10 Greatest Star Trek Fight Scenes
Starfleet's mission may be one of peace, but it's not afraid to get its hands dirty.
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00:00 Hello everyone, Sean Farrick here for Trek Culture and...
00:03 Yeah, alright, if you've watched the other video you knew we were going to try and find
00:07 as many as we possibly could in front of here, 'cause check it out!
00:11 But also we have a reason for including this specific list.
00:15 Now I'm not going to be talking about the big space battles out there because we have
00:19 lists on those already.
00:20 Klingons, Dominion, Borg, the lot.
00:23 Go check them out.
00:24 This is going to be about the smaller ones.
00:26 We're talking hand to hand, physical combat.
00:30 Something that looks like I wouldn't have an absolute hope.
00:34 Not just for the fact that I'm effectively wearing a KonKomi top.
00:38 Without any further ado, let's get going on the 10 best fight scenes in Star Trek.
00:44 Number 10, Seven of Nine versus the Pandari Champion, Tsunkatsu.
00:49 The sixth season of Star Trek Voyager gifted us with this absolutely brilliant scene featuring
00:54 Seven of Nine and a little-known guest star who rocked up with a raised eyebrow.
01:00 Right at the beginning of his acting career, Dwayne Johnson appeared in this episode as
01:05 the unnamed Pandari Champion thrown into a match against Seven of Nine, and to say that
01:11 he's not very impressed with the drone is a bit of an understatement.
01:16 He compares her to the size of a field mouse, and she says that you will find resistance
01:20 is futile.
01:22 What we learn is resistance wasn't very futile.
01:26 While the rest of Seven's crewmates are in the stands horrified and shouting her name
01:31 and trying to get her out of there, these two are actually far away and it's being
01:35 broadcast live.
01:37 So they're in a room on their own knocking Seven shades of sh*t out of each other.
01:43 It's actually quite a brutal fight.
01:45 We're getting kicks to the abdomen, kicks to the face, punches, backhands.
01:49 It actually looks like neither one are pulling their punches on the other, and especially
01:54 when the finishing move features clotheslines and other wrestling-type moves, you can tell
02:00 I did my homework for this list.
02:01 It is one of the better fight scenes, and certainly one of the better scenes in that
02:05 season of Star Trek, enough to have me chanting "Zunkatze!
02:09 Zunkatze!"
02:10 Number Nine, Reed vs. Hayes, Harbinger.
02:15 The third season of Star Trek Enterprise saw a much darker story unfold as the Enterprise
02:21 goes in search of the Xindi.
02:24 A crew of Mako Marines, led by Major Hayes, is stationed aboard Enterprise and immediately
02:31 Hayes and Reed start to clash because Reed, being head of security, doesn't like having
02:37 his authority threatened.
02:39 This keeps on building throughout the season, and initially, I will say, I thought that
02:45 when they started sparring, Hayes was going to "nobble" Reed, but Dominic Keating
02:51 absolutely commits.
02:53 The sparring session spills out of the room into the corridors of Enterprise, and they
02:58 wail on each other, enough to be dragged in front of Archer.
03:02 The fun thing about this scene is that for all of the punches thrown, this was about
03:06 actually helping these two characters blow off some steam, and by the episode's close,
03:12 it looks like they actually get along a little bit better.
03:16 Now, I'm not saying that if you're having a problem with someone, you should go and
03:19 break their jaw, but it's an option.
03:23 Number Eight, Spock vs Kirk, Amok Time.
03:27 If you're talking about fight scenes in Star Trek, this is one of the most memorable,
03:33 iconic fights of them all.
03:35 Think about it, you're already humming the music.
03:39 Spock is in the throes of pond fire here, and this version of Spock and T'Pring aren't
03:45 really as happy as they would be in Strange New Worlds, so the only way for Spock to exercise
03:50 these feelings is to pick up a Lerpa and go at it with Kirk.
03:55 What follows is, it's just fun, it's exciting, shirts are ripped, Spock kills him.
04:01 No, you heard me right.
04:03 You heard me right.
04:04 Now, yes, there was an injection or two, and everyone's fine at the end, but I mean, Spock
04:10 does kill Kirk in this.
04:12 All of this scene leads up to one of the best moments of the original series, which is Spock's
04:17 realization that while dead, Kirk came back to life.
04:21 You see, McCoy had been playing with a Tribble and some super blood.
04:25 Oh, no, sorry, that's the wrong story.
04:27 McCoy had actually injected Kirk with a relaxant, which basically made it look like he was dead,
04:32 and when Spock sees him, he's delighted, he goes, "Jim!"
04:36 Oh, dear.
04:37 Number seven, Elnor versus Tenkem Andrev.
04:42 Absolute candor.
04:43 I'll be straight with you, this is a bit of an amalgamation, because you could pick any
04:47 of Elnor's fights, and they would be absolutely welcome on this list.
04:51 One thing you never want to do is put that man in handcuffs and give him a particularly
04:57 sharp con badge.
04:58 But the one I really want to spend the time about is that first scene that allowed the
05:04 iconic line, "Please, my friends, choose to live."
05:09 You see, Elnor is a member of the Co-op Malot, and when you engage a Co-op Malot in combat,
05:15 there's only ever one outcome, and Tenkem Andrev probably should have done his homework
05:22 before challenging Elnor.
05:24 Andrev is an ex-senator from Romulus, and he was none too fond of Picard when Picard
05:28 landed on Vashti, to the point where he challenges Picard to a sword fight.
05:33 Picard is pushing 173 at this point and is not really able to fight the man, so he throws
05:39 down his sword, and Andrev is like, "Okay, sucks to be you, buddy," and comes at him,
05:43 only for Elnor to step in the way, utter that line, Andrev raises his sword, and the next
05:48 thing you see, his head's just bouncing across the clearing.
05:52 When you are going to go up against Elnor, do yourself a favor, choose to live, and don't.
05:59 Number six, everyone versus the Klingons, the Way of the Warrior.
06:03 "Sean, you specifically said you weren't going to include the Way of the Warrior, and..."
06:07 I did say that, yes I did, but actually I meant the battle outside.
06:11 The battle inside absolutely deserves a spot on this list.
06:16 Pretty much everyone gets something to do.
06:18 Let's start with Odo, he's on the promenade, and he's doing the double fist, and he's doing
06:23 that and he's doing that, and a Klingon comes up behind him with a bat'leth, and then Bashir
06:26 shoots him in the back like the brave soldier he is.
06:29 That's just one part.
06:30 Then you've got Dukat and Garak, who are protecting the members of the Ditapa council.
06:35 Garak with a phaser, but Dukat with a bat'leth.
06:37 Loads of fun.
06:39 We have, of course, then, what's going on in Ops.
06:41 Now we get Dax fighting Klingons with bat'leths, we get Sisko using everything that isn't nailed
06:46 down to fight the Klingons, we've got Kira showing that, you know, a duck tug directly
06:52 to the side, nah it's a flesh wound, walk it off.
06:54 We even get a cheeky O'Brien must suffer moment as well, when the poor man is just doing his
06:59 best and the next thing he gets absolutely walloped in the eye by a Klingon, but thankfully
07:04 his old buddy from the next generation, a certain Starfleet officer who's a Klingon,
07:10 is standing there introducing the new mek'leth sword into Star Trek lore.
07:15 Yeah, that Klingon, he got gutted by Worf.
07:20 Number 5, Spock vs. Khan, Star Trek Into Darkness.
07:25 Khan is responsible for the death of James Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness, and we've
07:29 discussed that at length.
07:31 It leads to the scream by Spock, which is all a bit, no.
07:34 It does, however, lead to one of the most brutal fight scenes that we had yet seen involving
07:40 this Vulcan officer.
07:42 In his fit of anger, Spock beams down to hunt Khan in the streets of San Francisco, and
07:48 he does catch up with him, and he goes berserk on him.
07:53 It is a proper scrap.
07:55 There is no punches being pulled here.
07:58 Spock does try and go for the Vulcan neck pinch at one point, but Khan, being genetically
08:02 engineered is just like, "Ha ha ha, no."
08:05 And there's head crushing going on, there's tossing all over the place, and it's just
08:10 brutal.
08:11 Although there is triumphant music and stuff in the background, it's not one of those
08:14 big hooray scenes.
08:16 Even if Spock wins this fight, what cost?
08:20 Uhura does beam down, and the combined attack by Uhura and Spock finally does manage to
08:26 bring Khan down, and she is able to calm Spock down to stop him from killing Khan.
08:35 It was a new side of Spock that we had seen, but knowing the history of Kirk and Spock
08:40 as we do, quite frankly, yes, I do believe that this is how Spock would react.
08:47 Number four, Georgiou and Nan versus Leland, Such Sweet Sorrow, part two.
08:53 Such Sweet Sorrow, part two, is the season two finale of Star Trek Discovery, and it's
08:58 a bit of a greatest hits of the series.
09:01 You get Enterprise, you get Discovery, you get Burnham, you get Spock, you get Georgiou,
09:06 you've also got the Klingon cleave ship, you've got L'Rell, you've got Tyler, you've got
09:10 Serana, and the other Kelpians who return to help the crew.
09:14 But the standout really is Georgiou and Nan versus Control.
09:19 I mean, there was no way that Michelle Yeoh was not going to make this list.
09:23 If you want to talk about brutal fights, it really does look like no one told Michelle
09:29 Yeoh that you're actually not allowed to kill your opponent in this scene, because it's
09:35 got everything.
09:36 I mean, she's an incredible martial artist anyway, but I would not like to be her opponent,
09:43 even in filming, even in stunt, even with a crew sitting there being like, "Okay, all
09:48 right, yeah, cut, cut, cut."
09:50 Really it comes down to, in that spore bait, it's Georgiou and it's Leland.
09:53 I don't know about you, but if I'm locked in a cage where someone's just flicked a button
09:59 and you see it's Georgiou has flicked that button, and she's smiling at you like a shark
10:03 who's just smelled its dinner, I know the jig is up.
10:07 And we all did, I have to say, it was a bit cool.
10:11 Number three, the siege of AR-558.
10:13 Now, this is actually one of the sadder entries on this list, because the siege of AR-558
10:19 coming in DS9's final season, the entire point of this episode was to show the horrors of
10:25 war.
10:26 And I have to say, for Star Trek in the '90s, it went pretty bloody far.
10:32 Think about it, you have fan favorite character Nog losing a leg, you have Quark firing a
10:37 phaser against the Jem'Hadar, you have Ezri Dax, who at this point was still a relatively
10:41 new character and was designed in such a way that there was so much youth in that character
10:47 being thrown into this horrible war situation.
10:50 You had guest stars Raymond Cruz and Bill Mumy who were introduced and they were quite
10:54 likable in their own way.
10:55 They're both offed by the episode's end.
10:58 And eventually it comes down to Sisko is knocked on the ground and a Jem'Hadar raises its
11:03 phaser to fire at him and it ends.
11:05 It's not about the victory, that yes, technically Starfleet does win the fight here, but it's
11:12 all about the pointless cost of the lives lost.
11:16 It's horrific, it's intense, and honestly, it's an episode I don't rewatch very often
11:22 for that reason.
11:24 Number two, Starfleet vs. the Klingons, Trials and Tribblations.
11:28 Now things got really serious there for a second, so let's go with one of the funniest
11:32 moments from certainly Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
11:34 You might wonder, why didn't I just go with the brawl from the original series episode,
11:39 The Trouble with Tribbles?
11:40 And the reason is because this one is way funnier.
11:43 You have, of course, that wonderful scene of Chekov, Scotty, and Spare who are facing
11:49 up against the Klingon who thinks that the Enterprise should be hauled away as garbage.
11:53 And at that point, I mean, everyone stands up, Scotty stands up, I stand up, everyone
11:59 gets ready to go.
12:00 You're throwing digs, you're throwing people, but also you've now got O'Brien, Bashir,
12:07 Odo, and Worf joining the fight as well.
12:10 And we got that line a few minutes prior about the fact of, they are Klingons, it is a long
12:15 story and we do not talk about it.
12:17 But what you also really get here is that the 60s Klingons do not stand a snowball's
12:23 chance in hell against the mighty 80s and 90s Klingons.
12:30 And Worf just, he just decimates them.
12:33 Unfortunately it's not good news for O'Brien and Bashir, although that scene where Bashir
12:38 throws a punch, the next scene is like...
12:41 The whole thing leads up to that line up where O'Brien and Bashir are being confronted by
12:45 Kirk.
12:46 Brilliant, it's fun, but also I have to say, it's a pretty well choreographed fight.
12:52 Number one, Kirk versus the Gorn, arena.
12:55 I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.
12:59 You're like, you've clearly made this number one for the crack.
13:02 And you know what?
13:03 Of course we did.
13:04 But I will say, an actual serious point, if I were to say to you, think of a fight scene
13:11 from Star Trek, odds are you're thinking of this or a muktang.
13:14 Look, the fight's pants.
13:15 I'm not going to argue that it isn't, but it's so lovingly pants.
13:20 It is iconic.
13:21 We're at 55 years or something after it originally aired, and I'm stood where it was filmed,
13:28 and you're thinking of it right now, aren't you?
13:29 You're thinking, here we go.
13:31 I realise this is Riker, but still.
13:37 And it is one of the greatest fights in sci-fi history.
13:41 I will stand by this.
13:43 This is my hill to die on.
13:46 Is there really anything else that needs to be said about this?
13:49 Actually, I will say, I'm glad Kirk was fighting this Gorn, because if he was fighting one
13:52 of the ones from Strange New Worlds, this would be a very different entry.
13:56 That is everything for our list today, folks.
13:58 Now, if you reckon there is a scene that we absolutely should include, let me know in
14:01 the comments below.
14:02 And don't forget, you can catch us over on Twitter @TrekCulture.
14:05 You can catch us on Instagram @TrekCultureYT.
14:08 Catch myself @SeanFerric on the various socials.
14:10 You can catch Chris @editchrisedit either on Twitter or Instagram.
14:14 Tom @TomCFinn on Twitter as well.
14:18 Oh, just let us do this outro.
14:22 Until then, you look after yourselves.
14:23 I'm going to go before all of the wind comes down on top of us.
14:26 Make sure that you live long and prosper.
14:28 Make sure that you stay well.
14:30 I will see you soon.
14:32 Thanks very much.
14:32 (upbeat music)