Spock's vision of V'Ger's journey

[TigerOfDarkness]

In TMP, Spock travels through V'Ger and sees a representation of V'Ger's journey including the Epsilon 9 station (and the Klingon ships in some versions IIRC) as well as various planets, moons etc.

Do you think V'Ger had assimilated the planets as it had the Klingons and Epsilon 9?

 

[Maurice]

In TMP, Spock travels through V'Ger and sees a representation of V'Ger's journey including the Epsilon 9 station (and the Klingon ships in some versions IIRC) as well as various planets, moons etc.

Do you think V'Ger had assimilated the planets as it had the Klingons and Epsilon 9?

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk. It was in concept art and perhaps storyboards, but never in the film. Spock's spacewalk, from the moment he fires the thrusters til when Kirk catches him is exactly the same in every edit of the film.

It's an interesting question about exactly what those "dimensional images" were. There are images of galaxies and so forth, and it's beyond unlikely that V'ger "patterned" 400 billion stars. I'd say that the images represented everything V'ger saw, scanned or digitized (unless it zapped the planet that made it).

The next question is where were these images when the Enterprise was drawn through the same orifice? Did V'ger switch off its memories? Or was Spock not "seeing" as much as getting the mental impressions since he was flying through whatever constituted V'ger's memory?

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk. It was in concept art and perhaps storyboards, but never in the film. Spock's spacewalk, from the moment he fires the thrusters til when Kirk catches him is exactly the same in every edit of the film.

I have a definite memory of seeing the Klingon ships in a version of TMP on TV, however as I probably watched it late at night/early morning I could have been wrong...

 

[Chrisisall]

The next question is where were these images when the Enterprise was drawn through the same orifice? Did V'ger switch off its memories?

Thieves in the night will see more than invited guests.

 

[Christopher]

The next question is where were these images when the Enterprise was drawn through the same orifice? Did V'ger switch off its memories? Or was Spock not "seeing" as much as getting the mental impressions since he was flying through whatever constituted V'ger's memory?

I think of the memory matrix as something like a holodeck, so yeah, it could've just been switched off for the E's passage.

Another possibility is that V'Ger's interior had some weird higher-dimensional things going on. Or given the sheer scale of its interior, the compartment the E was in could've simply been physically moved/rotated to connect to a different passageway.

 

[Maurice]

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk. It was in concept art and perhaps storyboards, but never in the film. Spock's spacewalk, from the moment he fires the thrusters til when Kirk catches him is exactly the same in every edit of the film.

I have a definite memory of seeing the Klingon ships in a version of TMP on TV, however as I probably watched it late at night/early morning I could have been wrong...

I'm relatively certain your memory is deceiving you. Various edits of TMP exist, and not one of them restores any unused VFX footage (the DE is a different matter). I've seen the theatrical release in theaters and on video, I've seen the TV edit, I've seen the SLV, and I've seen the DE.

Hell, I've seen a weird edit at a Jerry Goldsmith retrospective a few years ago that contains many of the extra scenes in the SLV but leaves out the SLV Kirk spacewalk stuff, and the remainder of the film is like the theatrical cut. I had no idea what that one was, but as I think about it, I wonder if that's the mythical edit that was shown on commercial airlines in 1980?

 

[Chrisisall]

Another possibility is that V'Ger's interior had some weird higher-dimensional things going on. Or given the sheer scale of its interior, the compartment the E was in could've simply been physically moved/rotated to connect to a different passageway.

 

[Jeyl]

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk.

Sure they were. You can see a few Klingons as well as the Klingon battlecruiser during Spock's mind meld. Of course, this is all flashing before your eyes faster than anything I've ever seen before in a movie, but still framing it does yield interesting results.

 

[Chrisisall]

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk.

Sure they were. You can see a few Klingons as well as the Klingon battlecruiser during Spock's mind meld. Of course, this is all flashing before your eyes faster than anything I've ever seen before in a movie, but still framing it does yield interesting results.

Oh... yeah...

 

[SRFX]

As already mentioned, given that Spock remarks: "I believe we are seeing some sort of dimensional image that could be a representation of V'Ger's home planet", would suggest this is like some really big holodeck.

The fact it's not there when the Enterprise passes through would seem to support this theory.

That said, I've also kinda left it reasonably unexplained in my own head because I basically got the impression that V'Ger could do whatever the hell it wanted to (unless it involved emotion).

Now my REAL confusion in the movie - the tractor beam scene! Does the beam grab the Enterprise, spin it around and drag it into V'ger's rear end? Because that's the only way I can explain the ship going frontwards into the back of V'ger.

I reckon the DE could've added a little 2 second scene showing the Enterprise being rotated around to face V'ger.

 

[Maurice]

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk.

Sure they were. You can see a few Klingons as well as the Klingon battlecruiser during Spock's mind meld. Of course, this is all flashing before your eyes faster than anything I've ever seen before in a movie, but still framing it does yield interesting results.

Well, yes...if that's what being referred to, but I took it to mean something we saw as Spock zipped along.

Now my REAL confusion in the movie - the tractor beam scene! Does the beam grab the Enterprise, spin it around and drag it into V'ger's rear end? Because that's the only way I can explain the ship going frontwards into the back of V'ger.

I reckon the DE could've added a little 2 second scene showing the Enterprise being rotated around to face V'ger.

First, that's not V'ger's rear end...it's the front end. It's not clearly shown in the film but the "conic section flight path" meant the ship didn't aim headlong into the cloud, but arced in and ended up approaching from behind.

Second, the DE shows the ship facing V'ger's maw before the tractor beam grabs it (when the probe arrives). So the Enterprise turns itself around. It's just not shown.

 

[SRFX]

First, that's not V'ger's rear end...it's the front end. It's not clearly shown in the film but the "conic section flight path" meant the ship didn't aim headlong into the cloud, but arced in and ended up approaching from behind.

Second, the DE shows the ship facing V'ger's maw before the tractor beam grabs it (when the probe arrives). So the Enterprise turns itself around. It's just not shown.

Ah! That makes much more sense now. Thanks!

I was always confused by the 'conic section' flight path because shown from a side on perspective made it appear to be a straight line, so I thought it was either an error or technobabble.

 

[Agenda]

In TMP, Spock travels through V'Ger and sees a representation of V'Ger's journey including the Epsilon 9 station (and the Klingon ships in some versions IIRC) as well as various planets, moons etc.

Do you think V'Ger had assimilated the planets as it had the Klingons and Epsilon 9?

Not sure, but it was the highlight of the movie. Really cool scene.

 

[Chrisisall]

Really cool scene.

Jerry Goldsmith made it better!

 

[Bones2]

Jerry Goldmsith makes everything better. Probably the best thing about TMP, and certainly one of the best things about TFF.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Jerry Goldmsith makes everything better. Probably the best thing about TMP, and certainly one of the best things about TFF.

The music is indeed one of TMP's best features. In some ways, much of it could be considered a music video.

There were never Klingons seen in the Spock Walk.

Sure they were. You can see a few Klingons as well as the Klingon battlecruiser during Spock's mind meld. Of course, this is all flashing before your eyes faster than anything I've ever seen before in a movie, but still framing it does yield interesting results.

Well, yes...if that's what being referred to, but I took it to mean something we saw as Spock zipped along.

I did actually mean that they were visible as Spock flew past.

I just single stepped through the mind meld - the shots I thought I remembered aren't in it.

There are a number of frames showing the Pioneer 10 plaque though - the one with the male and female figures. I hadn't noticed that before and it does suggest that maybe V'Ger was getting some ideas of what it would need.

 

[Maurice]

There are a number of frames showing the Pioneer 10 plaque though - the one with the male and female figures. I hadn't noticed that before and it does suggest that maybe V'Ger was getting some ideas of what it would need.

Which is funny since V'ger couldn't have found Pioneer...perhaps the VFX crew got their probes confused?

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Indeed - I assumed the fictitious Voyager 6 was equiped with a Pioneer 10 style plaque.

 

[Christopher]

Uhh, didn't the montage of single frames in Spock's meld include images of Miss Piggy? Those images were never meant to be legible, so it's not necessary to believe the actual images were in V'Ger's database. They were just things the filmmakers chose to create a subliminal impression. It would be a mistake to take them literally.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Well, most of them are Epsilon 9, Ilia, the woman on Epsilon 9, the Pioneer plaque and the Klingon ship (at least I assume that's what the R2D2 like thing is...) - all of which appear more than once. There were a couple of frames that appeared to be a facial close up - not sure if it was Miss Piggy though...