Star Trek Stabilized Flings Actors Across The Final Frontier

By David Wharton | Published 10 years ago

It’s one of the most important skills required of any Star Trek actor. And I don’t mean pretending there’s actually somebody on the viewscreen, or figuring how how to give your uniform the proper, dignified tug whenever it starts to creep up on you. No, I’m talking about the ability to fling yourself about like a crazy person whenever the ship is “hit” in combat. After all, they’re making this show on a budget; they aren’t going to mount the whole thing on a gimbal just because you’re too embarrassed to fall backwards over the tactical station. And it’ll look great in the final cut! So long as nobody ever gets the bright idea to stabilize the images…

Alas, for all its predictive success when it comes to technology, Star Trek never saw Reddit coming. And thus did some clever redditors realize that it would probably look really funny if we could see what the Trek actors were actually doing on those still, peaceful sound stages, without all the crazy camera shaking to simulate unholy hell breaking loose. A brand-new subreddit, r/StarTrekStabilized, was born, and before you could say “Lil John,” the meme had evolved to our favorite music video of the year:

I particularly like the guy who throws himself through the foreground at the 0:39 mark. I like to think he was a particularly ambitious day player who just leaped into frame without warning, and then the director was like, “Damn it…it’s too good to lose.” If only he’d turned his head toward camera he could have lived in semi-infamy like the Smiling Sunglasses Guy from Star Trek Into Darkness or Doc Brown’s kid who points at his crotch in Back to the Future 3.

And hey, you better believe the guest stars are gonna get a piece of this action. Fly, Ken Jenkins, fly!

But don’t bother John de Lancie. John de Lancie ain’t got time for your space work. He is lounging, and he is nonplussed.

I call this next move “the Koenig Crouch.” Don’t try it, he’s a professional.

There are many, many, many more over on Reddit. Make it so.

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