Montgomery Scott
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| Montgomery Scott | |
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| Species: | Human |
| Gender: | Male |
| Home planet: | Earth |
| Affiliation: | Starfleet |
| Posting: | USS Enterprise chief engineer/second officer USS Excelsior chief engineer USS Enterprise-A chief engineer/second officer |
| Rank: | Lieutenant commander Commander Captain |
| Portrayed by: | James Doohan |
Montgomery Scott, nicknamed Scotty, is a fictional character in the original Star Trek series and movies, best known as the "miracle working" chief engineer aboard the USS Enterprise. Scotty was born in Scotland and speaks with a thick Lowland Scottish accent. He was played by the late Irish-Canadian actor James Doohan, whose ability to speak in a variety of accents and voices led him to voice many characters, in addition to Scotty, in Star Trek: The Animated Series.
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[edit] Creation
Doohan was cast as the Enterprise's engineer for the second Star Trek pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before". He tried a variety of accents for the part, and was asked which he thought would be best. Doohan decided to use a Scottish accent on the basis that he thought Scottish people make the best engineers. The Scots were stereotypical engineering officers in charge of British naval and mercantile ships during the age of steam, as well as steam-powered land installations. The character's first name is the name of the actor's grandfather (and also Doohan's middle name).
[edit] Career and retirement
Scotty holds the rank of lieutenant commander and serves as the Enterprise's chief engineer and second officer. Scotty admits that he got his reputation as a "miracle worker" by padding his estimates of how long it would take to fix a problem (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, TNG: "Relics"). Nevertheless, his solutions are often both unconventional and effective.
Though he is ostensibly the Chief Engineer, Cmdr. Scott is nonetheless an experienced line officer and combat commander. As a result he routinely takes command of the ship when Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock are unavailable. In this role, Scotty is able to bring the same inspired improvisational skills to the command chair that he brings to the engine room, often finding unique solutions to complex and dangerous situations. On one occasion when Kirk and Spock are trapped on an alien world, Scotty uses the ship's power to shut down the planet's electrical grid for a few seconds, enabling Enterprise crewmen to rescue Kirk and Spock without violating the Prime Directive. Kirk places a commendation in Scotty's personnel record for this innovative tactic. (TOS: "Bread and Circuses")
His personality tends to be dedicated to his profession to the point of being almost obsessive. That is coupled with a fierce attachment to the Enterprise. For instance, in the episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles," Kirk found him reading engineering technical journals for relaxation and had to be ordered to take shore leave at the space station in order to prevent trouble between the crew and the Klingons. Scotty manages to do so when a drunken Klingon almost provokes a fight with Enterprise crewmen as he insults Captain Kirk. However, he himself loses composure and personally starts a brawl when the Klingon dares to insult his beloved ship. Kirk confines Scotty to quarters for the incident, but for him, that just means he has an excuse to continue his journal reading.
Despite this loyalty to the Enterprise, Cmdr. Scott is at heart a naval officer and as such has on several occasions shown a willingness to destroy the Enterprise by his own hand if he believes that such an action will save the lives of the crew or allow them to fulfill their mission. This combination of intense loyalty and pragmatism is clearly demonstrated by Scott's defiant message to a Romulan commander whose ships have surrounded and threaten to capture the Enterprise:
"This is Lieutenant Commander Scott. The Enterprise takes no orders,except those of Captain Kirk. And we will stay right here until he returns. And if you make any attempt to board or commandeer the Enterprise, it will be blown to bits along with as many of you as we can take with us."
A man who has spent much of his life in an engine room, Scott tended to be less inclined to humor Spock and McCoy's quirks than Kirk. For instance, in "That Which Survives," when Scott is performing a dangerous repair task with Spock announcing the precise time remaining, the engineer muttered, "I know what time it is, I don't need a bloody cuckoo clock!"
Scotty was promoted to commander and involved in the Enterprise's eighteen-month refit prior to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He remains part of the crew while the Enterprise serves as a Starfleet Academy training ship (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). (A scene cut from the theatrical release of Star Trek II but restored in the ABC television version and the Director's Cut DVD details that Midshipman First Class Peter Preston was his nephew. Scott's relationship to the Preston family is elaborated on in the film's novelization and other works.) After the Enterprise returns to earth, the aging ship is scheduled to be decommissioned, and Scott is promoted to captain of engineering aboard the USS Excelsior. This places him in the ideal position to sabotage the Excelsior, which facilitates Kirk's theft of the Enterprise and recovery of Spock from the Genesis Planet (The Search for Spock). Scott is not prosecuted for his crimes (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) and goes on to serve under Kirk as chief engineer aboard the Enterprise-A, presumably until that ship's decommissioning at the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Oddly, in-between The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home, the rank pins on Scotty's uniform jacket switch from Captain back to Commander). He, along with Kirk and Pavel Chekov, is a guest aboard the Enterprise-B durings its maiden voyage.
Scott took passage on the transport Jenolan to reach the Norpin colony, where he planned to retire. However, the Jenolan crashed onto a Dyson Sphere, an impact that only Scott and another crewman survived. Using his knowledge of transporter systems, Scott rigged the ship's transporter to keep them in suspended animation for 75 years. Although the other crewman's pattern deteriorated beyond the point of recovery, the crew of the Enterprise-D recover Scotty. Scott and his Enterprise chief engineer successor, Geordi La Forge, rescue the Enterprise from the interior of the Dyson Sphere. In thanks, the ship's crew give him the shuttlecraft Goddard. (TNG: "Relics") Scotty's age in "Relics" is 147 years: thus he was 72 when he was going to retire.
Although not canon, several works explore Scotty's life after leaving the Enterprise-D. According to these books and comics, Scotty helped design the Enterprise-E and, in the Starfleet Corps of Engineers novel series, he leads the Corps of Engineers and issues the characters' assignments.
A comic book chronicling the death of Leonard McCoy was published soon after DeForest Kelley's death although he continues to live in the Shatner Trek penned novels; it remains to be seen if James Doohan's death will result in Scotty's demise. Worth noting, however, is that McCoy at the time is 137 years old (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint"); Scott did not age while suspended in the transporter.
[edit] Generations-Relics continuity
Scotty's presence at the christening of the Enterprise-B, where he witnessed James Kirk's presumed death (Star Trek: Generations), conflicts with this belief 75 years later, upon learning that his rescuers are from "the starship Enterprise", that "...it was Jim Kirk himself who hauled the old girl out of mothballs to come looking for me!" (TNG: "Relics"). This is usually ascribed to confusion and disorientation after 75 years in a transporter buffer, or perhaps the result of partial pattern degradation while in the transporter's memory. Or, Scott may be cognizant of Kirk's death and is simply being colorful, in the same way that someone might evoke a dead person's name in extreme circumstances (i.e. stating "I'll bet it was Jim Kirk himself, come back from the dead, who hauled the old girl out of mothballs"). Additionally, he may either have forgotten about Kirk's loss or simply does not wish to acknowledge or believe it.
The real world explanation for this discontinuity is that Relics was filmed before Generations; Kirk's fate was not known when The Next Generation episode was filmed. Also, Scotty and Chekov were not originally slated to be with Kirk when he was "lost" on the Enterprise-B's maiden voyage. The two characters were substituted for Spock and McCoy and the film-makers and cast may have forgotten or ignored Scotty's words when they made the switch.
[edit] Birthplace debate
Following James Doohan's death, several towns in Scotland began campaigning to be named Scotty's "official birthplace."
The most vocal of the claimants is Linlithgow, where the novel Vulcan's Glory states Scotty was born. Both the town's and the book's claims are supported by script and production material[1]. However, none of this material ever appears or is spoken on screen, and Star Trek historians and others claim that Scotty's birthplace is Aberdeen, Scotland, due in large part to Scotty's claim in "Wolf in the Fold" that he is "an old Aberdeen pub crawler". Indeed, city leaders in Aberdeen have put forward plans to erect a monument to James Doohan/Scotty in the city, although there have been no official announcements to date. [2] However, of historical relevance is the fact that the chief engineer is Scottish; reference to the fact that most ship's engineers aboard steam ships around the turn of the 20th century were from, or educated in Scotland.
[edit] Popular impact
While the Scottish engineer has long been a cliche in 19th and 20th century fiction, Scotty became a kind of general cliché for any chief engineer in the movie genre of science fiction parodies, including a brief homage in Stargate SG1's 200th episode. It has also become something of a cliché for starship engineers to be Celtic – even Star Trek: The Next Generation briefly has an Irish engineer aboard the USS Enterprise-D (named Lt. Argyle, no less, though the Irish history of engineering expertise is largely in construction, building and roadmaking) and Miles O'Brien (played by Colm Meaney who is Irish himself) fulfills the same functions such as being transporter chief on the ship and an Ops manager on Deep Space 9.
The Kipling poem 'McAndrews Hymn' is a Browning-style monologue depicting a classic example of a Scottish Marine Engineer at the close of the 19th century.
Scotty's operation of the Enterprise transporter system inspired the catch phrase "Beam me up, Scotty", which gained currency in pop culture even beyond Star Trek fans. Ironically, that exact phrase is never actually spoken in any episode or film. In the Star Trek: The Animated Series and in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home they come close with Kirk's "Scotty, Beam us up" and "Scotty, Beam me up!" respectively. These lines were written as both a homage and an in-joke to the catch phrase.
In the 1987 movie Spaceballs, there is a parody of Scotty in the form of a character named Snotty, who is operating the transporter beam for President Skroob. The character speaks in a thick Scottish accent, wears a kilt and a Scottish-style hat, an obvious stereotype of Scottish attire. Instead of "Beam him up Scotty," Commanderette Zircon says "Beam him down, Snotty." When reversing the beam, he says "Lock One, Lock Two, Lock Three, Loch Lomond!" which is a reference to the Scottish Loch at the foot of Ben Lomond in the Trossachs mountain range and national park.
In the Disney cartoon series TaleSpin, the pirates' engineer is a scottie dog, an in-joke. Likewise in The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs-is "Angus" a scottish terrier in charge of technology.
The Adeptus Mechanicus venerate someone named "Scotti", who was supposedly the first Engin-Seer.
“Pulling a Scotty” [3] is a work-related term and refers to asking for far more time than is necessary to complete a task and at the same time complaining that it may not be enough time. When the task has been completed at a leisurely pace and ahead of the proposed schedule, one can then return to one's supervisor, stating that with a superhuman effort the task was completed ahead of time. This is also known as the "Scotty Principle" and is particularly common in the IT profession.
The anime series Space Battleship Yamato was translated into English as Star Blazers. The chief engineer Hizoemon Tokugawa was renamed Orion (possibly a play on the name O'Ryan) and given an Gaelic accent. Older than the rest of the young crew, his avuncular personality was much like Scotty's. Unfortunately, he was killed during the battle with the Comet Empire at the end of the second series.
[edit] New film
The UK's Sunday Mail reports that James McAvoy is keen on playing the role of Scotty in the next Star Trek movie[4]
[edit] External links
- StarTrek.com: Montgomery Scott
- Montgomery Scott article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.
| Regular characters on Star Trek | |||
| The Original Series | Kirk | Spock | McCoy | Scott | Uhura | Sulu | Chekov | Chapel | Rand | ||
| Animated Series | Arex | M'Ress | ||
| The Next Generation | Picard | Riker | Data | La Forge | Worf | B. Crusher | Troi | W. Crusher | Yar | Pulaski | ||
| Deep Space Nine | B. Sisko | Kira | J. Dax | Odo | Bashir | O'Brien | Worf | J. Sisko | Quark | Rom | Nog | E. Dax | Garak | Martok | Damar | Dukat | Weyoun | Winn | ||
| Voyager | Janeway | Chakotay | Tuvok | Paris | Torres | Kim | Doctor | Neelix | Seven | Kes | ||
| Enterprise | Archer | T'Pol | Tucker | Reed | Phlox | Sato | Mayweather | ||
