship Enterprise: action sequence setting up a conflict with existential ramifications for two arch-enemies, and an angry, tense exchange between two beloved characters in one of the great American pop culture franchises. Bravo Nicholas Meyer, Denny Martin Flinn and Hiro Narita. No Trek fan could've have asked for more. We're off and running.

A lighthearted scene of the Enterprise leaving space dock breaks up the heaviness. This worked in Star Trek II for Meyer, so he repeats it here with a different hot Vulcan Lieutenant, Valeris. Valeris is somehow the first to graduate at the top of Star Fleet's class (seriously...?), played with typical audaciousness by Kim Cattrall who was already a recognized actress at this point but still seven years shy of her career-changing portrayal of Samantha Jones in Sex and the City. Incidentally, there is a GOOFY-ass shot of Scotty as the Enterprise leaves space dock (check out the ensign on his right) that no one ever talks about. To this day I can't watch it without wincing.

With the obligatory lightheartedness out of the way, we return to the real stuff: Kirk, distraught and pessimistic, records his extreme misgivings about their mission in his log. "I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I can never forgive them for the death of my boy... Spock says this could be an historic occasion. I'd like to believe him. But how on earth can history get past people like me?"

A superb little scene for two reasons. First, it drives home that this isn't just another thrilling adventure for the USS Enterprise. Intergalactic peace is on the line, and Kirk knows his own obdurance stands in the way. Dude doesn't even trust himself to accomplish the mission.

Second, we have a loop of sorts closing here. There were many of us who felt David Marcus' death in Star Trek III was a tad too contrived. There was no mention of Carol or David Marcus in the Star Trek canon prior to Star Trek II. They were dreamed up specifically for that movie to provide some drama and heft. Two years later in Star Trek III writer Harve Bennett has a problem: the cruel Kruge, commander of a Klingon Bird of Prey, wants to steal the Genesis Device and use it as a weapon. Kruge is one evil mo fo and must die. Bennett needs something dramatic to catalyze Kirk's anger and justify his killing Kruge. How about we kill off  this David Marcus guy? No one will miss him. No one even knew he existed until the last movie. How convenient! We get our cake and eat it too: Kirk is perfectly justified in killing Kruge, and the writers get to have Marcus' dramatic death right when they need it in the plot, all without losing a major character. Voila.

But here we are years later and David is missed. His death really was more than a murder of convenience for Star Trek III's plot. Kirk is still unpacking his grief, and  has to somehow set it aside for an end, as Spock puts it, to almost 70 years of unremitting hostility.

Another magnificent scene follows: Spock in his quarters with Valeris, decked out in ceremonial Vulcan garb, lighting candles. Eidelman's gorgeous, understated score perfectly sets the vibe for the Spock schooling the younger Lieutenant. She doesn't understand why Spock has a painting of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden on the wall of his quarters. "As a reminder to me that all things end," says Spock in another bit of beautifully concise-yet-profound dialog. The troubled Valeris asks Spock if he can't see the turning point in Federation affairs their current situation represents. 

"History is replete with turning points, Lieutenant. You must have faith... that the universe will unfold as it should."

"But is that logical?" Valeris persists. "Surely we must-"

"Logic, logic, logic. Logic is the beginning of wisdom, Valeris. Not the end."

Hot damn! Imagine younger Spock in blue shirt saying this in The Ultimate Computer or Spectre of the Gun. The man has come a long way. And we get an unexpected nod to Max Ehrmann's Desiderata in the deal. Elegant and marvelous.

The Enterprise rendezvous with the Klingon ship Kronos I and Kirk hails Ambassador Gorkon. And whose face fills the screen but David Warner's? The mighty David Warner, His Holiness Mr. Warner; one of just a handful of actors whose mere presence can elevate a movie from trifling to outstanding. Shit man, this is the guy whose head gets sheared off his shoulders by a flying pane of glass in The Omen, and who played Phillip Payne: "I work for myself. My skills are quite unique. In biblical terms you might call me the exterminating angel", and who licked his lips as Jack the Ripper with a whole new world of sadism and cruelty to explore in 1979: "The world has caught up with me and surpassed me. Ninety years ago I was a freak. Today I'm an amateur." Years ago I asked a friend of mine who'd held out watching James Cameron's Titanic for years what he, after finally caving in and watching it, thought about David Warner appearing as Spicer Lovejoy in that film (admittedly, one of the greatest character names of all time). He scoffed at the rest of the cast: "Those other losers should be grateful they were allowed to appear with him."

Even the gods make mistakes, and one of David Warner's mistakes was appearing in Star Trek V. (I feel certain it was his agent's fault.) Happily, his turn as Gorkon in TUC allows all of us to wash our hands of St. John Talbot once and for all, and look on in wonder at the consummate actor as he brings the Ambassador to life, a Klingon who seeks peace with the hated Federation and yet retains street cred with the Klingon High Council. Everyone else out there may not care, but Star Trek nerds know: there are few actors who could bring this off. Warner does it with panache and all-enveloping integrity.

Eidelman's tense score plays over the transporter room as Gorkon and his entourage beam aboard. Continuing TUC's (first-half) greatness, this scene brings a few treats: Rosanna DeSoto as Gorkon's daughter, Azetbur, and Paul Rossilli as Brigidier Kerla.

And then the coup de grace: the legendary Christopher Plummer as General Chang (with an eye patch bolted into his skull). The gang's finally all here. Nicholas Meyer has assembled a first-rate cast. We are all delighted: he is very clearly very serious about burying Star Trek V in a deep unmarked grave and moving on with the kind of final bow our beloved franchise deserves.

The next scene is The Dinner Scene - all of the core Trek cast (minus Sulu) dining with the Klingons. The first couple of times I watched TUC I wasn't crazy about this scene. There was something unnatural and forced about it, as though it were a bunch of necessary exposition Nicholas Meyer felt needed to be inserted at a certain point in the movie to connect a couple of plot points. But it grew on me over the years. If nothing else, it's a three-minute object lesson, courtesy of a dozen outstanding actors - a couple of whom are brilliant, in my estimation - on how the tiniest gestures and motions can convey everything you need to know about a character's state of mind.

From its opening moment of awkward silence to Gorkon closing out the disaster it's become ("Well... I see we still have along way to go"), everyone is worth watching in this scene, and watching over and over again - Kirk glaring at Gorkon as the Klingons laugh about Shakespeare; Chekov's look of understated disgust; Uhura's genuinely pained expression after Chang asks Kirk if he's willing to "give up" Starfleet. Watch Kerla continue staring at Kirk after the good Captain explains how a bottle of illegal Romulan ale wound up on board. Look at the superb way Chang makes the slightest nod, mocking Spock's contention that Starfleet's mission is peaceful.

But all of this is just setting us up for the scene's dénouement, beginning with Chekov: "We do believe all planets have a sovereign claim to inalienable human rights."

" 'Inalien,' " Azetbur interjects. "If you could only hear yourselves. 'Human' rights. Why the very name is racist. The Federation is no more than a homosapiens-only club."

Good lord, listen to her tone, and how deliberately she navigates these words. This is the exceptional Rosanna DeSoto doing what she was born to do: taking a very small role and and imbuing it with so much depth that you are saddened she isn't in every scene in the movie. DeSoto has the most expressive eyes in the modern cinematic era. This woman doesn't need any puny lines. Just roll camera and let it capture her performance.

Years before Stand and Deliver and La Bamba, DeSoto's first onscreen role was in a 1972 episode of Cannon, playing the grieving sister of a recently-murdered hospital employee who got in over his head with a drug ring. Even in this brief role, at a youthful 22 years old, those wonderful eyes convey emotion far beyond any mere words written in a script.

The true masterstroke at the end of all this bitter back-and-forth is having James T.  Kirk, already earlier likened by his best friend to Richard Nixon, be the first to invoke Godwin's Law and compare the Klingons to Hitler in 1938. The whole argument stops dead in its tracks.

We cut to the transporter room, with the Federation delegation seeing the Klingon delegation off. In fine Kirk fashion, the Captain smiles sarcastically: "We must do this again some time." The Mighty David Warner brushes off this facetiousness and takes three very deliberate steps forward, right into Kirk's face: "You don't trust me, do you? I don't blame you. If there is to be a brave, new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it." Watch Shatner here, proving again he really was more than all the millions of mocking impressions over the decades. A little bit of what Gorkon says may actually be seeping into Kirk's psyche.

From the painfully awkward Dinner Scene we go to total disaster: on the bridge, The Enterprise is reading a neutron radiation surge. In a gorgeously filmed bit, she hits Kronos I with two photon torpedos in a surprise attack, sending the Klingon ship spinning through space and knocking out her gravity. Every aspect of this movie is firing on all cylinders at this point: cinematography, lighting, editing, acting, writing, score. The sense of shock, disbelief and heavy dread hangs almost oppressively over everything the bridge crew does, rushing to their stations, barking out orders, desperately trying to figure out what is going on. The fate of the galaxy is on the line.

Think I'm a nerd-boy Trek fan, waxing hyperbolic, trying to elevate silly sci-fi into serious art? Are you of the Martin Scorcese mindset that genre movies can't be art, and Star Trek isn't real cinema - it's just more goofy-ass Star Trek product? You are entitled to your opinion, no matter how snobby and close-minded it may be. The fact remains: Star Trek VI, up until this point (and for another 25 minutes), is bona fide art. 

And it is gripping art, too. In the midst of this chaos, two assassins in white space suits beam aboard Kronos I and methodically make their way to Chancellor Gorkon, shooting him in the chest. There's an apocalyptic vibe as the two purposely march back through the ship and beam away, leaving the Klingons to restore their gravity and attack the Enterprise. Kirk does the only thing he can do: signal Enterprise's surrender, and beam over to Kronos I with Dr. McCoy.

And here's where Paul Rossilli shines (again, actually) as Kerla. How much did they pay this guy for this small role? I guarantee you, without seeing the film's production notes, that it wasn't nearly enough. The ship that's supposed to escort you to a peace conference has just fired on you, and apparently assassinated your Chancellor. You're standing in the transporter room as the hated James Kirk - famously referred to as "the quintessential devil in these matters" by the Klingon Ambassador (the fabulous John Schuck) in Star Trek IV - beams aboard with his Chief Doctor. What do you say to these Federation scumbags in this situation? 

"Have you lost your mind?!" Kerla demands, his eye twitching in fury. A perfect line, as there's nothing else to say in such a moment. Raw, unadulterated emotion. What incomparable writing and acting. Holy crap. He's got a phaser on Kirk and McCoy, and very much wants to use it. He's so immersed in hot, thick hatred that his head actually jerks when McCoy speaks: "We're hear to help." Three tense seconds pass as he sizes up Kirk and McCoy: Trust them? Shoot them? "Follow me," he says, successfully erring on the side of sanity.

Kerla leads them to the barely-alive Gorkon, who McCoy manages to resuscitate just long enough to look Kirk in the eyes: "Don't let it end this way, Captain." And Gorkon is dead. (And we are, alas, David Warner-less for the rest of the movie.) More perfect music from Eidelman as the full weight of the last hour's insanity settles on Kirk and McCoy, who are immediately arrested for assassinating the Chancellor.

A few short scenes follow, necessary to move us on to the trial, but the only superb one of these little transitions is with the Klingons, as Chang and the war council push newly-ordained Chancellor Azetbur to attack the Federation. 

And it is superb because of Rosanna DeSoto. Oh my, how I could watch this woman act for hours and hours and never get bored. Talk about genius. After telling the Federation President (Kurtwood Smith, who is also a joy to watch in his small role; although he found fame and a steady job in That '70s Show, I'll always remember him as Clarence Boddicker) what's what - the Klingons will not extradite Kirk and McCoy, and the peace conference will go forward in a week in a neutral location "in the interests of security" - we cut to the Klingon war council making their point: "Attack them now, while we still can!" "Attack or be slaves in their world!" "We can take whole by force, what they propose to divide!" 

These guys are hopping mad. Can't say I blame them, but still, note for all aspiring politicos out there: the Klingon generals are doing precisely what you should never do when making fateful decisions about war and peace. They are crafting their foreign policy around an Extreme Emotional Reaction. Cooler heads must prevail in situations like this, and just as Lincoln was the right man at the right time, Azetbur is the right woman for this fraught moment. Slowly, deliberately, with her voice matching those marvelous eyes for intensity, she tells the generals how it's going to be:

"War is obsolete general... as we are in danger of becoming." Good lord. What brilliant writing and acting. In all its glorious decades, Trek was never better.

"Better to die on our feet," the offscreen general says, "than live on our knees."

"That's not what my father wanted," she ripostes, momentarily letting her emotions get the better or her.

Chang interrupts here, like the total asshole he is: "Your father was killed for what he wanted."

"The peace process will go forward," Azetbur continues, rejecting the pressure to go to war. (At this point one of the generals angrily jumps back into position like a child who isn't getting what he wants right NOW, a great touch you need to check out.)

"Kirk," she hisses. In fact, DeSoto practically croaks the good captain's name, in a bravura bit of acting. The camera slowly zooms in on Azetbura, her tone eerily calm: "Kirk will pay for my father's death."

This is the kind of scene you may not think much of the first time you watch a movie like TUC, or that you may never think much of. More's the pity. I live for this sort of thing. Actors, writers and directors working hard at their craft, making small things into larger, profound things. Isn't that part of the essence of art? DeSoto is in total command of this scene. As usual. Even Academy Award-winner Christopher Plummer wisely just stands in the background as DeSoto takes only a few lines of dialog and conveys a movie's worth of emotions through her tone and subtle changes of expression. Speaking of her work on The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Edward James Olmos once said of DeSoto, "This woman is a brilliant, brilliant artist." The dude knew excellence when he saw it.

And so, my friends, we find ourselves at Star Trek VI's last monumental scene, the final minutes before things go bafflingly sideways and TUC goes from primo Trek to shit-all stupid nothing burger: the trial of Kirk and McCoy.

The lead-in is Meyer giving a clinic in movie-making: we zoom in on Chang (acting as prosecutor) making opening remarks in very harsh Klingon, cut to a quick shot of the room where the translators are conveying his remarks to Kirk and McCoy's handheld devices, and cut right back to Christopher Plummer, now speaking in English. Magnifico.

Chang's second witness is McCoy, in a scene that very easily could've come off as hokey in another actor's hands. But DeForest Kelley was Dr. Leonard McCoy, and the actor knew that this scene was the capstone of all his years of being the conscience and soul of Star Trek, the indispensable middle-man between Spock's cold logic and Kirk's "rushing in where angels fear to tread" (Kirk's words). After being accused of letting Chancellor Gorkon die because of incompetence "either deliberately or as a result of age combined with drink," Kelley gives his final, truly moving McCoy Moment, with much palpable anguish: "My God man, I tried to save him! I tried to save him... I was desperate to save him. He was the last, best hope in the universe for peace..."

Star Trek always attracted very literate, history-wise writers who enjoyed invoking great authors and great speeches, and here it is Lincoln they slip in, drawing from the President's second Annual Message to Congress. There is no shame in this, no cheapening of the great man's words. The fate of billions of lives hangs in the balance during this trial; it is altogether fitting and proper that Meyer and Finn should draw on the 16th U.S. President.

The third and final witness is Kirk. And the Captain is introduced with a marvelous bit of Trek continuity that is lost on everyone who isn't a lifelong Trek nerd. "There we have it, citizens," Chang begins, slowly and deliberately. "We have finally established the particulars of the crime. And now come to the architect of this tragic affair - James. Tiberius. Kirk."

He gives "Tiberius" a little extra, spiteful oomph, resonating on two levels. Of course the Tiberius of history was the second emperor of the dreaded Roman Empire, but the name also teased all the Star Trek fans who argued obsessively over nearly two decades (at that point): what was canon in the Star Trek universe, and what wasn't? Specifically, was Star Trek: The Animated Series canon?

Three seasons and 79 episodes of Star Trek failed to reveal the name behind Kirk's middle initial. It wasn't until the second season of the Animated Series' episode "Bem" that Kirk's legendary exchange with the "Alien Entity" (voiced by Nichelle Nichols) finally ended all the speculation: "Who are you?" Kirk asks in stasis, along with Spock and Ari bn Bem. "Who are you?" the Entity counters. "I am Captain James Tiberius Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise."

And with those 10 words, eight years' worth of speculation ended. Only, it didn't at all. Many indignant Trek nerds (how dare Trek writers conflate our beloved Captain with the Roman Empire?) countered that "Bem" writer (and TOS veteran) David Gerrold tossed this line into "Bem" just to mess with everyone, and it therefore doesn't count. Worse, continuity in The Original Series was always sketchy; in the series' second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," a tombstone that the Enterprise's helmsman-cum-deity-with-godlike-powers Gary Mitchell has helpfully created for the Captain he's preparing to kill reads "JAMES R KIRK."

Is Kirk's middle initial R or T? If it's T, does it really stand for Tiberius? Here's how you should look at it: Gene Roddenberry himself got The Animated Series going, and got everyone except for Walter Koenig to reprise their roles. So yes, it is most definitely canonical. And yes, Kirk's middle name is most definitely Tiberius. 

Chang immediately drops his Tsar Bomba on Kirk: a recording proving that James T. Kirk planned to take revenge for the death of his son by assassinating Chancellor Gorkon: "I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will. I've never been able to forgive them for the death of my boy."

Odd, considering what Kirk actually said 14 minutes into the movie was "I can never forgive them for the death of my boy."

At any rate, this leads directly to TUC's final two grand moments: a nod to two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, and a wonderful summation of the life and appeal of James Kirk.

The nod to Stevenson, whom in 1952 hit the proverbial nail square on the head when he lambasted Joe McCarthy as a "disgrace" and mocked right-wing conspiracy nuts "who hunt Communists in the Bureau of Wildlife and Fisheries while hesitating to aid the gallant men and women who are resisting the real thing in the front lines of Europe and Asia... they are finally the men who seemingly believe that we can confound the Kremlin by frightening ourselves to death," and nevertheless got crushed like a gnat by Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections, is performed with gusto by Christopher Plummer, clearly enjoying himself: "Admiral Kirk was broken for taking matters into his own hands in defiance of regulations and the law! Do you deny being demoted for these charges! DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION! ANSWER ME NOW!"

Cold War obsessives don't need to be reminded that Chang's rant memorializes the famous moment on October 25, 1962, when Ambassador Stevenson laid into Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin at the United Nations during the Cuban Missile Crisis: "Let me ask you one simple question: do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed, and is placing, medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don't wait for the translation - yes or no?"

The second grand moment I'm sure is intentional - Meyer & company giving Kirk, in The Last Star Trek TOS movie, a chance to express, concisely, why we all love him so much. In response to Chang's Stevensonian tirade, Kirk - unruffled, as cool, calm and collected as ever, even somewhat amused by how unhinged Chang is - replies, "I cannot deny it." 

"You were demoted... for insubordination??" Chang yells, still practically frothing at the mouth.

"On occasion," Kirk calmly replies, sounding like an adult addressing an irritable  child, "I have disobeyed orders."

What a lovely moment for Trek nerds of all ages. Here's Kirk himself, patiently explaining why he's one of the most iconic characters in popular culture: because he routinely disobeyed orders, including the sacrosanct Prime Directive, and in each instance of insubordination, turned long odds to his favor. It calls to mind Star Trek III when Kirk is forced to actually blow up the fucking Enterprise and mournfully asks McCoy what he's done. "What you had to do," the good doctor replies. "What you always do. Turn death into a fighting chance to live."

And there it all ends. Mark your stopwatches - Kirk and McCoy are found guilty and given life sentences on the penal astroid of Rura Penthe at the movie's 53-minute mark, and director Nicholas Meyer has just been marched off the set at gunpoint. The script he and Denny Martin Flinn wrote has just been torn up. Unnamed minimum-wage hacks take over for the movie's final 60 minutes.

Things get really, really stupid from here on out. My stars, they get so fathomlessly stupid that there really can't be any question that a bunch of simpletons from Corporate were sent in for reasons lost to the mists of time to shove Meyer out of the way and finish the movie.

Where to start? How about the scene in the galley where Valeris grabs a phaser and disintegrates a cooking pot to set off the alarm and make the point to Chekov that Gorkon's assassins couldn't have simply vaporized their incriminating gravity boots? Two things here: why didn't Chekov, who by this point had served a few decades in Starfleet, already know this? What is this guy, fucking stupid? And how does Valeris discharge a phaser on Kill in a crowded galley and suffer no consequences? When she could have just verbally reminded him of the goddamn alarm system?

How about the Viridium Patch on Kirk's back? After the Enterprise apparently fires on Kronos One and Kirk decides to beam over, Spock very obviously sticks something on the back of his uniform that sticks out like a sore thumb. It is very obviously there while he's on Kronos One and very obviously there during his trial. Turns out this is a Viridium Patch: it allows someone to detect your position from a distance of light years. You'd think the Klingons - and everyone else in the galaxy - would already be familiar with this powerful tool and promptly remove it from Kirk's uniform when they arrested him. Instead, they miss it when they arrest him; they miss it when he goes to court; they miss it when they send him to Rura Penthe. Thus Spock is able to easily locate him and rescue both him and McCoy.

Speaking of the rescue: this is some seriously stupid shit. The Quintessential Devil in These Matters, along with the Enterprise's famous chief surgeon, have just been convicted of assassinating a Klingon ambassador and banished to a Klingon penal colony. They are the most infamous two chumps in the galaxy. The other prisoners at Rura Penthe are already well aware of who they are even before they arrive. Additionally, Azetbur has already personally warned the Federation President: "you will make no attempt to rescue them in a military operation."

The Klingons are very serious about removing Kirk and McCoy from the equation. It stands to reason, then, they will be on full alert, ready to quickly intercept any Federation starships that illegally cross into Klingon territory in an attempt to rescue them in a military operation. Thus, when the Enterprise does exactly that, they encounter... little ol' listening post Morska. A small, depressingly dark listening post run by a whopping two Klingons, one of whom is practically napping when his monitor alerts him to a ship entering his sector. Somehow, his technology doesn't identify the ship on his screen as a galaxy-class battle cruiser. It doesn't give him a visual, either. He actually has to fucking ask them: "What ship is that?"

These guys don't know it's the Enterprise? The Klingon military hasn't been tracking the fucking Enterprise this whole time?? As it speeds across their own fucking territory??? There isn't even one Klingon ship at the listening post to defend them if things go south for any reason?

Chekov helpfully informs us that they can't respond to the two sleepy (and drunk; one of them has a bottle) Klingons with the Universal Translator, as it would be "recognized."

We watch as he, Uhura, Scotty, and a couple of other Starfleet losers frantically flip through physical, antiquarian books, looking for a way to reply to this question, and the question of where they're headed.

Let that sink in: the Enterprise was on a mission to safely transport a Klingon ambassador to a peace conference during the most fraught, volatile time in galactic history, and there's no one on board who speaks Klingon. Not one translator for this Most Important Mission Ever.

And please, spare us your righteous criticism. I can already hear you: "Why are you guys at Ranting Russell so grumpy? This is comic relief. Don't take it so seriously." Thanks. We are fully aware that the scene is played for laughs. It is also idiotic and makes zero sense. In the movie's first 53 minutes, nothing was idiotic and made zero sense. This idiotic, zero-sense thing is endemic to the picture's second half.

Next up on the roll call of mind-bogglingly stupid shit following the trial: shape-shifter Martia breaks Kirk and McCoy out of Rura Penthe and they walk across the frozen wastes until they're outside of the "beaming shield." Turns out Martia is working for the Klingons and the whole jailbreak is a set-up; now the Klingons can kill our heroes "while attempting to escape" and avoid Federation scrutiny.

Martia does something very odd here - she shapeshifts into Kirk, despite the fact that a bunch of Klingons will arrive shortly to kill Kirk, thus greatly increasing the odds by an order of magnitude that they'll accidentally kill her instead.

But put that idiocy aside for the moment and kindly go to the movie's 1:21:29 mark. The prison guards show up to kill Kirk and McCoy. Martia still looks like Kirk, and as the one-eyed guard prepares to kill them, she says "kill him, he's the one!" Pointing at... the sky. Who or what exactly is Martia pointing at? She's supposed to be pointing at the real Kirk, but instead points over his head, off into the ether. Clearly, whatever hack took over after Nicholas Meyer was forcibly removed from the shoot and locked up did not care about such details. Dumb and inexplicable.

Next up: back on the Enterprise, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov and Scotty nearly trip over the bodies of Burke and Samno, who were killed at close range with a phaser on stun at close range. They weren't "vaporized" because it would set off the alarm.

So a phaser set to kill sets off the alarm, but a phaser set on stun doesn't? You can set a phaser on stun, go on a stun rampage on a galaxy class cruiser and no one will be the wiser? Makes sense.

But the worst is saved for last. We learn that the rescheduled peace conference is at Camp Khitomer. The Enterprise races there to stop another inevitable assassination attempt, where they are intercepted by Chang and his Bird of Prey, who start pounding the Enterprise with photon torpedos.

...And there's no security. The fate of the Klingons and peace in the galaxy rests on this peace conference, and there's not a single ship, Federation or otherwise, in orbit around the planet where the conference is taking place.

Let's go over that again, as it's important: there are NO SHIPS in orbit, patrolling, keeping the peace, guarding against another assassination attempt. Additionally: there is no one on the planet's surface monitoring this fight, notifying conference attendees that the Enterprise is in orbit and getting the snot beaten out of it by an invisible ship, and maybe everyone needs to hunker down in the emergency shelters until this thing blows over. Sulu's ship, the Excelsior, then arrives, gets fired upon, and still no one is monitoring this from the planet's surface.

Who writes this garbage? Not the same team that wrote the picture's first half. Hell no. It just cannot be.

Dig this: after getting hammered by numerous photon torpedos from the cloaked Bird of Prey, the geniuses on the Enterprise's bridge tumble to the fact that all ships expend ionized gas on impulse power. "Well what about all of that equipment we're carrying to catalog gaseous anamolies?" Uhura asks. "The thing's gotta have a tailpipe." In a matter of minutes, Spock & McCoy reconfigure a photon torpedo that follows the Bird of Prey's plasma trail after launching, slamming into the hapless ship for a direct hit. The Enterprise and Excelsior are now able to blow Chang and his crew away.

How is it, you ask, that it's a communications officer, and not one of a team of elite Starfleet scientists toiling away in one of the Federation's premiere science labs, that utters the line "The thing's gotta have a tailpipe?" You heard correctly: no scientist, and no engineer - not even our own goddamned Scotty - thought, all these decades, to track a cloaked ship running on impulse power by the gas it releases.

And yes, decades. By the time of TUC, it's been at least 20 years since James Tiberius Kirk himself beamed onto the Romulan flagship, surgically altered to look like a Romulan, stole their cloaking device and took it back to Enterprise. Starfleet has had this technology ALL THIS FUCKING TIME, but no one has figured out how to track a ship using a fucking cloaking device until the present time, until this very movie, when a whack-job Klingon commander, chewing the scenery as he actually twirls in his chair spouting Shakespeare, rains photon torpedos down on a helpless Enterprise.

Incidentally, facetious kudos to the hack writers that took over from Meyer and Flinn for brazenly filling Kurtwood Smith's mouth with a tired old cliche, "just because you can do something doesn't mean you must do it," but adding a bunch more words in a transparent attempt to disguise it as something profound: "Let us redefine progress, to mean just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily follow that we must... do that thing." I've always thought that was a fantastically shit-all stupid line. Something an 8th grader, forced to take a drama class, writes into a scene to make his play longer. Pathetic.

After the epic space battle and a communications officer solving the decades-old riddle of how to track a cloaked ship, Kirk & company beam right into the conference hall where the conference is being held. Again, no security, no force field blocking their transporters. Anyone can just beam in and fuck shit up. Makes sense.

More greatness: no one listening to the Federation President speaking at the podium even hears or notices the Enterprise's senior officers beaming into the room, holding phasers. Everyone just sits, politely staring ahead. Makes sense.

The senior officers push their way through the crowd, and Kirk gets to the President and saves his life from an assassination attempt because there's no security to hold him back. No security in orbit around the planet, no security preventing anyone from beaming anyone directly into the conference hall, and sure as fuck no security in the goddamn conference hall to protect dignitaries. Makes sense.

Something else totally bizarre here, along the lines of Martia saying "Kill him!" and pointing off into the air above Kirk's head: Kirk forces his way through the crowd and jumps onto the stage to save the President from being assassinated, but for some reason, doesn't jump right at him to take a bullet for him, so to speak. He instead jumps off to the President's left and knocks him down with his (Kirk's) left arm, to save him from the assassin's phaser.

You can argue that he has to jump to the President's left, and not directly at him, because the podium is in the way. But go frame-by-frame through this sequence, and you see something curious: Kirk does not in fact reach the President before the phaser blast. The phaser blast passes harmlessly between the President's right arm and his torso, before Kirk tackles him:

Kirk was a day late and a dollar short in his rescue attempt. Good thing the assassin - later revealed to be a Starfleet officer, a Colonel - had poor aim.

No, really, what is this shit? Of course no one watching in a theater in 1991 would've seen that the assassin's shot missed and Kirk failed to save the President's life, as it happens way too fast, but why wouldn't you just get the effect right anyway, in the first place? For your own pride as a movie maker?

Following some Shatner-esque scenery-chewing (IT'S ABOUT THE FUTURE, MADAME CHANCELLOR), the final bit of TUC farce: the conference attendees spontaneously applaud Kirk & co, who gather onstage to bask in their god-like glory. Huzzah! New Ranting Russell staffer Audrey McKnight insists than when she re-watched TUC for this piece, this scene made her throw up in her mouth.

********

They're out there somewhere - the grips, set designers, script supervisors, drivers, loaders, cameral operators, the myriad assistants - all the living crew from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country who can shed some light on the Jekyll/Hyde aspect of the picture's first and second halves. Because in the final analysis, only one explanation makes sense: Nicholas Meyer had very clearly been forcibly removed from the set after filming the TUC's brilliant first half, and hacks with no previous motion picture experience were put in place by their corporate masters to finish the movie while Meyer was held hostage in a cell somewhere, unable to reach any colleagues or loved ones.

Question is, why? Did Meyer say or do something to draw the ire of Paramount's corporate overlords? Why did they illegally hold him incommunicado? Why hasn't the truth come out in the decades since? You didn't know it until just now, reading this piece, but it's one of the great cinematic mysteries of the last 40 years. We couldn't find any clues in movie magazine articles or interviews - nothing, nowhere.

We all love a good mystery. This one, however, mystifies us forever. To paraphrase a great American writer, the first half had been Meyer's, but the second half - what was this foul, stunted parody?

Queen at 52 Part IX

 The Game (1980)

The good news in late 1979 when Queen's new single Crazy Little Thing Called Love hit store shelves was that Queen disposed of producer Roy Thomas Baker for the last time. This meant Roger Taylor's great big drum sound was back after an album's absence. With new partner in crime Reinhold Mack on board to co-produce, the forthcoming album, The Game, ditched Jazz's weaker, tinnier sound, reclaiming a warmer, fuller sound.

The bad news was apparent to everyone owning a record player who put side one on their turntables, laid the needle down on the first track and listened in bewilderment as the opening seconds of Play the Game filled their bedrooms: SYNTHESIZERS. And LOTS of them. Overlapping, cascading synthesizers, crashing down upon your head for 17 unspeakable seconds that rent reality into little pieces on the floor.

With many decades' hindsight, it's understandable that new Queen devotees in the 21st century struggle comprehending why this was such a big deal, or why it was a deal at all. But prior to 1980 it was a big deal, and the band themselves made it so. For their first five albums, from 1973's Queen through 1976's A Day at the Races, Queen went out of their way to draw your attention to the fact that there certainly weren't any lowly synthesizers anywhere in the mix of these records. "Nobody played synthesizer" said Queen's credits. "Nobody played synthesizer... again" said Queen II. Sheer Heart Attack kept it simple: "No synthesizer." A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races yelled in your face: "No synthesizers!" and "No synths!"

For those of us meat and potato rock'n'roll kids who grew up with 70s Queen, buying the records as they came out, this was the Queen Seal of Quality, assuring us year after year that there was no funny stuff with these guys: this was a Rock Band, guitar/bass/drums/piano only, with none of that frilly 70s arrangement overwhelmed by inauthentic synthesizers and proggy Moogs and God knows what else. These guys were keeping it real. They didn't like that synthesizer shit, didn't need that synthesizer shit.

And how very, very wrong we were. Turns out the band never had anything against synthesizers in the first place. Those credits on the first five albums were a hedge against critics misinterpreting Brian May's guitar pyrotechnics for something electronically created. 

It is an accident of history that Queen's evolution is neatly marked by a change of decades, but it's very interesting how the dividing line between Old Queen and New Queen is the round number of 1980. 1970s Queen was long-haired, clean-shaven Freddie and No Synthesizers! 1980s Queen was short-haired, mustachioed-Freddie and synthesizers in every nook and cranny of each album's arrangement. 

So Play the Game's arrangement was no mere aberration. The Game is Queen's transition album, the nexus between, as we shall see, a rock band that America embraced, and a pop band that America abandoned.

Queen had some world conquering to do before the falling out, however. The Game went to #1 in the U.S., their first album to do so. It sold millions of copies and was a worldwide phenomenon and I am happy to tell you I will never, ever be anything approaching objective about this album. I bought it as a kid and listened to it over and over until the vinyl was shot and I still love every second of it as a middle-aged man.

But I can understand why someone wouldn't like Don't Try Suicide or Rock It (Prime Jive). The former brazenly rips off The Police's Walking on the Moon before Freddie admonishes whomever it is he's trying to talk out of killing themselves for being a "prick teaser." The latter contains the most shit-all stupid lyrics Roger Taylor ever wrote with a heavy dose of  insufferable 80s synthesizer.

And then, like our knight in shining armor, Brian May storms in and saves the day on both songs, giving Suicide a shot in the arm at the 2:18 mark and sending Taylor's synthesizers packing on Rock It with a totally genius stutter-step metal solo that brings joy to life.  There's also a ton of joy to be found in the song's 1-minute intro, where - to a I-IV-V progression, suitably - Freddie intones his love of real rock and roll, with Taylor adding some unexpectedly gorgeous harmony vocals. Additionally: hearing the band sing the word "suicide" as a barbershop quartet in Don't Try Suicide is wonderfully jarring. Please take a moment to check it out. And on a personal note, Don't Try Suicide was the first time in my life I heard the phrase "get on my tits," and I've used it ever since whenever applicable. Another invaluable contribution to my cultural literacy, courtesy the inimitable Freddie Mercury.

Two other songs with forgettable lyrics that are utterly meaningless are May's Sail Away Sweet Sister and Deacon's Need Your Loving Tonight. And understand: it doesn't matter one iota. The lyrics are nothing much to write home about but musically they're these big, lovely things that make life a grand proposition. Catchy melodies and harmonies and fabulous Brian May leads. The dude was so on at this point in his career that with each new song we just sat in dizzy anticipation, waiting to hear what glorious sounds he'd bring forth from his Red Special, and he never, ever disappointed.

Sister also features a groovy Freddie cameo after the second chorus and an unexpectedly etherial outro thanks to John Deacon's thoughtful bass playing (and a superb cymbal crash at the 3:15 mark). And Deacon, looking to one-up his rhythm section partner, finds new life in in rock's foundational chord progression. This is harder than it looks. The venerable I-IV-V is the oldest, most-used progression in all of rock'n'roll, and real skill is needed coming up with original, inventive melodies to pair with it. All in a day's work for John Deacon of Leicester.

Taylor's Coming Soon has been either neglected or maligned for 43 years now, so some serious course correction is due. Even contemporary writers, way more kind to the band than the hacks reviewing the albums as they came out in the 70s and 80s, call the song "weak material" (Garth Cartwright) and a "faceless new wave rocker" (Georg Purvis). We at Ranting Russell are honored to be the first to finally set the record straight and say that  Cartwright, Purvis and everyone who agrees with them are full of shit, and Coming Soon totally rocks. The lyrics are dumb, but they aren't nearly as dumb as Rock It (Prime Jive), and its virtues are many: Freddie giving it his all ("Somebody naggin' you when you're out with the boys!"), yet more beautiful Queen harmonies, and a righteous Brian May lead. Hallelujah. Turn this mo-fo up loud.

With Save Me, the guitarist goes all Freddie Mercury, writing about love and love lost. He is fully up to the task, closing the album with a beautiful ode to a real-life friend who was "going through a bad time." The 2nd verse concisely sums up everything you and I have ever felt going through an awful breakup, and live the song became even stronger, with Taylor stepping everything up a bit (check out his drum roles after the final verse on both Queen Rock Montreal and Live at the Bowl, and his accents at the end of each). Poignant and rocking, Save Me is superlative Brian May.

Play the Game begins with the aforementioned synthesizers, heralding the apocalypse to longtime Queen fans, but it's all a short ruse. Despite more Freddie nonsense about love and falling in love (for those of you keeping a tally of Freddie singing about love, almost mind-numbingly so, this comes after Funny How Love Is [Queen II], Love of My Life [A Night at the Opera], You Take My Breath Away, The Millionaire Waltz, and Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy [all from A Day at the Races], and Jealousy [Jazz]), this is absolutely primo Mercury, amply aided by outstanding performances from all three of his bandmates. The synthesizers abruptly cut out (exactly like at the beginning of Death On Two Legs five years earlier) and it's just those sublime half-step piano notes and Freddie's sublime melody, joined shortly by Roger Taylor's big, beefy drum sound - he would never sound this good in the mix again -  John Deacon's beautifully complementary bass line, weaving an elegant web of octaves around piano and drums, topped off by Brian May's gigantic chords, giving the whole thing a pretty damn magisterial vibe. Shit, who needs synthesizers? (Queen, apparently.) It's still a revelation even in 2023, 43 years later, having heard this song dozens and dozens of times over the course of my life, getting to the stunning bridge Freddie wrote, and getting swept away one more time by its key change and unexpected chords. Great stuff, this one. I always dug the way Freddie tears May's guitar off of him in the song's video (a Strat?? Sounds like the Red Special to me) and throws it back to him in time for the solo. Action packed.

Freddie Mercury wrote Crazy Little Thing Called Love in 10 minutes sitting in a bathtub. Imagine having that level of talent. 10 minutes in a bathtub and Queen had their first #1 single in the U.S.A. It is pitch-perfect rockabilly, a loving homage to Freddie's 50s rock heroes forged into perfection by Deacon's spot-on bass walks, baritone woo-woo backing vocals, and May's cracking leads, played on a Fender Telecaster in a terrifically successful attempt to dial in James Burton. Crazy was a crowd pleaser and never left the band's set after 1979, and you can hear why, listening to Live at Wembley or Montreal. The song became a pile driver live, with Taylor doing a huge fill all the way through what used to be a bass break after the "ready Freddie" bit, May gleefully wailing over an extended outro, and You're My Best Friend's ending grafted on for the big finale.

The biggest American hit of Queen's career almost wasn't. Somehow not understanding its enormous commercial potential, the band released three other singles (Crazy Little Thing, Save Me, and Play the Game) from The Game before Michael Jackson convinced them to release Another One Bites the Dust as a single. And Wacko Jacko's intuition was watertight: suddenly Queen was the hottest band in the states, living every British musician's dream. Drawing inspiration from Bernard Edward's monster bass line on Chic's Good Times, John Deacon wrote a sparse, straightforward dance song so infectious that it was impossible to avoid in the fall of 1980. Some great, jazzy guitar playing starts in the 2nd verse, and it may very well be Deacy playing it, as he played bass, guitar, and piano on the recording.  The garlic in a delicious stew, that guitar part. The song also served as fodder for Weird Al Yankovic, who served up Another One Rides the Bus in 1981. Damned brilliant.

For lack of a better word, Queen nerds typically describe May's Dragon Attack as "funk rock," but I think that's selling short what is The Game's best track, and one of the better song's in Queen's oeuvre. In my mind this song has always transcended any label a critic deigned to affix upon it, as it seemed to have appeared - to my 11-year-old mind anyway (I didn't know a hell of a lot at that age) - wholly out of a vacuum. It didn't, of course, but holy fucking fuck, the song opens cold with that riff that any 2nd-year guitar student can play but no one else ever thought to write, and then drops out entirely, just leaving the drums, and then Freddie not singing (no melody really, something else that blew my young mind) so much as proclaiming "Take me to the room where the red's all red, take me outta my head's what I said..." Whoa! This sure as shit ain't about love or fat bottomed girls or friends fallen on hard times. "Take me outta my head?" Was this a drug song? No time to figure it out, listening to the truly cool way May plays two ascending chords in the chorus against Deacon still playing the verse's bass line. 

As a kid I never understood why the first line of the second verse seemed to tail off incomplete. Could Brian not think of anything here? Or were they improvising? "Gonna eat that sound, hey, yeah yeah yeah..." What did that mean? My young, green mind couldn't make any sense out of it. Still can't even now, which is why I love it.

And in the midst of all this extreme coolness something extraordinary happens in the 2nd chorus: May plays the two ascending chords again but Deacon instead goes rogue, laying down a bass line that to this day I still play over and over, trying to figure out what he's doing. You think Deaky's bass playing is all funky on Another One Bites the Dust? Check out what the dude plays when Freddie says "She don't take no prisoners." This guy is a natural-born, bass-playing fool.

Taylor then lays down one fierce-ass drum solo for four bars. Reminds me of Phil Rudd, how hard he hits them. "Get down," Freddie commands. Fuck yeah, my friends. This here is the straight-up dope. He hands the baton back to Deacon for some more funkiness, and then Brian May steps in, assuming total command.

That first note shreds your eardrums (hopefully you're listening to this very, very loud) and the guitarist, ever the restless genius, serves up a brand-new descending chord progression for his lead, but even this stops after just a few bars as May reaches deep down inside the Red Special and himself, tearing off a phrase that he pummels over and over, even playing another guitar over it to ensure these jagged notes embed themselves in your neurons for the long haul. The bass disappears completely, May duels with himself a little longer, and then those lovely, angelic Queen harmonies come out of nowhere, flying over Freddie as he summons forth one last chorus (Deacon plays that funky bass line again here; makes me laugh with delight every time I hear it) before the band slides back into the descending chord progression, and no one in the world would be faulted for thinking the song will just fade out at this point. But at the 3:34 mark the Red Special bursts forth anew, frantically building to another phrase that May rips up with pick squeals like the world is ending soon and there's this last bit of business to attend to, FAST... and then the song's opening riff gently brings everything back down to earth and the song ends neatly, evenly, after eight symmetric bars.

I know it's melodramatic, but the way this song ends, calmly after some riotous screeching, sometimes reminds me of Benjamin Compson: “Ben's voice roared and roared. Queenie moved again, her feet began to clop-clop steadily again, and at once Ben hushed... The broken flower drooped over Ben's fist and his eyes were empty and blue and serene again as cornice and facade flowed smoothly once more from left to right, post and tree, window and doorway and signboard each in its ordered place. ”

All four members of Queen shone on The Game, but none more so than Brian May. The guitarist had already delivered Now I'm Here in 1974, Long Away in 1976, It's Late in 1977, and Dead On Time in 1978, but The Game found him moving from strength to strength authoritatively, with his own songs and his bandmates'. The winning streak would continue later in the year, when he delivered the most essential components to their next project, the soundtrack for a movie which, like the band, would be damned with faint praise until a generation passed and it was finally embraced as the milestone it is.

INFAMY UPON INFAMY - The Disembodied Head Craze of 1957 - 1959, Part II

I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN (1957)

"After I've grafted on your new face, life for you will really begin."

The iconic American International Pictures, or AIP, was only in its third year of turning constant profits on low-budget genre pictures like Day the World Ended and It Conquered the World when either producer Herman Cohen, producer Alex Gordon, or AIP co-founders James Nicholson and/or Samuel Z. Arkoff (depending on whose story you believe) shrewdly decided to kill two birds with one stone. "I had heard that 62 percent of the movie audience was between fifteen and thirty," Cohen recalled, "and I knew that the movies that were grossing well were horror and rock'n'roll pictures. So I decided to combine them with an exploitation title."

The result was AIP's most successful movie for many years to come, 1957's I Was a Teenage Werewolf. The movie catapulted star Michael Landon to fame as Tony Rivers, a student with serious anger management issues who, on the advice of police Detective Donovan (Barney Phillips, long a Ranting Russell fave), becomes a patient of "prominent" consulting psychologist Dr. Alfred Brandon, played by Whit Bissell. Outwardly warm and sympathetic, Dr. Brandon is in fact diabolical and quite mad ("Mankind is on the verge of destroying itself. The only hope for the human race is to hurl it back into its primitive dawn, to start all over again!") and uses hypnosis, scopolamine and his secret serum to "regress" Tony into his primitive state - a werewolf. As a werewolf Tony has even worse anger management issues and kills five (including Brandon, his assistant, May 1957 Playboy playmate Dawn Richard and a dog) before Donovan and an officer shoot him dead. "It's not for man to interfere in the ways of God," says Donovan, echoing Harvey B. Dunn's infamous line at Bride of the Monster's conclusion, "He tampered in God's domain."

The profits piled up so immediately that the sequel was out within a scant five months. Directed by Herbert L. Strock (who went on to direct, uncredited, 1980's Monstroid, which could really use a special edition Blu-ray release at this point), I Was a Teenage Frankenstein finds Professor Frankenstein (no first name) plotting to construct "a youth" out of various body parts. Attentive viewers will note that Professor Frankenstein is played by none other than Whit Bissell, who played Dr. Brandon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Different movie, same whack-job scientist. So same, in fact, that Bissell paraphrases himself from the earlier movie. "You've been more than an assistant on other occasions," he browbeats Joseph Mell in I Was a Teenage Werewolf. "Accomplice would be a better word!" Then five months later: "...That other experiment that you assisted me about a month ago," he browbeats Robert Burton in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, "made you my ally. Of course I could you another and uglier word - accomplice. But I won't."

Appropriating the mangled corpse of a teenager who was conveniently thrown from his car in a head-on collision right in front of his house, Professor Frankenstein determines all he needs are two hands and a right leg to complete his patchwork youth. And hey, presto! A local track team's chartered plane crashes into a nearby mountain. The Doctor and his assistant, Dr. Karlton (played by the aforementioned Robert Burton), steal the needed limbs from the cemetery in the dead of night, attaching them to their "teenage marvel" in record time. The marvel's face, however, is a still a disfigured, grotesque mess from the accident. A replacement face is needed, so the Professor has his teen creature kill a boy at the local lover's lane.

And this is where we arrive at our Man Without a Body, disembodied-head moment. Back at the Professor's house, he and the creature stand next to a covered birdcage. The Professor uncovers it to reveal the head of the freshly-killed youth:

This face is quickly grafted onto the creature, completing his transformation into Professor Frankenstein's ideal young man:

What struck the Ranting Russell staff about I Was a Teenage Frankenstein was how much further it pushed the envelope than its predecessor. I Was a Teenage Werewolf ran afoul of church groups and moralists during this era of juvenile delinquency fears, but I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is far more graphic and mean-spirited. Professor Frankenstein is a bona fide sociopath, with no thought or empathy for anyone but himself. He delights in
inflicting pain on his creation to remind it who's in control. He slaps his fiance (Phyllis Coates, four years after playing Lois Lane in The Adventures of Superman) for no real reason and has the creature murder her later, feeling absolutely no remorse. Killing a boy necking with his girlfriend is simply a justifiable means to an end - his glory, when the scientific world sees his achievement. Incidentally, he can only reveal his achievement by taking his creation back to England, because here in the States he'll be convicted of first-degree murder once the lover's lane kid's parents see their boy's face on this towering scientific feat. Frankenstein's solution is to dismember the creature and ship it across the Atlantic in crates with false bottoms. Easy peasy.

And the gore: he bullies Dr. Karlton into helping him with his deadly project, and we watch them remove the car crash victim's hand and leg with a bone saw:

And a distinct Man Without a Body-type illogic and surrealness pervades the picture. Professor Frankenstein is English but has no accent. He rents a house, yet has somehow managed to build a basement morgue and alligator pit below the morgue without the owner knowing. The alligator pit is, naturally, where he dispenses with all human detritus. The severed limbs get thrown in, as does his fiance's body, as does the Professor himself when the creature turns on him in the film's final minutes. Follow the logic here: it's less work digging out an alligator pit, filling it with water and stocking it with an alligator (why would that raise any eyebrows?) than to simply dispose of the severed limbs in a dumpster or out in the desert.

Whit Bissell: just plain evil

Additionally, the only thing the Professor replaces on his teenager's body are the hands and a leg. Yet, the reanimated corpse, which speaks and remembers the Bible, is otherwise a blank slate. Why doesn't he have his old personality?

Because this is the Disembodied Head Craze of 1957 - 1959 kids, and the finer details don't matter. Critics may have dismissed these movies, but Herman Cohen's target audience ate it up and AIP laughed all the way to the bank. They were certain that so long as there were mad scientists, disembodied heads and pretty dames, the rest would take care of itself. And boy howdee, did it ever. The "I was a teenage..." moniker became part of the cultural landscape, and continues to be utilized in various forms to this day.

One last curious aspect of this film is that despite its status as a commodity created solely to sell tickets for AIP in 1957 before moving on to the next commodity, it remains, thanks to a nearly throwaway Whit Bissell line, a remarkably topical and culturally relevant movie here in the 21st century. "I plan to assemble a human being using parts and organs from different cadavers," Professor Frankenstein tells Dr. Karlton in the movie's opening minutes. "...Simply an intelligent adaptation of the principle of selective breeding. After all," he continues, "if you breed morons you beget morons. But when brilliant people mate..."

The Professor has waded, however briefly, into the seismic controversy of eugenics, the shame of a nation whose infamy reverberates to this very day. Did writers Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel (credited under the pseudonym Kenneth Langtry) intentionally embed a swipe at socialists in Frankenstein's dialog? Is the Professor himself - narcissistic, callous - a stand-in for America's liberal elite, and Karlton the moral opposition (the hapless Karlton, all but extorted into assisting Frankenstein, has had enough by movie's end, telling the Professor he's "inhuman" and won't be part of his "fiendish plan" to dismember the creature)? Karlton, after all, survives, and Frankenstein gets fed to the alligator. As we've always maintained, that's the beauty of true art: it operates on numerous levels all at once.