Wrath of Khan discussion

[chaos42]

i think that his point about Spock dying in the ambush of reliant is probably accurate thinking about it makes sense to me, not just because of the 3 points he raised but a 4th point Savak herself, spock's successor, weather she is full vulcan or half romulan like in the cut clip it makes sense if spock was dead that his hand picked student would be by kirks side for the rest of the movie which for a large part she is serving in many ways spocks roll as the logical one of the 3 and with spock out of the way on the ship its like sulu would be the one in command as scotty is too busy fixing things though the hours in stead of days things could be were the multiply his repair estimates by a factor of 4 joke from star trek 3 came in, an unused line they decided to fit in explaining that scotty always tells people it takes longer than what it would actually be so that people are shocked when he does it so fast

[RobbyB1982]

could be were the multiply his repair estimates by a factor of 4 joke from star trek 3 came in, an unused line they decided to fit in explaining that scotty always tells people it takes longer than what it would actually be so that people are shocked when he does it so fast

They flat out just had him SAY it in the TNG episode Relics. He admonished Georgdi for not padding the time needed.

[chaos42]

i get that but what im saying is from a production point side. Im betting the time padding joke he makes to kirk in star trek 3 is a recycle of what he would have said in star trek 2 if spock was dead. think about it this way in that version of events spock is dead and savak is the new spock for lack of a better term. sulu is probably in command as a deleted audio shows he was going to be in command of his own ship soon. so hes probably in command he probably patches scotty in to give kirk the repair estimate and hes says the the 2 days things for main power and they head down via the transporter, later when savak asks why the ship is functional, kirk says scotty always multiplies his repair estimates by a factor of 4, and he does the line about his rep.

[Beastro]

I feel that Roddenberry belief that Starfleet is not military is at best childish at worst deliberately obtuse.

Starfleet isn't a military in the same way a People's Republic isn't a dictatorship.

Because you're told it isn't, so shut up.

[Deledrius]

Starfleet isn't a military in the same way a People's Republic isn't a dictatorship.

Because you're told it isn't, so shut up.

There's a difference between a political fiction and actual fiction.

[cdrood]

One of the nice touches, I thought, was when they beam back aboard the Enterprise the introduction between Spock and Carol is extremely brief and assumes the two prominent scientists are familiar with each other, professionally, at least. We know from earlier, Spock knows Carol on sight and it makes sense she'd know him as well. Not only is he prominent as a Starfleet officer and scientist, he's her son's father's closest friend.

It also serves to keep the pace moving at that point since the situation is paramount.

[cdrood]

A minor nitpick for the franchise, in general. In her presentation, Carol mentions overpopulation as a reason Genesis should be funded. However, in the TNG era, we see plenty of sparsely populated colony worlds. Many of them seem to have only one settlement, even after decades or even centuries of habitation. The Federation has no problem just giving away such worlds in treaty negotiations, under the assumption the residents will be good citizens and just leave and go to some other available planet. Heck, one of the major criticisms of Insurrection is that planets are big and there's plenty of room for both groups, so letting one die out kind of paints the protagonists in the wrong.

It seems there are plenty of uninhabited Class M worlds, so why is Genesis needed at all, if not for a weapon?

[clearspira]

A minor nitpick for the franchise, in general. In her presentation, Carol mentions overpopulation as a reason Genesis should be funded. However, in the TNG era, we see plenty of sparsely populated colony worlds. Many of them seem to have only one settlement, even after decades or even centuries of habitation. The Federation has no problem just giving away such worlds in treaty negotiations, under the assumption the residents will be good citizens and just leave and go to some other available planet. Heck, one of the major criticisms of Insurrection is that planets are big and there's plenty of room for both groups, so letting one die out kind of paints the protagonists in the wrong.

It seems there are plenty of uninhabited Class M worlds, so why is Genesis needed at all, if not for a weapon?

"Space is big" is a problem many sci fi franchises suffer from in fairness. The moment you have ftl is the moment you never need to worry about population control ever again.

Not to mention space stations. The Fed's don't even need planets to house people. The Kelvinverse has many problems but I liked what they did with the station in "Beyond." These should be the norm, and yet, Trek has always been a bit lacking when it comes to fantastical infrastructure.

[cdrood]

The mark of a good story with good performances is that it can require such a stupid contrivance to set it off, but it's all so enjoyable you barely even notice. In this case, it's Starfleet landing on Ceti Alpha V when they meant to land on Ceti Alpha VI. How do you do that!?!

Why are they even doing this secret work in Ceti alpha? I mean yes, to be fair its not like they expect Kahn to be able to leave the planet anytime soon, but as the expression goes, space is big. There must be other systems where you can do this, systems which does not have a dangerous man with a history of aggression against Starfleet personnel.

I got the impression that the Ceti Alpha system was pretty far down the checklist by the time they'd got to it too, just based on the reactions of the crew when they discover the blip in the system that is the Botany Bay, that they'd been at this a while. Plus, space is big but depending on how strict the criteria is then the number of candidate worlds could be pretty small even to start with.

Right. Life is pretty common in the ST universe. They needed a planet in the habitable zone with zero life, whatsoever. I'm still trying to figure out how it created a star in the finale.

[cdrood]

I always find it interesting that the less control gene Roddenberry has over star trek the better the content tends to be.

Roddenberry's strength was his world building and tone setting. Like a general should have left the lesser affairs to junior officers. Either that or he stepped down and allowed himself to be directed.

Even saying that, nothing is mentioned of the influence of everyone else that were as crucial to Star Trek as he was. I keep seeing it mentioned how big the influence of Gene Coon was, but I haven't see anything from SF Debris or anyone else that directly goes into such the subject. All that's usually said is the heart of Trek, especially its characters personalities, were the result of Coon's influence as well as the emphasis on flawed, yet striving humanity.

I'd like to see that looked into with a bit of detail, because from what I know of Roddenberry's time writing for Have Gun Will Travel, those things are exactly what he did. You can watch those episodes he wrote and feel how similar they are to Trek based solely upon the witty banter and the interplay of idealism and flawed yet striving character building that TOS was famous for.

Examples for anyone willing to peek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpVTkbblsYw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYNevucT52U

I think over time, Roddenberry idealized Trek to such a degree in his mind that he began seeing it as a flawless society. Things like the "no conflict" and "a child wouldn't grieve the death of his mother" seem out of touch with the show about people with all their human (and non-human) frailties making a better universe. Compare the "no conflict" rule with something like "We're not going to kill...today." The former seems to indicate universal consensus is possible on everything without argument, while the latter indicates that we have to worked hard to keep things from getting out of hand when conflict arises.