Plus Kirk mentioned it was nice to have Sulu back at the helm for three weeks in TWOK which implies he was somewhere else prior to the training mission and was going back to that place after the training cruise ended.
The Cage-WNMHGB-TOS -TAS-TMP-TWOK timeframe
- Thread starter newtontomato539
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Plus Kirk mentioned it was nice to have Sulu back at the helm for three weeks in TWOK which implies he was somewhere else prior to the training mission and was going back to that place after the training cruise ended.
It's a big fleet. It's not like the only choices were the Enterprise or no ship at all. It's more likely that Sulu was simply serving as part of a different vessel's crew.
It may be a big fleet but it's a small universe. Every time something big happens (i.e. a movie) the crew just happens to be together.
TMP - Everyone's at Earth except for Spock who shows up an hour later.
TWOK/TSFS/TVH - Essentially one movie, everyone's at Earth except for Chekov who shows up a couple of days later.
TFF - Everyone's at Earth and apparently assigned to the same ship
TUD - Everyone's at Earth except for Sulu who's finally on a different ship.
Generations - TOS guest appearances and intact TNG crew
First Contact - Worf just happens to be rescued by the Enterprise
Insurrection - Worf just happens to be on leave
Nemesis - Worf's back with the same crew as before
Worf at least you can put down to coincidence but the TOS movies make it appear that the crew never broke up except for a brief period when Chekov was on the Reliant and when Sulu left for the Excelsior. You never really get the idea that thse people served anywhere except on the Enterprise. The character that seems to have the most varied career is Christine Chapel of all people.
TMP - Everyone's at Earth except for Spock who shows up an hour later.
TWOK/TSFS/TVH - Essentially one movie, everyone's at Earth except for Chekov who shows up a couple of days later.
TFF - Everyone's at Earth and apparently assigned to the same ship
TUD - Everyone's at Earth except for Sulu who's finally on a different ship.
Generations - TOS guest appearances and intact TNG crew
First Contact - Worf just happens to be rescued by the Enterprise
Insurrection - Worf just happens to be on leave
Nemesis - Worf's back with the same crew as before
Worf at least you can put down to coincidence but the TOS movies make it appear that the crew never broke up except for a brief period when Chekov was on the Reliant and when Sulu left for the Excelsior. You never really get the idea that thse people served anywhere except on the Enterprise. The character that seems to have the most varied career is Christine Chapel of all people.
But Kirk was at Starfleet Command and McCoy was retired. And there was a line in one version of the script about Nogura arranging to reassemble as much of Kirk's old crew as possible.
Which is a dozen years after TMP, plenty of time for the various crewmembers to serve on other ships in the interim. It's evident that in TWOK they've come together for the special occasion of the training cruise on Kirk's birthday. Circumstances kept them together thereafter. (I mean, seriously, after the way they committed piracy in TSFS, stealing an entire starship and sabotaging another, how many other captains would take them even after they saved the Earth? They may have had to stay together on the E-A for lack of alternatives.)
But again, there's a gap of years between the previous movie and this one, and evidence that they had been separated and had only been brought together for this specific mission (and again, that was more explicit in an earlier draft).
So really, in the span of 23 years between the end of the 5-year mission and TUC, we only have solid proof that they were together for less than one year (and that's only if you accept Harve Bennett's premise that TFF was six months after TVH). Even if we make the cliche assumption of "five-year missions" after both TMP and TVH, that only brings it to ten years and change, less than half the time.
Well, that's the problem with the movies -- the audience wanted to see the same cast forever, so that's what the movies went with no matter how implausible it was. In the case of TNG, we're stuck with it; there's no way around the fact that this crew stayed together (with one or two impermanent exceptions) for 15 years. But the TOS movies are different, because TMP, TWOK, and TUC were actually made under the assumption that the crew had been apart for a while and were reuniting. It's subtle enough that you have to be alert for it, but it's there, and there's no reason not to take advantage of it if you prefer to believe some of the crew had careers beyond just one ship.
The early TMP script may have included that but the impression that you get from the movie is that they're grabbing whoever they can to staff the ship. Decker even says that there's nobody fully rated on the design to act as science officer. Kirk then has Decker double up leads you to believe that Decker's background is in the sciences. You would think that there's somebody who would be able to work the station and have a science background with all the people at Starfleet. Spock hasn't even been in the service for years and yet he picks up on it instantly. He is Spock but it's not like he's had time to keep up with such things while on Vulcan.
I know that there's lots of time for the crew to have been off on other assignments but the suability may be too subtle. There's never one line spoken about any of them serving on another ship or encountering something that the rest would have been unaware of. At least Kyle got to spend some time on another ship.
There are ways to have the crew split up and still tell a movie length story. In The Empire Strikes Back Luke is separated from the rest of the cast for the majority of the film for example. Star Trek, for the most part, stuck with the crew being together even when it strained credibility that they would all be serving together.
There's the empty spots where you can fit other assignments in but even in the novels it's usually the same people at the same stations on the same ship. Even when Sulu gets the Excelsior we see the familiar faces cropping up with Chapel, Rand and Chekov. The comics even had Saavik on the crew.
Even your excellent Ex Machina was essentially the TOS crew on the new ship. Hopefully you'll be able to visit that time period again and show them going the separate ways until TWOK. (Note to self, time to re-read Ex Machina).
I know that there's lots of time for the crew to have been off on other assignments but the suability may be too subtle. There's never one line spoken about any of them serving on another ship or encountering something that the rest would have been unaware of. At least Kyle got to spend some time on another ship.
There are ways to have the crew split up and still tell a movie length story. In The Empire Strikes Back Luke is separated from the rest of the cast for the majority of the film for example. Star Trek, for the most part, stuck with the crew being together even when it strained credibility that they would all be serving together.
There's the empty spots where you can fit other assignments in but even in the novels it's usually the same people at the same stations on the same ship. Even when Sulu gets the Excelsior we see the familiar faces cropping up with Chapel, Rand and Chekov. The comics even had Saavik on the crew.
Even your excellent Ex Machina was essentially the TOS crew on the new ship. Hopefully you'll be able to visit that time period again and show them going the separate ways until TWOK. (Note to self, time to re-read Ex Machina).
No, there isn't, because it's not relevant to the movie. Motion picture storytelling has to be very concise, and extraneous detail tends to be trimmed off. 99.99% of the audience isn't going to care less what the crew has been doing in the intervening years; they just want to see the familiar characters in another story.
But here's the thing: for those of us who want to believe they served elsewhere, we can. You can use your imagination to look beyond the text, and the text does not in any way prohibit you from concluding that some of the crew served elsewhere. So if that's what you want to believe, there's nothing stopping you.
You should move on to the next story I wrote in that period, Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again. In my post-TMP books (which also include the bulk of the just-released Forgotten History), I've been constrained by other novels' assumption that there was a second 5-year mission right after TMP, but that still leaves seven years between the end of that mission in 2278 and TWOK in 2285. In TDDA, I posit that the Enterprise became Admiral Kirk's personal flagship under Spock's command, and sometimes went on special missions authorized by Kirk, with whatever members of his old crew were currently available, but usually not with all of them. So I got to mix it up a little there.
In TUC:
Kirk: What are we all doing here?
McCoy: Maybe they're throwing us a retirement party.
Scotty: That suits me. I just bought a boat.
Cmdr. Nyota Uhura: This had better be good. I'm supposed to be chairing a seminar at the Academy.
Chekov: Captain, isn't this just for top brass?
McCoy: If we're all here, where's Sulu?
Kirk: *Captain* Sulu, on assignment. Where's Spock?
We already knew Sulu was on assignment. Scotty & Uhura give us an idea what they've been up to. Was it relavent that we knew Uhura was chairing a seminar? Nope. Just a little background bit. If they took it out it wouldn't have changed the movie at all. However, it does show us that she's got a life away from the communications station on the Enterprise. You don't need to give us their whole service history each time you have a movie, just a line here or there that reminds us that these people aren't just stored in a closet between outings.
Kirk: What are we all doing here?
McCoy: Maybe they're throwing us a retirement party.
Scotty: That suits me. I just bought a boat.
Cmdr. Nyota Uhura: This had better be good. I'm supposed to be chairing a seminar at the Academy.
Chekov: Captain, isn't this just for top brass?
McCoy: If we're all here, where's Sulu?
Kirk: *Captain* Sulu, on assignment. Where's Spock?
We already knew Sulu was on assignment. Scotty & Uhura give us an idea what they've been up to. Was it relavent that we knew Uhura was chairing a seminar? Nope. Just a little background bit. If they took it out it wouldn't have changed the movie at all. However, it does show us that she's got a life away from the communications station on the Enterprise. You don't need to give us their whole service history each time you have a movie, just a line here or there that reminds us that these people aren't just stored in a closet between outings.
Well, yes, and that's what I've been telling you for days -- that both TWOK and TUC do give us indications that the crew has not been serving together consistently since the last movie. Obviously that's not a factor in III-V, because those all follow pretty directly on the preceding films, but in the films that do take place after a substantial gap -- including TMP, at least where the Big Three are concerned -- we are given indications that the crew has been apart and has only now been reassembled.
So really, I don't know what you're still complaining about. What you're asking for is already there.
So really, I don't know what you're still complaining about. What you're asking for is already there.
I totally agree that it's possible that the crew have been off doing things, it's just that TUC is the only one that gives us the slightest indication that they actually do. In TWOK Sulu expresses delight at going on board the Enterprise but we don't have any idea what else he's doing. For all we know the crew just hang around with Kirk, playing 3-D chess all day. Treating 2-4 as one movie, they all seem to just have the vast majority of the crew already available or have them show up shortly thereafter. This even carries on through the TNG films as well and even JJTrek. In that one Scotty just tags along with Kirk for no apparent reason. Why? Because it finishes off the crew. Chekov goes from being a first officer to navigator in TWOK and stays pretty much the same until TUC where he also seems to function as security chief. No indication that he's ever advanced again.
It would have been nice to see something a bit more out of the ordinary than "OK, we're all back together, let's tell the story". As I said earlier, TESB had Luke on his own for most of that movie. Break up the crew, have them work on different parts that somehow intersect. There was no reason that everyone HAD to be on the Enterprise other than "That's the way we've always done it".
It would have been nice to see something a bit more out of the ordinary than "OK, we're all back together, let's tell the story". As I said earlier, TESB had Luke on his own for most of that movie. Break up the crew, have them work on different parts that somehow intersect. There was no reason that everyone HAD to be on the Enterprise other than "That's the way we've always done it".
You don't count Kirk being an admiral, Spock resigning to undertake the Kolinahr, or McCoy retiring and needing to be drafted back in?
Well, that's a preposterous thing to say. Sulu is an officer in an military organization. He's not going to be allowed to sit around idly. It goes without saying that if he hasn't been serving on the Enterprise, he's been serving somewhere else. We don't need to know the specifics to know that. Like I said, you don't need to limit yourself to what was explicitly spelled out onscreen. You have an imagination, presumably. So you can extrapolate beyond what's shown to what's implied and what can be reasonably deduced.
Isn't that what novelizations are for? It give that 0.01% of the audience, who have a burning need to know exactly what trivial things the characters were doing offscreen between movies, the tantalizing backstories.
IIRC, all eleven ST movie novelizations have done exactly that. Kirk's ex-wife, Saavik's mentoring of Peter Preston, Chekov's friendship with Marla McGivers, Sulu's frustration when the promised Excelsior is given to a different captain, Amanda's reason for non attendance at the fal tor pan, Saavik's affair with David Marcus, Chapel's friendship with Carol Marcus, Valeris's upbringing, Kirk's other Nexus fantasies, etc.
IIRC, all eleven ST movie novelizations have done exactly that. Kirk's ex-wife, Saavik's mentoring of Peter Preston, Chekov's friendship with Marla McGivers, Sulu's frustration when the promised Excelsior is given to a different captain, Amanda's reason for non attendance at the fal tor pan, Saavik's affair with David Marcus, Chapel's friendship with Carol Marcus, Valeris's upbringing, Kirk's other Nexus fantasies, etc.
Of course it's preposterous, it wasn't meant to be serious.
It's just that we don't get an idea that the crew are actually doing anything on their own except for a couple of lines from Uhura and Scotty in TUC, and Scotty's line is more about what he's going to do, not what he's done. McCoy even says that he has been CMO on the Enterprise for 26 years, at least indicating that he hasn't been anywhere else.
I'm not saying that it's not possible that they've been doing anything else, just that there's no, or at the very least, slight circumstantial evidence to support the idea that they've served anywhere else.
It's just that we don't get an idea that the crew are actually doing anything on their own except for a couple of lines from Uhura and Scotty in TUC, and Scotty's line is more about what he's going to do, not what he's done. McCoy even says that he has been CMO on the Enterprise for 26 years, at least indicating that he hasn't been anywhere else.
I'm not saying that it's not possible that they've been doing anything else, just that there's no, or at the very least, slight circumstantial evidence to support the idea that they've served anywhere else.
^Yes, and you've said it like a dozen times by now, and I don't get why you're harping on it. Seriously, what else were you expecting? I've already covered this -- most moviegoers don't give a damn about what the crew was doing between the movies, so obviously the movies aren't going to focus on that and it doesn't make sense to expect them to. The only way you're going to get any satisfaction on that front, as I've told you like a dozen times by now, is by either reading the tie-in literature or letting your own imagination fill in the gaps.
But we do. McCoy's clothing and Spock's hair in TMP. Rand's and Chapel's promotions. Chekov's new position.
Sulu's grin at being back "for three weeks" in ST II. Chekov and Kyle being on Reliant.
Uhura's and Scotty's transfers during ST III.
Sulu and Chekov on a hike in ST V. Uhura and Scotty's flirting.
Sulu's daughter in "Generations".
I think one of the biggest problems for me with the 'conventional' thought that TMP takes place only a couple of years after TOS is that virtually nothing on screen supports it. None of the uniforms are the same. The technology all seems at least a decade better (not just in terms of real world special effects, but in terms of the actual in-universe tech). All the actors look a decade older, natch.
AFAIK, the only things which really support the idea that TMP took place two years after the end of TOS is the line where somebody says Kirk hasn't been in space for two years, and that the stardates are roughly two years after those seen in TOS (and the stardates from TAS are enough to bridge that gap anyway). Even the Okudas, who were the first ones to suggest the closeness in time between TOS and TMP, prefaced it by admitting they were only conjecturing the point, suggesting ultimately that, in truth, the interpretation is largely subjective anyway.
AFAIK, the only things which really support the idea that TMP took place two years after the end of TOS is the line where somebody says Kirk hasn't been in space for two years, and that the stardates are roughly two years after those seen in TOS (and the stardates from TAS are enough to bridge that gap anyway). Even the Okudas, who were the first ones to suggest the closeness in time between TOS and TMP, prefaced it by admitting they were only conjecturing the point, suggesting ultimately that, in truth, the interpretation is largely subjective anyway.
I don't think dating by uniform is a good concept.
We had examples in TOS of people wearing older style uniforms.
We've already seen two uniforms in use at once with TNG/DS9. Heck TNG had the senior officers in different uniforms than the rest of the crew in season 3. So, obviously, there isn't always a universal switch over date even amongst the same crew. Not to mention what was going on in Generations.
Voyager ran with the DS9 type uniforms and Starfleet was still rocking the TNG type uniforms on Earth. Sisko even had to change into the TNG type uniform (and this was after the Generations switch over in process)
Heck DS9 showed Commander Nog rocking the TNG uniform, in an alternate future, in The Visitor. I am sure there are even examples of the TNG or DS9/Voyager uniform after the switch over to the FC uniforms in the background somewhere.
So saying the Bozeman prevents TMP from happening on or after 2278 is simply not true with on screen evidence.
We had examples in TOS of people wearing older style uniforms.
We've already seen two uniforms in use at once with TNG/DS9. Heck TNG had the senior officers in different uniforms than the rest of the crew in season 3. So, obviously, there isn't always a universal switch over date even amongst the same crew. Not to mention what was going on in Generations.
Voyager ran with the DS9 type uniforms and Starfleet was still rocking the TNG type uniforms on Earth. Sisko even had to change into the TNG type uniform (and this was after the Generations switch over in process)
Heck DS9 showed Commander Nog rocking the TNG uniform, in an alternate future, in The Visitor. I am sure there are even examples of the TNG or DS9/Voyager uniform after the switch over to the FC uniforms in the background somewhere.
So saying the Bozeman prevents TMP from happening on or after 2278 is simply not true with on screen evidence.
The ship was completing a three year mission, Sulu wouldn't have had to of been it's captain the entire time, he could have replace another captain at some point as part of a standard rotation.
Except for Sulu's opening line right at the beginning of ST:VI
"Stardate 9521.6, Captain's log, U.S.S. Excelsior. Hikaru Sulu commanding. After three years I've concluded my first assignment as master of this vessel, cataloguing gaseous planetary anomalies in the Beta Quadrant."
I think it's pretty clear that Sulu was the Excelsior's Captain for a 3 year mission.
In and of itself, perhaps not. But one doesn't just pick a single element in isolation and ignore every other factor. I just don't see any good reason to expect TMP to take place that late. It raises a ton of awkward questions about what the hell Kirk was doing in the interim if he wasn't commanding the Enterprise, who else would've been commanding the ship in that interim (or else why it was allowed to lay fallow for years before the refit began), why the supporting cast had only advanced one step in rank in all those years, etc. To justify setting TMP so late, you'd have to explain all those things at once, not just the uniform issue. And I don't see why that's desirable or needed.
Setting the movie three years after the 5YM -- which we know is what Roddenberry intended, since it's explicitly stated in the novelization -- doesn't raise anywhere near as many awkward questions or require anywhere near as many justifications. So the technology's more advanced-looking? That doesn't prove anything, since it's largely due to a difference in the advancement and budget of the respective productions. If TOS had had the budget and resources that TMP had, its technology would've looked more advanced too. In-universe, it can be explained by the fact that the Enterprise was five years out of date by the time it got back to port. The actors look older? That doesn't prove anything. The actors were seven years older in ST V than they were in ST II, even though that entire series of four films spanned less than a year of story time. And several characters in the flashbacks in "All Good Things" -- even Data -- looked visibly older than they had in "Encounter at Farpoint," even though it was supposed to be the same span of time. You can't take actors' appearance too literally sometimes. After all, they are playing roles, and sometimes that involves pretending to be younger or older than they are.
So I just don't see any good in-universe reason why TMP shouldn't take place in 2273.
What was Picard doing between the Stargazer and Enterprise D?
I don't think the rank argument is very good either. I believe someone already used the Chapel going from Nurse to a DOCTOR. But lets look at rank. Data never advanced beyond Lt. Commander in the 15, or whatever years, of his service on the Enterprise D. Once you hit Lt. Commander you're kind of stuck unless you go somewhere else. La Forge also got stuck at that rank.
The only officer, who had room to advance, was Chekov and he advanced two grades. And, if TAS is taken as canon, part of that may have been due to his transfer off the Enterprise.
TOS-TMP Chekov advances two grades to Lt.
TOS-TMP Uhuru advances to Lt. Commander
TOS-TMP Sulu advances to Lt. Commander
TOS-TMP Scott is a commander.
Where else can they possibly go once they hit the Lt.Commander/? It's the Data problem. Especially if you refuse to go to a different ship. The only one who hit commander, who didn't go somewhere else, was Scott. And he probably only got Commander because he was refitting the Enterprise.
The other three hit commander in TWOK and it was because they all went somewhere else. Uhuru and Sulu are teaching at the Academy and Chekov is on a completely different ship.
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