SECTIONS
Earth, not space, is
the final frontier of Battlestar Galactica.
- Alessandra Stanley, "New York Times"
"I have my flaws too."
"The difference is
my flaws are personal. Yours are professional."
- Lt. Kara Thrace aka Starbuck and Colonel Tigh
"What do you hear,
Starbuck?"
"Nothing but the rain,
sir."
- Adama and Starbuck, after she takes out some Cylons
"Give me your eyes."
- Commander Adama, getting the flight crew's attention
"There are no reserve
Vipers, everything is on the board already. Now we play for all the marbles."
- Commander Adama, watching a high risk Starbuck plan unfold
"Lee, if you want to
ask me to dance, just ask... me in a dress is a once in a lifetime opportunity."
- Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) to Captain Lee Adama (Apollo)
"You can't help her
Gaius, but you could probably sleep with her."
- Number Six to Baltar, about Boomer
"Life has a melody,
Gaius. A rhythm of notes that become your existence once played in harmony
with God's plan."
- Number Six to Baltar
"There is no Earth,
you do know that?"
"It seems that we
were wrong."
- Commander Adama and President Roslin
"Remember, just head
away from the sound of gunfire."
"What about you?"
"We're heading towards
the gunfire."
- Apollo and Roslin
"Sharon said they had
troops picking up the bodies. Transporting them to mass incinerators."
"Your girlfriend's
from a lovely family. Good people, great values."
- Helo and Starbuck
"You sided with that
woman against the Old Man. You're not fit to wear the uniform."
"You're right... I
am not fit to wear the uniform. Maybe I never was. Then again, neither
are you. This isn't my ship. And it sure as hell isn't yours. It's his.
And when he wakes up, he'll decide what to do with the both of us."
- Apollo to Tigh, beside Adama's bedside
"I just don’t respond
to ‘Doc.’ A dock is a platform for loading and unloading material. My title
is doctor or Mr. Vice President."
- Baltar
"Why aren't you in
the brig?"
"Because.. you haven't
put me there?"
- Colonel Tigh and Billy
"Boomer, did you love
her?"
"I thought I
did."
"When you think you
love somebody, you love them. That’s what love is — thoughts."
- Adama and Chief Tyrol
"Supposedly they can’t
reproduce. You know biologically. So they have been trying every which
way to produce offspring."
"They have this theory
maybe the one thing they were missing was love. So Sharon and I… we were
set up to—"
"To fall in love?
They didn’t ask Sue-Shaun if she wanted to fall in love, right?"
- Anders, Helo and Starbuck
"The scriptures say
that when the 13th tribe landed on Earth, they looked up into the heavens
and they saw their 12 brothers."
"Earth is the place
where you can look up in the sky and see the constellations of the 12 colonies."
- Starbuck and Roslin
"Like everyone else,
my pilots have lost their families, and their friends, everyone they ever
cared about. But on top of that, they're asked to put their lives on the
line every single day for a fleet that seems more interested in what they
do wrong than in what they do right. They're not asking for your pity,
but they damn well deserve your respect."
- Apollo
"This is a military
vessel. We have rumors for every occasion."
- Colonel Tigh
"Sometimes you gotta
roll the hard six. Right, commander?"
- Boomer to Adam
"Starbuck to all vipers
— do not fire! Repeat, do not fire! I am a friendly, okay? We're all friendlies.
So, let's just be friendly."
- Starbuck
"Do you know what I
miss most? You're going to laugh when I tell you this. Sports. I used to
love getting to the pyramid game just before tip-off. By timing it right,
I could sit down right at the horn and then let the emotion of the crowd
flood over me. Waves and waves of it. Like electric current."
- Baltar
"I wish you were here,
Lee."
- Starbuck, facing an unenviable task alone
"It's not enough to
survive. One has to be worthy of surviving."
- Adama
"I haven't done anything
that most people on this ship haven't done. Including you."
"Doesn't make us right,
Colonel, just a whole lot of people wrong."
- Tigh and Apollo, playing the black market
"Did you really expect
some utopian fantasy to rise from the ashes?"
- Zarek to Apollo
"The fleet needs us.
Rationing's too tight, ship comes in too late, we're the pressure valve,
we provide. When Shevon needed antibiotics, she knew where to go. Without
us, people would have nowhere to turn. The fleet would tear itself apart."
- Phelan to Apollo
"It's hard to find
the moral high ground when we're all standing in the mud."
- Phelan to Apollo
"You know, Madame President,
I've never been particularly interested in politics. I never wanted any
lofty position of power. I never wanted to be the Vice President. That
is, until this very moment. Because right now, I can't think of anything
I want more."
- Baltar, refusing to resign
"It takes months for
you to train an effective viper pilot. And then they get killed. And their
experience, their knowledge, their skill sets — they're all lost forever.
So, if you could bring 'em back and put 'em in a brand new body, wouldn't
you do it? 'Cause death then becomes a learning experience."
- Boomer, on how the Cylons train pilots
"I'll drink to that.
To right now."
"So, why don't *we*?"
"Why don't we what?"
- Apollo and Starbuck, on different pages
"What are you suggesting?
That we throw it out of an air lock?"
"I don't make suggestions,
Mr. Baltar. If I want to toss a baby out an air lock, I'd say so."
- Baltar and Roslin
"You've already killed
billions of people. Do you honestly believe one more body's going to weigh
any heavier on your conscience, which is something that you don't have,
do you?"
- Baltar, as #6's alter ego
"You gotta love a woman
who can complain even with her jaw wired shut."
- Doc Cottle to Cally
"Would you mind telling
me what's going on? I'm not a frakking cylon. I'm not— oh. Well okay then."
"Sorry to bust up
your day, brother."
- Two copies of the Cavil model meet on Galactica
"I hope you don't take
this the wrong way, but are you as shocked as I am?"
- Adama, to Roslin, after the election
"Don't you lecture
me about sin."
"I'm not the one who
committed the first act of Cylon-on-Cylon violence in our history."
- Number Three (Lucy Lawless) taunts 'Caprica'
"The last thing your
son wants is me and Ellie for parents."
- Tigh, urging caution to the Chief
"These people know
that at some point they're going to be responsible for saving themselves."
- Roslin
"If posterity defines
this as genocide at least there'll be somebody alive to hate us."
- Roslin to Adama
"Sometimes surviving
can be its own death sentence."
- Colonel Tigh
"We did a thousands
things every day, good and bad, to pave for the way for those attacks."
- Roslin, on the Cylon assault
"One must die to know
the truth."
- Deanna, seeking the 'Final Five'
"Skinjob!"
- The crew spot a 'Caprica'
"My husband ordered
me to risk my life for yours. And that's exactly what I'm gonna do — bring
Starbuck back to Apollo."
- Dualla
"I mean these are our
frakking marriages we're talking about, it's not some stupid dog fight
we can just jink our way out of."
- Lee to Kara
For that day when we
all the time.
- Adama's message with his gift to Apollo
"Do you see what's
happening? Jobs are starting to be inherited, Madame President. We don't
know how long we're gonna be on these ships. What if it's ten years? So
I train my son to be a deckhand because that's what I am? And that's all
he can ever be? Is that the future we want?"
- Chief Tyrol
"Our tactical victories
are just p*ssing them off."
"You mean by winning
we're actually losing?"
- Romo Lambkin, with some legal advice for Baltar
"Like everything human,
justice is imperfect, it's flawed. But it's those very imperfections that
separate us from the machines, and maybe even makes us a species worth
saving."
- Tribunal Judge
"Sometimes we have
to do things that we never thought we were capable of, if only to show
the enemy our will."
- Admiral Helena Cain, "Razor"
"They had us. Game
over... Why did they let us go?"
- Colonel Tigh, after the Cylons withdraw
"From President of
the Colonies to his... King of Fools. Better to be hated by everyone than
to be loved by this lot."
- Baltar, seeing his followers
"You're a better person
than I am, Anders, because if I found out you were a Cylon I would put
a bullet right between your eyes."
- Starbuck
"Talk all you want
but it ends with the first bang."
- Tigh, as Helo enters a hostage situation
"Shoot me! If you think
I'm a Cylon then I'm your enemy. Shoot me!"
- Starback, putting her life in Roslin's hands
"You can stay in the
room but get out of my head!"
- Adama to Roslin
"Escort him off the
ship. <pause> ...Please."
- Number Six, with a request to a Centurion
"Make me feel something
Sam. I dare ya."
- Starbuck, frakking with Anders
"Any more discord and
we may run out of spare bodies..."
- Cavill
"Thank you."
"I don't do these
things for you."
- Baltar and Lee, standing up for Baltar's freedom
"It's Lee. It probably
is the right thing to do... But sometimes the right thing is a luxury..."
- Roslin, about Lee
"Something in the universe
loves the entity that is me. I will choose to call this entity God."
- Baltar
"A dying leader will
know the truth of the opera house. This missing three will give you the
five, who have come from the home of the thirteenth. You are the harbinger
of death, Kara Thrace. You will lead them all to their end. End of line."
- The Hybrid's message for Starbuck
"All it’s going to
do is crowd the airlock."
- Tigh, hearing about the existence of another Cylon
"Young actresses are
being told they are empowered now, but the truth is, if you look hard at
the material, they’re being allowed to behave like men, but in 14-year-old
bodies. It’s a whole layer of deception."
- Mary McDonnell, of "Battlestar Galactica", in an interview with "The
Times"
"The whole idea of
a world in which the military has become obsolete and is being downsized
was so pertinent to the debates that certainly go on in the UK. We think
of ourselves as living in peaceful times and yet we're not. And this cataclysm
suddenly blindsides them from nowhere. And there are images, like the museum
on Galactica: The weapons arsenal or something has been turned into a gift
shop up on the ship, which is so British in a sense. The Tower of London
is a scary, god-fearing building where people died grisly deaths, but now
Beefeaters lead you along so you can have candyfloss along the way."
- Jamie Bamber (aka Apollo) interviewed by IGN
"It was a grisly auditioning
process. About five different auditions. You went to this thing that was
a bit like 'Survivor', where you went into a big tall building and there's
six guys that looked like me, except better looking and bigger. There were
about twelve of her (Starbuck)! And Grace was there. And we all sort of
played scenes together until there were four of us left."
- Jamie Bamber (aka Apollo) interviewed by IGN
"Sometimes my friend
I get the feeling you would have loved to live in the past."
- Starbuck to Apollo, from the original 1978 Series
At the risk of sounding
like one of these people, I've been toying for a while with the notion
that Galactica is not, in any meaningful way, science fiction. Most narrative
genres take place in a universe that operates according to a set of rules.
The difference between naturalistic and fantastic fiction is that, in the
latter, the universe is not our universe, and the rules are not our rules.
Nevertheless, they exist, and are comprehensive and coherent. When it comes
to Battlestar Galactica's fantastic elements, I'm beginning to wonder whether
there are any rules. For more than a year, I and a host of other Galactica
fans have been screaming to high heavens about the show's shoddy worldbuilding.
Halfway through the second chorus of "All Along the Watchtower", I started
to think that maybe Ron Moore isn't incapable of creating a coherent alternate
universe. Maybe he just doesn't want to. Maybe a story that I've been reading,
with ever-increasing frustration, as fantastic is actually surreal.
- from Abigail's Nussbaum's "Asking the Wrong Questions" blog
Yes, I have been watching.
I'm about one episode behind. But I must say, and I think I've got a lot
of readers on my side, I just don't care as much about the show anymore.
I think the producers and writers made an enormous mistake when they decided
that they wanted to be "ripped from the headlines" rather than stick to
what seemed to be a well-conceived, and preconceived, storyline. Instead
of the sort of literary arc that made shows like Deadwood and the Wire
such a joy to watch, BSG opted to be timely and in so doing became an inconsistent
mess. Cylon motivation is incomprehensible at this point. Ditto their theology,
philosophy and even biology.
For example, it drives
me crazy that after years in pitched battle with the Cylons, the human
race simply takes it as a given that it's impossible to tell a Cylon from
a human, even under a microscope. Baltar said he couldn't create a test
to tell the difference a few years ago and everyone is fine with that?
Come on! Here's an idea, sit all the men in front of a stripper and wait
and see if their spines glow (Remember how a glowing spine was a sign of
randiness?). Also, if the hidden four (of the Final Five) are Cylons after
all, whatever happened to the whole bit about how Cylons don't age? Saul
Tigh and Adama have been each other's wingmen for forty years, presumably
someone would have noticed how old he looked for a 20-something fighter
jock.
I could go on, believe
me. (Oh and readers who complain that expecting plausibility from a sci-fi
show will find no sympathy from me. In fact, the kind of plausibility I'm
talking about matters more in sci-fi than any other genre). I like twists
and turns as much as the next guy, but they need to make sense with what
came before. Swerving plotlines are awesome when they work. Plotlines that
look like a bowl of spaghetti are a bore. The show's non-concern with internal
consistency has given it a soap opera feel, where every new episode induces
a whiplashed "huh?" I'll keep watching out of loyalty and a desire to see
the whole thing through. But it's become a real disappointment.
- Jonah Goldberg, "National Review"
"The humans are pagan
polytheists and the robots are monotheists, whose divine jihad is against
the humans — even though the former know that the latter created them...
There’s a curious mix of high-tech and superstition and scriptural fundamentalism
— which interestingly suggests that religion is ineradicable, as today’s
theorists of secularism are increasingly saying... Some of the robots think
they are human, and some of the humans fear they may be robots... There’s
lots of romance, though this bores me. Less kissing, more killing is a
frequent internal refrain of mine."
- Anthony Gottlieb, author of "The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy"
"Don't be afraid of
the dark? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark!"
- Dean
"No chick-flick moments!"
- Sam, cutting off Dean's apology
"If you're gonna have
faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen, you gotta have
it when they don't too."
- Layla
"Dad managed just fine
without these stupid costumes! All I'm saying is these uniforms cost hard-earned
cash. You think credit card fraud is easy?"
- Dean, going undercover
"So to recap: the only
successful intel we've scored so far is the bartender's number."
- Dean, making the best of a bad situation
"Random coincidence
happens — but not to us."
- Sam
"Don't worry, I'm sure
there's something in Pittsburg worth killing."
- Dean
"It wouldn't have done
any good cause the bastard's bullet proof... and I wasn't packing which
is probably a good thing cause I probably would have just burned a clip
in him just out of principle alone."
- Dean
"So what are we today,
Dean? Rock stars? Are we army rangers?"
"We're LA TV scouts,
hunting for people with special skills."
- Sam and Dean
"I don't understand
Dean, we burned the damn thing."
"Well thank you, Captain
obvious."
- Sam and Dean
"Vampires! Get's funnier
every time I hear it."
- Dean
"Here, give them my
insurance."
"Elroy MacGillacuddy?"
"And his two loving
sons."
- John and Sam
"It's a warrior's death.
Honorable, one of the best you can have."
"I think I'll pass
on the 72 virgins. I'm not that into prude chicks anyway."
- Tessa and Dean
"Go to the first motel
in the Yellow Pages and ask for Jim Rockford. It's how we find each other
when we get separated."
- Dean, helping Diana find Sam
"This is bothering
me."
"Well, you are digging
up a corpse."
"No, not that. That's,
uh, pretty much par for the course, actually."
- Sam and Diana
"I don't know what
this thing is."
"You mean Carly's
MySpace address?"
"Yeah, MySpace. What
the hell is that? Seriously, is that, like, some sort of p*rn site?"
- Dean and Sam
"So you know who I
am."
"I get the newsletter."
- Dean's reputation precedes him with a Demon
"I want you out of
harm's way."
"And what about you?"
"Harm's way doesn't
bother me."
- Sam and Ava
"Am I supposed to go
darkside or something?"
- A concerned Sam to Dean
"What would Buffy do?"
- A film geek looks for inspiration on "Supernatural"
"Married couples can
get a divorce. Me and him, we're like Siamese twins."
"It's conjoined twins!"
"See what I mean?"
- Dean and Sam
"What's wrong with
my food?"
"It's not food anymore!
It's Darwinism!"
- Dean and Sam
"You're never afraid?"
"No, not really."
[Sam pulls a long
knife out from under Dean's pillow]
"That's not fear.
That's precaution."
"Alright, whatever.
I'm too tired to argue."
- Sam and Dean
"It's all just cranks
and pranks."
- Bobby, on alien abductions
"You know for a stakeout,
your car is pretty conspicuous."
- Madison to the guys
"You're one helluva
PA."
- Mark to a formerly undercover Dean
"Did I just see you
strike out with a prostitute? How does that work?"
- A cute bartender chats to Dean
"All you gotta do is
nudge humans in the right direction — some whiskey here, a hooker there.
And they'll walk right into hell with big fat smiles on their faces. You
kind is corrupt, weak. Our will is stronger. That's why we'll win.
"And that's how it
ends?"
"No. That's how it
begins."
- A Demon to Dean in "Sin City"
"I'll be there with
you — the little fallen angel on your shoulder."
- Ruby, making a deal with Sam
"You fudging touch
me again. I'll fudging kill you."
- Dean after the pagan god scorns him for swearing while she tortues him
"Black-eyed skank."
- Dean to Ruby
"If she wants us dead,
all she has to do is stop saving our lives."
- Sam to Dean, about Ruby
"I hate witches, always
spewing their bodily fluids everywhere. It's creepy. It's downright unsanitary."
- Dean
"It's like fatal attraction
all over again. Why does the rabbit always get screwed in the deal? Poor
little guy."
- Dean, finding a dead rabbit in a witch's house
"Most of them have
forgotten what it means. Or even that they were. That's what happens when
you go to Hell... I remember what it's like — being human."
- Ruby about demons' humanity
"You need to get him
ready to fight this war — without you."
- Ruby to Dean about Sam
"Do you think it's
because we're so awesome? I think it's because we're so awesome."
- Dean, on why they are a target for demons
"FYI: Ghosts are real.
So are werewolves, vampires, channeling links, evil clowns that eat people.
If it makes you feel any better Bigfoot is a hoax."
- Dean
"I wanted you salted
and burned..."
- Bobby to 'Lazarus' Dean
"Hey Bobby, what's
the deal with the liquor store? Parents outta town or something?"
- Dean, to a downbeat Bobby
"Come on Dean, you
can't shoot me with bullets."
"I'm not shooting
you."
- Meg and Dean
"Can you tell me where
I can get reception on this thing?" *flips his phone on*
"USS Enterprise?"
- Dean, finding himself back in 1973
"Come on, what, are
you allergic to straight answers you sonofabtich?"
- Dean, aggravated by Castiel's evasiveness
"So tell me Mr Hunter,
you kill a vampire with a wooden stake or silver?"
"Neither. You cut
their heads off."
- Mr Campbell, with a test for Dean
"Your brother is headed
down a dangerous road. So stop it — or we will."
- Castiel to Dean, as Sam heads off with Ruby
"And I remember you,
Jamie. I never forget a pretty... everything."
- Dean, breaking the ice with a hot waitress
"How about a beer?"
"Well I don't know
Agent Young, you off duty?"
"And then some."
- Dean and Jamie
"I don't think we're
staying on the case."
"What, too weird for
you?"
"Not weird enough."
- Dean and Jamie
"We have a lot of experience
with strange."
- Dean
"Well, look at me.
I mean, I came back from the furnace without any of my old scars. No bullet
wounds, no knife cuts, none of the off-angled fingers from all of the breaks
- I mean, my hide is as smooth as a baby's bottom. Which leads me to conclude,
sadly, that my virginity is intact."
"Please. Dean. Maybe
angels can pull you out of Hell, but no one can do that."
"Brother! I have been
re-hymenated, and the dude will not abide!"
- Dean and Sam
"So what have we got?
Where's all the crosses?"
"And holy water? Jury's
out on that one, a bit like homeopathy it's a question of faith — on both
sides. They can be superstitious too. In my opinion, religion is a placebo,
which isn't to say placebos can't work."
- Michael and Angie, "Habeas Corpus"
"Our free range days
are over."
- Pearse, on what's at stake, "Habeas Corpus"
"The only machine that
can see or hear a leech is us... surveillance is a bitch."
- Vaughan, "In Nomine Patris"
"They're very careful
about who they recruit — like we are."
- Vaughan to Michael, "In Nomine Patris"
"They have a way of
finding out what you want — or who."
- Vaughan to Michael, "In Nomine Patris"
"Sex is something the
leeches use to get what they want. It's not how they make other leeches
now is it?"
- Vaughan, "Sub Judice"
"They say they only
take those who want to go. They don't tell you what they do to make you
want to go."
- Vaughan, "Sub Judice"
"I had no choice."
"There's always a
choice. They can't force you to do what you don't want."
"No, they force you
to do what you *do* want. They're very big on free will... They'll find
out what *you* want."
"They gave you a boy?
A boy who wouldn't grow up, who wouldn't tell his parents."
- Pearse interrogates Oliver, "Mea Culpa"
"Right then, where's
the witchfinder-general?"
- Michael, looking for Pearse, "Mea Culpa"
"How'd you get away
the first time?"
"I ran. When I saw
bullets didn't make any difference... the rest of the squad stood their
ground."
- Michael and Vaughan, "Terra Incognita"
"Maybe they want peace...
maybe they're evolving?"
"They're *outside*
time."
- Angie and Pearse, "Terra Incognita"
"Tell me, Father, have
you any proof other than our existence that God exists? In the time since
you believed, has God given you any other sign? Doesn’t that leave you
in a quandary — we are evil and yet we are your only proof that God exists?
...We are the source of of all religion. We are the afterlife. There's
nothing else."
- Paul Hoyle to Pearse, "Persona Non Grata"
"They want peace —
final peace... it's their Eden and we're not invited."
- Pearse, explaining the Code 5 'final solution' to Michael, "Persona Non
Grata"
# MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000
"Hey Mike, hand me
my calculations? Ah, here it is. 'Breach Hull - All Die'. Even had it underlined."
- Crow, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"Well believe me, Mike,
I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something
incredibly stupid... and I went ahead anyway."
- Crow, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"Okay, let's see here...
Shatner, Shatner... no, doesn't look like he's in this one; we're safe."
- Tom Servo, reading the credits, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"What do you think
the lesson of the movie was?"
"Don't watch it."
- Tom Servo and Crow, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"If you only see 10,000
movies this year, make sure this isn't one of them."
- Tom Servo, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"I want to hurt this
movie, but I can never hurt it like it hurt me."
- Crow, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"Does just walking
through it make you want to kill yourself? Then it's a HIGH SCHOOL."
- Crow, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"I never thought the
end of the world would be so annoying!"
- Joel, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"You know, elf tastes
just like chicken!"
- Tom, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" from "Mystery Science Theater
3000"
"How do we stand on
fuel?"
"I'm in favor of it."
- Film Scientist and Crow, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"There is one terrifying
word in the world of nuclear physics."
"Oops."
- Film Narrator and Tom Servo, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
"I wanna decide who
lives and who dies!"
- Crow
"England, the land
of jug-earred, chinless stomach-eaters."
"Still, they're not
French."
- Tom Servo and Crow
"Crow, how could you
make a deal with the devil?"
"How could I not,
Mike, with prices like these?"
- Mike and Crow
"Do something, Joel!
This aggresive niceness is making me feel really uncomfortable."
- Crow
"It is everything and
nothing."
"Could you be a little
more vague, please?"
- Actor on screen and Crow
"His power lies apparently
in his ability to choose incompetent enemies."
- Crow T. Robot
"You know, they shouldn't
have set their phasers to 'miss'."
- Mike
"I've realigned the
Penrose Tubes and jettisoned a stream of Einsteinium through the Hawking
Converter by reversing the Oppenheimer Effect and propelling us through
the Asimov Space Curtain."
- Mike, "Laserblast"
"I see you've decided
to go psycho. Godspeed."
- Dr. Forrester
"Aw, whenever they
test nuclear bombs, it's the monsters who suffer."
- Crow, "Godzilla vs. Megalon
"It was a dark and
stormy night. I'd taken a creative writing class."
- Crow, "Pod People"
I think there should
be a requirement that all films — good, bad, or indifferent — have a commentary
track by at least two cast members of MST3K. It would make every movie
better.
- Sykora, seen on the RPGNet Forum
Don’t visit Tokyo as
the city tends to be flattened by a sumo wrestler dressed as a monster
breathing fire. Skip all landmarks as alien invaders like to destroy tourist
attractions first to show that they mean business.
- Some tips from "The Times" on how to stay safe in scifi movies
"Nobody believes me,
but Eerie is the center of weirdness for the entire planet... When I try
to tell this to my family, they just think I'm weird. Better weird than
dead."
- Marshall, getting used to life in Eerie
"Statistically speaking,
Eerie is the most normal place in the entire country. Statistics lie."
- Marshall
"Everybody knows money
can't buy you happiness, but Simon was about to find out that money can
bring you big, big, trouble."
- Narration from "Eerie Indiana: ATM with a Heart of Gold"
"Camera—" "Check"
"Film—" "Check"
"Tape recorder—" "Check"
"Notebook—" "Check"
"Markers—" "Check"
"Swiss army knife—"
"Check"
"Map of Eerie—" "Check"
"Signal Mirror—" "Check"
"Flashlight—" "Check"
"Moist towelettes?"
"In case we get egged"
"Bug spray?" "In case
we get bugged"
"Clean underwear?"
"In case we get scared"
"Garlic, wooden stake,
holy water—" "Check, check, check"
- Simon and Marshall prepare a Halloween checklist
"I was ready for everything
— except what actually happened."
- Marshall
"You wouldn't believe
how easy it is to lose stuff here. I mean stuff that was there a minute
ago would
just vanish the moment
you turn your back. Gone, disappeared, lost forever. I figure, Eerie is
caught in some electromagnetic vortex that messes up the tracking system
we humans use to find stuff."
- Marshall
"The problem with losing
stuff is that it always happens when you're not watching."
- Simon
"I figure the entire
state of Indiana is actually an underground storage depot for lost stuff."
- Marshall
"Everybody's right
here except not exactly right now."
- The Milkman to Marshall
"It's hard not to like
somebody who saves your butt as an introduction."
- Marshall, about Janet
"It's easy to believe
almost anything when you consider just how big the universe is. It's even
easier to believe the unbelievable here in my little corner of the universe.
That's why when Professor Nigel Zircon rolled into town with his
traveling museum of the parabelievable, Simon and I were the first in line."
- Marshall
"Operation Space Object
will work best if we find a small, isolated town with an ineffective
government and an
overbearing, money-grabbing mayor."
- The Mayor, reading the Professor's notes
"Wow spelt backwards
is wow!"
- Marshall
Note to myself: Never
make a deal with your parents without a lawyer.
- A reluctant Marshall has to do some chores
"It's tough to battle
the forces of weirdness when you're under-18 and your parents can still
boss you around."
- Marshall
"Mom are guys worth
it?"
"Only sometimes dear."
- Syndi and Mrs. Teller, upset by her boyfriend Doug
"Mom this isn't Happy
Days. Can we have a little privacy?"
- Marshall, after inviting Melanie over to the Teller house
"The word on the street
was to stay away from this place, which is why we were there."
- Marshall, checking out a haunted house
"Stamp-collecting is
looking better than ever. I mean that's the worst that could happen? Paper
cut?"
- Simon, looking for a less dangerous hobby
"Who'd be crazy enough
to live in a haunted house?"
"I've got a better
question for ya' — who'd be crazy enough to mess with someone's stuff who's
crazy enough to live in a haunted house?"
- Simon and Dash
"This kinda stuff happen
to you guys a lot?"
- Dash to the guys
"Anyone who's remotely
normal counts as a stranger around here."
- Dash, about Eerie
"Until then, I'm going
to use these for a name."
"Plus and Minus?"
"No, no, no 'Dash
X!' Get it? Dash... x. Plus and mi- what kind of name is that?! You guys
are a constant source of embarrassment."
- Dash and Marshall
"The World O' Stuff
was overrun by barbarians — little barbarians. If you gave these guys an
island and no parents, they'd be Lord of the Flies. It was every customer
for himself."
- Marshall
"I don't understand,
why do all my clothes smell like garlic?"
"You were on vampire
patrol last night, weren't you?"
- The Teller family question Marshall
"I couldn't believe
it, I'd never won anything in my life, let alone a lottery I didn't even
enter."
- Marshall, surprised to win the Eerie Harvest King lottery
"OK, maybe being Harvest
King isn't so bad. I mean, who am I to turn down a kingship?"
- Marshall
"It's you!"
"Well I ain't the
log lady."
- Marshall, after Dash saves the day with a well placed log
"You will live to tell
the tale."
- Marshall, getting an 'Eerie' fortune cookie
"I guess when you're
all alone in this world, it makes it tough to think about anyone but yourself."
- Marshall, about Dash
"Every kid dreams of
being the star of their own TV show... Trust me, it's a living hell."
- Marshall\Omri
# DOCTOR WHO (SERIES 27: 2005)
The dominant theme
at BBC Radio all week was the resurrection: not of Christ but of Doctor
Who. The 900 year old alien time lord with the ability to regenerate in
a new body returns to television this evening in the guise of Christopher
Eccleston, star of 'The Second Coming' in which, by happenstance, he played
the real Messiah.
- Pat Stacey's Easter Saturday (2005) radio review for "The Irish Independent"
"To get that many people
dressed up and being silly — they've got to be students?"
"That's very good,
well done. They're not students."
- Rose (Billie Piper) and The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), beset by
the bizarre, "Rose"
"If you're an alien,
how come you sound like you're from the North?"
"Lots of planets have
a north."
- Rose and The Doctor, "Rose"
"Really though Doctor,
who are you?"
"...it's like when
you're a kid, the first time they tell you that the world's turning and
you just can't quite believe it 'cos everything looks like it's standing
still? I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet
is spinning at a 1000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling round
the sun at 67,000 miles an hour and I can feel it. We're falling through
space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world and if
we let go — that's who I am. Now forget me. Go home."
- Rose and The Doctor, "Rose"
"You think you're so
impressive."
"I am so impressive."
- Rose, daring The Doctor, "The End of the World"
"You lot, you spend
all your time thinking about dying — like you're gonna get killed by eggs,
or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine
the impossible, that maybe you survive. This is 5 billion years in your
future. This is the day, hold on: <checks time> this is the day the
sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world."
- The Doctor, welcoming Rose to "The End of the World"
"The paper's slightly
pyschic, shows them whatever I want them to see. Saves a lot of time."
- The Doctor, explaining his all purpose invitation to Rose, "The End of
the World"
"Hello, my name's Rose.
That's a sortof plant, we might be related... I'm talking to a twig."
- Rose, feeling lonely at "The End of the World"
"Your wife? ...Partner?
...Concubine? ...Prostitute?"
"No."
- Jabe, bluntly enquiring about Rose's association with The Doctor, "The
End of the World"
"Help her."
"Everything has its
time and everything dies."
- Rose and The Doctor, letting nature take its course, "The End of the
World"
"It's 1869. How can
I die now?"
"Time isn't a straight
line. It can twist into any shape. You can be born in the 20th century
and die in the 19th and it's all my fault. Sorry... And how do you think
I feel? I saw the fall of Troy, World War Five, I pushed boxes at the Boston
Tea Party — now I'm going to die in a dungeon. In Cardiff."
- Rose and The Doctor, trapped in a tight spot, "The Unquiet Dead"
"The government are
gathering together all the experts in aliens, and who’s the biggest expert
of the lot—"
"Patrick Moore?"
- The Doctor and Rose, "The Aliens of London"
"Your race is dead.
You all burned. All of you. Ten million ships on fire, the entire Dalek
race wiped out in one second. I watched it happen. I made it happen."
- The Doctor, "Dalek"
"You would make a good
Dalek."
- The Dalek to The Doctor, "Dalek"
"What use are emotions
if you can't save the woman you love?"
- The Dalek to The Doctor, "Dalek"
"Time travelling is
like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guide book, you have to eat
the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double by the waiter..."
- The Doctor, introducing Adam to the Fourth Human Empire, "The Long Game"
"Who said you're not
important? I've travelled to all sorts of places, done things you couldn't
even imagine, but you two? Street corner, two in the morning, getting a
taxi home — I've never lived a life like that."
- The Doctor, trying to save some very ordinary people, "Father's Day"
"Now Rose, you're not
going to bring about the end of the world, are you?"
- The Doctor, babysitting an infant Rose as adult Rose plays havoc with
timeline, "Father's Day"
"Not very 'Spock',
is it, just asking? I think you should do a scan for alien tech... for
once would it kill ya?"
- Rose to The Doctor, "The Empty Child"
"Since when did Daleks
have a concept of blasphemy?"
- The Doctor, "The Parting of the Ways"
"Is that all you've
got? Useless! Nul points."
- The Doctor, "The Parting of the Ways"
"That's the choice
I have to make for every living thing — die as a human or live as a Dalek."
- The Doctor, "The Parting of the Ways"
"So the year 5 billlion
— the sun expands and the Earth gets roasted..."
"That was our first
date."
- The Doctor (David Tennant) & Rose, "New Earth"
"Omigod, I'm a chav!"
- Cassandra, seeing Rose's reflection, "New Earth"
"You can tell you're
getting older. Your assistants are getting younger."
- Sarah Jane Smith to The Doctor, "School Reunion"
"You can spend the
rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of my life with you.
I have to live on. That's the curse of the Time Lords."
- The Doctor to Rose, "School Reunion"
"You act like such
a radical and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order."
- Finch to The Doctor, "School Reunion"
"Their lives are so
fleeting, so many goodbyes."
- Finch, on the human condition, "School Reunion"
"Everyone has nightmares.
Even monsters under the bed have nightmares, don't you monster?"
"What do monsters
have nightmares about?"
"Me. Hah!"
- The Doctor and a young Reinette, "The Girl in the Fire Place"
"What's a horse doing
on a spaceship?"
"Mickey, what's pre-Revolutionary
France doing on a spaceship! Let's get some perspective."
- Mickey and The Doctor, "The Girl in the Fire Place"
"I have seen the world
inside your head and I know anything is possible... Godspeed, my lonely
angel."
- Reinette, to The Doctor, "The Girl in the Fire Place"
"All these different
worlds, not one of them gets it right."
- The Doctor, visiting a parallel Earth, "Rise of the Cybermen"
"We must feed! We must
feed! We must feed... [hits translator] ...you."
- The Doctor meets some melodramatic aliens, "The Impossible Planet"
"It's buried beneath
us, in the darkness, waiting."
"What's your job,
chief dramatist?"
- Rose meets a melodramatic engineer, "The Impossible Planet"
"Duly noted: Ursula
Blake — most likely to fight back."
- Victor to Ursula, "Love & Monsters"
"What happened last
Christmas?"
"Great big spaceship...
hovering over London?"
"I had a bit of a
hangover."
- Donna, missing the big picture, "Runaway Bride"
"Guess what I've got
Donna? ...Pockets."
"How did that fit
in there?"
"They're bigger on
the inside."
- The Doctor, springing a surprise for the Empress, "Runaway Bride"
"We might die any minute
but all the same, it's beautiful."
- Martha Jones, trapped on the moon, "Smith and Jones"
"Crossing into established
events is strictly forbidden — except for cheap tricks."
- The Doctor explains the rules of time travel to Martha, "Smith and Jones"
"The man who makes
people better? How sanctimonious is that?"
- The Master, on the Doctor's name, "The Sound of Drums"
"I've got a bit of
a complex life. Things don't always happen to me in the right order."
"Of course. You're
a time-traveller, it hasn't happened to you yet. None of it."
- The Doctor and Sally Sparrow, "Blink"
"I'm not invisible,
just unnoticeable."
"But I could see you."
"That's because you
wanted to."
- Martha and Tom Milligan, "Last of the Time Lords"
The Doctor would appear
to have a new set of enemies. Like the Cybermen, they appear once to have
been humans, but they now seem to have purged emotion, humour, and indeed
humanity, from their make-up. The Doctor’s new enemies are, of course,
the Censors. Inhabitants of a strange parallel universe known only as the
British Board of Film Classification, the Censors suffer from tragic myopia
but wield immense power. They have ruled that the latest series of Doctor
Who cannot be shown to children under 12, when it comes out on DVD, because
of the programme’s “excessive cruelty”. In the words of one of the Censors,
“however cross one might be with a Dalek, being cruel is not the way to
deal with the issue. Some children might take it into the playground.”
It’s good to know that the BBFC are concerned that any Daleks who find
their way through space and time into the nation’s playgrounds should not
be unmercifully bullied... The BBFC professes itself “concerned at the
use of violence to resolve problems” in a programme that children might
see. Where have they been while the rest of us were growing up? Conflict
is integral to drama, and those who construct narratives to grip young
minds have always known that. J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling place
their heroes on fields of battle under darkened skies where good and evil
contest for mastery.
- Michael Gove, "The Censors will Exterminate", in "The Times"
Doctor Who is a genius,
a man of the universe... Since when did he acquire the blinkered values
of a bearded Sixties sociology lecturer?
- James Delingpole, on the pop-politics of Doctor Who, "The Spectator"
(2008)
I vividly remember
the first Doctor Who, William Hartnell, and the first episode. I remember
where I was sitting, I remember what our first television looked like.
The Doctor went back to visit cavemen, and I wrote a description of what
I’d seen in a colouring book. I suppose that was my first television review.
The golden ageism
associated with the Doctor is particularly virulent. What is it with sci-fi
fans that they alone are incapable of moving on? They clutch at the past
with a fantasy yearning in complete contradiction, you’d have thought,
to the observations and lessons implicit in science fiction. Never mind:
either way, they’re in a world of their own, and the BBC has foolishly
rebuilt it for them. The new Doctor Who has an impossible brief: to be
in two places at once. It’s been made at the insistence of an audience
of ghosts, adults who wish to be reminded of childhood and a lot of real
children who’ve never seen it before, have no idea what a police box is,
but have grown up with Star Trek, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.
So, how frightening do you think a Dalek’s going to look to them?
- AA Gill, TV Reviewer for "The Times"
The best thing about
it was Billie Piper, who was well cast as a modern, chavishly smart sidekick
who runs well. Doctor Who’s assistants all had to do a lot of running and
sometimes falling over, so they had to be rescued. Piper has a face that
the small screen just wants to lick.
- AA Gill, again, in "The Times"
Billie Piper—a British
pop star soon to be adorning screensavers at finer engineering schools
everywhere—brings limitless pluck to her portrayal of Rose. In Spice Girls
terms, the character is two parts Sporty and one part Baby—but, more to
the point, she's a post-Buffy the Vampire Slayer figure, a self-possessed
wiseass who entertains some ambivalence about her supernatural gig.
- Troy Patterson, "Slate Magazine"
It's scary sci-fi,
camp humour and warm family viewing all in one — Star Trek, Dawn of the
Dead, Shaun of the Dead and Carry On. And it's wonderful.
- Sam Wollaston, "The Guardian"
"He makes the smart
popular and the popular smart."
- Mal Young, BBC TV drama head, about Russell T Davies, chief writer for
2005 series
"My entire career has
been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked
back because the BBC wanted someone else. Also I was seven. Anyway, I'm
glad the BBC has finally seen the light, and it's a huge honour to be following
Russell into the best - and the toughest - job in television."
- Steven Moffat, taking over as producer or Dr Who (2008)
"Oh marvellous, I'm
a cliche."
- Marcie, after she escapes down a ventilation shaft in Russell T Davies's
"Dark Season"
"I don't have to conform
to the vagaries of time and space! I'm a looney!"
- Campbell Baines (David Tennant), "Taking Over the Asylum"
"You have a stash of
bodies!?!"
- Gwen to Captain Jack, "Torchwood"
"How do you switch
off from all this? What do you do to relax?"
"I torture people
in happy relationships."
- Gwen and Owen, "Torchwood"
Though it was billed
as an adult spinoff of Doctor Who, Torchwood is more an unruly teenager,
giggling because it is allowed to include sex and swearing.
- Dublin's "Metro" review of the series
John Inman's death
moved Russell T Davies to write a typically ebullient letter to the Guardian
last week, pointing out that for all the po-faced talk about perpetuating
homosexual stereotypes, Mr Humphries, the character Inman portrayed in
Are You Being Served? was 'essentially happy'. 'As a young gay viewer,
back then, I loved that character,' Davies wrote.
- From "The Guardian"
"If you could touch
the alien sand, and hear the cry of strange birds, and watch them wheel
in another sky, would that satisfy you?"
- The Doctor (William Hartnett) to a skeptic
"What do you think
of that, now, eh? A Viking helmet."
"Maybe."
"What do you mean,
'maybe'? What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?"
- The Doctor (William Hartnett) and Steven
"I tolerate this century
but I don't enjoy it."
- The Doctor, in "An Unearthly Child"
"You know, just once
I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."
- The Brigadier
"Have you noticed the
way people's intelligence capabilities decline sharply the minute they
start waving guns around?"
- The Doctor
"There's no point in
being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes."
- The Doctor
"What do we do now?"
"Keep it confused.
Feed it with useless information. I wonder if I have a television set handy..."
- Sergeant Benton and The Doctor
"Would you like a jelly
baby?"
"So it's true then,
the evil one does eat babies?"
- The Doctor (Tom Baker) meets Leela
"These taxes, are they
like sacrifices to tribal gods?"
"Yes... only paying
taxes is more painful."
- Leela and The Doctor (Tom Baker)
"One grows tired of
jelly babies, Castellan. One grows tired of almost everything, Castellan,
except power."
- The Doctor, In David Agnew's "The Invasion of Time"
"I never make stupid
mistakes. Only very, very clever ones."
- The Doctor, in John Peel's "Timewyrm: Genesys"
"I loathe bus stations:
terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there's
unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty. We all have a world of our own
terrors to face."
- The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) to Ace
"He doesn't have to
outrun the lion, only his friend. Then the lion catches up with his friend
and eats him. The strong survive, the weak are killed: the law of the jungle!
... Yes, very clever, if you don't mind losing your friend. But what happens
when the next lion turns up? I think you'd better get your running shoes
on, gentlemen."
- The Doctor
"There are worlds out
there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream;
people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger,
somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come
on, Ace. We've got work to do."
- The Doctor to Ace
"Star Wars is adolescent
nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurantist drivel; Star Trek can turn your
brains to puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of
all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in
a bunch to back it up!"
- Harlan Ellison, at a 1975 SciFi Convention
>> More Doctor Who quotes via Wikipedia
"He doesn't even bend
a little."
"That's why he'll
break! It only needs one small thing. If he will answer one simple question,
the rest will follow. Why did he resign?"
- Number Two & Assistant, concerning Number Six, "The Prisoner"
"I am not a number,
I am a free man. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own."
- Number Six, "The Prisoner"
Questions are a burden
to others; answers a prison for oneself.
- Village Motto, "The Prisoner"
"I plan to escape and
come back."
"Escape and come back?"
"That's right. Escape,
come back, wipe this place off the face of the earth, obliterate it...
and you with it."
- Number Six and Number Two, "The Chimes of Big Ben"
"Are you going to run?"
"Like the blazes;
first chance I get."
"I mean, run for office?"
- Number Two and Number Six, "Free For All"
"White Queen's Rook,
sir, moved without orders!"
"Bring him in for
treatment."
"Remove White Queen's
Rook to hospital."
- Number Fifty Six and Number Two, "Checkmate"
"I intend to discover
who are the prisoners... and who are the wardens."
- Number Six, "The Prisoner"
"Why do you care?"
- Number Two, to Number Six, "Once Upon A Time"
"Why don't you resign?"
"You're very good!"
- Number Six and Number Two, "Once Upon A Time"
"Fool!"
"Fool? Yes, not a
rat."
- Number Two and Number Six, "Once Upon A Time"
"I'm not a number,
I'm a man, and you can't — oh, wait, I'm Number 5. In your face Number
6!"
- Homer, on "The Island", a parody of "The Village", "The Simpsons"
Inspector Bumstead: "What kind of killer, do you think, stops to save a fish?"
John Murdoch: "When was the last time you remember doing something during the day?"
Mr. Wall: "Do not fret,
Anna. I will give you some more pretty things soon."
Emma Murdoch: "I'm
not Anna."
Mr. Wall: "You will
be soon, yes."
Dr. Schreber: "Will a man, given the history of a killer, continue in that vein? Or are we, in fact, more than the mere sum of our memories?"
Mr. Hand: "I have become the monster you were intended to be."
John Murdoch: "You wanted to know what it was about us that made us human? Well, you're not going to find it in here (points to head). You went looking in the wrong place."
"You've got a gift."
"It's not a gift.
It's just a brain."
- Holloway & Leaven, "Cube"
"I have nothing to
live for out there."
"What is out there?"
"Endless human stupidity."
"I can live with that."
- Worth & Leaven, "Cube"
"Let him go you Nazi!"
"You listen to me,
woman, everyday I mop after your bleeding heart. The only reason you even
exist is because I keep you. I know your type."
- Holloway & Quentin, "Cube"
"Maybe he just starved
to death... God I'm hungry."
- Cassabdra Rains, "Cube Zero"
"I don't think that
a person should run unless he's being chased."
- Casey, explaining his dislike for sports
"So aliens have just
been setting us up over the years with their E.T.'s and their Men In Black
movies, just so no one would believe it if it ever happened?"
"I think so."
- Stokes and Casey, discussing a possible alien takeover of Hollywood
"They're using us as
hosts."
"How do you know that?"
"She doesn't. She's
a Trekkie sci-fi geek."
- the gang discuss the usefulness of a geek like Stokes
"I just didn't want
to never have done that."
- Stokes, kissing Stan goodbye
"We're right at ground
zero... It took the high school in a day and a half. We can't outrun it."
- Casey, making a stand
"Did it really take
two of us to get to your car?"
"Nope. One of us is
a decoy."
- Zeke and Casey
"I met you, all of
you, and all of you were different from the others. You were lost and lonely,
just like me. And I thought that maybe I could give you a taste of my world.
A world without anger, without fear, without attitude. Where the underachiever
goes home at night to parents that care. The jock can be smart, the ugly
duckling beautiful, and the class wuss doesn't have to live in terror.
The new girl, well, the new girl she can just fit right in with anybody.
People who are just like her."
- Mary Beth, explaining her vision for a new world
"You wouldn't have
liked it here anyway."
- Casey, to Mary Beth
"We are now up against
live, hostile targets. So, if Little Red Riding Hood should happen to show
up... I expect you to chin the bitch!"
- Sergeant Wells
"Don't...stare...back."
"Can't...help...it."
- Cooper and Spoon
"You know what this
reminds me of? Rorke's Drift. A 100 men of Harlech making a desperate stand
against 10,000 Zulu warriors. Outnumbered... surrounded. Staring death
in the face. Not flinching for a moment."
- Private Spoon
"What are you going
to do? Torture him?"
"Dunno. What would
you do?"
"I'd torture him."
- Megan and Private Cooper
"This is a pile of
rancid s**t!"
"Now what do you believe?"
"I'm beginning to
believe you, but I think Joe might have worded it better."
- Joe, Megan & Coop
"If they're real what
else is real?"
- Megan
"There's one more thing
to have to learn about command Coop, sometimes the men you kill are your
own."
- Wells
"I'm an English teacher
not f*****g Tomb Raider."
- Beth, "The Descent" (also by Neil Marshall)
Ray : "I think we better
split up."
Egon : "Good idea."
Venkman : "Yeah...
we can do more damage that way."
Egon : "Sorry, Venkman, I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."
Venkman : "Back off man. I'm a scientist"
Ray : "Everything was
fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here."
Walter Peck : "They
caused an explosion."
Mayor : "Is this true?"
Venkman : "Yes, it's
true. This man has no dick."
Ray : "Gozer the Gozerian - good evening. As a duly designated representative of the City, County and State of New York, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activities and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension."
Winston : "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!"
Ray : "Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything. You've never been in the private sector. They expect *results*."
Janine : "I think it's
great that you're looking after that man. You're a real humanitarian."
Egon : "I don't think
he's human."
Yoda: "I am wondering,
why are you here?"
Luke Skywalker: "I'm
looking for someone."
Yoda: "Looking? Found
someone, you have, I would say, hmmm?"
Luke Skywalker: "Right..."
Yoda: "Help you I
can. Yes, mmmm."
Luke Skywalker: "I
don't think so. I'm looking for a great warrior."
Yoda: "Ohhh! Great
warrior! [laughs and shakes his head] Wars not make one great!"
- The Empire Strikes Back
"I'm Luke Skywalker,
I'm here to rescue you."
- Star Wars : A New Hope
C-3PO: "He made a fair
move. Screaming about it can't help you."
Han Solo: "Let him
have it. It's not wise to upset a Wookiee."
C-3PO: "But sir, nobody
worries about upsetting a droid."
Han Solo: "That's
'cause droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose.
Wookiees are known to do that."
Chewbacca: "Grrf."
C-3PO: "I see your
point, sir. I suggest a new strategy, R2: let the Wookiee win."
- Star Wars, A New Hope
"Adventure. Excitement.
A Jedi craves not these things."
- Yoda
"I'm looking for a
planet..."
"Lost a planet Master
Obi Wan has. How embarrassing."
- Obi Wan and Yoda, "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones"
"This is how liberty
dies — to thunderous applause."
- Padmé in "Revenge of the Sith"
"After 20+ years, I’m
still waiting for someone to come up with an example of a single kind of
force that Imperial stormtrooper armor could stop or even mitigate. It
sure as hell isn’t blasters, rocks, fists, leaping teddy bears, logs, branches,
sticks, The Force, or anything else that ever transpired in the course
of the action."
- JD Baldwin
"What would happen
in a battle between an Enterprise security team, who always get killed
soon after appearing, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, who can't
hit the broad side of a barn?"
- Tom Galloway
"We're talking about
whether any independent contractors working on the uncompleted Death Star
were innocent victims when the rebels destroyed it."
- Dante Hicks
For a six-movie series,
the background is murky. Here's an advanced galactic culture, running with
all the political sophistication of 10th century Japan. Where's law enforcement?
Who are these knights? How does the political system work? How do the planets
work together? The audience hasn't got a clue, nor has Lucas. We, like
the creator, are supposed to stare at the world with the benumbed, clueless
incuriosity of Japanese peasants living under the Samurai. Don't ask questions:
don't attempt to understand... What was the Force? What was the Empire?
What was the conflict really about?
- Carl Marsh, on the Star Wars series
This particular trailer
featured an awful lot of Anakin and Amidala mooning over each other in
a forbidden-teen-love kind of way. My initial reaction was "My God, they're
making Anakin's Creek!"
- Charles Kuffner, previewing "Attack of the Clones" on "Off the Kuff"
This past year a refurbished
Star Wars seemed to be everywhere, but I have no intention of revisiting
any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it is mentioned. Twenty years ago,
when the film was first shown, it had a freshness; also a sense of moral
good and fun. But then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be
having. The bad penny first dropped in San Francisco when a sweet-faced
boy of twelve told me proudly that he had seen Star Wars over a hundred
times. His elegant mother nodded with approval. Looking into the boy's
eyes, I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form,
and I guessed that one day they would explode. "I would love you to do
something for me," I said. "Anything! Anything!" the boy replied rapturously.
"You won't like what I'm going to ask you to do," I said. "Anything, sir,
anything!" "Well," I said, "do you think you could promise never to see
Star Wars again?" He burst into tears. His mother drew herself up to an
immense height. "What a dreadful thing to say to a child!" she barked,
and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right, but I just hope the
lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand,
childish banalities.
- Sir Alec Guinness, interviewed in "The Telegraph"
"What would you know
about conscience?"
"Only what I've read."
- Avon
"Do you agree?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Yes."
"Then I agree."
- Blake & Avon
"What did I do to deserve
this?"
"How long a list would
you like?"
- Vila & Avon
"You've decided to
be led like the rest of us?"
"I shall continue
to follow. It's not quite the same thing."
"I don't see the difference."
"I didn't really think
that you would."
- Vila & Avon
"We could be up to
our armpits in homicidal maniacs within the hour."
- Vila
"I presume you have
no tedious scruples about cheating and lying."
"None at all."
"Oh good."
- Avon & Tarrant
"Do you really think
that you can dock us?"
"I hadn't really considered
it."
"What?!?"
"I thought we'd all
be dead by now."
- Avon & Tarrant
"You are a cautious
man, Avon."
"Well, that's a habit
I'm hoping to live with."
- Avon, "Blake's Seven"
"It's a question of intelligence, so your opinion has very little relevance."
"On Earth it is considered ill mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide."
"I have never taken things on trust. I see no reason to make an exception in the case of a mysterious area of danger."
"They don't like humanoids
in general and homo sapiens in particular. That puts their intelligence
in no doubt."
- Avon
To be oneself is a
rare thing, and a great one.
- Ursula Le Guin, "Earthsea"
When it rained Ogion
would not even say the spell that every weather-worker knows, to send the
storm aside. In a land where sorcerers come thick, like Gont or the Enlades,
you may see a raincloud blundering slowly from side to side and place to
place as one spell shunts it on to the next, till at last it is buffeted
out over the sea where it can rain in peace. But Ogion let the rain fall
where it would. Ged crouched among the dripping bushes wet and sullen,
and wondered what was the use of having power if you were too wise to use
it.
- Narration, "A Wizard of Earthsea"
"To light a candle
is to cast a shadow."
- the Master Hand, explaining 'Equilibrium', "A Wizard of Earthsea"
"The wise don't need
to ask, the fool asks in vain."
- Ged learns not to ask a townsman of Thwil for directions, "A Wizard of
Earthsea"
The tricks of illusion
came to him so easily that it seemed he had been born knowing them and
needed only to be reminded.
- Narration, "A Wizard of Earthsea"
"I had forgotten how
much light there is in the world, till you gave it back to me."
- A grateful old man thanks Ged for saving his sight, "A Wizard of Earthsea"
"I am yours, by parentage
and custom and by duty undertaken towards you. I am your wizard. But it
is time that you recalled that, though I am a servant, I am not your servant."
- Vetch, seeking leave to undertake a perilous quest, "A Wizard of Earthsea"
"It is good to have
an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
- Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Left Hand of Darkness"
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