It was a very long shift.
Star Trek: TMP questions and observations
- Thread starter Gotham Central
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It was a very long shift.
^Tied with the poor sod working in the little room with the tiny window next to the airlock.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing recently.
As additional "real-life" consideration, I think since Decker didn't have anywhere to sit, having the science station between the turbolifts gave really two choices of where to stage Collins in shots, while preserving the intimate "conference area".
I'm watching the movie for the first time in maybe a year, possibly my last go-around for my videotaped copy. Either I'm so starved for entertainment that I'm noticing new things, or I've seen it so much that I'm numbed, and my mind can afford to wander without "missing anything".
Spock drops his medallion in the sand when he appears, and McCoy proudly wears one when he shows up. Is there any symbolic significance to this?
After the transporter accident, Kirk says "There was nothing you could have done, Rand...it wasn't your fault." Now, my only copy is the videotape I purchased eons ago, and the tv cropping of the image may make the scene read differently, but after Kirk says this he turns to leave. Is the transporter room particularly cramped, or something? Kirk turning looks very constrained, as if he were turning around in a phone booth.
Spock drops his medallion in the sand when he appears, and McCoy proudly wears one when he shows up. Is there any symbolic significance to this?
After the transporter accident, Kirk says "There was nothing you could have done, Rand...it wasn't your fault." Now, my only copy is the videotape I purchased eons ago, and the tv cropping of the image may make the scene read differently, but after Kirk says this he turns to leave. Is the transporter room particularly cramped, or something? Kirk turning looks very constrained, as if he were turning around in a phone booth.
^ The control console is indeed enclosed in a booth-like thingy. The actual transporter room, as such, is normal sized.
And he was glad to do it because nobody in Starfleet is actually in it to earn money... /sarcasm
Yes, and yes. Spock felt unworthy of Kolinahr, and McCoy likes jewelry.
Interesting question, I'd say yes. IIRC, according to the TMP novelization McCoy had spent the years following the 5-year-mission with indigenous people in the Pacific practising medicine, hence his medallion.
In the context of the film it would have seemed that McCoy accomplished something he wanted, while Spock utterly failed in receiving Kolinahr following exhausting ordeals.
Nevertheless, in both cases they were ready to go into space again.
Bob
The significance to the former is that Spock had failed to achieve Kolinahr. The significance to the latter is that it was the 1970s.
The novelization said that McCoy had "become something of a recluse while he researched applications of Fabrini medicine among surface dwellers." There's no mention of the Pacific, and no mention of a medallion.
Maybe, but it might just be a choice for McCoy's civvie style. It was the '70s, man.
Yes, that was part of the concept for the new transporter set: The operators were in a separate booth with a window. There were also exposed "mechanicals" in the floor between the booth and the platform, with a walkway to enter/exit the transporter.
^The "window" on the transporter booth was meant to be a radiation shield. It's the same principle as X-ray technicians working from behind a shield -- the operators get the highest cumulative exposure to the device's radiation, so they need more protection.
This still holds true in the Abramsverse: that transporter room also has an enclosed booth for the operators.
I know in TMP it's meant to be a radiation shield, but someone (I wish I could remember who) called it "the splatter screen" in jest after what happened in Galaxy Quest. Well, it would also protect the operators from splatter.
^I did have McCoy call it a "splatter guard" in Ex Machina, but I wasn't referencing Galaxy Quest.
(I went to check the book to refresh my memory of the exact words, and it was on the very first page I opened up to! If only it were always that easy.)
(I went to check the book to refresh my memory of the exact words, and it was on the very first page I opened up to! If only it were always that easy.)
I think the idea in TMP was more "This is how it should've been done all along, and the original series just got it wrong." Cf. the redesign of the Klingons -- Roddenberry's answer to why they changed was that they'd always looked like that but TOS couldn't afford to show it.
For an in-universe explanation, maybe it's like a lot of real-world health issues -- maybe it was only belatedly discovered that transporter operators were at an increased risk of cumulative radiation damage, and so new safety precautions were added. By the TNG era, presumably transporters have been redesigned with less radiation leakage, so the shield is no longer necessary. (Note, however, that the late-2250s Abramsverse transporter room does have a radiation shield.)
For an in-universe explanation, maybe it's like a lot of real-world health issues -- maybe it was only belatedly discovered that transporter operators were at an increased risk of cumulative radiation damage, and so new safety precautions were added. By the TNG era, presumably transporters have been redesigned with less radiation leakage, so the shield is no longer necessary. (Note, however, that the late-2250s Abramsverse transporter room does have a radiation shield.)
With the variation in the effect, it needn't be exactly the same transporter technology anyway. The underlying principles are undoubtedly identical, but the characteristics and composition of the equipment could vary. Perhaps with that hypothetical additional 5,000km in range, not possible in the classic Connie transporters because they used only type 1 DNGN-coils, comes that extra radiation dosage to the operators that creates the need for a shield. And then when the improved DNGN-3-coils become available, the shields are no longer needed. 
TOS had its own kind of rad suits, though, seen early on.
Granted Scotty never wore one, but he wasn't working right next to an intermix chamber most of the time, either.
Because they had their own rad suits on TOS, I believe there were other parts of engineering on TOS that weren't as safe as Main Engineering; we just never got to see them. I think it's more like that the redesign created the need to wear rad suits in other areas of the ship.
Notice that the radiation suits are only worn by everyone the first time they try the warp drive, presumably because the engines are untested and they're being extra cautious.
The second time Scotty, Spock (and presumably others, based on previous scenes) are in their usual uniforms.
The second time Scotty, Spock (and presumably others, based on previous scenes) are in their usual uniforms.
Milpitas? I used to live there! I knew some SCA members back then too.
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