EARLY ACCESS - Is Star Trek’s Racism Episode Good Enough To Still Resonate? (S3E15)
Added 2023-03-31 11:47:48 +0000 UTCOur YouTube edited reaction to Let That Be Your Last Battlefield will be posted on Monday, but you can watch it right now!
Seeing the comments on our last reaction about this episode makes me think we are going to surprise a lot of people with this one.
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Comments
The only things I have ever enjoyed about this episode is Frank Gorshin as Bele and the destruct sequence. The destruct sequence will come up again in one of the movies.
KatWithAttitude
2023-04-01 00:01:26 +0000 UTCOh, and i do feel the episode still resonates, maybe more today than it did then. Too many people are exactly this ridiculous right now and it could get us All killed.
Trevacious
2023-03-31 23:30:01 +0000 UTCIt was subtle as a sledgehammer by the standards of the time, but nowadays some things can be so ridiculously “on the nose” with their preaching that this actually comes off looking pretty good in comparison.
James H
2023-03-31 23:28:15 +0000 UTC“The Galileo” emblazoned with 1701 becomes a shuttlecraft from elsewhere like the script says, in the remastered edition. You are missing some really nice starship eye candy in Season Three — it helps in some of the lesser episodes. The remaster crew even correct some of their own errors for S3. We still get looks at Not-Chekov and Mirror-Kirk, though, ha. I can’t remember who directed that bit of 2nd unit stock shot of Sulu (there’s a Chekov one, too) looking worriedly over his shoulder, but one of the behind-the-scenes books had a funny story about it. Maybe the one by Herb Solow and Robert Justman? It’s been a long time.
Trevacious
2023-03-31 23:21:23 +0000 UTCWow! I am really surprised that you liked the episode so much. I remember that Starlog magazine rated this episode as 1 of their 4 or so Z-level bomb episodes. I think The Alternative Factor and The Empath were two of the others. I think the self-destruction sequence is one of the most famous parts of this episode as I think this was mentioned many times later in various Star Trek-related games and media. One part of the episode that I did not used to like was the fact that the separation of the skin tone was so exact. Shouldn't it have been blended more where the two colors come together? I think one person whom tried to represent the race later in Star Trek art had the same idea. However, I think I must have learned later that there are a few animals where the color changes quite dramatically. Black-and-white cows and cats do not typically have shades of gray in between. Perhaps the cheaper and quicker skin tone art for this episode works best. I guess Coon’s concept was essentially to have "a devil with a tail to chase an angel with a halo" or I guess actually the reverse with the first character Lokai looking like the devil and Bele looking like the angel. Perhaps often-criticized third-season producer Fred Frieberger saved this episode. Director Jud Taylor is also credited with with the "half-white, half-black" visual, but apparently Taylor "suggested that they should be bisected at the waist," but Frieberger thought that that idea was too "on the head." Oliver Crawford who wrote one of your least favorite episodes "The Galileo Seven" wrote the teleplay for this episode, so perhaps that is part of the reason the Galileo shuttlecraft got included with this episode.
Chtphr Rrr
2023-03-31 22:31:30 +0000 UTCWorks for me still. And as 'obvious' as it may seem to some... I feel the entire point is how 'obviously stupid' this entire thing is. The look Spock and Kirk have on their face when Bele tells them "Well I'm black on the other side" is EXACTLY what this is about. Kirk and Spock didn't even remotely understand how that makes any difference. And that's the point. It's supposed to be obvious IMO.
Andreas Schmitt
2023-03-31 21:43:16 +0000 UTCI always felt, even as a child, that the writing of this episode was ham-fisted and obvious. Granted, I did not know what the word ham-fisted meant when I was 10; but I still saw it as such. I think some of the acting is over-the-top. I think the dialogue is redundant, particularly the dialogue of the two guest actors. Redundant and unsubtle. It was just too much of a soapbox episode for me. An oafish allegory.
Tom Occhipinti
2023-03-31 19:46:13 +0000 UTC
