Here’s a fun one from a story told at a panel from a con:
Siddig (Dr Bashir) was asked when he believed his character was replaced by the changelings, and did he make any acting choices related to that. His response was utter confusion and surprise, because he never knew that Dr Bashir had ever been replaced in the storyline. During the time of filming, he hadn’t been reading the full scripts, only memorizing his lines, because he was playing too much Ultima Online.
That is so fricking hilarious, thank you ^^
The King of Jordan is a huge Trekkie and actually had a cameo in Voyager. I’ll admit it isn’t much. But it did happen.
I was always a bit amused by Siddigs weirdly stacked family tree
Through his father, Siddig is the nephew to Sadiq al-Mahdi, Prime Minister of Sudan during 1966–1967 and 1986–1989, and the filmmaker, poet and painter Hussein Shariffe.[1][8] Siddig is the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ahmad, a Nubian religious leader and founder of the Mahdist State who was proclaimed the Mahdi by his disciples.[1][8] Through his mother, Siddig is the nephew of actor Malcolm McDowell and cousin of film director and screenwriter Charlie McDowell.[1][9]
I want to see the timeline where Alexander Siddig has some sort of mental breakdown after starring in DS9, travels to Sudan, announces he’s going to reclaim his ancestor’s throne…and he pulls it off somehow. Imagine the timeline where someone goes from “the doctor aboard Deep Space Nine” to “the Messianic king of Sudan.” That would be one Hell of a career track! 😂😂😂
There is a toilet off the bridge of the Enterprise D. I think it’s between the turbolift doors and Picard’s ready room, if memory serves. Occasionally you’ll see people coming in or out of the door. But the show never tells us this, it’s only known thanks to the old Star Trek TNG Technical Manual (which I’m angry I still don’t own a copy of)
There is a toilet off the bridge of the Enterprise D.
Thank you. And that’s next to the turbolift doors, yeah? Which means that Picard isn’t having to hear Number One’s number two while drinking Earl Grey and going over a brief.
-The TOS episode The Naked Time originally called for Sulu to use a katana, George Takei thought a rapier would be a better idea.
Sulu, Takei figured, was raised in the 23rd century, and wouldn’t necessarily be inspired by samurai either, so he suggested to Black that Sulu have a rapier instead. Takei, game and energized, would duel his way into one of the series’ more notable scenes
https://www.slashfilm.com/727375/the-lie-that-led-to-george-takeis-favorite-star-trek-scene/
-In the 2009 movie called Star Trek All of this was ignored and they gave Sulu a Katana.
-The 2009 movie decide to make Sulu gay
The idea came from Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty in the new films and penned the Beyond screenplay, and director Justin Lin, both of whom wanted to pay homage to Takei’s legacy as both a sci-fi icon and beloved LGBT activist.
-George Takei did not love this
George Takei Reacts to Gay Sulu News: “I Think It’s Really Unfortunate”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/george-takei-reacts-gay-sulu-909154/
-The director of 2009 Star Trek said he didn’t like Star Trek when he was chosen to direct it.
I’ve got very mixed feelings regarding Simon Pegg in general and I really, really hate the JJ Abrams movies.
I do understand George Takei’s frustration regarding them.
I only watched the 2009 one. Good action movie, but it was not a good Trek movie.
I just wish they would have expanded the universe, but instead they re-told an origin story that did not need retelling.
Beyond is easily the best of the three, and the only one I bothered to buy a copy of.
The Traveller wasn’t an actor playing a character. He actually could do that shit.
(you never said the trivia had to be true)
The gold/yellow shirts in the original series were actually green. The three Starfleet colors were supposed to be RGB. It was just a weird fabric that appeared yellow thanks to odd '60s light/film quirks. Eventually, they decided to just go with it and actually make it yellow.
I’m not sure that’s actually true, because green appears fine on other clothing of the era (e.g. Kirk’s green wraparound tunic)
That was a different fabric that actually photographed as its true color
Another quirk involving the original series’ tunics were the colors - in particular, “command.” Trekkies everywhere will swear Spock wore blue, Scotty wore red and Kirk wore gold. Wrong. The three Starfleet colors were blue, red and green. Lime green, to be exact. “It was one of those film stock things;” Theiss states, “it photographed one way - burnt orange or a gold. But in reality was another; the command shirts were definitely green.” As further proof, look at the wrap-around tunics as well as the dress uniform tunics of Kirk’s – all green. They came off as their true colors because they were constructed of different materials than the standard duty command shirts.
At the time TOS was produced there was a rival TV series made in West Germany. It’s as nerdy and niche as you could ever wish for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumpatrouille_–_Die_phantastischen_Abenteuer_des_Raumschiffes_Orion
Surely any similarities to TOS are purely coincidental.
The Internet Archive has all the episodes with English subs: https://archive.org/details/raumpatrouille-orion/1+Attack+from+Outer+Space.mp4
EDIT: Added picture and archive link
From the German version:
Der Boden der Tiefseebasis, auf dem Mitarbeiter die „Raumschiffe“ beluden, war in Wirklichkeit der Königsplatz in München, als er noch mit großen Granitplatten belegt war. Dort wurde aus erhöhter Position die Mannschaft gefilmt.
The floor of the deep-sea base, on which crew loaded the “spaceships”, was in reality the Königsplatz in Munich, when it was still covered with large granite slabs. There, the team was filmed from an elevated position.
Those granite slabs were put there by the Nazis.
Because the doors in the set of TOS were manually opened and closed by stage hands, they would frequently not open on cue leading to the actors barreling straight into a closed door.
Happened on the second generation shows, too. There are some great TNG bloopers involving doors. They mostly had it down by ENT.
The scene where Quark and Garak are discussing how the Federation is over root beer was supposed to have originally been performed with a comedic tone. However, both Armin Shimmerman and Andrew Robinson insisted on playing it deadly serious. And thus we got one of the most legendary scenes in the franchise.
Which episode?
DS9 S04E02 “The Way of the Warrior”
The Enterprise was originaly designed the wrong way up. But Gene saw the mistake and went: that’s cool, we’re keeping it. Totally impractical for planetary landings, obviously fragile, but damn it looks cool still 60 years on
The story goes on to say that “TV Guide came out, they ran a picture of the ship on the cover, upside down.” The TV Guide image that this probably refers to can be seen here (it’s not actually a cover, but Matt Jeffries’ memory may have been slightly off):
Morn actor Mark Allen Shepherd’s credits include only one non-trek role in what appears to be a shelved film called Babylon Vista.
Spock/Kirk porn novella are still the best selling Star Trek novella series of all time.
Also, that slash in the beginning of your comment between those particular names is the specific slash that named the entire genre of said works.
In fact, most fan-fiction terms come from the old TOS fan community.
Homoerotic? Really?
edit: oh yes indeed
From the article: “Star Trek was by that point one of the longest-lived and most prosperous subjects of slash fiction.” ;) I approve of this writer.
Romulus isn’t there anymore. It’s literally gone.
The ability to do a Vulcan salute is genetic, and I always wonder what Trek would have looked like if Nimoy didn’t have the gene for it. Or if he hadn’t been Jewish, since peeking at the priestly blessing as a kid is what he said inspired it.
That one is probably too well known. Umm, do we all know about the officially licensed TOS novel Killing Time by Van Hise that had a reprint issued because it was too gay? (Kirk/Spock) I have one of the original versions around the house somewhere.
I can do the salute with both hands easily and also open and close the middle two fingers, leaving the outside fingers spread. Back and forth.
I can do the salute with my left hand only. I’m Zefram with my right, no matter how much I practice. Right-handed, but left eye dominant, which only affects me when I’m shooting and when I want to do the fargin salute. Can any one else relate? Until this day…I was alone.
I can do it with my middle finger on either side of the V on both hands and move my middle fingers back and forth. But I’m a musician, I wonder if that helps
I am exactly the same. You are not alone!
I can do it with my right hand and not my left! I’m right-hand and right eye dominant.
It is your duty to digitize and upload that original version of Killing Time.
I’d honestly be shocked if it’s not already floating around somewhere!
What gene?
Roddenberry
