That was filmed in Vasquez Rocks Park. I can’t help but think of that stupid hissing lizard every time I drive past it since it’s on my daily commute. Stupid (no, gentleman) lizard!
PS: I have the latest blu-ray set for the series. In this set, scenes have been digitally-enhanced (ex: the Gorn’s eyes blink; cheese-factor reduced infinitesimally).
Arena
Short story by Fredric Brown
https://userweb.ucs.louisiana.edu/~jjl5766/share/Arena.pdf
Thank you!
You’re quite welcome. And thank you, it was an enjoyable read.
By the guy I associate with your avatar.
That must be one of those lizards in a wind tunnel.
So THAT is how the episode went! I was in juvenile hall when TOS aired at 8:30 PM locally. TV’s were turned off at 9 so I only saw the first 1/2 hour of each show. Endings remained mysteries for a long long time.
Here’s a fast moving lizard
Careful. They spit poison goop in your eyes when you’re trying to get your jeep out of a ditch.
I recall reading an interview with the fight choreographer where he developed it as a way to keep kids from actually hurting each other when they tried to imitate the fight scenes. Apparently some kids did actually punch each other too hard imitating their favourite westerns, so TV fight coordinators looked to ways to keep the fights looking good, have a signature style, but not as dangerous to play at.
So yeah, it was designed to be ineffectual in real life. Someone was thinking of the children.
Also on purpose. Producers were afraid that someone might try to copy it.
But for a time, lawn darts were a thing…
head in hands
You can be rational.
You can be human.
Choose one.
Take that lizard to Florida. It’s a deathtrap. Put Shatner in a rubber suit and send him along. No toupees.
That would have been kind of unnecessary - it’s really not easy to make gunpowder that way, for one. Though I suspect it had more to do with the necessities of the plot - he couldn’t actually have put together a working gun just with natural materials and no tools. (E.g. you need some sort of actual grinding tools to get sufficiently fine ingredients.)
Though it didn’t look like those things were naturally occurring on the planet. It looked like they were put there by the Metrons to give Kirk a chance. They appeared to already be ground into extreme fine powder. They even tell Kirk the planet has resources he can use to defeat the Gorn (or that the Gorn can use to defeat him, though you’d think being much stronger than him and having teeth and claws meant for fighting would make them unnecessary).
It’s been a while, but I remember him crushing the ingredients with a rock to get them into a powder. Even if they had been perfectly pre-ground (and he somehow knew the exact proportions - which can be tricky, apparently), at best he had the materials to make a bomb, not a gun.
Everyone knows there are two other planets in the universe: the Mojave Desert and British Columbia.
You may be right. I recall these piles of fine powder lying on the ground.
Well, really I recall Spock saying, “Yes… yeessss… he’s reasoning it out.”
Both, it turns out:
His measurements of proportions are even sloppier than I remember, and those are pretty rough chunks of charcoal. Also, it’s completely missing the potassium nitrate.
