# Star Trek -- the "I saw it" thread \*\*SPOILERS\*\* **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 7, 2009, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640 "2009-05-07T08:13:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/441 "2009-05-15T18:32:38Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > You know, I just realized that my problem with the new Kirk isn’t so much this utterly nonsensical promotion – it’s that he was never shown to be deserving of it. Basically, all that happens to establish his greatness is Pike telling the camera that Kirk’s a real badass, and that’s supposed to be enough to convince everybody. Kirk, in this movie, is basically Superman: he gets everything handed to him by virtue of merely being who he is. He’s never shown proving himself worthy of all the praise he earns, quite the opposite, in fact – despite drunken brawling, juvenile delinquency, and general assholing about, he’s recognized as the Chosen One. It’s the dream of every underachiever: that someday somebody will come and recognize their potential and elevate them to their true greatness. They could have shown Kirk working his way up through the ranks, proving himself the best of his peers by going through the same trials and tribulations as them and coming out ahead, but instead they went the shortcut route and just branded him with the capital ‘S’ for Special, had a few other characters tell us how great he is, and then that’s that for character establishment. It’s utterly lame, lazy, and underhanded in terms of writing. From the casual audience’s perspective, you are correct. Kirk Fanboys don’t need much convincing, however. In the movie, does future-spock help get Kirk on the fast track to promotion? After all, if some guy from the future shows up (and you are convinced the he is indeed from the future), and tells you that Ike (a one star general when the US entered WW2) will be a future U.S. president, you might start to look at Ike with a new and different perspective. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/442 "2009-05-15T18:49:18Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > In the movie, does future-Spock help get Kirk on the fast track to promotion? I didn’t see any evidence of it, and Spock-prime would actually be far more valuable as a source of technical information. He can supply oodles of knowledge to try to make up for (in some small way) the fact that this timeline has lost what was presumably a major center (if not the Federation’s _main_ center) of scientific research. What discoveries were made on Vulcan between the setting of this movie and the ~121 years in the future whence Spock-prime hails? Those only exist now in Spock-prime’s memory, especially since that funky fish-ship got trashed. The transwarp beaming formula alone represents a huge advance (and in fact may prove problematic dramatically since characters can now cross interstellar distances in seconds - so no more need for “ferry the diplomat” plots). In fact, isn’t it in Spock-prime’s interest to advance the Federation as much as possible, develop red matter sooner, build ships that are even faster, so that 121 years from now the supernova _can_ be stopped, Romulus saved, and this whole timeline erased from existence and Vulcan restored? That’s the problem with time-travel stories - there’s always an out. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/443 "2009-05-15T18:50:45Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > They could have shown Kirk working his way up through the ranks, proving himself the best of his peers by going through the same trials and tribulations as them and coming out ahead, but instead they went the shortcut route and just branded him with the capital ‘S’ for Special, had a few other characters tell us how great he is, and then that’s that for character establishment. It’s utterly lame, lazy, and underhanded in terms of writing. Well, he is… _the star child!!!_ ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/444 "2009-05-15T19:00:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, he is… _the star child!!!_ Weren’t you complaining earlier that Kirk was given the Superman treatment? 🙂 (In Kryptonese, _Kal-El_ means _star child_. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/445 "2009-05-15T19:01:22Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > You know, I just realized that my problem with the new Kirk isn’t so much this utterly nonsensical promotion – it’s that he was never shown to be deserving of it. Basically, all that happens to establish his greatness is Pike telling the camera that Kirk’s a real badass, and that’s supposed to be enough to convince everybody. Kirk had apparently already sailed through school with top honors without even trying. Pike challenged him to be half the man his father was and Kirk said he’d breeze through the academy in three years instead of four. He did. Depending on how you look at it, if he’s shaving 25% off his expected accomplishments, he’d have had his own ship in six years instead of 8, or basically three years after graduating, assuming nothing exceptional happened allowing him to prove his natural talent. But as we saw, something did. It’s enough to convince me he’s not your usual cadet. Not that I need to be a fanboy to be convinced of something established over 40 years ago. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2009, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/446 "2009-05-15T19:07:03Z")
I took “you could have your own ship” to mean “you could get early promotion to Lieutenant-Commander and get command of a scout ship with a crew of twenty or thirty while you gain the necessary experience for further advancement to, possibly one day, command a full-blown starship with a crew of 400+.” That’s what it would mean in any _sane_ universe. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/447 "2009-05-15T19:09:20Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Kirk had apparently already sailed through school with top honors without even trying. Pike challenged him to be half the man his father was and Kirk said he’d breeze through the academy in three years instead of four. He did. Depending on how you look at it, if he’s shaving 25% off his expected accomplishments, he’d have had his own ship in six years instead of 8, or basically three years after graduating, assuming nothing exceptional happened allowing him to prove his natural talent. But as we saw, something did. > > It’s enough to convince me he’s not your usual cadet. Not that I need to be a fanboy to be convinced of something established over 40 years ago. On a related note, when Pike gave the figure of “Having your own ship in eight years”, I turned to my friend and asked him what the mortality rate of Starfleet Captains must be (I mean, they die off almost as quickly as redshirts in the movie) Which led us to an interesting observation. Surely the Enterprise is not the ONLY ship that ever runs into nigh-omnipotent alien beings, attacking aliens, ages old space traps, etc.? Starfleet probably DOES routinely loose ships, especially back in the pre-TOS era, to all sorts of weird things. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/448 "2009-05-15T19:13:04Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > On a related note, when Pike gave the figure of “Having your own ship in eight years”, I turned to my friend and asked him what the mortality rate of Starfleet Captains must be (I mean, they die off almost as quickly as redshirts in the movie) > > Which led us to an interesting observation. Surely the Enterprise is not the ONLY ship that ever runs into nigh-omnipotent alien beings, attacking aliens, ages old space traps, etc.? Starfleet probably DOES routinely loose ships, especially back in the pre-TOS era, to all sorts of weird things. If you take Roddenberry’s novelization of TMP as canon, twelve or thirteen Constitution-class starships went out on five-year-missions around the same time that Kirk took command of the Enterprise, and only Kirk returned his intact. (Not that all the ships were destroyed, but of the ships which made it back, teh captains were all dead.) Which makes you wonder just how Federation taxes are to support all this, and how the hell Starfleet gets anybody to, ah, “enlist.” ---
**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:** [May 15, 2009, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/449 "2009-05-15T19:19:41Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > how the hell Starfleet gets anybody to, ah, “enlist.” Miniskirts, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/450 "2009-05-15T19:24:22Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Miniskirts, of course. That doesn’t explain how they get the hotties to enlist. Uhura must be paid on the Jennifer Marlowe scale. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/451 "2009-05-15T19:25:58Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > If you take Roddenberry’s novelization of TMP as canon, twelve or thirteen Constitution-class starships went out on five-year-missions around the same time that Kirk took command of the Enterprise, and only Kirk returned his intact. (Not that all the ships were destroyed, but of the ships which made it back, teh captains were all dead.) > > Which makes you wonder just how Federation taxes are to support all this, and how the hell Starfleet gets anybody to, ah, “enlist.” Also, as I recall in the original series each Constitution class ship had its own symbol. The “Star Trek” symbol we know now was that of the Enterprise, later taken to stand for all of Star Fleet. I like the idea that there were other adventures happening along the galaxy and Kirk and the rest are the only ones to bring the ship back mostly intact. How many Constitution class ships did we see the destruction of during TOS? Planet Eater, the Kommunist planet (well the whole crew died), I’m sure there are others. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/452 "2009-05-15T19:40:30Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Also, as I recall in the original series each Constitution class ship had its own symbol. The “Star Trek” symbol we know now was that of the Enterprise, later taken to stand for all of Star Fleet. > > I like the idea that there were other adventures happening along the galaxy and Kirk and the rest are the only ones to bring the ship back mostly intact. > > How many Constitution class ships did we see the destruction of during TOS? Planet Eater, the Kommunist planet (well the whole crew died), I’m sure there are others. The Intrepid, manned entirely by Vulcans, was destroyed in the Tholian manuever. The M-5 computer destroyed at least one outright, and I think it damaged another so badly that Starfleet may have said, “You know what? Screw it. It’s not even worth the effort to fly it to a salvage yard. Tell everybody who’s not dead to get their pet goldfish & such off, then send the damn thing into the nearest sun to make sure the Klingons don’t get their hands on anything they can reverse engineer.” Then, later, in a private meeting, the same admiral said, “So why, exactly, are we not using this M-5 thing again? Because either it could take out the whole Klingon fleet in about a week, or every captain named named “Kirk” is a complete dweeb. And I’m not sure about Kirk, frankly.” ---
**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:** [May 15, 2009, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/453 "2009-05-15T19:50:09Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > The Intrepid, manned entirely by Vulcans, was destroyed in the Tholian manuever. Spock (well, younger Spock-prime) had quite the psychic reaction to the loss of those 400 Vulcans. Strangely, the loss of 15 _million_ times that number was a relative shrug. And I think the _Intrepid_ was lost to the giant amoeba in “The Immunity Syndrome”. The _Defiant_ was lost to the Tholian Web. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/454 "2009-05-15T19:54:25Z")
The mention of the Intrepid reminds me of quibble I had, but one I’ve not really complained about because it’s so nitpicky. In that episode – _The Immunity Syndrome_? – Spock gets bowled over when the ship is destroyed and 430 Vulcans die light years away, yet he’s perfectly okay when 6,000,000,000 Vulcans die within his line of sight in _Star Trek_. He should have been catatonic. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/455 "2009-05-15T19:58:27Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > The mention of the Intrepid reminds me of quibble I had, but one I’ve not really complained about because it’s so nitpicky. In that episode – _The Immunity Syndrome_? – Spock gets bowled over when the ship is destroyed and 430 Vulcans die light years away, yet he’s perfectly okay when 6,000,000,000 Vulcans die within his line of sight in _Star Trek_. > > He should have been catatonic. I’m glad you’re such an expert on Vulcan psycho physiology. 😃 I should add, I think being taken by surprise might be the difference here. He knew they were dying and he heard the screams when Vulcan went. The Vulcans on the ship died it was probably be like having someone burst out of your dark shower and scream at you. Yet you can be among fifty thousand screaming fans at a football game without breaking down. I’m in high fanwank form… keep them coming. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/456 "2009-05-15T20:01:12Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Spock (well, younger Spock-prime) had quite the psychic reaction to the loss of those 400 Vulcans. Strangely, the loss of 15 _million_ times that number was a relative shrug. Well, nothing can escape a black hole, not even dying psyches. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/457 "2009-05-15T20:01:17Z")
There were twelve (including the _Enterprise_-A) _Constitution_-class starships: [ul] [li] USS _Constellation_ (NCC-1017) - destroyed by the planet-eater in “The Doomsday Machine”[/li][li] USS _Intrepid_ (NCC-1631) - eaten by the space amoeba in “The Immunity Syndrome”[/li][li] USS _Potemkin_ (NCC-1657) - severely damaged (but not destroyed) by M5 in “The Ultimate Computer”[/li][li] USS _Excalibur_ (NCC-1664) - destroyed by M5[/li][li] USS _Exeter_ (NCC-1672) - found deserted in “The Omega Glory”[/li][li] NCC-1700 - unnamed and never shown[/li][li] USS _Enterprise_ (NCC-1701) - destroyed in _The Search for Spock_[/li][li] USS _Enterprise_ (NCC-1701-A) - survived intact![/li][li] USS _Hood_ (NCC-1703) - severely damaged by M5 [destroyed in the new movie][/li][li] NCC-1707 - unnamed ship seen only in _The Voyage Home_[/li][li] USS _Lexington_ (NCC-1709) - severely damaged by M5[/li][li] USS _Defiant_ (NCC-1764) - crew killed each other in “The Tholian Web”[/li][/ul] Overall, not a good track record. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2009, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/458 "2009-05-15T20:05:59Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > how the hell Starfleet gets anybody to, ah, “enlist.” A lifetime supply of free red shirts. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/459 "2009-05-15T20:08:35Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > The mention of the Intrepid reminds me of quibble I had, but one I’ve not really complained about because it’s so nitpicky. In that episode – _The Immunity Syndrome_? – Spock gets bowled over when the ship is destroyed and 430 Vulcans die light years away, yet he’s perfectly okay when 6,000,000,000 Vulcans die within his line of sight in _Star Trek_. > > He should have been catatonic. I still hate the movie, but I’ll fanwank this. It’s been well over a century by Spock’s personal timline since that happened. In the interim, he’s learned greater mastery of his telepathy and has the ability to completely suppress it when need be. When he saw what was happening, he did so, because as bad as things were, nothing would be helped by him becoming catatonic or gibbering. Alternatively, despite what we seemed to see happen, Vulcan was not destroyed but rather was sucked into the other side of the black hole–maybe into another universe, maybe into the past. It would be horrible if this were a mechanism for a future reset button. On the other hand, if this leads to Vulcan ultimately becoming Romulus, the evil [del]half[/del] nine-tenths fo me will laugh and laugh and laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/460 "2009-05-15T20:09:09Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > A lifetime supply of free red shirts. That’s like two shirts! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640.md?page=24)