It's been a humid old day today. Nice then, that at the end of it I can lie here, listening to the rain.
I was going to write about Shakespeare tonight. The rain reminded me of something in one of the plays, but it turned out to be not that interesting. I'm not an aficionado of the bard's work - I learned some stuff for quizzes but I'm not one of those people who reel off Shakespearian quotes at apposite moments. To be honest, I find that kind of thing just a little bit over-the-top. You know what I mean, people who want you to know that they're more cultured and better read than you are and can't resist. I can't be doing with that. They can 'jog on', to use the vernacular.
Then I remembered that the other day, my Dad was watching Star Trek VI which I think is called The Undiscovered Country. Oh you know the one - they're all terribly old and tired and progressively racist towards the ill-mannered Klingons who don't know how to use cutlery; a weirdly vulcan Kim Catrall sets Kirk and Bones up and they're falsely imprisoned in a snow-cave with a shapeshifting pre-Halle-Berry-not-Halle-Berry who helps them plan an elaborate escape so they can prove their innocence, prevent an improbable assassination, save the day, kill off Christopher Plummer and all fly home for a cup of Ovaltine and a nice pair of regulation Starfleet slippers while peace reigns throughout the galaxy... again... yada yada yada...
Oh and that's a good Star Trek film, that! The odd-numbered ones - well don't go there.
Anyway, the point about bringing up Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is that the bit I caught my Dad watching seemed to feature an overabundance of pretentious Shakespeare quotes like you wouldn't believe, each slotted lazily into the dialogue. The Klingons were at it, to-be-ing-or-not-to-be-ing in an unnervingly guttural fashion; the crew of the Enterprise were responding with quotations of their own, and every other line (including, you'll notice, the TITLE OF THE FILM) was lifted from the bard. At one point even the Klingons claim that Shakespeare is best when heard in their language - a plot point of course, to get the crew (and us I suppose) riled up enough to think about murdering the scurvy lot of them. It's nonetheless preposterous.
Star Trek does this kind of thing a lot - Herman Melville, Gilbert and Sullivan and John Milton all get shoehorned into space to help the plot along with incredulous moments of clarity. How depressing is it though that five hundred years into the future, we seem to have conquered inter-stellar travel, transportation and wireless medical surgery; we've solved the thorny old problem of world peace and economic turmoil, and we've successfully policed our ideas across a quarter of the galaxy despite being at best average and meddlesome... but no-one, anywhere in the united federation of planets has found anything, or perhaps read or even written anything, anything at all, that's better to quote at dramatic moments ... than the ancient plays of William Shakespeare!
I'd like it if they started quoting some other forms of popular entertainment, perhaps that are as long ago to them as Shakespeare is to us, yet just as mysteriously venerated by that future society.
Scotty: Captain the engines just can' take any more, they're at maximum power.
Kirk: Mr Scott you've got to hold and give but do it at the right time; you can't be slow or fast but you must get to... the line.
Scotty (misty-eyed): Aye captain.
Kirk: Seems the engines could take it after all, Mr Scott.
Uhura: Captain, taking is too easy but that's the way it is.
Bones: Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a pilot.
Spock: I believe that Doctor McCoy lacks a logical amount of self-belief, Captain. To fly the shuttle-craft efficiently, doctor, you must... believe that you can fly.
Kirk: Spock's right, Bones. Say it.
Bones: I'm not saying it just because some pointy-eared...
Kirk: Say it, Bones.
Bones: Alright, alright. I believe... I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky...
Kirk: Everybody...
All: I think about it every night and day...
I just think it's all a bit far-fetched, Star Trek.
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