Undiscovered Country Anomolies

[Vger23]

This isn't a nitpick thread or a bashing thread...I just have some genuine observations about TUC that I'd like to throw out there.

I recently re-watched TUC, which I hadn't done for a while. Looking at the film through a different lens, there were some things that struck me as oddities worth questioning:

1. The Excelsior is "headed home under full impulse power?" This seems weird given that it would likely take hundreds of years for the starship to return to Earth from out near the Klingon Empire. Maybe "home" for the Excelsior is a nearby starbase, and not Earth Spacedock....?

2. In a similar fashion, the Enterprise never seems to go to Warp to get to the Kronos One rendezvous, and they do not use Warp drive during their escort journey to the peace conference on Earth. I guess the Enterprise could have warped to a certain sector, and then throttled down to impulse to await the Chancellor's arrival, but the two ships being on impulse going to Earth makes no sense.

3. I don't really understand how the advanced sensors of the Enterprise (and presumably Kronos One) don't see a photon torpedo being fired from a cloaked position below the Enterprise. Even with today's technology, I'd think that would be a very easy thing to prove out. Also, no sensors or forensic analysis could show that the Enterprise torpedo bay had not launched torpedoes?

4. We've repeatedly seen that the transporter keeps logs and patterns of everyone who goes through it. Would it not have been a very simple matter to see that Burke and Samno were the assassins? Maybe they "erased" the data, similar to altering the torpedo inventory databanks?

5. I actually get very confused about Valeris going to sickbay to murder Burke and Samno. Why would the entire sickbay facility be dark and unstaffed, especially if there are two critical patients in there? Even so, would Valeris not want to scan the room before going in there with a drawn phaser to kill two crewmen to ensure there was nobody that would witness her?

6. The Khitomer Peace Conference seems to have absolutely no security. No vessels in orbit from either government (although supposedly all of the delegates arrived somehow)? No internal security watching obvious vantage points for snipers? The Klingon dude / Colonel West somehow gets into the building holding a briefcase that contains a sniper rifle? It all seems very loose for such a tense and critical situation.

7. The Morska listening post sensors can't tell the difference between a Constitution-class Federation starship and a freighter? I'd think even today's tech is better than that. Maybe the Klingons were just too drunk?

 

[Tallguy]

I have a couple of viewpoints on this. Please assume that I mean most of them charitably. (I love TWOK, and while I have cooled a lot on TUC over the years I still mostly like it.)

I'll start with TUC doesn't feel as finished as TWOK and I think there are a few reasons for that. One being that TWOK was meant to resurrect Star Trek for not very much money and TUC was meant to end Star Trek for not very much money. They have different outcomes. Also on TWOK was an untested gamble. On TUC he was a hope to return to the success of TWOK.

I often see TUC as "what if Nick Meyer got little to no push back on TWOK?" (And had even LESS time.) Many of his same instincts are in place on both movies. In fact several ideas that got removed or vetoed from TWOK find their way back in TUC.

Meyer's first priority is to make a thrilling movie. That's not a terrible instinct and he's pretty good at it. But there are aspects to Star Trek that clearly do not interest him. People complain about how Khan was "accidentally" discovered on Ceti Alpha V. To which the answer is: For a big majority of the audience this was plenty good enough. It certainly followed Hitchcock's "refrigerator logic". You weren't meant to be worrying about it for the next forty years.

So, impulse: If you're a Star Trek fan you know "This means sublight". But to a lot of the audience it probably registers as "It's been a long day and they are taking their time." I can see that being Meyer's view.

I have no evidence of this, but I would be very surprised if leaving spacedock's "thrusters only" exchange was not a direct rebuttal to fans complaining about in TWOK leaving dock at 1/4 impulse as opposed to TMP's more "realistic" maneuvering thrusters. I'm usually dismissive to these kinds of theories (I don't think most of these creatives care that much) but in this case It just seems very specific.

If you notice in TWOK, warp drive just means "We're now in a hurry." What kind of training mission pokes around at impulse power? But that's not what it's meant to communicate. It's meant to say "Oh! Now this is REAL!"

I think where TUC falls down is when it tries to be specific about things that were probably very shorthand in the scripting phase. Like "Two enlisted guys say racist things." And that was the best they came up with. It's barely a step above the shorthand. The performances don't help.

Or "Spock and Uhura and figure out how to beat the Klingon cloaking device." Easy to write and necessary to the plot. But... Heat seeking? That's what you came up with after 25 years of chasing after cloaked ships?

Meyer's not interested in the technology. He wants a thrilling chase and a heroic reversal.

Everything else on the list? Imagine The Manchurian Candidate... IN SPACE. You can see that Meyer didn't watch a lot of Star Trek. But you can totally see the other movies that he DID watch. Things that made sense in those movies are expected to make sense in Star Trek. Whether they do or not.

 

[Set Harth]

1. The Excelsior is "headed home under full impulse power?" This seems weird given that it would likely take hundreds of years for the starship to return to Earth from out near the Klingon Empire. Maybe "home" for the Excelsioris a nearby starbase, and not Earth Spacedock....?


2. In a similar fashion, the Enterprise never seems to go to Warp to get to the Kronos One rendezvous, and they do not use Warp drive during their escort journey to the peace conference on Earth. I guess the Enterprise could have warped to a certain sector, and then throttled down to impulse to await the Chancellor's arrival, but the two ships being on impulse going to Earth makes no sense.

Everyone. Keeps. Fucking. This. Up. All. The. Time.

Last year alone, both of the Alien and Predator franchises managed to fuck this up.

Star Wars fucked it up as recently as 2020, after already fucking it up in 1980 and 2017.

The sheer scale of space appears to be lost on many people.

 

[Tallguy]

Everyone. Keeps. Fucking. This. Up. All. The. Time.

Last year alone, both of the Alien and Predator franchises managed to fuck this up.

Star Wars fucked it up as recently as 2020, after already fucking it up in 1980 and 2017.

The sheer scale of space appears to be lost on many people.

I might have to create a thread called something like "You cannot fall into the sun TODAY!" There are many examples of this, but Relics is on my hit list.

(My take on The Empire Strikes Back is that Luke is on Dagobah for YEARS while Han and Leia travel to Cloud City at nearly C speeds. What's happening with the war during that time? Who knows?)

 

[David cgc]

For the first two points, ships in Trek rarely went site to site entirely at warp, but spent plenty of time at impulse (at least until it got more practical to have warp stars out the windows rather than the static starfield). The Enterprise and Excelsior could’ve been traveling through impulse “waypoints” until they reached the correct position to jump to warp and leave the system.

The Enterprise and Kronos One would’ve also have to have been at impulse to use the transporter for the state dinner.

 

[Tallguy]

For the first two points, ships in Trek rarely went site to site entirely at warp

When did they not? When Kirk told Scotty they were going on impulse in Elaan of Troyius he almost had kittens.

TOS never had people looking out windows except for the main viewer which was ALWAYS at warp.

TNG had warp "stars" all of the time from the start of season 1. There were times when they invented excuses to drop to sublight during conferences so they wouldn't have to pay for it.

 

[Ssosmcin]

4. We've repeatedly seen that the transporter keeps logs and patterns of everyone who goes through it. Would it not have been a very simple matter to see that Burke and Samno were the assassins? Maybe they "erased" the data, similar to altering the torpedo inventory databanks?

Is this really a TOS thing though? Buffers and inhibitors and biofilters, etc all came later. Even just going by the movies Scotty says "we're losing their pattern" which is the only reference we have to it. Nothing about storing them. I've never seen an episode where they could see who used the transporter last, unless a line of dialog is slipping my mind.

5. I actually get very confused about Valeris going to sickbay to murder Burke and Samno. Why would the entire sickbay facility be dark and unstaffed, especially if there are two critical patients in there? Even so, would Valeris not want to scan the room before going in there with a drawn phaser to kill two crewmen to ensure there was nobody that would witness her?

The entire Enterprise Murder Mystery Plot is ridiculous and overbaked. None of it really works and only exists for 2 reasons: 1) Spock and the rest needed something to do. 2) Meyer loves Sherlock Holmes. The execution from start to finish is idiotic (the Crewman Dax scene is the nadir of that story).

6. The Khitomer Peace Conference seems to have absolutely no security. No vessels in orbit from either government (although supposedly all of the delegates arrived somehow)? No internal security watching obvious vantage points for snipers? The Klingon dude / Colonel West somehow gets into the building holding a briefcase that contains a sniper rifle? It all seems very loose for such a tense and critical situation.

My main issue with the extended cut is the Col. West plot. With all of the Klingons in on this plot, why would they need to put a rubber mask on a human to pull the trigger? Hell, just get Martia if you want someone in disguise. The Scooby-Doo reveal is one of the many reasons Nicky Meyer's Star Trek Directors Cuts are usually awful.

7. The Morska listening post sensors can't tell the difference between a Constitution-class Federation starship and a freighter? I'd think even today's tech is better than that. Maybe the Klingons were just too drunk?

Don't get me started on that whole sequence.

TOS never had people looking out windows except for the main viewer which was ALWAYS at warp.

Can't go by that, those damned streaking stars would be there in a planet shot (The Galileo Seven). They were there for any and all reasons. Even at impulse, the stars moved. Was there a shot in Elaan of Troyius where they didn't? And I'm talking the original prints, not the 2006 remasters.

TNG had warp "stars" all of the time from the start of season 1. There were times when they invented excuses to drop to sublight during conferences so they wouldn't have to pay for it.

Well, early in the first season, one episode starts with the Enterprise at "high warp" according to Picard's log and the Enterprise crawls across the screen against still stars. Granted, that's a glitch, TNG and later were MUCH better at those details.

TUC was a rush job and it shows everywhere. In the sets, the editing, the writing, and so on. I often wonder...if Star Trek V were a much better film, would TUC have been considered nearly as good?

 

[Tallguy]

Is this really a TOS thing though? Buffers and inhibitors and biofilters, etc all came later. Even just going by the movies Scotty says "we're losing their pattern" which is the only reference we have to it. Nothing about storing them. I've never seen an episode where they could see who used the transporter last, unless a line of dialog is slipping my mind.

This is one of the many things involving the transporter that people figured out over time just by sci-fi logic. "If it can do this then that must be possible." But since they didn't talk about them until TNG people think "it's a 24th century development".

IIRC Diane Duane was storing coffee using stored transported patterns in the 80's. (I don't remember which book.) There were a lot of "TNG" things that people just assumed TOS had (before TNG) just because: Future.

(It's why when people say "Such and such is 'too advanced' for the 22nd / 23rd century" it always bugs me. Compared to what? A 1960's TV show? Now if you have your 22nd century crews crossing the galaxy in an afternoon or beaming across the quadrant? Sure. That's 'too advanced'. But if they have touch screens instead of buttons? We have that NOW. Sorry, M-5.)

My main issue with the extended cut is the Col. West plot. With all of the Klingons in on this plot, why would they need to put a rubber mask on a human to pull the trigger? Hell, just get Martia if you want someone in disguise. The Scooby-Doo reveal is one of the many reasons Nicky Meyer's Star Trek Directors Cuts are usually awful.

I despise the whole evil admirals plot. (The books did it at LEAST twice before.) I think it reflects on the film maker's view of any military which is probably also why there are so many fans who push back so passionately on Starfleet even BEING a military. (And we will not discuss their unprofound wisdom at these proceedings.)

If anything it puts the plot MORE at risk if it's West, doesn't it? If West is caught and they find that a) it's West and b) that it's West trying to pin it on the Klingons then it dirties Starfleet's hands. Avoiding that would be the whole reason that he would be gussied up with the head bumps to begin with.

OTOH, clearly he would not expect his people to do any job he wouldn't do himself!

The entire Enterprise Murder Mystery Plot is ridiculous and overbaked. None of it really works and only exists for 2 reasons: 1) Spock and the rest needed something to do. 2) Meyer loves Sherlock Holmes. The execution from start to finish is idiotic (the Crewman Dax scene is the nadir of that story).

All true. I don't mind the murder mystery. I don't like that Valeris is running rings around our crew. Spock is largely untouched. Kinda.

I've seen Meyer write smart people before. He doesn't seem to be doing it in this movie.

TUC was a rush job and it shows everywhere. In the sets, the editing, the writing, and so on.

Yup.

I often wonder...if Star Trek V were a much better film, would TUC have been considered nearly as good?

No. But then it wouldn't have been TUC then. Even if they decided to wrap it up with 6 it would have had a bigger budget and Shatner would be having his second outing.

Can't go by that, those damned streaking stars would be there in a planet shot (The Galileo Seven). They were there for any and all reasons. Even at impulse, the stars moved. Was there a shot in Elaan of Troyius where they didn't? And I'm talking the original prints, not the 2006 remasters.

Fair. But they also almost never talk about going anywhere at impulse power. I can think of three times (Galileo 7, Elaan of Troyius, and Paradise Syndrome, right?) and they're all very plot driven.

 

[Vger23]

For the first two points, ships in Trek rarely went site to site entirely at warp, but spent plenty of time at impulse (at least until it got more practical to have warp stars out the windows rather than the static starfield). The Enterprise and Excelsior could’ve been traveling through impulse “waypoints” until they reached the correct position to jump to warp and leave the system.

The Enterprise and Kronos One would’ve also have to have been at impulse to use the transporter for the state dinner.

Point 1: It actually reminds me of an issue I have had with TWOK. Kirk asks Spock how far they are from Regula One. Spock tells him "12 hours, 43 minutes at present speed (which we know was Warp 5)." Kirk then askes McCoy to join them in his quarters and they review the Genesis tapes. The whole sequence takes maybe 10-15 minutes. The Reliant then arrives and attacks. The encounter is at sub-light speed. The Enterprise's warp drive is knocked out, but yet a small amount of time later, on impulse drive, they are in orbit of Regula One. That doesn't add up. They were 12 hours away at Warp 5 less than an hour ago.

Point 2: I think this is a great rationale...so I can see that. They'd have to rendezvous at sublight, and remain there for the diplomatic dinner, etc. It doesn't quite explain why they wouldn't have gone to warp later that night, but it's good enough to make sense!

 

[Tallguy]

It actually reminds me of an issue I have had with TWOK. Kirk asks Spock how far they are from Regula One. Spock tells him "12 hours, 43 minutes at present speed (which we know was Warp 5)." Kirk then askes McCoy to join them in his quarters and they review the Genesis tapes. The whole sequence takes maybe 10-15 minutes. The Reliant then arrives and attacks. The encounter is at sub-light speed. The Enterprise's warp drive is knocked out, but yet a small amount of time later, on impulse drive, they are in orbit of Regula One. That doesn't add up. They were 12 hours away at Warp 5 less than an hour ago.

This is my favorite.

Of course I also have issues with how quickly Spock gets to the Enterprise from Vulcan in TMP. But I only figured this one out last year.

 

[Ssosmcin]

This is one of the many things involving the transporter that people figured out over time just by sci-fi logic. "If it can do this then that must be possible." But since they didn't talk about them until TNG people think "it's a 24th century development".

I'm usually a pretty big stickler for what was and wasn't in TOS vs later. Mostly because over time, terminology and technology invented by TNG gets folded into TOS, sometimes creating retroactive story "holes" that fans use to erode the original (stay off Reddit).

But even if I wholeheartedly went along with your point, Meyer himself liked to "tech down" Star Trek to make it more traditionally Navy and less futuristic. I'm sure even without transporter pattern records, there should be some way to much more easily figure out it was Burke and Samno. But saying you're right, Valeris could have altered those records just as the torpedo records were.

But since nobody was smart enough to do even the most elementary check on Crewman Dax before giving him the boot in a room full of crewmembers, I wouldn't trust our crack team to have read those transporter records correctly.

And jeez, they only figured out who the assassins were because Valeris dropped their bodies in a corridor without even trying to hide them and the command staff almost tripped over them.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I generally don't care about warp speed and impulse drive questions in the least. Travel time in Star Trek is always at the speed the plot needs it to be and if you start to do the math on the supposed speeds, you'll typically find that they don't add up.

STVI is a tremendously entertaining movie for me. That's the main thing I care about. Are there things that don't make a lot of sense? Sure. But nothing that ruins the film for me.

 

[Set Harth]

I remember the line to get into the theater, it stretched all the way down the block.

 

[CoveTom]

I think Nick Meyer had many great instincts in terms of drama, but not so much in terms of Trek specifically. He was, especially at the time, very flippant about the source material. I think Meyer need the balancing force of Harve Bennett, who wanted to be very respectful of the source material. Without him, things went off the rails a bit, which is why I think TWOK is ultimately a far better Trek movie than TUC, even though both are entertaining.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

I generally don't care about warp speed and impulse drive questions in the least. Travel time in Star Trek is always at the speed the plot needs it to be and if you start to do the math on the supposed speeds, you'll typically find that they don't add up.

STVI is a tremendously entertaining movie for me. That's the main thing I care about. Are there things that don't make a lot of sense? Sure. But nothing that ruins the film for me.

Neither of we is condemning that 1991 food.

 

[David cgc]

And jeez, they only figured out who the assassins were because Valeris dropped their bodies in a corridor without even trying to hide them and the command staff almost tripped over them.

As-written, I believe the implication was that Valeris murdered Burke and Samno after Scotty found their bloodstained spacesuits, moments before Kirk and Spock walked into them, since there was going to be a shot of the two of them stalking Scotty while he was carrying the evidence.* I guess the idea was that they were going to kill Scotty to keep from being discovered, but Valeris killed them to keep them from talking.

That'd also fit with the idea that she had to do it in a hurry, since she believe the ruse that they'd survived, so she couldn't have checked the bodies.

*It's in the script, too, it's not just a photo they took goofing around during rehersals or something:

128 INT. OFFICER'S MESS, USS ENTERPRISE​

​

Deserted. Scotty, exhausted, is quietly having a cup​

of coffee and checking off places searched on a table​

map.​

​

He runs a finger around his collar. It's warm in​

here...​

​

Perplexed, he puts his hand over the vent. Nothing​

coming out. Something blocking it?​

​

Scotty commences removing the vent cover. Not easy.​

​

As he continues his efforts, he is unaware of the TWO​

CREWMEN we met the night of the banquet, watching.​

They remain concealed, pull knives... one wants to go​

for Scotty. The other holds him back.​

​

Scotty removes the vent cover and pulls out what's been​

blocking the air circulation: two violet-stained​

Starfleet uniforms, with names on them...​

​

Excited by his discovery, Scotty looks around, replaces​

the vent cover and hurries out with the uniforms.

129-131 INT. ENTERPRISE CORRIDORS​

​

The Crewmen follow serreptitiously, CAMERA tracking​

after Scotty through the labyrinthine corridors...​

 

[Ssosmcin]

Well that would have been a cool and suspenseful scene.

 

[CoveTom]

As-written, I believe the implication was that Valeris murdered Burke and Samno after Scotty found their bloodstained spacesuits, moments before Kirk and Spock walked into them, since there was going to be a shot of the two of them stalking Scotty while he was carrying the evidence.* I guess the idea was that they were going to kill Scotty to keep from being discovered, but Valeris killed them to keep them from talking.

That'd also fit with the idea that she had to do it in a hurry, since she believe the ruse that they'd survived, so she couldn't have checked the bodies.

*It's in the script, too, it's not just a photo they took goofing around during rehersals or something:

128 INT. OFFICER'S MESS, USS ENTERPRISE​

​

Deserted. Scotty, exhausted, is quietly having a cup​

of coffee and checking off places searched on a table​

map.​

​

He runs a finger around his collar. It's warm in​

here...​

​

Perplexed, he puts his hand over the vent. Nothing​

coming out. Something blocking it?​

​

Scotty commences removing the vent cover. Not easy.​

​

As he continues his efforts, he is unaware of the TWO​

CREWMEN we met the night of the banquet, watching.​

They remain concealed, pull knives... one wants to go​

for Scotty. The other holds him back.​

​

Scotty removes the vent cover and pulls out what's been​

blocking the air circulation: two violet-stained​

Starfleet uniforms, with names on them...​

​

Excited by his discovery, Scotty looks around, replaces​

the vent cover and hurries out with the uniforms.​

​

129-131 INT. ENTERPRISE CORRIDORS​

​

The Crewmen follow serreptitiously, CAMERA tracking​

after Scotty through the labyrinthine corridors...​

Huh. You know, until reading this excerpt from the screenplay, in 34 years since first seeing the movie, I've never known why Scotty opened that vent cover. He does, indeed, pull at his shirt collar, but IMHO the idea that the room is unusually hot is never actually conveyed. Nor is the idea that he's checking to see if something is wrong with the cooling system. I always presumed he heard something unusual and was opening the vent cover to check, but honestly I feel like the scene just doesn't make it clear at all. It's like Scotty just randomly decides to open the vent cover.

 

[somebuddyX]

I always thought when Kirk said they were a thousand light years from Federation Headquarters that wasn't too far off the mark. I liked that scale.

 

[MakeshiftPython]

One bit that stuck out to me was when Spock proposes dismantling the Klingon neutral zone, this exchange happens:

MILITARY AIDE: Bill, are we talking about mothballing the Starfleet?
C-IN-C: Well, I'm sure that our exploration and scientific programs would be unaffected, Captain, but...

lol, wut? I'm glad the C-IN-C was polite enough to kind of state the obvious to whoever this Captain was.