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Access to the trilithium weapon.

So, could that mean that the thing with Geordie was just paying his debt to the sisters? Obviously, he already knew about and had access to the trilithium. If the sisters knew that he already had what they wanted, why would they not have tortured him for the info? Did he not want to tip his hand?

If you remember, he had a data storage chip (like an isolinear chip of sorts) that he was holding over them in the scene where he punches one of them and almost gets skewered by the crew.
I think he was going to give them access to his conclusions that allowed him to design the weapon.
Ok. Guess I'm overdue for a rewatch. ;)
 
I also read that it was equally important to the studio that there be a scene early on that "introduces" the characters to the general movie going audiences. They had originally written the movie to go directly from the Enterprise-B scenario to the Enterprise crew boarding Armagosa...but it was believed there needed to be a transition scene. Unfortunately, the promo scene comes off like "TNG Characters 101" as a result.

The thing is, they could have still made a "transition scene" that didn't cost anywhere near as much as the 18th century sailing ship. But Worf needed to fall into some water so that Beverly could do the same, apparently. I wonder if Gates McFadden knew that this would be the extent of her character's necessity in all four TNG films...:p

Someone earlier suggested that Data could have thrown a glass of water in Crusher's face. Heck, the extent ot Worf's promotion could have been the rest of the crew dumping their drinks on Worf's head in Ten Forward like football players dumping Gatorade on their coach when they win a game, and Data could have followed up with that.

When Soran asks that question...I didn't take it to mean that he wanted the information from Geordi for his own education on the subject. I took it to mean that he was trying to find out how much LaForge and the crew may have discovered about his plan, of which the trilithium him was a key part. How "hot on his trail" might they be?

But why would knowledge about trilithium have anything to do with his plan being foiled? By that time all he needed to do was get to Veridian III in time to set off his rocket. The worst that could happen was that the Enterprise got there first, discovered his rocket, and disabled or destroyed it before it could launch. Nothing of which has anything to do with trilithium in and of itself.

So, could that mean that the thing with Geordie was just paying his debt to the sisters? Obviously, he already knew about and had access to the trilithium. If the sisters knew that he already had what they wanted, why would they not have tortured him for the info? Did he not want to tip his hand?

If you remember, he had a data storage chip (like an isolinear chip of sorts) that he was holding over them in the scene where he punches one of them and almost gets skewered by the crew. I think he was going to give them access to his conclusions that allowed him to design the weapon.

After Soran tortures Geordi, he's next seen giving the Duras sisters that data storage chip. The implication of this scene is that he got the information from Geordi in order to give it to the sisters. But again, he already had the trilithium, so why did he have to ask Geordi about it?

It's one thing to be lording his weapon over the sisters to get their cooperation to take him to Veridian (which is obviously what he's doing). But this scene with Geordi simply makes no sense in that context. The only way this makes any sense is if Soran is just pulling conversation out of his ass while he installs the tracking device in Geordi's visor. But why did he even need to torture or even speak to Geordi at all? The scene is just silly.
 
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It seems to me that the torture scene was needed to sort of "cover their tracks", since they were sending Geordi back to the "D" with his compromised VISOR. To kidnap him just to take his VISOR off and fiddle with it would've caused too much suspicion.
 
That still doesn't explain why Soran asked Geordi to tell him everything he knows about trilithium.
 
Again...he's not interrogating Geordi to obtain his technical knowledge about trilithium. Those of you who believe this are taking the line deliverd bu McDowell too literally.

He is interested in what Geordi knows about his plans. He wants to understand how much the Enterprise may have discovered about the capabilities of trilithium and what his plan might be.

He was trying to gauge whether or not Picard had enough information to piece together what he was trying to do (just as he did) and anticipate whether the Enterprise would be popping up in the Veridian system.

Since no other purpose for his question makes any sense (as has been clearly discussed here), it's clear that this was his intent. In fact, I never interpreted it any other way.
 
I'm not arguing what his intent was. I was asking why he'd ask about trilithium in the first place. If his intent was to find out how much Picard knew of his plans, then why didn't he just ask that? Asking what Geordi knows about trilithium doesn't really answer that question.
 
Again...he's not interrogating Geordi to obtain his technical knowledge about trilithium. Those of you who believe this are taking the line deliverd bu McDowell too literally.

He is interested in what Geordi knows about his plans. He wants to understand how much the Enterprise may have discovered about the capabilities of trilithium and what his plan might be.

He was trying to gauge whether or not Picard had enough information to piece together what he was trying to do (just as he did) and anticipate whether the Enterprise would be popping up in the Veridian system.

Since no other purpose for his question makes any sense (as has been clearly discussed here), it's clear that this was his intent. In fact, I never interpreted it any other way.

You have a point about taking it too literally. But the way McDowell said it made it seem like he wanted to know things about trilithium that he didn't possess, which of course would be stupid since he's already built two rockets.

It would have been helpful if they had a scene where they showed him torturing Geordi to allow us to realize that he was talking in a sense of "What do you know about what you think I'm doing? as opposed to Trilithium itself.

........Oh wait there WAS a scene like that!!!!! Only it gets cut out of the film so we never get to hear Soran's true intent on the type of info he wants. It also would have made the line when Soran said a way that clearly seemed to have a double meaning "His heart just wasn't in it" in response to the Duras sisters letting him go. Because the way he was torturing was to do things to screw around with his heart rate!!!!!!

But instead of including a scene that would have answered the trilithium thing and answered why did Soran sound so weird when he made the heart comment, they just decided.....meh we don't need scenes like that, they might interfere with Data doing something stupid because of his new emotion chip. Lord knows the fans can't get enough of that.
 
I'm not arguing what his intent was. I was asking why he'd ask about trilithium in the first place. If his intent was to find out how much Picard knew of his plans, then why didn't he just ask that? Asking what Geordi knows about trilithium doesn't really answer that question.

No idea. Why do any of us choose certain words, phrases, figures of speech, etc to express ideas and ask questions?
 
Again...he's not interrogating Geordi to obtain his technical knowledge about trilithium. Those of you who believe this are taking the line deliverd bu McDowell too literally.

He is interested in what Geordi knows about his plans. He wants to understand how much the Enterprise may have discovered about the capabilities of trilithium and what his plan might be.

He was trying to gauge whether or not Picard had enough information to piece together what he was trying to do (just as he did) and anticipate whether the Enterprise would be popping up in the Veridian system.

Since no other purpose for his question makes any sense (as has been clearly discussed here), it's clear that this was his intent. In fact, I never interpreted it any other way.

You have a point about taking it too literally. But the way McDowell said it made it seem like he wanted to know things about trilithium that he didn't possess, which of course would be stupid since he's already built two rockets.

It would have been helpful if they had a scene where they showed him torturing Geordi to allow us to realize that he was talking in a sense of "What do you know about what you think I'm doing? as opposed to Trilithium itself.

........Oh wait there WAS a scene like that!!!!! Only it gets cut out of the film so we never get to hear Soran's true intent on the type of info he wants. It also would have made the line when Soran said a way that clearly seemed to have a double meaning "His heart just wasn't in it" in response to the Duras sisters letting him go. Because the way he was torturing was to do things to screw around with his heart rate!!!!!!

But instead of including a scene that would have answered the trilithium thing and answered why did Soran sound so weird when he made the heart comment, they just decided.....meh we don't need scenes like that, they might interfere with Data doing something stupid because of his new emotion chip. Lord knows the fans can't get enough of that.

Bingo...that is correct about the deleted scene.

Which raises another point: GEN seems to be a strangely-edited movie.
 
I'm not arguing what his intent was. I was asking why he'd ask about trilithium in the first place. If his intent was to find out how much Picard knew of his plans, then why didn't he just ask that? Asking what Geordi knows about trilithium doesn't really answer that question.

Soran acted as if he could read Picard's mind at times and used it to manipulate him.
 
It would have been helpful if they had a scene where they showed him torturing Geordi to allow us to realize that he was talking in a sense of "What do you know about what you think I'm doing? as opposed to Trilithium itself.

........Oh wait there WAS a scene like that!!!!! Only it gets cut out of the film so we never get to hear Soran's true intent on the type of info he wants. It also would have made the line when Soran said a way that clearly seemed to have a double meaning "His heart just wasn't in it" in response to the Duras sisters letting him go. Because the way he was torturing was to do things to screw around with his heart rate!!!!!!

The primary reason the torture scene was cut was that it and a follow-up scene had Riker, Geordi, and Worf in the scrapped uniforms. That was from the first or second day of the TNG filming (the Enterprise-B material was filmed over the previous two weeks), and they hadn't decided at that point to scrap the new uniforms that were made for the film. They would have needed to restage those scenes with the TNG and DS9 uniforms for film continuity reasons, and for whatever reason they chose not to restage the scenes. The torture was cut not because it was unimportant, but because it would have posed a film continuity error.
 
It would have been helpful if they had a scene where they showed him torturing Geordi to allow us to realize that he was talking in a sense of "What do you know about what you think I'm doing? as opposed to Trilithium itself.

........Oh wait there WAS a scene like that!!!!! Only it gets cut out of the film so we never get to hear Soran's true intent on the type of info he wants. It also would have made the line when Soran said a way that clearly seemed to have a double meaning "His heart just wasn't in it" in response to the Duras sisters letting him go. Because the way he was torturing was to do things to screw around with his heart rate!!!!!!

The primary reason the torture scene was cut was that it and a follow-up scene had Riker, Geordi, and Worf in the scrapped uniforms. That was from the first or second day of the TNG filming (the Enterprise-B material was filmed over the previous two weeks), and they hadn't decided at that point to scrap the new uniforms that were made for the film. They would have needed to restage those scenes with the TNG and DS9 uniforms for film continuity reasons, and for whatever reason they chose not to restage the scenes. The torture was cut not because it was unimportant, but because it would have posed a film continuity error.


What did the "scrapped" uniforms look like? :shrug: Thanks.
 
It would have been helpful if they had a scene where they showed him torturing Geordi to allow us to realize that he was talking in a sense of "What do you know about what you think I'm doing? as opposed to Trilithium itself.

........Oh wait there WAS a scene like that!!!!! Only it gets cut out of the film so we never get to hear Soran's true intent on the type of info he wants. It also would have made the line when Soran said a way that clearly seemed to have a double meaning "His heart just wasn't in it" in response to the Duras sisters letting him go. Because the way he was torturing was to do things to screw around with his heart rate!!!!!!

The primary reason the torture scene was cut was that it and a follow-up scene had Riker, Geordi, and Worf in the scrapped uniforms. That was from the first or second day of the TNG filming (the Enterprise-B material was filmed over the previous two weeks), and they hadn't decided at that point to scrap the new uniforms that were made for the film. They would have needed to restage those scenes with the TNG and DS9 uniforms for film continuity reasons, and for whatever reason they chose not to restage the scenes. The torture was cut not because it was unimportant, but because it would have posed a film continuity error.

Yeah God forbid they include that scene because it had continuity errors like those uniforms. Because it certainly didn't have continuity errors galore throughout the entire film (Heavy sarcasm)
 
No idea. Why do any of us choose certain words, phrases, figures of speech, etc to express ideas and ask questions?

Well, to me, asking "What do you know about my plans?" is a little more informative than "What do you know about trilithium?"

Bingo...that is correct about the deleted scene.

Which raises another point: GEN seems to be a strangely-edited movie.

I have not seen this deleted scene in question. If it does indeed provide context to the "trilithium" statement, I'd be interested in reading the transcript.

Soran acted as if he could read Picard's mind at times and used it to manipulate him.

Maybe, but what does that have to do with Soran asking Geordi about trilithium?
 
No idea. Why do any of us choose certain words, phrases, figures of speech, etc to express ideas and ask questions?

Well, to me, asking "What do you know about my plans?" is a little more informative than "What do you know about trilithium?"

Bingo...that is correct about the deleted scene.

Which raises another point: GEN seems to be a strangely-edited movie.

I have not seen this deleted scene in question. If it does indeed provide context to the "trilithium" statement, I'd be interested in reading the transcript.

Unquestionably. This doesn't change the fact that the character chose to speak in a certain way, with a certain choice of words at that particular moment, for better or worse.

I don't think the deleted scene provides any additional context, at least not what you are looking for.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kI3U18GnwT8
 
But according to the deleted scene, there was more to the context than just a random awkward question about trilithium, and it wasn't just some esoteric way that Soran has of speaking. That's why I asked if the transcript could be posted here.
 
But according to the deleted scene, there was more to the context than just a random awkward question about trilithium, and it wasn't just some esoteric way that Soran has of speaking. That's why I asked if the transcript could be posted here.

I hate to sound dismissive, but I really don't think it's that important, nor do I care.

I've never once even thought about the line or its meaning beyond what I've already stated. Since we agree that it makes no sense for Soran to be asking for further technical information regarding trilithium, and since I've always interpreted Soran's question the way I have...I'm ready to move on. Those two facts- by definition- sort of conclude the need for any further exploration.

I really can't see the point of debating a throw-away line in a movie I don't hold in particularly his regard.
 
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