# Hey! I just thought of a big plot hole in Star Trek 6 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 17, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084 "2014-01-17T18:25:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/41 "2014-01-20T04:38:53Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > Following “The Search for God” makes just about anything look better. The movie immediately preceding the undiscovered country was about searching for whales - not god. ---
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/42 "2014-01-20T04:45:05Z")
> [@simster](#): > > The movie immediately preceding the undiscovered country was about searching for whales - not god. No, dzeiger was right. “The Search for God” preceded TUC, and was preceded by “The Search for Whales”. (Unless you were trying to suggest that ST:V doesn’t actually exist, in which case I can wholeheartedly agree with you) ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/43 "2014-01-20T05:07:01Z")
> [@Gretchion](#): > > No, dzeiger was right. “The Search for God” preceded TUC, and was preceded by “The Search for Whales”. > > (Unless you were trying to suggest that ST:V doesn’t actually exist, in which case I can wholeheartedly agree with you) There was a rumor for a ‘Star Trek V’, but much like many things, it was never released. Too bad, it would have been interesting to see what Shatner could do in a director’s chair… ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/44 "2014-01-20T05:09:10Z")
What does GOD need with a director’s chair? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/45 "2014-01-20T05:43:09Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > _That’s my point._ If you’re floating helplessly, it doesn’t matter how highly trained you are, unless you’ve got something to throw. You can’t train to ignore the first law of motion. I would think these hotshot Klingon warriors would be trained to grab a stanchion, chair or table the moment they felt artificial gravity start to go. If they really were stuck in the middle of a room with nothing to push off of, couldn’t they take a deep breath and blow? ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/46 "2014-01-20T08:05:00Z")
My biggest problem with this movie is the ‘Klingon translation’ scene - they use a shit ton of dead tree books to translate Klingon, because the “the universal translator would be recognized.” Fine - don’t BROADCAST with the translator, but use it to translate and tell you what to say back. No wonder Uhura looks so pissed when she gets done sending the transmission. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/47 "2014-01-20T17:22:54Z")
> [@lawoot](#): > > My biggest problem with this movie is the ‘Klingon translation’ scene - they use a shit ton of dead tree books to translate Klingon, because the “the universal translator would be recognized.” Fine - don’t BROADCAST with the translator, but use it to translate and tell you what to say back. No wonder Uhura looks so pissed when she gets done sending the transmission. Wasn’t the line of dialogue explaining the need for that scene done in semi-voiceover, i.e. I think we hear Chekov saying it but we don’t _see_ him saying it, which even at the time suggested to me that the line was thrown in afterward to explain/exposit the scene and the screenwriter really did think that trying to communicate in Klingon (as opposed to the English everyone in the universe normally speaks) meant hastily flipping through actual Klingon/English dictionaries. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/48 "2014-01-20T17:43:48Z")
> [@lawoot](#): > > My biggest problem with this movie is the ‘Klingon translation’ scene - they use a shit ton of dead tree books to translate Klingon, because the “the universal translator would be recognized.” Fine - don’t BROADCAST with the translator, but use it to translate and tell you what to say back. No wonder Uhura looks so pissed when she gets done sending the transmission. Why the hell do they have paper books? Doesn’t Uhura speak Klingon in TOS? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/49 "2014-01-20T18:38:40Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Why the hell do they have paper books? > > Doesn’t Uhura speak Klingon in TOS? Uhura’s linguistic talents were never properly explored in TOS - they are in the reboot. The paper books are the more troublesome part - should have been easy enough for a screen to provide a suggested response … ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2014, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/50 "2014-01-20T21:50:24Z")
Yeah, that was cringeworthy. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2014, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/51 "2014-01-21T01:37:50Z")
Why’d they have the books on the Enterprise anyway? Uhura’s personal collection or something? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/52 "2014-01-23T08:24:28Z")
Chang is on the Chancellor’s ship during the first attack. Kirk and McCoy beam over and that ship goes back to Klingon. So does the cloaked ship. After the trial, and the new peace conference is set up, Chang gets on the cloaked ship. The Chancellor’s ship doesn’t seem to be anywhere around during the last battle. The question is how did the the new Chancellor and her entourage get to the second conference? Why isn’t that ship in orbit? ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/53 "2014-01-23T14:04:42Z")
\>how did the the new Chancellor and her entourage get to the second conference? Long range warp transport. A Heechee Gateway. Hitched a ride with an Outsider. Jaunted. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/54 "2014-01-23T14:27:43Z")
She may have taken a transport that’s unarmed (to show goodwill) which is wisely avoiding the battle. Her craft may have landed on the planet, and can’t take off to join the fight. It’s not really essential to the story, and would’ve just mucked things up to have it show up for the final fight. The bigger question is: Given an orbital battle with three capital ships going on, why aren’t the conference attendees being evacuated to a safe place in case of orbital bombardment? It’s not like the planetary sensors wouldn’t pick up two craft that aren’t supposed to be there getting shot at by a ship they can’t see. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/55 "2014-01-23T16:26:23Z")
Yes, the unscheduled approach of both the _Enterprise_ and the _Excelsior_ might’ve been expected to make the Klingon delegation a bit uneasy. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/56 "2014-01-23T18:32:09Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > Hypothetical example: In a cop show, near the beginning, a supporting actor’s character asks about the new guns being issued to everybody. In the climatic scene, the star’s cop character uses a feature of the new weapon to vanquish his enemy. > . I disagree with your analogy, because there’s at least some implication that when a new gun issued to one cop, it’s issued to all the cops. It’s more like if a supporting character mentions, for no particularly obvious reason, and with no implication at all that this is something that applies to anything other than him, that he recently was involved in a raid on a chemical factory, so he has a gas mask in his trunk. Then at the climax of the movie, the main character says “hey, remember how I was involved in a raid on a chemical factory? well, that means I have a gas mask in my trunk, which is fortunate…”. Sure it’s plausible that the main character was also involved in that same raid, or a similar raid. But wouldn’t it have been infinitely better just to have the main character be the one to mention it in the first place? The way it’s presented is clearly as “remember that information you learned earlier in the movie? well, turns out it was relevant”, a trope we’re all used to, and there’s no reason to think that ST6 is either trying to be Whedon-esquely clever by subverting that trope, or doing some kind of metacommentary or anything. And really, why on earth would a ST movie be doing anything of that sort? It absolutely feels like a goof, even if it’s a goof that can be relatively plausibly explained away. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/57 "2014-01-23T19:50:09Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > It absolutely feels like a goof, even if it’s a goof that can be relatively plausibly explained away. [QUOTE=Star Trek] Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. **Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds** , to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. [/QUOTE] bolding mine. It would be totally normal for the Enterprise to have a wide array of equipment, their state purpose is exploration. No way this is a goof, just a reminder of a starship’s primary purpose. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/58 "2014-01-23T20:03:37Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Why does _everything_ have to be stated ? The implication of Sulu’s ‘mission’ is clear enough - that the Enterprise would have similar missions isn’t a big stretch of the imagination. > > Or really - exactly this . I didn’t say it had to be explicitly stated. I just said that, if you have to provide an external explanation, then you are acknowledging that there was a hole that you had to fill. The question here is apparently not what I thought it was. Apparently, the question is whether the scene with Sulu’s ship was set up in such a way that the equipment seemed special to that ship. If so, then there is no implication that the Enterprise would have the same equipment, and thus adding the information that the Enterprise could have been doing something similar (and thus needed similar equipment) is covering up a plot hole. If it the equipment is not special, then your argument works, as showing it as regular equipment on one ship would mean it was very likely to be regular equipment on another ship. There would thus not be any plot hole, as all information comes directly from on screen information. I personally don’t remember the scene, and was just going by what others had said in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/59 "2014-01-23T20:10:21Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Why is it that the Enterprise couldn’t have been on a similar mission? you think only one ship gets that kind of assignment? “_Someone_ has to get the gaseous anomaly assignment.” “Give to Sulu, he’s a loser. And I hate the way he pitches his voice low to sound like Toshiro Mifuni.” ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084/60 "2014-01-23T20:59:11Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > bolding mine. > > It would be totally normal for the Enterprise to have a wide array of equipment, their state purpose is exploration. No way this is a goof, just a reminder of a starship’s primary purpose. [See this post as well.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17026210&postcount=36) I don’t see any reason not to accept that the Enterprise, as well as any other of SF’s larger ships, not to have similar stuff available. The main point is, it WAS mentioned earlier in the movie. If anything, it’s a minor Nit Picker’s Guild\* nit-pick, not a plot hole. \*I was a member from almost the beginning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-i-just-thought-of-a-big-plot-hole-in-star-trek-6/679084.md?page=4)