# 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:** 40
**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 21, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/781 "2009-05-21T18:29:17Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > See, that’s a problem I have with Trek movies in general. Absent the hour-long weekly format, they all turn into Enterprise vs. some space villain, which jettisons most of the strengths of the series. My first impulse is to say that you’re right, but then I think of II, III, & IV, which I don’t think were really guilty of that. IV, in particular, always struck me as being the most like the best of the episodes, and the truest to the heart of Trek. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/782 "2009-05-21T18:42:08Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > From [startrek.com](http://startrek.com): > > Full Name: James Tiberius Kirk > Date of birth: March 22, 2233 > Place of birth: Riverside, Iowa, Earth > Education: Starfleet Academy, 2250-2254 > > Full Name: Spock (lineal Vulcan name unpronounceable) > Year of birth: 2230 > Place of birth: Shi’Kahr, Vulcan > Parents: Ambassador Sarek and his wife Amanda Grayson > Education: Starfleet Academy, 2249-53 > > Full Name: Leonard H. McCoy, M.D. > Year of birth: 2227 > Parents: Mr. and Mrs. David McCoy > Education: University of Mississippi, 2245-49; medical school, 2249-53 > > STARFLEET HISTORICAL FILE: Scott, Montgomery “Scotty” > > Year of birth: 2222 > Education: Starfleet Academy, 2240-44 > > Full Name: Pavel Andreievich Chekov > Serial number: 656-5827B > Year of birth: 2245 > Education: Starfleet Academy, 2263-67 > > STARFLEET HISTORICAL FILE: Uhura > > Date of birth: 2239 > Place of birth: United States of Africa, Earth > Parents: Mother, M’Umbha > Education: Starfleet Academy, 2257-61 > > STARFLEET HISTORICAL FILE: Sulu, Hikaru > Mid-level Biography Brief Mode > Rank: Captain > Date of birth: 2237 > Place of birth: San Francisco, Earth > Education: Starfleet Academy, 2255-59 Practically none of that comes from any episode or movie. ---
**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 21, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/783 "2009-05-21T19:05:47Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Practically none of that comes from any episode or movie. It’s from [startrek.com](http://startrek.com), so I presume it’s on the up and up. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/784 "2009-05-21T19:18:31Z")
The closing paragraph from an editorial on the same site states they would like to think Star Trek: The Animated Series is canon “_if only so we can make more work for ourselves and all future historians!_” and they “_would like to start adding more information to [[startrek.com](http://startrek.com) that is] gleaned from this show and have it form part of the overall collective consciousness of_ _Star Trek_.” Furthermore, they ask if they should “_simply leave the whole issue ambiguous and let the fans decide in their own mind what they consider canon_?” They have an obvious bias and agenda in regards to canon, and even [memoryalpha.org](http://memoryalpha.org), the canon Trek wiki, doesn’t list alot of these dates. ---
**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 21, 2009, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/785 "2009-05-21T19:33:48Z")
Wasn’t there a _Voyager_ two-parter with Ed Begley and Sarah Silverman that involved traveling back to the nineties and discovering an Earth that clearly had no clue they were supposed to be cleaning up the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars? So, how long before the events of the TNG premiere are effectively obsoleted, with no atomic horror or soldiers on drugs and whatnot? ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/786 "2009-05-21T20:02:41Z")
> [@Mollie\_Magill](#): > > Not that I’m disagreeing with you. I don’t think Khan needs to come back. An off the cuff remark from Spock Prime like, “Don’t dump them on Ceti Alpha V” or “Just don’t beam on board the Botany Bay”. Heck, even forbidding visitors access to the computers would be a start. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/787 "2009-05-21T20:12:25Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > I’d rather they explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no man has gone before. Fat chance of that, though. Yeah. A mission like that would take years. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/788 "2009-05-21T20:33:59Z")
The Wrath of Khan worked (best of all the Trek movies until this last one - & I thought Spock should have stayed dead) because it was more about characters we loved than about the space villain of the week. If they can keep the focus on the main characters and their interaction, they may do ok with a sequel or two. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/789 "2009-05-21T21:00:27Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > “Don’t dump them on Ceti Alpha V” > pause, eyebrow lift, > “or any of the Ceti Alpha planets.” Ok, late again, I didn’t even think about reading this whole thread, but I didn’t much like it. Special effects, woo hoo, action sequences ditto, improbable physics, I expected no less, time travel wanking, I’m ok with that, but the complete lack of anything remotely resembling proper military order just ruined it for me. Keeping all the same bridge crew together was wearing very thin in the TNG movies. Your ship gets destroyed? Your crew gets dispersed; other ships need first officers, engineers and ship’s cleavage too. I understand that they had some fan and possibly some contractual reasons, but write them other parts that don’t put them all on the bridge, it doesn’t make sense. When I heard that they were all going to be in the Academy together in this one I thought, ‘how lame,’ but it got good reviews so I went. But c’mon, Kirk goes from midwest bar brawler to starfleet grad in 3 years, except for that pesky probation thing. and what the newest flagship is staffed by 400 new grads? Or they’re all so lame that they put Wesley Chekov on the bridge? Coughbullshitcough. And _please, please_ tell me that having Scottie beam into a giant tube of non-toxic water like liguid on it’s way to a giant choppy turbine bladey thing was an intended reference to **Galaxy Quest**. I was sitting there thinking, ‘this scene is badly written.’ I thought it was bitchin when the Vulcan congradulated Spock on his success despite the handicap of his Human mother and he said, 'Ya know, maybe I’ll go to starfleet after all." THAT part was cool. FTR I’m a fan but not a trekkie, don’t own any, there’s lots of episodes I haven’t seen. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/790 "2009-05-21T21:13:23Z")
oops, missed the edit window, didn’t mean to alter Pushkins’ quote ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/791 "2009-05-21T23:50:01Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I don’t call this Star Trek 90210 - I call it Star Trek Babies, because, like Muppet Babies, a bunch of characters of varying ages are shown meeting before canon does. \*\*At least the Muppet Babies never ran a show in the theater. \*\* Bolding mine. Muppet Babies was based off of a segment in the Muppets Take Manhattan, a theatrical release. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/792 "2009-05-22T00:19:04Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Wasn’t there a _Voyager_ two-parter with Ed Begley and Sarah Silverman that involved traveling back to the nineties and discovering an Earth that clearly had no clue they were supposed to be cleaning up the aftermath of the Eugenics Wars? > > So, how long before the events of the TNG premiere are effectively obsoleted, with no atomic horror or soldiers on drugs and whatnot? You could argue that with the Begley/Silverman episodes clearly taking place mostly in L.A., perhaps the Eugenics Wars didn’t manage to affect the area nearly as badly as other locales. However Khan had just been overthrown, or was about to be, when the Voyager episodes were taking place. You’d think they could have thrown in some reference to him. I like **levdrakon** ’s idea that a red matter black hole sends you to an alternate reality, not just the past/a different place. It would allow for some interesting details. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/793 "2009-05-22T00:54:29Z")
[Irrelevant aside] I am watching TOS, the first season. I didn’t remember (probably didn’t know) that Kirk had a brother named Sam who was a research biologist. Sam had a family–a son. So now I’m 😕 re the time warp thing in the new movie. I’ll go with it, but it’s still confusing. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/794 "2009-05-22T01:04:18Z")
Sam has been mentioned several times in this thread, as… oh, just to pull a post at random, [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11132747&postcount=252). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/795 "2009-05-22T01:53:25Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Applying Occam’s razor, and given that Spock’s explanation was intended for us, I would say that the time lines split at the attack on the Kelvin and Kirk’s father dying. At least some of the changes are just stylistic, though. Nero’s warp drive behaves exactly like Starfleet’s: it just goes ‘zip’, which was completely cool, by the way. So I assume that the uniforms having little starfleet insignias embossed in the weave (I had to sit close) and the bridge looking like one imagines the inside of an iMac to look and phasers that really pack a punch are similar stylistic choices, and it’s implied that this is the way things always were. Well, they couldn’t use styrofoam and drawings of the solar system passing for console displays again, could they? ---
**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 22, 2009, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/796 "2009-05-22T02:04:37Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > the bridge looking like one imagines the inside of an iMac to look I heard it described as a perfume sales room. Yours is better. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Annie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/858c86/32.png) [@Annie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/797 "2009-05-22T02:07:49Z")
The shirts still ride up on 'em. No [Picard Manoeuvre](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Picard%20maneuver) for another, yon, 75 years? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/798 "2009-05-22T02:14:32Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I heard it described as a perfume sales room. Yours is better. 🙂 The fact that the warp drive is activated with a big chrome lever alone makes the $12.50 worth it. ---
**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 22, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/799 "2009-05-22T02:20:45Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > The fact that the warp drive is activated with a big chrome lever alone makes the $12.50 worth it. Poul Anderson has FTL stuff run by computer. Whether it’s a big chrome lever or buttons, how much room do you need to stop at warp 7? If you pass you destination by a couple of light years, do you back and fill at warp 2? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/800 "2009-05-22T02:35:06Z")
Well, apparently you don’t need any room. Enterprise went from warp speed to more-or-less stationary relative to the rest of Starfleet’s graduating class - you can see one of them silhoutted against the local star if you know when to look - so whatever it is that lets these things happen, we apparently figure it out. There’s no sense in asking how to control faster-than-light starships, because such things are imaginary. It’s controlled however it’s imagined in the imagination of the imaginer. Sometimes it’s hard science-fiction, sometimes it’s spiffy space opera. I put big chrome levers firmly in the spiffy camp. OR, the countdowns and such are provided to Sulu by the computer controlling the warp drive for the crew’s benefit while it runs the show. Sort of like the way dignitaries pull big levers turning on currently-running power plants or whatever for the benefit of the press. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640.md?page=39) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640.md?page=41)