My personal 'in-continuity' explanation for the pink Klingon blood is radiation from Praxis. Normal Klingon blood is the dark, almost black blood like we see on the knife blade when Gowron restores Worf's honor in 'Redemption' part one.
What you did or didn't like about TUC....
- Thread starter Joel_Kirk
- Start date
THE GOOD
I love the dark tone of the whole thing, from the story to the music to the new bridge design. In fact, this may be my favorite bridge design in all of Star Trek.
Klingons quoting Shakespeare "in the original Klingon."
Christopher freaking Plummer!!!!! If you ask me, General Chang trumps Khan as the best villain of the original series movies.
Spock playing Sherlock Holmes. (This becomes especially evident if you've read Nicholas Meyer's Holmes novels--and you should read them--"The Seven Percent Solution" & "The West End Horror.")
"Guess who's coming to dinner?"
(I used to annoy my best friend endlessly by playing that sequence of the movie on a loop. In exchange, he did the same thing to me with the bit from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi-- "There's nothing to see. I used to live here you know." "You're gonna die here you know. Convenient.")
Weightlessness... in space... Who knew?
Praxis exploding. Sulu's vibrating tea cup is a great image.
THE BAD
Why is the Romulan ambassador there during the Operation Retrieve briefing?
Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, & Romulans conspiring together to ensure that they remain enemies. I know that war makes strange bedfellows but seriously? (Oddly, I never thought about that before this thread.)
While I'm sure data on Klingon anatomy has been made available to Dr. McCoy at various times, I don't fault him for not being so intimately versed in Klingon anatomy on the spot in that instance. Besides, even with the EMH's total medical recall, I doubt anyone could have saved Gorkon.
Here's a question: I know that Nicholas Meyer originally wanted Saavik in the story instead of Valeris. However, I think both Roddenberry & Nimoy nixed the idea because they liked Saavik too much to do that to her. But if it had been Saavik instead, who would have played her? Would Meyer have used Robin Curtis, the most recent actress to play Saavik or would he have gone back to "his" Saavik, Kirstie Alley?
In the end, this is certainly my favorite of all 6 original films. And while Spock suggests that perhaps he & Kirk have grown so old that they have outlived their usefulness, for my money, not by a long shot! At this point, I'd say they still had a couple films left in them. The only reason why they stopped was because they wanted to capitalize on the fleeting popularity of the Next Generation cast. I probably would have kept going for at least as long as DeForest Kelley was still alive.
I love the dark tone of the whole thing, from the story to the music to the new bridge design. In fact, this may be my favorite bridge design in all of Star Trek.
Klingons quoting Shakespeare "in the original Klingon."
Christopher freaking Plummer!!!!! If you ask me, General Chang trumps Khan as the best villain of the original series movies.
Spock playing Sherlock Holmes. (This becomes especially evident if you've read Nicholas Meyer's Holmes novels--and you should read them--"The Seven Percent Solution" & "The West End Horror.")
"Guess who's coming to dinner?"
(I used to annoy my best friend endlessly by playing that sequence of the movie on a loop. In exchange, he did the same thing to me with the bit from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi-- "There's nothing to see. I used to live here you know." "You're gonna die here you know. Convenient.")Weightlessness... in space... Who knew?
Praxis exploding. Sulu's vibrating tea cup is a great image.
THE BAD
Why is the Romulan ambassador there during the Operation Retrieve briefing?
Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, & Romulans conspiring together to ensure that they remain enemies. I know that war makes strange bedfellows but seriously? (Oddly, I never thought about that before this thread.)
While I'm sure data on Klingon anatomy has been made available to Dr. McCoy at various times, I don't fault him for not being so intimately versed in Klingon anatomy on the spot in that instance. Besides, even with the EMH's total medical recall, I doubt anyone could have saved Gorkon.
Here's a question: I know that Nicholas Meyer originally wanted Saavik in the story instead of Valeris. However, I think both Roddenberry & Nimoy nixed the idea because they liked Saavik too much to do that to her. But if it had been Saavik instead, who would have played her? Would Meyer have used Robin Curtis, the most recent actress to play Saavik or would he have gone back to "his" Saavik, Kirstie Alley?
In the end, this is certainly my favorite of all 6 original films. And while Spock suggests that perhaps he & Kirk have grown so old that they have outlived their usefulness, for my money, not by a long shot! At this point, I'd say they still had a couple films left in them. The only reason why they stopped was because they wanted to capitalize on the fleeting popularity of the Next Generation cast. I probably would have kept going for at least as long as DeForest Kelley was still alive.
Paper? When was that?
Oooooh, you must have the old Collectors version or something- I have the newly remastered THEATRICAL version! It doesn't contain that scene or the Scooby ending with the rubber mask.
And the transfer is STELLAR!!!
Scooby ending?? Oh dear.
All we needed were ghost pirates *giggles*
I could not stand Valeris. I didn't like her character, I didn't like the actress, I didn't like the actress' voice or body language, and I especially didn't like her stupid hair style or her REALLY stupid metal hairband!
That scene was strictly for comic relief. If it was meant to be serious, why would Uhura be using old books that looked they'd been dug up from a 20th century archaeological site?
It was about bloody damn TIME they showed Sulu on his own ship. I also liked the interaction between Sulu and the crewman played by Christian Slater. Slater seemed to fit in very well in a Star Trek movie.
Michael Dorn, the actor who ate both TNG, DS9, AND part of this movie! Sheesh, if they'd been able to think of a way to get Worf into the Delta Quadrant, he would have eaten Voyager, too!
That was a nice touch.Oh and the sign off at the end was really neat, and sad
I have a theory as to why Nanclus was present for the Operation Retrieve briefing; he's part of the conspiracy, as is Colonel West, and was in on the development of Operation Retrieve from the beginning. He stuck around because it was in his best interests as a conspirator to do so, and Colonel West, already knowing him from the conspiracy, let him stay. West might have even suggested as much to Admiral Stillie offscreen(although that part is non-canon).
Kim Cattrall ... hot vulcan, or HOTTEST vulcan?
Overall, my favorite of all the Trek movies.
Likes:
- Excellent performances from Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Iman. I didn't think Kim Cattrall was right for the part of a Vulcan, but she did well enough.
- Great music, especially the opening credits. Very different from the typical Trek themes, and suited the more serious tone of the movie.
- Just the right amount of humor to balance out the heaviness of the procedings.
- The Enterprise and Excelsior firing on the Bird of Prey, and that wobble before it explodes.
Dislikes:
- Both of the added scenes with Colonel West (sorry, Rene!)
- Meyer's submarine fetish
- Two major female guest stars and they both play treacherous villians? Did the scriptwriters have issues?
- Kirk's dialogue with Azetbur at the end left me scratching my head.
Likes:
- Excellent performances from Christopher Plummer, David Warner, Iman. I didn't think Kim Cattrall was right for the part of a Vulcan, but she did well enough.
- Great music, especially the opening credits. Very different from the typical Trek themes, and suited the more serious tone of the movie.
- Just the right amount of humor to balance out the heaviness of the procedings.
- The Enterprise and Excelsior firing on the Bird of Prey, and that wobble before it explodes.
Dislikes:
- Both of the added scenes with Colonel West (sorry, Rene!)
- Meyer's submarine fetish
- Two major female guest stars and they both play treacherous villians? Did the scriptwriters have issues?
- Kirk's dialogue with Azetbur at the end left me scratching my head.
As plenty of people have said in this and previous threads, Saavik should have been the traitor. That would have been heartbreaking and surprising and exciting all at the same time. Now Valeris.. if I remember correctly, I commented something like "what's with Spock collecting young female protegees?" Made him look like a dirty old Vulcan.
Still, TUC is my favorite Trek film. The politics, the dialogue, the old crew there on the Enterprise one more time.
Still, TUC is my favorite Trek film. The politics, the dialogue, the old crew there on the Enterprise one more time.
The problem with this is, the Federation President is not in on the conspiracy (what with him being amongst their targets), and if nothing else, he would not rationally allow the ambassador of a hostile foreign power to sit in on a classified discussion of the option of invading the Klingon Empire. If West and Nanclus wanted him to be able to stay, they would have needed a plausible excuse -- but there simply is none.
It would be like the United States allowing the East German Ambassador to sit in on a briefing in the Oval Office on a plan to invade the Soviet Union.
Is there any evidence that the Romulans and the UFP were enemies at this point in time? Maybe they were allied and the Federation President actually trusted him enough to be in the room at the time. As for the film itself, from the first time I saw the VHS way back in 1992 or even '93 I've enjoyed it and remains my favourite Trek film.
Klingons want war, and Starfleet didn't want to be dismantled. And both sides probably made a big profit from the long period of cold war they were in. It's not so much about wanting the war as a price, it's about the war being the price for their profit. Someone in the Klingon empire profits from Gorkon's and Azetbur's death, someone in the Federation profits from the President's death.
If the Starfleet conspirators wanted to keep up the war with the Klingons, then they didn't need Klingon help. There are a million things Admiral Joe Sisko could have done to incite hatred of the Klingons in the public opinion--and it's important to remember that the conspirators should have been doing this to enflame public opinion, not to generate evidence that would stand up in a court of law.
I mean, look at the actual conspiracy. Chang doesn't need Valeris or Starfleet personnel or altered data banks. People on Kronos are going to see that their chancellor's battlecruiser was attacked brutally and without provocation by a Starfleet vessel. It doesn't even need to be the Enterprise. Any Starfleet ship will do. No one in the Klingon Empire is going to believe Starfleet when they say the paper trail doesn't match! No one knows about the cloaked bird of prey. Using Starfleet conspirators is just a waste of time and an operational security liability.
Alternatively, Chang could just blow up Earth or Vulcan or both, because he was a ship armed with antimatter bombs and a cloaking device. But whatever.
On Starfleet's side, a bomb on the Enterprise might have sufficed to encite public opinion against the Klingons. The Enterprise is destroyed next to the Kronos One. No records survive from the Enterprise, and all the Klingons have are records from Kronos One, which no one in the Federation will believe in, any more than Klingons would believe records from the Enterprise or Starfleet. The only problem here is one of motive. If they wanted to utilize Kirk's antipathy toward Klingons, and didn't want to lose a starship, I suspect they could have found a way to fire from the Enterprise, bypassing bridge controls. In either case, Klingon involvement is neither needed nor desireable.
I mean, look at the actual conspiracy. Chang doesn't need Valeris or Starfleet personnel or altered data banks. People on Kronos are going to see that their chancellor's battlecruiser was attacked brutally and without provocation by a Starfleet vessel. It doesn't even need to be the Enterprise. Any Starfleet ship will do. No one in the Klingon Empire is going to believe Starfleet when they say the paper trail doesn't match! No one knows about the cloaked bird of prey. Using Starfleet conspirators is just a waste of time and an operational security liability.
Alternatively, Chang could just blow up Earth or Vulcan or both, because he was a ship armed with antimatter bombs and a cloaking device. But whatever.
On Starfleet's side, a bomb on the Enterprise might have sufficed to encite public opinion against the Klingons. The Enterprise is destroyed next to the Kronos One. No records survive from the Enterprise, and all the Klingons have are records from Kronos One, which no one in the Federation will believe in, any more than Klingons would believe records from the Enterprise or Starfleet. The only problem here is one of motive. If they wanted to utilize Kirk's antipathy toward Klingons, and didn't want to lose a starship, I suspect they could have found a way to fire from the Enterprise, bypassing bridge controls. In either case, Klingon involvement is neither needed nor desireable.
One of my favorite things about TUC is at the end when Spock says "If I were human, I believe my response would be "Go to hell",... if I were human". It actually made me think of that line when, in First Contact, Data says "I think I speak for everyone, sir, when I say, to hell with our orders."
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And who is going to order the Starfleet ship to fire? Admiral Cartwright? Court martial immediately. The Federation wanted peace, the President, the Council, the ambassadors. It was just a tiny group inside Starfleet that wanted to stop the peace process. They needed the Klingons, and manipulated databanks, and a victim to blame everything on. The Klingons needed them, too, because even the Klingons wouldn't have believed that a Starfleet captain would just order to assassinate the Chancellor. That's what the trial against Kirk was for. To show the public someone with a reasonable motive.
I loved the movie, when I saw it in the theater, and still to this day. Many of the things that appealed to me in this movie have already been stated. Probably the main thing was the sets. I just think that they went all out, namely with the bridge. It was just amazing.
I don't have many complaints with the movie, only two things.
1. How is it that none of the Klingons ever noticed the tracking device thing that Spock put on Kirk's back? Would they not have been searched, particularly before being sent to Rure Penthe? I am also surprised that their uniforms weren't taken from them as well.
2. The whole torpedo thing. It would stand to reason that someone in SF would've come up with this ingenious idea long before this. We saw in TSFS that they were able to locate a BOP by simple visual means (the visual distortion in local space). Having dealt with cloaked ships for decades now, it stands to reason that trying to track exhaust gases would've been discovered already.
I don't have many complaints with the movie, only two things.
1. How is it that none of the Klingons ever noticed the tracking device thing that Spock put on Kirk's back? Would they not have been searched, particularly before being sent to Rure Penthe? I am also surprised that their uniforms weren't taken from them as well.
2. The whole torpedo thing. It would stand to reason that someone in SF would've come up with this ingenious idea long before this. We saw in TSFS that they were able to locate a BOP by simple visual means (the visual distortion in local space). Having dealt with cloaked ships for decades now, it stands to reason that trying to track exhaust gases would've been discovered already.
Sounds like they should have had a consultant from Ferenginar on call...
It was funny when Spock said it. With Data, it was just a Spock-wannabe line (to me, that is).
Not to hijack the thread, but I think it's symptomatic of the TNG films that they tended to write for Picard as if he were Kirk, and to write for Data as if he were Spock.
I pretty much loved the film but one little thing bugs me.
during the combat near the end where chang is blasting holes into the enterprise shouldnt the chief medical officer be in sick bay helping the wounded? the ship was taking quite a whack yet he stays on the bridge then leaves to help spock make a torpedo mod strange
during the combat near the end where chang is blasting holes into the enterprise shouldnt the chief medical officer be in sick bay helping the wounded? the ship was taking quite a whack yet he stays on the bridge then leaves to help spock make a torpedo mod strange
As always, I feel compelled to point out that Meyer wrote a third Sherlock Holmes novel, "The Canary Trainer," that apparently nobody else has ever read!
My initial reaction to TUC was pretty negative. It was just too many damned Shakespeare quotes, the whole Shakespeare angle in this film was seriously overdone. I really didn't care for Chang; he didn't seem or look Klingon to me. I hated the pink blood. The mind rape. The Klingon textbooks. WTF. Use. The. Computer.
It just seemed like many of the characterizations were a little "off". I can see TOS Spock strongly objecting to forced mindmeld, even if it meant calamity. Kirk and McCoy were the only characters that seemed quite right to me, and McCoy's one-liners are the best part of the film.
"What is it with you, anyway?"
It's definitely the weakest of the 3 Nicholas Meyer Trek films.
It just seemed like many of the characterizations were a little "off". I can see TOS Spock strongly objecting to forced mindmeld, even if it meant calamity. Kirk and McCoy were the only characters that seemed quite right to me, and McCoy's one-liners are the best part of the film.
"What is it with you, anyway?"
It's definitely the weakest of the 3 Nicholas Meyer Trek films.
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