Weird Things In ST VI: TUC...

[Roald]

This weekend, I’ve rewatched TUC since a long. While I still think it’s a strong outing and a very fitting final salute to the original crew, I am still pondering over many things. In a way, TUC actually seems to violate canon in many more ways than ENT. Perhaps these things have been discussed to death, but I hope some of you can help me out here.

1. Praxis. Okay, so Praxis explodes and we’re informed that Kronos’ ozon layer will be destroyed in 50 years. There’s talk of a planet wide evacuation. But wait… We still see Kronos in TNG and DS9… What happened?

2. Then, when the peace talks are first mentioned in a Starfleet briefing, someone asks if it means ‘mothballing Starfleet’. Later, dismantling the fleet is mentioned and Chang asks: ‘Are you willing to give up Starfleet?’. It is clearly insinuated that Starfleet’s main purpose and goal has been to defend Earth from Klingons, and that with the prospect of peace, that purpose is lost. I think this is very strange. From the very first episodes, I think Starfleet’s mission was very well addressed: exploration (to seek out new life and new civilizations…). And even if Starfleet was more military in this era, surely there were many more threats than just Klingons…

3. And obviously, the Klingon blood. For the sake of the story, I understand why they chose for this, but it just doesn’t fit with anything we’ve seen before.

4. I thought it was pretty weird that when the Admirals discuss Operation Retrieve with the president, a Romulan is present. I’m not even sure what a Romulan is doing on Earth anyway, given the fact how they had been portrayed up to that point.

There were some other elements, but I can’t remember them at this point (it’s pretty early here…).

 

[Captain Rob]

To paraphrase Full Metal Jacket: "to seek out new life and new civilizations... and kill them."

 

[Tiberius]

As for the ozone thing, my guess is that the Klingons needed the Feds to help them fix it, which meant they needed to make peace.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

1. The implication of later series is that because of Federation assistance, Qo'nos managed to recover enough to remain habitable, though it's never explictly stated.

2. The questions sound valid from the perspective of a Starfleet officer who has spent decades of their life and career with the constant threat of a Klingon attack coming hanging over their head. In the same movie, Excelsior spent three years charting anomalies. The scientific aspect is still a part of Starfleet, but for the more military minded (which in Meyer's Starfleet is the admiralty), going to peace means effectively that starships like the ones we the audience associate as being 'Starfleet,' ships with enough weaponry to stand up to others in a fight, would be put away in favor of 'science labs in space' (Oberths, for example - TSfS proves that they were definitely not built with combat in mind). Additionally, it's probably an aspect meant to parallel real life questions - our enemies are now going to be reliant on us, will this mean that our military can be disbanded, since there's no longer such a need?

3. A necessary evil, which is acknowledged as such by all involved. And the Klingons consider the whole ordeal a personal matter and do not speak of it with non-Klingons.

4. The Romulan is the Romulan Ambassador, who is probably a representative from the Empire, like the Klingon Ambassador from TVH. We have very little involvement of the Romulans in the movies - excluding Saavik's half Romulan heritage, the first time there was even a Romulan in the movies was the female ambassador in TFF. Otherwise, they were entirely silent throughout the twenty years the films take place in. It's possible that the Federation had managed to develop close relations with them in that time. We don't get much about the political landscape of the film era beyond really what is shown in this movie.

 

[Therin of Andor]

4. The Romulan is the Romulan Ambassador, who is probably a representative from the Empire, like the Klingon Ambassador from TVH. It's possible that the Federation had managed to develop close relations with them in that time. We don't get much about the political landscape of the film era beyond really what is shown in this movie.

Note that, at the conference, Klingons wore red sashes, neutral planets wore green, Federation races wore blue but... the Vulcans (including Ambassador Sarek) and the Romulans (including Ambassador Nanclus) were both wearing yellow! So, the inference seems to be that the two groups have been attempting a degree of unification since ST V, which ultimately falls apart when Nanclus is revealed as one of the secret co-conspirators against the peace talks between the Klingons and UFP.

Remember, too, that the excitement of the two-parter TNG episode, "Unification", was used as a promotional tool for ST VI going into the cinemas. Spock was still trying to get the two groups together almost a century after ST VI.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Another "weird thing": The Enterprise-A, so shiny and new in STIV is now, two films later, as old and worn out as her crew (and I say that lovingly). Corridors are narrower than ever, rooms are tiny and dark. I get why the director chose to do all this, but after seeing the ship big and bright in TMP (and the -A is meant to be the same type of ship) it's a little weird.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Oh yeah: Uhura not knowing Klingon (and using old books instead of looking it up on the computer) and Bones not knowing Klingon anatomy. Like you wouldn't know the first thing about one of the most prominant aliens the Federation has dealings with.
Whatever points the writers were trying to get across could have been done without making Uhura and McCoy look incompetent. I thought it lazy writing in an otherwise enjoyable film.

 

[Alrik]

3. And obviously, the Klingon blood. For the sake of the story, I understand why they chose for this, but it just doesn’t fit with anything we’ve seen before.

IIRC, it had nothing to do with the story and everything to do with keeping a PG rating. Because of the amount of blood shown, if it looked to much like the real thing the movie would have received a different rating. So TPTB elected to make it look more like pepto bismol.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Oh yeah: Uhura not knowing Klingon (and using old books instead of looking it up on the computer) and Bones not knowing Klingon anatomy. Like you wouldn't know the first thing about one of the most prominant aliens the Federation has dealings with.
Whatever points the writers were trying to get across could have been done without making Uhura and McCoy look incompetent. I thought it lazy writing in an otherwise enjoyable film.

Yep - I regard VI as the best of the movies, period, but those DID bother me, too.

 

[Data Holmes]

3. And obviously, the Klingon blood. For the sake of the story, I understand why they chose for this, but it just doesn’t fit with anything we’ve seen before.

IIRC, it had nothing to do with the story and everything to do with keeping a PG rating. Because of the amount of blood shown, if it looked to much like the real thing the movie would have received a different rating. So TPTB elected to make it look more like pepto bismol.

I read that it was because the effects department couldn't get the blood to look "real" in effects shots when they tried to mimic the fake blood used in the movies which has no real consistency.

They opted to go with the pink look because it worked better in effects shots.

Oh yeah: Uhura not knowing Klingon (and using old books instead of looking it up on the computer) and Bones not knowing Klingon anatomy. Like you wouldn't know the first thing about one of the most prominant aliens the Federation has dealings with.
Whatever points the writers were trying to get across could have been done without making Uhura and McCoy look incompetent. I thought it lazy writing in an otherwise enjoyable film.

Yep - I regard VI as the best of the movies, period, but those DID bother me, too.

Didn't one of the scripts actually have a line about the klingon language data file being wiped from the computer by the killers?

 

[USS Triumphant]

Didn't one of the scripts actually have a line about the klingon language data file being wiped from the computer by the killers?

Doesn't change that Uhura should KNOW how to speak Klingon. NuUhura has already been given more respect - she speaks all three dialects of Romulan while still in the Academy.

 

[Data Holmes]

Didn't one of the scripts actually have a line about the klingon language data file being wiped from the computer by the killers?

Doesn't change that Uhura should KNOW how to speak Klingon. NuUhura has already been given more respect - she speaks all three dialects of Romulan while still in the Academy.

So, she specialized in Romulan not Klingon.

 

[Broccoli]

1. Praxis. Okay, so Praxis explodes and we’re informed that Kronos’ ozon layer will be destroyed in 50 years. There’s talk of a planet wide evacuation. But wait… We still see Kronos in TNG and DS9… What happened?

This is the impression I got. The Klingon homeworld did eventually lose its ozone layer. However, (and perhaps through Federation help) they moved to a new homeworld that they named Qo'nos (in honor of their original homeworld).

What is my evidence for this questionable claim? Amazingly enough, Enterprise. When we see the Klingon homeworld in ENT, it looks completely different than how we see it in TNG & DS9. True, things could change in 200 years, but everything in general about the planet looked completely different. Also, lets not forget the infamous 5 day journey in "Broken Bow" versus the implied much larger distance in the other series.

Is this canon? No. Just a theory to chew on.

 

[Maurice]

3. And obviously, the Klingon blood. For the sake of the story, I understand why they chose for this, but it just doesn’t fit with anything we’ve seen before.

"There was a debate over the color of blood, which I wanted to be different than human blood. I wound up choosing a pink shade that seemed suitably weird, only to regret my choice down the road when I realized it reminded me of Pepto Bismol."

--Nicholas Meyer, The View From the Bridge, p.217

 

[Gagarin]

Another "weird thing": The Enterprise-A, so shiny and new in STIV is now, two films later, as old and worn out as her crew (and I say that lovingly). Corridors are narrower than ever, rooms are tiny and dark. I get why the director chose to do all this, but after seeing the ship big and bright in TMP (and the -A is meant to be the same type of ship) it's a little weird.

Fandom has certainly gone back and forth about this stuff many a time.

The corridors seem to be about as narrow as they were in TMP. Or aproximate. TNG really, really widened those things. If anything think of it as a reclamation.

The rooms didn't feel smaller to me, but the framing of the shots were tighter.

To be fair, the -A by this point was a lived in Starship, not something fresh from the yard (TMP or TVH/TFF), or something kept on training wheels for several years after it's last 5 year mission and overhaul (TWOK).

For my money TFF was way too incongruant and sloppy with just letting TNG corridors go by un-modified, and for putting such plush carpetting on the bridge. Oh how I hated that carpet. And I like the Okudagram versions of the accordian buttons, but I also like having real buttons and switches.

So for me, it's "Weird Things In TFF"! Haha.

The NCC 1701 Alpha in TUC is how I always think of her to be. If things seem less elagant than they were in TMP, think of the design adapting new technologies and design additions that didn't exist yet. So you have extra conduits on the ceiling and things. Making room here and there. The TOS sets seemed to be like that! I'm sure they didn't have pipes and valves coming out of the walls when they were built! The TMP ship might also have had bunks and things - we just never saw them. Nick loved showing you parts of the ship you never get to see, to get off "that damn bridge"

Oh yeah: Uhura not knowing Klingon (and using old books instead of looking it up on the computer) and Bones not knowing Klingon anatomy. Like you wouldn't know the first thing about one of the most prominant aliens the Federation has dealings with.
Whatever points the writers were trying to get across could have been done without making Uhura and McCoy look incompetent. I thought it lazy writing in an otherwise enjoyable film.

I think one of the main dramatic reasons were to show our heroes with some vulnerability, showing they don't quickly have all the answers.
I rather like this, and this didn't surprise me.

I think we got rather used to Bev Crusher knowing a bunch of things about Klingons, but where did that come from? The alliance.
I wouldn't expect Bones to know Klingon anatomy, and he didn't have time to study up on his way. To be competent in humans and several other races in the Federation, or common to Starfleet, would be quite the feet. AND trying to be pretty adapt at all the exobiology he'd come accross when he was younger... I don't think knowing how to treat your enemy was high on the priority. There may have been younger doctors that came up in his period, and maybe a younger Bones would have had a sharper intution, or would have remembered more about Klingon anatomy... but he was ready to retire and he already had a lifetime of experience. But like I said, knowing Klingon anatomy would have been a waste for him.

And Uhura, well, maybe she used to be very good at Klingon. BUT guess what? You use a Universal Translator and a translation patch-through on your com station for 30 years, you aren't going to be as sharp as you used to be! And remember there's a lot of other worlds in the Federation she may have been an expert with. The Klingons may have been threat number one, but that doesn't mean everyone becomes an expert on them. Uhura's skills would be better suited in patching together translation problems from new cultures, not remembering something the UT had already mastered.

Our heroes weren't dumb, they were just doing things outside of their jobs, in their waning years.

 

[M-Red]

1. Praxis. Okay, so Praxis explodes and we’re informed that Kronos’ ozon layer will be destroyed in 50 years. There’s talk of a planet wide evacuation. But wait… We still see Kronos in TNG and DS9… What happened?

This is the impression I got. The Klingon homeworld did eventually lose its ozone layer. However, (and perhaps through Federation help) they moved to a new homeworld that they named Qo'nos (in honor of their original homeworld).

What is my evidence for this questionable claim? Amazingly enough, Enterprise. When we see the Klingon homeworld in ENT, it looks completely different than how we see it in TNG & DS9. True, things could change in 200 years, but everything in general about the planet looked completely different. Also, lets not forget the infamous 5 day journey in "Broken Bow" versus the implied much larger distance in the other series.

Is this canon? No. Just a theory to chew on.

cool topic...thought a lot about this. Long before ENT ever aired, I always squared the Praxis issue in a different way. ENT actually helped buttress the case I think.


We first saw Qo'nos on TNG and it looked like this:



So ~70 years after TUC, the homeworld is gritty and always dark and hazy. The smog seems to hover over their buildings...and it's never sunny. Also, despite huge outdoor walkways that criss-cross through their cities....they're entirely empty. No Klingons walking or even standing around outside...anywhere. Intense pollution and little outdoor activity....these depictions of Qo'nos would be entirely consistent with a world that was still experiencing the long-term results of a planetary atmospheric disaster....like the Praxis explosion.


If it would have ended here, the explanation would have worked fine. We never saw an outside shot of Qo'nos during the TOS era (iirc), so there was nothing to compare it against. After Praxis, maybe the Feds helped in some way to offset the most dire ecological scenarios and the Klingons learned to cope with a newer, more harsh environment...allowing them to stay on Qo'nos.



But then, along came ENT's depiction of Qo'nos:

This strengthens the story imo. So, 200 years before TNG --and over 100 years before the explosion of Praxis in TUC --Qo'nos has blue skies and sunny days. We see a lot people outside doing all sorts of all things. This seems to be a healthy ecosystem....before the planet-wide disaster of Praxis.


These differences could be explained by many things other than a planetary environmental change...but DS9 helps out here.



Qo'nos in DS9....as compared to Qo'nos in ENT:



The color of the planet's atmosphere significantly changed over the course of two centuries. The Praxis explosion explains the atmospheric difference.


It's not canon of course. And this has never been explained on-screen...no doubt because the story was never meant to be a coherent whole. But it makes sense to me this way. The Praxis explosion works to account for these two different depictions. If you accept something alone these lines, the events of TUC tie things together pretty well.

 

[M-Red]

and TUC is probably my favorite of all the films too

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Only flaw in that, M-Red, that's not Qo'nos on DS9 - that's Ty'Gokor. Qo'nos as it appears in Redemption is an atmospherically green world.

 

[M-Red]

Only flaw in that, M-Red, that's not Qo'nos on DS9 - that's Ty'Gokor. Qo'nos as it appears in Redemption is an atmospherically green world.

well hell, you're absolutely right -- on both counts. I had that saved under Qo'nos...incorrectly. Good catch on "Redemption" too.


And after looking around, there is another DS9 shot that I had forgotten....it's of the High Council on a somewhat brighter day




But...the skies are still grey...could still be because of the polluted atmosphere from the Praxis explosion! And...there's still no Klingons outside either


so I'll drop the last 1/3 of the evidence in that first post but hang on for dear life to my explanation

 

[Londo]

As to the Romulan Ambassador I always thought it was a bit weird but:
From the lack of activity in the films we can probably conclude the Federation and Romulan Empire are at peace. Some time in the '70's the Romulans got seriously mauled by the Klingons, there is mention (in DS9) of an attack on Romulus itself led by Kor and additionally there are several alternate timeline examples of the Romulans being conquered by Klingons so we may assume they are weaker than the Klingons generally. The Federation being what it is almost certainly offered relief. They might have also intervened directly, if collapse of the Romulan Empire was possible - This would explain the apparent breakdown of the Organian treaty in the movies era.
A Federation/Romulan understanding relating only to hostile Klingon action makes sense, a clause of this may include Romulan observation of Federation actions regarding the Klingons, tho I cant see the Romulans offering a reciprocal relationship on that but the Federation may be doing so to build trust. This also can explain why the Romulans retreat into isolation in the pre-TNG era; their previous incentive to maintain a relationship with the federation collapses they are forced to either isolation or a trilateral alliance that would hurt their pride far more than it already would have been by needing assistance in the '70's.

The Age of Ent-A
It may well not be a new vessel simply newly refitted prior to TFF - practically a new ship as the original was in TMP but not actually a new ship.
Or if she was a new ship the absurd speeds she travelled in TFF took a lot out of her.