So Kirk makes the same mistake TWICE in accepting promotion?

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^That's possible, as Kirk's line about being stale may not have been in reference to his commanding a starship but to doing any sort of fieldwork. Perhaps he had another type of hands-on assignment after the five-year mission ended before his promotion to admiral.

There's also his statement to Decker about his five-years' experience being the rationale behind his decision to command the V'Ger mission. Perhaps he meant his five years in deep space as opposed to his five years as Enterprise's captain. Maybe the Enterprise was assigned to border-patrol duty for a period of time after her five-year mission ended but was eventually recalled for her refit.

Both of these scenarios would push back the date of TMP, but neither would invalidate the timeline based on the films alone.

--Sran

 

[enterprisecvn65]

...a general outline of the events of the period between TMP and TWOK...

As noted earlier, respectfully: WHAT period between TMP and TWOK?

By internal evidence of the movies - leaving aside all comment or suggestion by or about the people who made and marketed the films, who decided to remove or replace the II in the title of TWOK, etc., more than a generation ago - there is nothing to suggest any continuity between the two stories, other than the reuse of a little footage of spaceship models. All else is inference about the intent of Paramount, Meyer, et al. Of course the passage of time (as indicated by changes in uniforms, set decor, Kirk at a desk job again, etc.) is explicitly part of the story of TWOK, but there is no evidence to suggest this was time elapsed since TMP (rather than since the end of the original mission). I am sympathetic with the idea of Spock having evolved since what happened to him in TMP, but he could have loosened up for other reasons.

Obviously people write, sell, and buy novels set in the period "between" TMP and TWOK. But to me that would be like trying to reconcile the two Doc Martin TV movies with the series that followed - which, despite being shot in the same British seaside town and having the same lead actor, was utterly different in character. The producers and writers recognized that a complete reset was needed, and accomplished it successfully - quite analogous to the origin of TWOK, seems to me, even though the latter didn't involve complete replacement of the supporting cast.

By that logic you could TFF wasn't in any way related to TWOK TSFS and TVH. They have a new enterprise that seems to be having problems, like it's a completely new ship. Can't have been the same one in TVH that one seemed fine at the end and I can imagine it would be having teething problems years later if TFF was a sequel. Spock suddenly has a brother we never heard of. There's this galactic barrier which seems to be some huge deal that we never heard of before. There aren't any references to II to IV that I can remember.

So I guess TFF was a restart and had no connection with the previous 3 films.

What were they supposed to do in TWOK have a ten minute scene where they're sitting around saying "man remember that V'ger thing that was crazy"

Yeah it was different than TMP in tone and style and they did nothing to reference TMP. But they did nothing to erase it either and I don't care when it was added they put a big fat II in front of it. That strongly indicates a continued storyline to me.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^To add to your point, there are several throwaway lines in TFF that establish its place in the existing continuity, including Scotty's repetition of Kirk's line from the end of TVH, as well as Kirk's statement that he lost a brother once (which was true in the literal sense) but was lucky to get him back (indicating Spock).

--Sran

 

[enterprisecvn65]

So does the fact no reference is made to Dr. No or From Russia with Love in Goldfinger mean the 007 series was a restart at that point and nothing from the first two films was a part of the series. I mean they even had a different Felix in it. Must have been a restart.

 

[Smellmet]

^This. Plus there were the lines - 'I liked him better before he died' 'I thought he was the only one who's immortal' which clearly links the movies. You could even argue the case for the line 'the feelings mutual'

There is no question TFF is connected to the previous movies.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^^Calm down, dude. You stated your case well in your previous post. No need to keep beating a dead horse.

--Sran

 

[enterprisecvn65]

^This. Plus there were the lines - 'I liked him better before he died' 'I thought he was the only one who's immortal' which clearly links the movies. You could even argue the case for the line 'the feelings mutual'

There is no question TFF is connected to the previous movies.

My mistake, I haven't watched TFF in such a long time I couldn't remember any references to the previous 3 films.

My point though is just because a film in a series doesn't specifically make reference to a previous film, it doesn't mean it's just been discarded as part of the film series arc.

In fact they usually go to great lengths to establish when a film is considered a new point and previous films don't influence this series.

007 from Dr. No to Die Another did nothing to say the films weren't related despite covering 50 years and 5 actors playing the main character.

Once Craig took over for "Casino Royale" they made it clear that 007 was starting from ground zero. He wasn't a 00 at the beginning of the film, he didn't care how his martini was made and then commented on how he liked it shaken, he didn't know Felix until they met and he didn't say Bond, James Bond until the last line in the film.

The 3 Batman films that came after the 1989 one did nothing to say they weren't continuations of that strand, despite their changes in style (bat nipples.....dear lord) and actors. Batman Begins on the other hand made it clear it was a reboot. There was no Batman at the beginning of the film, you saw the Waynes get offed again, you saw his training and what drove him to become what he does.

Again despite the obvious changes TWOK does nothing to tell us that this was a fresh start and TMP wasn't an element. The characters pretty much show up and get to work. Kirk is reintroduced a little with a mid life crisis, but hardly reintroducing the character as a whole. The Enterprise is the same and so on.

Yeah it was meant to be very different but to say it offed TMP is just something I can't see any evidence of.

 

[Trimm]

I do think it is pretty spurious to claim that beacause TWOK doesn't directly reference TMP, that it must then logically follow that TMP never happened as far as producers were concerned. The James Bond example given earlier is pretty apt. It is also pretty thin to pretend that just because TWOK launched without a number 2 initially is evidence of the assertion. If we use that logic, then every Trek film from Generations through Into Darkness could be a reboot.

As a matter of my own personal opinion, I don't think TWOK was conceived at all as a reboot. The things Meyer changed from TMP to TWOK do not seem to be intended to present a Star Trek where TMP never happened. Everything I've ever seen from Meyer, Bennett et al. indicated to me that they were more interested in simply establishing a different tone from TMP, not wiping it from memory.

 

[gottacook]

I never suggested that anyone involved in the production of TWOK intended that TMP be "wiped from memory"; what I had in mind was more like TMP having occurred on a different time track that's become isolated from what is now the "real" timeline. If anyone here has read Gregory Benford's excellent 1980 novel Timescape, the final 1997-98 segments in Cambridge (UK) might give a suggestion of what I mean.

With respect to whether TWOK should have explicitly referenced TMP, that would have been easy to accomplish. But the few attempts in the novelization of TWOK to tie the two movies together felt to me very clumsy, and doing so in dialogue (assuming the filmmakers even wanted to do so, which I don't assume) might have been even worse.

As for the TNG films and their continuity or lack thereof: Who gives a damn?

 

[Smellmet]

^^Calm down, dude. You stated your case well in your previous post. No need to keep beating a dead horse.

--Sran

Calm down dude? My apologies, I mean, how dare I add to a discussion about a Star Trek movie in a Star Trek movie forum.

 

[BillJ]

I do think it is pretty spurious to claim that beacause TWOK doesn't directly reference TMP, that it must then logically follow that TMP never happened as far as producers were concerned.

I don't know what the creative minds behind The Wrath of Khan thought. Other than they likely had a directive to make a cheap movie that was nothing like The Motion Picture.

Paramount obviously wasn't wanting to continue to go in that direction.

 

[drt]

No matter the original intentions thirty-plus years ago, it does make sense to drop TMP from continuity, there's too much change in the look and feel of things from TOS-TMP-TWOK - going from TOS to TWOK works better.

 

[Warped9]

No matter the original intentions thirty-plus years ago, it does make sense to drop TMP from continuity, there's too much change in the look and feel of things from TOS-TMP-TWOK - going from TOS to TWOK works better.

I disagree completely. That's why I accept TMP and basically ignore TWOK-TUC.

 

[drt]

No matter the original intentions thirty-plus years ago, it does make sense to drop TMP from continuity, there's too much change in the look and feel of things from TOS-TMP-TWOK - going from TOS to TWOK works better.

I disagree completely. That's why I accept TMP and basically ignore TWOK-TUC.

Heh, that's actually my preference as well.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Calm down dude? My apologies, I mean, how dare I add to a discussion about a Star Trek movie in a Star Trek movie forum.

My post wasn't directed at you (hence the two arrows instead of one), but at the previous poster. Sorry for the confusion.

--Sran

 

[Smellmet]

Haha no worries

 

[JonnyQuest037]

So does the fact no reference is made to Dr. No or From Russia with Love in Goldfinger mean the 007 series was a restart at that point and nothing from the first two films was a part of the series. I mean they even had a different Felix in it. Must have been a restart.

It's not true that the first few Bond films don't share a continuity with each other. Bond's Dr. No hookup Sylvia Trench is his off-duty girlfriend in FRWL. She also notices the knife wound that Bond received in the previous film. Bond first learns about SPECTRE in Dr. No, and they take their revenge on him in FRWL. Goldfinger's Felix Leiter is obviously previously-acquainted with Bond from Dr. No (despite being recast when Jack Lord wanted too much money - shades of Saavik in STIII!). And the SPECTRE storyline is continued in Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, OHMSS, and Diamonds Are Forever.

And a point about the chronology of TMP & TWOK:

All TMP tells us is that the Enterprise has spent a year & a half being refit, and that Kirk has spent two & a half years as Starfleet's Chief of Operations & hasn't logged a single star-hour in that time. They never say anything about how long it's been since TOS. That's why some of the early Trek novels assumed that Kirk commanded a second 5YM between TOS and TMP & some did not - the timeline was vague.

Likewise, the only concrete things that TWOK established time-wise were that it had been 15 since "Space Seed" (Both Khan and Kirk confirm it) and that Kirk's just had a birthday (presumably a big one, considering about pensive & melancholy he is about his age). I like to assume that it's his 50th birthday, as that jibes nicely with the movie's themes, but it could just as easily be his 49th or 52nd.

The fuzzy timeline of the early movies pretty much requires some fudging somewhere, which is why the Okudas put 18 years between TOS and TWOK, even though the movie says that it's been 15. Twice.

 

[BillJ]

All TMP tells us is that the Enterprise has spent a year & a half being refit, and that Kirk has spent two & a half years as Starfleet's Chief of Operations & hasn't logged a single star-hour in that time. They never say anything about how long it's been since TOS. That's why some of the early Trek novels assumed that Kirk commanded a second 5YM between TOS and TMP & some did not - the timeline was vague.

I think that Kirk's "five years, out there" line would quash the idea of their being a second five-year mission between TOS and TMP.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Unless the second five years was spent quashing border raids and other minor incidents. Kirk may have been referring to five years' worth of deep space exploration as his rationale for commanding the V'Ger mission.

--Sran

 

[BillJ]

^Unless the second five years was spent quashing border raids and other minor incidents. Kirk may have been referring to five years' worth of deep space exploration as his rationale for commanding the V'Ger mission.

--Sran

Why would a starship doing border patrols need to be put on a five-year mission? That seems like a completely different type of task.