Spoiler for new Trek Film

[Monstre]

…

[Miller]

@Tuckerfan

It was also against Federation rules for Spock to take the Enterprise to Talos IV to deliver Pike…

Yeah, but hijacking a spaceship is a little bit less serious than hijacking the flow of time itself. Worst case scenario for Spock in the first case, he gets thrown into prison for the rest of his life. Worst case scenario in the second, he comes home to find out the Federation has been conquered by Paklids.

…and IIRC, the number of times they’ve obeyed the Federation’s Prime Directive can be numbered on one hand.

Well, true enough. The way Star Trek has historically handled the concept of the Prime Directive has been pretty laughable. But I don’t think an attempt by a later incarnation to better handle the concept can be fairly considered a flaw in the new incarnation.

Heck, didn’t Janeway essentially violate it in order to get Voyager home?

I don’t know. I gave up on Voyager about halfway through the first season, and have only seen a handful of episodes after that.

[Spatial_Rift_47]

@Tuckerfan

Heck, didn’t Janeway essentially violate it in order to get Voyager home?

No. … Okay, yes. Technically. Basically Voyager took another 16 years to get home and they lost Chakotay & Seven in the process. Old Janeway didn’t like that, so she went back and made it better. This is not the first time this has happened either - in the episode “Timeless”, old Kim and old Chakotay were the only ones to return, and they went back in time to change things.

So yeah, as a result of Janeway’s tampering, Voyager arrived home not only with its senior staff intact (excepting Kes and Neelix, who chose to leave) but with two new toys from the future: transphasic torpedoes and that fancy-dan hull armor. (Side note: Those two items are now temporal loops in origin, since Starfleet’s engineers never had to actually invent them, like transparent aluminum from Star Trek IV. Isn’t time travel fun?)

In short, upstanding Federation citizens and Starfleet officers like Janeway and Spock have a long history of changing the timeline to suit their own needs. How about this: If we Trek Dopers don’t like the way they do this movie, I’ll go back in time and change things so that someone else writes the story.

[levdrakon]

@Tuckerfan

It was also against Federation rules for Spock to take the Enterprise to Talos IV to deliver Pike, and IIRC, the number of times they’ve obeyed the Federation’s Prime Directive can be numbered on one hand. Heck, didn’t Janeway essentially violate it in order to get Voyager home?

Are you talking about the Prime Directive or the Temporal Prime Directive from some future we don’t really care about? Dude, you can fuck with temporal shit all you want. Unless some tight-assed anal weirdo temporal cop comes after you from 500 years in the future, you’re good to go. Do what you want with time.

[vivalostwages]

@Spatial Rift 47

snip

In short, upstanding Federation citizens and Starfleet officers like Janeway and Spock have a long history of changing the timeline to suit their own needs. How about this: If we Trek Dopers don’t like the way they do this movie, I’ll go back in time and change things so that someone else writes the story.

Reset button!

Hmmmm…Still, I’m willing to give it a shot.

[carnivorousplant]

@Spatial Rift 47

How about this: If we Trek Dopers don’t like the way they do this movie, I’ll go back in time and change things so that someone else writes the story.

Sigh. You keep trying, but Paramount can afford a much bigger time machine than you.

[Steve_MB]

@carnivorousplant

I think Trek writers look for subjects or themes from popular episodes. The City on the Edge of Forever is generally thought to be the best TOS episode, and I think that is why Time Travel is so unfortunately popular in the series and films.

Ah, the Time Plot:

@Tom Smith

…I remember “… Edge of Forever,”
Look at what’s happened to Trek since then.
What was done uniquely now is practically weekly –
Let’s do the Time Plot again!
Let’s do the Time Plot again!..

[Hail_Ants]

giant flying log with one testicle

Not sure why, but I always thought of it as an aluminum foil wrapped Drake’s Yodel…

The City on the Edge of Forever is generally thought to be the best TOS episode

No way. Balance of Terror = Best. Trek. Ever.
Overall I like the idea. It gives them some leeway to play fast & loose with canon but not so much as to be pointless.

Plus I just read, Wynona Rider as Sarek’s first wife, i.e. Spock’s mother!

[Tuckerfan]

@Miller

Yeah, but hijacking a spaceship is a little bit less serious than hijacking the flow of time itself. Worst case scenario for Spock in the first case, he gets thrown into prison for the rest of his life. Worst case scenario in the second, he comes home to find out the Federation has been conquered by Paklids.

Hey, that still beats a galaxy filled with Wesley Crushers! But seriously, by going back in time to talk to Young Spock, Old Spock’s fouled up the time stream, and in that situation, you might as well go for broke. After all, even if Young Spock manages to stop the Romulans from killing Kirk, there’s no way for him to be certain that he’s stopped all of their nefarious plans, so he’s got to clue Young Spock in on how everything is supposed to happen. Plus, Young Spock’s got to make sure he doesn’t screw up and spill the beans on something (like those people on that one planet where there was no disease, so over population was going to wipe them all out and they gave the wrong coordinates to beam Kirk down so they could use him to infect the planet). A herculean task, even with Vulcan mind melding. Also, doesn’t this screw with the whole Balance of Terror episode? IIRC, no one in the Federation had any idea of who Romulans were. This is akin to the Federation rescuing Whoopi Goldberg’s planet, without the Goldbergians telling the Federation about the Borg (as happened in Generations).

Well, true enough. The way Star Trek has historically handled the concept of the Prime Directive has been pretty laughable. But I don’t think an attempt by a later incarnation to better handle the concept can be fairly considered a flaw in the new incarnation.

But tossing out the rules is what made Kirk so damned cool! Unlike Picard & Co., he wasn’t starring in Bureaucrats in Spaaaaaaace!!! He didn’t give a shit about rules and regulations when they stood between him and green nookie!

I don’t know. I gave up on Voyager about halfway through the first season, and have only seen a handful of episodes after that.

Ditto. I wanted to drive a stake through B&B’s hearts after they wasted Brad Dourif.

Hail Ants, I think that without 2 hours of naked Ryder boobies, I don’t think her performance as Amanda Spock will be enough to stave off teh suxxor.

[Malacandra]

Talking of uncredited uses of the Guardian of Forever, the not-bad-under-the-circumstances New Voyages episode “In Harm’s Way” uses it and its big brother.