TFF: Where were the Romulans?

[Dukhat]

Same here - although I'm still a bit miffed about that old discussion where you insisted that the shuttle prop built for ST:ID must be for a repeat of Robau's old craft (the argument IIRC being that it looked completely unlike that one, and it's well established that TPTB don't care, so there!)

Sorry, don't know what you're talking about. If we had a discussion in the past about a shuttle, I don't remember it.

But you are not at liberty to define "real life" for this scenario. And you can't use "real real life" as the baseline, because that doesn't include things like Vulcans and Klingons - you have to play by the rules of Star Trek.

Even a fantasy/sci-fi world like Star Trek has to abide by certain realistic atrributes, or the audience isn't going to take it seriously. And that's why STV fails: the movie is full of unrealistic nonsense.

-So there's an M-Class planet in the center of the galaxy, when even the scientific community back during the film's debut had already accepted that there's actually a black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

-So apparently multiple ships in the past, including the Enterprise and a measly BoP, have managed to reach the center of the galaxy despite the staggeringly long distance and time required to perform this feat, even using Star Trek's warp drive scale.

-A Federation ambassador is being held hostage, and Starfleet's response is to send a malfunctioning ship with a crew of senior citizens to rescue him. Not to mention that the Enterprise in currently in Earth orbit while Nimbus III is located in the Neutral Zone. Where were all of Starfleet's border patrol ships? Wouldn't they have been closer to the action?

-Surprise! Spock has a half-brother, and he's coincidentally the one who kidnapped the ambassadors.

-Almost all of Kirk's 30-year crew turn on him despite what appears to be quite minimal brainwashing on Sybok's part.

-The kidnapping of the ambassadors suddenly becomes a non-event, and instead Kirk decides to take Sybok where he wants to go despite the serious criminal act he has committed.

-The previously mentioned "impenetrable barrier" is nothing of the sort.

-We find that the whole point of Sybok's plan was to get a starship because God asked him to, so instead of simply stealing one, he came up with a convoluted plan to have one come to him (which again, had a high probability of not even happening).

Et cetera. There's a reason why this film is universally hated by Trek fans, and it has nothing to do with subpar VFX or even the overuse of expletives. It's because the film is just utter nonsense.

Sybok would be fully justified in relying on the odds being on his side. If "But what if...?" of such low probability and significance were allowed to be an obstacle, Kirk wouldn't have sailed to Nimbus III because he might run into a Space Amoeba en route, be turned into his evil twin, or miss out on a really great dinner date.

That's silly. Just saying "well, anything can happen" is a cop-out when one's plan is foolhardy from the get-go. There's a greater probability of failure than success when one takes hostages simply to procure a spacecraft.

That tells you that it's perfectly legitimate that God told Sybok He needed a starship. Sybok need not have known himself. The audience certainly has no obligation to know.

Er, still not answering the question of why Sybok needed a military ship.

Depends solely on who that "one" is, really.

"One" is of course the audience watching the movie.

Irrelevant as such - because God would want something that assuredly gets through, and would demand a starship.

Which goes back to my original point: Sybok had no idea who would be coming to rescue the ambassadors, or if they'd even come at all. And if they did, he had no idea what kind of ship they'd have. Just because he asks for a starship doesn't mean he is going to get a starship, especially if the three empires didn't deem their ambassadors even worthy of rescue. Again, Sybok would have been better off just stealing a ship on his own instead of waiting for one to come to him.

Yes, that's like assuming that Putin would tell that Crimea belongs to Russia and that the West is responsible for the unrest in Ukraine.

That is like nothing of the sort.

Name one.

I did.

But first mind the catch here. The problem is that the acquisition has to fit within the greater plan: Starfleet can't immediately grab the ship back, Klingons can't shoot her down, the ship has to go to the Barrier and to Sha Ka Ree, etc. That's how the plan gets refined from the generic to something that actually fits the bill.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can be about this: Sybok did not need the Enterprise. He didn't need a Federation starship at all. He just needed a vessel with warp drive to take him to the center of the galaxy. There was NOTHING special about the Enterprise that he couldn't have gotten from any other ship from any other person/race/organization/etc. And he certainly didn't have to stage a kidnapping and interstellar incident to acquire one. It all comes back to this film being utter nonsense, get it? So none of the "factors" you state matter, except in the context of the film where in some mad universe this kidnapping plot was in fact a good idea.

 

[Captrek]

Even a fantasy/sci-fi world like Star Trek has to abide by certain realistic atrributes, or the audience isn't going to take it seriously. And that's why STV fails: the movie is full of unrealistic nonsense.

-So there's an M-Class planet in the center of the galaxy, when even the scientific community back during the film's debut had already accepted that there's actually a black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

When you have a ship with warp drive, the event horizon of a black hole is itself not an impenetrable barrier, and we can imagine that anything is on the other side of the EH, at least when we're talking about Star Trek and mythological gods. It's not Hard SF.

And even for hard SF, I think Sgr A* was mysterious enough that it's not unreasonable for a movie to imagine that it's an alien prison for an unimaginably powerful being surrounded by an impenetrable energy barrier.

-So apparently multiple ships in the past, including the Enterprise and a measly BoP, have managed to reach the center of the galaxy despite the staggeringly long distance and time required to perform this feat, even using Star Trek's warp drive scale.

Maybe unfair to hold a TOS film to a warp scale only really set in TNG.

-A Federation ambassador is being held hostage, and Starfleet's response is to send a malfunctioning ship with a crew of senior citizens to rescue him. Not to mention that the Enterprise in currently in Earth orbit while Nimbus III is located in the Neutral Zone. Where were all of Starfleet's border patrol ships? Wouldn't they have been closer to the action?

The President ordered them to stand down.

 

[Dukhat]

When you have a ship with warp drive, the event horizon of a black hole is itself not an impenetrable barrier, and we can imagine that anything is on the other side of the EH, at least when we're talking about Star Trek and mythological gods. It's not Hard SF.

And if the film would have mentioned a black hole, or an event horizon, or that ShaKaRee was located on the other side of either one, at least that would have been better than what was implied: that there was no such thing, and that the planet was indeed at the galactic center (or, more scientifically, the star that ShaKaRee presumably orbited, being a class-M planet and all...which was also never mentioned.) The barrier was never referred to or implied to be a black hole or event horizon.

Maybe unfair to hold a TOS film to a warp scale only really set in TNG.

But it's the same warp drive; the different scale is just a different scale. And it's completely irrelevant anyway, due to the unbelievability factor: According to this film, Kirk's Enterprise-A can reach the center of the galaxy in just under an hour, while Picard's ship would take thousands of years to do the same thing.

The President ordered them to stand down.

Lol.

 

[Captrek]

When you have a ship with warp drive, the event horizon of a black hole is itself not an impenetrable barrier, and we can imagine that anything is on the other side of the EH, at least when we're talking about Star Trek and mythological gods. It's not Hard SF.

And if the film would have mentioned a black hole, or an event horizon, or that ShaKaRee was located on the other side of either one, at least that would have been better than what was implied: that there was no such thing, and that the planet was indeed at the galactic center (or, more scientifically, the star that ShaKaRee presumably orbited, being a class-M planet and all...which was also never mentioned.) The barrier was never referred to or implied to be a black hole or event horizon.

In 1991, the average moviegoer probably didn't know about the SMBH at the center of the galaxy. Heck, astrophysicists weren't entirely certain about the theory at the time. Now we know it's there. It's about the size of the orbit of Uranus, and a few million times more massive than the sun. That's still pretty tiny on galactic scales. The Great Barrier could be anywhere in that neighborhood and still reasonably be described as being "at the center (or heart) of the galaxy."

Maybe unfair to hold a TOS film to a warp scale only really set in TNG.

But it's the same warp drive; the different scale is just a different scale. And it's completely irrelevant anyway, due to the unbelievability factor: According to this film, Kirk's Enterprise-A can reach the center of the galaxy in just under an hour, while Picard's ship would take thousands of years to do the same thing.

Why blame TFF for what ships can do in the spin-off? Who even cared about TNG at the time except seriously hardcore Trekkies?

 

[Timo]

Even a fantasy/sci-fi world like Star Trek has to abide by certain realistic atrributes, or the audience isn't going to take it seriously.

But you can't choose those attributes, either. You have to accept the premises of Star Trek, no matter how ridiculous - especially if they were carved in stone well before this movie. You can't turn the premises against the movie.

And that's why STV fails: the movie is full of unrealistic nonsense.

All of Star Trek is. Nevertheless, it doesn't fail. Or if it does IYHO, what's the point of singling out ST5?

-So there's an M-Class planet in the center of the galaxy, when even the scientific community back during the film's debut had already accepted that there's actually a black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

That would be our Milky Way. Their Milky Way has strange energy barriers everywhere - it most definitely is not ours.

-So apparently multiple ships in the past, including the Enterprise and a measly BoP, have managed to reach the center of the galaxy despite the staggeringly long distance and time required to perform this feat, even using Star Trek's warp drive scale.

Well, not really. There are two ways out, and you have already accepted both if you sign on to the "All of Star Trek isn't automatically drivel" bandwagon.

1) In this episode, our heroes agree that going to the center won't work - so we can safely assume they didn't go there. All we need to accept is they went to Sha Ka Ree. Perhaps Sybok thought it would be somewhere near the center, perhaps he didn't. He was right about the fact that going towards the center would get one to Sha Ka Ree.

2) The heroes already did go there earlier, so there you have it.

-A Federation ambassador is being held hostage, and Starfleet's response is to send a malfunctioning ship with a crew of senior citizens to rescue him. Not to mention that the Enterprise in currently in Earth orbit while Nimbus III is located in the Neutral Zone. Where were all of Starfleet's border patrol ships? Wouldn't they have been closer to the action?

The movie spells out that the Federation cares very little about Nimbus III. And previous episodes have demonstrated that there is no starship patrol established at the RNZ: random visits by starships are the way to deal with this long-dormant menace, and it's by sheer chance that one such foils the Romulan plans in "BoT".

-Surprise! Spock has a half-brother, and he's coincidentally the one who kidnapped the ambassadors.

And? Surprise! Khan breaks loose just when Kirk is in the ship closest to him. All of Star Trek works on the assumption that things happen...

-Almost all of Kirk's 30-year crew turn on him despite what appears to be quite minimal brainwashing on Sybok's part.

And? That's the premise - that Sybok is good at what he does.

-The kidnapping of the ambassadors suddenly becomes a non-event, and instead Kirk decides to take Sybok where he wants to go despite the serious criminal act he has committed.

And? He doesn't really have a choice. And he has just been brainwashed, even if he retains a bit more self-control than most of the others.

-The previously mentioned "impenetrable barrier" is nothing of the sort.

And? Invincible foes in previous movies turned out to be very vincible after all. All it takes is proper heroes at the right time in the right place. That's realism for you - many have failed, only some succeed. Hollywood only dictates that the camera tags along with the party that succeeds.

Et cetera. There's a reason why this film is universally hated by Trek fans, and it has nothing to do with subpar VFX or even the overuse of expletives. It's because the film is just utter nonsense.

Fans also hate ST:TMP with passion. And ST3. And ST4.

Personally, I think ST2 is drivel, and among the least Trek-like in the whole lot. It's an idiot plot that works against Trek premises and realistic expectations. But it's got good character moments and cool VFX, so it's still entertainment.

There's a greater probability of failure than success when one takes hostages simply to procure a spacecraft.

But zero probability of success when one tries any other means of procuring a starship. You can't balance apples against oranges.

Er, still not answering the question of why Sybok needed a military ship.

Such a question does not exist. The question is "What does God need with a starship?", and Sybok is merely His humble servant here. If he questioned God, there would be no quest and no movie. But, consistently with previous evidence (Spock and V'Ger), he does go on the quest and sets the events rolling.

Which goes back to my original point: Sybok had no idea who would be coming to rescue the ambassadors, or if they'd even come at all.

That's not a valid point. Sybok would have known, under well-established Trek premises. You may disagree with him, but you are the one in the wrong, because Sybok is better versed in Trek reality.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can be about this: Sybok did not need the Enterprise. He didn't need a Federation starship at all.

You saying so doesn't make it true. Sybok saying a thing does make it either true, or a lie, and we can then argue which. And what Sybok says is the clear thing:

J'onn: "What is it you seek?"
Sybok: "What you seek. What all men have sought since time began. The ultimate knowledge. To find it, we'll need a starship."

If you want to say he is lying, you are entitled to. But you have to come up with a better argument than "I know better", because you don't. You haven't spent your entire life trying to accomplish this thing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

According to this film, Kirk's Enterprise-A can reach the center of the galaxy in just under an hour, while Picard's ship would take thousands of years to do the same thing.

That's a bit of a stretch - even by Voyager's very low speeds, the Enterprise-D ought to have made the trip in 30-40 years, depending on their position.

As for Sybok's scheme, there's lots of compelling arguments on both sides here. However, no-one has mentioned the fact that his whole plan could have been undone by a ship, any ship with a working transporter - just park it in orbit and beam up the hostages!

 

[Timo]

In 1991, the average moviegoer probably didn't know about the SMBH at the center of the galaxy. Heck, astrophysicists weren't entirely certain about the theory at the time. Now we know it's there. It's about the size of the orbit of Uranus, and a few million times more massive than the sun. That's still pretty tiny on galactic scales. The Great Barrier could be anywhere in that neighborhood and still reasonably be described as being "at the center (or heart) of the galaxy."

Indeed. For us humble humans, dividing the galaxy into "manageable chunks" makes a lot of sense, and "center" might well mean the centermost twenty thousand lightyears while "rim" would mean something else.

FWIW, in "Magicks of Megas-Tu", our heroes are on a mission to investigate a phenomenon taking place at the center of the galaxy, and indeed they successfully put the thing on their viewscreen. Nowhere in the episode is it indicated that they would actually be going there...

Sybok's plan could have been undone by a ship, any ship with a working transporter - just park it in orbit and beam up the hostages!

How would that have undone anything? Starfleet would now have Sybok's agents on board, and would no doubt bring Sybok on board as well, unharmed and ready to spring to further soul-liberating action as soon as his agents freed him.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

Day Of The Dove separated out the unfriendlies during transport easily enough

 

[Timo]

Quite so. But thanks to the brainwashing, it would be the friendlies who are Sybok's true henchmen.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

In 1991, the average moviegoer probably didn't know about the SMBH at the center of the galaxy. Heck, astrophysicists weren't entirely certain about the theory at the time. Now we know it's there. It's about the size of the orbit of Uranus, and a few million times more massive than the sun. That's still pretty tiny on galactic scales. The Great Barrier could be anywhere in that neighborhood and still reasonably be described as being "at the center (or heart) of the galaxy."

So wouldn't you think that a black hole that massive would have destroyed ShaKaRee even if it weren't exactly at the center of the galaxy?

Why blame TFF for what ships can do in the spin-off? Who even cared about TNG at the time except seriously hardcore Trekkies?

Because TFF was filmed while TNG was already on the air for several years. And I'd argue that "seriously hardcore Trekkies" were hardly the only ones watching TNG.

But you can't choose those attributes, either. You have to accept the premises of Star Trek, no matter how ridiculous - especially if they were carved in stone well before this movie. You can't turn the premises against the movie.

Wrong. I can choose those attributes because I am the movie's audience. Whatever you personally choose to believe is up to you. But I can decide for myself whether this film is a heaping pile of unrealistic nonsense. And I'd have most of the viewing audience on my side, if box office returns and audience reviews are any indication.

All of Star Trek is. Nevertheless, it doesn't fail. Or if it does IYHO, what's the point of singling out ST5?

Because this discussion is about STV.

That would be our Milky Way. Their Milky Way has strange energy barriers everywhere - it most definitely is not ours.

So if in their universe, it's established that humans can walk on the sun, you'd just suspend your disbelief and go with it? Ok then. Sorry if I prefer a little more realism to my sci-fi.

1) In this episode, our heroes agree that going to the center won't work - so we can safely assume they didn't go there. All we need to accept is they went to Sha Ka Ree. Perhaps Sybok thought it would be somewhere near the center, perhaps he didn't. He was right about the fact that going towards the center would get one to Sha Ka Ree.

The film established ShaKaRee to be at the center of the galaxy. Not near the center, not around the center, but the center. That's what I'm basing my opinions on.

2) The heroes already did go there earlier, so there you have it.

When did they go to the center of the galaxy before TFF?

The movie spells out that the Federation cares very little about Nimbus III. And previous episodes have demonstrated that there is no starship patrol established at the RNZ: random visits by starships are the way to deal with this long-dormant menace, and it's by sheer chance that one such foils the Romulan plans in "BoT".

Um, how do you know that there weren't patrols? ST VI established that there were.

And? Surprise! Khan breaks loose just when Kirk is in the ship closest to him. All of Star Trek works on the assumption that things happen...

True, but we already knew who Khan was. My point was that Sybok as Spock's half-brother was a total macguffin that came out of nowhere and did nothing to advance the plot.

And? That's the premise - that Sybok is good at what he does.

Not really. He brainwashed Uhura, Scotty, Chekov and Sulu. He wasn't able to brainwash Kirk, Spock, or McCoy using the same techniques. So that's 4 to 3, not 7 to 0, hardly a basis for saying he's good at what he does.

And? He doesn't really have a choice. And he has just been brainwashed, even if he retains a bit more self-control than most of the others.

IIRC, Kirk takes Sybok to ShaKaRee of his own free will.

And? Invincible foes in previous movies turned out to be very vincible after all. All it takes is proper heroes at the right time in the right place. That's realism for you - many have failed, only some succeed. Hollywood only dictates that the camera tags along with the party that succeeds.

We're not talking about an invincible foe. We're talking about a spacial phenomena that was described as impenetrable.

Fans also hate ST:TMP with passion. And ST3. And ST4.

Oh please. That's a silly comparison to this film's response.

Personally, I think ST2 is drivel, and among the least Trek-like in the whole lot. It's an idiot plot that works against Trek premises and realistic expectations. But it's got good character moments and cool VFX, so it's still entertainment.

Ok, I respect your opinion.

But zero probability of success when one tries any other means of procuring a starship. You can't balance apples against oranges.

That makes no sense.

Such a question does not exist. The question is "What does God need with a starship?", and Sybok is merely His humble servant here. If he questioned God, there would be no quest and no movie. But, consistently with previous evidence (Spock and V'Ger), he does go on the quest and sets the events rolling.

No, you stated earlier in this discussion that Sybok needed a military ship. I've kept asking you why and you haven't answered the question.

That's not a valid point. Sybok would have known, under well-established Trek premises. You may disagree with him, but you are the one in the wrong, because Sybok is better versed in Trek reality.

Bull. Sybok isn't a mind reader or able to see into the future. And you have no authority to tell me I'm wrong either, since you have no control over the rules of this universe either. My point is that this film makes no sense from a realistic viewpoint. If the creators of Trek stated that we should view this universe as completely unrealistic, then I wouldn't be arguing about it. But they haven't.

You saying so doesn't make it true. Sybok saying a thing does make it either true, or a lie, and we can then argue which. And what Sybok says is the clear thing:

J'onn: "What is it you seek?"
Sybok: "What you seek. What all men have sought since time began. The ultimate knowledge. To find it, we'll need a starship."

If you want to say he is lying, you are entitled to. But you have to come up with a better argument than "I know better", because you don't. You haven't spent your entire life trying to accomplish this thing.

Huh? I never said he was lying. I said that "God" told him he needed a starship, and Sybok decided that this meant staging a hostage situation in order to procure said starship instead of finding said ship by more logical means. The fact that a Federation starship came to Nimbus III was just coincidental, as Sybok could have just used the BoP if that was the only ship that came.

That's a bit of a stretch - even by Voyager's very low speeds, the Enterprise-D ought to have made the trip in 30-40 years, depending on their position.

My bad, you're right. I confused the time with the distance. Still, my point stands.

As for Sybok's scheme, there's lots of compelling arguments on both sides here. However, no-one has mentioned the fact that his whole plan could have been undone by a ship, any ship with a working transporter - just park it in orbit and beam up the hostages!

Which goes back to what someone earlier said about Sybok's plan seeming to hedge on said ship not having this capability, which "coincidentally" was what happened ("coincidentally" is, of course, in quotes because that's what the script needed, yet again adding to the sense of this film's unbelievability factor.)

 

[Captrek]

In 1991, the average moviegoer probably didn't know about the SMBH at the center of the galaxy. Heck, astrophysicists weren't entirely certain about the theory at the time. Now we know it's there. It's about the size of the orbit of Uranus, and a few million times more massive than the sun. That's still pretty tiny on galactic scales. The Great Barrier could be anywhere in that neighborhood and still reasonably be described as being "at the center (or heart) of the galaxy."

So wouldn't you think that a black hole that massive would have destroyed ShaKaRee even if it weren't exactly at the center of the galaxy?

Yeah, that's kind of why flying starships into the Great Barrier is not considered a good idea. The energy inside there is generally presumed to be so intense that nothing could survive in there, not a starship and not an M-class planet.

That general presumption turns out to be wrong. It turns out to be an ordinary planetary system and the Barrier itself is an illusion.

Now, Barrier or no Barrier, could an M-class planet really survive orbiting a star orbiting the SMBH at close range? I don't know. For Star Trek terms, I don't think it's too much of a stretch.

I think your problem is that you think you know the center of the galaxy a lot better than you do, and you're peeved that you can't fit TFF into your mental model.

Why blame TFF for what ships can do in the spin-off? Who even cared about TNG at the time except seriously hardcore Trekkies?

Because TFF was filmed while TNG was already on the air for several years.

Not several years. YE and BOBW had yet to put the series on the map. TFF hit theaters shortly before "Shades of Grey" aired and demonstrated how pathetic and inconsequential TNG to date had been.

The film established ShaKaRee to be at the center of the galaxy. Not near the center, not around the center, but the center. That's what I'm basing my opinions on.

You're being hyperliteral. "At the center of the galaxy" would be a reasonable way to describe the location of system orbiting the SMBH with small radius.

 

[Avro Arrow]

As for Sybok's scheme, there's lots of compelling arguments on both sides here. However, no-one has mentioned the fact that his whole plan could have been undone by a ship, any ship with a working transporter - just park it in orbit and beam up the hostages!

I'd have to think Sybok actually had a countermeasure for this... it was just never brought up in dialogue because Enterprise couldn't use her transporters.

When did they go to the center of the galaxy before TFF?

I'm guessing this is referring to TAS: "The Magicks of Megas-Tu".

No, you stated earlier in this discussion that Sybok needed a military ship. I've kept asking you why and you haven't answered the question.

Perhaps penetrating the barrier requires military-grade shields that wouldn't be available to the public on civilian vessels?

 

[Dukhat]

That general presumption turns out to be wrong. It turns out to be an ordinary planetary system and the Barrier itself is an illusion.

But it wasn't an illusion. Kirk stated that ships have tried to penetrate the barrier in the past and suffered consequences for it.

I think your problem is that you think you know the center of the galaxy a lot better than you do, and you're peeved that you can't fit TFF into your mental model.

Granted I'm no astrophysicist, but yeah, I think I know what's at the center of the galaxy better than the writers of this film did.

Not several years. YE and BOBW had yet to put the series on the map. TFF hit theaters shortly before "Shades of Grey" aired and demonstrated how pathetic and inconsequential TNG to date had been.

TNG had been airing for at least two years before TFF debuted. It's a foregone conclusion that the same audience watching TNG was also paying theater tickets for TFF.

You're being hyperliteral. "At the center of the galaxy" would be a reasonable way to describe the location of system orbiting the SMBH with small radius.

No, I'm going with what was said in the film, and the film gave every indication that ShaKaRee was dead center.

I'd have to think Sybok actually had a countermeasure for this... it was just never brought up in dialogue because Enterprise couldn't use her transporters.

But what countermeasure could he possibly have had to nullify a transporter beam? It's not like he or the planet had any kind of technology to shield them from beaming.

Perhaps penetrating the barrier requires military-grade shields that wouldn't be available to the public on civilian vessels?

Ok, fine. That's a valid reason why he'd need a Starfleet vessel. But again, he could have still procured one by better means.

 

[Captrek]

That general presumption turns out to be wrong. It turns out to be an ordinary planetary system and the Barrier itself is an illusion.

But it wasn't an illusion. Kirk stated that ships have tried to penetrate the barrier in the past and suffered consequences for it.

Unfortunately, they asked God for His ID and didn't have Klaa around to back them up.

Granted I'm no astrophysicist, but yeah, I think I know what's at the center of the galaxy better than the writers of this film did.

Check yourself.

No, I'm going with what was said in the film, and the film gave every indication that ShaKaRee was dead center.

Sgr A* orbits the SMBH a at a distance of a few light hours. The diameter of our galaxy is about 100,000 light years. To put this in perspective, if you imagine the galaxy as an archery target one meter in diameter, the distance from Sgr A* to the central SMBH is a few nanometers. Most people would still call that the center of the target.

 

[Timo]

Wrong. I can choose those attributes because I am the movie's audience.

Sure. But you will then be saying that Star Trek beyond ST5:TFF is shit, because the things you critique ultimately derive from already established characteristics of the Trek universe.

Because this discussion is about STV.

...But, it should definitely be pointed out here, also about Star Trek in general, because the critique is aimed at the nature of the Star Trek universe rather than at things specific to ST5.

So if in their universe, it's established that humans can walk on the sun, you'd just suspend your disbelief and go with it? Ok then. Sorry if I prefer a little more realism to my sci-fi.

So you really say you have a problem believing in... What exactly? You accept Vulcans and warp drives, and you balk at

1) a Vulcan knowing how politics work in his own universe, and scheming on this basis?
2) said Vulcan's alien telepathic skills having a specific if diverse effect on our heroes and sidekicks?
3) an energy barrier of strange properties existing?
4) ???

The film established ShaKaRee to be at the center of the galaxy. Not near the center, not around the center, but the center. That's what I'm basing my opinions on.

The movie actually says the Great Barrier lies at the center of the galaxy; Sha Ka Ree is merely fabled to exist beyond that barrier.

Clearly, the barrier is not a point object, but has some dimension. Therefore, it cannot be at the center of the galaxy in terms of being at the exact spot. So we have full freedom now in choosing how far away from that spot the barrier extends, and how close to Nimbus III it comes.

When did they go to the center of the galaxy before TFF?

Oh, come on. TAS "Magics of Megas-Tu". If they didn't go there in that episode (and this can easily be argued), then they probably didn't go there in this movie, either (because this can equally easily be argued).

Um, how do you know that there weren't patrols? ST VI established that there were.

"BoT" established that there were no patrols on the Romulan Neutral Zone. ST6 never mentioned the Romulan Neutral Zone in any fashion. (ST2 and ST6 both featured an undefined Neutral Zone that somehow involved Klingons, and in ST2, it was not patrolled; in ST2, the RNZ was also mentioned as leaking ale.)

True, but we already knew who Khan was. My point was that Sybok as Spock's half-brother was a total macguffin that came out of nowhere and did nothing to advance the plot.

Point not conceded; I found him quite central to the plot, what with him being the main villain and all.

ST4 had the Whale Probe, another unwelcome and previously unmentioned relative (of Earth and mankind)... ST:TMP had V'Ger of the same qualities.

Not really. He brainwashed Uhura, Scotty, Chekov and Sulu. He wasn't able to brainwash Kirk, Spock, or McCoy using the same techniques. So that's 4 to 3, not 7 to 0, hardly a basis for saying he's good at what he does.

He got Kirk to take him to Sha Ka Ree. He didn't get shot in the stomach by his brother. McCoy never tried to hypospray him to submission. I'd say he enjoyed a 100% success rate here!

IIRC, Kirk takes Sybok to ShaKaRee of his own free will.

Not "IIRC", but "IMHO". Since people brainwashed by Sybok don't turn purple or start speaking Andorian or even smiling insufferably all the time, we can't tell how much influence Kirk was under.

We're not talking about an invincible foe. We're talking about a spacial phenomena that was described as impenetrable.

Same difference. V'Ger was impenetrable until penetrated; Khan was superior until pwned. Obstacles in the path of the heroes are always exaggerated simply because it takes heroes to overcome them. (And while that's Hollywood, that's not particularly unrealistic, because Starfleet is a hero organization and some skipper and crew would eventually hero their way to success. We're just somewhat biased in which set of heroes we follow.)

No, you stated earlier in this discussion that Sybok needed a military ship. I've kept asking you why and you haven't answered the question.

Please try and understand the answer this time, willya? Here goes:

Sybok needed a military ship because God told him he needed one. Sybok didn't argue with God (he was through arguing, period, as an entire world had already turned its back on him). Sybok gave God what He wanted.

If Sybok needed rationalizations, he could either dream up some or ask God for some, and there'd be no problem with that: it's a mighty barrier they are facing, so it takes a mighty ship.

Bull. Sybok isn't a mind reader or able to see into the future. And you have no authority to tell me I'm wrong either, since you have no control over the rules of this universe either. My point is that this film makes no sense from a realistic viewpoint.

Not valid: in a movie set in our universe, you and I do have access to data that allows us to tell whether the plot to steal the President's poodle and use that to blow up Fort Knox and enslave all of China is realistic or not. In the Trek universe, Sybok is the ultimate authority, and appears to act well within the standard Hollywood constraints of what is plausible for a criminal plot and what is not.

You keep saying that Klingons sending a rescue mission is a likely outcome. That's nonsense - if the heroes and villains alike say it is an unlikely outcome, it is an unlikely outcome, and your whining won't change that. Ditto for the Feds failing to send a rescue mission.

If the creators of Trek stated that we should view this universe as completely unrealistic, then I wouldn't be arguing about it. But they haven't.

I guess we have to utterly disagree on that. Warp drives and Vulcans, remember? I cannot spare a single positive thought on your insistence that Sybok counting on Klingons being Klingons and Feds being Feds is "unrealistic". And as far as scifi conceits in this movie go, they are far less annoying than in any of the others. Voyager VI returns in the form of a star system -wide infant? Genesis devices? Resurrections? Whalesong and time travel? Compared to all that, an energy barrier imprisoning a powerful alien is just Die Hard 5: The Somewhat Tired and Mundane Rehash.

I said that "God" told him he needed a starship, and Sybok decided that this meant staging a hostage situation in order to procure said starship

Good that we can agree on that.

instead of finding said ship by more logical means.

And I say these were the most logical ones imaginable. Isolated spot, cunning infiltration plot with A and B options, plenty of time to prepare and raise a personal army for C and D options if need be, convenient location for the subsequent trip to the Great Barrier, etc, etc.

The fact that a Federation starship came to Nimbus III was just coincidental, as Sybok could have just used the BoP if that was the only ship that came.

Yes, any starship would do, Starfleet or Klingon. Securing a Fed one would just be easiest.

Which goes back to what someone earlier said about Sybok's plan seeming to hedge on said ship not having this capability, which "coincidentally" was what happened ("coincidentally" is, of course, in quotes because that's what the script needed, yet again adding to the sense of this film's unbelievability factor.)

But transporters or their absence changed nothing. Whether by transporter or by shuttle, Sybok would get a ride from the surface to the starship, which he could then take over, with the help of his Trojan-horse agents, with a loyal army as hopefully unnecessary backup.

Indeed, the movie makes clear that the transporter-less assault surprises Sybok. He didn't want the associated bloodshed, but he did want to talk with the captain that would conduct the rescue. And he certainly would get to do that if imprisoned by transporter action while his "hostages" were also beamed up and brought to chat with this captain.

Timo Saloniemi

Oh, and P.S.

But it wasn't an illusion. Kirk stated that ships have tried to penetrate the barrier in the past and suffered consequences for it.

Actually, no. What he said was that no ship had penetrated the barrier. Since no probe had ever returned, odds are that no ship had ever even tried. No consequences of any sort were ever mentioned.

 

[Dukhat]

Unfortunately, they asked God for His ID and didn't have Klaa around to back them up.

Lol.

Check yourself.

Not necessary, as I already said that I'm not a scientist. But I have access to the scientific community and their observations about the galactic center. And that's all I need, really.

Sure. But you will then be saying that Star Trek beyond ST5:TFF is shit, because the things you critique ultimately derive from already established characteristics of the Trek universe.

No, I'm talking about this movie only. You can't say that in TFF one can get to the center of the universe in an hour, and in TNG it takes decades, by using the exact same means of travel, when both take place in the same "universe." If both scenarios take place in the same universe, then clearly one must be correct per that universe, and one must be incorrect. I choose to believe that TFF is incorrect.

...But, it should definitely be pointed out here, also about Star Trek in general, because the critique is aimed at the nature of the Star Trek universe rather than at things specific to ST5.

See above.

1) a Vulcan knowing how politics work in his own universe, and scheming on this basis?
2) said Vulcan's alien telepathic skills having a specific if diverse effect on our heroes and sidekicks?
3) an energy barrier of strange properties existing?
4) ???

And generally speaking, no, I have no problem with any of the above points. But you're making the above generalizations while ignoring the context that they're being used in the film.

Let's just randomly take #3. Er, yes, there are weird spatial anomalies in Trek all the time. That has nothing to do with the point I made about this specific barrier in this specific movie, which was that it was no barrier at all despite what was stated about it in the film.

The movie actually says the Great Barrier lies at the center of the galaxy; Sha Ka Ree is merely fabled to exist beyond that barrier.

So that would be where, exactly?

Clearly, the barrier is not a point object, but has some dimension. Therefore, it cannot be at the center of the galaxy in terms of being at the exact spot. So we have full freedom now in choosing how far away from that spot the barrier extends, and how close to Nimbus III it comes.

Not based on the wording used in the film.

Oh, come on. TAS "Magics of Megas-Tu". If they didn't go there in that episode (and this can easily be argued), then they probably didn't go there in this movie, either (because this can equally easily be argued).

I've never seen a single episode of TAS, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance. And it's never even been firmly established that TAS is canon anyway.

"BoT" established that there were no patrols on the Romulan Neutral Zone. ST6 never mentioned the Romulan Neutral Zone in any fashion. (ST2 and ST6 both featured an undefined Neutral Zone that somehow involved Klingons, and in ST2, it was not patrolled; in ST2, the RNZ was also mentioned as leaking ale.)

IIRC, in TUC there was talk of dismantling Federation outposts and reassigning ships along the Zone. There was also a chart showing several ship's orders to patrol the Zone.

Point not conceded; I found him quite central to the plot, what with him being the main villain and all.

There was ONE reason and one reason only why Sybok was Spock's half-brother: So that Spock wouldn't shoot him at the pivotal moment when he had his rifle aimed at Sybok. Other than that, his relationship to Spock had no bearing on the story whatsoever. Remove that awkward scene and have Sybok take over the ship by other means, and he could have been just any old religious fanatic with an agenda.

He got Kirk to take him to Sha Ka Ree. He didn't get shot in the stomach by his brother. McCoy never tried to hypospray him to submission. I'd say he enjoyed a 100% success rate here!

And just as your stomach shot example shows (see above), his success rate was directly proportional to the script making that so, not that he had any realistic chance of that happening.

Not "IIRC", but "IMHO". Since people brainwashed by Sybok don't turn purple or start speaking Andorian or even smiling insufferably all the time, we can't tell how much influence Kirk was under.

Kirk seemed pretty much in control to me. But perhaps you and I watched two totally different films.

Same difference. V'Ger was impenetrable until penetrated; Khan was superior until pwned. Obstacles in the path of the heroes are always exaggerated simply because it takes heroes to overcome them. (And while that's Hollywood, that's not particularly unrealistic, because Starfleet is a hero organization and some skipper and crew would eventually hero their way to success. We're just somewhat biased in which set of heroes we follow.)

Irrelevant. The barrier was described as impenetrable, and it wasn't. At all. QED.

Please try and understand the answer this time, willya? Here goes:

I don't think I've been patronizing towards you in this discussion, so I'd appreciate it if you weren't towards me.

Sybok needed a military ship because God told him he needed one. Sybok didn't argue with God (he was through arguing, period, as an entire world had already turned its back on him). Sybok gave God what He wanted.

Wrong. God never said "I need a military ship." Please point me to the timestamp in TFF where God says that.

In the Trek universe, Sybok is the ultimate authority, and appears to act well within the standard Hollywood constraints of what is plausible for a criminal plot and what is not.

He's no authority whatsoever. He's a religious fanatic who was duped by some alien who pretended he was God, and payed the price for it with his life.

You keep saying that Klingons sending a rescue mission is a likely outcome. That's nonsense - if the heroes and villains alike say it is an unlikely outcome, it is an unlikely outcome, and your whining won't change that. Ditto for the Feds failing to send a rescue mission.

When did someone in the film say that the Klingons and Romulans not sending a rescue mission was a likely outcome? And again, enough with the condescension.

I guess we have to utterly disagree on that. Warp drives and Vulcans, remember? I cannot spare a single positive thought on your insistence that Sybok counting on Klingons being Klingons and Feds being Feds is "unrealistic". And as far as scifi conceits in this movie go, they are far less annoying than in any of the others. Voyager VI returns in the form of a star system -wide infant? Genesis devices? Resurrections? Whalesong and time travel? Compared to all that, an energy barrier imprisoning a powerful alien is just Die Hard 5: The Somewhat Tired and Mundane Rehash.

You keep using other Trek projects as the basis for your beliefs about this film. I find that to be a poor measurement of judgment, but YMMV.

Good that we can agree on that.

Yeah, because that's what happens in the film.

And I say these were the most logical ones imaginable. Isolated spot, cunning infiltration plot with A and B options, plenty of time to prepare and raise a personal army for C and D options if need be, convenient location for the subsequent trip to the Great Barrier, etc, etc.

And I disagree vehemently with your logic.

Yes, any starship would do, Starfleet or Klingon. Securing a Fed one would just be easiest.

That has nothing to do with anything. Yeah, it might be easiest, but again, Sybok had no way of knowing just what ship he'd encounter first, or if anyone would send anything.

But transporters or their absence changed nothing.

What? A ship in orbit with a transporter could beam everyone directly to the brig, and have them all sorted out later once they got back to a starbase. There would have been no need to send a shuttle down or make an assault on the planet's surface at all.

Actually, no. What he said was that no ship had penetrated the barrier. Since no probe had ever returned, odds are that no ship had ever even tried. No consequences of any sort were ever mentioned.

Er, the consequences were that those ships couldn't get through the barrier. Period. But both the Enterprise and a BoP could, without explanation. That was my point.

 

[Timo]

No, I'm talking about this movie only. You can't say that in TFF one can get to the center of the universe in an hour, and in TNG it takes decades, by using the exact same means of travel, when both take place in the same "universe."

I don't need to, as conventional means only take our heroes to the Great Barrier. Beyond that, we have plenty of ways in which divine beings can reposition a starship as they please.

Let's just randomly take #3. Er, yes, there are weird spatial anomalies in Trek all the time. That has nothing to do with the point I made about this specific barrier in this specific movie, which was that it was no barrier at all despite what was stated about it in the film.

And stable wormholes didn't exist until they did. Although the first stable wormhole that they found was not stable after all.

Mistakes are only human (even if the destination has a touch of the divine); the more alien the phenomenon, the more realistic the making of a mistake. Why single out the Great Barrier?

So that would be where, exactly?

See, that's the fallacy - not "exactly". There's nothing exact about the center of the galaxy.

You can draw arbitrary shells around the approximate core of the galactic spiral and then choose which of those defines the "center" as opposed to the, dunno, "disk", and then the "rim" and then the "halo" or whatever terminology you want to use. You can't say "this is the spot that defines the center of the galaxy, and anything a lightyear to the side is off-center", because no such spot even exists.

Not based on the wording used in the film.

Based on the very wording. Sybok says that the Barrier lies at the center of the galaxy, and then our heroes say that Sha Ka Ree is fabled to lie behind the Barrier and that the center cannot be reached because of the Barrier.

I've never seen a single episode of TAS, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance. And it's never even been firmly established that TAS is canon anyway.

Well, okay. But TAS is roughly as carefree about travel times and distances as TOS is, and neither as such presents a problem ST5:TFF-wise. All three are at odds with TNG, but that's TNG's problem.

Or an exercise in rationalization for us fans, but only if we want to integrate TNG to the Trek that came before.

IIRC, in TUC there was talk of dismantling Federation outposts and reassigning ships along the Zone. There was also a chart showing several ship's orders to patrol the Zone.

That's the Klingon Neutral Zone specifically. What Neutral Zone contains Nimbus III, we don't know, but clearly it is without patrols, and we know that the Romulan Neutral Zone meets that criterion.

If you want to argue that there is a continuity error here, you first have to prove that this is the Klingon Neutral Zone somehow.

There was ONE reason and one reason only why Sybok was Spock's half-brother: So that Spock wouldn't shoot him at the pivotal moment when he had his rifle aimed at Sybok. Other than that, his relationship to Spock had no bearing on the story whatsoever. Remove that awkward scene and have Sybok take over the ship by other means, and he could have been just any old religious fanatic with an agenda.

And McCoy might never have been an old friend of Kirk's, and Sam would not have been Kirk's brother but some random dude, and Ruth could simply have been a generic pretty girl to amuse him. But there's no fault in people being related - it's called human interest, even in the case of (half-)Vulcans.

Really, that's a particularly weak showing: if you want a barebones action-adventure, be my guest, but you will be hard pressed to show that this would make ST5 a better movie.

And just as your stomach shot example shows (see above), his success rate was directly proportional to the script making that so, not that he had any realistic chance of that happening.

Utter bullshit. All the heroes and villains agreed that this is how the Trek universe works. Moreover, it has always worked that way. If you aren't happy with it, you most definitively aren't critiquing ST5, you are declaring Star Trek unworthy as a concept.

Wrong. God never said "I need a military ship." Please point me to the timestamp in TFF where God says that.

Oh gawd. What part of this do you find so damned difficult to comprehend? Sybok is very specific about wanting a starship for God. Starship in TOS and the TOS movies is a military ship, as amply demonstrated. It is a category separate from "lesser vessels" in ST4, and directly associated with the likes of the Enterprise.

He's no authority whatsoever. He's a religious fanatic who was duped by some alien who pretended he was God, and payed the price for it with his life.

And you are better how?

Really, you take it upon yourself to dictate how a (fictional) world works, as if you were the greater god. You aren't entitled to do that - you have no jurisdiction to say that it's unlikely for Starfleet to come to sort out the hostage crisis. You may find it annoying that this is so, but it's a well-established feature of Star Trek, the show you volunteer to watch.

When did someone in the film say that the Klingons and Romulans not sending a rescue mission was a likely outcome? And again, enough with the condescension.

Stop being so childish, then. It's not difficult to be on the level here - just think your questions through and see if there's an easy answer to be obtained. Such as in this very case.

Klaa when receiving the news says the UFP will be sending a ship. Kirk and Admiral Bob agree the Klingons will be coming in angry, and Chekov and Sybok in their pissing contest agree that the Klingons will bombard rather than rescue. It's all there if you bother to watch or read - a second party verifies what the likely modus operandi of the first is, in this particular fictional universe. Only Caithlin Dar believes the Romulans will be doing anything at all, and quite a few things are established about Caithlin Dar...

You keep using other Trek projects as the basis for your beliefs about this film. I find that to be a poor measurement of judgment, but YMMV.

Well, the solid fact is that this is a Star Trek story. Each and every problem you have with it is a Star Trek problem: alien behavior and politics (and not even of species we wouldn't be thoroughly familiar with already!), existence and odd nature of fictional phenomena, speed and travel time fluctuation...

That has nothing to do with anything. Yeah, it might be easiest, but again, Sybok had no way of knowing just what ship he'd encounter first, or if anyone would send anything.

If you were alone with this opinion on this discussion board, no problem. But you are alone with this opinion in the Trek universe, too! Go back and read what the characters themselves agree on.

What? A ship in orbit with a transporter could beam everyone directly to the brig, and have them all sorted out later once they got back to a starbase. There would have been no need to send a shuttle down or make an assault on the planet's surface at all.

...Which would be what Sybok wanted. Except that no captain would wait until starbase, and Sybok could take over the ship at his leisure, using his Trojan forces to open the gates first in the most classical plot turn imaginable.

That Kirk's ship did not have transporters was unfortunate and unexpected for Sybok, but as we see, it was not disastrous.

Er, the consequences were that those ships couldn't get through the barrier. Period. But both the Enterprise and a BoP could, without explanation. That was my point.

Agreed. But the dialogue does seem to say that nobody had even tried before - so we don't really need to believe that anything would have changed. The Barrier (or something within) eats probes, but there is no established precedent to it harming or deflecting starships.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

I'm pretty much done with this discussion. If you would like to continue it at some future date without the patronizing "childish" comments, let me know. But you've gone too far. I asked you nicely to stop doing that and you ignored me. So I'm done talking to you about this.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Guys, keep it friendly. You're bordering close to where I might have to give out infractions.