Star Trek:The Motion Picture(1979) events happen in what year?
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2273. Kirk hasn't logged a single star-hour in two and a half years (during which time he was Chief of Starfleet Operations), so with the Enterprise completing its mission in 2270, it's 2273 at minimum.
Just came across an archived StarTrek.com article from 2004, an interview with director Robert Wise where he discussed where he believed the film was chronologically set, relative to the end of the TV show:
(Incidentally, this was an interview with Robert Wise that was printed out from StarTrek.com back when it was published in 2004. I tried to find it online, but I think after ST.com was shut down and reopened, they deleted almost all the old content. I think it's also a fascinating read.)
Clearly he didn't pay much credence to the actual dialogue spoken onscreen in the movie itself ("You haven't logged a single star-hour in two-and-a-half years," etc.), and simply assumed an identical span of time (a decade) elapsed within the Star Trek universe as in the real world. It's clearly a 2272/2273 dating-placement, and I tend to use the generally-accepted date of 2273 myself.
(Incidentally, this was an interview with Robert Wise that was printed out from StarTrek.com back when it was published in 2004. I tried to find it online, but I think after ST.com was shut down and reopened, they deleted almost all the old content. I think it's also a fascinating read.)
It had been 25 years since he directed TMP and he was near 90 years old at the time of the interview in 2004. So I'd say cut the guy some slack.
However, during the interview, he very clearly has an excellent and immediate recall of the facts, and is very eloquent and detailed during his responses -- it's clear that he'd always held that opinion for decades, and he answers the questions like he'd directed ST:TMP only yesterday.
Also- just because he hasn't logged a single star hour in 2.5 years doesn't mean that that last logging was with the Enterprise during her 5-year mission.
Exactly.
Yes, but outside of the actors being visibly older, there's also nothing in the movie that indicates that it was necessarily anything longer than 2 1/2 year gap. Nothing about McCoy being retired for 8-9 years, for instance.
But lack of proof is not proof.
Hard to say when he retired, was it right after the end of the five year mission, or was it later?
In the movie, Kirk's been the Chief of Starfleet Operation for two and a half years.
Now in the present day US Navy the Chief of Naval Operations is as high as a officer can go in the Navy.
It's made clear that Kirk does have at least one superior officer, still to jump from captain of a ship straight to such a high administrative position is difficult to grasp.
Promotional stunt to the side, would Kirk have even been capable of preform the duties required of of such a position?
It would make more sense (at least to me) if Kirk had spent several years at Starfleet Command working his way up, before becoming the Chief of Starfleet Operation.
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2273
Good point, that narrows it between 2272 - 2278.
I think this is great logic if TMP exists in isolation to the rest of Trek. But it doesn't.
And you're making an assumption that the rank structure & organization of the 23rd century Starfleet is more or less the same as our present-day Navy. Considering how much larger Starfleet must be than the U.S. Navy by several orders of magnitude, that seems unlikely to me.
I prefer to think of it as 2279, because no one ages ten years in three. And that gives room for another five year mission that isn't wearing powder blue and beige space pajamas. However, the consensus tends to be on 2273. Roddenberry and the PTB seemed to prefer 2271 (or even 2270), but that makes even less sense given you had people age 10 years in *one* year, and how can the Enterprise not log a star hour for 2.5 years but it only drydocked in 2269 or 2270?
I suppose if you wanted, you could also argue that someone else commanded or even an entirely new crew took over the Enterprise after the five year mission, from 2271 to 2276, giving 2.5 years without service until 2279. A lost era of captaincy is an interesting idea. The only problem is "Cause and Effect", where the TWOK uniform is already in service by 2278. But maybe that was an early adoption not widely used in the fleet yet.
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