Enterprise battle damage differences between ST II and III (Long)

[Mister Spock]

Or that it was about twenty years ago when "The Enterprise" (pre or post refit, doesn't matter) became the figurehead for Starfleet's P.R. department. Now, with the advent of the "New Excelsior" imminent, Top Brass believe the day of the old figurehead are over.

On towards the future!

Starfleet appears to be undergoing some sort of restructuring during the 2280's - 2290's. They seem to be focusing their efforts towards diplomacy as opposed to exploration. The time of the maverick explorer like Kirk seems to be coming to an end, with diplomatic bureaucrats like Captain Stiles being part of the new generation.

 

[Cyke101]

The extra damage seen in III is something I attributed to additional damage inflicted by:
1. Debris in the Mutara Nebula (shields were down)
2. Additional battle damage while in the Mutara Nebula inflicted by Reliant
3. Damage from the Genesis wave while escaping
4. Debris from the Genesis explosion
5. Wear and tear during the travel home

Except that we see that side of the ship as it warps away from the explosion, and the hull there is unscathed, so that doesn't fly. 5 seems pretty far fetched.

Considering that, as you point out, the hull is unscathed because they warped away from the explosion, I would think #5 is therefore a more logical guess.

(one of my favorite SFX shots in Voyager was in Year of Hell when the ship was at warp but structural integrity was failing, so hull plates drifted away)

 

[Timo]

They had just picked up the Reliant survivors, transferred crew to Grissom, sent the trainee crew off to various assignments then warped home.

One wonders whether they did any of those things.

I mean, Khan of "Space Seed" was magnanimous and chivalrous and whatnot. But Khan of ST2 is mad, mad, mad. Why would he leave any Reliant survivors behind? He might lie to Chekov and Terrell that he let those people live if he weren't completely certain the two officers were lobotomized to submission yet. That part of the supposed inter-movie mission might have been a failure, then.

Transferring people off the ship in turn wouldn't require much of the ship herself; the other ship would be doing all the interesting and demanding stuff. Perhaps the Enterprise completely broke down when attempting to leave the Genesis system, and other, more functional ships swarmed around her to retrieve her crew and to conduct field repairs Scotty and his kids were incapable of pulling off.

As for warping home, they really took their sweet time, considering David and Saavik had apparently already completed the journey twice before Kirk managed even one leg...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

That doesn't quite fit with the reporters comments in Generations about Kirk's command of Enterprise.

Hmm. Kirk certainly didn't command the Enterprise during the years (?) Spock did. So the reporter isn't saying Kirk has been in command of a ship of that name for every star hour in the past three decades - she's saying this (the E-B) is the first Enterprise in thirty years that will never see Kirk commanding her. Classic headlinespeak there, with drama overriding other concerns.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

They had just picked up the Reliant survivors, transferred crew to Grissom, sent the trainee crew off to various assignments then warped home.

One wonders whether they did any of those things.

The Enterprise log indicates Ceti Alpha V is where they are headed after Spock's burial at sea. Either they picked up the survivors or verified that they were dead.

 

[Timo]

...Or failed to engage warp, as apparently happened after (during?) the end credits of ST4...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

...Or failed to engage warp, as apparently happened after (during?) the end credits of ST4...

Timo Saloniemi

But we have no evidence of that, either at the end of TWOK or the beginning of TSFS.

 

[Timo]

Quite so - but we have no clear evidence of the ship's spaceworthiness, either. Either she did complete some tasks between the movies, or didn't; the former might suggest some sort of remaining worth, the latter would remove any worth and explain Morrow's 'tude.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Quite so - but we have no clear evidence of the ship's spaceworthiness, either.

I think the evidence of her spaceworthiness is right at the beginning of The Search for Spock. Starfleet allowed Kirk to bring the ship home, alone, under her own power and at warp. If she wasn't space worthy, they would've sent another ship for the crew and then likely tractored her home.

Nothing about Morrow's stance makes any sense beyond he wants to put Enterprise out to pasture and make way for the next shiny toy.

 

[Timo]

Starfleet allowed Kirk to bring the ship home, alone, under her own power and at warp.

Or just told him to do it. Sitting at the command chair of a crippled ship while she limps home at greatly reduced speed isn't exactly a privilege. And not whisking Kirk home along with Saavik and David to sort out the Genesis mess tells volumes about how much Starfleet valued his input! Failing to send a tug just adds injury to insult...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Starfleet allowed Kirk to bring the ship home, alone, under her own power and at warp.

Or just told him to do it. Sitting at the command chair of a crippled ship while she limps home at greatly reduced speed isn't exactly a privilege. And not whisking Kirk home along with Saavik and David to sort out the Genesis mess tells volumes about how much Starfleet valued his input! Failing to send a tug just adds injury to insult...

Timo Saloniemi

That makes no sense. If the Enterprise wasn't space worthy, then Starfleet was gambling with the lives of everyone aboard.

 

[BillJ]

Scott says he can have the ship refit in two weeks. I somehow doubt that would be possible if the ship was no longer space worthy.

KIRK: Your timing is excellent, Mister Scott. You've fixed the barn door after the horse has come home. How much refit time till we can take her out of here?

SCOTT: Eight weeks, sir. But you don't have eight weeks so I'll do it for ya in two.

 

[Timo]

Nursing home damaged ships that could sink at any moment is standard procedure for the navies of today - risk is part of the business. The salvage value of the hurt cruiser might have been close to zero nevertheless, her return chosen over her scuttling more for reasons of prestige (the E would make for a nice museum piece even if full of holes) than for any hope of getting military or monetary value out of her.

Scotty would be used to patching up the ship out in the frontier where there would be no survivable alternative to jury-rigging and bale-wiring. Yet Starfleet might not see any wisdom in repairing a ship that could easily be evacuated, unless the repairs also made economic or military sense. Which they apparently did not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

Enterprise was damaged, yes; crippled, no. She could make it home safely once initial patches were done. Even if she were badly damaged, it is likely that Starfleet had enough confidence in Kirk and Scott to get her home. And we don't know how far away from Earth that all of this took place; it is entirely likely that SpaceDock is indeed the closest major repair facility that Enterprise would be towed to if she were not spaceworthy to make the trip on her own power.

There was a line in ST3 about "most of our trainee crew have been reassigned", suggesting that those left on Enterprise had matters well in hand for the transit back to Earth, but I am also thinking that each and every one of those trainees were questioned very thoroughly about the events of ST2 as Starfleet began their investigation into the Khan situation, especially if word of Genesis began to spread and create a "galactic controversy", as Admiral Morrow suggested.

 

[FormerLurker]

Tacking across the thread drift here, with two years of RL passing between the two films, the audience was probably meant to assume the damage seen in ST:III was the damage inflicted in ST:II. Without home video to make certain immediately beforehand, it would be difficult to watch ST:II in 1982, and then wait until 1984 to watch ST:III, all the while remembering exactly how the Enterprise looked with the battle damage seen in the first film, and being able to see a difference in battle damage in the second.

 

[Maurice]

I suspect they added the starboard side damage specifically so that we'd be reminded that the Enterprise was beat up when seen from either side. The ship follows basic cinematographic directional continuity in the movie: heading screen left when going towards Earth, and heading screen right when heading to Genesis. If they hadn't added the damage to the starboard side we'd not have seen any visible signs of the ship's mortality after she left spacedock.

 

[Marsden]

Coming late to the party, I felt the same was as the OP, but there has to have been more than a few days, so I'm going with the additional action in between in universe or poor model application by the prop guys, although it seems like the mistake was not enough damage in II rather than too much in III to me. In antiquated terms, Khan hit the Enterprise with a full broadside, it was in bad shape. Really bad. Like take it out back and shoot it because there's no repairing it in any meaningful way.

I apologize if I've repeated someone else's post, I haven't read the whole thread yet.

 

[Maurice]

Coming late to the party, I felt the same was as the OP, but there has to have been more than a few days, so I'm going with the additional action in between in universe or poor model application by the prop guys, although it seems like the mistake was not enough damage in II rather than too much in III to me. In antiquated terms, Khan hit the Enterprise with a full broadside, it was in bad shape. Really bad. Like take it out back and shoot it because there's no repairing it in any meaningful way.

I apologize if I've repeated someone else's post, I haven't read the whole thread yet.

You know, it just occurred to me is how they could have shown the Reliant doing heavy-duty damage to the Enterprise without damaging the hero model. Said model had three panels which pop off to reveal mounting points" one on each side, and one on the bottom. If they'd wanted to spend the money, they could have made a replacement for just one of these panels and blown the living fuck out of it, and then just popped the original back on when finished. Voila.

 

[Lance]

Possibility exists the Enterprise was involved with some other combat situation on her way back to Earth? They had to pick up the Reliant crew then ferry Saavik and David Marcus to the Grissom.

Yeah, this is my reasoning too. Although Kirk is clearly still mourning the loss of Spock, there are other indicators that events in TSFS might not be exactly as close to the end of TWOK as we are otherwise lead to assume.

I also understand that making movies years apart that are only supposed to be days or weeks in movie time can present especially hard problems in this area.

I sorta kinda have a theory behind this as well: we forget, in the age after home video, that the idea of being able to watch movies and their sequels in quick succession was not always available to us. The continuity differences between TWOK and TSFS may not have been as obvious (or important) to an audience three years later, than they are to us when we can watch the movies back-to-back at home.

Trek's not alone in this regard either, there's a whole bunch of movies where the differences get accentuated by our ability to scrutinize them so closely (one example I've cited before is Back To The Future II; there was much talk in contemporaneous reviews about how stunningly accurate the 1950s scenes are to what we saw in the first movie, and in many ways they are, but the things that stand out as obviously different are much more obvious to us thanks to being able to watch the movies back-to-back instead of four years apart).

 

[BillJ]

Possibility exists the Enterprise was involved with some other combat situation on her way back to Earth? They had to pick up the Reliant crew then ferry Saavik and David Marcus to the Grissom.

Yeah, this is my reasoning too. Although Kirk is clearly still mourning the loss of Spock, there are other indicators that events in TSFS might not be exactly as close to the end of TWOK as we are otherwise lead to assume.

I also understand that making movies years apart that are only supposed to be days or weeks in movie time can present especially hard problems in this area.

I sorta kinda have a theory behind this as well: we forget, in the age after home video, that the idea of being able to watch movies and their sequels in quick succession was not always available to us. The continuity differences between TWOK and TSFS may not have been as obvious (or important) to an audience three years later, than they are to us when we can watch the movies back-to-back at home.

Trek's not alone in this regard either, there's a whole bunch of movies where the differences get accentuated by our ability to scrutinize them so closely (one example I've cited before is Back To The Future II; there was much talk in contemporaneous reviews about how stunningly accurate the 1950s scenes are to what we saw in the first movie, and in many ways they are, but the things that stand out as obviously different are much more obvious to us thanks to being able to watch the movies back-to-back instead of four years apart).

Try watching "The Best of Both Worlds" two-parter back to back. Beverly switches hairstyles right in the middle of the battle with the Borg.