“Inconceivable!” Or perhaps not, in this age of insecurity.
One of the most memorable lines from the classic 1987 film “The Princess Bride” had some passengers aboard a Qantas Airlines flight this week feeling as if they were trapped in the Pit of Despair.
The adventure began Sunday night when Wynand Mullins, a native of New Zealand was flying from his current home in Sydney, Australia, back to Auckland, New Zealand, wearing a T-shirt featuring a famous quote from the comic fairy tale.
The message on an oversized name tag read: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
The line is uttered numerous times by actor Mandy Patinkin in “The Princess Bride” as his swordsman character was on a lifelong quest for revenge against the man who slew his father.
According to New Zealand-based Stuff, “Mullins was approached by a flight attendant who said some people on board were intimidated by the words on his shirt.”
It noted Mullins is used to getting questionable looks and received a few while in line waiting to board, but the reaction he received on the plane was “a bit over the top.”
Mullins indicated, “The flight attendant said to me: ‘Are you able to remove it because some of the passengers are quite intimidated by it.’ I thought it was all a bit silly. The person next to me was laughing, because they knew the movie.”
However, Mullins did not respond by saying, “As you wish.”
Like Inigo Montoya noted in the film, Mullins may have been thinking, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
He didn’t happen to have another shirt – nor a holocaust cloak for that matter – as he hoped he would get to wear a pilot’s shirt, but also wondered if other passengers might have an adverse reaction to that.
Without forming a brute squad to handle the situation, the flight attendant left to look for another T-shirt, but never returned, and didn’t make eye contact with Mullins again.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they had someone watching me the whole time,” Mullins said. “The whole experience was a bit over the top, but also a bit comical.”
A Qantas spokesman told Stuff the airline had no record of the incident, apparently having been handled by the crew on board.
“Qantas does have dress standards for passengers traveling on our aircraft … particularly for slogans which other passengers may find offensive or threatening,” the spokesman said.
