So Kirk makes the same mistake TWICE in accepting promotion?

[BillJ]

As far as when exactly TMP takes place in relation to the series... In one of the supplemental features on the TMP-DE, Robert Wise said that it was always their intention for the movie to take place just as long after the series as had passed by in real life. He said he didn't know where the idea came from that it was only a couple years later. (I think that comes from the Reeves-Stevenses). But what did Wise know? He was only the director.

That may point to Wise being unfamiliar with the series itself. Or else he would realize what the "five years, out there" would mean and change it accordingly.

Kirk being out of the Captain's chair for close to a decade would tend to hamper his ability to credibly take command. Reminds me of an episode of MASH where one of Potter's old friends had spent a ton of time in Washington and came back to front line command to get his promotion to Colonel.

 

[BrownShatner]

I think it comes down to a fairly courageous decision by the producers to accept the Star Trek crew was getting up in years, and one couldn't pretend they walked right off a 1969 rerun. Instead you had to have them confront aging, and death.

Otherwise, the beginning of TWOK makes no sense. Why not pick up shortly after TMP ended? Why essentially remake the beginning of TMP, including reusing the same Enterprise porn? It certainly was a "reset" if not a "reboot".

Compare to Nemesis, where the audience is supposed to ignore that everyone is 20 years older, including the robot, and are kicking more ass than ever. One can't help to think the TMP movies might have been more successful if they had the "We're old, but we're getting the band back together one more time" feel of the TOS films.

 

[Timo]

...Or, to cover the "this is the future, we live forever!" angle, the TNG movies could have been established as taking place a decade or two later than they "actually" did.

So, Picard wouldn't merely be a decade older than Stewart, as in the TV show, but perhaps three decades older.. Perhaps still going strong, perhaps not. But Starfleet officers are supposed to still be in their prime at their seventies or eighties, as per "Counter-Clock Incident", "Too Short a Season" etc.

Then again, they did that in "All Good Things..." already. Perhaps the trick would grow old even faster than the characters or actors?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Galileo7]

Captain, sir: I'm afraid you've been misled by Paramount's very late decision to attach "II" to the title of TWOK. There was no II in the pre-release ads, on the cover of the novelization, or on the original theatrical release prints.

TWOK is not a sequel to TMP. It's a reboot. Why else would Kirk be at a desk job at the start of each one?

This means that the ship as seen in TWOK is not a refit, but simply a better rendering of what we all saw on TV. In turn, the dialogue in TSFS "Jim, the Enterprise is twenty years old" (referring to plans to decommission the Khan-damaged ship) now makes sense, whereas it contrasts wildly with Decker's "Admiral, this is an almost totally new Enterprise" if the latter is to be taken into account.

If the ship is indeed 20 years old (despite resembling the refit ship seen in TMP), then it makes sense that it's now used as a training ship with a small trainee crew. Suddenly it makes sense that the huge and varied TMP crew is nowhere to be found. An almost totally new Enterprise wouldn't be used as a training ship, especially if it has features that are so new that other ships wouldn't even have them yet (channeling phasers through the warp engines, etc., as mentioned in the wormhole scene).

So relax. There is no continuity between TMP and TWOK, no matter what you may hear elsewhere.

Interesting.