I need warp speed Mr. Scott!

[biblemonkey]

Scotty also wears a kilt at Spock's funeral at the end of Star Trek II (or the beginning of Star Trek III?), as I recall.

Actually he is wearing the standard uniform pants like the rest of the crew during that scene. He is, however, playing the bagpipes. It's funny that as many times as I have seen that movie I only recently noted that it was he on the pipes. Shatner's acting was so spellbinding during the eulogy that I always find it hard to focus on anything else. People forget How good an actor he can be.

Hugh

[Jay]

Actually he is wearing the standard uniform pants like the rest of the crew during that scene. He is, however, playing the bagpipes. It's funny that as many times as I have seen that movie I only recently noted that it was he on the pipes. Shatner's acting was so spellbinding during the eulogy that I always find it hard to focus on anything else. People forget How good an actor he can be.

Hugh

was.there.any.doubt.how.good.of.an.actor.he.could. be

[Maclachlan]

was.there.any.doubt.how.good.of.an.actor.he.could. be

That was funny!

[OC Richard]

A side note to the scene where Scott plays Amazing Grace on the pipes in the movie:

I read an article several years ago about the composer of the film soundtrack which stated that he was dead-set against using bagpipes in his music track.

The director insisted, but to show his displeasure the composer intentionally made the pipes sound as bad as possible, according to that article.

Note that when the orchestra comes in playing its lovely rendition of Amazing Grace it's in a key which clashes with the key the pipes are playing it in. As the pipes fade out and the orchestra fades in there's a moment of horrid dissonance. A composer of his savvy could only have done this on purpose. It would have been child's play to have the orchestra play Amazing Grace in E flat, match the piper's timing, and have a seamless blended transition. (I've played Amazing Grace with orchestras many times and it's easy to do it right.)

Another thing, he used a poor "take" of the piping. The piper used was quite good and it's inexcusable for the movie to use the "take" they did. I wasn't there but I know the piper and it's very unlikely that the "take" heard in the movie was the best "take" they got in the studio that day. I've done a lot of studio work myself and it's common for them to record things you don't want them to record, like when you're tuning up the pipes, etc. Perhaps something like that happened.

[Lallans]

A side note to the scene where Scott plays Amazing Grace on the pipes in the movie:

I read an article several years ago about the composer John Williams, which stated that Williams was dead-set against using bagpipes in his music track.

The director insisted, and Williams complied, but to show his displeasure Williams intentionally made the pipes sound as bad as possible, according to that article.

Note that when the orchestra comes in playing its lovely rendition of Amazing Grace it's in a key which clashes with the key the pipes are playing it in. As the pipes fade out and the orchestra fades in there's a moment of horrid dissonance. A composer of Williams' savvy could only have done this on purpose. It would have been child's play to have the orchestra play Amazing Grace in E flat, match the piper's timing, and have a seamless blended transition. (I've played Amazing Grace with orchestras many times and it's easy to do it right.)

Another thing, he used a poor "take" of the piping. The piper used was quite good and it's inexcusable for the movie to use the "take" they did. I wasn't there but I know the piper and it's very unlikely that the "take" heard in the movie was the best "take" they got in the studio that day. I've done a lot of studio work myself and it's common for them to record things you don't want them to record, like when you're tuning up the pipes, etc. Perhaps something like that happened.

Ironic, isn't it, that years later Williams would help create a craze for the uilleann pipes by beautifully using them in the soundtrack of Braveheart.

Interesting. A Canadian TV news network consistently used to play the same particularly discondant bagpipe sequence over every in-country ramp ceremony they showed for one of our troops killed in Afghanistan. Since the pipers couldn't have been making the same mistake every time, I sort of assumed this was editorializing on someone's part, trying to make each death as uncomfortable as possible for the viewing folks back home. They eventually did stop doing that but this Star Trek information suggests that perhaps I was right and should've complained- no doubt someone did.

[Hothir Ethelnor]

...

Ironic, isn't it, that years later Williams would help create a craze for the uilleann pipes by beautifully using them in the soundtrack of Braveheart.

Except for the fact that James Horner wrote Braveheart...

[Nick the DSM]

Except for the fact that James Horner wrote Braveheart...

Just about to say that.

[Mike M.]

I just checked it. James Horner did the scores for both films. John Williams never did a Star Trek film score.

And I'll show just how much of a geek I am by mentioning that they went to the effort to get James Doohan a kilt in the Scott tartan for the original series. There was a book, 'The Making of Star Trek", that had a lot of that sort of inside production information. Fascinating read.