I wouldn't have had the original NCC-1701 Enterprise go through a refit for TMP. The Enterprise in TMP would have been the NCC-1701-A, given how radical the design of the ship was. Meanwhile, I would have had the original Enterprise be a part of a fleet yard museum (being famous for surviving its historic 5-Year Mission). That way, when TSFS comes around, it would be the original Enterprise that would get stolen, for the trip to Genesis, before getting destroyed in the end (by being out-classed by the Klingon BoP). Then, by VOY, Kirk and crew get back the newly-repaired NCC-1701-A for more space stuff. Just a thought...
It kind of kills the drama of blowing up the Enterprise if you know that they have a spare back on Earth.
The reason for my "direction" is what Scotty said about the original Enterprise, pre-refit, on the TNG episode "Relics": That bit of dialogue told me that in spite of the refit of the NCC-1701, it ceased to be the ORIGINAL Enterprise. Having it stolen from a space museum, as it was on the TOS television, and then blown up, would have carried more weight than what did happen: the refit Enterprise getting destroyed, only to have a carbon copy being renamed "Enterprise". Now THAT would have been a situation of getting a "spare".
Ok, I’m with you so far. Again, sounds good. Well, here’s where the logic kind of falls apart. The reason why Kirk and co. stole the TMP Enterprise to travel to Genesis was because the ship was readily available and still active. You don’t put active and readily available vehicles in a museum. You can’t just go to the Udvar Hazy center, climb into the SR-71 or the Discovery space shuttle, and just expect to fly them out of there. Plus, even if the TOS Enterprise was spaceworthy, there would have been a million better ways to get to Genesis than stealing it. Absconding with a warp shuttle like the Surak from TMP would have made far more sense. VOY?
You could say that the original Enterprise was being used as a museum ship that still flew from place to place so the people in different star systems/colonies could see it. In other words it was still warp-capable but not battle capable. With weapons removed that would be a good reason why it would be defeated by the bird of prey. Sort of like how the USS Constitution also known as Old Ironsides is still seaworthy. Although I'm not sure if it is ever sailed from place to place but I think possibly it is.
Also you could leave in place the fact that the Enterprise "A" was going to be decommissioned because it was deemed too damaged (rather than too old) to be repaired and then after Kirk and Company save the Earth in the Voyage Home Starfleet changes its mind and decides to repair the Enterprise A rather than write it off.
Even if that were the case, there’s still no inherently good reason why Kirk would need to steal that particular ship when a warp-capable shuttle would have worked just as well or even better.
I was always under the impression that warp-capable shuttles were not quite as fast as Starships and they would want the fastest possible ship to get to Genesis and then to Vulcan without being caught by another Starship. It doesn't have to make perfect sense because it's fiction and you're doing it for dramatic effect and for the drama of it -- The original posters first post is actually pretty clever.
Then I would think that stealing the TOS Enterprise would make even less sense, since by TSFS almost any active Starfleet vessel would be faster than it.
I really like the idea. Its not that it would be faster or even fast at all; It would be for the gut punch of seeing the *original* for the first time in decades, then watch it go up in flames; It would give a real reason for being outmatched; It would actually fit the plot that there is no way they could have actually stolen it from a space dock, and that the museum piece is easier to access; it could have made for a pretty fun sequence. Even more of a reason to have to handicap the Excelsior, too. I really love the concept. Its not like the audience would have had much attachment to the new ship just 3 movies (5 years) into the franchise. Honestly, its not that much different then destroying the ship in the reboot trilogy.
Where was it ever stated that warp speed made gigantic leaps in the 15-years from the end of the series to the third movie? At one point in season 3 original Enterprise went up to warp 9 on its own without any tinkering by an alien or whatnot. So by the time of the Search for Spock starships were going past warp 9?
Transwarp was the big leap forward, that was standardized by TNG, from my understanding. There isn't much reason to think the original ship would be much slower, other then maintenance and upkeep, but its power reserves and weapons systems would be iffy at best.
And also the fact that after disabling Excelsior it would have had a head start on any other Starships even if they were slightly faster and besides there always seems to be only one Starship in any given area anyway to the point of Ridiculousness. So after disabling Excelsior how many Starships would they have had or did they have to take up Pursuit of the Enterprise? The real world reason that they never showed the original ship or couldn't have shown the original ship it's simply they didn't have a model to film at that point. Did they? Did they have any of the original series models at their disposal at the time of the filming of the Search for Spock?
I believe it was stated in TWOK that the Reliant was faster than the TMP Enterprise. Spock: “She [the Reliant] can outrun us and outgun us.”
Pretty sure neither ship had functional warp drive after the first battle. The Enterprise certainly did not. So if the Enterprise did not have warp drive at all then Spock meant either that Reliant did have warp drive in which case could outrun them or that their impulse Drive was faster than the Enterprise impulse Drive-- which is irrelevant to the scenario were talking about which is warp speed
I wonder how hard it would be to CGI the sets around them once they stole the ENT to be the TOS ship's bridge, and redo the explosion sequence? I'd love to see a fanedit tackle this some day!!