That test (spoilers)

[Flake]

Was just watching TWOK, I wonder if during the test we hear the exact same distress call as we hear on the speakers in TWOK? Would be a nice touch.

Will there still be three Klingon Warships? Will it be precisely the same up until the point that Kirk does his stuff.

What do you think will happen on the test? How does he beat it (ya he cheats, but what does he change)

 

[Kegek]

I think it'll be the same in principal, and may even reuse that recording. (hey, they found a way to slip in Nichelle Nichols' voice into Transormers, didn't they?), but I doubt if we'll see that CGI red blob that represented the Neutral Zone. And the Klingon ships, if seen, won't be TMP stock footage.

That's my guess, anyway.

 

[Tamek]

Kegek said:
I think it'll be the same in principal, and may even reuse that recording. (hey, they found a way to slip in Nichelle Nichols' voie into Transormers, didn't they?), but I doubt if we'll see that CGI red blob that represented the Neutral Zone. And the Klingon ships, if seen, won't be TMP stock footage.

That's my guess, anyway.

When and how was she in transformers? I don't remember this!

 

[Samuel T. Cogley]

Tamek said:
When and how was she in transformers? I don't remember this!

She was one of the many audio clips that Bumblebee used to communicate with. Just before he talked Sam and Mikaela into geting in the car together and the Goo Goo Dolls song started playing.

 

[Akiraprise]

I bet it will be the same distress call, if they use that scenario.
They could have different tests for different cadets. Was it ever mentioned on screen that the three ships versus your own is always the test cadets are given?

 

[Timo]

Nothing like that was told in the movie. Which is for the best, really: the test would make little or no sense if it was always the same. The testees would know going in that whenever they hear the name Kobayashi Maru, it's the famous no-win scenario and they better not do anything because they would lose anyway.

I really, really hope that Kirk's test will be as different from Saavik's as possible. We know Kirk's test involved a ship to be saved, but hopefully the enemy won't be the Klingons, the distress won't involve a Neutral Zone, etc.

Unless, for some reason, Admiral Kirk decided it would be a nice prank if he gave Saavik the exact same test variant that had been given to him all those years ago. Perhaps as a friendly jab at Spock whose star student Saavik seemed to be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Outpost4]

Agreed, it has to be different each running of the test. The only thing the same would be that the ship needing to be saved is the Kobayashi Maru.

 

[Franklin]

I hope we don't see the test at all. Just what happened after Kirk won -- with how he did it coming out then. After all, what happened AFTER the test is the important part, not really the test itself.

How the K-M test was presented in TWOK is lost, too. No one in theaters watching it for the first time knew it was a simulation. Opening that movie that way -- with Spock getting "killed" to boot -- was a great WTF moment.
That feeling is lost in this movie, even to those who don't know about the first test. It's a simulation and everyone knows it. So, why bother? As I said, what happens afterwards should be the focus.

Why the hell did he get a commendation? That's what it's all about.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Franklin said:
I hope we don't see the test at all. Just what happened after Kirk won -- with how he did it coming out then. After all, what happened AFTER the test is the important part, not really the test itself.

How the K-M test was presented in TWOK is lost, too. No one in theaters watching it for the first time knew it was a simulation. Opening that movie that way -- with Spock getting "killed" to boot -- was a great WTF moment.
That feeling is lost in this movie, even to those who don't know about the first test. It's a simulation and everyone knows it. So, why bother? As I said, what happens afterwards should be the focus.

Why the hell did he get a commendation? That's what it's all about.

Well, WE don't need to see it. We, as long-time Trek fans, already know what it's all about.

But the REST OF THE AUDIENCE won't have a clue. And so they need to show the test itself, so that those people, who unlike us don't live and breath this stuff, will be able to understand what the @#$* is going on!

To not show the test itself, at least two of the three time (one time with Kirk getting his ass whipped, and another with him coming out on top!) will leave the non-Trek-fan audience scratching their heads.

In other words, NOT having it in is almost "fanwank" in a sense, because it would play ONLY to the people who already know Janice Rand's cabin number.

 

[Holytomato]

The prose novelization keeps the Suprise It's A Sim tm better ie the TMP klingon stock footage isn't used, and the funky graphics on the viewscreen aren't used. Played as Real tm.

Janice's cabin number!? Holy flaming oysters!

er...erm...say would you like this fine cubix serconea?

 

[Vektor]

It doesn’t seem likely they will show us all three times Kirk took the test; that would get a bit repetitive, I would think. On the other hand, I can envision a scene where we jump forward in Kirk’s life to his Academy days and immediately find him “on trial” for having cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test. We’re given the set-up to the situation as the “charges” against him are explained, then, in typical J.J. Abrams non-linear style, the actual events are shown in flash-back. The trial would function as a kind of mini framing story for an efficiently abbreviated account of the first two tests and how Kirk reacted to them, with most of the background details provided through dialogue during the proceedings. I’m imagining some great interplay between Kirk and Spock, the latter possibly there to testify as the computer expert who uncovered the tampering with the simulator. Eventually, Kirk is asked what he has to say for himself, and that’s when we get to hear this big, “impassioned speech” we’ve been hearing about, which ultimately leads to the decision to give him a commendation rather than expel him.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Vektor said:
It doesn’t seem likely they will show us all three times Kirk took the test; that would get a bit repetitive, I would think. On the other hand, I can envision a scene where we jump forward in Kirk’s life to his Academy days and immediately find him “on trial” for having cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test. We’re given the set-up to the situation as the “charges” against him are explained, then, in typical J.J. Abrams non-linear style, the actual events are shown in flash-back. The trial would function as a kind of mini framing story for an efficiently abbreviated account of the first two tests and how Kirk reacted to them, with most of the background details provided through dialogue during the proceedings. I’m imagining some great interplay between Kirk and Spock, the latter possibly there to testify as the computer expert who uncovered the tampering with the simulator. Eventually, Kirk is asked what he has to say for himself, and that’s when we get to hear this big, “impassioned speech” we’ve been hearing about, which ultimately leads to the decision to give him a commendation rather than expel him.

That's pretty much what I was talking about. This IS JJ Abrams, after all... assuming a purely linear narrative is, I think, rather naive.

Besides, if this is told from the standpoint of Spock... he'll likely KNOW about the "cheating" before he knows the rest of the story, so we'll get it in the same sequence HE would have... or at least in the same sequence he'll be relating it to someone else.

 

[Classic Fan]

The test should be completely different at each examination. If it isn't, then what is the point of such an intense no-win scenario examination.

Visually, i shouldn't be the same as TWOK, as after all, its taking place way before TWOK. Visually it will be different, the computer graphics will be improved though, i suppose. Not the same footage from TWOK, it could probably be anything that they are manning for the scenario such as different bridge/control room/starbase control room/planet side defences/shuttle craft etc etc, the possibilities are endless, as long as the Kobayashi Maru is in the simulation at some point and is the main part of the simulation.

Besides, with such an exam, i can guarentee, as each scenario is different, that each exam takes place in a different part of space, maybe even un-explored space, could be any enemy, known or unknown. could be a physical battle, could be a battle of wits...

The list is endless but you get my point. In other words, it has a vast library of incidents to draw from, some maybe based on real events in Trek universe, some fictitious.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Classic Fan said:
The test should be completely different at each examination. If it isn't, then what is the point of such an intense no-win scenario examination.

Visually, i shouldn't be the same as TWOK, as after all, its taking place way before TWOK. Visually it will be different, the computer graphics will be improved though, i suppose. Not the same footage from TWOK, it could probably be anything that they are manning for the scenario such as different bridge/control room/starbase control room/planet side defences/shuttle craft etc etc, the possibilities are endless, as long as the Kobayashi Maru is in the simulation at some point and is the main part of the simulation.

Besides, with such an exam, i can guarentee, as each scenario is different, that each exam takes place in a different part of space, maybe even un-explored space, could be any enemy, known or unknown. could be a physical battle, could be a battle of wits...

The list is endless but you get my point. In other words, it has a vast library of incidents to draw from, some maybe based on real events in Trek universe, some fictitious.

It CAN'T be the same situation as we saw in "TWOK" for a very simple reason.

TWOK involved the Enterprise crossing into the Organian Neutral Zone... the region negotiated in the Treaty of Organia... between the UFP and the Klingon Empire. Okay, you may argue that this isn't 100% demonstratable canon, but it was 100% the intention of the screenwriters for TWOK, so in lieu of any reason to alter that, I accept it as what they meant it to be. There is no indication that there was any form of "neutral zone" between the UFP and the Klingon Empire prior to that. In fact, the whole idea of there being "disputed territory" along the border (from lines in "Errand of Mercy") indicates that there WAS no "neutral zone" before then.

SO... given that... it's very unlikely that the test Kirk took at Command School could possibly be exactly the same test Saavik took in TWOK, isn't it?

As far as I know, there was only one "neutral zone" during that period, and that would be the Romulan one. However, we might be introduced to a "Cardassian Neutral Zone" or something like that... there's no canonical reason NOT to have something like that, is there?

Or, the scenario might not involve crossing into a "neutral zone" at all. Maybe it involves rescuing a ship that is in wholly-Klingon-controlled space?

The point? Whatever we see, it CANNOT be the same exact test as we saw in TWOK. Not unless the filmmakers decide to ignore "Errand of Mercy" completely (which will start up another one of those "canon/non-canon" firestorms!)

 

[Franklin]

Cary L. Brown said:

Vektor said:
It doesn’t seem likely they will show us all three times Kirk took the test; that would get a bit repetitive, I would think. On the other hand, I can envision a scene where we jump forward in Kirk’s life to his Academy days and immediately find him “on trial” for having cheated on the Kobayashi Maru test. We’re given the set-up to the situation as the “charges” against him are explained, then, in typical J.J. Abrams non-linear style, the actual events are shown in flash-back. The trial would function as a kind of mini framing story for an efficiently abbreviated account of the first two tests and how Kirk reacted to them, with most of the background details provided through dialogue during the proceedings. I’m imagining some great interplay between Kirk and Spock, the latter possibly there to testify as the computer expert who uncovered the tampering with the simulator. Eventually, Kirk is asked what he has to say for himself, and that’s when we get to hear this big, “impassioned speech” we’ve been hearing about, which ultimately leads to the decision to give him a commendation rather than expel him.

That's pretty much what I was talking about. This IS JJ Abrams, after all... assuming a purely linear narrative is, I think, rather naive.

Besides, if this is told from the standpoint of Spock... he'll likely KNOW about the "cheating" before he knows the rest of the story, so we'll get it in the same sequence HE would have... or at least in the same sequence he'll be relating it to someone else.

That's something I could go with. Again, I think the focus has to be how he ended up getting a commendation. And we don't necessarily need a scene of the scenario(s) where we see everything. Just the bits important to establishing who Kirk was and intimating what he was to become.

To that end, I'd love to see Kirk's reaction to when he wins.

 

[EyalM]

The reports about Kirk's solution to the test are actually partially true, but they have their facts a little confused.

Kirk doesn't sleep with someone to so she'll change the simulations. instead, Kirk reprograms the simulation him self (thus preserving his canonic reputation as a computer genius). But he only makes one change, to the gender of the Klingon captain. Kirk then sleeps with the simulated captainess and saves the Maru while maintaining his reputation as a ladies man.