I liked the idea of the transporter in OS but I truly wish they had written some serious limitations to it. Like a limited range or my really preferred idea, that it required massive amounts of the ships power to do. which means any kind of moderate damage would put the transporter off line.
Ending Beam Up in City on Edge if Forever
- Thread starter I am Nomad
- Start date
I loved the transporter in TOS too but disliked the idea that they didn't really need it to beam people wherever they wanted in the later Treks! That sort of made the room redundant!
JB
JB
True, but just about anything DID cause the transporter to go out.
Yes, but they also had the transporter able to operate under truly extreme conditions. It got even worse in the TNG era when you sometimes had the ridiculous prospect of transporters operating as little more than small clip on devices on the uniforms on occasion.
The only time we ever saw the horror (or nearly did) of a transporter malfunctioning was in the first movie I believe! And no, I'm not counting the two Kirks or Tuvix breakdowns! I'm speaking of the people trapped in the energy beam and failing to regain human shape on the pads as their signature became lost! Gruesome but maybe a good idea for a story perhaps?
JB
JB
I liked how everyone had to move into a beaming up formation.
Kirk didn't have to budge an inch from where he stood. The formation revolved around Kirk. Everyone else had to move to their spot in the formation. Redshirts in the back, of course. It seemed almost like a bowling alley pins formation.
The music was so appropriate for that scene. A bit eerie and with that wind sound.
Kirk didn't have to budge an inch from where he stood. The formation revolved around Kirk. Everyone else had to move to their spot in the formation. Redshirts in the back, of course. It seemed almost like a bowling alley pins formation.
The music was so appropriate for that scene. A bit eerie and with that wind sound.
Of course the portal would accidentally kill him within minutes.
It was a great visual setup, for sure.
But since there were more people than there were pads in the transporter chamber, I wonder which one of the expendable redshirts was lost forever.
Methinks Chekov doth protesteth too much, or something. He was probably secretly infatuated with Klingon culture, but didn't want anybody else to realize it, since the Klingons and the Feds were so at odds. So he played up this "Have I mentioned I hate Klingons" act at every possible opportunity to dispel any sneaking suspicion of his loyalties.
Kor
Data's tastefully-worn transporter brooch in Star Trek: Nemesis was a major insult to our intelligence. Not only is it too small to be taken seriously, it's a transporter that transports itself.
When it is de-materialized, then... with what mechanism does it perform the task of re-materializing?
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A bit like how Sandman and Hydroman became fused together once from Spider-Man #217 and #218 in 1981?
JB
Yeah, they fell down on that. I remember only a handful of scenes in the TNG transporter room. DS9 at least had the transporter alcove (alcoves?) in Ops, which was cool. And I do not remember a single scene in Voyager's transporter room, although I'm sure there were some. Considering how awesome I found the NCC-1701's transporter room - I even dug the purple paint job - and how many cool scenes took place there (the beginning and end of Mirror, Mirror, the outstanding fight in Assignment: Earth, another great fight in This Side of Paradise, Scotty's confrontation with Spock in Operation: Annihilate, nice expositional scenes in Catspaw, Return of the Archons, Tholian Web, Day of the Dove, Wink of an Eye, etc., etc.), this was a bust on the part of the Braga/Berman folks. They could have had emergency beamouts and limited intraship beaming and made it clear that it was reserved for special situations only due to dangers, power limitations, or something. Instead it was a surprise when someone on TNG didn't call for a routine beam from one side of the bridge to the other.
Yep it's true! The TOS transporter room was the coolest of any used in the franchise! The later series versions weren't as pleasing for me and while I loved the beaming in and out in the original television series, I hated the glaring halo that accompanied the crew when materialising in the films and the TNG,DS9 and VOY shows as well! The simple fizzy look was enough for me to believe and it drew very little attention from the races they were supposed to be watching while you can't say the same of the others!
JB
JB
One thing I always wondered was why you had to stand up to operate the transporter? Except in TNGs "Conspiracy", all the transporter operator stations were stand up ones which I never understood.
Also worth noting in one of the TOS comic books, at a conference at a starbase the main transporter room had a central series of transporter control consoles that each faced transporter booths that ringed the room. Really cool setup that would be nice to see onscreen.
Though not worth blowing the budget on a la Stellar Cartography (Generations).
Also worth noting in one of the TOS comic books, at a conference at a starbase the main transporter room had a central series of transporter control consoles that each faced transporter booths that ringed the room. Really cool setup that would be nice to see onscreen.
Though not worth blowing the budget on a la Stellar Cartography (Generations).
The Search for Spock also had a seated transported operator station, but I also never understood why the default was for the operator to stand.
JB, the TOS transporter effect is impossibly cool to me, with the fizzy look you mentioned and the absolutely fantastic sound effects too. I did not dislike the later updates, though, just liked them less. And the Cardassian transporter effect first shown (I think) in DS9 rocks.
Off topic but I never understood why the budget in Generations was so low. Perhaps it was Shatner's salary (not blaming Bill at all; he was worth it). I actually love almost all of that movie regardless, except that I wish Kirk had not been killed.
Your point about the transporter operator standing is a great one that reinforces my appreciation for you guys here. In 40 years I never, ever thought of that!! Out-of-universe in TOS it has to be that they built the terrific transporter console and then realized it wouldn't work with a Burke chair, or just didn't want to build a console that would. Then the other series followed suit, perhaps? In universe I'll go with the guess that beaming was important/dangerous enough for the tech to stand up, but all bridge functions were pretty important too and they all had chairs, so who knows. Love your comic book anecdote! Very cool.
P.S., I did always think it was ridiculous that the tactical officer on Galaxy-class starships had to stand for his/her entire shift. At least Tuvok and Harry had chairs on Voyager, even though they hardly ever used them because, I think, of camera angles. One of my few complaints with the Intrepid-class bridge, which I otherwise find superb.
You burn more calories standing up than sitting down. Starfleet decided that certain roles had a greater need for this than others.
It's the answer to everything in later Trek.
Kor
Subspace.
It's the answer to everything in later Trek.
Kor
Hey, that was the 1960s. They didn't expect anyone to be sober enough to count to seven. Much of the audience was higher on LSD than McCoy was on cordrazine.
If we want to be sensible, I suppose a communicator would just act as a localised quantum scanner to send data back to the ship but that would mean you couldn't beam anyone up without one. Blakes 7 used this type of device . It's very logical and you can then understand the role of the transporter room as opposed to someone on the bridge flipping a switch and beaming everyone in a twenty foot radius to a random location . It is possible that the primary function of the transporter room is decontamination I suppose but they rarely seem to care about that since they cut out the sensual gel massage.
I would say it's the confinement beam that keeps the person in transit so you can beam up as many people as you have beam emitters, regardless of where you rematerialise them. It is tough to see how any device could maintain its own confinement beam while in transport though. :-/
