James Doohan died this morning at the age of 85 due to pneumonia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Doohan was best known for playing the character Montgomery Scott, better known as the engineer Scotty, in the original Star Trek TV series as well as in seven of the subsequent movies and the Next Generation episode “Relics.” As his Wikipedia entry points out,
Scotty also became a kind of general cliché for any chief engineer in the movie genre of science fiction parodies. It has also become something of a cliché for starship engineers to be Scottish — even Star Trek: The Next Generation briefly had a Scottish engineer aboard the Enterprise-D.
Here are some classic sound clip highlights:
- “Captain, we’re losing power on the warp engines."
- "Don’t do it, Captain."
- "Captain, she’s packing quite a wallop! Shields weakening!"
- "I know this ship like the back of my hand. [bonk!]"
- "The more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
- "Level please.” “Transporter Room.” “Thank you.” “Up your shaft."
- "It’ll never work like this."
- "Leave that alone."
- "Oh, the equipment’s guaranteed, but I have my doubts about the stuff inside."
And thus my true geekdom is revealed. I am very sad to hear about this… 🙁
