Leonard McCoy: Other people have birthdays. Why are we treating yours like a funeral?
James T. Kirk: Bones, I don’t want to be lectured!
McCoy: What the hell do you want? This is not about age. And you know it. It’s about you flying a god-damn computer console when you want to be out there hopping galaxies!
Kirk: Spare me your emotions and poetry, please. We all have our assigned duties.
McCoy: Bull! You’re hiding. Hiding behind rules and regulations.
Kirk: Who am I hiding from?
McCoy: From yourself, Admiral.
Kirk: Don’t mince words, Bones. What do you really think?
McCoy: Jim, I’m your doctor and I’m your friend. Get back your command. Get it back before you turn into part of this collection, before you really do grow old.
I love that bit of dialogue.
On Saturday, I went to see The Wrath of Khan at the Alex Theatre in Glendale for Star Trek’s 60th Anniversary. I’ve seen the movie many times (it’s my favorite of the original cast movies), but never on the big screen.
Before the movie, they showed the Khan episode from the original series, bridging the two into a complete story. I don’t remember that episode, so it was so much fun to watch the story continue from the episode through to the feature-length movie. The sound was incredible! Watching a 1960s tv show on a big screen with a theatre sound system totally changes the experience. The score enveloped the room and subtle sound effect details burst out of the screen.
We all got a good laugh from the fight scene at the end of the episode, where you could clearly see that it was two stunt performers in the wide shots instead of William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban. That detail would have probably been unintelligible on 1960s tv screens. Or did audiences just care less about those kind of details in that era?
I felt pure joy watching the feature-length movie with a full house of fans. I’ve never been to a midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I imagine that it brings out that same joy. People reacted to a favorite line or scene with claps, gasps and laughter. It all creates a wonderful excitement that is hard to replicate at home. I suppose that’s why I still love going to the movie theatre. Even if the audience isn’t reacting, I can feel the mood in the room and it changes the way the film hits me.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Directed by Nicholas Meyer, performances by William Shatner and DeForest Kelley, Paramount Pictures, 1982.