Imagine Khan's reaction to those uniforms, though.
"Admiral?" "Admiral Kirk?" "In Pajamas?" "No wonder I beat you."
Why The Huge Gap Between TMP & WOK?
- Thread starter DeepSpaceYorks
- Start date
Imagine Khan's reaction to those uniforms, though.
"Admiral?" "Admiral Kirk?" "In Pajamas?" "No wonder I beat you."
You said "they had to come up with something to explain." If it were in-universe, then it wouldn't be something anyone "came up with," it would just be the way things were. "Coming up with something" is what writers do.
Yes, you're right. I was juggling with several forums and forgot about that.
Just pretend that STTMP was a 1971 movie!
Well, it started in 1971, but by the time the end credits rolled down it was already 1979 (it's not nicknamed the slow motion picture for nothing...
)
Way too soon for the new refit flagship to be scrapped as old junk. They could have blamed the battle damage but didn't.
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Yeah, about that. From STIII:TSFS:
If you go with a launch date in 2245, then Morrow couldn't be talking about the un-refitted NCC-1701. There are just too many years for that, since Kirk's five-year mission doesn't begin until 2265, which is already 20 years after launch. So, that means Morrow must be talking about the refitted NCC-1701.
There are two options, then.
1) Morrow means literally twenty years. In that case, STIII:TSFS takes place no sooner than in the 2290s. But this contradicts Memory Alpha, which claims that the Enterprise was destroyed in 2285.
2) Morrow is speaking in a round figure, and is rounding up, for example to try to make his point. Even in this case, 2285 is really too soon, but this is still not as problematic as the other case.
Kirk had her for 20 years.... maybe thats what Morrow was getting at. Kirk's heavy wear and tear for 20 years.... 
In-continuity, I take what Marrow said as an error.
Out of continuity, in production terms, I write it off as in the '80s, they were treating TMP as if it never happened and assumed people knew about Star Trek but not everyone was familiar with it, and a new audience might not have seen "The Menagerie". So, Harve Bennett took the easy way out. "Star Trek is 20 years old, so we'll have Admiral Morrow say the Enterprise is 20." It's lazy and wrong, but I can see why they did that. I'd have not mentioned the number of years at all, then I would've just had Morrow say "The Enterprise is old! We feel her day is over," and left it at that.
Out of continuity, in production terms, I write it off as in the '80s, they were treating TMP as if it never happened and assumed people knew about Star Trek but not everyone was familiar with it, and a new audience might not have seen "The Menagerie". So, Harve Bennett took the easy way out. "Star Trek is 20 years old, so we'll have Admiral Morrow say the Enterprise is 20." It's lazy and wrong, but I can see why they did that. I'd have not mentioned the number of years at all, then I would've just had Morrow say "The Enterprise is old! We feel her day is over," and left it at that.
So we're basically saying that post TOS continuity is a mess. 
I've seen people say similar things in Doctor Who continuity discussions, people say 'oh they're clearly rounding up or rounding down' However, my experience is that people don't do that in real life, especially if it isn't true. If people aren't sure they may say 'it's been,what, 20 years or something hasn't it?', if people mean 20 they say 20 and Morrow is certain in what he says.
In my opinion he can't mean 20 years since the refit but it also can't mean 20 years since launch or even 20 years of Kirk! Or can it? If the Enterprise is destroyed in 2285 that puts Kirks 5 year mission starting in 2265, ending 2270, refit 2270-73 then TMP, WOK 2283/4, Ent destroyed 2285. It makes my head hurt.
I've seen people say similar things in Doctor Who continuity discussions, people say 'oh they're clearly rounding up or rounding down' However, my experience is that people don't do that in real life, especially if it isn't true. If people aren't sure they may say 'it's been,what, 20 years or something hasn't it?', if people mean 20 they say 20 and Morrow is certain in what he says.
In my opinion he can't mean 20 years since the refit but it also can't mean 20 years since launch or even 20 years of Kirk! Or can it? If the Enterprise is destroyed in 2285 that puts Kirks 5 year mission starting in 2265, ending 2270, refit 2270-73 then TMP, WOK 2283/4, Ent destroyed 2285. It makes my head hurt.
So we're basically saying that post TOS continuity is a mess.
No more so than TOS continuity.
Oh, wow, that's a whole other kettle of Fish People. Doctor Who continuity is such a mess that I don't even try to rationalize it. I see the whole thing as sort of a tall tale, where the lack of consistency is part of the entertainment value.
There are things that can be interpreted as characters rounding up or down, but there's no way to interpret Morrow's line that way, because it's off by nearly a factor of two either way (the ship has got to be over 31 years old at the time given "The Cage," and the refit is at most 12 years old at the time).
It's pretty much what Lord Garth said. The writers probably knew the number was wrong, but they didn't want to confuse casual viewers, so they had Morrow say the ship was 20 years old because the show was nearly 20 years old. (And thereby confused the dedicated fans instead.)
My personal theory is that Morrow was just being a typical bureaucrat and overstating the effective age of the Enterprise so as to justify mothballing the Constitution-class in favour of brand spanking new Excelsior classes and/or cheaper Miranda classes. I mean, if you count from when the refit started (likely early-mid 2371) to when TSFS is set (supposedly late 2285), that's just a little short of 15 years. And hey, if you round it to the nearest ten, then 15 years is basically the same as 20, right?
That also conveniently explains why Morrow is nowhere to be seen when the next film rolls around; Starfleet caught onto his playing around with the numbers, and kicked him out on his backside.
That also conveniently explains why Morrow is nowhere to be seen when the next film rolls around; Starfleet caught onto his playing around with the numbers, and kicked him out on his backside.
Plus it was hard to hide the fact that Shatner looked a lot older than on TOS.
And replaced him with Cartwright, great decision there Starfleet HR!
I totally get that for an 'out of universe' explanation and all the other stuff like the ageing of the actors etc. but it's fun to have 'in universe' discussions as well. I'm intrigued about what happened post the 5YM and post TMP and I'm just looking for an exploration of that in what we see onscreen. Things have changed so much between the excited, enthusiastic crew we see at the end of TMP to the grounded crew of WOK I wonder what happened.
Edit: I am also interested in 'out of universe' decisions, don't get me wrong, but but there nature they tend to be pragmatic rather than artistic.
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I always figured he meant the Enterprise was 20 years past her expiration date. That jives with the reason there's no refit: it would cost much more to upgrade the systems than to scrap and replace with a new vessel.
If only Morrow had said 'The Enterprise is 20 years out of date, Jim. We feel she needs to retire' You can't keep refitting the same ship.
Henry VIII learned that lesson the hard way with the Mary Rose!
Henry VIII learned that lesson the hard way with the Mary Rose!
I've thought about this overnight, and I am even more convinced now that he was talking about the Enterprise being 20 years old TO KIRK.... or that KIRK'S tenure has covered 20 years. Its time to let it go, Jim. 20 years is a long time. 2265-2285. 20 years. there ya go. 
I've thought about this overnight, and I am even more convinced now that he was talking about the Enterprise being 20 years old TO KIRK.... or that KIRK'S tenure has covered 20 years. Its time to let it go, Jim. 20 years is a long time. 2265-2285. 20 years. there ya go.
That's a problem because the Enterprise was captained by others than Kirk for quite a few years before Kirk got her.
