But they packed a very cool wallop.
Star Trek V..... what the?
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But they packed a very cool wallop.
trevanian
Rear Admiral
The phasers also sound better (almost everything sounds better in TFF, the sound mix is pretty bold, mixing all the organic stuff along with vintage material like the 2001 space pod tracking noise.)
Of course, on the subject of phasers, this also brings up the matter of why Kirk didn't just stun all of Paradise City from orbit, THEN go down with the shuttle to pick up the captives. Maybe they only had torps aboard, and the ship's phasers weren't going to be installed till Tuesday (whoops, wrong flick.)
Of course, on the subject of phasers, this also brings up the matter of why Kirk didn't just stun all of Paradise City from orbit, THEN go down with the shuttle to pick up the captives. Maybe they only had torps aboard, and the ship's phasers weren't going to be installed till Tuesday (whoops, wrong flick.)
Not sure about an entire city, but certainly a city block as seen in "A Piece of the Action."
trevanian
Rear Admiral
Paradise City isn't much bigger than a city block, if it were they'd never have been able to afford to build it on location using studio help in a hurry for a half mil.
Guess we have to figure that the PIECE OF THE ACTION phaser bank is like the warp engine in BY ANY OTHER NAME, a piece of tech that doesn't work the same way twice.
Guess we have to figure that the PIECE OF THE ACTION phaser bank is like the warp engine in BY ANY OTHER NAME, a piece of tech that doesn't work the same way twice.
No doubt that the ship's phasers could probably take out a shanty town like Paradise City, which really ain't a city. If they had the budget, it might've been interesting to have seen crumbling buildings and half-built facades to indicate that at one point Paradise City was intended to be a bustling port-of-call metropolis.
I agree... that could've happened... I just watched the movie today...
... unless being out of the line of fire from a phaser, as in by being inside a building, keeps you out of the range of ship's phasers on stun. Presumably phasers on a strong enough setting would destroy the buildings, but since the Enterprise was motivated to not level the entire city, that would discourage ship's phasers on stun as the savior for this problem.
In just about any hostage situation, you would have three sorts of targets: hostages, captors and bystanders. And as regards orbital stunning, or any application of "blanket fire", the hostages and captors would always be better protected than bystanders.
In light of ST6 and the fate of Burke and Samno, it would be natural to assume that phasers that are on strong enough a stun setting to disable people within buildings, like those captors that have the hostages at gunpoint, would kill the babies, grandmas and cute space puppies on the streets.
"A Piece of the Action" would be a rather different scenario, as their entire culture excluded the concept of "bystander". Everybody Kirk wanted to stun was a burly gangster out in the open. There was no need to simultaneously stun Oxmyx and his nearest goons, as there was no hostage crisis ongoing: Oxmyx wouldn't execute Kirk for the transgression.
As long as we discuss the improbable technologies of the movie, I can't help falling in love with those transparent, roll-open, bulletproof shields. Now that is the sort of "casual" science fiction I would like to see more in Star Trek. Not a fancy blinking and beeping gadget that gets glorious zoom-ins and technobabble exposition, but a truly fantastic yet mundane-looking device that everybody in the movie handles with the reverence we would show to a canteen or a field shovel.
It's probably technologically plausible, too. It merely needs to be flexible enough that it can absorb the kinetic energy without breaking the arm of the user, and durable enough that bullets won't penetrate.
And it's truly beautiful in its simplicity. No moving parts, no power source, no mysterious glow.
Gear like this makes Kirk's operation look and sound well thought out and very likely to succeed. Indeed, his commandos appear to win the battle easily enough. If only their leader lived up to their performance...
Timo Saloniemi
In light of ST6 and the fate of Burke and Samno, it would be natural to assume that phasers that are on strong enough a stun setting to disable people within buildings, like those captors that have the hostages at gunpoint, would kill the babies, grandmas and cute space puppies on the streets.
"A Piece of the Action" would be a rather different scenario, as their entire culture excluded the concept of "bystander". Everybody Kirk wanted to stun was a burly gangster out in the open. There was no need to simultaneously stun Oxmyx and his nearest goons, as there was no hostage crisis ongoing: Oxmyx wouldn't execute Kirk for the transgression.
As long as we discuss the improbable technologies of the movie, I can't help falling in love with those transparent, roll-open, bulletproof shields. Now that is the sort of "casual" science fiction I would like to see more in Star Trek. Not a fancy blinking and beeping gadget that gets glorious zoom-ins and technobabble exposition, but a truly fantastic yet mundane-looking device that everybody in the movie handles with the reverence we would show to a canteen or a field shovel.
It's probably technologically plausible, too. It merely needs to be flexible enough that it can absorb the kinetic energy without breaking the arm of the user, and durable enough that bullets won't penetrate.
And it's truly beautiful in its simplicity. No moving parts, no power source, no mysterious glow.
Gear like this makes Kirk's operation look and sound well thought out and very likely to succeed. Indeed, his commandos appear to win the battle easily enough. If only their leader lived up to their performance...
Timo Saloniemi
Kirk should just have refused to take Sybok up in the Shuttle and that would have been the end of it.
But at that point, Kirk already knew the hostages were working with Sybok. Besides, we saw Captains ready to destroy the ship rather than it being taken over.
Kirk probably thought Sybok wouldn't get far, but everything that happens basically portrays the Enterprise crew as incompetent, especially after having dealt with similar situations (or even worse, see "Space Seed") in TOS, where they took advantage of the ship's systems to neutralize an invading force.
But what's weirdest imo is Scotty's behavior. He witnessed Sybok overpowering Kirk in the shuttlebay, with himself remaining undetected. He's the guy that can pull off anything. Flooding the department with gas or sealing off that deck would have been nothing for him (not to mention simply calling for a security force). But what does he do? He goes into hiding...
Of course, Sybok might have threatened to Kill the Starfleet guys on the Planet, starting with McCoy and Spock, holding them at gunpoint to get Kirk to comply (But that's not really the Sybok we get to know)
Also, Kirk might have thought anything would be better than waiting for the Klings to arrive, and hoped he'd resolve the situation somehow along the way.
Still, the way the takeover happened- Sybok and gang just going up to the bridge without problems to meet a totally surprised Chekov- isn't really convincing to me. It looks as though there were only like 30 people on board and they all have no clue what do do with their starship.
Kirk probably thought Sybok wouldn't get far, but everything that happens basically portrays the Enterprise crew as incompetent, especially after having dealt with similar situations (or even worse, see "Space Seed") in TOS, where they took advantage of the ship's systems to neutralize an invading force.
But what's weirdest imo is Scotty's behavior. He witnessed Sybok overpowering Kirk in the shuttlebay, with himself remaining undetected. He's the guy that can pull off anything. Flooding the department with gas or sealing off that deck would have been nothing for him (not to mention simply calling for a security force). But what does he do? He goes into hiding...
Of course, Sybok might have threatened to Kill the Starfleet guys on the Planet, starting with McCoy and Spock, holding them at gunpoint to get Kirk to comply (But that's not really the Sybok we get to know)
Also, Kirk might have thought anything would be better than waiting for the Klings to arrive, and hoped he'd resolve the situation somehow along the way.
Still, the way the takeover happened- Sybok and gang just going up to the bridge without problems to meet a totally surprised Chekov- isn't really convincing to me. It looks as though there were only like 30 people on board and they all have no clue what do do with their starship.
Yup. But what difference would that make? Sybok could still execute any of Kirk's team, including Kirk himself. And evidence of Sybok's potential for violence was all around him, with hordes of aggressive and armed followers pushing Kirk's team around.
Kirk never did that. He threatened with it once or twice - but when the push came to a shove, in "By Any Other Name", he so totally chickened out. Kirk could perhaps bluff his way through Sybok's threats, but he wouldn't sacrifice himself or his ship under any conditions (if the impending invasion of Andromedans didn't sway him, no mere madman could!). That is, as long as a firefight or good old fisticuffs were an option, no matter how slim, the self-destruct system would keep gathering dust.
How Sybok steamrollered the starship afterwards is a somewhat different issue. I personally tend to see his supernatural charisma at work there: whenever a person engages in discussion with him, or even comes close to him, that person enters a state of self-doubt and loses initiative. After all, that's what happens at the beginning of the movie where Sybok's abilities are defined... He is held at gunpoint but triumphs just by smiling.
And Kirk wouldn't have seen that coming. He had every reason to think that getting back to his ship would turn the tables in his favor. He couldn't really predict Sybok's sneaky insta-Stockholm-syndrome skills from what he had seen so far.
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe that was Sybok's initial plan: Get caught and then take over the ship starting from the brig: First winning over the guards, then one crewman after another.
Still, the fact that no one except a lone scotty sees the need to check after the shuttle crew, even after they had crashlanded hard in the shuttlebay seems odd, especially after Kirk seeing no need whatsoever to warn the ship somethings wrong.
I mean okay, Kirk may think he can take them all out himself and all, but it's still strange in my opinion. For the bridge crew to not worry at all as they did, Kirk (off-screen of course) must have told them everything was A-OK.
Even if Kirk thought he had everything under control, he should have at least tried to give *some* warning while communicating with the bridge. He sure had plenty of opportunity.
Also, shouldn't there be *somebody* in charge of security, keeping an eye on things, especially after a hostage situation?
True, but rememember those skills had nothing to do with him gaining control over the ship. He first overpowered Kirk in hand-to-hand-combat (and he only got the chance because they crahed so hard), then Spock refuses to shoot him. Only then, after he had the upper hand again, Sulu and Uhura got brainwashed.
Once he arrived on the bridge, it wouldn't really have mattered anyway, he could as well have shot them all dead and take command.
Of course, we the audience already knows Sybok isn't some terrorist trying to take control of the flagship of the Federation to blow up some Planet or something. We want the story to unfold, so it's "okay".
But imagine you're Scotty, and you see some guys having Kirk, Bones and Spock. They are probably dangerous, but they're armed with primitive rifles and there's only a handful of them.
Wouldn't the first thing you do is warn the bridge, then initiate some plan to stop it? Wouldn't it be your duty?
Whoever was the security officer at the time (Chekov?), or in command (Chekov) was not doing his job. Imagine Sybok had been some bloodthirsty Terrorist.
Maybe that's why Chekov had to stick to the Enterprise in ST6, while Sulu got his own ship...
Still, the fact that no one except a lone scotty sees the need to check after the shuttle crew, even after they had crashlanded hard in the shuttlebay seems odd, especially after Kirk seeing no need whatsoever to warn the ship somethings wrong.
I mean okay, Kirk may think he can take them all out himself and all, but it's still strange in my opinion. For the bridge crew to not worry at all as they did, Kirk (off-screen of course) must have told them everything was A-OK.
Even if Kirk thought he had everything under control, he should have at least tried to give *some* warning while communicating with the bridge. He sure had plenty of opportunity.
Also, shouldn't there be *somebody* in charge of security, keeping an eye on things, especially after a hostage situation?
True, but rememember those skills had nothing to do with him gaining control over the ship. He first overpowered Kirk in hand-to-hand-combat (and he only got the chance because they crahed so hard), then Spock refuses to shoot him. Only then, after he had the upper hand again, Sulu and Uhura got brainwashed.
Once he arrived on the bridge, it wouldn't really have mattered anyway, he could as well have shot them all dead and take command.
Of course, we the audience already knows Sybok isn't some terrorist trying to take control of the flagship of the Federation to blow up some Planet or something. We want the story to unfold, so it's "okay".
But imagine you're Scotty, and you see some guys having Kirk, Bones and Spock. They are probably dangerous, but they're armed with primitive rifles and there's only a handful of them.
Wouldn't the first thing you do is warn the bridge, then initiate some plan to stop it? Wouldn't it be your duty?
Whoever was the security officer at the time (Chekov?), or in command (Chekov) was not doing his job. Imagine Sybok had been some bloodthirsty Terrorist.
Maybe that's why Chekov had to stick to the Enterprise in ST6, while Sulu got his own ship...
Well, if the comm channels aren't working down in the engine hull, and the turbolift isn't working, how long would it take Scotty to climb to the bridge (or wherever) and raise the alarm? In his condition, quite a while.
In any case, Scotty probably thought that Sybok & his followers couldn't be stopped by the Enterprise crew directly.
If the Enterprise had only one turbo-car at this point, it would explain that. Plus the ship was in craptacular shape, with even the most basic systems not working correctly.
I think Sybok's telepathy was stronger than you might realize. He could induce mind-altering visions, manipulate emotions and thoughts, and really pull a number on his followers heads.
But anyway, the plotting isn't really the film's strong point. I enjoyed it, so I can rationalize away any errors. I can't really do hat for movies I don't like.
In any case, Scotty probably thought that Sybok & his followers couldn't be stopped by the Enterprise crew directly.
If the Enterprise had only one turbo-car at this point, it would explain that. Plus the ship was in craptacular shape, with even the most basic systems not working correctly.
I think Sybok's telepathy was stronger than you might realize. He could induce mind-altering visions, manipulate emotions and thoughts, and really pull a number on his followers heads.
But anyway, the plotting isn't really the film's strong point. I enjoyed it, so I can rationalize away any errors. I can't really do hat for movies I don't like.
That's pretty implicit, since he didn't even need to touch you to have you see things or think things. As I recall that was a chore for Spock to do through a rock wall.
Sharr
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