Just watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture

[Luminus]

What a great, yet excruciatingly slow movie. How did anyone survive those 8-minute shots of the Enterprise while it was in space dock? Anyway, some questions have cropped up:

1: Why did a wormhole open up during the engine malfunction? Why doesn't the wormhole spit them out thousands of light years from home?

2: What's wrong with using warp inside a star system? Nobody else was ever worried about this, in fact they did it all the time in the the Original Series.

3: What happened to V'Ger in the end? It just dispersed with no explanation. Kirk says there's a new life form, but we don't see anything.

4: What happened to the cloud, when V'Ger reached Earth? Suddenly it was gone with no explanation.

5: How did William Shatner come to the conclusion in the book "Probe" that V'Ger was altered by the Borg? V'Ger was ridiculously overpowered, even more so than the Borg.

 

[Therin of Andor]

What a great, yet excruciatingly slow movie. How did anyone survive those 8-minute shots of the Enterprise while it was in space dock? Anyway, some questions have cropped up:

Almost all your questions are answered in Roddenberry's novelization of the movie. I was lucky in that I read the book first, while trying to coerce friends and relatives to come with me to see the movie in a cinema. There'll be lots of copies on Amazon's second hand market.

Why did a wormhole open up during the engine malfunction? Why doesn't the wormhole spit them out thousands of light years from home?

This sequence was based on research of 70s scientists, including NASA's Jesco Von Puttkamer. Decker and Chekov dispersed the temporary wormhole by targeting a rogue asteroid that was pulled in with them, instead of Enterprise exiting at the other end of the wormhole. Later ST episodes referred to naturally-occurring wormholes.

4: What happened to the cloud, when V'Ger reached Earth? Suddenly it was gone with no explanation.

Uhura mentions the cloud was dispersing rapidly as Vejur approached Earth.

5: How did William Shatner come to the conclusion in the book "Probe" that V'Ger was altered by the Borg?

It was a plotline based on a whimsical comment by Gene Roddenberry at a ST convention that "Who knows? Maybe the planet of living machines who repaired Voyager Six was the home planet of the Borg?"

 

[jgdst]

I can't answer four of those questions Admittedly it's been 2 years since I last saw the film...

As for warping within a star system, my knowledge of TOS isn't up to scratch, but it's definitely not a done thing in the TNG era. In DS9's By Inferno's Light you have the Defiant chasing after a runabout which is about to detonate a bomb in the Bajoran sun to destroy the system.

Kira orders Dax to warp to the sun to intercept the runabout, to Dax's objections about going to warp inside a solar system. Kira says if they don't go to warp there won't be solar system left to protect.

I'd assume the danger arises because you're travelling faster than light, it's harder to navigate around celestial bodies - by the time you'd see them, they'd already be behind you. There have been mentions that you can't change course at warp (though I'm sure this is contradicted at various points), and in Enterprise's Broken Bow it's mentioned that if the deflector isn't configured correctly, a grain of dust can punch a hole right through the ship. Never mind what a comet, a planet or a star could do! I don't think deflectors can push stuff like that out of the way

Considering how close the Defiant drops out of warp to the sun, I'd imagine it's considered a dangerous procedure because the tiniest fraction of a second later would mean they would drop into normal space within the sun itself.

It's probably considered equally as risky in TMP because they have to navigate the asteroid belt from Earth as well as any other rocks, not to mention the gas giants and their many satellites.

[Edit - I didn't see Therin's reply before I posted this, so feel free to ignore it. The novelisation will no doubt do a better job than my half-baked explanation!]

 

[Luminus]

This sequence was based on research of 70s scientists, including NASA's Jesco Von Puttkamer. Decker and Chekov dispersed the temporary wormhole by targeting a rogue asteroid that was pulled in with them, instead of Enterprise exiting at the other end of the wormhole. Later ST episodes referred to naturally-occurring wormholes.

This doesn't explain anything. Wormholes connect one end of space to another. What else are they supposed to do? We get some weird time-dilation effect, they shoot an asteroid and boom they're back in normal space at the same position.

I can't answer four of those questions Admittedly it's been 2 years since I last saw the film...

As for warping within a star system, my knowledge of TOS isn't up to scratch, but it's definitely not a done thing in the TNG era. In DS9's By Inferno's Light you have the Defiant chasing after a runabout which is about to detonate a bomb in the Bajoran sun to destroy the system.

Kira orders Dax to warp to the sun to intercept the runabout, to Dax's objections about going to warp inside a solar system. Kira says if they don't go to warp there won't be solar system left to protect.

I'd assume the danger arises because you're travelling faster than light, it's harder to navigate around celestial bodies - by the time you'd see them, they'd already be behind you. There have been mentions that you can't change course at warp (though I'm sure this is contradicted at various points), and in Enterprise's Broken Bow it's mentioned that if the deflector isn't configured correctly, a grain of dust can punch a hole right through the ship. Never mind what a comet, a planet or a star could do! I don't think deflectors can push stuff like that out of the way

Considering how close the Defiant drops out of warp to the sun, I'd imagine it's considered a dangerous procedure because the tiniest fraction of a second later would mean they would drop into normal space within the sun itself.

It's probably considered equally as risky in TMP because they have to navigate the asteroid belt from Earth as well as any other rocks, not to mention the gas giants and their many satellites.

[Edit - I didn't see Therin's reply before I posted this, so feel free to ignore it. The novelisation will no doubt do a better job than my half-baked explanation!]

I'd rather not read the novel after I've just re-watched the movie. The movie wasn't that good.

 

[Therin of Andor]

This doesn't explain anything. Wormholes connect one end of space to another. What else are they supposed to do? We get some weird time-dilation effect, they shoot an asteroid and boom they're back in normal space at the same position.

It was a very short wormhole. Not all wormholes are as long as DS9's or the Barzan's wormholes.

I'd rather not read the novel after I've just re-watched the movie. The movie wasn't that good.

Your choice. I loved the novelization. And the movie.

 

[DRMidnite]

As I understand it, using warp speed inside a solar system is not a good idea because of the gravity well a planetary body produces. That is, I assume, taken to mean that the risk of ending up inside a planet increases at warp. That, in conjunction with the aforementioned possible navigation problems alone, would deter me.

 

[votd]

But of course you have Time Warp that involves (ridiculously) circling a star at maximum warp - so surely you have to go to warp in a solar system. Hell, the BOP in STIV goes to warp in the atmosphere!

 

[Geoff]

I'd rather not read the novel after I've just re-watched the movie. The movie wasn't that good.

Er... but you said in your first post, less than an hour earlier, that it was a "great" movie.

How did William Shatner come to the conclusion in the book "Probe" that V'Ger was altered by the Borg? V'Ger was ridiculously overpowered, even more so than the Borg.

Actually, that wasn't Probe, it was The Return. Probe is the novel that follows up on the whale-probe from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

 

[Silversmok3]

But of course you have Time Warp that involves (ridiculously) circling a star at maximum warp - so surely you have to go to warp in a solar system. Hell, the BOP in STIV goes to warp in the atmosphere!

Imagine how ridiculuous Sulu (and the movie)would sound if he brought up that going to warp in Earth atmosphere was reckless ;
When 8 minutes later they'd be warping deliberately into the Sun to travel forward in time with 40 tons of water and whales in a Klingon BoP.

 

[Haytil]

1: Why did a wormhole open up during the engine malfunction? Why doesn't the wormhole spit them out thousands of light years from home?

It was an artificial wormhole, created by the Enterprise's warp field (which warps space to allow faster-than-light travel).

Remember, a wormhole is just an extreme warping in space that creates a tunnel, connecting two points - the two ends don't have to be very far apart, and travel between them can take only a little bit less, or even much longer, if you go through the wormhole (depending on the wormhole geometry).

I got the impression that the wormhole was being constantly tunneled as the Enterprise continued further inwards - the exit point was constantly being pushed forward by the warp field, just a little bit ahead of the ship, so it was trapped indefinitely.

I think the explosion of the asteroid disrupted the warp field itself - which allowed the effect creating the wormhole to dissipate, freeing the Enterprise.

2: What's wrong with using warp inside a star system? Nobody else was ever worried about this, in fact they did it all the time in the the Original Series.

The extreme gravity makes it risky - the interaction of a naturally-warped space (by the sun) with the artificial warping of space (by the ship) presumably entails some risk, as the resultant geometry is unpredictable.

3: What happened to V'Ger in the end? It just dispersed with no explanation. Kirk says there's a new life form, but we don't see anything.

It ascended to a higher plane of existence.

 

[RyanKCR]

Actually the ship would have been dumped out of the wormhole on it's own. Remember Decker commenting: "Interial lag will continue 22.5 seconds before forward velocity slows to sublight speed." My guess is that the engine imbalance itself caused the wormhole (posible one warp enging running at a higher power output compared to the other thus the spiral wormhole) and the time dilation slowed everything down. Power may have been cut from the engines but warp effect caused the lag before it slowed down.

At least that is always how I too it.

The beauty shots were one of the main reasons I love this movie the best.

 

[FalTorPan]

2: What's wrong with using warp inside a star system? Nobody else was ever worried about this, in fact they did it all the time in the the Original Series.

Thinking in-universe, one could interpret the concern as being due to the fact that the engines had never been tested at warp. Using functional warp engines in a star system probably isn't a big deal. Using untested, untuned warp engines for the first time in a star system, with large masses relatively close by, is probably the issue.

 

[Luminus]

Answering these few people will answer everyone's question, I think:

It was a very short wormhole. Not all wormholes are as long as DS9's or the Barzan's wormholes.

I always thought of all wormholes being like the Bajoran wormhole.

But of course you have Time Warp that involves (ridiculously) circling a star at maximum warp - so surely you have to go to warp in a solar system. Hell, the BOP in STIV goes to warp in the atmosphere!

Exactly!

Er... but you said in your first post, less than an hour earlier, that it was a "great" movie.

You didn't read the post correctly. Tone is difficult to express on boards. I meant it wasn't that good enough to go and read the novel as well.

Actually, that wasn't Probe, it was The Return. Probe is the novel that follows up on the whale-probe from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Oh, yeah. Probe had the Borg in it, too. That's why I mixed them up. The Borg do like to play with satellites. Those crazy kids.

It was an artificial wormhole, created by the Enterprise's warp field (which warps space to allow faster-than-light travel).

Remember, a wormhole is just an extreme warping in space that creates a tunnel, connecting two points - the two ends don't have to be very far apart, and travel between them can take only a little bit less, or even much longer, if you go through the wormhole (depending on the wormhole geometry).

I got the impression that the wormhole was being constantly tunneled as the Enterprise continued further inwards - the exit point was constantly being pushed forward by the warp field, just a little bit ahead of the ship, so it was trapped indefinitely.

I think the explosion of the asteroid disrupted the warp field itself - which allowed the effect creating the wormhole to dissipate, freeing the Enterprise.

Okay.

The extreme gravity makes it risky - the interaction of a naturally-warped space (by the sun) with the artificial warping of space (by the ship) presumably entails some risk, as the resultant geometry is unpredictable.

This idea is contradicted by almost every Star Trek episode.

It ascended to a higher plane of existence.

Unsatisfying deus ex machina.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

What happens to V'Ger was pretty well explained. V'Ger had explored the known universe and needed more to explore. Decker and Kirk mention other dimensions and higher levels of being that--as Spock says--cannot be explained logically. V'Ger needed a human being's ability to "leap beyond logic" and continue exploring. Decker gave it this. When they merged they left for other dimensions/planes of being. It isn't spelled out and spoon fed to the audience, but I've always thought that it was pretty easy to follow.

 

[Luminus]

What happens to V'Ger was pretty well explained. V'Ger had explored the known universe and needed more to explore. Decker and Kirk mention other dimensions and higher levels of being that--as Spock says--cannot be explained logically. V'Ger needed a human being's ability to "leap beyond logic" and continue exploring. Decker gave it this. When they merged they left for other dimensions/planes of being. It isn't spelled out and spoon fed to the audience, but I've always thought that it was pretty easy to follow.

V'Ger couldn't possibly have explored the entire Universe let alone in 300 years. That's insane. The Traveler can't even do that. It can't even leave the Milky Way because of the Galactic Barrier. We've seen time and time again that only beings like the Q, Kelvans, or the Caretaker's race are capable of achieving this, all of which are non-corporeal entities. (I think sporosistien(sp?) races qualify as being non-corporeal.) That ending was a cop-out.

Speaking of the Kelvans, who themselves might as well be Gods couldn't even travel between Galaxies in less than 300 years.

TOS is known for throwaway lines that make no sense at all and this is seems to be one of them.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Actually the ship would have been dumped out of the wormhole on it's own.

No, if I recall the novel correctly, the appearance of the asteroid - a target upon which to fire - was their only hope of escape! It was a lucky coincidence that the asteroid could be used.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I always thought of all wormholes being like the Bajoran wormhole.

Why?

The Barzan ("The Price") were only selling a wormhole because it was supposedly, and uniquely, stable at both ends. The Bajoran wormhole ("Emissary") was even more unique, since it was indeed stable at both ends - and inhabited by beings!

How did anyone survive those 8-minute shots of the Enterprise while it was in space dock?

Because it was astoundingly beautiful on a cinema screen in 1979, and it was Kirk's - and our - first good look at the revamped Enterprise. And because the music is very pretty, too.

 

[Maurice]

2: What's wrong with using warp inside a star system? Nobody else was ever worried about this, in fact they did it all the time in the the Original Series.

I think the simplest explanation is that the engines, "not even tested at warp power" were potentially dangerous and you ideally want to activiate them the first time away from anything that could affect them.

3: What happened to V'Ger in the end? It just dispersed with no explanation. Kirk says there's a new life form, but we don't see anything.

Did you miss the line: "Other dimensions, higher levels of being"? It's pretty obvious the new life form was bound for those.

4: What happened to the cloud, when V'Ger reached Earth? Suddenly it was gone with no explanation.

It was explained. You just apparently didn't hear it.

UHURA
A faint signal from Starfleet, sir.
Intruder cloud has been located
on their outer monitors for the
past twenty-seven minutes.
Cloud dissipating rapidly as
it approaches.

SULU
Starfleet reports forward velocity
has slowed to sub-warp speed. We
are three minutes from Earth orbit.

​

 

[Luminus]

Why?

The Barzan ("The Price") were only selling a wormhole because it was supposedly, and uniquely, stable at both ends. The Bajoran wormhole ("Emissary") was even more unique, since it was indeed stable at both ends - and inhabited by beings!

But the Bajoran wormhole leads to the Delta Quadrant. Every wormhole we've seen leads thousands of light years away, except for the one seen in TMP.

Because it was astoundingly beautiful on a cinema screen in 1979, and it was Kirk's - and our - first good look at the revamped Enterprise. And because the music is very pretty, too.

Still too long. And they did it twice.

Did you miss the line: "Other dimensions, higher levels of being"? It's pretty obvious the new life form was bound for those.

I've addressed this already.

 

[Praetor]

What a great, yet excruciatingly slow movie. How did anyone survive those 8-minute shots of the Enterprise while it was in space dock? Anyway, some questions have cropped up:

Those 8 minutes may not be the most riveting 8 minutes of cinema, but they are pretty to look at and listen to.

1: Why did a wormhole open up during the engine malfunction? Why doesn't the wormhole spit them out thousands of light years from home?

Why would a wormhole have to be thousands of light years long? A wormhole is nothing but a tunnel through subspace, and those can be any length. Regarding its creation and destruction, I always assumed based on Decker's dialogue that the wormhole was created by the imbalance in the ship's untested engines, and that shutting the engines down was enough to cause the wormhole to collapse, albeit not right away. The asteroid was unfortunately pulled in ahead of the ship, and since the Enterprise was not operating under its own power and many systems had been shut down by the force-quit of the warp drive, they had to shoot it out of their path. Its destruction may have caused the wormhole's premature collapse, or the two may have been coincidentally simultaneous. I personally don't care for the explanation of using the asteroid to destroy the wormhole because IMHO it isn't supported by what's going on in the film.

2: What's wrong with using warp inside a star system? Nobody else was ever worried about this, in fact they did it all the time in the the Original Series.

Again, I think this was a unike situation - I imagine that warp engine tests were never run in the solar system and warp inside a system was permitted but discouraged for a variety of reasons already listed. Frankly, the writers usually played pretty loose with this one, especially since on TOS no one seemed to really be completely certain how warp drive exactly did what it did, so there's no surprise that time warping seemed incongruous with what was later established once warp drive's functioning was pinned down.

3: What happened to V'Ger in the end? It just dispersed with no explanation. Kirk says there's a new life form, but we don't see anything.

As others have said, V'Ger was returning to its God to find a way to find new purpose that it couldn't achieve alone because it was only a machine. Apparently the 'final sequence' as designed by V'Ger or the aliens that built its ship intended it to merge with the creator.

4: What happened to the cloud, when V'Ger reached Earth? Suddenly it was gone with no explanation.

The explanation was only brief in the dialogue, and easy to miss, but it was there.

5: How did William Shatner come to the conclusion in the book "Probe" that V'Ger was altered by the Borg? V'Ger was ridiculously overpowered, even more so than the Borg.

As others have said, this was in 'The Return.' I don't particualrly agree with his straight-out rationale- the only way I can see V'Ger as being the origin of the Borg is as it is posited in the game Star Trek: Legacy, but even that seems a bit off.