In order to stimulate conversation.
Why A Cube?
- Thread starter Spock's Barber
- Start date
In order to stimulate conversation.
Thanks, I always wondered how that would look!That was a necessary visual cheat. According to the dialogue, the cube measured 107 meters on each side and was holding position at a distance of 1593 meters from the Enterprise. An accurate, to-scale depiction would look something like this.
On a 1966 CRT television, you'd see a lot of space and a couple of blobs.
If they had only rendered the cube larger, we could have pretended that it was simply closer to the camera and still 1593 metres away.
Then again, maybe they did! The saucer section alone was said to be 20 decks thick in the early editions of the writer's guide...
Actually, the cube did exactly that: it kept them from leaving. Kirk ordered a "spiral course" away. They backed up, tried a variety of maneuvers, but the cube kept approaching until the radiation danger made Kirk destroy it.
As for how the Enterprise was positioned, the Enterprise generally points in the direction it intends to go. Spock had no orders to turn around and the cube moved to stop them when they took evasive maneuvers. The best way to block a vehicle is by taking a place directly across its path. Off to the side or whatever makes little sense.
But the dialogue does not confirm that Kirk would have tried to get back to where he came from - instead, he just steadfastly tries to get rid of the Cube, quite possibly in order to press on in the original direction.
And the Enterprise generally does not point in the direction it intends to go (unless it's already moving). Rather to the contrary, we sometimes see it fly backwards or sideways just for the heck of it ("Paradise Syndrome").
The path of the vehicle and the way its bow is pointing are two very different things even today, save for a few special cases involving vehicles that cannot maneuver much (trains, cars or ships, say). A starship is not in that category. And if the preferred move of the cube is to get in front of Kirk's nose, then Kirk has won already - all he needs to do is turn his nose in a direction he doesn't want to go. And his turning will always be faster than the cube's flying, for reasons of angular velocity/angular acceleration geometry, and given what we saw.
But the cube would know that, and thus shouldn't bother with trying to be in front of Kirk's nose.
Timo Saloniemi
And the Enterprise generally does not point in the direction it intends to go (unless it's already moving). Rather to the contrary, we sometimes see it fly backwards or sideways just for the heck of it ("Paradise Syndrome").
The path of the vehicle and the way its bow is pointing are two very different things even today, save for a few special cases involving vehicles that cannot maneuver much (trains, cars or ships, say). A starship is not in that category. And if the preferred move of the cube is to get in front of Kirk's nose, then Kirk has won already - all he needs to do is turn his nose in a direction he doesn't want to go. And his turning will always be faster than the cube's flying, for reasons of angular velocity/angular acceleration geometry, and given what we saw.
But the cube would know that, and thus shouldn't bother with trying to be in front of Kirk's nose.
Timo Saloniemi
"Generally" does not mean "always," but more like "usually" or "expect in exceptional situations." Generally, the Enterprise *was* shown pointing in the direction it intends to go.
But no. Generally, that is, statistically significantly, that is, almost invariably, the ship was alone in her shots. And then fired her guns in a direction other than dead ahead, giving indication about where she had been facing in relative terms. Because that's what looked cool back then.
The ship seldom was "going" anywhere when not going anywhere. But she was infamous for pointing in odd directions when orbiting a planet (making what looked like a tight turn, say, when the orbital path tens of thousands of kilometers long and thus devoid of observable curvature would not have warranted any turning as such).
Timo Saloniemi
The ship seldom was "going" anywhere when not going anywhere. But she was infamous for pointing in odd directions when orbiting a planet (making what looked like a tight turn, say, when the orbital path tens of thousands of kilometers long and thus devoid of observable curvature would not have warranted any turning as such).
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah, we've had the conversation about curvature in the planet orbiting stock shots before. My position is the same as it was before: in a realistic realization of the VFX, there would be no curvature visible in the trajectory of the ship in free-fall orbit as seen from a camera also in free-fall. But that's not what we were shown, in other words the VFX were not realized realistically, and it has no bearing on the question of whether the ship is shown pointing in the direction it is traveling in those shots. It clearly was pointing in the direction it was traveling in those, and that constitutes a large number if not the actual majority of space shots of the ship. Ditto for the stock shot typically shown at the end of each episode: the ship heads off into space in the direction it was pointing.
That's picking and choosing. I'm choosing not to pick: if the ship points in funny directions, it happens, and it happens for an in-universe reason. If the reason can be divined and makes the scenes more palatable overall, all the better.
In "orbit", it's not traveling around the planet unless specifically shown to. It's doing a tight figure eight. As it should, because transporters are line-of-sight devices and cannot penetrate planets, so the ship wants to orbit above the landing party.
Next to the cube, it's oriented in the one way that makes the scene consistent with dialogue.
Next to the giant rock in "Paradise Syndrome", it's facing sideways because it's not trying to go anywhere.
Etc.
Otherwise, it's a path down to the sort of madness that claims "But the phaser beams only glow in vacuum for our benefit - they 'really' are invisible"...
Timo Saloniemi
In "orbit", it's not traveling around the planet unless specifically shown to. It's doing a tight figure eight. As it should, because transporters are line-of-sight devices and cannot penetrate planets, so the ship wants to orbit above the landing party.
Next to the cube, it's oriented in the one way that makes the scene consistent with dialogue.
Next to the giant rock in "Paradise Syndrome", it's facing sideways because it's not trying to go anywhere.
Etc.
Otherwise, it's a path down to the sort of madness that claims "But the phaser beams only glow in vacuum for our benefit - they 'really' are invisible"...
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe these blockhead creatures made the space cube thingy.
I welcome our new intelligent, blockheaded, tasty gingerbread overlords!
Well, "nose first" was sort of discredited as a requirement in the opening credits already, where a shot has her fly like a helicopter, tilting her saucer towards the intended flightpath...
Naval vessels in general can move butt first at decent clip, and that's through a resisting medium. They can't move sideways all that well even with Azipods, though. But a starship could be analogous to pretty much everything we choose it to be, and we might just as well choose helicopter.
Timo Saloniemi
Naval vessels in general can move butt first at decent clip, and that's through a resisting medium. They can't move sideways all that well even with Azipods, though. But a starship could be analogous to pretty much everything we choose it to be, and we might just as well choose helicopter.
Timo Saloniemi
