Enterprise arriving after the main battle over Vulcan

It was in good enough shape to destroy 47 Klingon battlecruisers and warp from the Neutral Zone to the Vulcan sector. This is why I reckon any damage to the warp drive must have occured during the attack on Vulcan, or in transit from Vulcan to Earth.

 

Ships do this in Star Trek all the time, most obviously in TUC, where Kirk drops out of warp a mere two minutes from orbit, unless we miss a section where Spock's count jumps up to a few hours, we can safely assume he had taken account of this bit of procedure.

Also, sorry to diss the maths here, but assuming impulse is sub-light it would take several hours to get, for example, from Pluto's orbit to the Earth even at 0.25c or so.

Also in TVH the BofP goes to warp inside Earth's atmosphere.

Basically, we can't read to much into incredulous Dax in that DS9 episode.

You what? Why not? There is no way this is outside the internal consistency of anything at all. For some reason ships in Trek like to stay close to each other, maybe they get lonely??

The latter is in a deleted scene, so you mileage may vary as to whether you take it seriously. Maybe the Narada can manufacture torpedoes, or had loads in the first place? The Ent-Da is much smaller and carried as standard 300 of the damn things.

Well thats the safest way isn't it?

 

I believe the Starfleet ships destroyed at Vulcan were in close proximity because it was probably easier for one ship to do the course calculations, then sync up the computers, meaning they start off in formation, then arrive in the same formation.

The Enterprise may have simply been travelling slightly slower for a short time before reaching maximum warp. Maiden Voyage, untested engines, etc.

It is likely that the Narada could see the Federation ships coming to vulcan, and could calculate where/when they would emerge from warp.

Since the ships had no clue about the Narada being there, or the threat it posed, they had no shields or defensive systems engaged, so they came out of warp as missiles slammed into vital areas, destroying the vessels before their sensors could even trigger an alarm.

The Enterprise came in with shields up, at red alert, ready for the attack, so they could survive the first volley after emerginf from the debris field.

That saved her.

 

The point is though, the Enterprise went to warp less than a minute after the rest of the fleet had. The other ships wouldn't have gotten all that far in so little time, so the Enterprise should have been able to catch up with them pretty quickly; that's how it's been portrayed in the past. So what made them emerge from warp later than the rest of the fleet and thus miss the big battle? Could we chalk it down to some weird side effect of the warp highway?

 

Speed of plot.

 

That doesn't exactly help resolve the problem. If you ask me, this kind of thing is a sign of lazy thinking.

 

Not really. More a sign of over thinking by people looking for something to moan about. Adding an extra line or two might make sense to us but to guys making/editing movies with runtime in mind and more important ways to use time might think differently

 

IMO, that does not excuse sloppiness. Believe it or not, I really do want to like this film, I think it has potential, but I cannot just let problems like this slide by, otherwise I simply can't take it seriously.

 

It is a question that is simply not important enough to ask or answer.

 

Its hardly "sloppy". Things have to be evaluated for time and relevence. If it's not germain to the plot or slows things down its not going to make the cut.

 

I'm sorry, but if rationalisations can't be found for the film's contradictions of elements of past Trek, then I cannot accept it as part of my personal continuity; I will have no choice but to chuck it in the same hole as most of the animated series, Threshold, and These Are The Voyages.

 

EJA, What elements contradict past Trek?

 

Realities of film making not rationalisation.

 

I'm not certain of that. If you are, can you share your thinking as to what rules a neutral observer would use to reach that conclusion?

 

How does answering this add to either Kirk and Spock's story, and how important is it for us to actually know?

 

Criticism seems highly relative, whereas actual disputes on what is portrayed strike me as a sort of secondary issue on which it seems there is only minor disagreement.

Especially where I criticize plot inconsistency and reliance on miracles, opponents most commonly claim that the defect is unimportant. While I usually agree that the majority of flaws I cite were not worth taking me "out" of the film, things I consider "big" did happen enough of the time to make me suspicious. For example, I exclaimed "What?!?" aloud when Spock ordered Kirk "Off this ship!" ...a massive overreaction which seemed stupid and dangerous that I would question if I were there since I would never (so I thought) do something like that. "Why is he doing it?" I wondered. The film gave no answer, then what seemed like seconds later, Kirk stumbles into Spock's cave. "How in the hell did he find ANY shelter in a blizzard, running blindly from a predator?" The film gave no answer... (repeat through the rest of film)

To me, suspending disbelief became a chore after a few times and I felt like I and the rest of the millions of audience members were being cheated and abused. I thought carefully about the film for some time after this let-down from my expectations, and after careful, rational consideration over the following days, I got seriously pissed off.

Yet, if the internal contradictions, bad science, military propaganda, use of miracles to advance the story, and nonsensical dialog don't activate any neurons which cause you to notice a "rule violation", criticism from those for whom this response was triggered seems like nit-picking, bias, or is otherwise invalid in a way that ends up being judged "not important", as you claim here.

To me, this seems like making the "argument from ignorance fallacy" that claims "because we don't know whether this criticism is justified, it is not." I'd like to test my perception by inviting enthusiastic fans to falsify my claim by showing that the standards I apply, which tell me the writing is horrible, should not be used by a competent reviewer.

That is why I asked for your rules of evaluation.

 

It never occurred to me during the film. It's that simple.

 

Is it a plothole? yes. But there is enough leeway for several possible explanations, so the time differential is not a big issue for me.

The full time period since leaving earth has not been portrayed on screen, as evidenced by McCoy's change of uniform, the on-screen brevity of Kirk's sedation, etc., and the possibility that the Enterprise may not have travelled at the same speed as the other ships, understandable for a maiden voyage where some tuning in Engineering may be necessary.

The thing is, I did not think of it during the movie, and neither did most audience members.

 

If these kinds of arguments run long enough the 'a wizard did it' or 'Q did it' type defences can always be raised or the new 'it's a new timeline and the (inconsistent) laws of Trek physics can be re-written to accomodate'. If the writers actually cared, these kind of errors and plot holes wouldn't be there and if the writers don't care there will always be a percentage of viewers who don't care or whose suspension of disbelief threshold is higher.

Most of the plot holes could have been covered with tighter dialogue i.e a few brief lines. Some should have been re-written e.g. using supernovas and black holes instead of made-up phenomena. I also think if Spock had beamed Kirk to the brig of the Starfleet outpost we could have saved ourselves 15 mnutes of pointless trekking through the snow just to fight a CGI monster, had Spock Prime free Kirk from the brig to overcome the ludicrous coincidence of stumbling into him in a cave and overlook why starfleet officers were ignoring a distress beacon from an escape pod.

 

"It never occurred to me during the film" doesn't seem like an especially useful criterion for assessing a film, nor is the time of one's realization of problems of primary importance.

I would say that if enthusiastic audience members spend 2 days after the film thinking carefully about it, trying to make reasonable sense of the plot, and end up feeling scammed in a movie with *hundreds* of stupid & lazy mistakes, I think we usually expect a competent reviewer to notice some significant percentage of them, don't we?

If I'm in the position of reviewing a position, paper, or any work in general and I learn that I'm missing info on something of interest, I tend to seek a diverse set of opinions and then focus on those that seem best supported so I can offer a well supported review, but I sense this approach is not shared that widely.