WNMHGB Question

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Vger23, Jun 2, 2021.

  1. Swedish Borg

    Swedish Borg Commodore Captain

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    Or maybe he was referring to bones... who's often grouchy.

    Kirk: "Bones you're a real pain in the... but I need you!"
     
  2. Scott Kellogg

    Scott Kellogg Commander Red Shirt

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    Star Trek & Star Wars:
    Both Science Fantasy.

    You can't expect a show where every alien can interbreed,
    breathes Earth Type atmospheres in 1 Earth Gravity to be
    Hard SF and stand up to the science of 2021.
     
  3. Scott Kellogg

    Scott Kellogg Commander Red Shirt

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    One thing that's kind of interesting is Dr. Elizabeth Dehner:
    At first she's repulsed by Mitchell's comeons, but then when he starts exhibiting powers that fall into her attitudes that she wants to 'Improve the species' and 'produce a better kind of human being' she falls under his charms.

    Now is it really her desire to 'improve the human species' or is it the normal human reaction to be attracted to a powerful person that she succumbs to his charisma?
     
  4. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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    She may have been attracted to him in the first place, but was playing respectably hard to get.
     
  5. Swedish Borg

    Swedish Borg Commodore Captain

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    Well, it's the sixties misogynistic idea of what a woman is attracted to in a man. There's a constant in all the (successful) skirt chasers in the series and sitcoms of the sixties, seventies, and even the eighties... They're all cads. And there are innumerable scenes where women in these series admit both that they consider them to be ill-mannered but also that they are attracted to them.
     
  6. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Honestly - that paradigm still exists today. In general many women ARE attracted to men with a bad/selfish side - not all, but enough that the saying 'nice guys finish last' still holds.
     
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  7. TREK_GOD_1

    TREK_GOD_1 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    That's how I've always considered their early dialogue to be the product of, which happens in real life (from both directions) with a frequency that it cannot be adequately measured.
     
  8. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Dude, do you even Star Trek? :lol:
     
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  9. MAGolding

    MAGolding Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    You are writing things which are not entirely accurate, since you have not bothered to check how accurate they are.

    So Kirk knew Mitchell for 15 years. That does not have to mean that they were friends for all of the 15 years that KIrk knew Mitchell.

    Dehnr says that Mitchell and Kirk became friends when Mitchell "joined the service".

    So what does Mitchell say about when he entererd Stafleet Academy and so could be said to have "joined the service"?

    http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/2.htm

    Mitchell could be said to have "joined the service" when he graduated and was commissioned, or at the very earliest when he entered the Academy a few years earlier. And when Mitchell entered the Academy Lt.Kirk had apparently been teaching a class for at least one year.

    And it seems rather hard to imagine that Kirk was a teenage lieutenant 15 years before WNMHGB. Thus the most logical and most normal and typical outline of Kirk's career would be involve him becoming friends with Mitchell when Mitchel entered the Academy several years after they first met and became acquainted.

    Some people think that the Enterprise was Kirk's first command,andother people thinkthat Kirk commandeda smaller ship before commanding the Enterprise. The way that Dehenr mentioned kirk's "first Command" makes me think that it was not his present command, but an earlier vessel. By stating as a fact that the Enterprise was Kirk's first command you are making an assumption that has a fair chance of being incorrect..
     
  10. MAGolding

    MAGolding Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Possibly the alternate universe theory could explain why Kirks said in Star Trek II that he had never really faced death.

    It is my opinion that long lasting fiction series which are not serialized but are very episodic should be thought of ashaving happening in many different alternate universes.

    So each episode should happen in an alternate universe of its own, separate from the alternate universes of all other episodes. Except that if one episode is a sequel to another, the 2 episodes must happen in the same alternate universe.

    In the TNG era shows,the first episode of VOY, "The Caretaker", had scenes at DS9. So all episodes of VOY shouldhave been sequals to at least one eisode of DS(, the pilot episode "Emissary", and possibly more episodes.

    "Emissary", the pilot episode of DS9. was a sequel to the TNG episode "The Best of Both Worlds", and very probably also to "Encounter at Farpoint", the pilot episode of TNG. Thus all episodes of TNG, DS9, and VOY should have been sequels to at least "Encounter at Farpoint". Since TNG, DS9, and VOY had more story arcs than TOS, a higher percentage of their episodes should have been sequals to other episodes.

    If all episodes of TNG, DS9, and VOY were sequels to "Encounter at Farpoint", "Encounter at Farpoint" should have been a sequal to any TOS era episode or movie that any episode of TNG, DS9, and VOY was a sequel to.

    TNG "Unification" and VOY "Flashback" were sequeles to Star Trek VI:the undisocvered country. In Star Trek VI spock says he's been dead before, amking it a sequel to and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Chang's statement that Kirk was demoted from admiralto captain makes Star trek VI a sequel to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, whichh which was a sequel to Star Trek II and Star trek III.

    So "Encounter at Farpoint" and all episodes of TNG, DS9, and VOY, are sequels to Stsr Trek ii, Star Trek III, Star Trek IV, and Star Trek VI.

    Star Trek II is a sequel to "Space Seed",

    The DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" is a sequel to tthe TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" which is a sequel to "Errand of Mercy".

    The TNG episode "The Naked Now" is a sequel to the TOS episode 'The Naked Time".

    The TNG episode "Relics" is a sequel to the TOS episodes "Elaan of Troyius" and "Wolf in the Fold".

    So if one accepts the theory that TOS episodes mostly happen in alternate universes of their own, the only TOS episodes that I can think of at the moment that Stsr Trek II: The Wrath of Khan must be a sequel to are "Space Seed", "The Trouble With Tribbles", "Errand of Mercy",'The Naked Time", "Elaan of Troyius", and "Wolf in the Fold".

    And Kirk did not face the death of someone he was very close to in any of those 6 TOS episodes, so his statement in Star Trek II could thus be correct in any alternate universe where Star Trek II was not the sequel to any TOS episode where Kirk faced the death of someone he cared a lot about.
     
  11. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    What if episodes occurred in different but very similar alternate timelines? :p
     
  12. MAGolding

    MAGolding Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Of course the Enterprise could have the same mission in many different alternate universes, so there could be many different alternate universes where things happen the same way that an episode begins. But only a minority of situations that begin the same way as an episode does will have the same course of events and end the same way as the episode does.

    And of course the actual duration of events during an episode is less than 60 minutes, and sometimes involves cross cutting between similtaneous events, while several hours or days of fictional time usually pass during an episode. So the events shown on screen during an episode are usually a small percentage of the events which the protagonists experience during the episode.

    And of course an alternate universe can have events exactly the same as shown in an episode while having different offscreen events during the time span of the episode. Kirk - or any one of the hundreds of crewpersons - might choose a different meal offscreen in some alternate universe than he chose off screen in the alternate universe where the episode happens.

    Or maybe Zarly on the planet Huncron one hundred million light years away might accept Merdefy's proposal offscreen in some alternate universes and reject it offscreen in other alternate universes including the one where the epsode happpens, even though events of the Enterprise happen the same as in the episode.

    And some alternate universes could be different from the alternate universe of an episode because an alien insect on a planet a billion light years away, searching for food, decides to turn left instead of right, even though events on the Enterprise are otherwise exactly the same as in the episode.

    So there should be many alternate universes where events on the Enterprise happen exactly the same as in an episode, but where large or small events elswhere in the vast universe are different, thus making them different alternate universes.

    And they can be considered a subset of more numerous alternate universes where the onscreen events of an episode happen the same but offscreen events, on the Enterprise and elsewhere, are different.

    And they can be considered a subset of the universes where events on the Enterprise are somewhat different, to a lesser or greater degree, from the onscreen events in the episode, with perhaps a different ending.

    And they can be considered a subset of the universes where none of the onscreen events of the episode happen.

    And so on and so on, greater and greater numbers of alternate universes the more different they are from the events in an episode.

    In my post number 170 above I listed the TOS episodes and movies that "Encounter at Farpoint" and all the TNG era episodes and movies are known to be sequels to. But of course the TNG era productions don't have to be sequels to exactly the same events as in those TOS era productions. They might be sequels to events in alternate universes which were similar to but not identical to the events in those TOS era productions.

    And in fact we could wonder whether all the events onscreen in a TOS episode happen in the same alterante universe. Some episodes have scenes which seem to contradict in some ways other scenes in the same episode. In those cases the creators might have taken scenes from several slightly different alternate universes to make a less coherent episode with more interesting individual scenes.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2021
  13. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I once read an article in one of those "Best of Trek" collections which claimed exactly that.

    Really took "pedantic" to a whole new level...
     
  14. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer Mih ssim, mih ssim, nam, daed si Xim. Moderator

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  15. JonnyQuest037

    JonnyQuest037 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm fine with it, as Kirk obviously became even closer to Spock than he was with Gary Mitchell.

    And really, referencing Gary Mitchell or Edith Keeler during that moment in TWOK adds absolutely nothing. The movie needs Kirk to be utterly shattered by Spock's death at that point in the story. If Kirk mentions Gary, or Edith, or even his brother Sam for no other reason than to tick off some boxes for the hardcore fans, it distracts you from Kirk mourning Spock's death and makes the more casual viewers go, "...Huh? Who are Gary and Edith? When did they die? Did I miss something?"

    Because honestly, as awful as their deaths may have been for Kirk personally, for viewers, Gary Mitchell, Edith Keeler, and Sam Kirk were all just one-episode tragedies that were never referred to again onscreen. Spock was Spock. We'd been with Spock for 16 years by that point, the same as Jim Kirk. We knew and loved him just as much as Kirk did. Spock's death, and Kirk's reaction to it, was what was important.
     
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  16. fireproof78

    fireproof78 Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well put. As someone else stated if we had been with Mitchell for a Season and then this episode happened then the death could be described as similar. But, Kirk's response is largely that facing death in TWOK was different because the stakes were intensely, deeply personal, not just in the sacrifices made but even with Khan, who had harbored that bitterness for 20 years.
     
  17. Swedish Borg

    Swedish Borg Commodore Captain

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    Even with Spock's Katra in his head Bones still couldn't do the Vulcan Neck Pinch, then he couldn't even do the Vulcan salute. It's like everything Vulcan just rubs McCoy the wrong way.
     
  18. Hofner

    Hofner Commodore Commodore

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    Is there a chance that in one of these infinite number of Star Trek universes, Star Trek is just a long running franchise that consists of made up, make believe stories that has nothing to do with reality and will inevitably have many contradictions?

    *thinks about it*

    Nah

    Robert
     
  19. Swedish Borg

    Swedish Borg Commodore Captain

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    Or like in Asimov's "The End Of Eternity" the future people selected the one timeline where there are no other forms of life in the galaxy.
     
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  20. Hofner

    Hofner Commodore Commodore

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    When I first saw ST:V, when Kirk said he once lost a brother, I was surprised they would have him mentioning Sam after so long but then I realized he was talking about Spock.

    Robert