Why did Spock pause to chat before teleporting to Vulcan?

[rbnn]

After Chekhov tells Spock that Vulcan has a matter of "minutes" to survive, Spock enters the turbo lift. While he is in the turbo lift, Uhura asks him why he is beaming down, and Spock answers the question. Only after answering Uhura does Spock press the button to engage the turbolift. Spock spent at least five seconds answering Uhura's question.

But Amanda was lost by a few seconds at most.

(1) Why did Spock pause to answer Uhura, when he knew a few seconds could easily mean the difference between life and death?

(2) Had Spock not paused, would Amanda have survived?

 

[Broccoli]

(1) Why did Spock pause to answer Uhura, when he knew a few seconds could easily mean the difference between life and death?

Because the audience needed some exposition on why Spock had to go down to the planet himself instead of "nameless officer #232".

(2) Had Spock not paused, would Amanda have survived?

Possibly. Possibly not. Maybe she would have gotten clocked in the head by a falling pillar.

 

[pookha]

plus it seemed like it took time to reset the transporter from beaming sulu and kirk in and then beaming spock down.
the crazy gravitational shifts vulcan was going through probably made it harder..
plus yeah the audience needed and answer to what was spock doing.

 

[Da'an]

If she hadn't stood too close to the cliff edge when she knew the ground was collapsing around them, it wouldn't have mattered.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Funny I was just thinking of posting this question.

It is rather unnerving in the film..

"How long does the planet have?"

".. minutes.."

".. they are in the katric ark, blah blah blah.." Noooo.... just go and explain later!!

 

[rbnn]

(2) Had Spock not paused, would Amanda have survived?

Possibly. Possibly not. Maybe she would have gotten clocked in the head by a falling pillar.

Wasn't Amanda ahead of the person who was hit by the pillar? Had she exited five seconds earlier, wouldn't she have missed the falling pillars by an even greater distance than she did?

Ironically, only because of Sulu's delay did the Enterprise survive.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

And what if Olsen had not been such a cowboy and landed? With the charges? Could it have made enough of a time difference that the drill would be destroyed before it was close enough to the core?

 

[pookha]

And what if Olsen had not been such a cowboy and landed? With the charges? Could it have made enough of a time difference that the drill would be destroyed before it was close enough to the core?

very possibly..
it would have given them for sure an extra person in the fight.
he could have been setting off charges while kirk and sulu kept the romulans distracted.

back to the transporter room..
it seemed like as soon as the transporter was ready spock was gone..
kirk was still trying to talk to him.
for that matter had on the stuff i mentioned above they would had had to done a quick check just to make sure nothing was damaged from bringing sulu and kirk in the way they did.

 

[Captrek]

it would have given them for sure an extra person in the fight.

Why did they go with only three people in the first place? Why not parachute to the drill in overwhelming force? Wanted to give the bad guys a sporting chance?

Don’t tell me: they only had enough equipment for three people. The rest comes on Tuesday.

 

[od0_ital]

^

Pike was goin' for subtle while takin' the shuttle over to Nero's ship. Seems to me that there was only room for three folks - all the seats were filled, and only three handles came down from the ceilin' before Pike turned opened the hatch.

 

[rbnn]

it would have given them for sure an extra person in the fight.

Why did they go with only three people in the first place? Why not parachute to the drill in overwhelming force? Wanted to give the bad guys a sporting chance?

Don’t tell me: they only had enough equipment for three people. The rest comes on Tuesday.

Pike's plan relied on subterfuge to work. More people on Pike's shuttle would have risked detection, as would more people flying down to the platform.

 

[ITL]

Seeing as though the writers wanted Vulcan gone and Amanda deaded, the outcome of Spocko's trip to Vulcan would have been the same no matter what they did/didn't have him/anyone else doing/not doing. Yeah.

 

[shatastrophic]

Why couldn't Chekov just lock on to her as she was falling like he did with Kirk and Sulu. Then again, he could have lost her signal entirely.

 

[Defcon]

The bigger question regarding Olsen is, why was he the only one with explosives? Kirk and Sulu both had problems landing, too, so it wasn't a sure thing that Olsen would have made it even if he hadn't been so stupid. Wouldn't it have been a safer option to give all three of them the equipment to sabotage the drill?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

They were in a hurry, maybe they didn't have time to fit each of them with a pack of explosives?

The real question is why was Olsen such a dick!

 

[rbnn]

Why couldn't Chekov just lock on to her as she was falling like he did with Kirk and Sulu. Then again, he could have lost her signal entirely.

There are three critical reasons Chekhov was unable to lock on to Amanda after she fell off the cliff, although he was able to maintain the lock on Kirk and Sulu after they fell off the drill platform.

First, the gravitational anomalies on Vulcan due to the singularity induced by the red matter would, by the time of Amanda's fall, have been sufficiently extreme to begin to interfere with teleporter operation. The transporter must account for gravity, insofar as it likely accounts for spatial geometry, and the gravitational flux would be changing so rapidly it would difficult to locate her.

Second, it may have been impossible to have locked onto Amanda because Amanda was surrounded by falling debris, deep within Vulcan, making her signal impossible to distinguish in the time remaining from the debris. By contrast, Kirk and Spock were the only falling objects nearby when they fall, making them easier to locate.

Third, the transporter was able to lock onto Kirk and Sulu because their transmitters, acting as transponders, provided a signal to lock onto. Initially, Amanda was near enough to Spock that his signal could be used for the lock, but once she fell, there was no way to lock onto her.

Note that the actual answer is likely some combination of all of these reasons: the increasing gravitational anomaly and rate of change; the falling debris; and the lack of a transponder.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Plus, her fall came as a surprise... Chekov was beaming up stationary targets and suddenly one of them was falling very rapidly and unexpectedly. There was no way Chekov could compensate for that. It took Scottys experience later in the movie to transport 3 targets from two locations to one platform. He made a pretty big deal about it and he was PREPARED to do so and didn`t need to change the settings within split seconds in midtransport.

 

[T'Bonz]

Yeah, except they telegraphed it.

OK, Amanda, turn and look at Spock intently because you're going to die and it needs to be dramatic. I was sitting in the theater thinking, "Are you kidding me?"

 

[kythe]

Why couldn't Chekov just lock on to her as she was falling like he did with Kirk and Sulu. Then again, he could have lost her signal entirely.

There are three critical reasons Chekhov was unable to lock on to Amanda after she fell off the cliff, although he was able to maintain the lock on Kirk and Sulu after they fell off the drill platform.

First, the gravitational anomalies on Vulcan due to the singularity induced by the red matter would, by the time of Amanda's fall, have been sufficiently extreme to begin to interfere with teleporter operation. The transporter must account for gravity, insofar as it likely accounts for spatial geometry, and the gravitational flux would be changing so rapidly it would difficult to locate her.

Second, it may have been impossible to have locked onto Amanda because Amanda was surrounded by falling debris, deep within Vulcan, making her signal impossible to distinguish in the time remaining from the debris. By contrast, Kirk and Spock were the only falling objects nearby when they fall, making them easier to locate.

Third, the transporter was able to lock onto Kirk and Sulu because their transmitters, acting as transponders, provided a signal to lock onto. Initially, Amanda was near enough to Spock that his signal could be used for the lock, but once she fell, there was no way to lock onto her.

Note that the actual answer is likely some combination of all of these reasons: the increasing gravitational anomaly and rate of change; the falling debris; and the lack of a transponder.

Good points. I've actually wondered how he knew it was Amanda he lost. I know they were expecting to beam her up with the group, but how did he know who was who when he was locking on? Does the locking signal indicate the gender of the person?

If I remember right, he says, "I lost her" before really looking up to determine who he lost.

 

[Arlo]

"teleporting"?

As for Amanda surviving if Spock hadn't paused, no, it wouldn't have helped, because the script called for her to die regardless.