What Amazes Me
- Thread starter Withers
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I-Am-Zim
Captain
Actually, if you go back and watch that scene again, there were several shots of the Narada's various appendages cracking and breaking into itty bitty pieces before Kirk ever contacted Nero. The ship was shot. There was no reason to fire upon it.
Well it could have been a mercy killing.
Me too, because it was over. They were like, "You don't gotta go home, but you can't stay here."
But it was coming apart. Did you not see those big knife like structures tearing off the ship before the Enterprise open fired on her? Or what about the fact that the black hole cut the Narada in half? You will notice that on the opposite side of the black hole that the Enterprise is facing, the Narada is spinning in the complete opposite direction.
Hey, I was just thinking. Spock crashed the Jellyfish right where the hatch was. Beyond that hatch is where everyone is stationed. The part of the Narada with it's scary useless knife like structures is what the Enterprise is facing. So wouldn't it be logical to assume that the Enterprise is shooting the wrong part of the ship? I don't remember those spikes holding any crew members, and the other end of the Narada, where the crew are, doesn't appear to be affected by the bombardment of torpedoes. So what was the ultimate point of shooting a useless part of the ship when what you're trying to destroy is on the opposite end? Sure, the front part of the ship disintegrates, but what about the back?
As I said earlier, didn't TOS (and TAS) establish that Romulans consider being retrieved from a damaged ship, or being embarrassed by their actions, to be a loss of honour? Capturing Nero and crew alive would have been seen as huge insult to the Romulan people.
Bingo - which is why it would have been a more fitting punishment. The same held true for Maltz in STIII.
A punishment to all 23rd century Romulans, for the actions of a 24th century Romulan?
Harsh.
A Romulan they don't even know about.
When Kirk offered assistance, he reasoned that it might help a peace process with the Romulan Empire. Which is stupid because Nero is an outcast from the 24th century who has no business at all with the 23rd century Romulans. Even nuKirk should have figured that out.
Not to mention the fact that this just comes out of nowhere. Why is Romulas important all of a sudden? They were never talked about in the movie outside of the prime timeline, and what little we know would barely hint that we are at conflict with them. If we're not at war with Romulas, aren't we already at peace with them? Does Romulas have a light up sign saying "If you know any Romulans from the future and show them compassion, we'll like you more!"
Jeyl said:
It could be the kind of uneasy peace in which a return to hostilities in the future is feared or suspected. Also, it's an altered timeline. We don't know everything that happened in this timeline between 2233 and 2258. There could be more tension than was seen at the same point in the original timeline, for whatever reason.
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Lol, why would Romulus be offended about a punishment handed to romulans who've never existed? The romulans who are punished would suffer a greater punishment if their individual honour is umpugned. The wider romulans won't care since these romulans are not officially romulan citizens.
Set, it's not that we don't know everything, we don't know anything. We don't know who the Romulans are as an empire, why they share a ancestral history with Vulcan, why they think being free from the Federation (what did we do to them?) is a good thing, or what they have to do with anything. They're just there.
The lack of information regarding events between 2233 and 2258 permits Kirk's motivation in the scene in question to make more sense. That's the benefit of an altered timeline. And we do know some things, because preexisting information about anything prior to 2233 in the old timeline should still be relevant.
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Which told him what exactly? That the whole galaxy was in danger due to a super nova and Spock, ambassador to Romulas at the time was going to stop it? That doesn't tell him anything about the state of conflict between the Federation and Romulas.
You asked:
"Not to mention the fact that this just comes out of nowhere. Why is Romulas important all of a sudden?"
Spock states that emotional transferences happen with mind melds. Ambassador Spock cares about peace with Romulus. So why does Kirk care about peace with Romulus suddenly? There's your answer.
I like this very much. Hadn't even occurred to me. I wonder whether this was intentional by the writers or a fluke of coincidence?
I watched the film again last night. I've been assuming that Kirk did get something more than just information about the supernova from the meld, although I don't know if that was intentional.
On third viewing, many of the flaws are less irritating and easily explainable. It still bothers me that they leave Chekov in charge twice during the crisis, which seems to be just because he is a main character, rather than for any sensible reason. The supernova still doesn't make a whole lot of sense nor does the timescale surrounding the whole Earth-Vulcan-Earth dynamic.
I'd forgotten that Scotty is just sitting around waiting for a supply ship even though there is a Federation distress beacon out on the surface that has been going off for a couple of hours and a planet got destroyed nearby. It makes him look incompetent and indifferent. It really would have made more sense if Spock had just beamed Kirk down to the outpost under armed guard (preferably Janice Rand) where he could have interacted with Spock and Scott straight away without the need for astronomically unlikely and illogical cave-related contrivances and where we could see that Spock Prime and Scotty have already been working on modifying the transwarp beaming equipment without the need to boil it down to a simple equation that takes 2 minutes to implement.
I am still very bothered by the execution at the end. Kirk actually has to justify his decision to offer assistance to Spock, who wants to leave them to die. I think I dislike that they trivialised the issue of vengeance so much. It still feels very wrong for a Federation crew.
In the sixties, Roddenberry felt that openess and cooperation were the best ways to overcome the Cold War. The post 9/11 default mentality seems to be tit for tat to the point where the logical pacifist questions why his commanding officer is complying with Starfleet regulations to offer assistance to a helpless foe. True, we can blame Spock's emotional impairment but I think that the writers were expecting the viewers to feel that Kirk was wrong to offer assistance and Spock is reflecting that assumption.
NB: I recall that Spock was going to be executed for treason in the Menagerie so we can't hold TOS up as a completely shining example of liberalism.
On third viewing, many of the flaws are less irritating and easily explainable. It still bothers me that they leave Chekov in charge twice during the crisis, which seems to be just because he is a main character, rather than for any sensible reason. The supernova still doesn't make a whole lot of sense nor does the timescale surrounding the whole Earth-Vulcan-Earth dynamic.
I'd forgotten that Scotty is just sitting around waiting for a supply ship even though there is a Federation distress beacon out on the surface that has been going off for a couple of hours and a planet got destroyed nearby. It makes him look incompetent and indifferent. It really would have made more sense if Spock had just beamed Kirk down to the outpost under armed guard (preferably Janice Rand) where he could have interacted with Spock and Scott straight away without the need for astronomically unlikely and illogical cave-related contrivances and where we could see that Spock Prime and Scotty have already been working on modifying the transwarp beaming equipment without the need to boil it down to a simple equation that takes 2 minutes to implement.
I am still very bothered by the execution at the end. Kirk actually has to justify his decision to offer assistance to Spock, who wants to leave them to die. I think I dislike that they trivialised the issue of vengeance so much. It still feels very wrong for a Federation crew.
In the sixties, Roddenberry felt that openess and cooperation were the best ways to overcome the Cold War. The post 9/11 default mentality seems to be tit for tat to the point where the logical pacifist questions why his commanding officer is complying with Starfleet regulations to offer assistance to a helpless foe. True, we can blame Spock's emotional impairment but I think that the writers were expecting the viewers to feel that Kirk was wrong to offer assistance and Spock is reflecting that assumption.
NB: I recall that Spock was going to be executed for treason in the Menagerie so we can't hold TOS up as a completely shining example of liberalism.
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