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Moments That Never Happened

We’ve seen them as bumper stickers and t-shirt comments, we’ve heard characters in other shows and films quote them… And yet, the scene or line in question never actually happened. I know I promised I would make this a cheesy top 5 list, but like a big dork… I can’t actually remember two of them… So, I guess this is just going to have to be yet another in a long line of sad Geeky admissions…(Like how I find Joan Cusack to be hot, hot, hot)…

Anyway…

I’m talking about scenes or lines that have worked their way into the pop culture vernacular without actually happening; the three most common coming from Casablanca and Star Trek (sorry OSC).

Regardless of how many bumper stickers or t-shirts you read, Captain Kirk never actually said “Beam me up Scotty”. Nether did anyone else from the show for that matter. In fact, the closest the Shat ever came to speaking said line was in Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home… Right before little miss humpback whale jumps on her favorite Iowan Kirk says: “Scotty, beam me up”… (And no, the sad part isn’t the fact that I know these scenes this well). The other line from Trek that was never muttered is the immortal “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a…” True that Bones was fond of the “I’m a doctor, not a…”, but he never actually said “Dammit”, not until the films.

The line from Casablanca being the ever loved, “Play it again, Sam”. See, here’s the deal… Bogart never actually said that line. The real line as said between drags of Lucky Strike is simply: “Sam, play it”. I can understand how these fake lines get created. A simple misunderstanding can make someone believe that they heard said line or watched said scene. The most interesting aspect is the fact that all of us, for a time, were absolutely certain it happened…

Just like my obsession with a scene from Return of the Jedi.

Didn’t think I could spin this into a Star Wars bit could you? Ha, shows what you know… I can turn ANYTHING into a Star Wars rant. Thankfully, with this example I am not alone. A certain best friend has been living with this Force powered delusion for just as long as I. What is the nature of this misguided obsession? Take your mind back to the Death Star II space battle over Endor. The painfully smooth Lando Calrissian is back behind the controls of his baby, the Millennium Falcon, with strange but wholly hairless alien (sounding a lot like a Latin Mush Mouth) as his co-pilot. Together they are leading the noble rebel forces to what is likely the last stand of goodness and justice… On the forest moon below, Solo is hamming it up and trying not to get killed by Teddy Bears… Inside the battle station of death, Luke is whining about being a Jedi to the taunting of an egotistical (if short lived) Emperor.

Anyway.

As Lando flies closer to the Death Star he is startled to learn that their sensors are being jammed. His eyes grow wide as he realizes that the surprise rebel attack is not so much the surprise they were counting on. He yells at all craft to pull up. The audience is given a great shot of ship after ship banking hard to avoid slamming into the shielded Death Star. (In addition to this shot being awesome… It also provided Farkers with years of clichéd Photoshop jokes)! All the rebel crafts are able to pull up in time to get their asses handed to them by a whole grip of TIE Interceptors and Stay Destroyers. So far so good right? I’ve pretty much nailed the scene… Well, not really. You see, for the longest (and I do mean longest) time I was absolutely friggen convinced that when I first saw that scene in the theater, a rebel frigate slammed into the Death Star and promptly exploded upon impact. I wasn’t the only one to think this either. One of my best friends was convinced of the exact same thing! The strange part being, we didn’t actually see the movie together, we simply came up with the same belief at the same time.

Time went by. I told person after person the image I saw and how cool it was. Each and every time I brought it up all I got back was cold stares and a sea of crickets. Did none of them remember that scene? How could they forget? That was the coolest damn part in the whole friggen space battle! (It was way better then the Executioner crashing into the Death Star and looking like a cheesy flamethrower effect). Hell, even when the movies came out on video and we watched the Jedi frame by frame (of which myself and my fellow Geeks did with frightening regularity) I was still absolutely convinced the scene had happened. My friend felt the same as myself. He even went so far as to hypothesize that the print we saw in the theater has been altered and that somewhere out there a group of projectionists had this ultra rare 4 seconds of film footage. (It’s kinda’ like how we ALL knew a dude who had the Boba Fett with launching back missile…We didn’t, it NEVER existed, sorry dorks). Now mind you, this isn’t the childish rambling of small kids, no, it was the mindless rambling of two grown men in the prime of their twenties. When the announcement that Star Wars was finally making its way to DVD I remember calling my friend and asking, “Yo, you think they’ll finally put that scene back in”? The saddest part of that question being?

I was only half joking.

There was (is) a small part of me that is still convinced that I saw that rebel frigate smash into the Death Star. No matter how many times I watch Return of the Jedi, a little Geek from within expects to see that ship go boom as it banks away. No matter how many times my fellow Geeks tell me I am out of my mind, I simply shake my head and laugh with the strange belief that they missed some special. That they missed a wonderful moment that Lucas has put into the film one time…never to be seen again by mortal man. I saw it…My friend saw it… Too bad for everyone else…

Until next, remember… It’s a trap!