What If: Star Trek (TMP)

[Search4]

If you're going to un-digitize... why stop with the Klingon's? Spocks trip thru "the lips" indicated whole planets etc were there. Plus Epsilon station. Lets get them ALL to appear in earth orbit!!

Oh, right, that would destablize the planet... never mind.

On reading this again: I'm still back to a need for a scene with Nogura, kill off the wormhole (sure, Kirk didn't know the Enterprise, but when did that ignorance show up a second time?), improve reunion with McCoy/Spock, and a final "congrats" from Nogura of some type. Then its shake out cruise time.

 

[Maurice]

As I stated earlier in this thread, what possible purpose would scenes with Nogura serve that can't be served using the main cast. Vote No on Proposition N(ogura)!

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

It depends on what gets said in the Nogura scene - IIRC, early versions of the script had Nogura telling Kirk to take command. Presumably the final version was more like in GR's book.

Was the Nogura scene actually shot?

 

[cardinal biggles]

No, in part because the actor they wanted (Toshiro Mifune) was tied up with Spielberg's 1941.

 

[trevanian]

One easy fix on TMP would be if you had to keep the vger flyover, do it as a flyUNDER. It is always more impressive to be looking up instead of down at models (well, there are OCCASIONAL exceptions.)

Also, speed it up so it plays like the critter dragging Ed Harris into the alien cityship in ABYSS ... when I saw that, I thought, "wow, it is like skip-framing tmp"

 

[Maurice]

The Nogura scene wasn't shot. It was scrapped and the set pieces for Nogura's office built for "In Thy Image" became parts pf the Enterprise cargo deck (as is plainly obvious from the set plans for Nogura's office that appear in the Phase II book).

As I've said previously, film tends to abbreviate and compress. You give the arguments and conflicts to your main cast to make the best use of them, and you jettison characters who you are only using for exposition. Nogura appears to have fallen into the latter category.

 

[enan]

The details of this and any movie can be argued for eternity, I think the basic idea is good but needed more.

The movie is really about people who are all somehow incomplete and need something to fix themselves. That is the main story you need to tell.

Kirk needs to command a starship to be complete, Spock needs to accept his human side to be complete, Decker needs to be more that just a ships captain to be complete, V'ger needs to meld with the creator to be complete.

The biggest problem you face with the "first" Star Trek movie is that you have to have a lot of exposition, you have to explain the who, what, and whys to people have never heard of Star Trek, and in 1979 there was still a lot of people who hadn't. You will always have a more "talky" first movie.

I think the movie should have been told from Decker's point of view, and here is why, he is the focus for the audence, his charecter can explain Kirk and co, his sacrifce makes more sense if his is the main story arc.

That being said, I have to agree with DS9Sega; the Nogura scene does not advance but bog down the story, it is of really no importance how Kirk gets the E back; just that he does. this sets up Decker for one more loss, he is not complete as the commander of the Enterprise, and now he doesn't even have that anymore.

I think Decker joining with V'ger would have worked better if the scene between Decker and Ilia (after he gets chewed out by Kirk) has Decker telling Ilia that command of the E still left him feeling incomplete. Then when he realizes what V'ger needs is to merge with a human he knows that is what he needs as well.

 

[xortex]

The details of this and any movie can be argued for eternity, I think the basic idea is good but needed more.

The movie is really about people who are all somehow incomplete and need something to fix themselves. That is the main story you need to tell.

Kirk needs to command a starship to be complete, Spock needs to accept his human side to be complete, Decker needs to be more that just a ships captain to be complete, V'ger needs to meld with the creator to be complete.

The biggest problem you face with the "first" Star Trek movie is that you have to have a lot of exposition, you have to explain the who, what, and whys to people have never heard of Star Trek, and in 1979 there was still a lot of people who hadn't. You will always have a more "talky" first movie.

I think the movie should have been told from Decker's point of view, and here is why, he is the focus for the audence, his charecter can explain Kirk and co, his sacrifce makes more sense if his is the main story arc.

That being said, I have to agree with DS9Sega; the Nogura scene does not advance but bog down the story, it is of really no importance how Kirk gets the E back; just that he does. this sets up Decker for one more loss, he is not complete as the commander of the Enterprise, and now he doesn't even have that anymore.

I think Decker joining with V'ger would have worked better if the scene between Decker and Ilia (after he gets chewed out by Kirk) has Decker telling Ilia that command of the E still left him feeling incomplete. Then when he realizes what V'ger needs is to merge with a human he knows that is what he needs as well.

I didn't read this thread yet, but it just occured to me that spock should have been controlled by V'ger and turned, well, evil, bringing back the Klingons, challenging Kirk to analize their different methods of getting the same thing until V'ger 'learns' the difference. V'ger should have also been capable of making them think anything is happening even if it really isn't pushing Kirk and crew to the brink of death and back.

 

[Search4]

Boy i guess we -can- argue this forever.

I saw the movie on opening day in NYC. I expected the "same old" people in the beginning. Kirk shows up and immediately is an a--, not the Captain we remembered. Minimal explanation, minimal information. Just disappointing.

I understand not focusing on exposition, but for example most James Bond movies start with a threat, then the HQ scene, getting tools from Q, etc for a reason. The movie had a threat, then a Spock set up (failing Kohlinar), but absolutely no Kirk or McCoy set up and in my view is missing a piece of the real story as a result. If the movie is about the crew "discovering its true place"... you needed to know that Kirk had LOST it beforehands.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I do agree that Kirk being a jerk was pretty bad... Also, in the movie Decker was (other than his knowledge of the Enterprise) made to seem rather incompetent as a ship Captain in terms of tactical judgement. For example, he proposed taking a phaser shot at V'Ger to weaken the tractor beam which would have obviously resulted in all their deaths.


Search4,

If you're going to un-digitize... why stop with the Klingon's? Spocks trip thru "the lips" indicated whole planets etc were there. Plus Epsilon station. Lets get them ALL to appear in earth orbit!!

Well they could all undigitize where they were last... that wouldn't have posed any problems...


CuttingEdge100

 

[Maurice]

Well they could all undigitize where they were last... that wouldn't have posed any problems...

Assuming that were even possible. "That unit no longer functions" sounds pretty final.

 

[Data Holmes]

Well they could all undigitize where they were last... that wouldn't have posed any problems...

Assuming that were even possible. "That unit no longer functions" sounds pretty final.

Indeed, which is why I always thought it should have been a cloaked ship which was hiding in the enterprises sensor shadow in order to get close enough... If you were going to bring klingons back in the third act, that is.

 

[Maurice]

Again, Klingons have nothing to do with the story, so revealing them at the end is pointless. Also, seriously, V'ger had "knowledge that spans this universe"...you think it'd have missed a crude cloaking device?

No to Nogura, no to Klingons.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Do you think if TMP rather than V'Ger had a plot-line that included a Genesis device, and Romulan and Klingon Involvement it would have been a better movie than TMP was?

Would it have been less well received by fans, or no difference?

 

[Timo]

If TMP had been shot the way ST2:TWoK was - with essentially a telemovie budget and thus rather humble special effects, with lots of stuff for the characters to do and emote on, with dramatic and dynamic shots of the characters even when they were doing very little - then the plot would probably have been of little relevance. ST2 succeeded by giving us TOS-style pacing, and the following TOS movies stuck to that pacing. TMP was an experiment in different pacing, and as such wasn't so readily accepted by the fans.

It probably did help a lot that the ST2 story had a hero and a villain, even when the hero was initially portrayed as fallible and perhaps unlikeable much like in TMP. But ST4 managed just fine without a villain, and something like that would have been a nice way to open the movie series, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Timo,

Well if you had a TWOK style plot with TMP's budget, and TOS/TWOK pacing... Would that work?

 

[Maurice]

It's not about the plot. Plot is merely a sequence of events. It's what you do with the scenes, it's what the film's tempo is like, it's if you engage with characters, etc. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with TMP's plot per se. If there are problems with the film, it's with the way the script was developed, and the way the film was executed and edited. Another writer could have made a much more exciting script with the same story beats...if that's what you're after.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Again, Klingons have nothing to do with the story, so revealing them at the end is pointless. Also, seriously, V'ger had "knowledge that spans this universe"...you think it'd have missed a crude cloaking device?

No to Nogura, no to Klingons.

I couldn't agree more.

Despite the brillant storyboards by Probert, a sequence involving the Klingons at the climax of the movie after the reveal of V'ger and Decker's apotheosis would have felt tacked on and unnecessary. An action sequence for the sake of an action sequence. It wouldn't have been organic to the story.

 

[Data Holmes]

Again, Klingons have nothing to do with the story, so revealing them at the end is pointless. Also, seriously, V'ger had "knowledge that spans this universe"...you think it'd have missed a crude cloaking device?

No to Nogura, no to Klingons.

I couldn't agree more.

Despite the brillant storyboards by Probert, a sequence involving the Klingons at the climax of the movie after the reveal of V'ger and Decker's apotheosis would have felt tacked on and unnecessary. An action sequence for the sake of an action sequence. It wouldn't have been organic to the story.

It could have been used to to set up a sequel.

 

[Maurice]

^^^What, and damage the end of the film just so you can start another movie with a separated Enterprise fighting Klingons. No no no.