Why doesn't Spock Prime go back in time to save Vulcan?

The movie used time-travel as its central plot device. How many Trek movies and episodes used it? How many times has it been used in other movies, television, and literature? I don't think the question is that unusual, and would bet that a lot of non-sci-fi fans who just watched their first Trek movie casually asked themselves the same question.

It doesn't hurt the overall quality or enjoyment of the film to do so. Now harping on it like some on these boards, that's another thing.

 

Because it would totally suck?

Oh, it was a rhetorical question. I get it.

Death to the Big Red Reset Button!!!!!

 

The "reset button" is a basic problem of serial fiction (esp. on TV), in that those who sell the fiction as a product want to maintain a status quo that's consistently accessible to new customers.

In story terms, it's used all the time, certainly not only in time-travel stories. It can be annoying to audiences, no doubt, but that's more a matter of how (and how skillfully) writers employ it, not a matter of particular plot devices. (Certainly, putting Kirk in command and all the other crew members in their "familiar" posts at the end of this movie was another example of a "reset button" being used... yet fans of the film keep defending it.)

But in the particular case at hand... if (as a writer) one is concerned about not using time travel to solve the problems of the plot (via "resetting" history), then perhaps one ought not craft a story in which time travel is the source of those problems. No?

Instead, by asking viewers to buy into the problem but not ask questions about possible solutions that flow from the same logic, the writers are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

 

Except the so-called solutions don't flow from the same logic, if the viewer has in fact actually bought into the logic of the film instead of clinging to preconceptions.

No. The above merely restates the old paradigm. The source of a problem is not necessarily also its "solution".

 

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. Certainly I've discussed "the logic of the film" in some depth in this thread, and pointed out how it doesn't exactly correspond to what the writers have claimed in interviews.

As for "preconceptions"... are you perhaps echoing Shape-Shifter's claim that "It has to do with resetting the way time travel stories are told in ST"? Because the problem with that is that the writers didn't actually do a clean, from-scratch reboot... on the contrary, they took great pains to establish continuity between past Trek and this movie. (And, in fact, the time travel we're debating was the very device by which they did so.) Therefore, it's entirely reasonable to consider the logic of past Trek time travel when analyzing this plot.

Again, I'm afraid you're not making yourself clear. What "old paradigm" do you mean? After all, it's hardly unreasonable in any SF story, in or out of Trek, to expect that if time travel is used to set up the story's situation, time travel will quite likely have something to do with resolving that situation.

(If a writer wishes to sidestep such an expectation, he usually has to expend some effort explaining why it's not possible for time travel to be part of the resolution. This film offered no such explanation... hence, this discussion.)

Feel free to expound a bit. What sort of time-travel logic do you see in which the events of this film could come to pass, and OldSpock could be aware of them as depicted, yet he would demonstrate no interest in trying to undo the damaging changes to the timeline?

 

Only if one ignores the statements made by the writers.

According to your assumption. There is no provable inconsistency; what is indicated by those statements does not conflict with the film.

Here you answer your own question.

 

You're disregarding all the actual reasoning before my quoted "therefore." In what way do you see "statements made by the writers" as invalidating that reasoning?

(And why should offscreen statements by this particular pair of writers outweigh the work of countless other Trek writers, anyway, if the subject is the cosmology of the Trek universe?)

I'm not sure what you mean by "provable" in this context, but the logical inconsistency I described is fairly clear. If you disagree, then, again, please feel free to explain why. What exactly is the logic by which you see no inconsistency?

Okay, if that's what you meant by "old paradigm," fine: but with regard to that paradigm you have again disregarded my other remarks, and failed to explain why you think the paradigm isn't relevant here.

Without some more detailed elaboration, your position here seems to boil down to "it's all new, no rules or expectations from outside this story are relevant, the writers can do whatever they want, and we have to accept it at face value." But it's not, they are, they can't, and we don't.

 

I thought the subject was how the plot of this film is meant to be understood.

Are you kidding? You've failed to prove any inconsistency. If necessary, imagine me going through the scenes in the script one by one while declaring "no inconsistency detected". The lack of said inconsistency is due to the fact that the writers are merely describing what happens in their own film.

 

Regardless of which theory of time travel actually applies (though personally I'm a fan of the MWI), I've yet to see any reasonable theory as to how Spock could reset the timeline without running the risk of causing further disruption.

Theoretically, he'd need to journey into the past and somehow prevent the Narada from entering the past, all the while not being in any way detected by the Kelvin. The apparent size and power of the Narada only complicates this. Also, what's Spock supposed to do with himself afterward? Ideally either travel into the future or blow up his own ship in a way that also doesn't disrupt the timeline, I suppose.

Now, if there was a way he could journey into the original future timeline and make sure his plan to stop the supernova worked (or perhaps better yet, prevent the supernova from occurring to begin with), that might get the job done. If Romulus doesn't get destroyed, neither does Vulcan. Of course, this only works if the MWI theory is correct...if not, in whatever future he journeys into Vulcan is already destroyed.

 

Once again, I don't understand what you mean by the word "prove." I've laid out a clear logical explanation... what more do you want?

Here's the thing in a nutshell: the movie doesn't exist in isolation. Star Trek is bigger than just this one story, something the writers and the film itself explicitly acknowledge. Yet while they (and you) are saying on the one hand, "It's a reboot, changing how the rules of time travel work in Trek," they're also saying, on the other hand, "we're connecting this story to the pre-existing Trek universe via the time travel mechanism we invented."

That is a logical inconsistency. Either the story can be completely separate from past Trek, and use whatever temporal mechanics its creators like, or it can be logically connected to the past Trekverse, in which case the temporal mechanics of that universe should still apply.

The last-ditch position of the film's defenders is that Trek time travel has "always" operated according to the MWI; it's just that the characters (and the writers, and the viewers) never understood it properly. The problem with that, in the context of this thread's overarching question, is this: if OldSpock thought (based on past experience) that it was possible to correct changes to the past, then even if he was wrong about that, he should still have been motivated to try it in this story.

He doesn't need to remain undetected. To our knowledge, the only significant thing that happened differently in 2233 is that the Narada destroyed the Kelvin, and all subsequent differences (somehow) flow from that. All OldSpock has to do is go back and prevent that from happening. It's perfectly legitimate for him to make himself known to the locals if necessary to achieve that end. In the process he may change tiny details, but nothing significant enough to derail the timeline like Nero did. (Case studies: "Tomorrow is Yesterday." "Assignment Earth." "Star Trek: First Contact." "Trials and Tribble-ations." And many more.)

 

^Isn't it a rather bold assumption that making the Jellyfish's technology and Spock himself available in that time period won't change anything significant?

No number of "case studies" can adequately -prove- that what we believe to be insignificant changes wouldn't have serious effects.

Also there's the issue of the Red Matter. I seem to recall in a few TOS movies the existence of a top-secret device fell into the wrong hands with tragic consequences.

You still haven't actually said how Spock could save the Kelvin in any case...are you suggesting, for instance, that he fire the Red Matter at the Narada? Because creating a big black hole right next to the Kelvin doesn't seem like a good plan to me. Though it could open some interesting possibilities for further time travel hijinks.

Perhaps he could arrive in the past significantly prior to the Kelvin's arrival at those coordinates and warn them not to approach. Of course, the Kelvin may not listen...or it may be the delay he causes that ensures the Kelvin arrives just as the Narada appears.

 

Show us how.

Who are "the locals?"

 

I would assume "the locals" are, at minimum, the crew of the Kelvin.

 

Yes introducing himself to locals won't have any reprecussions. ( How many Star Trek episodes have explored the negative aspects of this?)

 

That is moving the goalposts. The inconsistency you originally alleged was supposedly between what the writers had said and what was depicted in the film. Now you're claiming their position is itself internally inconsistent.

 

Again, "proof" may be impossible in the sense some people here seem to be using it... but the available evidence supports the argument that insignificant changes don't derail the overall timestream. (E.g., Miles O'Brien participating in the barfight on Space Station K-7 and winding up in Kirk's lineup.)

At any rate, I'm not suggesting that Spock necessarily needs to take the Jellyfish and/or Red Matter back to 2233. As I've written before (it may have been another thread), he already has almost every advantage one could possible ask for. He knows the exact time and place Nero will appear. He knows exactly what Nero's motivations are, contextualized by decades of personal experience dealing with Romulan psychology. He knows the capabilities and weaknesses of the Narada and the way it was ultimately defeated in 2258. He has the resources of 2258 Starfleet available to him, and a mind full of 24th-century temporal mechanics and other science, and as much time as he needs to plan before going back. All told, he should be able to arrive early, help head off and defeat Nero, and save the Kelvin, without a great deal of trouble. The details would of course be a story unto themselves, and IMHO a pretty interesting one.

Even so, I'm not saying it's guaranteed to work. Perhaps 2258 Starfleet would refuse to cooperate for some reason... although the prospect of saving one of the Federation's founding planets and the billions of people in its population is a pretty heavy counterweight to the potential risks. Perhaps it would all result in a predestination paradox, as you speculate... although Spock had seen the timeline progress quite differently before, so that seems unlikely. Clever writers with the agenda of keeping the altered timeline (as was clearly the case here) could certainly come up with plausible complications that would preserve that result.

That's very different from just ignoring the entire subject as if Spock wouldn't even think of it, however... as this thread has pointed out from the start.

You can assert that I'm pointing out a different contradiction (I don't think so), but the fact remains that it's a contradiction. Orci's quotes that you offer here (I don't think I'd read these particular ones; a link would've been nice) actually just underscore that. If he wanted to retcon how Trek time travel works, a from-square-one reboot would've made much more sense. But it's disingenuous to say on the one hand that your new universe is intrinsically tied to the original Trekverse, and on the other that you reject a significant aspect of the original Trekverse and several of its most memorable stories.

He, Kurtzman and Abrams can put whatever they want in their movie, but they can't simultaneously insist that it's compatible with prior Trek and that it's incompatible with prior Trek. Why do you keep trying to sidestep this straightforward bit of logic?

 

lawman,

What is so "disingenuous" about trying to find a way to change things without destroying past continuity?

As a MATTER OF FACT, time travel as the writers describe IS compatible with most time travel stories in Star Trek.

It changes the mechanics to be more in line with CURRENT THINKING on time travel.

I should also point out that Star Trek is not as consistent with Time Travel as some assume.

The MWI interpretation does NOT contradict current time travel. It CLARIFIES WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

 

The simplest solution si simply this: SPOCK SIMPLY DID NOT THINK OF GOING BACK !!!

 

If the contradiction in the writers' statements isn't plain to see at this point, I'm not sure what I can do to make it clearer. The only reason time-travel is in this story at all is to connect the story with past Trek... so claiming it works in a way that's incompatible with past Trek simply makes no sense from the get-go.

No, it really isn't... not without concluding that the characters, the writers, and the viewers didn't actually understand what was going on. (And "most" is hardly sufficient, especially without a supporting argument. As I've said before, you or any other poster is certainly free to take the time and trouble to explain how past episodes should be reinterpreted, and which ones you're willing to throw out, in order to support the writers' claims about how this movie works. Apparently nobody yet has seen fit to undertake the effort.)

There actually isn't any single consensus of scientific "current thinking" on how time travel should work, Orci & Kurtzman's claim to the contrary notwithstanding. I think we've established that fairly clearly at this point. (Hence all the talk about the Novikov principle, for instance.)

I laid out exactly how "consistent" I think Trek has been with its treatment of time travel in the past. Which part do you think reflects a mistaken assumption?

None of it "actually happened." It's all fiction. So the paramount goal should be internal consistency, not adherence to one particular scientific POV over another.

And if we're talking in terms of what happened in-universe: okay, why should we accept the word of these two not-particularly-clever writers about that, over the clear intent of the actual writers of all those previous episodes... especially when the current writers' statements have only been made "out-of-universe," and nothing in the movie itself actually requires this radical reinterpretation?

Seriously, why are you so anxious to defer to O&K about this, even at the cost of retconning past Trek, when it's perfectly possible and reasonable not to do so?

IOW, the simplest solution is "Spock, the single most clearheaded, intelligent, and rational character in the history of Star Trek, was just stupid and absent-minded"? Yeah, that helps.

(Although it's certainly in keeping with the rest of the movie. From the first scene through to the last, this film's story relies on people saying and doing things that no reasonable person in the circumstances depicted would actually say or do. It's a classic idiot plot: it only works if all the characters are idiots.)

 

Not at all; in fact, it's completely forthright.

That's where the word "SOME" comes in. It breaks with some previous canon on the issue of time travel; it is compatible with the rest.

That's the difference between "wanting to retcon Trek time-travel" and "wanting to retcon all of Trek".