TUC Dialogue Question

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies I-X' started by Jetboogieman, Feb 18, 2019.

  1. Jetboogieman

    Jetboogieman Commander Red Shirt

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    I am well aware this might be an absolutely stupid as fuck question and perhaps the answer is way simpler than it seems, but I was watching TUC again and I recalled there was something I never quite understood and I realized, I better consult with my fellow Trekkies on this subject.

    There's a line of dialogue that's always puzzled me from TUC, just one thing that Kirk says that I feel doesn't fit and doesn't make sense and I've always wondered, what exactly am I missing here?



    That very last line, "You should have trusted me".

    What exactly does Kirk mean by that, that Spock should have trusted him enough to tell him beforehand that he was gonna volunteer Kirk for this assignment, or to have consulted with him about the entire idea of negotiating with the Klingon's, or trusted and agreed with him on his position on the subject during the meeting?

    I dunno, again I know this is probably a super weird and dumb question but ah... What else am I gonna do on a Monday evening?
     
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  2. Dukhat

    Dukhat Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, I think it was more that Kirk was pissed at Spock for volunteering him for the assignment without his knowledge. And it is a bit of an awkward line, or at least an awkward place in the dialogue to mention said line.
     
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  3. Kor

    Kor Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I think it means the conversation originally made sense but got chopped to pieces in the rewriting process.

    Kor
     
  4. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

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    Those two. Kirk is insulted that Spock committed him to something (because he knew Kirk's first instinct would be to disagree if he'd actually asked him) behind his back. Spock "personally vouching" for Kirk pretty clearly says he either checked with Kirk, or was absolutely confident in his agreement, neither of which were true. Honestly, I'm not sure if you interrogated him at that moment, that Kirk himself would know if he thought Spock should've trusted that Kirk would give him a fair hearing and not dismiss the idea of escorting Gorkon out of hand, or that Spock should've trusted that Kirk would know his own mind well enough that if he refused to take the mission it was for valid reasons and he shouldn't go. The violation of their trust exists no matter what Kirk would've decided if he'd been asked for permission and not forgiveness, because Spock was condescending Kirk by exploiting their relationship to commit him regardless of his own feelings.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2019
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  5. JonnyQuest037

    JonnyQuest037 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    This. Kirk went into that briefing having no idea why his crew was summoned there, and then in the space of about five minutes, he learned:

    1) All about the Klingon Empire's troubles,
    2) That his first officer had opened a dialogue with the Klingon Chancellor (two months previously, IIRC), and
    3) Volunteered his ship for a rendezvous with the Klingons without his knowledge or consent.

    Kirk had a right to be pissed at Spock. Those are pretty big things not to tell your CO.
     
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  6. FormerLurker

    FormerLurker Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    SPOCK: Good morning. Two months ago a Federation starship monitored an explosion on the Klingon moon Praxis. We believe it was caused by over-mining and insufficient safety precautions. The moon's decimation means a deadly pollution of their ozone. They will have depleted their supply of oxygen in approximately fifty Earth years.
    ATTENDEE: (aside) That's not in any of the data I saw.
    SPOCK: Due to their enormous military budget, the Klingon economy does not have the resources with which to combat this catastrophe. Last month, at the behest of the Vulcan Ambassador I opened a dialogue with Gorkon, Chancellor of the Klingon High Council. He proposes to commence negotiations at once.

    As seen in the script, Praxis exploded two months prior, and Spock contacted Gorkon a month later. This doesn't change your observation about it, but the timeline is a little different in the film.
     
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  7. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I know everyone loves TUC, and it is a fine movie with lots of great moments, but there is so much (too much) that feels quickly hacked together and doesn't make any sense.

    This line is definitely among them.
     
  8. Sareesataka

    Sareesataka Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I agree. There have been a few elements and lines of dialog in TUC that have never made sense to me but it is still a good movie despite its flaws.
     
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  9. JonnyQuest037

    JonnyQuest037 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Thanks. I was fuzzy on the timeline, but I really didn't want to go over to the ST Transcripts site just to check that admittedly minor detail. At least I qualified it with "IIRC." :)
    There are a few things that don't hang together as well as they should, but I still think it's a very impressive effort considering the time and money they had to put it all together.
     
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  10. Vger23

    Vger23 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    100% agreed
     
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  11. MAGolding

    MAGolding Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    hummm

    If "two months ago" is between 45 and 75 Earth days ago, and if the date of the meeting is between the first and the last day of an Earth month, and if "Last month" thus could have been anything from yesterday to 62 days ago, there is about a 25 percent probability that "Last month" was the same time as "two months ago".

    Furthermore, it is possible that Spock meant Vulcan or other types of months instead of of Earth months when he said "two months ago" and "Last Month".

    The shock wave from the explosion of Praxis reaches the Excelsior at about stardate 9521.6. The conference at Starfleet HQ is said to be 2 months later.

    As we remember, after this conference Kirk and the Enterprise met Gorkon's ship about stardate 9522.6 after a short voyage, Gorkon was assassinated, Kirk and McCoy were arrested by Chang, and they were taken to Kronos for trial.

    In the Voyager episode "Flashback" Tuvok and Janeway relive one of Tuvok's experience about the Excelsior at the time of TUC.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2019
  12. Discofan

    Discofan Admiral Admiral

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    Pretty much like Ilia's remark on TMP: "My Oath of celibacy is on record." I mean in real life she would be calling Kirk a perv. in an ST script, however, it can mean anything, including that a piece of dialogue has been removed from the final cut.
     
  13. Firebird

    Firebird Commodore Commodore

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    Here's the exchange from the 12/13/1990 fourth draft, which remained unchanged in the subsequent fifth draft that became the shooting script:

    Doesn't look like it makes any more sense in past drafts, either.
     
  14. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

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    I don't see what's so hard to parse about this. I know I've had several arguments where after I burn through everything I can throw at the person, I return to my thesis, what really hurt me, at the end, because it's what I'm stuck on.

    The body of Kirk's rant is rationalizations for how he feels, all the "good" reasons why the peace process in general and involving him specifically is a bad idea, and when he's exhausted that (remember, rationalize = rational + lies), all he's left with is where he started, what's really pissed him off; Spock disrespected him and betrayed his trust by using their friendship and professional connection to force Kirk to do something he'd not only never agree to, but was repulsed by, and told everyone it was Kirk's idea.
     
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  15. Marsden

    Marsden Commodore Commodore

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    That actually made more sense, to me, at least.

    I agree it was a good movie, but this really doesn't make logical sense to me.

    Ok, they didn't observe a sufficient safety factor in their mining operation, it's caused a problem with their homeworld's atmosphere.

    Problem 1, do the Klingons only have one world? I thought this was an Empire.
    Problem 2, their atmosphere? what about tidal disruptions and earthquakes?
    Problem 3, what does the size of their military budget have to do with anything? Or are these the same people that wrote this that think militaries are only good for shooting things and not transporting people in all of those ships, each with food stores and medical equipment, no matter how rudimentary it is on Klingon vessels.

    I guess it's down to that old adage, "Don't let facts get in the way of a good story" If a team of Federation scientists traveled to Chronus and after testing and study found a way to reverse or at least halt the damage, it wouldn't have made a good movie.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2019
  16. ParkerGlyn

    ParkerGlyn Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    I don't think Spock did anything wrong but he needed to be wrong about something so that Kirk could be upset with him. So they probably just threw that accusation in there that Spock did not trust him about something.
     
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  17. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

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    Rome was only one city. The heart is only one organ. If the plurality of the Klingon population is located on Qo'noS, losing the planet is pretty bad. Never mind that, as the capital, it'll have the most important Klingons, and vital infrastructure, and the sentimental value, especially to a civilization that values, if not obsesses over, history as much as the Klingons do.

    So, yeah, pack up and move. It's a planet, not a cruise ship. Moving billions of people, and rebuilding infrastructure, trade and supply lines, industrial capacity, and so on, is not an inconsiderable feat. We'll come back to this in a moment.

    What about them? The immediate devastation wrought by Praxis exploding was no doubt severe, but it was also instantaneous. Rebuilding after that and recalculating the tide-tables for the Klingon fishermen (it's the hunting of the seas!) is straightforward. Klingons are probably great at rebuilding stuff, considering how much their society values combat and war.

    The fact that the atmosphere is in a cascading failure that will render it unbreathable within a lifetime is the more critical problem going forward. Not going to fix that with some old-fashioned Klingon stonemasonry.

    It's a drain on resources. Guns or butter. Every Bird of Prey launched, every disruptor pistol built, every bat'leth forged signifies a theft from those who... breathe and... don't have oxygen due to massive ecological collapse caused by total ozone layer depletion. Ike said it better.

    Those Klingon ships aren't just floating around for show, so they can do an exciting flyover for the Day of Honor parade, waiting to be converted into arks. They're being used to seek out new worlds and resources to conquer, conquer those worlds, and patrol the Empire's borders against their greedy, imperialist, expansionist neighbors, the Romulans and the Federation. And they need to! That's the system, that's how life works in the Empire. The Klingons aren't equipped for sustainable production within their borders, because consuming to excess and then stealing more, expanding ever outward, is their model, so they can't recall those ships indefinately. They can't reduce their border patrols, because years, if not centuries, of arms races with their neighbors have meant a truly prodigious amount of military might on all sides has to go into ensuring there isn't a war, so if they draw down unilaterally, the Romulans will just sneak in and start cutting off loose bits of territory by bribing local governors and quietly taking sides in internal conflicts, which are about to become a lot more common, and the Federation will start glad-handing and bribing worlds in the Neutral Zone without any Klingons around to keep them on their toes, and the Organians will just start shoveling planets at them since they're being more effectively developed by default.

    Then there's the human (well, Klingon) factor. The Empire no longer needs soldiers. Their enemy is not holding a phaser or flying a starship, it's their own sun bleaching their forests and oceans dead. Soldiers can't fight that enemy. They need construction workers to raise new cities off the homeworld, farmers to create new supplies of crops and livestock, doctors to keep the people still on Qo'noS alive, scientists to figure out if its possible to reverse the damage, and engineers to put whatever they figure out into practice, but unfortunately, the Empire's best and brightest have been funneled into being phaser fodder for hundreds of years. They don't have the human (Klingon) capital they need to combat the disaster, and they don't have the time to develop it, even if they could find the inclination to abandon their entire way of life (which, I've heard, is a big ask, even in the face of total environmental catastrophe).

    It's not a matter of just taking a dozen people off of the homeworld at a time on each of their Birds of Prey and dropping them on some other planet with a ration pack and a hearty "Qapla'" to get them started on rebuilding civilization.

    Now, if only there was a solution, some way to reduce the Empire's need for the military albatross around its neck, to get a leg up on a massive economic and humanitarian mobilization, and to receive the benefit of the most insanely, improbably effective scientific apparatus in galactic history. Oh, wait, there is; the Federation. All they need to swallow their pride, check their preconceptions and prejudices and fears that Federation diplomacy is just their own imperialist expansionism with less honest branding, and make a deal; end the arms race. Promise to stop posturing their fleet on the Federation frontier, if the Federation will demobilize their own fleet from the Klingon border, so they can have all the fun of military deterrence without the ever-inflating scale of it. Then, once that works, you can draw on the Federation's commerce and industrial capabilities to help relocate the population of the homeworld (or, as apparently happened, repair enough damage for Qo'noS to remain habitable well into the next century, at least) beyond what even a no-longer-distracted Klingon Empire could achieve on its own.
     
  18. Marsden

    Marsden Commodore Commodore

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    Marsden is very sad.
    Thank you for your very lengthy answer, and going by it I now agree with the conspiracy. Such a weak Empire deserves to be toppled.
     
  19. David cgc

    David cgc Admiral Premium Member

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    Uh, the conspiracy was to precipitate a full-scale war between the Federation and the Klingons, which both sides were confident they would win, as opposed to a new peace where both were sure they'd be corrupted by the influx of alien peoples and ideas. In a very real sense, the Khitomer Accords were the toppling of the Klingon Empire, which was doomed either way because empires don't work. Remember "Mirror, Mirror"?

    "How long before the Halkan prediction of galactic revolt is realized?"
    "Approximately two hundred and forty years."
    "The inevitable outcome?"
    "The Empire shall be overthrown, of course."
    "The illogic of waste, Mister Spock. The waste of lives, potential, resources, time. I submit to you that your Empire is illogical because it cannot endure. I submit that you are illogical to be a willing part of it."

    Also, the movie was ripped from the headlines. TUC was directly inspired by the end of the Soviet Union. The massive industrial disaster. The overspending on military forces leaving the country unable to keep its own society healthy. The events of the movie itself are analogous to the August Coup (though the movie was written before the coup attempt) which attempted to end détente and keep the Cold War going. Do you think I just made up an essay on why the Klingon Empire was unsustainable off the top of my head? So I'm a little taken aback by the subtext I infer in your reply, "The Soviet Union was stupid, and we should've had World War III instead of ending the Cold War, because they all deserved to die even if they took the rest of us with them."
     
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  20. JonnyQuest037

    JonnyQuest037 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Oh for crying out loud, don't make it this complicated. "Two months ago" means approximately 60 days ago, and "one month ago" means approximately 30 days ago. That's the way that people mean it 99% of the time when they speak, and I guarantee you that Meyer and Flynn weren't thinking of Vulcan months when they scripted those lines.
    I wouldn't look to that VOY episode to establish much of anything about TUC. They forgot all references to months having elapsed since the Praxis explosion, and treated it as if the entire movie unfolded in a matter of days. And they apparently didn't notice or didn't care that Valtine was alive at the end of the movie.
     
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