IT SUCKS TO BE ON THE CREW OF THE ENTERPRISE

We broached this subject two posts ago regarding being a 2^nd in command to the main antagonist and how their screen time should be valued, for it is limited.

 

Crew members on the Starship Enterprise understandably know the risk of their commitment to Starfleet and the ship they serve.  For the unlucky crew members that are profiled in brief, their fate is sealed.  They fare a little better than the SOSDF in Grease, but despite their character’s best intentions, they can’t escape their cinematic death.

The Family Guy does a good take on this, admittedly better than us editors.  But we’ll give it our best to expound upon this idea for you.

Exhibit A:  Midshipman 1^st Class Peter Preston (Ike Eisenmann) – Star Trek 2:  The Wrath of Khan (1982).  Scotty’s right-hand man for the training promptly answers to Admiral Kirk’s¹ questions of readiness.  But Preston was not ready for the attack from Khan, which left the ship damaged and crew members wounded or dead, including him.

 

A grief-stricken Scotty claims, “He stayed at his post.  When the trainees ran.”  For all intents and purposes, Preston fulfilled his duty of a Midshipman on the Enterprise and as the crew member chosen to die.

 

Exhibit B:  Fast forward to Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Lt. Hawk (Neal McDonough) is ordered to accompany Picard and Worf to fix the Enterprise while magnetically grounded to its exterior and avoiding cyber-henchmen trying to... ²

 

The point is, Picard and Worf aren’t getting killed off.  As a result, one of the evil cyborgs lifts Hawk off the magnet and throws him into the vacuum of outer space.

Sorry Hawk and Preston, but that’s the breaks.  Read the fine print on your signed Entrance Waiver to Starfleet³.

¹ In Wrath of Khan, Kirk has now been promoted to Admiral.  He will be demoted in StarTrek 4:  The Voyage Home (the one about traveling back in time to save a whale), lest you forgot.

² Maybe a Trekkie can get up off their mom’s couch and let us know exactly what the heck Picard, Worf and Hawk were doing on the outside of the Enterprise?  Please and Thank You.

³ Does a Trekkie out there have a copy of the signed waivers by Hawk and Preston where it says that The USS Enterprise is always subject to the evils that roam the galaxy and prisoners are not taken?  They have to exist.

HAND-JIVE MANIA

GREASE (1978)

The season has officially changed to Autumn here at the offices of Nitflix, bringing gray skies, cold rain and a touch of seasonal mood disorder.  But we are ready and motivated for curling up under a fleece blanket on the couch, watching our favorite movies over a bowl of burnt popcorn (a benign peccadillo) and a beer.

On one such occasion this past week, I caught Grease just as my favorite guilty pleasure scene comes on the screen.  The Hand-Jive at the Rydell High School dance contest contains a short, but memorable character (whom we cannot accurately verify any credit for via IMDB), who shall forever be called, “Spazzed-Out Sweaty Dancing Fool” (SOSDF for short).

I had to revisit this scene for my own joy and self-maintenance. Right here from 3:42 to 3:46

It’s only four seconds of a guy who looks like a cross between a jam-band tweaker and a death metal fan.  With mouth agape and little if no sound exiting his mouth, the man is committed to his role as the SOSDF.  

This touches a rarely tapped section of our brain that remembers how silly the characters looked to us, even though their cut was kept off the editing room floor.  We refer to this sort of actor as the Camera-Seeking, SAG-Card Earner (CSSCE) and they are the glue that keep our interest.

Feel free to express gratitude upon these actors, asking the heavens for more CSSCE’s and characters like the SOSDF.  Try to remember your favorite CSSCE and reopen the floodgates (through however you stream these days) to your funny bone and ultimately, your happiness.

 

You’ll need some once winter hits.

IT SUCKS TO BE THE 2ND IN COMMAND

To be ‘right-hand man’ to the main villain in 80s action movies is no cinematic cake-walk.  For even the casual movie lover it is known that this individual must die as there can be no resolution to the film without it.

Take Beverly Hills Cop (1984) for example:  Zack (Jonathan Banks) is the muscle behind art and coke dealer Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff).  He is responsible for the death of Axel Foley’s (Eddie Murphy) best buddy from Detroit.  He is a thug deserving of a criminal’s denouement and subsequently gunned down in Maitland’s mansion.

 The muscle goes down first for the main antagonist to be fated the same way (Foley ices Maitland, too).

 

It’s in the cards.

Eddie Murphy (Reggie Hammond) was part of that same scenario in 48 Hrs. (1982).  He warns Billy Bear (Sonny Landham), cohort of money-grubbing scumbag Ganz (James Remar), “Billy, you’re gonna lose.” Billy approaches with a 12" blade, to which Hammond guns him down.  Jack Kates (Nick Nolte) and Hammond ultimately corner Ganz and eliminate him, ending his rampage. 

There are some exceptions to the order of to the bad guys’ end, though.

 

Should the head honcho get his come-uppance before the 2^nd in command, the rule still applies.

 

In Die Hard (1988), Karl (Alexander Godunov) is the right-hand man for Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and not only wants our hero John McClane (Bruce Willis) to be more than ‘neutralized’.  Karl wants him dead for all the killings of his terrorist cohorts.  Gruber goes out first, falling many stories to his death from the top of Nakatomi Plaza.

The viewer is convinced to believe that all is well and the movie concludes, until Karl pops up and tries to gun down McClane.  But thanks to Sgt. Powell (ReginaldVelJohnson) and a Twinkie sugar rush, Karl gets the lead poisoning.

What does all this mean?

No matter, when it happens within the story, the 2^nd in command has the life expectancy akin to a random Enterprise trainee on Star Trek.

 

They must value their screen time for they will be toast… count on it.