internet campaign to restore star trek final frontier starts

[trevanian]

I'm not sure where I read it, but I think this plays into the Bennett plotting thing of suspense vs surprise, and the idea on TFF was that they were doing a lot more surprise early on - one of those ideas being surprise the ship doesn't work.

But in terms of WHY it doesn't work - got no idea. It would have been great if it were a plot point later in the film ... y'know, klingons try to board the ship and get stuck in the elevator, or something equally stupid but justified by what has gone before. But instead the ship seems to 'get better' as it goes along. Maybe it just needed to be out of Sol system to straighten up & fly right.

[Nightowl1701]

trevanian wrote:

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Why risk one of their best captains and crews on a ship that would probably demonstrate the lemon law is alive and well in the 23rd century is a better question. Do they want these guys to croak?

Actually, some in Starfleet Command would probably answer "YES!" It was only a short time ago, remember, that Kirk basically humiliated the entire Admiralty (and made a mockery of the whole SF rulebook) by his actions in ST II & III. They had to honor the Federation Council's wishes by giving him a ship, but that didn't mean they were happy about it - or that they would just let it go. (Or that they had to give him a top-of-the-line ship, for that matter.) You didn't think Kirk & Company's retirement five years later was voluntary, did you? The brass had to save face somehow. "Maintaining discipline in rank" and all that...

[Dukhat]

Nightowl1701 wrote:

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It was only a short time ago, remember, that Kirk basically humiliated the entire Admiralty (and made a mockery of the whole SF rulebook) by his actions in ST II & III.

What?

[MikeS]

Conspiracy, assault on Federation officers, theft of Federation property, starship Enterprise, sabotage of the USS Excelsior, willful destruction of Federation property, USS Enterprise, and disobeying direct orders of the Starfleet commander

[Dukhat]

Uh, yeah, I know what the charges were. And this "humiliates the entire Admiralty" how?

[Nightowl1701]

He directly defied the commander-in-chief of Starfleet (the one charge that stuck) - and turned out to be right to do so. If he hadn't gone, Starfleet would have no clue what went wrong with either the Grissom or Genesis itself - and next thing they would know the Klingons would be lobbing Genesis-derived torpedoes at Federation worlds. But doing what he did is not how a Navy is supposed to be run, on sea or in space. By being rendered unable to discipline Kirk in any real way, and by being proven wrong by him, Starfleet Command has egg on its uniform.
Rubbing salt into the wound, this same rulebreaking guy was Starfleet's golden boy only a dozen or so years earlier. And in the public's eyes, Kirk is still the galaxy's biggest hero - which means the other Admirals, and everyone else in Starfleet, are being unfairly measured up against him. And found wanting.
Thus the image of Kirk in SFC's eyes becomes that of a rogue past-his-prime 'cowboy' who, while still useful when the chips are really down, presents exactly the wrong kind of role model for young up-and-coming officers. They'd start to defy Starfleet Command on a regular basis and pull crazy stunts too. Yes, Kirk was usually right whenever he did - but in this line of work, you've only gotta be wrong once. So keep him busy for now, but start looking for the first opportunity to get him off the payroll for good.


Trying to steer this back on topic, giving him a 'lemon' was perhaps SFC's way of reminding him his being broken down to Captain was supposed to be a punishment as much as a reward. And yeah, perhaps the Nimbus assignment was Starfleet setting Kirk up to fail.

[Aldo]

[QUOTE=Dukhat;7558414]

trevanian wrote:

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Which begs the question: What was the point of having the ship be malfunctioning at all? Does it really have anything to do with the overall plot of the film, aside from a few silly jokes?

It was so Kirk would have to take an assault team down to the planet, rather than just beaming up the hostages. I can't remember where I read it, but it was in one of the myriad of behind the scenes books that I've read in my lifetime.

[MikeS]

Dukhat wrote:

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Uh, yeah, I know what the charges were. And this "humiliates the entire Admiralty" how?

I'm guessing you've never been in charge of a bunch of people? I would probably not have used an emotive word such as "humilate" but I can certainly see where Nightowl1701 is coming from. "Disappointed" may be more accurate.

Sometimes when you trust people under your command you can afford them certain privileges. When they let you down that can leave you feeling hurt. When it results in a Klingon ambassador gloating over what an ill-disciplined bunch you Starfleeters are (not to mention threatening the fragile détente you've both built up), then, yes, you might feel "humiliated".



I'm sorry, I missed your reply to my previous post.

Dukhat wrote:

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Obviously you've never been on a Star Trek internet bulletin board before.

Obviously.

Dukhat wrote:

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This is what people do. If you don't like it when people express opinions that are counter to your own, then perhaps you should be the one to ignore them.

I'm just trying to save your blood pressure by going over the same points again and again and again (about a film you have no love for!)

[Dukhat]

Kirk saved the Earth from destruction. The "admiralty" and everyone else on Earth would have died if it wasn't for Kirk. Everyone knew this, and no one was pissed off at him. The charges were a formality. You could even tell that the president even knew it was all bullshit. Kirk got what he wanted, command of a starship, and everyone knew that was what he wanted, and deserved.

The idea that Kirk was given a malfunctioning ship as the result of some sort of revenge plot by Starfleet is utterly ridiculous.

[LOKAI of CHERON]

Dukhat wrote:

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Kirk saved the Earth from destruction. The "admiralty" and everyone else on Earth would have died if it wasn't for Kirk. Everyone knew this, and no one was pissed off at him. The charges were a formality. You could even tell that the president even knew it was all bullshit. Kirk got what he wanted, command of a starship, and everyone knew that was what he wanted, and deserved.

The idea that Kirk was given a malfunctioning ship as the result of some sort of revenge plot by Starfleet is utterly ridiculous.

Yes, I have to agree with this. The overriding vibe I get from the council's "sentencing" at the end of the movie is one of unbridled "thanks for saving our asses - again" gratitude, a huge pat on the back and, in all but name, a well earned reward.

[Greg Cox]

I always figured that Starfleet was in no hurry to prosecute Kirk, which is why they were waiting patiently for Kirk and his crew to turn themselves in eventually, instead of demanding their immediate extradition from Vulcan. Nobody really wanted to throw the book at the legendary crew that saved Earth from V'Ger and brought Spock back to life.

And after Kirk and Co. saved Earth again, from the whale probe, I figure Starfleet was sincerely grateful, not pissed-off.

[Lance]

Greg Cox wrote:

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I always figured that Starfleet was in no hurry to prosecute Kirk, which is why they were waiting patiently for Kirk and his crew to turn themselves in eventually, instead of demanding their immediate extradition from Vulcan. Nobody really wanted to throw the book at the legendary crew that saved Earth from V'Ger and brought Spock back to life.


And after Kirk and Co. saved Earth again, from the whale probe, I figure Starfleet was sincerely grateful, not pissed-off.

^ This has always been my take on it as well. Vulcan is a Federation planet, Starfleet could have picked up the "exiled" crew anytime they liked. But they didn't, for various political reasons. Not least of which being that the only guy really calling for Kirk's head on a plate was the Klingon Ambassador, and let's be honest: the Federation weren't exactly going to bend over backwards to do him any favors, were they?

[trevanian]

Huh, I thought I posted a 12 paragraph reply on this, but I don't see it. Short version: Starfleet probably has people that love Kirk AND people who hate him, and plenty in between. So it wouldn't be one mindset, it would be all these different views/opinions. Could be they HAD to give him a ship, but some worked it out so they gave him a turd of a ship.

The only way I can justify how paranoid Starfleet and Federation seem in SFS and TUC is that Sowards' original notion for TWOK - that SF has given up on 'to boldly go' in favor of just protecting its borders -- is something Bennett kept in mind even if he didn't make it a story point. And by TUC it was just an extension of that twist to make Kirk such a jerk.

I think NOT having that story point in TWOK was wrong, but only because the idea behind it was central to Kirk's problem - he had spent his career in service to an ideal being abandoned -- now that's a good basis for a mid-life crisis! It would also have set up the idea of going rogue later on, which is what I wish they'd done after SFS, because you wouldn't have had all the baggage and expense of showing Starfleet and spacedock and all that, and you could have concentrated on the characters living out their lives in a little ship doing important things (in retrospect, what I envisioned in 1984 probably isn't too far off from FIREFLY/SERENITY, only with better science.)

I guess I just really like some of these characters a lot more than the organization they serve, because too much is lip service to ideals, and the prime directive is a policy of mass murder.

[Dukhat]

Aldo wrote:

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It was so Kirk would have to take an assault team down to the planet, rather than just beaming up the hostages. I can't remember where I read it, but it was in one of the myriad of behind the scenes books that I've read in my lifetime.

I see. So instead of using the familiar trope of something in the planet's atmosphere (or better, a beam-preventing shield like Rura Penthe had) preventing beaming, Shat decides that the entire ship is a dud just to provide the excuse for them to take the shuttlecraft?

That could have easily been edited to something like what happened with the Ent-B (the ship was so new that several systems hadn't been finalized or installed yet):

Kirk: "Why don't we just beam the ambassadors aboard the Enterprise?"

Spock: "We left Earth without several fully functioning systems, Captain, including the transporter. It won't be installed until Tuesday."


Spock stating that line would have been at least twice as funny as Harriman saying it.

[Aldo]

A lot of Trek V's story developments came out from that kind of working backwards thinking.

Originally Sybok was just a fellow Vulcan that Spock knew from childhood. But everyone agreed that that was not enough reason for Spock to betray his friends and his ship. So Sybok was all of a sudden made Spock's brother.