"Star Trek Clichés" Topic

For example:

"Beam me up, Scotty"

Hes dead, Jim.

"Live long and prosper."

The needs of the many/one outweigh etc etc…

Fascinating!

It's life Jim, though not as we know it.

I'm a doctor, not a …

The engines cannae take it Captain!

We come in peace…shoot to kill, shoot to kill…

The red shirt guys die.

All the female aliens are beautiful & fall for Kirk

Shut up Wesly!

Three hundred quatloos for the newcomers!

What is kissing?

Insufficient data.

Let the wookie win.

Blinkies

It seems every technical device in Star Trek incorporates a flashing light. There is nothing wrong with an LED (or a future equivalent of an LED) to indicate the operation mode or status of a device, especially if it is a hand-held scanner or jammer. But the prop designers go too far with this habit and build in blinking LEDs just everywhere even if there is absolutely no need for such an indicator. The silly culmination is in VOY: "Drive" where the Doctor is playing with blinking golf balls!

Whenever the Enterprise crew discover ancient technologies, it always works.

I've got a 6 month old I-phone that is in the process of dying.

Whenever there's an emergency, the command crew on duty are our familiar stars. Doesn't anything ever happen in Shifts B & C (assuming 3 X 8 hour daily shifts)?

1) The enterprise is hit by a nerf arrow and a console explodes violently maiming or killing the crewmember.
2) You can put holes the size of the Millennium Falcon into any Trek ship, but the artificial gravity is tha last system to go, Life support is only a tenth as effective at best.
3)The Enterprise E often faced certain death, a ship filled with family and kids who probably didn't sign up for it. So while Picard is standing stoic on the bridge, there is probably a riot going on right outside the door.
4) So the tough alien decides to show how badass they are by beating up Worf, a moot point because at some point everyone has beaten up Worf.

Patric, that would be Enterprise D, E was the movie ship, which while longer, was smaller, with no families abord.

To boldly go where no man has gone before…

It's an oldie, but still good: link

(I think the original version of this came out of the University of Edinburgh in the early 1980s?)

'She canne take it Captain!' Scotty … apply to every situation.

Hail hail, fire and snow. Call the angel, we will go. Far away, for to see, friendly Angel, come to me.

"There can be no peace, as long as Kirk lives!"

"I canna change the laws of physics.."

"Take us out of of orbit,Mr. Sulu,and *hurry*"

Klingons off the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow…

No mention of technobabble?

"If we were to (technobabble) the engines to output (technobabble) at just the right frequency, we'd have a way to wrap this episode in the last 5 minutes!"

I think it was Ron Moore who said that episodes really were written this way, with the (technobabble) conjured up after by Rick Sternbach or Mike Okuda. There's at least a full season of DS9 and Voyager episodes that add weight to his claim.

"Captain's Log. Stardate…."

"Set phasers to stun/kill"

"Ahead, Warp Factor 'X'"

"Make it so, Number One"

"Engage"

Here is a list I ran across somewhere on the Internet ages ago:

Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek

10. Noisy doors.
You can't walk three feet in a starship without some door whooshing or screeching at you. My office building has automatic sliding doors. They're dead silent. If those doors went "wheet!" every time a person walked through them, about once a month some guy in accounting would snap and go on a shooting rampage. Sorry, Scotty, the IEEE has revoked your membership until you learn to master WD-40.

9. The Federation.
This organization creeps me out. A planet-wide government that runs everything, and that has abolished money. A veritable planetary DMV. Oh sure, it looks like a cool place when you're rocketing around in a Federation Starship, but I wonder how the guy driving a Federation dump truck feels about it? And everyone has to wear those spandex uniforms. Here's an important fact: Most people, you don't want to see them in spandex. You'd pay good money to not have to see them. If money hadn't been abolished,
that is. So you're screwed.

8. Reversing the Polarity.
For cripes sake Giordi, stop reversing the polarity of everything! It might work once in a while, but usually it just screws things up. I have it on good authority that the technicians at Starbase 12 HATE
that. Every time the Enterprise comes in for its 10,000 hour checkup, they've gotta go through the whole damned ship fixing stuff. "What happened to the toilet in Stateroom 3?" "Well, the plumbing backed up, and Giordi thought he could fix it by reversing the polarity." Between Scotty's poor lubrication habits and Geordi's damned polarity-reversing trick, it's a wonder the Enterprise doesn't just spontaneously explode whenever they put the juice to it.

7. Seatbelts.
Yeah, I know this one is overdone, but you'd think that the first time an explosion caused the guy at the nav station to fly over the captain's head with a good 8 feet of clearance, someone would say, "You know, we might think of inventing some futuristic restraining device to prevent that from happening." So of course, they did make something like that for the second Enterprise (the first one blew up due to poor lubrication), but what was it? A hard plastic thing that's locked over your thighs. Oh, I'll bet THAT feels good in the corners. "Hey look! The leg-bars worked as advertised! There goes Kirk's torso!"

6. No fuses.
Every time there's a power surge on the Enterprise the various stations and consoles explode in a shower of sparks and throw their seatbelt-less operators over Picard's head. If we could get Giordi to
stop reversing the polarity for a minute, we could get him to go shopping at the nearest starship parts store and pick up a few fuses. And while he's shopping, he could stop at an intergalactic IKEA and
pick up a few chairs for the bridge personnel. If you're going to put me in front of a fuseless exploding console all day, the least you could do is let me sit down.

5. Rule by committee.
Here's the difference between Star Trek and the best SF show on TV in the last decade:

Star Trek:
Picard: "Arm photon torpedoes!"
Riker: "Captain! Are you sure that's wise?"
Troi: "Captain! I'm picking up conflicting feelings about this! And, it appears that you're a 'fraidy cat."
Wesley: "Captain, I'm just an annoying punk, but I thought I should say something."
Worf: "Captain, can I push the button? This is giving me a big Klingon warrior chubby."
Giordi: "Captain, I think we should reverse the polarity on them first."
Picard: "I'm so confused. I'm going to go to my stateroom and look pensive."

Firefly:
Captain: "Let's shoot them."
Crewman: "Are you sure that's wise?"
Captain: "Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I'll BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who's in command!"
Crewman: "Aye Aye, sir!"

4. A Star Trek quiz:
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and "Ensign Jones" beam down to a planet. Which one isn't coming back?

3. Technobabble.
The other night, I couldn't get my car to start. I solved the problem by reversing the polarity of the car battery, and routing the power through my satellite dish. The resulting subspace plasma caused a rift in the space-time continuum, which created a quantum-tunneling effect that charged the protons in the engine core, thus starting my car. Child's play, really. As a happy side-effect, I also now get the
Spice Channel for free.

2. The Holodeck.
I mean, it's cool and all. But do you really believe that people would use it to re-create Sherlock Holmes mysteries and old-west saloons? Come on, we all know what the holodeck would be used for. And we also know what the worst job on the Enterprise would be: Having to squeegie the holodeck clean.

1. The Prime Directive.
How stupid is this? Remember when Marvin the Martian was going to blow up the Earth, because it obstructed his view of Venus? And how Bugs Bunny stopped him by stealing the Illudium Q36 Space Modulator? Well, in the Star Trek universe, Bugs would be doing time. Probably in a room filled with Roseanne lookalikes wearing spandex uniforms, walking through doors going WHEET! all day. It would be hell. At least until the Kaboom. The Earth-shattering Kaboom

Hilarious post, javelin. I heartily concur, although I still love Star Trek.

Technobabble: besides 'reversing the polarity' the other Next Gen go-to cliché was 'reroute via a subroutine.' Subroutines are apparently magic. You can use these mini-programs to change the laws of physics and fix actual wrecked physical systems. Sometimes they even reverse polarity while rerouting via subroutine.

Reverse the polarity on your car by switching the battery cables and see how well that makes your car run. I hope you enjoy the sparks and smell of ozone as your car's electrical system imitates one of those exploding consoles.

With Firefly isn`t it more like,
Captain: "Let's shoot them."
Crewman: "Are you sure that's wise?"
Captain: "Do you know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I'll BEAT YOU WITH until you realize who's in command!"
Crewman: "But we dont actually have anything to shoot with Captain"
Captain:"Ok, so much for that idea, lets just throw Jayne at them instead and run away".

The silly culmination is in VOY: "Drive" where the Doctor is playing with blinking golf balls!

I have a blinky set of bocce balls. I'm usually too drunk or tired or both to play by the time it gets dark.

Also, how about …

"Kaaaaaaaaaaaahn!"

The dylithiam crystals are, stolen, cracked or drained.

You'd think that after a couple of times of one of those things happening that they would start to carry a second set of them.

Javellin – but one of your examples is from the 'touchy-feely' Next Gen.

To quote proper Trek:

Crewman: "We've got phasers: I vote we blast 'em!"
Kirk: "I'll bear that in mind… when this becomes a democracy…"

Jim new just the right thing to say!

John T

Also, how about …

"Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Thanks for making this thread almost impossible to read …

^^ Agreed

Star Trek TNG
"Mr La Forge, we need more power from the warp engines." -Picard

"Can do Captian, but first let me take the next 20 seconds to explain how I am going to do a 3 second task." -La Forge

"Make it so." -Picard

Babylon 5
"Can we lock on and grab that ship?" -Sheridan
"Minbari ships use gravitics, we could hold it with-" -Lennier
"A simple yes or no would do Mr. Lennier, get to it." -Sheridan

Well, etowhosis, that's one way to kill a thread. :-/ Hopefully Bill will kill the post so we can actually read the other posts.

Stifle him for the moment and you will be able to read this properly.

Scary thing is that the "reverse the polarity" gag shows up in the hack sequel to War of the Worlds.

link

Subspace

It's always subspace interference.

"I have the Admiral on subspace."

"I will take it in my ready room."

9. The Federation.
This organization creeps me out. A planet-wide government that runs everything, and that has abolished money. A veritable planetary DMV. Oh sure, it looks like a cool place when you're rocketing around in a Federation Starship, but I wonder how the guy driving a Federation dump truck feels about it? And everyone has to wear those spandex uniforms. Here's an important fact: Most people, you don't want to see them in spandex. You'd pay good money to not have to see them. If money hadn't been abolished,
that is. So you're screwed.

There is a diffrence between star fleet and the federation.

In the federation(atleast on earth and the developed planets, you don't have to do anything. You don't need money, you can have a nice apartment in the city or a big cottage in the forests, you decide, you can if you want to be a lousy poet your whole life. everything is taken care off. but the vast majority in the federation works not for money but for the betterment of them self and the sociaty.

Star Fleet is just one of many things you can do in the federation. Some go into science, some landscaping, some become architects. Some cooks. And some lously poets.

Scary thing is that the "reverse the polarity" gag shows up in the hack sequel to War of the Worlds.

I suspect that a certain time-travelling doctor has a lot to do with the popularity of the phrase.
youtube.com/watch?v=QDaCMhKPGys
It`s probably found in all corners of space-time throughout the entire multiverse by now.

1. Never tell the Captain what he asks you.

Captain.."What's happening, Number One?"

Number One.."I think you need to see for yourself."

2. The smart key.

Someone taps ONE button and announces they have scanned for hydrogen atoms within 10 cubic parsecs.

3. Beautiful Woman Incidental Music [usually involving soft focus]

4.Unable to end an episode properly--usually everyone laughs disrespectfully at Spock.
Or frown grimly and say "Take us out of orbit".

Well, etowhosis, that's one way to kill a thread. :-/ Hopefully Bill will kill the post so we can actually read the other posts.

My browser word wraps it (line length is purely a function of your software and how you have it configured), but I tried out a couple of devices and found one running defaults that didn't so I figured out what you are talking about (specifics would have helped). I asked the Editor to truncate it. Seems like he did.

@ etotheipi (and everyone)

Just for future reference, it particularly smarted on mobile devices – my wife's Kindle nearly lost it's lunch and I suspect the applied same on mobiles too.

Browser software is a funny thing: I never had a chance to look at it on my PC so I don't know how it would have ared on Firefox.

John T

Why don't they ever have problems like this in Star Trek? Also, when do they go to the bathroom? How come when they sound General Quarters all of the sudden (OK … Red Alert) nobody is sitting on the can?