Taggart Quotes in Wing Commander (1999)

Taggart: Let's make our miracle.

Blair: What happened?

Taggart: You just plotted a jump through a gravity well in under 10 seconds. The Navcom can't do that.

Maniac: That's not bad. I mean, that's not bad for the second best pilot in the Academy!

Taggart: YOU SHUT UP! Next time you don't follow my orders I dump you with the rest of the garbage, you got that? You plot a course for the Tiger Claw, Mr Blair.

Blair: Yes sir.

[Taggart leaves the cockpit]

Maniac: That guy's got a serious attitude problem.

Blair: My whole life, I've taken crap because I'm part Pilgrim. And I don't know why.

Taggart: Sit down. You're one of the last descendants of a dying race. Pilgrims were the first space explorers and sailors. For five centuries they defied the odds. They embraced space, and for that, they were rewarded with a flawless sense of direction. They could feel magnetic fields created by quasars and black holes, negotiate singularities, navigate not just the stars, but space-time itself.

Blair: Like a Navcom AI?

Taggart: No no, you've got it backwards. The billions of calculations each second necessary to lead us through a black hole or quasar is the Navcom recreation of the mind of a single Pilgrim.

Blair: Then why did the war start?

Taggart: You spend so much time out here alone, you end up losing your humanity. When Pilgrims began to lose touch with their heritage, they saw themselves as superior to man. And in their arrogance, they chose to abandon all things human and follow what they called their destiny. Some say they believed they were gods.

Blair: Do you believe they were gods?

Taggart: No. But I do believe they were touched by God. Like it or not, you've got some of that inside you.

[Gerald comes onto the Diligent wearing a combat suit]

Taggart: Aren't you on the wrong ship, Commander?

Cdr. Gerald: I still have a responsibility to this crew, Commodore. And excuse my bluntness, but if you think I'm going to let my men be flown into combat by a rogue and a half-breed, you are sadly mistaken.

Taggart: [to Blair] He really is a good guy once you get to know him.

Taggart: What do you want me to do, sir?

Hedley Lamarr: I want you to round up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the west. Take this down.

[Taggart looks for a pen and paper while Hedley talks]

Hedley Lamarr: I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

Taggart: [finding pen and paper] Could you repeat that, sir?

Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Taggart: God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.

Taggart: ...What in the Wide World of Sports is a-going on here? I hired you people to get a little track laid, not to jump around like a bunch of Kansas City faggots!

[Lamarr's posse rides up on Bart's diversion: a single tollbooth in the middle of the desert]

Taggart: *LePetomaine Thruway*? Now what'll that asshole think of next?

[turns to the posse]

Taggart: Has anybody got a dime?

[henchmen grumble, search their pockets]

Taggart: Somebody's gotta go back and get a shit-load of dimes!

Hedley Lamarr: My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Taggart: Ditto.

Hedley Lamarr: "Ditto?" "Ditto," you provincial putz?

Taggart: Send a wire to the main office and tell them I said...

[Bart whacks him with a shovel]

Taggart: OW!

Lyle: [writing] Send wire, main office, tell them I said "ow". Gotcha!

Taggart: I got it! I know how we can run everyone out of Rock Ridge.

Hedley Lamarr: How?

Taggart: We'll kill the first born male child in every household.

Hedley Lamarr: [after some consideration] Too Jewish.

Taggart: What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin' on here?

Taggart: I got it! I got it!

Hedley Lamarr: You do?

Taggart: We'll work up a Number 6 on 'em.

Hedley Lamarr: [frowns] "Number 6"? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that one.

Taggart: Well, that's where we go a-ridin' into town, a-whompin' and a-whumpin' every livin' thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.

Hedley Lamarr: You spare the women?

Taggart: Naw, we rape the shit out of them at the Number Six Dance later on.

Hedley Lamarr: Marvelous!

[Taggart spots Bart and Charlie on a hand-cart sinking into quicksand]

Taggart: Oh, shit. Quicksand!

[Lassos the hand-cart and drags it but not the men out of the quicksand]

Taggart: Dang, that was lucky. Doggone near lost a four hundred dollar handcar.

Buddy Bizarre: What in the hell do you think you're doing here? This is a closed set!

Taggart: Piss on you! I'm working for Mel Brooks!

[winds up to punch Buddy]

Buddy Bizarre: Not in the face!

[Taggart punches Buddy in the stomach]

Buddy Bizarre: [collapsing] Thank you...

Taggart: The surveyors say they may have run into some quicksand up ahead. Better check it out.

Lyle: Okay, I'll send down a team of horses to check out the ground.

Taggart: *Horses*?

[hits Lyle's head]

Taggart: We can't afford to lose any horses, you dummy! Send over a couple of niggers.

Taggart: Now what the hell do you think you're doin' with that tin star, boy?

Bart: Watch that "boy" shit, redneck. You talkin' to the sheriff of Rock Ridge.

Taggart: Well, now if that don't beat all. Here we take the good time and trouble to slaughter every last Indian in the West, and for what? So they can appoint a sheriff that's blacker'n any Indian! I am depressed.

Lyle: Excuse me, Mr. Taggart, sir, but I sure do hate to see you like this. What if me and the boys was to shoot that nigger dead? Would that pep you up some?

Taggart: That might help.

Lyle: All right, boys! On the count of three!

Jim: I wouldn't do that if I were you.

Lyle: Don't pay no attention to that alkie. He can't even hold a gun, much less shoot it.

[Jim blows on his fingertips]

Lyle: Like I said, on the count of three. One... two... three!

[Jim draws. The cowboys' guns are suddenly shot of their hands in quick succession. Cut back to Jim, his arms folded, smoke pouring from his holsters]

Bart: Well, don't just sit there lookin' stupid, graspin' your hands in pain. How 'bout a little...

[he draws his own gun]

Bart: ... applause for the Waco Kid?

[dumbfounded, Taggart and his men start clapping]

Taggart: [shouting] We'll head them off at the pass!

Hedley Lamarr: Head them off at the pass? I hate that cliché!

[shoots his foot]

Lyle: [after the farting] How 'bout some more beans, Mr. Taggart?

Taggart: [fans his hat in the air] I'd say you've had enough!

[Hogue points a rifle at his former partner]

Taggart: You ain't got the guts, Hogue.