Random Reviews
Double Bill
Introduction
My first movie review, and I thought I'd start out with something a little obscure. Well, obscure outside Germany and the UK anyway. Das Singende, Klimgende Bäumchen- or "The Singing, Ringing Tree", is an East German propaganda film aimed at children that was filmed entirely in a single soundstage in 1957, written in the style of a fairy tale. Needless to say, it's pretty surreal. It was purchased by the BBC in 1964, who added an English narration and cut it into segments to broadcast as a miniseries (since there was only an hour of children's programming a day back then and airtime was at a premium).
The BBC stopped broadcasting it in 1980, so most people of my generation hadn't seen it, until Christmas a few years ago, when my Dad gave the DVD to my Mum. Me, my brother and sister watched it (the original German version with English subtitles), and we loved it. Not because it was good; but because it was so wonderfully, terribly bad. Part of that might be the Google Translate-esque subtitles, but most of it was just how hilariously crap it was on every conceivable level.
Plot
Our story begins with the hero, a handsome Prince (yes a Prince is the hero of a Communist propaganda film, go figure) rides his horse towards another kingdom against an unconvincing painted backdrop, including stopping to sleep perfectly still on a rock for the night while the credits play. The great distance he travels is indicated by fading in to a model of a valley and out again, as the Prince is met at the border by a welcoming committee of brightly-dressed weirdos and small children. The Prince is here to woo the King's daughter, and is taken to the unconvincing painted castle, which is full of people that look like they were caught between a Renaissance Faire and a Pride Parade.
The Prince proposes to the princess, attempting to buy her affection with a boxful of pearls because capitalism makes whores of us all. The Princess, however, is a bitch, and demands that he instead bring her the Singing Ringing Tree. Despite the consensus that this is impossible, the Prince swears he will do it and goes off on his quest. He therefore travels around via the power of cuts to footage of models, asking random people if they know where the Singing Ringing Tree is, including a stoned-sounding hermit and an insane old woman.
Eventually the Prince approaches a wall of rock with an opening in it, while a sinister little person with David Bowie hair watches him, disguised by two branches held in front of his face. The Prince walks through the opening to find himself in a strange land full of weird plants, and is confronted by the little person, who introduces himself as the King of Fairyland. He gives the prince the Singing Ringing Tree, telling him it will only ring if the Princess truly loves him, and if it doesn't ring by sunset, the prince belongs to him. The Prince agrees, adding the stipulation that, if the Princess does not love him, he will turn into a bear. You sir, are an imbecile. By the way, none of these characters actually have names- they are literally credited as "Prince", "Princess" and "Dwarf".
The Prince returns to the castle, tree in tow, and delivers it to the Princess. She correctly points out that it does not ring and the prince tells her it will only do so if she loves him. She is offended that he is placing conditions on the deal (he wants her to love him before they get married- the nerve!) and accuses him of being a liar. To be fair his story is a little suspect, for all she knows he just pulled up a tree and called it magic. Heartbroken, the Prince leaves. After he leaves the Princess tells the King to go and get the tree anyway, just to be safe. See what I mean about being a bitch?
The King points out that the Prince is unlikely to hand it over now, but she cries crocodile tears until he agrees to go. The Prince arrives at Fairyland at sunset, turning into the world's most ridiculous looking bear while his horse turns to stone. And here's where things start to get really weird. Also, if the Prince was able to ride from Fairyland to the kingdom and back in a day, that makes his quest a lot less impressive and his claims that much more suspicious.
Just then the King arrives and, once he gets over the initial shock of the talking bear, they make a deal that in return for the tree, the bear will get whatever the King meets first at the castle. I've read a lot of fairy tales over the years and I'm noticing a lot of tropes lifted from other stories. Also, the King never asks the talking bear what happened to the prince, despite the clear implication being that the Bear ate him. Meanwhile the Princess is hanging out in the tallest tower in the castle throwing birds out of the window, remember that, it's important.
The King returns home and, naturally, meets the Princess first, having only agreed to the deal assuming he would meet his dog first- he doesn't because she kicks it out of the way, that's also important. The King obviously decides not to hand over his daughter and sends the Captain of the Guard to kill the bear. Why he decided not to send more than one person I don't know. The Bear hangs the captain by his belt from a branch and goes to the castle to capture the princess. The hero's a kidnapper, hooray.
He breaks into the garden and watches the Princess plant the tree in a fountain, after first draining it and killing all the fish by just picking them up and tossing them on the ground, that's important as well. Come to think of it, no-one in this movie apart from the King is particularly likable. The Bear carries the Princess out of the garden, smashing through a foot-think stone wall and knocking over a tree as he does so. Apparently bears have superpowers, which he further demonstrates by carrying the screaming and struggling woman all the way to Fairyland on foot with ease.
We embark on a montage of the Princess demanding various luxury items while the Bear points out simpler, locally available alternatives (because Communism) as the Little Person watches them from a series of silly hiding places. Bear also hangs out with various magic animals that according to all logic he should be eating: a blatantly fake giant wooden fish, various doves, and a horse strategically painted with shading lines and antlers strapped to it's head to make it look like a stag. A stag that has a mane and a horse's tail and wears a bridle. If you didn't have a stag, but you had a horse, why didn't you just make the damn thing a horse?
The next day the Princess eats some berries that she had refused previously, and in a fit of petty rage, throws a rock at the doves for refusing to come to her. In a clever bit of subversion, animals hate this Princess. The Bear berates her for being such a heartless, stuck-up cow and says that if her appearance matched her personality she would be ugly, with "heartless eyes and an obstinate mouth" (I don't know how that's supposed to work either). For giggles, the King of Fairyland transforms her, turning her hair green, growing her nose and removing her makeup- meaning she still looks great because the actress is incredibly attractive, they just slapped some superficial flaws on her.
Later, the Bear is making a shelter by digging a cave into a cliff by hitting it with a rock. Where to even begin with that? One, bears do not have hands- they cannot use tools. Two, there's a reason mining tools are made of metal, if you hit stone with more stone nothing much happens unless one is significantly softer than the other, and since they look like they're the same material that probably isn't what's going on. Three, given how easily he's knocking it out, that probably isn't a very stable cliff face, and not something you want to sleep inside. Four, since he's demonstrated superstrength before, I think he should have shattered his rock on the first blow along with part of the cliff, but I could be wrong there.
Anyway, the Princess arrives and helps him build the cave by removing debris. Since them becoming closer and falling in love would break the spells on both of them the Fairy King decides to drive a wedge between them. Soon, they shelter is complete and they are more friendly, but awkward as teenagers on a first date, it's cute really. She goes out to pick berries, and the Fairy King summons up a wind to try to kill her that knocks a dove out of the sky, causing it to break its wing. The Princess picks it up and takes it back to the shelter, since she wants the animals to like her and she's trying to be a better person and stuff. They bandage it up and the birds instantly flock around her, and her nose returns to normal. This begins a theme of the Princess making up for her random acts of animal cruelty and becoming better looking as she does so.
Next the Fairy King freezes up the lake with fake ice made of wax while she's washing up to try and trap her in the lake. She breaks out and in the process rescues the fake fish by walking out onto a board under the ice that they didn't even try to hide, restoring her lipstick. When that fails, he decides to bury her and the stag/horse monstrosity under snow. She manages to escape and runs to the bear for help, and we see that the cave and the pit that the creature is buried in are very close, about ten meters. The Bear digs the abomination against nature out and her hair returns to normal. By this point she's almost completely in love with him and calls him "dear".
The Fairy King is driven to despair and smashes up their cave accompanied by sound effects that I think were made on a xylophone. The Princess then arrives, and, I will remind you, she was very close to the cave when he kicked it up and was moving towards it as he did so, and unless she is completely blind, would have seen it happen. The little evil guy arrives and tells her that the bear did it. Although she doesn't completely believe him, she still has doubts, despite the fact that when she ran to get the Bear, she would have seen that the cave was still standing, and he was with her since then and could not possibly have destroyed the place. Not only is she blind, she is an idiot, so she and the
Prince are clearly made for each other.
He tries to lead her out of fairyland, but she quickly comes to her senses and turns back. The bad guy tries to tempt her with the luxuries of the palace but that doesn't work, because the decadent capitalist way is shallow and unfulfilling, however he is able to convince her to go home when he tell her that her father is dying. She goes home and it turns out that he is in fact alive and looking for her, travelling around with his most trusted men, and also that she has apparently been gone for a year. There was no suggestion of that so far, but often in stories time passes slower in fairy worlds than the real world, so I forgive it- this time. She has also apparently changed so much in this time that she is totally unrecognisable, despite looking exactly the same.
She goes outside and the Singing, Ringing Tree is singing and ringing, indicating that she does truly love the Prince now. Love, stockholm syndrome, whatever. With a little help from the tree (really) she is able to join the dots and work out that: a. the Bear is the Prince, b. the Fairy King is evil, and c. the Prince is under a spell. She takes the tree and runs back to Fairyland, where the Prince has fallen into depression.
Seeing her approach, the Fairy King summons a wall of thorns that grow in a terrible stop-motion effect to keep her out, like a genderflipped Sleeping Beauty. Fortuantely the stagorse appears and a set of dolls that look like them jump to the other side.
So then he summons a river which washes her in (the "stag" gets away), fortunately the giant fish shows up and swims her towards Fairyland. He drains the river, leaving her and the fish trapped in a canyon, but the birds come down and carry her up on a rope, leaving the fish to die. I'm serious, it's at the bottom of a dry gorge and we don't see it escape or any indication that it will. It's dead, so much for character development.
The bad guy tries to destroy the tree with flames made of tissue paper, being spun around above it on a wire, but true love renders the Princess immune to the fire and she walks through, hugging the tree. The King of Fairyland is pulled down under the ground, the prince is freed from the spell, and they all live happily ever after.
The Prince proposes to the princess, attempting to buy her affection with a boxful of pearls because capitalism makes whores of us all. The Princess, however, is a bitch, and demands that he instead bring her the Singing Ringing Tree. Despite the consensus that this is impossible, the Prince swears he will do it and goes off on his quest. He therefore travels around via the power of cuts to footage of models, asking random people if they know where the Singing Ringing Tree is, including a stoned-sounding hermit and an insane old woman.
Eventually the Prince approaches a wall of rock with an opening in it, while a sinister little person with David Bowie hair watches him, disguised by two branches held in front of his face. The Prince walks through the opening to find himself in a strange land full of weird plants, and is confronted by the little person, who introduces himself as the King of Fairyland. He gives the prince the Singing Ringing Tree, telling him it will only ring if the Princess truly loves him, and if it doesn't ring by sunset, the prince belongs to him. The Prince agrees, adding the stipulation that, if the Princess does not love him, he will turn into a bear. You sir, are an imbecile. By the way, none of these characters actually have names- they are literally credited as "Prince", "Princess" and "Dwarf".
The Prince returns to the castle, tree in tow, and delivers it to the Princess. She correctly points out that it does not ring and the prince tells her it will only do so if she loves him. She is offended that he is placing conditions on the deal (he wants her to love him before they get married- the nerve!) and accuses him of being a liar. To be fair his story is a little suspect, for all she knows he just pulled up a tree and called it magic. Heartbroken, the Prince leaves. After he leaves the Princess tells the King to go and get the tree anyway, just to be safe. See what I mean about being a bitch?
The King points out that the Prince is unlikely to hand it over now, but she cries crocodile tears until he agrees to go. The Prince arrives at Fairyland at sunset, turning into the world's most ridiculous looking bear while his horse turns to stone. And here's where things start to get really weird. Also, if the Prince was able to ride from Fairyland to the kingdom and back in a day, that makes his quest a lot less impressive and his claims that much more suspicious.
Just then the King arrives and, once he gets over the initial shock of the talking bear, they make a deal that in return for the tree, the bear will get whatever the King meets first at the castle. I've read a lot of fairy tales over the years and I'm noticing a lot of tropes lifted from other stories. Also, the King never asks the talking bear what happened to the prince, despite the clear implication being that the Bear ate him. Meanwhile the Princess is hanging out in the tallest tower in the castle throwing birds out of the window, remember that, it's important.
The King returns home and, naturally, meets the Princess first, having only agreed to the deal assuming he would meet his dog first- he doesn't because she kicks it out of the way, that's also important. The King obviously decides not to hand over his daughter and sends the Captain of the Guard to kill the bear. Why he decided not to send more than one person I don't know. The Bear hangs the captain by his belt from a branch and goes to the castle to capture the princess. The hero's a kidnapper, hooray.
He breaks into the garden and watches the Princess plant the tree in a fountain, after first draining it and killing all the fish by just picking them up and tossing them on the ground, that's important as well. Come to think of it, no-one in this movie apart from the King is particularly likable. The Bear carries the Princess out of the garden, smashing through a foot-think stone wall and knocking over a tree as he does so. Apparently bears have superpowers, which he further demonstrates by carrying the screaming and struggling woman all the way to Fairyland on foot with ease.
We embark on a montage of the Princess demanding various luxury items while the Bear points out simpler, locally available alternatives (because Communism) as the Little Person watches them from a series of silly hiding places. Bear also hangs out with various magic animals that according to all logic he should be eating: a blatantly fake giant wooden fish, various doves, and a horse strategically painted with shading lines and antlers strapped to it's head to make it look like a stag. A stag that has a mane and a horse's tail and wears a bridle. If you didn't have a stag, but you had a horse, why didn't you just make the damn thing a horse?
The next day the Princess eats some berries that she had refused previously, and in a fit of petty rage, throws a rock at the doves for refusing to come to her. In a clever bit of subversion, animals hate this Princess. The Bear berates her for being such a heartless, stuck-up cow and says that if her appearance matched her personality she would be ugly, with "heartless eyes and an obstinate mouth" (I don't know how that's supposed to work either). For giggles, the King of Fairyland transforms her, turning her hair green, growing her nose and removing her makeup- meaning she still looks great because the actress is incredibly attractive, they just slapped some superficial flaws on her.
Later, the Bear is making a shelter by digging a cave into a cliff by hitting it with a rock. Where to even begin with that? One, bears do not have hands- they cannot use tools. Two, there's a reason mining tools are made of metal, if you hit stone with more stone nothing much happens unless one is significantly softer than the other, and since they look like they're the same material that probably isn't what's going on. Three, given how easily he's knocking it out, that probably isn't a very stable cliff face, and not something you want to sleep inside. Four, since he's demonstrated superstrength before, I think he should have shattered his rock on the first blow along with part of the cliff, but I could be wrong there.
Anyway, the Princess arrives and helps him build the cave by removing debris. Since them becoming closer and falling in love would break the spells on both of them the Fairy King decides to drive a wedge between them. Soon, they shelter is complete and they are more friendly, but awkward as teenagers on a first date, it's cute really. She goes out to pick berries, and the Fairy King summons up a wind to try to kill her that knocks a dove out of the sky, causing it to break its wing. The Princess picks it up and takes it back to the shelter, since she wants the animals to like her and she's trying to be a better person and stuff. They bandage it up and the birds instantly flock around her, and her nose returns to normal. This begins a theme of the Princess making up for her random acts of animal cruelty and becoming better looking as she does so.
Next the Fairy King freezes up the lake with fake ice made of wax while she's washing up to try and trap her in the lake. She breaks out and in the process rescues the fake fish by walking out onto a board under the ice that they didn't even try to hide, restoring her lipstick. When that fails, he decides to bury her and the stag/horse monstrosity under snow. She manages to escape and runs to the bear for help, and we see that the cave and the pit that the creature is buried in are very close, about ten meters. The Bear digs the abomination against nature out and her hair returns to normal. By this point she's almost completely in love with him and calls him "dear".
The Fairy King is driven to despair and smashes up their cave accompanied by sound effects that I think were made on a xylophone. The Princess then arrives, and, I will remind you, she was very close to the cave when he kicked it up and was moving towards it as he did so, and unless she is completely blind, would have seen it happen. The little evil guy arrives and tells her that the bear did it. Although she doesn't completely believe him, she still has doubts, despite the fact that when she ran to get the Bear, she would have seen that the cave was still standing, and he was with her since then and could not possibly have destroyed the place. Not only is she blind, she is an idiot, so she and the
Prince are clearly made for each other.
He tries to lead her out of fairyland, but she quickly comes to her senses and turns back. The bad guy tries to tempt her with the luxuries of the palace but that doesn't work, because the decadent capitalist way is shallow and unfulfilling, however he is able to convince her to go home when he tell her that her father is dying. She goes home and it turns out that he is in fact alive and looking for her, travelling around with his most trusted men, and also that she has apparently been gone for a year. There was no suggestion of that so far, but often in stories time passes slower in fairy worlds than the real world, so I forgive it- this time. She has also apparently changed so much in this time that she is totally unrecognisable, despite looking exactly the same.
She goes outside and the Singing, Ringing Tree is singing and ringing, indicating that she does truly love the Prince now. Love, stockholm syndrome, whatever. With a little help from the tree (really) she is able to join the dots and work out that: a. the Bear is the Prince, b. the Fairy King is evil, and c. the Prince is under a spell. She takes the tree and runs back to Fairyland, where the Prince has fallen into depression.
Seeing her approach, the Fairy King summons a wall of thorns that grow in a terrible stop-motion effect to keep her out, like a genderflipped Sleeping Beauty. Fortuantely the stagorse appears and a set of dolls that look like them jump to the other side.
So then he summons a river which washes her in (the "stag" gets away), fortunately the giant fish shows up and swims her towards Fairyland. He drains the river, leaving her and the fish trapped in a canyon, but the birds come down and carry her up on a rope, leaving the fish to die. I'm serious, it's at the bottom of a dry gorge and we don't see it escape or any indication that it will. It's dead, so much for character development.
The bad guy tries to destroy the tree with flames made of tissue paper, being spun around above it on a wire, but true love renders the Princess immune to the fire and she walks through, hugging the tree. The King of Fairyland is pulled down under the ground, the prince is freed from the spell, and they all live happily ever after.
Conclusion
I love this movie, there is no way my review can do it justice, it needs to be seen to be believed. It is a personal favorite "So Bad It's Good", everything from the amatuerish translation, ridiculous dialogue, pitiful production values, ham-fisted message and stupid cliché story make it a wonderful unintentionally funny romp. 4/5.Favourite Quote
Prince- I heard you know where the ringing tree is
Old Woman- Nobody knows that, you fool. Leave me alone.
Star Trek: The Animated Series- The Slaver Weapon
Introduction
Star Trek: The Animated Series is the 1973-74 animated sequel/continuation of Star Trek: The Original Series, following the crew in the last two years of the five year mission.
It's pretty weird. With animation, the creators were able to throw in whatever crazy crap they wanted, freed from the constraints of Star Trek's shoestring budget, the available technology and the laws of physics. Unfortunately, it's kinda primitive; the animation is, well, pretty bad, as you can see. Things only occasionally move, and when they do it's very jerky and stiff. I get that realistic human motion is hard for animators to do, but this is just poor- characters look like dead-eyed statues staring into the abyss. Also, I've seen a few episodes and the whole thing feels a little... off. Like halfway between Season 3 and Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a tiny bit of Season 1 of The Next Generation- like it doesn't quite know what it wants to do and it's trying to mine the past and find it's own voice at the same time. I know it was meant to be a continuation rather than a sequel but it still feels like old ground being covered.
This episode is an exception to that however. "The Slaver Weapon" was written by Larry Niven, the creator of the Known Space series, which I've never read, but I've heard is pretty good. It's adapted from a short story set in that universe called "The Soft Weapon" that had nothing to do with Star Trek, and could be considered a crossover with that universe, marking the only Star Trek appearance of the Kzinti, a hostile alien race from the Known Space series. I guess that could work. Maybe.
It's pretty weird. With animation, the creators were able to throw in whatever crazy crap they wanted, freed from the constraints of Star Trek's shoestring budget, the available technology and the laws of physics. Unfortunately, it's kinda primitive; the animation is, well, pretty bad, as you can see. Things only occasionally move, and when they do it's very jerky and stiff. I get that realistic human motion is hard for animators to do, but this is just poor- characters look like dead-eyed statues staring into the abyss. Also, I've seen a few episodes and the whole thing feels a little... off. Like halfway between Season 3 and Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a tiny bit of Season 1 of The Next Generation- like it doesn't quite know what it wants to do and it's trying to mine the past and find it's own voice at the same time. I know it was meant to be a continuation rather than a sequel but it still feels like old ground being covered.
This episode is an exception to that however. "The Slaver Weapon" was written by Larry Niven, the creator of the Known Space series, which I've never read, but I've heard is pretty good. It's adapted from a short story set in that universe called "The Soft Weapon" that had nothing to do with Star Trek, and could be considered a crossover with that universe, marking the only Star Trek appearance of the Kzinti, a hostile alien race from the Known Space series. I guess that could work. Maybe.
Plot
Let's start out with a little comment on the basic concept- a crossover between two sci-fi universes in an episode of the show rather than spin-off media like a comic, especially one like Star Trek, whose fans come up with elaborate and intricate explanations for every single unanswered question and continuity hiccup- some involving galaxy-wide conspiracies. I guess they thought that this was Star Trek's last gasp so what the hell? Who cares right? This was 1972, the sequel series that would eventually become the movie wasn't being discussed at this point and I don't see how anyone could have reasonably foreseen The Next Generation and everything that would follow on from that- it's strange to think of nowadays but at the time no-one thought Star Trek would be worth anything, it was cobbled together from old costumes an sets from The Outer Limits and created by a police officer who wrote westerns for some spare cash. No-one expected legions of fanboys arguing about every little thing fifty years later, so they decided to do whatever they wanted.
Anyway, our story beings with Spock, Sulu and Uhura are in a shuttlecraft while Spock exposits that they are carrying a "stasis box" recovered from the Kzinti homeworld. These are containers made by an ancient race called the "Slavers", or "Thrint" as they were know in the novels, an ancient and powerful race that dominated the galaxy billions of years ago. Stasis boxes are apparently rare historical treasures and scientific marvels. Apparently, time stands absolutely still in a stasis box, so they contain ancient artifacts from the Slavers' scientifically advanced empire, perfectly preserved.
The stasis box begins to glow, indicating there is another stasis box on a nearby planet. Spock thinks this is unlikely given how rare the boxes are, and since the planet is a major tourist attraction and a stasis box probably wouldn't have gone unnoticed for so long, but he decides to check it anyway. They land on the surface approximately 30 feet above the box which is apparently buried under the ice. If you watch the episode, you will notice that they are surrounded by yellow lines that perfectly outline their hairstyles and Uhura's breasts, this was a substitute for the spacesuits used in the live-action series so the animators wouldn't need to make another model for the few space scenes there are.
Suddenly, the group are attacked by the quite frankly ridiculous looking Kzinti, it's not just their ludicrous body shape and design, but also the fact that they are wearing pink spacesuits. Apparently they are actually meant to be grey, but the director of the series, a Mr Hal Sutherland, was colourblind- a fact he systematically concealed from his coworkers and employers for reasons best known to himself. The Kzinti stun the three officers without anyone actually moving a muscle.
The three wake up in the Kzinti ship under the ice in something called a "police web" that apparently totally paralyses them, so what else is new? The Kzinti are apparently not allowed to have any weapons besides basic police armaments, a condition of the treaty resulting from their defeat in a war against the Federation, which have never been mentioned before or since in Star Trek, but are a key part of history in the Known Space series. The Kzinti are a crack team of agents sent by their government to retrieve the stasis box- officially however, they are pirates who have stolen a police vessel and become outlaws, giving the Kzinti government plausible deniability should they fail.
Now is good a time as any to comment on the problem with the basic premise of this episode- according to my research, in the Known Space series the Kzinti are a major antagonist race and the Slavers (or Thrint as they're known in the books) are a big part of the universe background, but unless the viewers had read the books, they couldn't know that. This was before the internet, if you weren't a Niven fan, you had no idea what was happening. Star Trek did have guest races, this series especially, but they were usually discovered in that same episode by the Enterprise and explained throughout that episode, rather than it being take for granted we know who they are.
The Kzinti leader, the cutely named Chuft-Captain, exposits his plan to Sulu, he lured the group to the planet with an empty stasis box so he could plunder theirs, hoping to find a weapon to allow them to destroy the Federation at last. We also learn that Kzinti have no regard for females or Vulcans, since their females are non-sentient, and Vulcans are vegetarians, while Kzinti are proud carnivores. In the box he discovers a strange gun built by the Slavers, declaring it "the end of mankind".
The Kzinti decide to test the weapon on the surface using the three as targets, with a neurotic Kzinti telepath (named Telepath) reading Sulu's mind to cheack the effects to the weapon, but when they fire it, it does nothing. Chuft-Captain fiddles with the controls and, after some amusing reaction shots, the gun transforms into a different configuration that also does nothing but produce a faint buzzing that humans can hear but Kzinti cannot. A third configuration produces a telescope, and a fourth makes a laser that is less advanced than a "modern" model. The fifth produces a hand-held rocket that sends Chuft flying around uncontrollably like a Looney Tune.
Chuft accidentally knocks Uhura off the web and she awkwardly runs away (across ice, in heels) but is swiftly recaptured. Setting six is an "energy drainer" that deactivates all nearby devices such as the police web, but not the force field belts because then the show would be over. They run and Spock kicks Chuft-Captain by flying through the air totally rigid and landing on him, stealing the weapon in the process. Uhura is captured again making her officially a damsel in distress (although she herself would deny the first part).
Since Spock (a vegetarian) kicked Chuft's arse, his honour won't allow him to call for help, so he calls them on Uhura's communicator offering a trade- her for the weapon. They debate whether they should take the deal or if Chuft will even keep his side, and Sulu suggests that the weapon may belong to a spy or covert agent, since the versatile weapon with all its bells and whistles is needlessly complex for a field weapon. Chuft also demands that he face Spock in single combat before he will allow himself to seek medical attention.
Sulu activates the seventh setting, a total-conversion beam that produces a massive explosion. Why a spy would need something like that I don't know. The explosion knocks them both out and they and the weapon are recaptured. Chuft-Captain fiddles with the controls to try to activate the total-conversion beam, but instead activates the weapon's sentient computer mind. Chuft quizzes the weapon about the weapon's mission, with the weapon repeatedly asking him for a valid password before it will do anything. When Chuft asks for the total-conversion beam, the weapon transforms into yet another configuration, and the Kzinti go to test it outside.
Spock correctly deduces that the weapon has switched to self-destruct, having come to the conclusion that it has been captured by the enemy, since it is now in the hands of aliens who do not know the passwords and it cannot find it's owner. The Kzinti are blown up, leaving a massive crater and the ship seriously damaged. The heroes escape and fly to safety in the shuttelcraft, where Captain Kirk will no doubt be very interested to find out what happened to the priceless historical treasure they were supposed to be transporting.
Anyway, our story beings with Spock, Sulu and Uhura are in a shuttlecraft while Spock exposits that they are carrying a "stasis box" recovered from the Kzinti homeworld. These are containers made by an ancient race called the "Slavers", or "Thrint" as they were know in the novels, an ancient and powerful race that dominated the galaxy billions of years ago. Stasis boxes are apparently rare historical treasures and scientific marvels. Apparently, time stands absolutely still in a stasis box, so they contain ancient artifacts from the Slavers' scientifically advanced empire, perfectly preserved.
The stasis box begins to glow, indicating there is another stasis box on a nearby planet. Spock thinks this is unlikely given how rare the boxes are, and since the planet is a major tourist attraction and a stasis box probably wouldn't have gone unnoticed for so long, but he decides to check it anyway. They land on the surface approximately 30 feet above the box which is apparently buried under the ice. If you watch the episode, you will notice that they are surrounded by yellow lines that perfectly outline their hairstyles and Uhura's breasts, this was a substitute for the spacesuits used in the live-action series so the animators wouldn't need to make another model for the few space scenes there are.
Suddenly, the group are attacked by the quite frankly ridiculous looking Kzinti, it's not just their ludicrous body shape and design, but also the fact that they are wearing pink spacesuits. Apparently they are actually meant to be grey, but the director of the series, a Mr Hal Sutherland, was colourblind- a fact he systematically concealed from his coworkers and employers for reasons best known to himself. The Kzinti stun the three officers without anyone actually moving a muscle.
The three wake up in the Kzinti ship under the ice in something called a "police web" that apparently totally paralyses them, so what else is new? The Kzinti are apparently not allowed to have any weapons besides basic police armaments, a condition of the treaty resulting from their defeat in a war against the Federation, which have never been mentioned before or since in Star Trek, but are a key part of history in the Known Space series. The Kzinti are a crack team of agents sent by their government to retrieve the stasis box- officially however, they are pirates who have stolen a police vessel and become outlaws, giving the Kzinti government plausible deniability should they fail.
Now is good a time as any to comment on the problem with the basic premise of this episode- according to my research, in the Known Space series the Kzinti are a major antagonist race and the Slavers (or Thrint as they're known in the books) are a big part of the universe background, but unless the viewers had read the books, they couldn't know that. This was before the internet, if you weren't a Niven fan, you had no idea what was happening. Star Trek did have guest races, this series especially, but they were usually discovered in that same episode by the Enterprise and explained throughout that episode, rather than it being take for granted we know who they are.
The Kzinti leader, the cutely named Chuft-Captain, exposits his plan to Sulu, he lured the group to the planet with an empty stasis box so he could plunder theirs, hoping to find a weapon to allow them to destroy the Federation at last. We also learn that Kzinti have no regard for females or Vulcans, since their females are non-sentient, and Vulcans are vegetarians, while Kzinti are proud carnivores. In the box he discovers a strange gun built by the Slavers, declaring it "the end of mankind".
The Kzinti decide to test the weapon on the surface using the three as targets, with a neurotic Kzinti telepath (named Telepath) reading Sulu's mind to cheack the effects to the weapon, but when they fire it, it does nothing. Chuft-Captain fiddles with the controls and, after some amusing reaction shots, the gun transforms into a different configuration that also does nothing but produce a faint buzzing that humans can hear but Kzinti cannot. A third configuration produces a telescope, and a fourth makes a laser that is less advanced than a "modern" model. The fifth produces a hand-held rocket that sends Chuft flying around uncontrollably like a Looney Tune.
Chuft accidentally knocks Uhura off the web and she awkwardly runs away (across ice, in heels) but is swiftly recaptured. Setting six is an "energy drainer" that deactivates all nearby devices such as the police web, but not the force field belts because then the show would be over. They run and Spock kicks Chuft-Captain by flying through the air totally rigid and landing on him, stealing the weapon in the process. Uhura is captured again making her officially a damsel in distress (although she herself would deny the first part).
Since Spock (a vegetarian) kicked Chuft's arse, his honour won't allow him to call for help, so he calls them on Uhura's communicator offering a trade- her for the weapon. They debate whether they should take the deal or if Chuft will even keep his side, and Sulu suggests that the weapon may belong to a spy or covert agent, since the versatile weapon with all its bells and whistles is needlessly complex for a field weapon. Chuft also demands that he face Spock in single combat before he will allow himself to seek medical attention.
Sulu activates the seventh setting, a total-conversion beam that produces a massive explosion. Why a spy would need something like that I don't know. The explosion knocks them both out and they and the weapon are recaptured. Chuft-Captain fiddles with the controls to try to activate the total-conversion beam, but instead activates the weapon's sentient computer mind. Chuft quizzes the weapon about the weapon's mission, with the weapon repeatedly asking him for a valid password before it will do anything. When Chuft asks for the total-conversion beam, the weapon transforms into yet another configuration, and the Kzinti go to test it outside.
Spock correctly deduces that the weapon has switched to self-destruct, having come to the conclusion that it has been captured by the enemy, since it is now in the hands of aliens who do not know the passwords and it cannot find it's owner. The Kzinti are blown up, leaving a massive crater and the ship seriously damaged. The heroes escape and fly to safety in the shuttelcraft, where Captain Kirk will no doubt be very interested to find out what happened to the priceless historical treasure they were supposed to be transporting.
Conclusion
This surpassed my expectations, I'll be honest. This is a pretty good episode of a show that was, at best, the low end of mediocre. I remember others being much worse, but they seem to have been taken down from YouTube since so I can't go back to check. This is a fairly decent episode if you can get past the terrible animation or the continuity conflicts that the Kzinti bring. It has an entertaining enough plot and some quite funny bits from the Kzinti themselves, wether it's Telepath's eyes bulging out of his head or Chuft-Captain being dragged around by a rocket, I don't know if they were trying to make them into joke villains, but if they were then they succeeded. It has it's flaws: the repeated escapes and recaptures feel redundant and make the characters look slightly incompetent, and the ending is a little weak- the characters were saved by a force outside their control which again makes them seem weak, but it's not like there weren't several episodes of the original that pulled that one as well. 2.5/5
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