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Space the Final Frontier. Join us for a bold conversation
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our prime directive to recap our favorite Star Trek shows,
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both new and old, to engage in debate about all
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things Trek. Prepare to energize with Phasers Set to Stunt.
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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Phasers Set to Stun.
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In this ongoing series from a film by podcast, we
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continue to show our love for every quadrant of the
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expanding Star Trek universe by covering television, animation, movies, directors,
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and much more. Plot in the course, as always, is
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your core track crew.
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I'm Scott Hoffmann, I'm David Burns and.
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And for today's mission, we're also joined by fellow Trek
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fan and one of our favorite voices on our favorite podcasts,
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Amber Lewis.
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Welcome, Ehra, Thank you, it's exciting to be here.
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Yes, welcome on board.
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In this episode, we're taking a look at an outstanding
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Trek focused documentary that goes beyond the fiction and fandom
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to talk about the influence and impact of an icon.
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We're talking about Woman in Motion, a film about the
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life of the legendary Michelle Nichols and the remaking of
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NASA released in twenty nineteen, written by Joe Millan, John McCall,
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Benjamin Krupp and directed by Todd Thompson. This features a
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lot of different perspectives, including Michelle Nichols herself from various
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points in time. Alrius, everybody, h let's break this down.
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There's no spoiler alert because if you want to see
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this documentary, just go and see it. Dave, why don't
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you give us a summary of what this movie.
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Is all about?
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An inspiring story about Michelle Nichols, who is not only
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Lieutenant o' horror culture icon, but also does something that
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many are not aware of. It is someone who changed
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the space program forever. Michelle takes on the enormous task
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to launch a national campaign for NASA to recruit eight
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thousand of the best and brightest, becoming someone who leads
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the charge to bring women and minorities into the space program.
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This film surprised me oh so much, and I'd love
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to hear from everybody on that. I knew that I
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was going to learn some interesting things, but I had
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no idea what I was in for.
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Amber.
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What was your first reaction to see in this Well?
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I had to watch it a couple of times because
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my first reaction was how many times I cried throughout it?
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It was surprisingly emotional, But just the richness of her
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life just you know, her early life was something I
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didn't know anything about, so that was fascinating. And then
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just seeing someone who found themselves in a position to
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have a voice and to use that voice, and who
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wasn't afraid to stand up and say, you know, where
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are my people? What are you guys doing? Yeah, was
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just just amazing to me. She's just fascinating.
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Yeah.
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I mean, on the surface, you know, just reading the
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box of it, so to speak, it might seem like
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it's the life and times of Michelle Nichols and that
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she was involved in the NASA Space program. It is
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so much more than that, you way, way much more
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And I love to your point of the fact that
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we get this rich story that tells us so much
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more about her. Dave, what was your first reaction?
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Well, I didn't know any of this. Surprisingly, as a
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big of a star Trek fan I am. I had
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no clue that the show had done all of this.
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I knew I knew that, you know, going back to
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her history and stuff like that, and her you know,
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meeting Gene Ron Berry.
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I knew a lot of that stuff, and I.
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Knew that, you know, she came up with the name Ahura,
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But what she did for the NASA program, I guess
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I've been on an island somewhere by myself because I
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wasn't aware of everything that she did to change that program.
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And I was just enthralled by this, this film, this documentary,
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and just like Amber said, how rich her life was.
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And one of the things that really struck me hard is.
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When how proud her father was of her and said
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that you're you're you're going to make a difference in
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this world.
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You're going to be my actor. And you know, she.
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Made that as a child that she wanted to make
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a difference in the in the world, and she didn't
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think she was going to be able to do that.
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But did she ever do it?
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And she even convinced that that she did finally realize
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that she made a difference, And my god, did she
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ever make it, not just in the program, but everything
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else that she was for the minorities and women, all
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that kind of things.
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It's a fascinating documentary, it really is.
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Wayne. What about you?
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Well, I did know about it, but of course you know,
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we were like really really young when that happens, so
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I didn't know about it at the time. But I
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think I learned about her in the whole bit with
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NASA back in the early ninety or not late nineties.
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I believe it was through magazines, but not in the
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in depth that this documentary went to. But I love
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how it went not only into her background, you know,
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her time with Duke Ellington, her acting career, not just
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Star Trek, because that's a lot of stuff that I
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didn't know that. I mean I only knew through like
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little facts that I had seen on the internet, but
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to actually hear the voice from her, which brings me
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to my Probably the one point that I'm glad about
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the most is that I'm glad that they made this
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documentary while she was still alive. Yeah, absolutely, yes, so
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that she had input and she got to see this,
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because seeing her on this documentary was the highlight of it.
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I mean, she's such a fascinating one.
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Well, I think it's important for women and for black
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women to stand up and say these are the things
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I did not, you know, not to like kind of
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hide behind the modesty that we're all told we're supposed
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to to have and the humility and it's bragging and
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whatever like. But to stand up and say no, I
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did that, she.
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Didn't get much recognition. I mean, can any of you
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remember hearing or seeing about this. The reason I knew
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about it was, and this is very obscure, as back
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in the late nineties, I was buying old issues of
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Starlog magazine from back the souventies and they had some
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ride ups. But other than that, I've not seen anything
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until this documentary was starting to be made. So you know,
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it's glad. I'm glad she's able to get that recognition.
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Now. Yeah, well we get to see her present day
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as of you know, when it was made, obviously, but
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it's so seamlessly kind of woven through the different times
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in her life when she's kind of reflecting about what
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she had done. They did a great job of bulling
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forward archive audio, archive video that kind of goes through
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her life, her perspective from different points in her life.
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But yeah, she was.
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She was captivating to listen to when she was talking
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about all the things that she had done. And yeah,
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it's it's a it's a critical documentary to have even exist. Obviously,
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if you're a Star Trek fan, It's it's mind blowing
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to see how much of an influence this continues to
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have today. But specifically Michelle herself, we already knew she
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was incredible, just didn't know to what depth. There were
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a lot of interesting things to learn in this one amber.
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What were some of the things that stood out to you,
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Things that you kind of discovered that you hadn't known before.
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I was so young when the Shuttle program began that
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it was all about the excitement of the Shuttle program,
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and you know, we were getting this new vehicle to
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take us into space. So I didn't really know a
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lot about the problems that they had recruiting and this
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sort of irony that you know, Nachelle Nichols starts talking
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to these potential candidates and they were like, they're not
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gonna hire us, Like why would we apply because NASA
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does not care? And so fighting through that, and you
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know the moment when she she told NASA like, if
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I go to all this trouble and you only hire
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white men like you and I are going to have
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a serious problem and it's going to be very public.
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Was just fascinating to me that she would stand up
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and say that, because that was kind of the attitude,
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was like they didn't want minorities, they didn't want women.
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And when they turned around and said, hey, listen, we'll
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take anybody, you know, they didn't believe them.
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It exploded, Yes, like it blossomed into so much more,
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like she recruited what it went.
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From in eight Yeah, in eight months. I wrote this
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down because it just blew me away. In eight months,
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NASA had only gotten one thousand, five hundred applications, one
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hundred were women, thirty five were minorities. After Michelle Nichols
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did her campaign, they had eight thousand applications, one thousand,
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six hundred and forty nine were women, over a thousand
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were minority. And she did that in four months.
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Yea and half the four months.
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Yeah, yeah, that's what blew my mind that you know,
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it seems like something that would take years and years,
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but four months is just amazing what she did well.
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And it was her integrity, Like she told NASA, I'm
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not going to be your mascot and just stand up
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and make a stump speech that you write for me,
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like I will do it myself and speak from my truth.
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And that's how we're going to do this, if we're
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going to do it.
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Yeah, that was one of my favorite quotes, Like when
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she was talking about that idea of making sure that
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it wasn't seen as a gimmick, when she said, oh, no,
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not me. They'll laugh at you if you pick me,
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and that person's not if they hear you speak for
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five minutes. Wow, And it's it's true. Like everything that
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she poured into her character, Dave, you mentioned that she
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not only named her, but she when she was having
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that first reading and wanted to know more about the
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character of Spock, assuming that that was you know, is
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that a character that I'm reading for? And they said, well, no,
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you're reading for somebody else who hasn't been named yet,
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her or whatever it is, and she's like, but I
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still need to know about Spock. I still need to
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know more about this, right. So she was even then
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kind of opening up what they would what they would
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do with the character and taking so much control over
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it and nothing that bled over into the influence that
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she had on the on Nasa and the outside world
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to help drive this stuff forward. There were some things
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that you learned in this So the biggest the biggest.
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Thing that I learned that I thought was very fascinating
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was her wanting to put in her resignation for Star
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Trek because she got tired of the whole Haley Frequencies
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open and that that you know, she was, she was
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exhausted of it, and that's not why she took that role.
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She wanted to be something bigger on that bridge. And
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I get it, I truly do. And it was the
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whole doctor Martin Luther King's story when they said that
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someone you have a guesser who wants to meet you,
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and she basically was like, I don't want to meet
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your body.
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I don't want to see anybody.
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And then she she turned to find out who it
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was and the fact that he told her that that's
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the Star Trek is the only show that he let
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his children watch, and well, she said, well, I just,
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you know, kind of resigned playing a horror and he
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basically stopped her from doing that and and told her
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the reasons, you know, you don't understand the effect you're having,
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even just being on that bridge and saying those Haleing
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frequencies open, the effects you're having on the minorities, on
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black people. You don't understand what that's doing. You know,
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she went back and decided to stay there, and she
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never regretted it.
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Well, and to that point, the fact that she instead
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of leaving the show, she again even further and said,
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look at the influence that I'm having. Look at the
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opportunity that this is to so many people, especially the
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doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
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Right.
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I love the writer that said, you know, she may
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not be saying a lot, but the minute that Ahura says,
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excuse me, captain, like everybody shuts up and listens to
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what she has to say, and just that is a
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powerful thing.
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Absolutely yeah.
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Well, and you know it expands that role too of
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communications officer, right like it it may have been something
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that was written out if it hadn't been for the