How ST VI SHOULD have ended... IMHO

[HigHurtenflurst]

So... the big climax of the Khitomer battle was a homing torpedo. Big whoop. More a TNG/DS0/Voyager particle physics treknobabble thing than a Kirk thing, out of character in many ways; both for Kirk and the Klingons. Kirk was no slouch with his fists, but his biggest talent was his ability to TALK his way out of tight spots. How many times did he give a rousing speech that saved the day, how many times did he goad an enemy into a rash action he could exploit, how many times did he literally talk an opponent to death? He goaded Khan into the nebula, taunted the god Apollo, and literally brain-murdered the Nomad probe!

So the battle of Khitomer, I think, would have been much more satisfying if it had gone something like this:

Chang gets in a few shots while cloaked, taunting and soliloquizing over the radio, fair enough. Kirk, convinced this is NOT a fair fight, gets on the radio and starts lecturing Chang that this isn't exactly how a brave Klingon should conduct himself, stabbing someone in the back like a thief in the night (say it in Kirk's voice, now!) "You.... saidyouwantedtomeetme.....face...toface....So....FIGHTme....
facetoface!!!!...or....areyouafraid?"
Maybe he could even quote some Shakespeare.

Chang ponders for a moment, realizes Kirk's right, drops some appropriate Shakespeare , and reluctantly drops his cloak to fight him like a Klingon. And.... promptly gets his ass kicked, Kirk style. But! he dies like a Klingon. Maybe at the last second, he could even thank Kirk for a noble death.

This way, it's Kirk's victory, much more in character thanks to Kirk's intellect and sheer Kirkness, and the Klingons come out looking less like a bunch of punks.

That's how I would have liked to have seen it (I mean what, FFS, Bones is a torpedo specialist now??? There was so much BS in that last couple of minutes...)

Whatdya think?

 

[Tosk]

Kirk was no slouch with his fists, but his biggest talent was his ability to TALK his way out of tight spots. How many times did he give a rousing speech that saved the day, how many times did he goad an enemy into a rash action he could exploit, how many times did he literally talk an opponent to death?

So maybe it was time for something new.

Your new ending makes Chang seem a little too 'TNG Klingon' to me. And why would someone like Chang care that much about a fair fight anyway, considering the dishonorable deeds he did during the rest of the film? He lies and plots like a Romulan.

 

[Melakon]

All those times Kirk talked an opponent to death were with computers, as I remember.

 

[Cyke101]

Chang helped orchestrate the assassination of his own head of state. He was already irredeemable and much too far gone for any sort of presumptions of honor or thanking Kirk -- this is a guy who committed treason, after all.

As for Bones, he was the next smartest guy on the bridge. There was an immediate urgency to Uhura's plan. And Kirk's place is in the captain's chair. Who else was Spock going to call on in the last second besides a close friend standing right next to him? Additionally, if memory serves me right, only Phlox and Pulaski are the only big name doctors to never do anything tactically; but every main doctor in the franchise showed some sort of engineering skill, too. Plus, maybe Spock needed McCoy's steady hands just like in Into Darkness. Knowledge and specialty doesn't need to be limited to only one field.

 

[Melakon]

McCoy: I'm a doctor, not an engineer.
Scott: Now you're an engineer.
-- Mirror, Mirror

So there's precedence to use McCoy as an assistant.

 

[Khan 2.0]

Chang gets in a few shots while cloaked, taunting and soliloquizing over the radio, fair enough. Kirk, convinced this is NOT a fair fight, gets on the radio and starts lecturing Chang that this isn't exactly how a brave Klingon should conduct himself, stabbing someone in the back like a thief in the night (say it in Kirk's voice, now!) "You.... saidyouwantedtomeetme.....face...toface....So....F IGHTme....
facetoface!!!!...or....areyouafraid?"
Maybe he could even quote some Shakespeare.

That would've been a nice call back to TWOK Kirk goading khan before the nebula.. only for it not to work this time and Chang LOLs at Kirk attempts and continues to blast the ENT (Chang had no honour I don't see why he would suddenly jeopardize the mission by turning into a 'TNG Klingon')

 

[HigHurtenflurst]

Chang helped orchestrate the assassination of his own head of state. He was already irredeemable and much too far gone for any sort of presumptions of honor or thanking Kirk -- this is a guy who committed treason, after all.

I always thought the whole reason for his actions was to preserve the Klingon warrior ethos (die on one's feet vs. living on one's knees, don't want to be "slaves" in their world, "cold warriors", etc. ) from being sold out by the "soft" diplomatic approach that he saw as being treasonous. With that in mind, I think there was plenty of room left in his character for the realization that fighting while cloaked was a sell out in itself. He was fighting to preserve the Klingon warrior ethos. Presumably that would include the honor code, as he would see no shame in betraying those who were selling it out in the first place.

As for Bones, he was the next smartest guy on the bridge.... Knowledge and specialty doesn't need to be limited to only one field.

Well, actually that's exactly what specializing means. It takes 8+ years to train as a doctor just on humans (maybe a year or two less, let's say, for the advanced diagnostic tools of the 23rd century) On top of it all, he'd have a lot of alien anatomy and diseases to specialize in, let's say another 2 years or more. Plus he's a surgeon, more schooling. There is no way he would have had time to learn ANYTHING about torpedoes, or any other starship systems for that matter.

It's just not realistic at all. Like a navy ship, the E would have had at least one torpedo officer in overall charge of the torpedo bay and several torpedo specialists of varying rates whose entire purpose in life would be to maintain and service the torps. To think the ship's doctor is more capable than a guy who probably spent months training to earn a torpedo tech rating is ludicrous in the extreme. It was just thrown in as a character moment, and as such it was entertaining, but crazy far fetched.

 

[HigHurtenflurst]

That would've been a nice call back to TWOK Kirk goading khan before the nebula.. only for it not to work this time and Chang LOLs at Kirk attempts and continues to blast the ENT (Chang had no honour I don't see why he would suddenly jeopardize the mission by turning into a 'TNG Klingon')

I always thought the TOS Klingons had at least a rudimentary sort of inherent honor code, didn't they? Not consistent, maybe, and not spelled out ad nauseam like in TNG, but always there... I think Chang saw the soft diplomatic solution being presented as the destruction of the warrior way and was fighting to preserve it at any cost. There would be no dishonor in that, from a traditional Klingon perspective. That's why I find the cloaked fighting out of character.

 

[Memory Alpha]

Ah, it wasn't Chang's style to do that, though. It was Khan's style to chase him into the nebula with reckless abandon - ST II made clear that that was something that Khan would do. Chang was a snake in the grass in every sense of the word. Remember that episode "Arena" I think it was? Kirk makes a cannon out of a piece of pipe and some chemicals lying around or something. Kirk's capable of figuring out how to get an advantage like that. I thought it was pretty cool.

As to ST VI, though, there are some things about the "whodunnit" part of the plot that I would change. Actually, I'm not sure I would have done very much "whodunnit."

 

[f14peter]

"You.... saidyouwantedtomeetme.....face...toface....So....FIGHTme....
facetoface!!!!...or....areyouafraid?"
Maybe he could even quote some Shakespeare.

More like ...

"Chang! ... I'm laughing at the superior screwed-in eyepatch!"

 

[Grant]

Kirk was no slouch with his fists, but his biggest talent was his ability to TALK his way out of tight spots. How many times did he give a rousing speech that saved the day, how many times did he goad an enemy into a rash action he could exploit, how many times did he literally talk an opponent to death?

So maybe it was time for something new.

Your new ending makes Chang seem a little too 'TNG Klingon' to me. And why would someone like Chang care that much about a fair fight anyway, considering the dishonorable deeds he did during the rest of the film? He lies and plots like a Romulan.

100% right.

That may have worked on a TNG Klingon but Chang just wanted to start a war not prove his honor.

 

[Franklin]

I don't know how someone involved in a conspiracy can have any honor to begin with.

The ending was fine. It was as above average as the rest of the movie was.

 

[EnriqueH]

I have my problems with ST VI...*BUT*...

That "FIRE!!!" was so unequivocally epic. So unbelievably Kirk, that I'd hate to think of a scenario where Kirk doesn't say it.

It's probably the best line in the film IMO.

One last hurrah and show of bravado for the good Captain in his last adventure.

 

[Cyke101]

Chang helped orchestrate the assassination of his own head of state. He was already irredeemable and much too far gone for any sort of presumptions of honor or thanking Kirk -- this is a guy who committed treason, after all.

I always thought the whole reason for his actions was to preserve the Klingon warrior ethos (die on one's feet vs. living on one's knees, don't want to be "slaves" in their world, "cold warriors", etc. ) from being sold out by the "soft" diplomatic approach that he saw as being treasonous. With that in mind, I think there was plenty of room left in his character for the realization that fighting while cloaked was a sell out in itself. He was fighting to preserve the Klingon warrior ethos. Presumably that would include the honor code, as he would see no shame in betraying those who were selling it out in the first place.

If that was the case, there'd be no reason for a cover-up or conspiracy in the first place. He could have just killed Gorkon during their after-dinner wine; after all, we've seen in-your-face battles between two Klingons that decide the Empire's politics and leadership before because of the logic that the best warrior makes the best political leader (which is, ironically, a TNG/DS9 concept in and of itself).

As for Bones, he was the next smartest guy on the bridge.... Knowledge and specialty doesn't need to be limited to only one field.

Well, actually that's exactly what specializing means. It takes 8+ years to train as a doctor just on humans (maybe a year or two less, let's say, for the advanced diagnostic tools of the 23rd century) On top of it all, he'd have a lot of alien anatomy and diseases to specialize in, let's say another 2 years or more. Plus he's a surgeon, more schooling. There is no way he would have had time to learn ANYTHING about torpedoes, or any other starship systems for that matter.

It's just not realistic at all. Like a navy ship, the E would have had at least one torpedo officer in overall charge of the torpedo bay and several torpedo specialists of varying rates whose entire purpose in life would be to maintain and service the torps. To think the ship's doctor is more capable than a guy who probably spent months training to earn a torpedo tech rating is ludicrous in the extreme. It was just thrown in as a character moment, and as such it was entertaining, but crazy far fetched.

You realize that this also applies to Spock as well, correct? He wasn't a tactical officer, he's the science officer, and has never been depicted as purely a weapons expert. However, the torpedo itself seemed to combine all three branches of Starfleet: tactical (payload), science (the tracking device for gaseous anomalies), and engineering (applying one to the other), and Spock has certainly shown more than competence in the latter two; but so has McCoy, though granted much less than engineering (though Trek seems to imply that everyone out of the Academy is no slouch in engineering, as everyone and their mothers can jury rig a device out of other parts -- and this is an era where 7 year olds learn calculus, so we also don't know their system of education, either). But he was also the closest to Spock at the time and was someone whose body of knowledge Spock trusted.

 

[urbandefault]

I've always seen the torpedo thing as a callback (or whatever the best term might be) to TVH when McCoy is trying to get Spock to talk to him about their shared experience. Spock doesn't acknowledge it then, but he does later by asking for assistance in modifying the torpedo.

Who knows how much McCoy might actually have subconsciously retained from having Spock's katra, and how much Spock's katra retained from McCoy? I could be way off base, but that's the way I see it.

Besides, if Spock didn't think McCoy could help he wouldn't have asked.

 

[Firebird]

Well, actually that's exactly what specializing means. It takes 8+ years to train as a doctor just on humans (maybe a year or two less, let's say, for the advanced diagnostic tools of the 23rd century) On top of it all, he'd have a lot of alien anatomy and diseases to specialize in, let's say another 2 years or more. Plus he's a surgeon, more schooling. There is no way he would have had time to learn ANYTHING about torpedoes, or any other starship systems for that matter.

You do realize that, by this point, McCoy had been with Starfleet well over 40 years. I think he'd have had plenty of time to learn at least some fundamentals about photorp design. Not to mention some basic courses in the Starfleet Academy curriculum. Though he's a doctor, McCoy still had to go through basic training for Starfleet just like everyone else on the Enterprise.

 

[Richard Baker]

Chang had a much smaller ship but one with a tactical advantage- no dishonor in having any advantage in combat against a larger foe.

 

[Cyke101]

I've always seen the torpedo thing as a callback (or whatever the best term might be) to TVH when McCoy is trying to get Spock to talk to him about their shared experience. Spock doesn't acknowledge it then, but he does later by asking for assistance in modifying the torpedo.

Who knows how much McCoy might actually have subconsciously retained from having Spock's katra, and how much Spock's katra retained from McCoy? I could be way off base, but that's the way I see it.

Besides, if Spock didn't think McCoy could help he wouldn't have asked.

An alternative, and I'm just putting this out there: it's apparent that Spock did most of the work, with McCoy handing tools and instruments to him, and that in itself doesn't require years of expertise -- that's not counting any sort of offscreen assistance that McCoy might have provided, though.

But I still subscribe to the idea that McCoy had the steadiest hands in the ship, and with that must throttling and jostling from enemy fire, at least someone would be steady there for Spock to count on (I realize it's a bit of a retcon from Into Darkness, but I'll take it!). And if that's what Spock really needed, I'll take the veteran of 40+ years over the far younger, far greener, battle inexperienced tech.

 

[publiusr]

The homing torpedo seems in keeping with DC's tracing phasers on Excelsior.

 

[f14peter]

I've always seen the torpedo thing as a callback (or whatever the best term might be) to TVH when McCoy is trying to get Spock to talk to him about their shared experience. Spock doesn't acknowledge it then, but he does later by asking for assistance in modifying the torpedo.

Who knows how much McCoy might actually have subconsciously retained from having Spock's katra, and how much Spock's katra retained from McCoy? I could be way off base, but that's the way I see it.

Besides, if Spock didn't think McCoy could help he wouldn't have asked.

My take too. The procedure to modify the torpedo may have required some delicate work, something surgeon McCoy would be capable of.

An alternative, and I'm just putting this out there: it's apparent that Spock did most of the work, with McCoy handing tools and instruments to him, and that in itself doesn't require years of expertise -- that's not counting any sort of offscreen assistance that McCoy might have provided, though.

But I still subscribe to the idea that McCoy had the steadiest hands in the ship, and with that must throttling and jostling from enemy fire, at least someone would be steady there for Spock to count on (I realize it's a bit of a retcon from Into Darkness, but I'll take it!). And if that's what Spock really needed, I'll take the veteran of 40+ years over the far younger, far greener, battle inexperienced tech.

My take too. The procedure to modify the torpedo may have required some delicate work, something surgeon McCoy would be capable of.