In the world ruled by Hollywood rather than patrolled by the Federation, an inexplicably stupid decision was made to
• change the uniforms to those red military things;
• change the Klingons as described above;
• change the starships’ nacelles to those flat things
for the benefit of ST: The Motion Picture. There was no reason to change these things and it interrupted continuity.
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Well, the changes in uniform can be explained by time (and the cast uniformly hated the TV uniforms – I understand they would have gotten new ones anyway, had there been a fourth season). So can the change in nacelle, seeing that the Enterprise just went through a major refit before the movie.
What annoys me, apart from the Klingons, is the way the corridors, etc., suddenly became much narrower and the engines suddenly needed so very much more safety gear to work around. More realistic if considered a priori, perhaps, but artistically careless.
Still, even the infinitely superior Babylon 5 could be guilty of such things. That’s show biz.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Since you all know so much about Star Trek, I have a question for you that’s been bugging me since my Brother pointed it out to me a few years ago:
In EVERY incarnation of Star Trek (i.e. TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Movies) there is a string of lights underneath the viewscreen that blink in a sequence, forming either a straight left-to-right (or right-to-left) dotted line across the viewscreen or two dotted lines meeting in the centre of the viewscreen. What the hell is that and what is it for? I just can’t see the creators of Star Trek, with all of their attempts to explain every minor detail in the show saying “Well, we had those lights in the first show, so let’s make damn sure they’re in every other show even though they’re completely useless.”
Well, whatever those lights are for, KITT of “Knight Rider” had the same feature.
One could go on for weeks pointing out the silliness in Star Trek. TOS was never intended to be internally consistent, and was designed solely to look neat and futuristic and keep within budget. TOS made some stabs at scientific accuracy, but later incarnations merely went through the motions, usually through the use of “magic wand rays” – gobbledegook scientific radiation that had the EXACT PROPERTIES required to solve this week’s problem. When the cast itself is using the term “technobabble” – as VOYAGER does – you know that science has been completely lost. Hell, I was able to spot six different scientific errors in STVI before any of the main actors showed up.
Actually, Worf’s comments in “Trials and Tribbleations” were an in-joke on those who have been worried about trying to find total consistency in ST when none is there.
I’ll add to the list:
Movement of stars: There is no parallax in space; the stars will move as a unit, and much more slowly than protrayed, even at warp speeds. Distances are too vast for anyone to notice a difference in their apparent rate of travel.