Is the phrase “Reverse the Polarity!!!”, used anymore in motion pictures, or did it disappear years ago?
The last time I remember hearing it was watching reruns of the series voyage to the bottom of the sea back in the seventies.
Declan
I’m thinking of Dr. Who, sometime in the mid-1970s.
Although, if Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea said it, this would predate my foggy remembrance of Dr. Who.
“If I can just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow…”
Doing a quote search on IMDB:
“Doctor Who” (2005) {The Lazarus Experiment (#3.6)}
The Doctor: Really shouldn't take that long just to reverse the polarity. I must be a bit out of practice.
Ghost Busters (1984)
Dr. Egon Spengler: I have a radical idea. The door swings both ways, we could reverse the polarity flow through the gate.
L.A. Story (1991)
Harris: All I know is, on the day your plane was to leave, if I had the power, I would turn the winds around, I would roll in the fog, I would bring in storms, I would change the polarity of the earth so compasses couldn't work, so your plane couldn't take off.
And I would personally guess that it popped up at least a few times in Star Trek: TNG if not in the later series as well.
The story goes that Jon Pertwee, who played the Doctor from 1970 to 1974, had trouble with the quantities of bafflegab that were required for the role. At some point “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” came up, and he latched onto it as easy to remember and pronounce, so from then on the writers included variations on the theme whenever appropriate.
As Sage Rat found, it still pops up from time to time as a little in-joke for the fans.