Summary
- "Beam me up, Scotty" is a phrase associated with Star Trek, despite not being said by any character. It signifies the landing party wanting to return to the ship.
- The phrase has become popular outside of Star Trek and is used to express a desire to escape or remove oneself from a situation, or to describe encountering advanced technology.
- Captain Kirk never actually says the exact phrase, although he comes close in a few instances. The phrase has become deeply ingrained in popular culture and is iconic.
"Beam me up, Scotty" has become one of the most popular phrases associated with Star Trek, despite the fact that this exact phrase is never actually said by any Star Trek character. On Star Trek: The Original Series, Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) was the Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Referred to simply as Scotty by all of his crew mates, he became known as a miracle worker who could fix almost any engineering problem. As the Chief Engineer, Scotty sometimes controlled the transporter when landing parties were beamed back and forth to the ship.
Transporters became one of Star Trek's most important pieces of technology, and the transporter saved more than a few lives over the course of the series. When leading away missions, Captain Kirk would often request for the landing party to be beamed back to the ship, either because their mission was complete or because they ran into trouble. Typically, Kirk would be asking for the entire landing party to beam up and only rarely made the request for just himself. Although Kirk had several similar variations of this request, he never actually phrased it as "beam me up, Scotty." At various points throughout the series, Kirk says, "Scotty, beam us up," "Beam me up," and "Mr. Scott, beam us up."
