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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 02/21/2007 : 11:40:28 PM
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I’ll say one thing for Star Trek: Generations: It’s got the best commentary track I’ve ever heard. Instead of making the movie out to be more of an epic achievement than it really is or blaming everyone and everything but themselves for the movie’s flaws; Ronald Moore and Brannan Braga talk openly about what could’ve been better and how it got to be how it was, and they blame themselves for it, sometimes jocularly and sometimes they beat themselves up over it. It’s refreshing to hear. And they even say “Thanks for listening” at the end, which is something I’ve never heard at the end of a commentary track before.
Of course, if they’re that open about the flaws, those flaws must be pretty sizable and pretty obvious. And in Generations, they are.
The credits play over a starfield as a champagne bottle drifts end-over-end past the camera. The TNG cast names come first, followed by Malcolm McDowell, then James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and “William Shatner as ‘James T. Kirk.’” I wonder what sort of negotiations were done that Shatner would agree to be the last-billed actor, and “as ‘James T. Kirk,’” no less.
The bottle smashed on the hull of the new U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-B. It’s counterintuitive that we do not get a series of loving shots of the new ship, just a shot from an observation window, and a long shot from outside the spacedock it’s parked at. I guess it makes sense that the enclosed spacedock from Treks 3, 4, and 6 wasn’t used, because then there’d be broken glass floating around the chamber. After enough christening ceremonies, it would become a hazard. Ouch!
After the brief-but-loving long shot, we cut to the turbolift doors opening, and a bunch of press folks showing recorders in our faces and asking a bunch of questions at once. Now we know how the stars feel. Yuck. (Notice the guy in the back with camera attachment thingie on his head. He glances around with no expression on his face, and the eyepiece covering his eye makes him seem like a Borg. Gripping social commentary or dumbass in-joke? Your pick. Hell, in the Star Trek universe, is there any difference?).
The cameras are pestering Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov as they enter the bridge. Captain John Harriman, the new Enterprise captain, shuts up the press, kisses Kirk’s ass, and gives Kirk a moment to look around. As a Navy veteran, I find it hard to believe that the captain of a military vessel would allow the press on the bridge, or any other part of the ship the press wasn’t wanted, for that matter. Oh that’s right, I forgot: **in best Picard voice** “Stahfleet is not a milatree organ-I-zation.” Yeah. Uh-huh.
Kirk has a brief wistful moment, knowing that the Enterprise is about to go off without him. The wistful moment lasts barely long enough for the first four notes of the Star Trek theme to play before Chekov breaks his reverie to introduce him to Demora Sulu, the slightly-cross-eyed daughter of Hikaru Sulu and Enterprise helmswoman. Kirk says something nice about having a Sulu at the helm, then awes at Hikaru Sulu finding time for a family.
Captain Harriman orders everyone to sit down so the ship can get underway. He asks Kirk to give the order to “Take us out.” Kirk refuses, and the press and the cameras get all in his face in expectation. Again, we a couple of shots of the press from Kirk-POV. Kirk embarrassedly stands and gives the order, and everyone applauds. Feeling even more uncomfortable, he sits down, and gets some playful ribbing from Chekov and Scotty.
Another very short shot of the Enterprise leaving port, then we cut back to Kirk, Scotty, and Chekov returning to the bridge, surrounded by camera crew. One of them asks, “Now that you’ve seen the rest of the ship, how does it feel to be back on the bridge?” The first time I saw it, that struck me as a typically idiotic question, and I was gratified to see Scotty wear an “I-don’t-f**n’-know” look his face as he says, “Fine, fine.”
Let’s take inventory here. We’ve had a very brief series of shots of the Enterprise and a very brief wistful-Captain scene, tucked among the irritating-press-crowd stuff that has been the bulk so far. Granted, we’re only seven minutes in; and yeah, I can see how someone wanted to playfully explore what media attention must be like for a guy who's saved Earth numerous times; but this is not that good because we, the audience, are no less irritated by the press crowd on the screen as Kirk would be in the flesh.
Captain Harriman announces that the ship has cleared the asteroid belt and will go to Pluto and back. “Just a quick run around the block.” True to form, it’s at that moment when the obligatory distress call comes in. Capt. Harriman stares in quiet panic for an awful long time before saying “On speakers.” Ship X is trapped in area Y, you know the drill. Harriman says to signal the nearest ship. Kirk stands up in protest, and Harriman tells him that they don’t have a full crew aboard.
Waitaminit. The ship had a huge christening ceremony, press coverage and everything, and it set sail without a full crew aboard? Anal blood. In The Motion Picture, I could buy it, because they left in a hurry to meet V’Ger. In The Final Frontier, I could buy it, because the ship had already had its maiden voyage and everyone was on leave. Here? Uh-uh. Ain’t buyin’ it.
Kirk, remembering what happened the last time he took off from Earth with less than a full crew, sits down.
Naturally, the Enterprise is the only ship in range. Everyone knows how implausible this is and why it’s implausible. What’s even worse this time around, though, is that in Final Frontier, at least there was a variation of the only-ship-in-range device: “Other ships, but no experienced commanders.” As implausible as that was, at least someone was aware that the old excuse just wasn’t gonna be believable every time. In this movie, though, made five years after, we’re back at “only ship in range.” Poor.
Captain Harriman, after another bout of frozen panic, orders intercept at maximum warp. Since the endangered ship is stated to be three light-years away, that feels like overshooting to me; but since it never is stated exactly how fast any warp speed is, it’s no biggie. Kirk fidgets in his chair, feeling the opportunity to do his captain thing. Scotty mutters to him, “Is there something wrong with your chair?” I like that line. Yeah, there’s something wrong with his chair: It’s not the chair he wants to be sitting in. I like it.
They reach the ships, and find The Ribbon!!! Chekov says, “What the hell is that?” This seems unlikely for Chekov. He’s seen plenty more weird things than that in his career. I think he, along with Kirk and Scotty, would be the calmest guy on board. Kirk recommends using the tractor beam, but Harriman says the ship doesn’t have a tractor beam because “It won’t be installed until Tuesday.” Note the white-haired old man behind Kirk. Pretty old to still be part of the bridge crew, ain’t he? That’s gotta be somebody’s relative, allowed in just to say they were there.
Harriman tries a couple of technobabble solutions, to no avail.
SLOPPINESS: Ensign Sulu says that “the starboard vessel’s hull is collapsing,” and the we see the port vessel explode. For those not up on nautical terminology, port is the ship's left and starboard is the ship's right side, and the words are used relative to the ship you’re on, i.e. when you say “starboard,” you mean starboard as your ships is pointing. Also, she pronounces the word phonetically: STAR-bored. Most recruits in basic training get out of that within a week. It’s pronounced as STAR-bird. Rookie mistake.
I’ll continue tomorrow.
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/22/2007 : 11:39:56 PM
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The portside ship takes an energy blast and explodes into a million itty bitty pieces, killing all 265 people. And the press is right there reporting everything. Soon as they get back to Earth, they’ll write editorials demanding all ships to be immediately withdrawn from outer space. Captain Harriman, obviously scared to death, finally asks Kirk for help. Kirk says to get in there and beam the people on the remaining ship out. Chekov asks how big the medical staff is, and Harriman says the staff doesn’t arrive ‘til Tuesday. Splendid, a crisis scene with a recurring joke that wasn’t worth a laugh the first time. Chekov gets a good line when he says to two cameramen, “You and you. You’ve just become nurses. Let’s go.” During my duty, when I’d get pulled off of whatever I was doing to do something else I really didn’t know how to do but nobody else was available, that was the common phrase: “You’ve just become <fill in the blank>.” Nice touch.
The second ship explodes just as Scotty completes transport. The new Enterprise transporters can be operated from the bridge. Wonder why Enterprise-D couldn’t do that. Cuz Scotty wasn’t there, I guess. Scotty has saved 47 out of 150 people. Scotty Beam-Out Average: .313. All-Star!
The ship gets rocked by the Ribbon, sending bridge crew flying. In sickbay, Chekov tries to calm the panicked survivors. One of them is our villain, Dr. Soren, played by Malcolm McDowell. He shouts “Let me go back” over and over until Chekov jabs, and I mean JABS the hypo into his neck. Chekov also comforts Guinan, played by Whoopi Goldberg. Thankfully, she has no lines in this scene.
On the bridge, Scotty has an idea to fire torpedoes into the Ribbon, only to be told that there are no torpedoes, because they don’t arrive ‘til Tuesday. This is pathetic and pathetically implausible. Movie, you suck. Scotty pulls another theory out of his ass that requires someone to go belowdecks and do something techno. Harriman makes to go and gives the bridge to Kirk. Kirk sits into the captain’s chair with a look of pure bliss, then decides that since it’s Harriman’s ship, Harriman should keep the chair. Kirk goes off to save the day. The ghost of Captain Decker is royally miffed right now.
Kirk goes belowdecks, and inserts some hotel keycards into slots. This enables the ship to flee the Ribbon. It also is boring and stupid. This explains the lack of crew: So someone from the bridge would have to be heroic, rather than a crewman be on station to do the job then and there. Still doesn’t explain the lack of torpedoes or medical staff. Harumph.
Clear of the danger, Ensign Sulu reports damage to the starboard (mispronouncing it again) nacelle and to engineering decks, including the one Kirk was at. Everyone adopts their best “Oh crap” look. Harriman, Scotty, and Chekov go belowdecks and find only empty space and wreckage. An exterior shot, complete with lonely trumpet, shows the Enterprise still in one piece but with a giant bite taken out of it. Enterprise moves off-screen, the empty starfield hangs there for a bit, then segues to water.
I don’t know whose idea it was to muck up the (first) death of Captain Kirk with lame humor and him doing the visual equivalent of techobabble. This entire act just feels throwaway, just there to get the plot rolling and to hell with how it comes off.
78 years later, the most bizarre promotion ceremony I’ve ever seen is taking place. Onboard the wooden sailing ship Enterprise, the TNG crew is in period costumes as Worf is promoted to Lieutenant Commander as if it’s a death sentence. This is enjoyable just for the out-of-nowhere weirdness of it. I guess I can see the crew of a starship getting a little eccentric when it’s time for a senior officer promotion. Still, pretty bold decision that the TNG crew makes its big-screen debut in this fashion. And it comes off okay. I gotta confess, I dig Geordi LaForge’s tongue-flickin’ whoop that he lets out for Worf. I even tried it myself just now. I can’t do it. Try it. When Worf walks the plank to try to grab the “badge of office” ( a tricorn of whatever you call those hats), Riker exposits to Picard, “He’ll never make it. No one ever has.” I’d think the Captain would know that as well as Riker, unless the Captain sometimes passes on these ceremonies. Wouldn’t that suck? You get promoted out of however many candidates, and the C.O. doesn’t even show up?
Worf grabs the thing through semi-quick-cut editing, and everyone goes nuts. I like Geordi’s reaction. Geordi is so likable as a character that his technobabble dialogue is doubly irritating. He’s got charisma, writers. Let him use it! Riker tells the holodeck to remove the plank, and Worf plunges into the water. The TNG movies love to embarrass Worf, don’t they? The first shot of Worf after the plank dissolves away is Worf’s legs extending, almost in cartoon fashion. Silly.
Then we get the set-up for the Data subplot, not to mention the main purpose of this scene. Data asks Dr. Crusher if the Worf-dunk was funny.
Waitaminit. Through the TNG TV series, Data had been learning about humor as he went along. In the first season or two, he was clueless. Gradually, he began to get at least a partial hang of it bit by bit. Here, he’s been set all the way back to the beginning. It’s jarring for the viewer.
Dr. Crusher tells him to just have a good time and be spontaneous. I love it when women encourage spontaneity. If a lady ever tells you to be spontaneous, start picking your nose. That’s spontaneous. See if she still admires spontaneity then! Data not-too-surprisingly shoves Crusher overboard. Troi and LaForge are in literally open-mouthed shock. I don’t see why. Granted, it was a Worf-dunk, not a Crusher-dunk, but still, their reaction seems disproportionate. Certainly, Picard and Riker don’t seem to mind that much, as they’re not even paying attention. They’re on the forecastle* having a chat. Picard waxes wistful for the age of wooden ships, and era he’s never lived in; Riker is glad to not have lived in it. My experience has me siding with Riker. I can’t imagine what being a sailor on a 100-foot wooden ship crossing the Atlantic must’ve been like. It heightens my respect for such men.
* - Had Ensign Sulu been in this scene, she would've pronounced it as it's spelled. It's actually pronounced FOLK-sul.
Picard gets a phone call bearing some apparently bad news, as Picard’s face falls, the music goes melancholy, and Picard sulks off the holodeck. Riker encourages Geordi to try to get himself killed, but is interrupted by a distress call from the Ammagona Observatory, which is under attack. Riker calls Red Alert, and that ends the Holodeck scene.
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Gristle McThornbody
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Germany
186 Posts |
Posted - 02/23/2007 : 10:48:14 AM
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quote:
The second ship explodes just as Scotty completes transport. The new Enterprise transporters can be operated from the bridge. Wonder why Enterprise-D couldn’t do that. Cuz Scotty wasn’t there, I guess. Scotty has saved 47 out of 150 people. Scotty Beam-Out Average: .313. All-Star!
Thanks a lot! I had to wipe coffee off of my monitor after that line!
:)
"Hi, I'm Bob Evil!" |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 02:50:53 AM
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Glad I made you laugh, Gristle. :)
The Enterprise approaches the Ammagona observatory. The bridge crew arrive still in period costumes. I’m guessing this is supposed to mean something, but again, in Star Trek, what does “mean something” mean, anyway? There are five life signs aboard, and Riker supplies that the station had a complement of 19. Damn, Riker’s good if he had that knowledge already. He went straight from the Holodeck to the bridge without changing clothes, so he didn’t stop for info. Sharp! Picard snaps at Riker and goes to sulk in the Ready Room. Riker orders an away team to go to the station.
On the station, the away team beams in. I like this scene, because except for the one unnamed junior officer (UJO, henceforth), everyone is wearing standard TNG TV series uniforms, and the whole scene looks and feels like a TV episode (and a good one, unlike Insurrection). The music, the smoke, the handhand lights, the whole bit.
They find a few corpses, and Worf finds Dr. Soran, the survivor of the Ribbon that the Enterprise B ran into. Then they find a Romulan corpse. Political intrigue, right? WRONG, because we cut to Data’s quarters on the Enterprise, where he and Geordi are discussing Data’s Crusher-dunk. For an android with no emotions, he seems to be on one hell of a guilt trip. So much so that he decides to activate the emotion chip that was left over from a TV episode. I’m serious, listen to him when he explains why he wants to use the chip. He’s feeling something! I do dig Spot the kitty cat, though. Playful little thing, just like my own kitty cats.
In the Ready Room, Riker is giving Picard a report on what happened in the station. Picard is still in the period costume from the Holodeck. Either that was a short away mission, or Jean-Luc is royally funkin’ out. Riker says there were dead Romulans and that Dr. Soran wants to speak to the captain. Picard brushes it all off.
In Ten Forward, Geordi and a smiling Data enter to tank up. Data doesn’t like the taste of dead skunk piss from Forcas 3, and is exhilarated, gleefully declaring, “I hate this! It is revolting!” Guinan says, “More?” and Data says, “Please!” Okay, I gotta admit, that was funny. It was well-timed and well-acted, and I got a nice giggle from it.
Gloomy Gus Picard enters, scowls around the room, and finds Dr. Soran. Soran is pleasant at first, but insistent on returning to the station to finish his experiment. Something was unusual about the exchange between the two of them, but it took me a while to place it: At one point, Picard has to talk over Soran. A split-second of crosstalk. Unusual. **shrug** And well done, too. Props. Soran tries to impress upon Picard that the experiment must be done now, Picard’s investigation notwithstanding. Picard is curt, but Soran grabs his arm as he makes to leave and goes into Cinematic I Know Things You Couldn’t Possibly Imagine mode, speaking in metaphor, which you’d think Picard would have no patience for, given his experiences (now it’s looking like a midrange TV episode). But Picard buys Soran’s load of poop, and says, “I’ll see what I can do.” From the Captain, that’s not very reassuring. The Captain calls the shots, so if Picard wanted to do something, there’s no “see what I can do” about it. Order it so, and it gets done. So Soran shouldn’t have the satisfied look on his face that he does when Picard leaves. When Soran makes his own way out, he spots Guinan and gets all uncomfortable. (Just once I’d like to see an Enterprise guest not be uncomfortable around Guinan. The Q was the closest we got, but even he wouldn’t turn her into a dog or anything). Guinan gets an uncomfortable look of her own, and looks around to find the source, only to see Soran’s back as he leaves.
There’s an awful lot of people looking uncomfortable in this movie.
In Engineering, Worf technobabbles that the Romulans were on the station looking for trilithium, a substance that could theoretically stop fusion in a star. (!!!) Riker says to send Geordi and Data on the next away team.
I gotta wonder why Data is not the automatic first choice to be on every away team. He’s got far-beyond-human senses for observation, and far-beyond-human strength and reflexes for combat. Okay, half the time he’s either malfunctioning or possessed, but in the scene we saw earlier, there was nothing wrong with him other than a little android guilt. Maybe Riker didn’t want him on the team with Dr. Crusher. What’s the matter, Numbah One? Don’t trust the Chief Medical Officer to keep her professionalism? Think she’s gonna jam a hypo up his android ass? Or push him into the acid pit or somethin’?
On the station, Geordi and Data are scanning for trilithium and not finding any. It’s here that the script does the single biggest character botch of the entire TNG franchise. Data is laughing his ass off over a seven-year-old joke, making bad puns, muggin’ up a storm, and generally being as irritating as the script can make him. Only the “Make it so” line even merits a smile. Geordi finds a solar probe that may or may not contain the trilithium they’re looking for when Data goes into another laughing fit. Geordi snaps “Data, we don’t have time for this,” and his impatience mirrors ours. We’re no happier about it than he is. We liked Data as an emotionless android who can simulate outward signs of emotions but not actually feel them. We dug his wish to actually feel it for himself. Here, he does, and it’d be hard to think of a worse result. He could’ve gone into a rage, sobbed his eyes out, hit on every lady in sight, and none of it would’ve been more irritating than this.
The most irritating part of all: On the commentary, Moore and Braga proudly state that they wanted him to be irritating. **shrug** Congratulations. You crapmaggots.
Through his laughing fit, Data says that something’s wrong. Brent Spiner uses every mug in his repertoire to simulate the combination of hysterical laughter and electronic hardware failure, and I’ll give him credit, it’s impressive. Or maybe I’m just feeling generous because he finally shuts up. LaForge tries to contact the Enterprise, but comms are jammed. Soran shows up (guess the Captain really did buy it, after all), Geordi asks him to shut off the dampening field, and Soran knocks him unconscious with one backhanded punch. Remember what I said about Geordi’s likeability being buried underneath the technobabble? Now he crumples like paper after getting backhanded by a 60-year-old man. Yuck.
Soran turns to Data and draws a laser pistol on him. Data cringes in what supposed to be mortal terror. Since the two emotions he’s shown so far, papillary revulsion and humor, were played to extremes, this show of terror comes off as pretty flat.
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Edited by - Food on 02/24/2007 03:04:57 AM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/24/2007 : 9:39:02 PM
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In the Ready Room, Picard is grimly looking through a family photo album. Troi enters. After a moment of a panic-stricken look, Picard starts telling Troi about his brother and nephew (I don’t blame him looking panic-striken. If I lived in the Star Trek universe, I’d stay the f**k away from Betazoids. If they can read minds at will, privacy around them is impossible. Forget it! Yeah, I know, Troi’s only half-Betazoid and only reads emotions. Still, I’d only see her if I had to). Picard starts crying. Patrick Stewart is good at crying scenes, so this is okay. Picard’s brother and nephew “burned to death in a fire.” As opposed to burning to death in a flash flood.
Picard gets up to do his patented Stare Out The Window In Somber Reflection thing. (In the neato light used here and in Ten Forward, the zippers in the backs of the uniforms are real noticeable). He silently contemplates the combination of gaseous molecules floating high above the soil, the charred bones, and the liquefied tissues that used to be his brother and nephew. He soliloquizes about the long line of Picards: “The Picard who fought at Trafalgar, the Picard who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, the Picards who settled the first Martian colonies.”
This is a bit inconsistent with what was established in the TV series about the Picard family. In the very episode that featured the still-living and still-raw bodies of his brother and nephew, it was said that Picard’s parents wanted him to carry on the family tradition by staying at home and working in the vineyards. And as long as we’re on the subject of Picards through history, Jean-Luc, how about the Picard from the last Wesley Crusher episode that was guilty of racist butchery on the American plains? Thought we’d forget, didn’cha?
Picard goes on about how he is now the last of the Picards. The family line ends with him. The universe registers its impatience with this crap by having the Ammagosa sun flare up. Picard and Troi rush to bridge and are told that the sun’s implosion will produce a Level 12 shockwave.
A Level 12 shockwave. In a vacuum.
I don’t mind the cinematic tropes of sound/shockwaves traveling through a vacuum if it’s not relevant to the plot. But in this movie, it is. Shockwaves traveling through a vacuum is vital to the story. Since shockwaves really don’t travel through a vacuum, it renders this whole story bogus. As if the plot holes to come won’t do that enough. Realizing that Geordi and Data aren’t aboard, Riker and Worf go off to find them.
On the station, Dr. Soran shoots at Riker and Worf, holding them off long enough for a Klingon Bird of Prey to decloak and beam Soren and Geordi’s still-unconscious (!!) body up. Riker, Worf, and Data return to the Enterprise, and the Enterprise warps out of there just in time to avoid the shockwave that destroys the station. I’ll give credit for the visual of the station being destroyed, it probably looked awesome in the theater. But again, I just can’t get into it. Shockwaves do not. Travel. Through. A vacuum.
On the Klingon ship, Soren strolls into the middle of a dozen Klingons and belts the Klingon captain in the mouth. Smart move. The Klingons are in a friendly mood, so they don’t crush his skull in, but just set him down. It turns out that this ship is co-captained by B’Etor and Lursa, two sexy hot wild party-girl Klingons who were in, I think one episode that nobody even cared about. They and Soren exposit for us that Soren has the knowledge while the Klingons have the trilithium. Together it creates the ultimate weapon, so they need each other. Uneasy alliance, etc. While Soren’s ultimate motivation remains unclear, B’Etor and Lursa want to “reconquer the Klingon Empire.” And those four words are the most we’ll be hearing about it for the rest of the movie. Soren orders course for the Veridian system, and off they go.
It was here that I noticed another recurring motif of this movie: The next scene’s dialogue will begin a second or two before the view cuts to the new scene.
In the Enterprise sickbay, Dr. Crusher, who is so hot I can’t f**kin’ stand it, has done some homework on Dr. Soren and has found that he’s an El-Aurian, the same race as Guinan. El-Aurians live for centuries, and Soren is over 300 years old. Soren and Guinan were survivors of a Borg attack, and they were on a fleeing ship that got destroyed when the Enterprise-B saved them whilst losing James T. Kirk.
Waitaminit. Those survivors whom the Enterprise-B picked up fled the Borg. The Federation was unaware of the Borg until the Q introduced the Enterprise-D to them in the second season of TNG. So of all the refugees the Enterprise-B saved from the fleeing ship, not a single one of them told the Federation about the Borg?
Crusher’s voice bleeds into the next scene of Picard in Guinan’s quarters to beg Guinan to give her Guinany wisdom. I hated these scenes on the TV series. Guinan is essentially a walking hint book. Cheap. Can you imagine James T. Kirk needing one? Okay, sometimes Spock was that sometimes; but just as often, Spock was as much or more at a loss as to what to do than Kirk was. On TNG, Guinan is never at a loss, and there’s no drama in that.
Guinan’s room is lit with a million candles. Good God, what does she do when she’s not tending bar, just sit and meditate? For centuries? Must be awful boring. Unless the ship gets rocked and the candles spill all over, igniting everything. Picard tells Guinan that Soren has a weapon of terrible power. Guinan laughs him off, saying Soren doesn’t care about weapons or power. Look Guinan, maybe centuries-old beings don’t care when whole stars explode and kill everyone in the system, but us measly worthless humans do, okay? Soren’s ultimate goal may not be about weapons or power, but when weapons and power enter into the process of reaching that goal, we gotta do something, got it? Get off your f**kin’ ego trip.
Guinan sanctimonizes that Soren is trying to get to the Nexus, the energy ribbon that can transport him to a parallel dimension of infinite joy and bliss. Once in, you’ll never want to leave. Guinan was there once, and she had to be torn out of it against her will. She says that if Soren is obsessed with getting back, “he could be a very dangerous man.” Hmmm….he just blew up a star, kidnapped a senior officer, and fired on a rescue party…gee, you think? Picard wonders out loud why he would blow up a star, and Guinan stares at him as if she knows the answer but doesn’t wanna tell him. Picard sees through it like glass, and thanks Guinan for the dope.
In true TNG fashion, Picard is just at the door when Guinan stops him to stay something pithy. Happens all the time. She warns Picard that if he does go in, he’ll never wanna come back, and he’ll never care about anything again. By the time the movie’s over, the viewer will be wondering if Guinan ever really had been in the Nexus and wasn’t just makin’ it all up.
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Edited by - Food on 02/24/2007 9:54:11 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2007 : 5:49:29 PM
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quote:
In the Enterprise sickbay, Dr. Crusher, who is so hot I can’t f**kin’ stand it, has done some homework on Dr. Soren and has found that he’s an El-Aurian, the same race as Guinan.
Glad I'm not the only one who felt all funny inside every time I see Gates McFadden. Why, why, WHY did they dump her for Anne Archer in the Jack Ryan movies?! |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2007 : 6:43:42 PM
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| ^Simple, dude: McFadden may be lethal-hot, but she's not that good of an actress. Even I'll admit that. Marina Sirtis acts rings around her. That's why it's always Troi who got heavily emotional. The one time TNG let McFadden try that was the episode called Sub Rosa. Compare her sobbing scene in that episode to Troi's sobbing scene in the episode where she hallucinates that Worf is two-timing on her. It's no contest. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/25/2007 : 6:44:43 PM
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On the Klingon ship, Soren has Georgi bound and has confiscated his Visor. Soren mahvels at the visor, calling it a remahkable piece of technology. I don’t know why. Georgi’s been wearing the thing for seven years now, and it’ll be obsolete by the next movie. Maybe he’s being sarcastic. He asks Geordi if he’s ever considered a prosthesis to look “more normal.” Geordi pretends not to be interested, saying, “What’s normal?” Soren says, “Normal is what everyone else is that you are not.” As this is a common Star Trek theme, this line would’ve been much more interesting if it had anything to do with the plot. As it is, this line is as far as the particular train of thought goes. Soren tells Geordi to spill about trilithium.
After a Captain’s Log entry and a reused stock shot of the Enterprise, we cut to Stellar Cartography, where Picard and Data are hogging up all the screen time as they would do in all four TNG movies. Stellar Cartography is this movie’s sfx “money scene.” This is the scene that’s supposed to show just how much better TNG can be on the big screen with a big budget. I’ll give it credit: It looks great. The sfx are all over this scene, but never overwhelming the dialogue. In that respect, I’d liken it to the Genesis demonstration from Wrath of Khan. Good stuff.
This is also the movie’s…I know there’s a term for it, but I can’t think of it right now…the scene where we find out what exactly the bad guy is up to and what are the good guys gonna do about it. In The Voyage Home, this was the scene that starts with the distress call from Earth and ends with “Start you computations for time warp.” I love that scene, because the logical progression from Step 1 to Step 2, etc. is just so catchy. This scene isn’t quite as catchy, but it tries. The progression from “Soren wants to get to the Nexus, so why’d he blow up the Ammagosa star” to “He’s going to blow up the Veridian star, let’s go get him” does stand up to internal logic; i.e. in a universe in which shock waves travel through a vacuum, this makes sense. The visual representation is nice, too, especially when the line that represents the course of the ribbon shifts from passing harmlessly through the Veridian system, to running straight through a planet. Very nicely done!
There are two big flaws, though.
1. Picard tries to explain a hole in the script by asking “Why doesn’t he just fly into it with a ship?” Data supplies an implausible explanation by saying that every ship that approached the ribbon was destroyed. Uh…..does the movie think the audience doesn’t remember Soren’s first scene in the movie? You remember, when he screamed at Chekov, “Let me go back! Let me go back!” Soren knows that he’ll enter the Nexus whether the ship is destroyed or not. So Picard’s question only calls more attention to the hole than before, because it’s still every bit as holey now as then.
2. Data turns into an emo kid. He wants to end it all and be deactivated because he doesn’t like the emotions he feels. Waaah. This is garbage. Can you imagine Spock having to take time out in the scene in The Voyage Home because his resurrection and subsequent amnesia was making it hard to concentrate? Picard tells him to stop being such as wuss.
The scene ends with Picard ordering maximum warp to the Veridian system to head off Soren.
On the bridge of the Klingon ship, Soren tells B’Etor (or Lursa, I get ‘em mixed up) that Geordi didn’t say much under interrogation. He wants to be beamed down to Veridian 3 right now, and gives B’Etor (or Lursa) a fancy-lookin’ information chip or whatever that is pretty much the instruction manual for building trilithium bombs to destroy stars. But he says it’s encoded, and he will only give the decryption once he’s been beamed to the surface. As nothing at all comes of that last, I don’t know why it’s even in here.
The Enterprise shows up. B’Etor orders to keep the cloaking device up, and they hear Picard’s voice say that the Enterprise knows they’re there somewhere, and that he’ll destroy any probe launched toward the star. Picard is semi-bluffing, as Worf explains that the Enterprise might not be able to lock on and destroy a probe before it reached the star. Soren tells B’Etor to destroy the Enterprise, B’Etor says yeah right. Soren gets an idea, and leaves the bridge.
The Klingon babes have a ship-to-ship chat with Picard. They tell Picard that Soren is on the planet, and that Geordi is okay. Picard offers to swap himself to them in exchange for Geordi. One of the babes says to the other loud enough for everyone on the Enterprise bridge to hear, “The captain would make a much more valuable hostage.” Great diplomatic cunning, lady. The other babe agrees to the exchange, granting Picard’s request to be beamed to the planet to talk to Soren first. Even better diplomatic cunning, other lady. These chicks are doofi! How do they know that Picard won’t go back to his own ship immediately after doing whatever with Soren? How do they know the Enterprise will let the captain go without a fight? This is stupid!
Picard goes to the transporter room and beams down simultaneous with Geordi being beamed in. I’ve noticed that about the Trek franchise: Transporters work so quickly and precisely that you could imagine they’re voice-activated. When someone says, “Beam me up/down, the beaming begins less than a second after the words are spoken.
Geordi collapses to the deck in TOS Trek fashion, falling to his knees, then keeling over sideways. Come on, you spoiled brats, show some grit! Let’s see a good solid swoon. So you get a bruise or a bloody nose, who cares?
Cut to the surface of Veridian 3, which looks like a rocky part of Southern Calfornia, or maybe Arizona. Pretty. Picard materializes. CONTINUITY ERROR: When Picard beams off the Enterprise, he’s got his lapel pin/communicator still in place. When he materializes on the planet, it’s gone. Soren does some standard James Bond Villian banter (Malcolm McDowell, folks), then turns away. Picard tries to follow, but gets shocked by the force field surrounding the entire rock face that Soran’s rickety workstation/probe launcher is perched upon. Picard goes tumbling down the rocks, and Soran banters some more. This is the first of three times that Picard goes tumbling down the rocks.
On the bridge of the Klingon ship, B’Etor and Lursa are watching the viewscreen, which is now transmitting images from Geordi’s Visor. Geordi-Cam! The screen (both the viewscreen and the screen we’re watching this on) fills with the concussively gorgeous face of Gates McFadden. Ohhh, Mr. Director, you are soooo generous. She speaks, but we hear no sound. Good! Technobabble ain’t sexy, but just watching her lips move is.
That can’t be coincidence. Someone is deliberately teasing us. Star Trek obviously couldn’t give us what we’d really like to see right now (not only for the family-friendly nature of Star Trek; but also because, unless I’m mistaken, Gates McFadden doesn’t do nude scenes. If I am mistaken, don’t tell me.) How best to give us a little erogenous jab with erogeneity so hamstrung? Silent moving lips is actually a pretty creative way of doing it. Props all around!
B’Etor and Lursa look on in open-mouthed shock and make hissing noises, as every warm-blooded male in the theater has a motherf**kin’ coronary. Lursa eventually spits, “Human females are so repulsive!" The first time I saw this movie, I got a good solid laugh out of that. That was way cool. Today, I notice that after she says that, the two of them make little “Uggghhh!!!” sounds. Easily the best laugh in this movie, this scene. Wood stuff!
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Edited by - Food on 02/25/2007 6:57:13 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2007 : 12:14:57 AM
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Doin' great so far, but two things:
quote:
On the bridge of the Klingon ship, Soren tells B’Etor (or Lursa, I get ‘em mixed up) that Geordi didn’t say much under interrogation.
B'Etor is the better looking (in my opinion) of the two Klingon women. Her pic sans makeup is on the IMDb, and she's quite attractive. Lursa may be fairly pretty in real life as well, but I always though she looked downright homely in this movie.
quote:
He wants to be beamed down to Veridian 3 right now, and gives B’Etor (or Lursa) a fancy-lookin’ information chip or whatever that is pretty much the instruction manual for building trilithium bombs to destroy stars. But he says it’s encoded, and he will only give the decryption once he’s been beamed to the surface. As nothing at all comes of that last, I don’t know why it’s even in here.
Nothing was supposed to come of it. Chances are, there was nothing on that chip. Soren plans to screw B'Etor and Worse-a, uh, Lursa, and he's confident that once he's in the Nexus, they won't be able to follow him (besides that, they'll probably get cacked when a little something happens, which you'll describe in your next post). |
Edited by - BradH812 on 02/26/2007 12:18:37 AM |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2007 : 07:38:28 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Food
Since shockwaves really don’t travel through a vacuum, it renders this whole story bogus.
Not exactly true. Shockwaves DO travel in space, because space is not a true vacuum. The interstellar medium may be very sparse, but it does exist, and shockwaves are commonly seen throughout the visible universe. They are easiest to see in the nebulae created by novae and such, but even our own home star creates a shockwave as it plows through the galactic environment.
See here: [url="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031120.html"]The Voyagers and the Heliopause[/url]
But then of course most of these shockwaves are exceedingly gentle compared to the ones you can get in in a dense atmosphere, like an explosion on Earth. A "level 12 shockwave" that destroys everything in its path is still pretty ludicrous.
Edit: Thinking about it more though, A supernova is a very different beast from most stellar events. An exploding star is very, very, VERY powerful, ejecting gigatons of gas and other debris at thousands of kph, so perhaps the idea of a destructive shockwave here is not such a crazy thing after all. Also, it would be combined with large amounts of electromagnetic and particle ray radiation, which would be severely damaging even if the pressure from the shock front isn't. From what I've seen of nova pictures, I think anything within a few AU is probably toast. |
Edited by - Altair IV on 02/26/2007 08:01:11 AM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2007 : 10:42:26 PM
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Thanks for the clarifications, Brad and Altair. :)
Crusher completes the sentence for us to hear. “…and some myocardial degeneration.” She says Geordi is gonna be fine. ?!? Myocardial degeneration, and he’s gonna be fine? 24th-century medicine must kick some serious ass! Data enters, and Geordi brushes off Data’s apology. I don’t mind, because it ends Data’s Tickle-Me-Emo phase.
On the surface, Picard pleads with Soren, saying that they can find another way into the Nexus. Soran says that he’s already spent 80 years looking for another way. During the Stellar Cartrography scene, Data says that the Ribbon crosses the galaxy every 39.1 years. So unless El-Aurians have a much much faster way of traveling than the rest of the Federation, spending 80 years means that Soran has had exactly two shots at it. So it’s a bit premature for him to say that he’s exhausted all other ways, especially seeing as how the way he tried at the start of the movie worked pretty well for Kirk; and Soran thought it would work for himself (“Let me go back,” remember?). So obviously, Soran refuses to find another way because otherwise, the movie would be over.
Picard tries to guilt-trip Soran by likening him to the Borg. Soran sees right through it. Good, it’s about time a Star Trek villain did that. Soran strolls around the missile platform, soliloquizing about death. He stops on the other side of a chain-link fence for what I’m guessing is supposed to be symbolic effect, and gives a metaphor about time being like a hunter stalking its prey. Huh. On Ten Forward, it was like a fire we burn in. Soran must be as bored with it as we are if he can’t find a metaphor he likes enough to stick with.
Picard says, “It’s our mortality that defines us. It’s part of the truth of our existence.” There was an episode in which he said that it was our children that define us, and another in which he said that it was our emotions that define us. That’s Picard’s answer to everything, isn’t it? He’d say that homonecrobestial butt sex is what defines us if it would get him out of a jam. The second sentence is true enough, though.
On the Klingon ship, B’Etor and Lursa are still watching Geordi-Cam. They bitch about Geordi having taken a bath, and then being the only engineer in Starfleet who doesn’t go to Engineering. What’s odd is that on the commentary track, there’s an extra two- or three-second shot where Geordi-Cam shows his feet sticking up out of the bubble bath. It’s not on the regular play, though.
On the bridge, Riker tells Data to scan for life forms. Data sings a little song as he hits the keys like a piano:
“Life…forms” **plinkity plink plink**
“You tiny little life…forms” **plinkity plink plink**
“You precious little life…forms: **snaps fingers**
“Where…are…you? Doo-doo-doo doo-doo-doo-doo.”
That’s the single best Data scene in the entire movie. It’s great! And it’s more of a team effort than you might notice on first viewing. There are seven or eight people on the bridge, and as Data sings, they one-by-one stop to stare at him. It’s really well-done all around. Riker, in particular. Watch the scene again, and watch Riker. The whole time Data’s singing, I swear you can almost see a thought balloon over his head saying, “’Da f**k?” This is a total throwaway scene, of course, given what’s about to happen; but it’s okay, because the movie makes the most of it. Good scene!
Back to the Klingon ship. B’Etor and Lursa watch Geordi finally enter Engineering, and they get the Enterprise’s shield modulation frequency by watching him look at the screens. (I love B’Etor’s reaction when she sees it). Now their weapons will punch right through the Enterprise’s shields! I like this manner of giving the baddies reason and means to attack the Enterprise. Spying on Georgi through his Visor is both plausible and original. Cool!
The Klingons open fire, pounding the Enterprise with torpedoes. Explosions, bodies flying, no blood, no casualties. Riker comes up with a technobabble solution that is really just a variant of the Prefix Code gambit from Wrath of Khan, and the Klingon ship’s destruction is conveyed through stock footage of Chang’s ship from The Undiscovered Country exploding. It makes me realize something: Does the Enterprise ever win space combat by simply outmaneuvering and outshooting the opponent? The Mutara Nebula scene from Wrath of Khan is the only example I can think of.
Data exults with a “Yes!” and a clenched fist. On the commentary track, Moore and Braga lament the extra in the background who also clenches a fist just before Data does. They say it ruined the scene, but I likely wouldn’t’ve noticed if they hadn’t mentioned it.
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Edited by - Food on 02/26/2007 10:51:44 PM |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 12:32:50 PM
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quote:
Soren tells Geordi to spill about trilithium.
Is this a typo? I mean, SOREN is supposed to be the big expert on trilithium and he even built at least ONE trilithium bomb so far, so his asking Geordi about the stuff would be like an AIRLINE PILOT asking ME to map out a flight plan!
But even if Geordi DID know something usefull, wasn't it pretty much CHANCE that he was in the landing party so Soren could kidnap him? And that Soren knocked him out without a struggle? And that Data didn't kick Soren's ass dispite the laser?
How many plotholes is that? I lost count.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2007 : 11:08:18 PM
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^It's no typo. None of that ever occurred to me, but you're right, Greenhornet: It makes no sense for Soran to need info from Geordi. That was probably thrown in as the movie's excuse for not killing Geordi outright.
On the planet, Picard is doing absolutely nothing. Standing there with his hands clasped behind his back, watching Soran carrying out his scheme without a word of complaint. Hum dee dum, eh Jean-Luc? Picard tosses a rock at the force field, and Soran calls down, “Haven’t you got anything better to do?” And ya gotta admit, he has a point. Picard answers by sitting down on a rock. Our bold captain. Sitting and doing nothing while the bad guy carries out his plans.
Secretary-General Picard notices a circular gap among a pile of rocks with an overarch. He tosses a rock through it and sees that the rock doesn’t trigger the force field. This could be his way in!
On the Enterprise, Geordi announces an imminent warp core breach. She’s gonna blow! Riker orders Troi to begin evacuation of the saucer section. She snaps to crisp action and just sits there.
The evacuation scene is just under one minute long and is full of “Let’s go!” “Come on!” and “Quickly!” The highlight of this scene is its final five seconds. Geordi picks up a presumably abandoned Hispanic-looking girl, and she drops* her teddy bear. The camera lingers on it for the dumbass pathos. That’s silly enough, but even worse comes right after: A couple seconds of the girl, still slung over Geordi’s shoulder, reaching her arms towards the bear as her distance from it rapidly increases. It’s so ridiculous that it’s embarrassing to watch, almost as if by watching it, I’ve made myself complicit in its creation.
* - Pay attention and you’ll clearly see that she doesn’t drop it; she deliberately hurls it over Geordi’s shoulder to the floor.
The evacuation complete, Riker orders separation. Separation completed, the back half of the ship explodes, and the shockwave blasts the saucer section hard enough to knock out helm control. The saucer section plummets toward the planet.
On the planet, Picard is now removing rocks so he can squeeze through the gap and past the force field. Soran is climbing up a rock face to meet the Ribbon, so he doesn’t notice. But he does notice when the rock arch collapses on Picard, causing the force field to fizzle a bit. Soren fires three shots at the trapped Picard, and the whole rock thing collapses, surely killing Picard!
The Enterprise continues to plunge into the atmosphere, onto the surface, and skidding to a halt, getting itself all beat in the process. This scene is over two minutes long, but it feels longer. I can see why they did it: The Enterprise-D, a character in its own right that we’ve come to like, gets destroyed! You can’t be throwaway about it (although I’ve heard several Trekkies complain that this scene is). And I’ll give the writers credit, it would’ve seemed kinda derivative to blow her up a la The Search For Spock, so they had to come up with something creative, and this is creative. I applaud the concept.
But I can't give more than tepid applause for the execution. Between shots of the Enterprise skidding along and knocking over trees, all we see are the typical people-flying-everywhere that we expect from TNG episodes. There's only one causality, and it's totally G-rated: A shelf or something falls on a dude who was motionless to begin with. For all we know, it may have been a mannequin in the Enterprise-D gift shop. So rather than augmenting the heavy-heartedness that is involved with the destruction of the ship/character (as in The Search For Spock), the movie decides, "We're gonna destroy the Enterprise, so let's really chuck people around!"
Again, it's not bad; it just could've been much better.
Soran reaches…wherever he was going, a rickety metal crosswalk. Picard, who inexplicably survived the lasers and subsequent rockslide, is there to greet him. How the f**k did Picard survive that? With no gross injuries, no less? Rubbish! Picard tries to fight but gets his ass handed to him. Does Mr. Begg have a name for the cinematic trope of multiple head-butts in brawls? Soran gives Picard two within five seconds of each other. I hate that. Head-butts hurt the butter almost as much as the buttee. If the butter doesn’t hit right on the sweet spot, it hurts the butter even more. **shrug** In any case, Picard goes tumbling down the rocks for the second time in the movie.
Soran watches him fall, then turns his attention to the sky, where the Ribbon is appearing. The Ribbon effect does look pretty cool in the sky like that, I’ll give it that. Soran’s solar probe is launched, he and Picard both watch it ascend, and it hits the sun and explodes in a blinding flash. Uhh….might not’ve been a good idea to look straight at it, fellas.
The Ribbon arrives, taking Picard and a rapturous Soran with it. The shockwave from the sun hits the planet, chewing up everything including the Enterprise, and the scene ends with the whole planet exploding into dirt clods. This, too, is very nicely done!
Fade-in to a blindfolded Picard as lights whirl around him. After a moment of mild panic, he is unblindfolded and sees himself in a fancy living room set up for Christmas. Five children dogpile him with typical children’s Christmas warmth and call him “Papa.” The wife shoos them off and offers Picard a cup of Earl Grey. Rene, Picard’s burnt-to-a-crisp nephew appears and gives him a gift. Picard marvels at his rawness and shoos him off.
The house looks killer, I wouldn’t mind living in it, hell no. But the clothes these kids are wearing….remember during Worf’s promotion when I mentioned that Picard waxes nostalgic for an era he’s never lived in? It must be a recurring motif in his secret desires as well, because all the children are in period costume, I’m guessing early/mid 1800s. They look ridiculous! Now that I look closely, I guess the house is from the same period, although it doesn’t look ridiculous because of its killerosity, which, as far as housing is concerned, never goes out of style.
Picard watches the children open presents. I can briefly make out that one daughter gets a doll, another gets a stuffed reindeer, and the third gets an electronic-looking toy spaceship. Okay, so the time-period thing is not absolute. Even the writers admit that this was too saccharine, but all that’s really wrong with the over-sweetness is the period costumes. Lose them, and it’d be okay.
I also wonder: If Rene is there, where’s Robert, Picard’s charcoal stick of a brother? If Rene’s around, shouldn’t Robert be popping in? Maybe Jean-Luc and Robert only partially patched things up in the one episode we saw him in, and Jean-Luc is secretly glad Robert’s not around.
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Edited by - Food on 02/27/2007 11:20:03 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2007 : 06:53:27 AM
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There's a very big problem with Soren's act of blowing up the star and shifting that ribbon's path.
If I remember my physics correctly, gravity travels in waves, just like light, and at the same speed. The ribbon would not be affected by the star going ka-boom until AFTER the planet got blown up. Certainly it wouldn't cross the planet's path until it was too late.
Also, even if it was going supernova, a star would have a helluva lot of mass; its gravity wouldn't just disappear like it does.
I wasn't very good in high school physics. But when I saw this in the theater, my internal BS detector was in the red during this scene. Too bad. I agree with you on how the planet was ripped apart, it was very nicely done.
This next one I'm not sure about, but still. We have two, count 'em TWO supernovas in the movie. The first one is established to have a negligible impact on the surrounding area. Yeah, right. Supernovas are extremely rare, and I suspect most astronomers would laugh at the idea of seeing two of them in a few hours. And they are BRIGHT. I remember seeing pics of a supernova in the Greater Magellenic Cloud — a whole 'nother galaxy! If there were inhabited worlds in the systems around there, I think a sudden bright light in the night sky would have some sort of effect on them (ecological or cultural). The writers didn't think this through, and they didn't bother to hire consultants. Sloppy.
One more thing. Did that probe have warp engines? Assuming that planet's sun is the same distance Old Sol is from Earth, it would take eight minutes for something traveling at light speed to reach it. But the probe seems to reach it in a few seconds. Um, yeah, right.
I know Star Trek will play fast and loose with scientific matters. That's no problem. But doing it in such a blatant way tells me that Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga were selling the audience a bridge in New York. |
Edited by - BradH812 on 02/28/2007 07:03:00 AM |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2007 : 11:17:29 AM
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Brad's absolutely right here. But even if the missle did have warp engines and could reach the star in seconds, it would still take about 8 minutes before the effects of the detonation became noticeable on the planet. Even if we assume that the system is much smaller than our own there would still be a respectable time lag. The habitable zone for planets generally doesn't fall within light-seconds of the primary.
Not to worry about the effects of these supernovae on surrounding systems though, at least not immediately. Nobody who doesn't warp into these systems from outside will even know what happened for several years. Stars tend to be VERY far apart.
Meanwhile, in other starships of thought...I know they gave this bogus excuse as to why Soran couldn't just fly a ship into the ribbon, but y'know, he could've simply found (or created) a habitable asteroid or something and had it carted into a place where the ribbon was predicted to go, instead of all this goofing around with blowing up stars and such. I mean, if he's smart enough to figure out how to blow up stars, he's certainly could've figured out how to survive long enough to enter the ribbon without resorting to such extremes.
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2007 : 4:37:25 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Altair IV
Meanwhile, in other starships of thought...I know they gave this bogus excuse as to why Soran couldn't just fly a ship into the ribbon, but y'know, he could've simply found (or created) a habitable asteroid or something and had it carted into a place where the ribbon was predicted to go, instead of all this goofing around with blowing up stars and such. I mean, if he's smart enough to figure out how to blow up stars, he's certainly could've figured out how to survive long enough to enter the ribbon without resorting to such extremes.
Or......
He could have built a COCKPIT in his probe (It couldn't have taken any more material or time than he used so far) and aimed it in the general direction of the ribbon, flying himself into it. Or did the same thing with a spaceship.
And this guy's supposed to have been planning this for DECADES? I came up with that on the third day of reading this!
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Star Trek: Generations
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