Could, "is 20 years old" been referring to the Re-Fit Enterprise? Does the differences in stardates between TMP and TSFS imply more time has passed between them then we've actually seen adventures for?
CPT APRIL anyone?
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No, it's really just one more example of the fact that "canon" is not consistent and never has been.
That's sort of how I looked at it, though not exactly the same.
Stardates are, of course, entirely nonsensical (and were never intended to be otherwise). So I'd ignore that part.
But what if Morrow had, instead, said "The technology on the Enterprise is twenty years old, and we've got the next generation of technology ready to be introduced now, so we're retiring the Enterprise and will build a new Enterprise with the new technology?" That would fit, not only with the whole "Excelsior program" element in that same movie, but also with everything else we've seen.
Maybe the Enterprise was refit ten years previously, but the technologies used in the refit had been developed and given limited implementation before that.
There's also the fact that people tend to round things off... so "twenty years old" may have meant "closer to twenty than to ten"... say, 17 years. It's a form of verbal shorthand that people use all the time. I may be eighteen years, six months, four days, nine hours, twenty seven minutes, and sixteen seconds older than someone else is, but I'll usually say that I'm "about twenty years older" to save time.
Or maybe Morrow was just what a couple of other "stealth insulters" in called me a few posts back (without any punitive action, of course). Maybe he was a horse's ass... and was just speaking from the position of ignorance.
That's actually the best argument. Morrow was wrong, just like the scriptwriters were wrong... due to not having cared enough to try to get it right.
They knew at the time that the line was incorrect, but felt that having Morrow give a more accurate age would be a bit too much "inside baseball" for the average movie goer, so they went with a number that better reflected the age of the series, and got the expected blowback from the fans.
Anyway, as demonstrated above, even a gross verbal miscue like that can be dealt with within continuity, even if it winds up with "Morrow was wrong".
Dealing with someone misspeaking is a lot different than something as jarring as that frelled up bridge.
Anyway, as demonstrated above, even a gross verbal miscue like that can be dealt with within continuity, even if it winds up with "Morrow was wrong".
Dealing with someone misspeaking is a lot different than something as jarring as that frelled up bridge.
I don't want this to sound like I'm being a smart-ass (because I'm not)...
...but the way to deal with the bridge is to accept the fact that this film will be a visual re-styling of Star Trek (even if you don't agree with that particular direction that Abrams took). The differences in the look of the film cannot be reconciled in-universe, because they are not meant to be.
With this mindset, you can accept the changes to the visuals, even if you don't personally agree with the concept of changing the visuals.
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We see the Enterprise being built, presumably it will have a captain when launched and somewhere in Trek lore there is a fella named April in command of the Enterprise early on. April and Archer have the same number of letters in them. This may have been deliberate when ENT was conceived, but obfuscated so as to not explain too many things without the benefit of an episode.
Possibly Bakula gets in there as Archer (April) druing the Enterprise's break-in period. Of course there is no mention of Bakula having signed on to this movie. At what lengths will Abrahams secure secrecy? Its possible Bakula has agreed to act under an alias or uncredited, so that knowlegde of his presence does not reveal too many plot points.
It would not be the first time a Trek uses cameos to establish continuity.
Wait, what?
I ran out of fingers.
So just run with the notion that April and Archer were meant to be similar on purpose.
It's "canon" already that Archer was alive, but extremely old, at the time that the Enterprise was given her dedication ceremony, and that he died right afterwards (well, maybe a few weeks later).
I ran out of fingers.
That was in a bit on-screen (though impossible to read unless you had hi-def and a quick thumb on the pause button) in the "Mirror-universe" episode, where "mirror-Archer" is reading the life story of his "Trek-universe" equivalent.
I still don't believe that the shots in the trailer will ever be seen on-screen in the movie itself. This was a PR BIT, and it was extremely effective in that regard, but I can't imagine any reason that these shots would ever be in the movie itself. Seriously... except for us "trek geek" types, do you honestly think that there's anything you'd get from that scene that wouldn't leave "general audiences" snoring... just like the Enterprise unveiling in TMP?
Your point about PR is right on. The message being "we're working on it, you'll see it when its done."
Having said that, there was a heck of a lot of detail or potential detail in the teaser that has been absent in the past. I think in the movie all they did was turn a few lights on and us geeks gasped at the -A. But this teaser made me feel like I was on a tour of Electric Boat. It seemed realistic, like we could start building an E tomorrow.
Having said that, there was a heck of a lot of detail or potential detail in the teaser that has been absent in the past. I think in the movie all they did was turn a few lights on and us geeks gasped at the -A. But this teaser made me feel like I was on a tour of Electric Boat. It seemed realistic, like we could start building an E tomorrow.
Close to 15 since the re-fit
Not at all. First off, in TMP, it wasn't the -A at all. It was just the "refit 1701." The -A came along much later, first seen at the end of ST-IV.
The "turning the lights on" bit was what was done (using reused footage from TMP) for TWOK and it was pretty much the right amount of detail.
But in TMP, there was a long, loving, drawn-out sequence during which Scotty took Admiral Kirk on an external inspection tour. I believe it was almost five minutes long, all together, from the moment that the "Travel pod" left the office complex to the moment it docked at the portside cargo bay docking port on the Enterprise. And while we Trek-geeks were loving that, the "general audiences" were snoozing.
Of course, later in the film they did the "V'Ger flyby" which consisted of an equally long "trip through the cloud" which was more reminiscent of a Pink-Floyd "laser show" at the planetarium than of anything worth watching, then another long "flyover" shot of a model that, more than anything else, just looked like a lot of model kit parts randomly glued together with lots of blue lighting (I specifically remember seeing part of an MPC Cylon Basestar in the V'Ger model).
TMP really padded some of the sequences. They'd have been better off had they deleted most of that and replaced it with CHARACTERIZATION. Which, in the revised versions (of which there have been several) they've tried to do somewhat.
TMP wasn't a terrible movie, but these sequences really dragged it down. And while I LOVED seeing the refit E in all that detail, nobody else in the theater gave a damn, and the audience starting making fun of it about halfway through.
Which was the point of the trailer. The trailer was designed, as some of us hoped it would be, to get the audience excited about watching "whatever this is" before ever springing it on them that "oh, and by the way, this is Star Trek" at the end.
It did its job very well. But that doesn't mean that what it showed us is in the movie, and doesn't necessarily mean that what it showed us will even resemble what's eventually on-screen.
In fact, I've suggested that what we saw might've been a redress of the OTHER Federation ship we're going to see... and it's pretty clear to me that at least the nacelle "hoodie" is the same on both of these, and that the primary hull is very similar in many ways. I'm not convinced yet that they even had the Enterprise model ready at that point, and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if what they showed us isn't what we'll see come March. But even if it is... that doesn't mean that the trailer sequences will, or should, be in the final film, does it?
Regarding the age of the Enterprise, the simplest explanation for the discrepancy between what Morrow said and evidence the ship may have been closer to 30 years old is simple: He was wrong. If you accept that simple explanation, you can easily justify an older age than 20, no matter how you figure it. Nuff said! However, I don't think this minute detail will even be a factor in this film. BTW, in the synopsis for the film on IMDB, they do refer to Captain Pike as the first captain of the Enterprise. But then again, they also refer to the character Amanda Grayson (Spock's mother?) as a future Enterprise crew member, so go figure! -- RR
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This is what I have believed since the teaser debuted. How so many took it so literally, confuses me. Long-winded diatribes have blasted it as non-canon, innacurate, etc. I see it as a good marketing tool. The message being "we're working on it, you'll see it when its done." is still the best answer.
When "Starlog" did its script synopsis for their official ST III movie magazine, they used "40 years", which was from an early draft of the script. The number was changed to "20" in the filmed dialogue because Paramount wanted to remind people that ST itself was approaching its 20th anniversary.
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