Cinema Views With Film Critic Kevin J. Walker

IN MEMORIAM:

Star Trek Universe Loses Two:

1) Brock Peters Passes, Was Sci Fi Bro. & ‘Adm. Cartwright;’ Radio’s Darth Vader

2) Doohan “Scotty” & Uhuru’s Screen Boo In “ST 3” Succumbs

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Kevin J. Walker, Netitor

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Brock Peters, age 78 and a noted actor of stage and screen died earlier this week from pancreatic cancer at his home in Los Angeles. He was diagnosed with the disease earlier this year.

He was originally named George Fisher, and was born in NYC’s Harlem in 1927, and had his own star dedicated on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 1992.

In “To Kill A Mockingbird” with Gregory Peck he played a Black man falsely accused of rape, and defended by Peck’s principled and gentlemanly Southern lawyer.

It was not shown in the movie, but Brock’s character was caught and lynched while he was being moved to a safer location during the legal proceedings. Two years ago Peters eulogized fellow “To Kill A Mockingbird” co star Peck at his funeral. The movie was named as one of the top American films by the American Film Institute in one of their periodic lists just before Peck died.

Peters was a stage and screen star, and first appeared onstage majorly in 1954 in “Carmen Jones” as Sgt. Brown, from the modern remake with an all-Black cast of Bizet’s play “Carmen.” He followed that with “Porgy” from the play “Porgy and Bess,” and “10,000 Black Men Named George.”

With his deep rumbling voice, dark skin and tall commanding presence, Peters found among his variety of roles those of authority figures, even when he was a villain.

In “The Liberation of L.B. Jones” in the 1970s Peters was the silent train traveler heading back Down South to settle an old score and kill a racist. Peters also co-starred in Whoopi Goldberg and Alec Baldwin’s “Ghosts of Mississippi” about the prosecution of the killer of civil rights leader Medger Evers.

But in later years he was known by another generation of fans for being part of the most widely seen movie franchises ever created from one of the most daring TV shows.

Brock portrayed United Federation of Planets Admiral Cartwright and appeared in two “Star Trek” films, “ST5: The Voyage Home,“ and Part Six “The Undiscovered Country.”

Brock as Admiral Cartwright starred in his two big screen Star Trek movies with original series members before it was handed off to the “ST: Next Generation” cast. He was a supporter of once fellow Admiral James Tiberius Kirk, and a high level plotter of treason against the Federation’s peace treaty with the Klingon Empire.

Peters was also the radio voice of Darth Vader in the second film of the series “The Empire Strikes Back.” It was serialized on National Public Radio in the early 1980s when originator and Fellow Sci Fi Brotha James Earl Jones (“Conan The Barbarian”) passed on the opportunity that had most of the original cast recreating their lines, including fellow SCB&S member Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian, mayor of Cloud City and reluctant freedom fighter for the Rebellion.

The Sci Fi brothas and Sistahs is a list I composed of actors of African Descent who reversed the onetime virtual non-appearance in futuristic films. Star Trek as a TV series in its multiple formats as the original series, “Next Generation”, “Deep Space Nine”, “Voyager,” and the temporary end with “Enterprise” almost single-handedly started the trend of featuring African Descended actors, who went on to populate other series on cable TV and feature films such “FarScape,” and the new “BattleStar: Galactica” series; as well as syndicated TV fare such as “Babylon 5” and “Andromeda.”

There is a much longer SFB&S article coming, which will feature the OGs of the Science Fiction genre such as Paul Winfield, Peters, Star Trek episode co-star William Marshall; and the new Turks such as Tyr, Worf (who started the recent trend of Africans portraying aliens); and the worthy replacement for Spock in Star Trek: Voyager. (A Star Trek Filmography follows these obituaries).

Admiral Cartwright, also known as Brock Peters, will live forever in reruns and in the hearts and minds of others yet unborn.

One to beam up.

IN MEMORIAM II:

One More To Beam Up:

Doohan, Uhuru’s Boo Scotty

The Enterprise Engineer Passes

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Kevin J. Walker, Netitor

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< walkerworld_2000@yahoo.com >

The Word Netpaper

Also recently passed after a long illness was Doohan, Lt. Uhuru’s boo Scotty, or Commander Montgomery Scott who played the beleaguered starship Engineer who kept the Enterprise running during its original Five year Mission.

His signature complaints “The engines can’t take much morrre of this poundin’ Cap’n!,” when Kirk called for greater Warp Speed to get them out of a fix; and “but we don’t have the powerrrr!” in his rolling Scottish brogue have been integrated into the culture, as well as the line that was apparently never spoken: “Beam me up, Scotty.”

Doohan was a frequent guest at the many Star Trek and Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions until his health would no longer permit his appearances. When Milwaukee had the huge GenCon conventions Doohan and other SF stars made their way to the city, also home to George (“Sulu”) Takei’s parents, and the writer Peter Straub of “Black House,” based on his upbringing in Lacrosse, Wisconsin.

The romance between Scotty and the original Sci Fi Sistah Uhuru was only portrayed in one “Star Trek” movie, the third one “The Search For Spock.” It was one of the lesser films, but was notable for a few things that stretched the boundaries, a thing that ST was known for before they featured the first interracial kiss between an alien-controlled Lt. Uhuru and William Shatner’s Captain Kirk.

The command crew of the derelict and scheduled for scuttling Enterprise follows Admiral Kirk and hijacks their mothballed Starship from orbital space dock when they learned there was still a chance to save the spirit of Spock, apparently killed in the second Star Trek movie “The Wrath of Khan.”

Michelle Nichols’ Uhuru’s job was to stay behind and monitor, mislead and jam their communications as the Federation tried to catch the mutinous crew. Their antics laid the framework for the next three of four movies, where the Klingon Bird of Prey scout craft they hijacked made them interstellar criminals, wanted now by the Klingon Empire as well as their own Federation! Don’t ask, just rent the DVD.

There was some cooing and huggin,’ with Uhuru caressing Scotty’s face and telling him to be careful while they’re jacking the Enterprise, and “my darlins’” in his thick brogue, and we in the audience were at first pleasantly perplexed and surprised.

And why shouldn’t these colleagues have gotten together, as long as they’ve worked together? Two hundred years from now people will still be people. A co-worker who once irritated you starts to look OK, then darn good after awhile.

Aside from the fact that this was 2 centuries into the future when interracial romance isn’t/won’t be such a big issue when entirely different species are exploring getting busy, as well as they could anyway with the tentacles and such. Bear in mind that Michelle Nichols’ Uhuru wasn’t bad on the eyes even then, after three decades of reruns every day, and two or three times a day on different cable channels.

Doohan also will be missed as a member of the Star Trek family, and his tangential connection to the Sci Fi brothers and sister through Michelle Nichols’ Uhuru, his big screen boo.

To both of these Sci Fi fallen who will be remembered and not just in reruns forever,

Requiescat In Pace, Ad Infinitem.

Make that two to beam up. --kjw

STAR TREK FILMOGRAPHY

• 1 -- “STAR TREK” -- The original big screen movie, with V’ger threatening the home system. Co-starred the late Persis Khambata, onetime Miss India

• 2 -- “WRATH OF KHAN” -- Exiled 20th century warlord from the TV episode escapes his prison planet and plots revenge on Admiral Kirk

• 3 -- “SEARCH FOR SPOCK” -- Spock can be saved, as Kirk and a skeleton crew rips off the mothballed Enterprise and return to the Genesis planet

• 4 -- “VOYAGE HOME” -- Kirk and Co. must time travel back to our San Fransisco to save Earth’s future by gathering a pair of humpbacked whales; Madge Sinclair, the British Sci Fi Sistah portrays a resourceful Starship Captain

• 5 -- “WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE” Spock’s reunites with his misfit and emotional full-Vulcan brother as his band of renegades steal the new Enterprise D to search for God. Directed by William Shatner

• 6 -- “UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY” -- Adm. Cartwright plots with hawkish Federation and Klingon elements in film with a Shakespeare flava based on “MacBeth;” Kirk and Doc McCoy are captured at last and put on trial by the Kilingons

• 7 -- “GENERATIONS” -- Cast originals hand over to Pickard and crew as Kirk meets his end in battle trying to stop a madman from destroying a star system to reenter paradise. Sci Fi Sistah Whoopi Goldberg co-stars, recreating her role as Guinan, the long-lifed and wise barkeep in the TV show

• 8 -- “FIRST CONTACT” -- Alfre Woodard the Sci Fi Sistah is the woman of Warp Drive creator Ephraim Cochran who is targeted by the Borg. Jonathan Frakes, Cmdr. Riker on TVs ST: Next Generation” directed. Best of the STNG“ films, and one of the top SF films, period

• 9 -- “INSURRECTION” -- Rogue Federation commercial elements oppress a peaceful people; Picard picks a side after a forced removal by the criminals

• 10 -- “NEMESIS” -- Picard has to battle his clone/son to save a star system; Data makes an awful choice

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Kevin J. Walker, Netitor

The Word Netpaper

http://cinemaviews.tripod.com

http://www.geocities.com/walkerworld_2000/cinema_views

p.o. box 1324-53201

milwaukee, wis. usa