# 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:** 59
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1161 "2009-06-20T00:56:05Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Any such list that does not include _Insurrection_ is a damnable lie wrapped in a cruel myth surrounded by a hideous curse. I mean, c’mon, a follow-the-bouncing-ball Gilbert and Sullivan sing-along? > > _…shudder…_ Insurrection rounds out the bottom four. This movie is in the middle three. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1162 "2009-06-20T00:59:44Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Heck, transwarp beaming would completely change the dynamics of Star Fleet. If you can just beam people across interstellar distances, starships become a lot less important. Especially since they always beam down to the planet anyways. Just send an away team from a known planet somewhere near the one you want to explore. [Transwarp beaming](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Transwarp_beaming) is interplanetary, not interstellar. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1163 "2009-06-20T01:15:50Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Heck, transwarp beaming would completely change the dynamics of Star Fleet. If you can just beam people across interstellar distances, starships become a lot less important. Especially since they always beam down to the planet anyways. Just send an away team from a known planet somewhere near the one you want to explore. Don’t both the sender & receiver have to be at warp? It wasn’t clear in the movie, but Scotty Kirk & Spock climbed onto a shuttle and I got the impression they were going to enter warp before trying to land on the Enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1164 "2009-06-20T01:44:52Z")
I don’t believe so. I think they were in the shuttlebay’s transporter room, not a shuttle itself. It looked way too expansiver to be the latter. ---
**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:** [June 20, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1165 "2009-06-20T02:00:27Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I like comedy in my _Trek_. And the latest movie delivers this in spades. In fact, the things that are frustrating to so many of you I just found funny. Heck, I got the people in the theater to start laughing with my big boisterous laugh. I was going to suggest we take this person out behind the schoolhouse and steal his lunch money and beat him up. However, he may have something here. Let’s all go see the Damned Thing again and laugh. At everything. If one person does it, they may thing he’s crazy. If two people do it, they’ll think they’re sissies and vote for them to get married. But if fifty people do it, they’ll think it’s a movement. And that’s what it is friends, the _Star Trek 90210_ movement. And all you have to do to join, is go see the Damned Thing again, and laugh at the plot holes. Boisterously. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1166 "2009-06-20T04:06:30Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > [Transwarp beaming](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Transwarp_beaming) is interplanetary, not interstellar. Not in the movie just made. There is no way that the Enterprise is still in the same planetary system as the stupid ice planet when they try that stunt. So it’s clearly able to be done over interstellar distances. ---
**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:** [June 20, 2009, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1167 "2009-06-20T04:21:05Z")
Agreed. But, as argued earlier in this thread, what may be feasible in an emergency for just two people may be completely impossible/impractical/cost-ineffective the more mass you try to beam. So there’s certainly still a place for starships in the new timeline. A fanwank, yes, but it actually makes sense! ---
**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:** [June 20, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1168 "2009-06-20T04:25:04Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > A fanwank, yes, but it actually makes sense! No, like the rest of the film, it fellates with the alacrity of a three thousand credit a night prostitute. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1169 "2009-06-20T08:45:21Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Agreed. But, as argued earlier in this thread, what may be feasible in an emergency for just two people may be completely impossible/impractical/cost-ineffective the more mass you try to beam. So there’s certainly still a place for starships in the new timeline. A fanwank, yes, but it actually makes sense! Even with that, though, there are so many incidences where even the possibility of transporting a couple of people near instantaneously across several light years would change the dynamics hugely. It is what it is, nothing but a way for the writers to get themselves out of the corner they wrote themselves into; but that goes for half the rest of this movie, too, so I guess that makes it OK. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1170 "2009-06-20T15:34:48Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > It was, yes, and Nemesis was the fourth TNG movie, or the tenth overall. It was the one with Picard’s clone, and yet another Soong-type android. I have never seen that one. I really only like the original cast for movies, but I do like Picard and TNG as a show. I have seen the first “blend” of TNG and TOS cast–the one where Kirk dies. Seriously, for me, it’s more about the people than the world or the tech. I’m not that invested in TNG to rent those movies. It sounds like I haven’t missed anything! I agree with **T** re the comedy in ST–it’s one reason I love TOS. The plots were (mostly) intelligent and the dialogue could be witty. Right now I only have one question: who told David George III he could write? ---
**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:** [June 20, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1171 "2009-06-20T16:17:12Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Not in the movie just made. There is no way that the Enterprise is still in the same planetary system as the stupid ice planet when they try that stunt. So it’s clearly able to be done over interstellar distances. Actually, remember that the Enterprise was damaged and had no chief engineer at the time. Once Scotty was on board and there to massage her ample nacells they could do warp 5. Warp 3, using the faster number from Memory Alpha, travels 4 lightyears in 3 days or 1.3 lightyears a day. Assuming they were underway for 4 hours from Delta Vega (which is in the Vulcan system) that puts them .2 lightyears away. Well within the Oort Cloud in our own system. They could easily be at the edges of the system if they were putting on at warp 3. Once again, a baseless criticism of the film, because someone just wasn’t watching close enough. 😃 ---
**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:** [June 20, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1172 "2009-06-20T16:22:19Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > No, like the rest of the film, it fellates with the alacrity of a three thousand credit a night prostitute. They’ve transcended money, the prostitute just does it for professional pride. 😃 Just to reiterate, this particular nitpick is baseless. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1173 "2009-06-22T18:19:04Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > On the one hand, there’s precedent in canon for the (remarkably stupid) idea that all Starfleet personnel are “officers.” (Though in that case, the term “officer” no longer means anything.) And the language may have changed in consequence, so that _enlist_ merely means _join up_. > > But I’m still not willing to buy it. I’ve seen it twice now (as Mrs. Rhymer wanted to go this past Wednesday) and hated it each time. The movie has insufficient goodwill with me for me to cut the writers any slack. It raises an interesting point… for officers, they seem to generally use the Navy hierarchy. But has anyone on a show or film ever been identified as a chief petty officer or something like that? ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1174 "2009-06-22T18:29:22Z")
Miles O’Brien was a Senior Chief Petty Officer while assigned as Chief of Operations on Deep Space Nine. ---
**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:** [June 22, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1175 "2009-06-22T18:33:13Z")
> [@johnspartan](#): > > It raises an interesting point… for officers, they seem to generally use the Navy hierarchy. But has anyone on a show or film ever been identified as a chief petty officer or something like that? TOS: No, though the person manning the transporter station was always called “Chief.” But I always took that to mean _transporter_ chief. I do think there were persons referred to as _Crewman_ Smith or whatever. TNG: Colm Meany, before portraying a character given a name, orginally wears lieutenant jg pips, but when he gets a consistent name & station is called _Chief_ O’Brian. When they start fleshing him out, it’s made clearer that he’s a chief petty officer; Worf’s father addresses him as such and indicates that he was an enlisted man in Starfleet himself. By DS9 O’Brian’s a master chief, I think, and he explicitly says that he’s grateful for that because it spares him the pomp & circumstance occasions he’d have to deal with as an officer. Nor do I think he was bullshitting; O’Brian’s probably a more competent engineer than LaForge, and I can easily see him getting offered the chance for OCS when he was younger and deciding not to because he genuinely didn’t want it. Also on DS9, it seemed that the engineering staff were all enlisted, which is not an option for the bridge staff. I refuse to admit that Voyager existed after the first season, so I can’t address it. There were not only enlisted men on Enterprise, but, shockingly, Marines as well. ---
**Author:** ![StarsApart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecc23a/32.png) [@StarsApart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarsApart)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1176 "2009-06-22T18:36:56Z")
> [@johnspartan](#): > > It raises an interesting point… for officers, they seem to generally use the Navy hierarchy. But has anyone on a show or film ever been identified as a chief petty officer or something like that? [Miles O’Brien](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_O%27Brien_(Star_Trek)), from TNG and DS9. Wikipedia says he’s a “Senior Chief Petty Officer.” ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1177 "2009-06-22T18:47:26Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > TOS: No, though the person manning the transporter station was always called “Chief.” But I always took that to mean _transporter_ chief. I do think there were persons referred to as _Crewman_ Smith or whatever. The ship full of officers BS, much like men in single-piece mini-skirts, was an invention of early Next Generation. They may not get as much visibility as officers, but enlisted personnel were mentioned in every other series, and according to Memory Alpha, Rand was an enlisted yeoman. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1178 "2009-06-22T18:49:28Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > They’ve transcended money, the prostitute just does it for professional pride. > > 😃 Also, for the betterment of Humanity. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1179 "2009-06-22T19:21:36Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > much like men in single-piece mini-skirts It’s called a “skant” (a variant of “skort”, I suppose). It was supposed to be a unisex garment common in the 23rd century, but obviously it just didn’t go over all that well. I read that one of the men you see wearing one in season 1 was a production crew member who had lost a substantial amount of weight, so as a “reward” they gave him some camera time in a skant to show off his svelte new figure 😃 ---
**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:** [June 22, 2009, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640/1180 "2009-06-22T19:24:43Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Also, for the betterment of Humanity. “Oh brave new world, that hath such…betterment…in it!” 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640.md?page=58) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-the-i-saw-it-thread-spoilers/495640.md?page=60)