I'm on this site when I'm at work, and - as I said - my work computer blocks the site. I thanked you for the summary, which you were under no obligation to provide. Terribly sorry to be a bother...
Dumbest Things in Star Trek the Motion Picture
- Thread starter urrutiap
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I'm on this site when I'm at work, and - as I said - my work computer blocks the site. I thanked you for the summary, which you were under no obligation to provide. Terribly sorry to be a bother...
Yes, I think most of these complaints are predicated on a lack of imagination and a literal interpretation of what we see on screen. People assumes that the characters are being absolutely truthful with each other unless we see something on screen to suggest that they are not. Some of them stretch our imaginations more than others, though.
The most obvious one is Chapel talking about Iliia once telling her she wore the headband when Ilia has just transferred to the ship only a day earlier. As a Deltan, Iliia may well have reported to sick bay before the bridge - Uhura just says she is 'already on board'. Alternatively, Chapel is just lying, using a similar psychological strategy as she used in Obsession in tandem with McCoy and Decker.
So, Kirk demands to know why the transporters 'aren't working'. Scotty is really nonchalant, saying it's just a 'wee problem'. Just because Kirk has been told transporters aren't working for HIS transport (which preps the audience for the problem to come), doesn't mean they aren't being used at all. The station transporters could have still transported Kirk to the ship let's not forget. The real problem might be the opposite - that the transporters are working as flat out as they can, while repairs are underway, to bring on board vital equipment and supplies. Maybe Scotty doesn't want to waste an important, limited resource on an inspection.
Scotty has pre-arranged to meet Kirk OFF the ship. Maybe he wants an opportunity to bend Kirk's ear about the preparation schedule, maybe he thinks buttering up Kirk with a flyby will give him more of a chance to getting more concessions from him.
There have also been threads pointing out that the power surge wasn't necessarily directly related to the transporter repair but more of an indication that the ship, overall, still had issues with its power grid. A back-up sensor is a safety feature so if there was a problem, the back-up sensor might have kicked in to preserve the transportee's pattern. Compare this to the shuttle disasters where small safety feature failures led to a cascade of events resulting in tragedy. So using the transporter without the back-up was still unwise but orders are orders and Scotty has already pointed out that they are struggling to get ready.
It may also be that, while the transporters had not been in use, Sonak, aware of the problems, calculated that actual the risk was minimal and requested to be transported over.
I actually consider this understanding between reader/author, etc., a tenet of good story telling and generally reject any Timo-esque explanations that require turning on its ear what we are being told by the narrative.
sorry to ask but what does timo-esque mean? I’m not familiar with that Star Trek phrase so I tried urban dictionary but they didn’t have a definition. I’m guessing it’s convoluted or something similar. Again, sorry to be a bother but I’m sort of feeling like I’m ignorant and missing some key star trek reference.
Timo was a regular TBBS member around here I haven’t seen in a long time. He could be contrarian and would come up with some really out of left field rationalizations for things Trek. It could be amusing, but it also could be annoying as hell.
Gosh! What do you make of 2001? Blade Runner?
I agree only in part. I love a story where I have to assess the performance of the actor to give colour to their motivations. Any English Lit student will tell you that some of the greatest stories ever written encourage us to form our own opinions of character motivations.
In Is There Truth in No Beauty, while Kirk's argument with Miranda's is obviously using reverse psychology (a bit too obviously since she is a psychologist herself) but in his discussion with McCoy afterwards, he sounds like he believes that she is motivated by jealousy. Should I assume that his assessment is accurate because he says it out loud for the audience or should I assess Miranda's character based on my own observations? Is it bad writing that Kirk's assessment is clouded by his emotions? I don't think that spelling everything out for the audience necessarily makes for a better story.
Timo got himself perma-banned.
I sorta figured that, but I don’t know what got him booted.
Ah… I see. Thank you for explaining
I don't think it was any one big thing in particular, I think it was a bunch of smaller infractions that added up and then he went one over the limit and bye-bye...
Well, there's a difference between "lying" and "omitting unnecessary information." To pick an example outside of Star Trek, there was a sizable (or at least loud) group of people who thought hyperspace ramming should be impossible because we'd never heard of it being done or suggested as an option before. But in the movie as a dramatic structure, we don't need Admiral Holdo to stop and give us her prepared lecture from when she taught at Star War College on exactly why it's normally impractical, what factors made it a valid tactical choice under the circumstances, and so on.
Likewise, the point of the transporter accident, and the warp drive accident, aren't so we can watch Star Trek: Sully and go into exhaustive detail from all the angles to see how these things could happen and if anyone was at fault, the point is that they're rushing and having to cut corners, and thematically, that the ship (standing in for "Star Trek") doesn't work until Spock is back. Auditing those details is a funtime activity for tech manuals and visual dictionaries and message-board discussions, but unless they can be used to serve character, plot, or theme (like the phaser problem, which did get even more depth in the novel as Roddenberry has Kirk remembering very clearly that he thought he'd vetoed that design and didn't realize it had been built anyway), then they don't really belong in the movie (not to say that some number of them can't be addressed in a perfunctory manner, like how TVH off-handedly mentions several ships being disabled by the Whale Probe). I tend to think nitpicks like these are a symptom of more fundamental errors, as the audience tries to latch on to obvious things that are wrong (regardless of whether they are wrong) to account for their lack of enjoyment or immersion. At least, when they aren't being forced as part of the clickbait, CinemaSins "everything wrong with 'X'" genre.
His posts are all still here. His profile is inaccessible, but you should be able to find whatever you need with the board search feature or Google.
This is well put. Many complaints around a film start with the fundamental principle of not being engaged with the material.
One of the great examples of "Life imitating Art" due to how the movie itself was handled in the same way.
I don't think the Ilia Probe's costume was "dumb". Neither did Persis Khambatta.
The original plan was for the probe to wear the same blue/greyish one-piece uniform Ilia wore before she was V'Ger-ized. Persis didn't like it, said it made her look like a "boy". I think the skimpy white outfit was an elegant alternative, it seemed like the sort of thing a sensual Deltan woman could wear in her free time.
The original plan was for the probe to wear the same blue/greyish one-piece uniform Ilia wore before she was V'Ger-ized. Persis didn't like it, said it made her look like a "boy". I think the skimpy white outfit was an elegant alternative, it seemed like the sort of thing a sensual Deltan woman could wear in her free time.
I thought it transcended our physical plane of existence and became non-corporeal in another dimension, or something like that.
Kor
I clicked because of that. The alliteration alone is alluring.
#11 also proves the merit of the longer cuts, exploring Ilia's culture to a point where the audience can understand it, rather than the theatrical edition that has the one "oath of celibacy" and then pretends it never existed. May as well ask "Studio 54 had drugs?" Not to mention, having to read the novelization is legitimately far worse.
#s 10 and 9 also rock.
#8 is for a great plot point...
#7 points right back to 1979 Disco 54 culture...
#5 is especially on point.
#4 has not just the Trimbles, but also has 80% of "The Village People" in that group.
#2 is another good point, right on time...
For #1, maybe the Klingons didn't check beforehand.
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