"She'll launch on time, sir - and she'll be ready."

This is how Scotty concludes the conversation just before he leisurely pilots the travel pod around the Enterprise, by way of delivering Kirk to the ship. A minute previously he'd protested, "She needs more work, sir - a shakedown," etc. His tune changes as soon as he learns that Kirk and not Decker will be in command. In part because of the affirmative music behind the end of the conversation, the moment plays as if we are to believe he's not only sincere but certain that all will be well - which, of course, is far from the truth (transporter accident, engine imbalance, etc.).

So is Scotty bullshitting Kirk (telling him what he wants to hear without necessarily believing it), or are the scriptwriters bullshitting the audience? Or both?

 

Why not neither? Scotty may have believed he could do it but originally multiplied his estimates by a factor of four. And the transporter accident wasn't his fault; it was whoever started beaming without checking first.

 

I think you missed the point of that exchange. Scotty wasn't bullshitting Kirk; he was making a promise to his captain--who'd earned his trust during the five-plus years that they'd served together--that he wouldn't let him down. The engine imbalance and transporter accident weren't Scotty's fault; if anything, those mishaps were on Kirk.

--Sran

 

Regardless of whether he's personally responsible for the transporter accident, etc., Scotty in this statement is promising more than he knows he can deliver, immediately after expressing at some length his uncertainty about the ship & crew - all because it's going to be Kirk in command. I can't interpret this as anything other than him telling the captain what he himself doesn't believe about the ship being ready.

This is quite the opposite of Scotty from the series and the succeeding movies. When Scotty stretches the truth it's generally in the other direction - he says something will take longer to correct than it actually does. Here, by contrast, he says the ship will be OK to launch within hours, just after he's given a variety of reasons not to be confident.

(Nice to see the Paul Winfield photo - this past Sunday on broadcast TV I happened to see him as the judge in Presumed Innocent as well as the main guest star in an episode of Ironside from 20 years earlier.)

 

^Scotty may have bitten off more than he could chew, but I think his reaction was meant to express how he felt--and how most fans felt--knowing that the Enterprise had her captain back. I've long felt that the entire sequence in which Kirk returns to the Enterprise is as much for the fans as it is for Kirk or for the advancement of the film's plot, and don't blame Scotty for allowing sentiment to cloud his better judgement; besides, as soon as Kirk started demanding the impossible of him via the comm, Scotty quickly reverted to his TOS ways.

--Sran

 

The thing is, I would have been happy with a TMP in which Kirk was already commanding the ship at the outset. Kirk at this point in TMP has met offscreen with Nogura, as mentioned in the scene with Scotty and in the pre-meeting scene with Sonak. To Scotty, Kirk's ability to get Nogura to acquiesce is worthy of huge respect in and of itself - the dialogue makes this clear. But the audience's ability to buy into this is impeded because Nogura is never seen, so the result is rather awkward.

TWoK offered much more story justification for Kirk's transition from desk job to captain's chair (e.g., McCoy's "Get back your command before you really do grow old," etc.) whereas in TMP the main effect is to displace Decker, and then (after he gets a few chances to admonish Kirk) that aspect of Decker's character is shoved into the background for the last half of the movie, unless one thinks that his decision at the end is a reaction to his having been demoted.

 

I think the Scotty promise is one of the few nice character moments in the film, understated yes, but it demonstrated the friendship and respect he had for his captain. Plus it's immediately followed by one of my favourite scenes. Ever.

 

And she did launch on time, and was ready...mostly.

 

It's a typical soldier's reaction, too, at least in Hollywood terms. "The mission is too unlikely to succeed, and we will all die, so I'll point out the problems, even though I know the mission needs to be accomplished - let somebody capable do it instead." -> "The mission now has better odds of success, and there's the slim chance some of us won't die, but that's sort of incidental as I'll accept the challenge simply because it's my profession to die for a good cause. At least now I don't have to die for nothing!"

Scotty dragging his feet was a responsible thing to do. But Scotty throwing caution to the winds was a responsible thing to do, too. The choice between the two makes no practical difference: the status of ship won't depend on Scotty's mood swings. But since they are sailing out anyway, it's sort of nice to choose reckless responsibility over cautious responsibility, as that's what's gonna be needed in the near future.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Yes, but Scotty isn't in character during this moment. The Scotty we knew heretofore would only be dishonest in a harmless direction - i.e., saying that a problem was more difficult than it actually was, hence seeming to be a miracle worker. But beyond this harmless trait, he has never been anything other than honest and straightforward with his captain on a matter of engineering.

Which is what he had been in this scene, until the Nogura business from the Sonak scene came up again. Kirk's overpowering of the unseen Nogura is made to seem at least as important as its consequence (i.e., Kirk is now captain): "They gave her back to me, Monty!"/"Bullshit, Jim, you threw Nogura a knockout punch and that's why you're here. My hero, visually accounted for. Sir!"

Of course, Doohan was a professional and gave his "She'll launch on time" a nice layer of sincerity, and sold the moment, to be sure. What else was he going to do? But it's not a good line for Mister Scott to have said.

 

And Kirk probably didn't take the "And she'll be ready" comment at face value, figuring that if Scotty had previously told him she needs more work, a shakedown, that there would be hitches along the way. But nothing insurmountable and they had to get this show on the road and whatever problems developed enroute, they felt like they could handle it; Scotty because he was with serving under the veteran Kirk instead of the untested Decker, Kirk because, well, shit, he's KIRK, and everyone not wearing red breathed a sigh of relief.

 

The "more work, a shakedown" would be for practical operations and standard procedure. Scotty isn't sure about the ship yet, the crew ablility to handle the new systems, and cetainly not sure about Captain Decker. However, with Kirk coming on as Captain, Scotty is assured he'll have a competent commander, and that the crew will respond with enthusiasm to him, where they might not to Decker. Scotty is willing to send her out without the safety margin as shakedown cruise would provide because he knows that the ship should work. Any problem can be fixed while in motion, just like how he use to do it.

That the engines were imbalanced was not expected. Mr Scott would probably be able to fix it on his own, or with Decker's help, but Mr Spock's timely arrival likely sped up the repair time by a hour at least.

 

Monty?

 

^ One of the things I always hated, and it holds true all throughout TOS as well as the TOS movies, is Spock having to help Scotty in order to get things working. Scotty is supposed to be the "miracle worker," but he's really not. From the proper formula for a cold engine start to cross circuiting to B to re-balancing the warp engines to figuring out how to recrystalize dilithium... when there's a problem, Scotty will say it can't be fixed, and then Spock will figure out the way to fix it.

 

Surely as a responsible engineer Scotty is right to point out all the potential problems that might occur due to the launch being moved forward it's likely she was still months away from being ready. And there is no real evidence apart from the odd line in TSFS and TNG that Scotty serioulsy padded his repair estimates and each time it came up the tone was humourous. Besides any decent engineer will allow some time for unforseen occurances.

 

"Aw laddy. Ya did'nah tell him how long it would really take, did yer?!?"

I prefer that Scotty line myself.

 

FWIW, I'm a an engineer myself. A locomotive engineer. The radio on the locomotive is right next to me. When my guys are doing some switching on the ground and the dispatcher or corridor manager calls to ask how long something's going to take, I have learned from Trek to multiply the estimate the conductor gives me by a factor of 4. If they balk at that, we tell 'em we'll try to get it done as fast as we can, but quit bugging us for status updates while we work. Then we generally get it done in 1/4th the time we initially said, giving ourselves a healthy margin for the unexpected, and even if it takes twice as long as we originally thought, we still got it done in half the estimated time we told management. And hence we look like miracle workers.

 

Than why is the Coast Starlight "Always Late" as scheduled?

 

Are you saying that you or anyone else reacts in the exact same way to everything, every time? It would make Scotty a little one dimensional if he continued complaining in the usual way that he couldn't get the ship ready. Just for once he played it sincere with his old friend, you can see that with the way he grabs Kirks arm to reassure him.

Moaning all the way to drydock would have spoilt the moment too.

 

Perhaps, but even later in the film when Kirk calls for Warp Drive, Scotty was saying they still needed to further simulations on the flow sensors or to put it another way we need to do further tests first.