TMP wormhole scene--how it should've ended.

[LMFAOschwarz]

Two separate issues, to be clearer they should have flown down the wormhole a couple seconds more after destroying the asteroid.

Yes, that would definitely have helped.

That was corrected in the Director's Edition. It was always planned, but they ran out of time to finish the effects.

By the way, Captrek, I neglected to mention that your avatar is mesmerizing!

 

[Captrek]

Thanks!

 

[Avro Arrow]

I always assumed it was because the engines haven't ever been tested before, and you ideally want to be out in "deep water" to be safe. They don't bother with that at the end of the film. They just go to warp from Earth orbit, after all.

I think this makes the most sense, since they've pretty much gone into warp immediately after breaking orbit every time before and since.

In TVH, they even went to warp *while still within Earth's atmosphere*, which you'd think would be really, really bad, but apparently isn't.

 

[Silvercrest]

Yeah, the engine imbalance causes the wormhole, but it plays like the asteroid is somehow caught in the "warp field" which I don't think had been technobabbled into existence as jargon yet.

Yes, and to add to the technobabble, inside the warp field, the ship is like a passenger sitting inside a train car. Inside the car (warp field) movement is relative, so if the phasers were operative, they could've been fired and it would've led to the same result as firing the photo torpedoes had. The asteroid is destroyed, and the unstable warp field collapses from the blast, instantaneously returning them to normal space. Since the warp field was unstable, you can take some liberties with its behavior and the behavior of things in it.

At least that explanation works for me.

I remember reading some fanfic back in the 1980s that tortuously interpreted the scene as "two objects traveling at exactly the same speed with exactly opposite (i.e. converging) trajectories will create a sympathetic resonance in subspace which causes a wormhole to open between them ... you can only close the wormhole by destroying one or both of the objects".

I think it made more sense back in the day. Ah, the '80s ....

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I remember reading some fanfic back in the 1980s that tortuously interpreted the scene as "two objects traveling at exactly the same speed with exactly opposite (i.e. converging) trajectories will create a sympathetic resonance in subspace which causes a wormhole to open between them ... you can only close the wormhole by destroying one or both of the objects".

I think it made more sense back in the day. Ah, the '80s ....

I didn't know there was Voyager fanfic back in the 80's.

 

[Marsden]

I always assumed it was because the engines haven't ever been tested before, and you ideally want to be out in "deep water" to be safe. They don't bother with that at the end of the film. They just go to warp from Earth orbit, after all.

I think this makes the most sense, since they've pretty much gone into warp immediately after breaking orbit every time before and since.

In TVH, they even went to warp *while still within Earth's atmosphere*, which you'd think would be really, really bad, but apparently isn't.

That's what I was thinking, but that's not what was said. We've never seen them drive out to the orbit of the furthest planet at impulse and then start the warp drive, why should this matter here. Now if he said, we have to use the warp drive before it's tuned, or some other word, but not the location, I wouldn't even mention this. It makes me wonder how fast Enterprise was going, though in that "wormhole". They seemed to be well out of the Solar System when the asteroid was destroyed. But I might be remembering that last part wrong. I have to watch it again.

 

[trekshark]

The dialogue, from what I remember, mentions they would slow down to sublight in something like a minute, but would impact the asteroid a few seconds before that.

That's how I remember it too but I don't remember the exact wording during the scene

 

[RyanKCR]

Two separate issues, to be clearer they should have flown down the wormhole a couple seconds more after destroying the asteroid.

Yes, that would definitely have helped.

That was corrected in the Director's Edition. It was always planned, but they ran out of time to finish the effects.

I'm not so sure. The novelization (I know, not official) says that a piece of the asteroid hit the Enterprise and knocked it out of warp. Had there been no asteroid then the Enterprise would have dropped out of warp on its own.
Decker: "Negative control from inertial lag will continue 22.5 seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed."

 

[austen_pierce]

Just checked the DE and the destruction of the asteroid and the fallout of warp are still pretty closely tied together.

 

[Captrek]

But not instantaneous. In the original, the wormhole effect is gone when the asteroid explodes (apparently because they didn't complete an effect for the asteroid exploding inside the wormhole). In the DE, the wormhole effect continues for a couple of seconds or so.

 

[PCz911]

I misheard deckers line as:

Belay that phaser HORS D'OEUVRE

Ok, seriously , rewatch and listen.....

 

[Ithekro]

I'm not so sure. The novelization (I know, not official) says that a piece of the asteroid hit the Enterprise and knocked it out of warp. Had there been no asteroid then the Enterprise would have dropped out of warp on its own.
Decker: "Negative control from inertial lag will continue 22.5 seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed."

This is followed almost immediately by the report of an object in Enterprise's path. They attempt a few things very quickly. No ability to change course, and the navigation deflector failed. Impact was at 20 seconds when Kirk orders them to fire phasers. They fire torpedo with four seconds left to impact.

 

[martok2112]

I misheard deckers line as:

Belay that phaser HORS D'OEUVRE

Ok, seriously , rewatch and listen.....

With the audio disruptions, I can totally get that.



Arm the photon torpedo main course!

 

[drt]

Yes, that would definitely have helped.

That was corrected in the Director's Edition. It was always planned, but they ran out of time to finish the effects.

I'm not so sure. The novelization (I know, not official) says that a piece of the asteroid hit the Enterprise and knocked it out of warp. Had there been no asteroid then the Enterprise would have dropped out of warp on its own.
Decker: "Negative control from inertial lag will continue 22.5 seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed."

The novel doesn't explicitly state that the piece knocked it out of the wormhole, just that chunks of it were hitting the Enterprise as they dropped out, which fits the timing ot the "inertial lag" bit you mentioned.

 

[RyanKCR]

That was corrected in the Director's Edition. It was always planned, but they ran out of time to finish the effects.

I'm not so sure. The novelization (I know, not official) says that a piece of the asteroid hit the Enterprise and knocked it out of warp. Had there been no asteroid then the Enterprise would have dropped out of warp on its own.
Decker: "Negative control from inertial lag will continue 22.5 seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed."

The novel doesn't explicitly state that the piece knocked it out of the wormhole, just that chunks of it were hitting the Enterprise as they dropped out, which fits the timing ot the "inertial lag" bit you mentioned.

I must have read more into it. Here is the passage that lead me to believe that:
"...Then a final huge asteroid fragment hit very hard, jarring the entire starship, as if in one last try at its destruction.

"We're out of it!" It was a relieved shout from Checkov, his words undistorted now...."

 

[RoJoHen]

I always just figured the explosion from the asteroid destabilized the warp field, and the "wormhole" was a weird fluke created by untested engines.

 

[austen_pierce]

But not instantaneous. In the original, the wormhole effect is gone when the asteroid explodes (apparently because they didn't complete an effect for the asteroid exploding inside the wormhole). In the DE, the wormhole effect continues for a couple of seconds or so.

Yep, thanks for pointing that out. I don't think I'd ever noticed that particular DE tweak.