Matt Decker IS Will’s father

[ZapBrannigan]

I agree. At the very beginning of the series they probably never thought that they'd show Spock's parents, so why not assume that full-blooded Vulcans looked more alien?. There are always interesting things like that in a series before they've completely figured things out.

This, and "Balance of Terror" scored a plot point (the "bigotry" bit) by making the Romulans look just like Spock. And BoT explained it by saying the Roms were a Vulcan offshoot. Once they did that, the "real" Vulcans coming later ("Amok Time") would have to look just like Spock. And that conflicts mildly with Harry Mudd's keen eye for ethnicity. Not a big problem.

What I object to is the TV spinoff-era Vulcans and Romulans having ugly, built-up foreheads like cartoon cavemen. It's a continuity clash with TOS, and the later guest shots by Spock and Sarek on TNG would of course not have the forehead appliances. More clash.

 

[Timo]

I guess it's a win-win, us getting reason to think of there being more to Harry than meets the eye...

Also, the whole idea of an invisible war and a century-old dirty secret is intriguing, but extremely difficult to pull off plausibly. The "they refused to return our vidiphone calls" bit doesn't cover the bases yet, and every later Romulan episode has to tiptoe now. But it's been fun, watching 'em tiptoe.

Romulans and belatedly Vulcans having a bit of racial diversity is fine IMHO. Especially when it turns out this could be the reason Harry was able to expose Spock - he came from the relatively rare clan of flatheads so it was statistically likely that he was a half-breed (even though the other guess would also have been correct).

Although probably Harry could tell by the smell.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JonnyQuest037]

This, and "Balance of Terror" scored a plot point (the "bigotry" bit) by making the Romulans look just like Spock. And BoT explained it by saying the Roms were a Vulcan offshoot. Once they did that, the "real" Vulcans coming later ("Amok Time") would have to look just like Spock.

Yep, that was the turning point.

 

[FormerLurker]

What I object to is the TV spinoff-era Vulcans and Romulans having ugly, built-up foreheads like cartoon cavemen. It's a continuity clash with TOS, and the later guest shots by Spock and Sarek on TNG would of course not have the forehead appliances. More clash.

It's my understanding that the reason for this is that their guest stars didn't want to shave their eyebrows. To facilitate this they came up with the "unique" Vulco-Romuloid forehead that even the unrelated MIntakans had (which makes me think they're not so unrelated*).


*I've always held that the MIntakans were the survivors of a disastrous failed colony, almost wiped out by a natural disaster, and they've only come back this far from stone-age barbarism. Fanon, but it's my headcanon.

 

[Christopher]

It's my understanding that the reason for this is that their guest stars didn't want to shave their eyebrows. To facilitate this they came up with the "unique" Vulco-Romuloid forehead that even the unrelated MIntakans had (which makes me think they're not so unrelated*).

I think the Mintakans' brow ridges were heavier than a Romulan's.

Anyway, look at how many Trek aliens look identical to humans, or nearly identical save for a few spots or a ridged nose or something. Is it really any more implausible that Vulcans could have some lookalike species out there? Especially since "Return to Tomorrow" implied that Sargon's people may have seeded Vulcan 5-600,000 years ago. They may have also seeded the Mintakans, and maybe other species with telepathic ability and pointed ears, like Halanans and Ocampa.

 

[Winterwind]

I actually think 23rd century Starfleet is quite small. An awful lot of their crew end up dead (you can count the number of characters all throughout Trek history stated to have two living parents on one hand despite everyone being relatively young) and in TUC there was talk of 'mothballing' Starfleet's military arm when hostilities with the Klingons was resolved, which suggests that most members take care of their own territories.

And that "mothballing" line in TUC was just one of many things in the movie that makes me rank it alternately last/second last for the TOS movies.

The line referred to Starfleet as "the Starfleet". I know it was done at least once before but it's still awkward. Aside from that it was just daft, utterly daft. It's a big galaxy and there's more out there than just the Klingons.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The line referred to Starfleet as "the Starfleet". I know it was done at least once before but it's still awkward.

From "Errand of Mercy":

AYELBORNE: The same conditions exist on both the star-fleets. There will be no battle.

From "Metamorphosis":

KIRK: How is she, Doc?
MCCOY: No change.
NANCY: Small thanks to the Starfleet.
MCCOY: Now really, Commissioner, you can't blame the Starfleet.
NANCY: I should've received the proper inoculations ahead of time.

From "The Deadly Years":

STOCKER: Captain, I'm watching four very valuable and one almost irreplaceable members of the Starfleet failing before my eyes. I want to do something to help.

STOCKER: Mister Spock, may I make a statement? I have had to resort to these legal grounds in order to save the lives of some very valuable members of the Starfleet. I have tried to convince Captain Kirk of the necessity of proceeding to Starbase Ten, but I've been overruled in each case. The responsibility of this hearing is mine.

From "The Immunity Syndrome":

KIRK: Notify the Starfleet that we're going to attempt to probe the area of darkness to gain further information.

From "The Omega Glory":

CAPTAINS LOG: Captain's log. Aboard the USS Exeter commanded by Ron Tracey, one of the most experienced captains in the Starfleet. What could have happened to him and the over four hundred men and women who were on this ship?

From "The Enterprise Incident":

COMMANDER: A starship? One of the Starfleet's finest vessels? You're saying instrument failure as radical as you suggest went unnoticed until you were well past the Neutral Zone?

It wasn't used as much, but it absolutely was used. So yeah, there was precedent.

Star Trek Script Seach is your friend.

 

[Winterwind]

From "Errand of Mercy":

From "Metamorphosis":

From "The Deadly Years":


From "The Immunity Syndrome":

From "The Omega Glory":

From "The Enterprise Incident":

It wasn't used as much, but it absolutely was used. So yeah, there was precedent.

Star Trek Script Seach is your friend.

Damn. Far more than I remembered. I had no idea TOS used it that many times. Although Ayelborne's phrasing doesn't really count as identifying Starfleet as "the Starfleet" since he was referring to both fleets.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Although Ayelborne's phrasing doesn't really count as identifying Starfleet as "the Starfleet" since he was referring to both fleets.

Yeah, I'll give you that one. I cut out a couple of other borderline cases like that.

 

[Winterwind]

Yeah, I'll give you that one. I cut out a couple of other borderline cases like that.

At least it was never identified as "UESPA's Star Service the Starfleet"... That would have been a mouthful for Kirk when referring to Lt. Riley in The Conscience of the King.

 

[Timo]

Although Ayelborne's phrasing doesn't really count as identifying Starfleet as "the Starfleet" since he was referring to both fleets.

Which I guess is the point: Starfleet is just about as generic as you can get with the "name" of your organization, much akin to naming your vessel the Starship. So mere Starfleet always sounded jarring: it's "The Fleet", so it ought to be "The Starfleet", too...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Decius]

If my own memory serves me, Will Decker being Matt's son was an important backstory for TMP at the time of release. It underscored Kirk's reluctance to put him in danger's way, given lingering shades of guilt over his father's death.

I also saw a comment on good writing, which is supposed to assume the viewer has no prior background of the story, but like everything, times change. Back when TMP came out, there was so little canon Trek, and it had been so long since any new Trek had been produced, that fans were assumed to know all of it. I mean, the stories did need to hold up on their own, but back-referencing to events from the series was certainly more fair game than it is now.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Which I guess is the point: Starfleet is just about as generic as you can get with the "name" of your organization, much akin to naming your vessel the Starship. So mere Starfleet always sounded jarring: it's "The Fleet", so it ought to be "The Starfleet", too...

Timo Saloniemi

It's science fiction you gotta have star, space or astro in there.

 

[Christopher]

I also saw a comment on good writing, which is supposed to assume the viewer has no prior background of the story, but like everything, times change. Back when TMP came out, there was so little canon Trek, and it had been so long since any new Trek had been produced, that fans were assumed to know all of it.

Of course fans knew all of it, but fans were the minority of the moviegoing audience. Fans are always the minority of the moviegoing audience, even today, and certainly back then when Star Trek was much more of a cult show than it became in the TNG era. Most people who go to see movies are casual viewers, people who are just looking for something to do on a night out or to take a date or to take the kids to see. No big-budget movie can make a profit by appealing exclusively to the existing fanbase, because that's just nowhere near a large enough number of people. You always have to keep in mind that your story will be many audience members' first ever exposure to your series.

But the important thing is that this isn't an either/or choice. It's not about choosing between accessibility to new viewers and familiarity to old viewers. The ideal is to balance both -- to tell a story in a way that builds on what came before but still explains it adequately to new viewers. The audience is never monolithic, so you need to try to make your story work for different categories of viewer at the same time. Targeting your work too narrowly is self-defeating if you want to attract a large audience.

 

[Henoch]

I think I was the only one of all my friends and family that ever read an Iron Man comic book prior to the 2008 film.

 

[Decius]

Of course fans knew all of it, but fans were the minority of the moviegoing audience. Fans are always the minority of the moviegoing audience, even today, and certainly back then when Star Trek was much more of a cult show than it became in the TNG era. Most people who go to see movies are casual viewers, people who are just looking for something to do on a night out or to take a date or to take the kids to see. No big-budget movie can make a profit by appealing exclusively to the existing fanbase, because that's just nowhere near a large enough number of people. You always have to keep in mind that your story will be many audience members' first ever exposure to your series.

But the important thing is that this isn't an either/or choice. It's not about choosing between accessibility to new viewers and familiarity to old viewers. The ideal is to balance both -- to tell a story in a way that builds on what came before but still explains it adequately to new viewers. The audience is never monolithic, so you need to try to make your story work for different categories of viewer at the same time. Targeting your work too narrowly is self-defeating if you want to attract a large audience.

I'm not arguing against that. Just saying that the time and place of TMP was somewhat different, and TOS had a much more monolithic following back then. Yes, it was a cult show, but there were also years of accretion upon what was then a relatively small body of canon. The franchise is very different today.

These matters all affect the fine-tuning of that balance you mentioned, and it's an ever-present concern with any story that isn't entirely new. In TOS, it goes all way back to Mudd's Women and I, Mudd. (I'm pretty sure I saw I Mudd before I saw Mudd's Women and was scratching my head with, "Who is this guy, and how do they know him?") Also a subtle nod of a similar vein in The Deadly Years, going back to The Corbomite Maneuver.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not arguing against that. Just saying that the time and place of TMP was somewhat different, and TOS had a much more monolithic following back then.

But that's beside the point. The difference within the fan community makes no difference to the perspective of non-fans, which is what I'm talking about. Non-fans won't know any of that stuff, but the story still needs to be comprehensible to them.

These matters all affect the fine-tuning of that balance you mentioned, and it's an ever-present concern with any story that isn't entirely new. In TOS, it goes all way back to Mudd's Women and I, Mudd. (I'm pretty sure I saw I Mudd before I saw Mudd's Women and was scratching my head with, "Who is this guy, and how do they know him?") Also a subtle nod of a similar vein in The Deadly Years, going back to The Corbomite Maneuver.

Conversely, the story of "The Cage" is highly dependent on references to an event we never saw, the battle on Rigel VII. Yet we have no trouble following it, because it tells us everything we need to know. Most stories rely on events that happened before them, whether those events were seen onscreen or not. (E.g. any story about an old flame of a lead character such as Nancy Crater or Areel Shaw or Leila Kalomi, or episodes about past tragedies like Tarsus IV and the Farragut, or whatever.) So it doesn't matter if it was seen before. For many people in your audience, it will be their first exposure, like you with "I, Mudd." So you need to approach the exposition the same way whether it's a sequel or not. If it's an element important to the story, like why Harry Mudd would lure in Kirk specifically or what Spock's history is with Leila, then you explain it to the audience. But if it's just an Easter egg or a subtle wink, like Will Decker implicitly being Matt Decker's son, then you don't call attention to it. The established fans will notice it without you having to make a pont of it, and the newcomers won't be distracted by a detail irrelevant to the story.

 

[FormerLurker]

No big-budget movie can make a profit by appealing exclusively to the existing fanbase, because that's just nowhere near a large enough number of people. You always have to keep in mind that your story will be many audience members' first ever exposure to your series.

To far too many, this is a dichotomy that makes it impossible to tell good stories without the slavish pandering to the existing fanbase. Their argument is that a film or TV show must at least begin as an exact retelling of a comic book (for instance) story, perhaps even using the comic book in question as storyboards for the dramatic adaptation, therefore making as few changes as possible. They want the costumes to be spandex, the production design to be minimalist, etc.

Yet for the film to get the audience it needs for the hardcore fans to get the big budget films they crave, more changes must be made, specifically to appeal the a larger, less avid audience. The simplistic adaptation will always turn off the casual viewer, because it won't engage them, and that engagement is what is so necessary for future adaptations to even get made.

 

[Christopher]

To far too many, this is a dichotomy that makes it impossible to tell good stories without the slavish pandering to the existing fanbase.

Fortunately the people actually making the adaptations ignore the fans who believe that. The exception being Zack Snyder.


It occurs to me that ST:TMP itself is an example of a film that was not made primarily for the existing fanbase. Instead of trying to be like an episode of the show, it tried to be a classy, intellectual science fiction feature film experience in the vein of 2001 or Silent Running or the like. And though it was widely criticized by fans for not feeling enough like Star Trek, it was actually a pretty successful film at the box office. The later films tried harder to capture the feel of the show, which satisfied the fans more, but gave them more of a niche appeal.

 

[Decius]

Of course fans knew all of it, but fans were the minority of the moviegoing audience. Fans are always the minority of the moviegoing audience, even today, and certainly back then when Star Trek was much more of a cult show than it became in the TNG era. Most people who go to see movies are casual viewers, people who are just looking for something to do on a night out or to take a date or to take the kids to see. No big-budget movie can make a profit by appealing exclusively to the existing fanbase, because that's just nowhere near a large enough number of people. You always have to keep in mind that your story will be many audience members' first ever exposure to your series.

I think we're talking about two different things here. You're talking about good storytelling and making it accessible to both non-fans and fans. I'm talking about the nature of the fan base, what appeals to them and how much they can be expected to recall, and how that has changed over the decades. Apples and Oranges. I never made any claims that a story should not be accessible to non-fans, only to designate how fan accessibility may have evolved. With regard to the original question as to whether Will Decker was Matt's son, I think it's a fine example of exactly this point. He was a new character with some backstory, which non-fans could disregard and still appreciate the story.