Five Year Mission?

[Wingsley]

I always assumed "5 year mission" meant that Kirk himself was assigned to the Enterprise for 5 years, along with his hand-picked crew. Then at the end of the 5 years, the Enterprise returned to port, was overhauled, and given to another Captain and crew. That is basically what happened with Pike's crew, and Decker and Spock afterward, no?

I don't know about the Decker/Spock reference afterward, but the Pike reference is interesting. We know Spock served under Pike for 12 years, but we do not know if what capacity. It could be that Pike and Spock served on another space vessel for two years, and then Pike took command of the Enterprise for two five-year missions before turning command over to Kirk.

Spock never said that the 12 years were spent strictly aboard the Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

It wasn't even made clear if Pike commanded a starship for any of those years, beyond the few days we saw in "The Cage".

We only know Spock served "with" him for 11 years, 4 months and five days. Which, considering that Spock is superhuman but uninterested in promotion, might mean that Spock and Pike were fellow cadets for two years, then Spock became Pike's commanding officer for five, and at that point Pike sped past Spock up the rank ladder, finally achieving starship command just in time for the events of "The Cage".

The 11 years plus change need not even be continuous, if we allow some of them to take place during the Academy years the two might have shared. They'd better be one big lump if one starts counting from Spock's likely graduation date, though.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Didn't the FX for the second (and first) pilot get re-used in later episodes? Wouldn't that suggest a "transformable"/"configurable" ship instead of a ship that underwent a rebuild/modification under Kirk's command?

No, it suggests that it was a '60s TV show that had to reuse stock footage to approximate what it was trying to depict. It's pointless to treat every FX shot as absolute, undeniable gospel -- you'd have to believe that half the planets in the galaxy have the exact same continent shapes, or that Flint's mansion exactly matches the Rigel VII fortress right down to the appearance of the moons in orbit of a completely separate planet. Or, for that matter, that Saavik got extensive cosmetic surgery shortly after Spock's death. None of that makes any sense. The sensible thing to do is to admit it's a TV show that wasn't always able to depict things the way they were intended to look. They expected the audience to have enough imagination and critical thinking to look beyond the imperfections and interpret the text intelligently, to recognize that it was meant to be the same ship configuration in every shot even when it seemed to change. (Especially since it often changed between consecutive shots. The "transformations" would've had to take place in less than 1/24th of a second.)

 

[Forbin]

Didn't the FX for the second (and first) pilot get re-used in later episodes? Wouldn't that suggest a "transformable"/"configurable" ship instead of a ship that underwent a rebuild/modification under Kirk's command?

 

[blssdwlf]

@Christopher- that's all fine if we put on filtered glasses to ignore visual inconsistencies. But if we accept identical earths we can have lots of identical planets. If we accept the episodes with alternate universes/quantum universes we can have people change appearance between movies. If the same character changed actors in the same movie, that would requiremore explanation. But we're really talking about slight changes to the ship or the equivalent of a character adjusting their hat or clothing. I am not seeing any reason why the ship can't alter itself based on what has been aired.

 

[Christopher]

^Because it's needlessly literal-minded and missing the point. The makers of the episodes did not intend every frame of film to look exactly the way it did. They were operating on a tight budget and schedule, with limited technology, and so they had to make compromises. They had to settle for something less than what they wanted, because that's what you do in television. They wouldn't have wanted the audience to take every frame as exact, undeniable gospel. They would've wanted and expected their audience to think for themselves and interpret what they were being shown, to understand that it was an approximation and to use their own imaginations to bridge the gap between the limited, imperfect execution and the underlying concepts it was supposed to represent.

Reading a text purely on a literal level, taking every glitch and error as absolute gospel, is lazy, mindless, and slavish. It's not the way any intelligent person interprets a text, and it's not the way the creators of a text want you to interpret it. If I write a novel, say, and fail to correct a major continuity error -- say, I set a particular ongoing sequence on Tuesday in one chapter, Wednesday in the next, and back to Tuesday for the rest of the book -- I don't want my readers to assume that's what I actually meant and concoct some insanely overcomplicated rationalization for how the whole cast jumped forward in time briefly and back again. I want my audience to have the basic common sense to recognize that I made a mistake, and to correct that mistake in their own minds and thus get my actual intent that the whole thing took place on Tuesday.

It was not the intent of ST's creators that the ship was magically jumping back and forth between three or four different configurations in the blink of an eye depending on whether they were using footage of the 11-footer, footage of the 3-footer, or stock footage from the pilot. It was not their intent that so many planets had identical continents. It was their intent to use the limited resources at their disposal to suggest the ideas they really wanted to convey and trust that the audience was intelligent and imaginative enough to look beyond the mere letter of the text and perceive the underlying concepts.

 

[blssdwlf]

@Christopher- I think we're arguing different philosophies. What if your reader or a Star Trek viewer had NO access to these behind the scenes information and did not know this information existed? By your example, the audience could then make up their interpretation of how things would work in-universe which does not always follow the designer's intent but still be consistent with product's universe as presented... Even if they went completely Thermian about it.

 

[Mytran]

Even a casual viewer would notice the changing aft ends of the nacelles, switching between grills and the glowing white spheres.
When I first started watching Star Trek as a child, I assumed that the lit spheres represented "thrust" or something coming out the back of the nacelles (not being so well versed in Warp Theory back then ) and thought it was a deliberate choice on behalf of the creators.

 

[Captain Robert April]

New tangent: How the hell does anyone get the idea that the spheres on the ends of the nacelles glow? 'CAUSE THEY DON'T!!

They're also not white, they're same color as the hull.

 

[blssdwlf]

On some of the shots where the Enterprise is "orbiting away from the camera" or as called "Planet Away" in the TOS FX Catalog could look like bright glowing spheres because of the darker rear cap from that angle. TV's with the contrast cranked up I could see it would appear like it is glowing.

 

[YARN]

That reminds me of a quip from some football coach who was asked why he had a "five year plan" to rebuild a losing team. He said "It's because I have a five year contract." I know Hollywood contracts aren't guaranteed, but I wonder if GR or somebody who wrote the opening teaser had a five year commitment to the show. Pure speculation on my part of course.

Best answer so far...

 

[A.V.I.A.F.]

^Because it's needlessly literal-minded and missing the point. The makers of the episodes did not intend every frame of film to look exactly the way it did. They were operating on a tight budget and schedule, with limited technology, and so they had to make compromises. They had to settle for something less than what they wanted, because that's what you do in television. They wouldn't have wanted the audience to take every frame as exact, undeniable gospel. They would've wanted and expected their audience to think for themselves and interpret what they were being shown, to understand that it was an approximation and to use their own imaginations to bridge the gap between the limited, imperfect execution and the underlying concepts it was supposed to represent.

Reading a text purely on a literal level, taking every glitch and error as absolute gospel, is lazy, mindless, and slavish. It's not the way any intelligent person interprets a text, and it's not the way the creators of a text want you to interpret it. If I write a novel, say, and fail to correct a major continuity error -- say, I set a particular ongoing sequence on Tuesday in one chapter, Wednesday in the next, and back to Tuesday for the rest of the book -- I don't want my readers to assume that's what I actually meant and concoct some insanely overcomplicated rationalization for how the whole cast jumped forward in time briefly and back again. I want my audience to have the basic common sense to recognize that I made a mistake, and to correct that mistake in their own minds and thus get my actual intent that the whole thing took place on Tuesday.

It was not the intent of ST's creators that the ship was magically jumping back and forth between three or four different configurations in the blink of an eye depending on whether they were using footage of the 11-footer, footage of the 3-footer, or stock footage from the pilot. It was not their intent that so many planets had identical continents. It was their intent to use the limited resources at their disposal to suggest the ideas they really wanted to convey and trust that the audience was intelligent and imaginative enough to look beyond the mere letter of the text and perceive the underlying concepts.

I think I understand where both of you are coming from. The thing is that I think that most fans know that it was a 60s show with a limited budget that was often slapped together very quickly in order to meet air-dates. I also think that fans who are passionate enough to get involved in forums like this have a part of them that really really really really wants to believe that the TOS universe does exist (or will exist, or could exist) and that part of us seeks to reconcile the real-world realities with an in-universe fantasy that is still coherent on some level. I know I do. That is the purpose of the logic holes thread I posted here. I don't believe that it is fair, however, to ask the audience to accommodate an author's errors as such or to accept limited fx as such in a low-budget TV show while at the same time asking them to suspend disbelief sufficiently to enjoy the work. That sounds to me like the author/producer wanting his cake and eating it too.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, the spires and endcap spheres are fish in a barrel - they just beg to be explained even when there's no real need for an explanation, and the explanation readily offers itself, too. Moving parts are good for any scifi hardware, especially for the sort of hardware that cannot actually be built with moving parts because of budgetary limitations. And nacelle spires that telescope in and out, or a sensor dish that alters geometry to perform different types of scans, are wonderfully rational candidates for moving parts.

Also, the fun thing is, the "changes" basically invariably take place when the starship approaches a planet, due to the useable older footage coming from an approaching-a-planet shot. A good time to retract those deflector spires that are only needed for interstellar flight, to readjust the sensor dish for planetary scans, and to open the plasma diffuser endcaps so that the nacelles can be politely purged in open space, rather than having the dump take place on orbit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

That leads to an area that's best described as mental masturbation. It may make you feel good, but it doesn't actually produce anything.

 

[F. King Daniel]

New tangent: How the hell does anyone get the idea that the spheres on the ends of the nacelles glow? 'CAUSE THEY DON'T!!

They're also not white, they're same color as the hull.

They should be white and should glow just like the ones on the nuEnterprise

It would look incredibly cool.

 

[Timo]

That leads to an area that's best described as mental masturbation. It may make you feel good, but it doesn't actually produce anything.

Isn't that the desired outcome of watching adult entertainment such as Trek?

Most of treknology is the result of this type of wanking: people with nothing better to do assigned functionality to things that weren't intended to have any, and lo, ST:TMP was born, with a nasty growth of Star Fleet Technical Manual on it.

Subtler things about TOS have been "explained" without prompting or demand. Usually because they're cool. Anything relating to Spock is automatically cool. Spock plus sex is mindblowingly cool, even if it's one of those areas where the writers thought little and wanted the audience to think less. Starships and other shiny things simply are natural candidates for "explaining" as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

That leads to an area that's best described as mental masturbation. It may make you feel good, but it doesn't actually produce anything.

Isn't that the desired outcome of watching adult entertainment such as Trek?

<-SNIP->

Timo Saloniemi

Well, there is a difference between entertainment for adults and "adult entertainment".

 

[Captain Robert April]

Which brings to mind how the nacelles on the JJPrise strongly resemble marital aids...

 

[Forbin]

Actually, I used to think the white globes on the aft cowlings only appeared when she was going to go to warp or something, 'cause you'd see the multi-hole "rocket exhaust" cowling in an orbital shot, then you'd see the globes in a breaking-orbit shot.

Of course, I was 9 years old at the time.

 

[Wingsley]

Which brings to mind how the nacelles on the JJPrise strongly resemble marital aids...

That's my line!

Actually, I used to think the white globes on the aft cowlings only appeared when she was going to go to warp or something, 'cause you'd see the multi-hole "rocket exhaust" cowling in an orbital shot, then you'd see the globes in a breaking-orbit shot.

Of course, I was 9 years old at the time.

That's an assumption.

I used to wonder about that myself, but the "old cheese grater nacelle" and "new spheroid nacelle" shots are pretty thoroughly mixed. You get some of each in both the orbital shots and the deep space shots, so there's no consistency there.

There's no consistency in the opposite end of the nacelles, either. Sometimes they glow brightly, sometimes they don't.

I guess the only thing you can do is look upon it as a goof in production values and chalk it up to '60's TV.