Category: Film/Television Excerpt

John Matheson:

I know you said it wasn’t a problem getting me here, and I hate to contradict a superior officer, but I suspect my status as a telepath did…come up.

Matthew Gideon:

John, you know what causes most problems? Ambiguity. Not knowing which decision is the right one. You’re the best First Officer I’ve ever served with, and I consider you a friend.

So there was no ambiguity, and no problem.

— “War Zone” – Crusade (1999)

Refa:

Londo, you are a fool! You walk away from the greatest power I have even seen, and now you expect me to do the same? They are the key to my eventual rise to the throne! Why would I abandon them?

Londo:

Because I have asked you. And because your loyalty to our people should be greater than your ambition.

…And because I have poisoned your drink.

[Refa stares at Londo in shock.]

Yes, and it is very interesting poison. It comes in two parts. Both are harmless on their own; but when combined, quite lethal. The first settles into the bloodstream and the intestinal walls. It stays there for years: silent, dormant, waiting. When the other half of the poison enters the body, the two meet [and] have a little party in your cardiovascular system. And suddenly: You. Are. Quite. Dead.

Your drink contained the first half of the poison.

Refa:

Why? Why did you do this?

Londo:

To guarantee your co-operation. And because sooner or later you would do it to me. Yes, we are returning to the old ways, Refa. And poison was always the instrument of choice in the Old Republic.

Being something of a sentimentalist, I got here first.

Refa:

[cowed by fear]

What do you want me to do?

Londo:

You have encouraged that fool [Emperor] Cartagia to attack worlds that have no value to us. You will now encourage him otherwise. You will bolster our lines of defense around Centauri Prime. And you have nothing more to do with Mr. Morden. If you do not comply, one of my agents in the royal palace will introduce you to the second half of the poison.

[lifts his glass]

To your health, Lord Refa.

— "Ceremonies of Light and Dark" – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

Balin:

Don’t mind him, laddie. Thorin has more cause than most to hate orcs. After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thror tried to reclaim the ancient dwarf kingdom of Moria. But our enemy had got there first. Moria had been taken by legions of orcs, led by the most vile of all their race: Azog the Defiler. The giant Gundabad orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin.

He began by beheading the King. Thrain, Thorin’s father, was driven mad by grief. He went missing—taken prisoner or killed, we did not know. We were leaderless. Defeat and death were upon us.

That is when I saw him: a young dwarf prince facing down the Pale Orc. He stood alone against this terrible foe; his armour rent, wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield! Azog the Defiler learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken.

Our forces rallied and drove the orcs back. Our enemy had been defeated, but there was no feast. No song that night, for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived.

And I thought to myself then: there is one I could follow. There is one I could call King.

— “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (2012)

Thomas:

How did you get into this in the first place?

Aldous:

[Who has dedicated his life to the search for the Holy Grail.]

I kept the accounts for one of the major Earth corporations. I lived in a world of numbers: clean, smooth, logical, precise. We took a vacation to visit the Mars Colony; the first time we had been. We were in a crawler halfway across the Amazonis Planitia when suddenly the ground gave way beneath us. I woke up in a hospital, a few bumps and bruises. But Sarah and the children: gone.

Thomas:

I’m sorry.

Aldous:

I grieved for a long time. A very long time. But eventually I went back to work. But…the numbers didn’t add up anymore; nothing made sense any more. So, finally, one day I just left. Believing there had to be something—some reason why I had been spared.

Then I met a man who said he was the last of his kind. He told me I was a man of infinite promise..and goodness. And when he was dying, he gave me this: his staff. And now I’m the last. But the numbers add up again, Thomas.

The. Numbers. Do. Add. Up.

— "Grail" – Babylon 5, Season 1 (1994)

Master Lo:

You have learned only half of what I teach, Jeff. You’re strong. You’re quick. But you’re only a tiger, not a dragon.

The tiger does not think, therefore it cannot act. It can only react, respond. The tiger is strong and fearless, but it cannot initiate action. That is the difference between man and tiger.

Jeff:

Tiger is what I know.

Master Lo:

The dragon is also very strong, but full of wisdom. The dragon fears what its strength can do….

The dragon always has a choice; the tiger, never. I have shown you the dragon, but you have not seen it….

— “The Perfect Weapon” (1991)

— “War Zone” – Crusade (1999)

Fallada:

The two males didn’t die! They jumped to the bodies of the soldiers who shot them and transformed the soldiers’ bodies into their own likenesses. That’s the difference between them and their victims: their victims can’t leave their bodies; only the original three can do that. But I’ve killed one of them.

Caine:

One of which?

Fallada:

One of the two male vampires. One of the transformed ones.

Carlsen:

How did you kill him, Fallada? How?

Fallada:

The old way, Carlsen: a leaded metal shaft penetrating not through the heart but through the energy center two inches below the heart. Not steel but leaded iron.

— “Lifeforce” (1985)

This excerpt needs to be video as the best parts are the character’s expression and tone.

— “Racing the Night” – Crusade (1999)

G’Kar:

It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused—suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting.

All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both. G’Quon wrote:

There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities. It is against chaos and despair.

Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.

The future is all around us waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.

— “Z’ha’dum” – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

Imad:

[Caresses the neck of the horse as he stands beside it.]

A very good horse.

Balian:

Take the horse and be about your business.

Imad:

[surprised]

This is your prize of battle! I am your prisoner—your slave, should you wish it!

Balian:

I have been a slave, or very near to one. I will never keep one nor suffer any to be kept.

Go.

Imad:

[Mounts the horse]

The man you killed was a very great cavalier among the Muslims. His name was Mummad al-Fais.

Balian:

I will pray for him.

Imad:

Your quality will be known among your enemies before ever you meet them, my friend.

— “Kingdom of Heaven” (2005)

Marcus Cole:

You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, “wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?“

So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

— “Point of No Return” – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

Turkey Creek Jack Johnson:

Doc, you oughtta be in bed. What the hell you doin’ this for, anyway?

Doc Holliday:

Wyatt Earp is my friend.

Turkey Creek Jack Johnson:

Hell, I got lots of friends.

Doc Holliday:

I don’t.

— “Tombstone” (1993)

Lord Vaako:

This is your one chance. Take the Lord Marshal’s offer and bow.

Riddick:

I bow to no man.

Lord Vaako:

He’s not a man. He’s the Holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse and returned with powers you can’t imagine.

— “The Chronicles of Riddick” (2004)

Lorien:

You can’t turn away from death simply because you’re afraid of what might happen without you. That’s not enough! You’re not embracing life; you’re fleeing death! And so you’re caught in between, unable to go forward or backward.

Your friends need what you can be when you are no longer afraid. When you know who you are, and why you are, and what you want. When you are no longer looking for reasons to live but can simply be.

…Surrender yourself to death. The death of flesh. The death of fear. Step into the abyss, and let go….

— “Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” – Babylon 5, Season 4 (1997)

Daphne:

[exasperated]

You won’t answer my questions. You won’t take my money….

Ray:

[lecturing]

Okay, I’ll tell you this much: the world runs on money. Everyone walks around with this invisible number in their heads. You hit the figure close enough, the penny drops, you own the man….

I take money out of the equation. My hands don’t sweat. Because I’m never at the pay window.

— Stingray, Pilot (1985)

King of Qin:

[has a revelation from pondering a caligraphic scroll bearing a character for “sword”]

Broken Sword’s scroll contains no secrets of swordsmanship! What it reveals is his highest ideal:

In the first stage, man and sword become interchangeable. Here, even a blade of grass can be used as a lethal weapon.

In the next stage, the sword resides not in the hand, but in the heart. Even without a weapon, the warrior can slay his enemy from a hundred paces.

But the ultimate ideal is when the sword disappears altogether. The warrior embraces all around him. The desire to kill is gone. Only peace remains!

— “Hero” (2002)

Baron Mordo:

This is a relic. Some magic is too powerful to sustain so we imbue objects with it, allowing them to take the strain we cannot.

This is the Staff of the Living Tribunal….

There are many relics: the Wand of Watoomb, the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr….

Doctor Strange:

They just roll off the tongue, don’t they?

— “Doctor Strange” (2016)

The Ancient One:

We are protectors not warriors.

— “Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme” (2007)

Hunter #1:

I mislike the feel of these woods. Creatures that live in a unicorn’s forest learn a little magic of their own in time—mainly concerned with disappearing.

Hunter #2:

Unicorns? I thought they only existed in fairytales. This is a forest, like any other. Isn’t it?

Hunter #1:

Then why do the leaves never fall here? Or the snow? Why is it always spring here?

I tell you there is one unicorn left in the world, and as long as it lives in this forest we’ll find no game to hunt here.

Hunter #2:

Let’s turn around. Hunt somewhere else.

Hunter #1:

Alright.

[Turns and calls out to the unseen unicorn.]

Stay where you are, poor beast! This is no world for you! Stay in your forest and keep your trees green and your friends protected! And good luck to you, for you are the last!

— “The Last Unicorn” (1982)

Syrio Forel:

Do you pray to the gods?

Arya Stark:

The old and the new.

Syrio Forel:

There is only one god…and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death:

“Not today.”

— “A Golden Crown” – Game of Thrones, Season 1 (2011)