Why would they have McCoy ask "Where's Sulu?" in TUC.

[enterprisecvn65]

So the senior staff of the Enterprise is summoned to Starfleet HQ for a top level meeting. None of them know the purpose of the meeting. Kirk notices Spock is absent and asks where he is, which makes sense.

But before that McCoy asks "Where's Sulu?" When it had been established in the opening scene he was no longer assigned to the Enterprise, was in command of Excelsior and had been away for 2 or 3 years.

It was like McCoy had no idea for the past 3 years Sulu hadn't been on the Enterprise. Kirk even says "Captain Sulu" as if to emphasize McCoy's cluelessness. Did McCoy really think Sulu was still a member of the Enterprise crew he hadn't heard about his promotion and thought he must have just missed seeing him for 3 years. Did all the others think the same thing as McCoy?

What was the point of that line? Couldn't have been to establish to the audience Sulu was Excelsior's captain and was away. The opening scene did that for us.

Was it to point out that Bones was the oldest of the group and apparently was suffering from major memory loss?

That's all I can come up with. It was such a pointless line and only made Bones look senile.

 

[martok2112]

I was given the impression that the Enterprise might have been berthed for quite a while., perhaps undergoing extensive internal overhauling. It makes sense, seeing as the interiors of the ship, and a lot of the control surfaces seem to have changed between TFF and TUC. It's very possible that McCoy was doing planetside duty, or they might have been on extended leave while the Enterprise was being worked on. The crew was due to stand down in three months. However, given the nature of the upcoming mission, it was decided tp have the more seasoned crew on board the legendary Enterprise, to show the Klingons that the Federation meant business....as well as setting Kirk up for the conspiracy. As such, McCoy could probably well have been the last one to know that Sulu finally got his captaincy.

Kirk did correct, or rather update McCoy with his reply, but didn't get to elucidate because his immediate concern was the absence of Spock.

But, given your question, yes, one would also think that McCoy should've somehow noticed Spock's seeming absence as well, before Sulu's.

It would not have served the audience in any way for McCoy to question Sulu's absence, since we already know Sulu's disposition, except that somehow we are vaguely informed that, yes, the crew may have been on extended leave. The dialogue certainly seems to suggest it....again, if vaguely.


Kirk: What are we doing here?

McCoy: Maybe they're throwing us a retirement party.

Scotty: That suits me. Ah just bought a boat.

Uhura: This had better be good. I'm supposed to be chairing a seminar at the Academy.

McCoy: If we're all here, where's Sulu.

kirk: Captain Sulu. On assignment. Where's Spock?

 

[Timo]

So the senior staff of the Enterprise is summoned to Starfleet HQ for a top level meeting.

That seems to be too much of an assumption...

Sure, these people were once the senior staff of the Enterprise. But it has been years since that was true. Everybody is probably surprised to get a summons to this meeting, and also surprised to see each other there. It's the doing of the busybody Spock, who doesn't seem to have much to do with the Enterprise any more, what with being engaged in diplomacy and all.

Uhura is giving seminars, and Scotty is preparing for his retirement. Possibly Kirk is equally busy studying technical manuals for the E-B (so that he can save the day in ST:GEN), Chekov is practicing his harmonica, and McCoy is teaching basic hygiene and breeding to the Dramyians - and a completely different set of officers is flying the Enterprise-A for Starfleet.

Alternately, some of our regular heroes are still involved with flying the E-A. But clearly, most are not. It's just that the "Nixon in China" policy chosen requires Starfleet to assign the E-A to Kirk once again, and Spock has sweetened the deal by assigning all the familiar officers to Kirk, too.

As for McCoy not noticing the absence of Spock... Well, if it was Spock who personally summoned everybody (even if saying he was just relaying Starfleet orders), then nobody would think he was "absent", even if he hadn't yet entered the room.

If not for McCoy's line, the audience might have been in the mistaken belief that our heroes still were actively adventuring as a group, rather than scattered to the winds and only summoned for this one last adventure...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[enterprisecvn65]

So the senior staff of the Enterprise is summoned to Starfleet HQ for a top level meeting.

That seems to be too much of an assumption...

Sure, these people were once the senior staff of the Enterprise. But it has been years since that was true. Everybody is probably surprised to get a summons to this meeting, and also surprised to see each other there. It's the doing of the busybody Spock, who doesn't seem to have much to do with the Enterprise any more, what with being engaged in diplomacy and all.

Uhura is giving seminars, and Scotty is preparing for his retirement. Possibly Kirk is equally busy studying technical manuals for the E-B (so that he can save the day in ST:GEN), Chekov is practicing his harmonica, and McCoy is teaching basic hygiene and breeding to the Dramyians - and a completely different set of officers is flying the Enterprise-A for Starfleet.

Alternately, some of our regular heroes are still involved with flying the E-A. But clearly, most are not. It's just that the "Nixon in China" policy chosen requires Starfleet to assign the E-A to Kirk once again, and Spock has sweetened the deal by assigning all the familiar officers to Kirk, too.

As for McCoy not noticing the absence of Spock... Well, if it was Spock who personally summoned everybody (even if saying he was just relaying Starfleet orders), then nobody would think he was "absent", even if he hadn't yet entered the room.

If not for McCoy's line, the audience might have been in the mistaken belief that our heroes still were actively adventuring as a group, rather than scattered to the winds and only summoned for this one last adventure...

Timo Saloniemi

You could be right because it never is clearly explained whether they are still the regular crew of the Enterprise or not. Yeah they mentioned the seminar and the boat. But I got the impression that was what they were preparing to do once they were retired or that the Enterprise was currently laid up or was only doing missions of short duration so the crew was on earth fairly often. I never got the impression the crew had been broken up and were just being back together.
This would hold true as to spock's mysterious absenses because it would be logical to assume that it was during one of breaks he got involved in the peace process.

Still wouldn't explain Sulu though. Even if the crew wasn't active on the Enterprise anymore it's still a stretch to believe that word wouldn't have reached McCoy about Sulu. If he'd only been in command a few weeks or so I could buy it. But he'd been captain for at least 3 years. I can't believe kirk and McCoy wouldn't have gotten together for a drink or something and Kirk wouldn't mention it. Or McCoy would hear through some other channel.

Just made McCoy look like he was loosing his marbles.

 

[starburst]

Ive always thought that line was a little odd, but once I found out the original idea was the crew had disbanded I figured it was a hold over from that script.

Still seems odd that McCoy did not know that a former crew mate (especially seeming how long they served together) had been promoted to Captain of one of Starfleets newest ships.

 

[Melakon]

If not for McCoy's line, the audience might have been in the mistaken belief that our heroes still were actively adventuring as a group, rather than scattered to the winds and only summoned for this one last adventure...

This. Sometimes we get so wrapped up trying to find in-character explanations for things, we forget that a lot of dialogue is just to tell the audience what's happening, even though the characters should conceivably know the answer.

 

[Timo]

Even if the crew wasn't active on the Enterprise anymore it's still a stretch to believe that word wouldn't have reached McCoy about Sulu.

What word? That he is on assignment? McCoy might know he's the CO of the Excelsior, but why should he know the itinerary of the Excelsior? For all he knew, the ship was close to Earth and Sulu could easily shuttle to SFHQ for a meeting this important and mysterious.

Heck, for all we know, this was true! Surely Starfleet would have wanted a private chat with Sulu after he had witnessed Praxis firsthand and even spoken with the Klingons. And he wasn't gonna chart no gas's anomalies no more - that mission was already completed, and there would now be more pressing things to do. And we have no idea where he was and what he was doing when we next saw him and the Excelsior, somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant.

McCoy wondering "Where's Sulu?", that is, "Why isn't he here?", is not a mystery. Why Kirk feels the need to say "CAPTAIN Sulu" is the oddity that cannot be explained by in-plot terms only.

McCoy should know Sulu's rank, yes. And his position. It's unlikely Sulu would have been recently promoted, as a mere Commander commanding the Excelsior would be pretty weird, and Sulu becoming Commodore or Rear Admiral and then busted in rank back to Captain in a surprise move ought to have made the news long before Kirk "corrected" McCoy.

We basically have to assume that this is some sort of an in-joke (say, McCoy previously having failed to sufficiently appreciate Sulu's rank/position, or perhaps instead having pestered Kirk about him not appreciating it enough, so "CAPTAIN Sulu" now is a humorous catchphrase). Or then it's significant that only Sulu out of the lot has managed to get a ship of his own, and Kirk thinks so highly of this that he wants to emphasize Sulu is now the master of his own life while nobody else there is. Or something else weird.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lance]

You could be right because it never is clearly explained whether they are still the regular crew of the Enterprise or not. Yeah they mentioned the seminar and the boat. But I got the impression that was what they were preparing to do once they were retired or that the Enterprise was currently laid up or was only doing missions of short duration so the crew was on earth fairly often. I never got the impression the crew had been broken up and were just being back together.

On the other hand, I've always gotten the impression that the crew haven't been serving together regularly for a while, and each of them have been pulled away from seperate assignments. Indeed, in an earlier draft this is exactly what happens, with us seeing each member of the 'band' being summonsed individually from each place they were working. It got cut down for timing reasons.

My pet theory is that Enterprise NCC-1701-A was never a front line ship, but was more a sort of 'special assignments' vessel. Maybe there were several more missions in it's seven years of service than simply the two we saw on screen, but on both occasions that we do see her go out, she starts out from Earth and is sent on a mission where the specific skills of that crew are required. I can imagine the crew being in a situation where most of them are near retirement age anyway, so Starfleet kind of has them on a call-up in case they need them, and otherwise assign them to other duties elsewhere, while keeping the Enterprise itself in spacedock. Sulu obviously got tapped for the Excelsior job somewhere in the time "between missions", something which Bones was not aware of (Sulu was probably still with them on their previous 'special assignment', whatever that was).

 

[T'Girl]

McCoy:If we're all here, where's Sulu.

To me it makes perfect sense. Someone went through the trouble of "getting the band together," why wasn't Sulu there? McCoy could have been fully aware that Sulu commanded his own ship, still, everyone else was there, why not Sulu.

 

[Lance]

^ The only trouble is that Kirk makes a point of saying "Captain Sulu", with an emphasis on 'captain' as if Bones doesn't know about Sulu's promotion. Or maybe Bones does know, but has simply forgotten. Old age does that to a person.

 

[BillJ]

Kirk had to unpack. So I'm assuming the Enterprise wasn't his regular duty station at that point in time.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Even if the crew wasn't active on the Enterprise anymore it's still a stretch to believe that word wouldn't have reached McCoy about Sulu.

What word? That he is on assignment? McCoy might know he's the CO of the Excelsior, but why should he know the itinerary of the Excelsior? For all he knew, the ship was close to Earth and Sulu could easily shuttle to SFHQ for a meeting this important and mysterious.

Heck, for all we know, this was true! Surely Starfleet would have wanted a private chat with Sulu after he had witnessed Praxis firsthand and even spoken with the Klingons. And he wasn't gonna chart no gas's anomalies no more - that mission was already completed, and there would now be more pressing things to do. And we have no idea where he was and what he was doing when we next saw him and the Excelsior, somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant.

McCoy wondering "Where's Sulu?", that is, "Why isn't he here?", is not a mystery. Why Kirk feels the need to say "CAPTAIN Sulu" is the oddity that cannot be explained by in-plot terms only.

McCoy should know Sulu's rank, yes. And his position. It's unlikely Sulu would have been recently promoted, as a mere Commander commanding the Excelsior would be pretty weird, and Sulu becoming Commodore or Rear Admiral and then busted in rank back to Captain in a surprise move ought to have made the news long before Kirk "corrected" McCoy.

We basically have to assume that this is some sort of an in-joke (say, McCoy previously having failed to sufficiently appreciate Sulu's rank/position, or perhaps instead having pestered Kirk about him not appreciating it enough, so "CAPTAIN Sulu" now is a humorous catchphrase). Or then it's significant that only Sulu out of the lot has managed to get a ship of his own, and Kirk thinks so highly of this that he wants to emphasize Sulu is now the master of his own life while nobody else there is. Or something else weird.

Timo Saloniemi

It wasn't like the Excelsior was on some clandestine mission. The ship had been gone for 3 YEARS on a routine exploration mission.....Usually missions of that nature are pretty easy to find about. When a Carrier battle force deploys for 8 months it's easy to read about in many media outlets.

I find it hard to believe that McCoy with his years, connections and knowledge of Starfleet wouldn't be aware of when the Excelsior's first mission commenced and how long it would last. Hell for all we knew the crew of the Enterprise might have thrown Sulu a congrats/going away party before he left.

If this was war and ship movements were changing constantly and they were trying to keep it secret, I could see McCoy not knowing then, but his FIRST mission as captain on a 3 year assignment and McCoy seems to have no idea about it?

 

[Lance]

Depends on just how 'involved' McCoy is with Starfleet. He'd left the service once before and been recalled (The Motion Picture), for all we know the same thing had happened again. Sure there's no reason to assume McCoy isn't working for Starfleet consistently over that time, but neither is there any reason to assume he was.

I would tend to agree that it seems implausible that Kirk wouldn't have been in contact with him and mentioned any of this... unless Sulu's assignment was top secret. Sure the "official" explanation was that they were cataloguing gaseous anomalies, but the Excelsior seems mighty close to the Klingon border at the start of the movie... it's just possible the gaseous anomalies are just a cover for a spying mission.

So, we can theorise that McCoy is out of the loop for some reason, and that Kirk hasn't mentioned Excelsior to him before now because it's hush-hush.

 

[BillJ]

So, we can theorise that McCoy is out of the loop for some reason, and that Kirk hasn't mentioned Excelsior to him before now because it's hush-hush.

Or McCoy doesn't really give two shits about what any of them are doing. Sitting on a porch in Georgia drinking mint juleps when he got called in.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

So, we can theorise that McCoy is out of the loop for some reason, and that Kirk hasn't mentioned Excelsior to him before now because it's hush-hush.

Or McCoy doesn't really give two shits about what any of them are doing. Sitting on a porch in Georgia drinking mint juleps when he got called in.

I can buy that. That's what I plan on doing when I retire. The only problem is I don't like most of the people I work with and never want to see or hear about them again when I clock out for the last time.
McCoy seemed to be friends with his co-workers and might actually be interested in knowing what they are up to and how they're doing.

 

[Lance]

So, we can theorise that McCoy is out of the loop for some reason, and that Kirk hasn't mentioned Excelsior to him before now because it's hush-hush.

Or McCoy doesn't really give two shits about what any of them are doing. Sitting on a porch in Georgia drinking mint juleps when he got called in.

I can totally see that in my mind's eye. "Wide open collar", "grizzly beard" and "disco medallion" optional.

 

[BillJ]

McCoy seemed to be friends with his co-workers and might actually be interested in knowing what they are up to and how they're doing.

Over 40-plus years of being a doctor (in and out of Starfleet), McCoy probably has hundreds of friends and acquaintances, work and otherwise. I imagine it would be easy to not always know where all of them are at.

 

[BillJ]

So, we can theorise that McCoy is out of the loop for some reason, and that Kirk hasn't mentioned Excelsior to him before now because it's hush-hush.

Or McCoy doesn't really give two shits about what any of them are doing. Sitting on a porch in Georgia drinking mint juleps when he got called in.

I can totally see that in my mind's eye. "Wide open collar", "grizzly beard" and "disco medallion" optional.

The disco medallion is mandatory!

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Or McCoy doesn't really give two shits about what any of them are doing. Sitting on a porch in Georgia drinking mint juleps when he got called in.

I can totally see that in my mind's eye. "Wide open collar", "grizzly beard" and "disco medallion" optional.

The disco medallion is mandatory!

Well TMP was made in the 70's you know. I guess they figured the disco look was the pinnacle of fashion mankind would ever achieve and therefore it would still be widely used 300 years later.

 

[Lance]

Or McCoy doesn't really give two shits about what any of them are doing. Sitting on a porch in Georgia drinking mint juleps when he got called in.

I can totally see that in my mind's eye. "Wide open collar", "grizzly beard" and "disco medallion" optional.

The disco medallion is mandatory!

They should've carried over as a standard accessory on the 'monster maroons'. It would've fit in quite well with those belt buckles, I think.