major plot hole about lightning storms in space

[BillJ]

2. What about sending Spock Prime into enemy territory with a beach ball sized container of Red Matter when you only need a drop to create a singularity? Why no escort? Why send a 157 year old Ambassador (who probably hasn't seen active duty in eighty years) to do the job when they're much younger and better pilots around?

 

[backstept]

2. What about sending Spock Prime into enemy territory with a beach ball sized container of Red Matter when you only need a drop to create a singularity? Why no escort? Why send a 157 year old Ambassador (who probably hasn't seen active duty in eighty years) to do the job when they're much younger and better pilots around?

there was literally no time
they didn't expect the Hobus star to go nova so soon, so Spock just went rather than wait for someone more qualified

 

[BillJ]

2. What about sending Spock Prime into enemy territory with a beach ball sized container of Red Matter when you only need a drop to create a singularity? Why no escort? Why send a 157 year old Ambassador (who probably hasn't seen active duty in eighty years) to do the job when they're much younger and better pilots around?

there was literally no time
they didn't expect the Hobus star to go nova so soon, so Spock just went rather than wait for someone more qualified

But wouldn't he need to go to Vulcan to get the Jellyfish? Or wait at Romulus to have the Jellyfish delivered? Also with it being Vulcan's most advanced ship wouldn't he need time to learn how to operate it?

 

[backstept]

I try not to think about it

 

[SalvorHardin]

2. What about sending Spock Prime into enemy territory with a beach ball sized container of Red Matter when you only need a drop to create a singularity? Why no escort? Why send a 157 year old Ambassador (who probably hasn't seen active duty in eighty years) to do the job when they're much younger and better pilots around?

there was literally no time
they didn't expect the Hobus star to go nova so soon, so Spock just went rather than wait for someone more qualified

But wouldn't he need to go to Vulcan to get the Jellyfish? Or wait at Romulus to have the Jellyfish delivered? Also with it being Vulcan's most advanced ship wouldn't he need time to lean how to operate it?

May I suggest you either read Countdown or search for the review threads in this forum and get an idea if you are actually interested.

 

[BillJ]

there was literally no time
they didn't expect the Hobus star to go nova so soon, so Spock just went rather than wait for someone more qualified

But wouldn't he need to go to Vulcan to get the Jellyfish? Or wait at Romulus to have the Jellyfish delivered? Also with it being Vulcan's most advanced ship wouldn't he need time to lean how to operate it?

May I suggest you either read Countdown or search for the review threads in this forum and get an idea if you are actually interested.

Have it and read it. But I shouldn't have to read supplemental material for the plot to make sense. Which really still doesn't make a lot of sense even with the supplemental material.

 

[SalvorHardin]

But wouldn't he need to go to Vulcan to get the Jellyfish? Or wait at Romulus to have the Jellyfish delivered? Also with it being Vulcan's most advanced ship wouldn't he need time to lean how to operate it?

May I suggest you either read Countdown or search for the review threads in this forum and get an idea if you are actually interested.

Have it and read it. But I shouldn't have to read supplemental material for the plot to make sense.

Yes.
You can always use your imaginations to fill some gaps that a filmmaker does not need to waste precious time on, on a 2 hour movie.
But that also kind of requires some good faith and not being bent on finding problems in everything.

There were better things they should have dealt with that were left unattended and would have made the movie even better imo.

 

[BillJ]

May I suggest you either read Countdown or search for the review threads in this forum and get an idea if you are actually interested.

Have it and read it. But I shouldn't have to read supplemental material for the plot to make sense.

Yes.
You could always use your imaginations to fill some gaps that a filmmaker does not need to waste precious time on, on a 2 hour movie.
But that also kind of requires some good faith and not being bent on finding problems in everything.

There were better things they should have dealt with that were left unattended and would have made the movie even better imo.

I guess.

But there are three things that completely throw me out of this film...

1. Engineering
2. Spock Prime piloting the Jellyfish.
3. The beach-ball sized container of Red Matter.

Number one was a choice based on budget, which I can understand. Two and three just violate simple common-sense.

 

[Timo]

I don't understand the beach ball objection at all.

Planets are big. But stars are bigger. A droplet was enough to swallow a planet, but the red matter was intended to stop an exploding star from exploding, or something. It sounds pretty obvious that a lot more than a droplet would be needed for that latter task!

I don't really get the engineering objection, either. Looked like a perfectly good interior for a starship. Or a secret supervillain volcano base. Or an industrial plant backdrop in an action flick. It's not as if those really need look different...

I do grok the Spock objection, though. Why send the old fool? Unless, of course, the mission was a suicide one - which would be a good description for when you're about to dive into a stellar explosion and create a humungous black hole. Why waste a young pilot there, when a geriatric has-been so readily volunteers?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SilentP]

I guess.

But there are three things that completely throw me out of this film...

1. Engineering
2. Spock Prime piloting the Jellyfish.
3. The beach-ball sized container of Red Matter.

Number one was a choice based on budget, which I can understand. Two and three just violate simple common-sense.

If you want an off-the-wall theory for number 3, it could be that since it's a fairly random substance, that when you create it, you don't get much choice about how much you end up with after creating it. That and since it seems like an untested substance, and the situation they were using it for has never happened before, maybe they took as much as they could make in the time frame, in case one drop wasn't enough.

As for Number 2, it does seem odd to have him be the one to pilot the ship, especially since it looked like a specially constructed vessel. Maybe it was some paranoid condition on the part of the Romulans? The whole issue never occured to me.

 

[BillJ]

I don't understand the beach ball objection at all.

Planets are big. But stars are bigger. A droplet was enough to swallow a planet, but the red matter was intended to stop an exploding star from exploding, or something. It sounds pretty obvious that a lot more than a droplet would be needed for that latter task!

I don't really get the engineering objection, either. Looked like a perfectly good interior for a starship. Or a secret supervillain volcano base. Or an industrial plant backdrop in an action flick. It's not as if those really need look different...

I do grok the Spock objection, though. Why send the old fool? Unless, of course, the mission was a suicide one - which would be a good description for when you're about to dive into a stellar explosion and create a humungous black hole. Why waste a young pilot there, when a geriatric has-been so readily volunteers?

Timo Saloniemi

I guess.

But there are three things that completely throw me out of this film...

1. Engineering
2. Spock Prime piloting the Jellyfish.
3. The beach-ball sized container of Red Matter.

Number one was a choice based on budget, which I can understand. Two and three just violate simple common-sense.

If you want an off-the-wall theory for number 3, it could be that since it's a fairly random substance, that when you create it, you don't get much choice about how much you end up with after creating it. That and since it seems like an untested substance, and the situation they were using it for has never happened before, maybe they took as much as they could make in the time frame, in case one drop wasn't enough.

As for Number 2, it does seem odd to have him be the one to pilot the ship, especially since it looked like a specially constructed vessel. Maybe it was some paranoid condition on the part of the Romulans? The whole issue never occured to me.

Then send him with a vile of the stuff. Not a beach ball...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why send a 157 year old Ambassador (who probably hasn't seen active duty in eighty years) to do the job when they're much younger and better pilots around?

The Jellyfish was a Vulcan-designed ship. SpockPrime was trained to operate it, but I'm sure it was designed so *any* Vulcan could pilot the ship if necessary (which would explain young Spock's ability to run it).

Plus, the ship clearly works through voice commands, so anything that young Spock couldn't figure out, the ship would surely *show* him. It greeted him by name, after all.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I do grok the Spock objection, though. Why send the old fool? Unless, of course, the mission was a suicide one - which would be a good description for when you're about to dive into a stellar explosion and create a humungous black hole. Why waste a young pilot there, when a geriatric has-been so readily volunteers?

Timo Saloniemi

Actually, as I remember from Countdown (the story is after all by the movie writers) the Vulcans did not intend to send Spock with the Jellyfish.
They and Picard were surprised when Spock tried to convince them that he should go.

And his reasoning was that it probably was a one way trip and since his adventures were nearing an end he should go and not some young man/woman.
And of course because he felt kind of responsible for the whole Nero situation and his failure to keep his promise to him.

 

[BillJ]

Why send a 157 year old Ambassador (who probably hasn't seen active duty in eighty years) to do the job when they're much younger and better pilots around?

The Jellyfish was a Vulcan-designed ship. SpockPrime was trained to operate it, but I'm sure it was designed so *any* Vulcan could pilot the ship if necessary (which would explain young Spock's ability to run it).

Plus, the ship clearly works through voice commands, so anything that young Spock couldn't figure out, the ship would surely *show* him. It greeted him by name, after all.

Spoiler...
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Thought Geordi designed it per 'Countdown'. They couldn't even keep that straight

 

[SilentP]

Then send him with a vile of the stuff. Not a beach ball...

I'm guessing you mean vial, not vile. And again, why not take enough to be very sure. It's a galaxy-level catastrophy going on, you want to be sure you have enough to definitely get rid of it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Thought Geordi designed it per 'Countdown'. They couldn't even keep that straight

I am aware of Countdown. Even if the movie's writers also wrote it, that doesn't make it "official".

Indeed, Countdown appears to take place in the alternate future timeline of ST:Online, which is (for reasons I won't go into here) incompatible with the 'expanded universe' of most current Trek novels, so while it may be an entertaining read, I don't see any reason to regard it as canon. It is, after all, only a comic.

 

[Amaris]

Every day I swear Star Trek is becoming more and more like a religion. Where else other than religion can you say your made up stuff makes way more sense than someone else's made up stuff?

J.

 

[BillJ]

Then send him with a vile of the stuff. Not a beach ball...

I'm guessing you mean vial, not vile. And again, why not take enough to be very sure. It's a galaxy-level catastrophy going on, you want to be sure you have enough to definitely get rid of it.

Yes I meant vial. Just woke up...

Now think of a 150+ year old elderly Vulcan on the return mission after setting off a bang that could literally re-arrange the universe. People are going to want the secret to the weapon. That was one of the Vulcan concerns in Countdown.

I could see the Romulans plotting to catch the Jellyfish if it survived the mission.

 

[BillJ]

Every day I swear Star Trek is becoming more and more like a religion. Where else other than religion can you say your made up stuff makes way more sense than someone else's made up stuff?

J.

Not religion. Just a fun subject to debate. And this is a great group of people to do it with.

 

[Jeri]

Well, it's kept me busy for months; pretty much is defining 2009 for me.