Right now I have NO idea what TNG ep featured a refit-Constitution class ship. I'm guessing you're not referring to the Stargazer, which looks like it was cobbled together from refit Constitution parts.

I'm sure the uniform thing in Yesterday's Enterprise (IMHO the best single ep of TNG) was due to wanting to have a different uniform design that was an evolutionary change from the Kirk era, without spending any money. Similarly, the "future communicator" seen originally in, I think, the ep "Future Imperfect" turned up again and again in Star Trek, whenever they wanted to do a future story.

Speaking of Yesterday's Enterprise and those funky uniforms, here's something you may find amusing. The first time I saw the ep, when they rescue Lt. Castillo out from under the debris, when I saw that uniform and that curly hair, just for a nanosecond I thought it was Kirk!

Was it TNG "Relics" with Scotty in the holodeck, when he goes "N-C-C-1-7-0-1... no bloody A, B, C or D!"

Nope BC, it was not Relics since no external versions of the older Enterprises are seen in that episode, just the bridge set of the original. And it was not the Stargazer either Olorin, though you are correct in saying that part of that model is in fact the modified saucer section of a Constitution class ship.

Ready for the answer?

The only time an Enterprise A type ship is seen in the post Kirk movie-era is in Part 2 of Best of Both Worlds. It takes a keen eye to see this as it is on the screen very briefly, but if you have the DVD and a bit of patience: near the beginning, when the Enterprise arrives at Wolf 359 after the battle, we are shown the wreckage and debris of several starships. In one quick cut, near the upper left corner of the screen (if memory serves correctly,) you can spot the shattered secondary hull of this class of ship. Particularly distinctive are the row of windows on the observation deck just before the main deflector at the front. Pay close attention.

Regarding the uniforms in Yesterday's Enterprise: yes, I had always guessed that the real reason was budget, and the in-show reason was a change of look. However, as I pointed out, it really just came as across as looking like Starfleet itself ran into financial difficulties at one point, at least in my opinion. Those uniforms just looked plain stupid without the white piece underneath, and I'm not just saying that because I was used to seeing them that way on Kirk and co.

Also, that uniform makes a couple more appearances, and I think they were inconsistent then. In one episode, Wesley gets to watch a hologram message from his father, Jack Crusher. His dad was wearing the same uniform as the crew of the Enterprise C. Yet, in another episode, when Picard is shown as his younger self at the academy, does he not have the white piece underneath his uniform, as well as his classmates? Can someone confirm or deny this for me?

Also, no comments or guesses on the starship class for the NX-01?

i have no idea about the NX class


if my memory serves me correct,in the episode, Tapestry i do believe picard IS wearing a white undershirt, but not a turtle neck, because his friend the guy is wearing a gold undershirt. the undershirts are more like tshirts and arent really visible.

why would picard be wearing white... those are for people in command positions... in the TOS movie era, white wasnt shared with anything. i guess this could have been changed, wasnt Picard a science officer? in tapestry, his "what if" has him a lt. j.g. science officer. as an ensign wearing that TOS-era-ish uniform, he shoulda been wearing a blueish grey like uhura, but again, things seemed to have changed.

Not to change the subject before others are completed by I thought i would post the schedule for Enterprise:

copied from startrek.com

Mar25 Fan FavoriteThird place

Apr 1 Fan Favorite Second place

Apr 8 Fan Favorite First place

Apr 15 "Bound "As a gift for negotiating with the Syndicate, Captain Archer
receives three Orion Slave Girls.

Apr 22 "In a Mirror, Darkly "In the Mirror Universe, Commander Archer mutinies against Captain Forrest.

Apr 29 "In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II"Archer commandeers the 23rd-century Defiant from the Tholians in the Mirror Universe.

May 6 "Demons"A xenophobic faction undermines talks to form a new coalition of planets.

May13
8pm "Terra Prime"A human isolationist leader threatens to destroy Starfleet Command.
9pm "These Are the Voyages..."The series finale.



dont you just love the name for the series finale... ahhh sentimental... i think they should have done the opening "these are the voyages" type thing for Enterprise...maybe something not as sweet as what picard and kirk said but maybe something else.

I went to Sam's club store thingy and they had the star trek SE dvds for 12.24, thats the cheapest i have ever seen them, especially those CD-type stores that sell them for 20 each, or walmart which are like 16 or so. so i picked up ST I, III, and V. funny i only had the even Original generation movies, so now i have all of the SEs, save for Nemesis and Insurrection.

Thedigitalbits.com has reported that StarTrek.com has posted a complete guide to ALL the easter eggs on ST DVDs released so far. I haven't checked it out yet myself, but that sounds really cool. I hate looking for easter eggs, but love seeing them.

What did everyone think about last weeks #3 most popular/best episode. The one when trip gets injured and they make a clone out of something (some kind of species, i missed the first 10-15 minutes, and i had never seen the ep before) and then the clone starts to become more and more like Trip.

i thought the episode was fantastic, seeing eps like this really make you made knowing its getting cancelled.

-- on the Easter Eggs... Olorin, when you said ALL.. it was ALL, the movies and all the series... i dont believe the movies were complete though.

check em' out http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/f ... tml?page=0


on a side note... this is my post #500... yippeee!!!!!

BladeCollector wrote:What did everyone think about last weeks #3 most popular/best episode. The one when trip gets injured and they make a clone out of something (some kind of species, i missed the first 10-15 minutes, and i had never seen the ep before) and then the clone starts to become more and more like Trip.

i thought the episode was fantastic, seeing eps like this really make you made knowing its getting cancelled.

Just my opinion, of course, but I really did NOT like that episode. Occasionally they will come up with an idea that has promise, but then they stick in something just so dumb that I can't go along with it. In this episode, it's the fact that they let the clone become conscious and get them into this preposterous situation. Also, I'd have found it a lot more believable if instead of Phlox having something that would clone a whole duplicate, they could just grow the needed organ or tissue. Good Lord, we're getting near that point in real life in some respects right now--I'd hope that 150 years from now, we'd have made more progress.

-- on the Easter Eggs... Olorin, when you said ALL.. it was ALL, the movies and all the series... i dont believe the movies were complete though.

WHen I posted that, I hadn't actually looked at the site yet--I was just repeating what another site had posted. When I looked at the list later, it seemed to me there were omissions--either that or some of the movies didn't have easter eggs.

on a side note... this is my post #500... yippeee!!!!!

You must eat, breathe, and sleep this forum. I've been a member for a year now and don't have 500 posts yet! And I thought I posted a lot!

I didn't mind that episode as much, but the issues raised by Olorin really do detract from the logic of it all.

So, anyone hear anything further on whether Nemesis will be rereleased to match the look of the current series of movies? I noticed on that article that BC posted about the easter eggs, that Nemesis is referred to as the single-disc version, possibly hinting that a two-disc version is in the works.

i would imagine it would, nemesis that is, be released as a SE edition, all the others are and besides ST:TMP, they are all in the gray box. i hope that nemesis is released as a SE. i like the movie, i dont understand how alot of people despise it.as for that Enterprise episode, the reason, i think, they had all the controversy about the clone becoming an individual and not cloning just the part they needed was to reflect the big human cloning controversy of today. maybe the writer of the episode is anti-human cloning, which alot of people are, we wont start that debate and this was his/her way of getting their opinions out on cloning.

BladeCollector wrote:maybe the writer of the episode is anti-human cloning, which alot of people are, we wont start that debate and this was his/her way of getting their opinions out on cloning.

That could well be true. I just gripes my butt when they sacrifice scientific and logical believability to tell their "human interest" story. If they have a story they want to tell, they need to figure out the right well to tell it, and not just think the fans will eat any swill that's poured into their trough. A further reflection is that in the 60s, Star Trek tackled current issues in an often allegorical, metaphorical fashion, but not usually bluntly head-on. Of course, an exception would be "A Private Little War," where they all but referred to Vietnam by name.

i see where you are coming from... maybe that writer or the producers didnt wanna get attacked by the anti-cloning groups, so they made cloning appear in a negative light... like i said, i didnt wanna get into a cloning debate, but its one thing to clone a body part for someone that needs a transplant, but its another to clone an entire living being just to take that part from them.

i guess i liked how they presented the clone-trip, maybe not the whole story, but how the clone-trip wanted to live, and how he tried his hardest, but he knew he didnt have a choice, because he was gonna have rapid aging, it was kind of sad.

Our Star Trek thread is languishing--we need to pump some life into it. We'd been doing pretty good with a discussion of the movies. I believe the last one we discussed was TWOK. So how about TSFS (ST III)? On the whole, I liked this movie quite a bit. It was exciting (for the most part), had great effects (for the most part), brought back Sarek (!), and really focused on the Kirk/Spock friendship, which is always a plus. Some of the highlights for me were the Kirk/Sarek mindmeld (very moving, particularly with the extreme closeups and the tears in both men's eyes), stealing the Enterprise, destroying the Enterprise (heartbreaking though it was, it was an epochal moment in Star Trek--very fitting for a story in which you're dealing with the death and resurrection of one of the main characters), and finally, Spock's conversation with Kirk at the end.

There were also some things about it I didn't like. I didn't particularly care for Christopher Lloyd's Kruge. The sequences on the Genesis planet with David and Saavik always felt cheesy and looked cheesier. The manner of Spock's resurrection was a little hokey. One time my cousin and I were watching this movie on video (back in the 80s), and after one of Spock's agonizing transformations, my cousin suddenly blurted out "Is is Spock yet?" For all you youngsters on the forum, I have to e xp lain that around that time, Lipton had a commercial for its instant soup mixes where a little kid keeps asking his mom "Is it soup yet?" as she makes the instant soup. Anyway, we had to pause the VCR and laugh like nuts for about five minutes.

I liked ST III. i never bought into the odd/even bullcrap. i liked the whole premise, but the one thing that threw me off was spocks "resurrection".... if the genesis project resurrected him, how did he become a baby? why didnt he just regenerate as he was...i know it would have taken away from the story line, but i never understood why he went back to a baby, its like he died, landed on genesis, was an adult corpse and shrunk into a baby and was regenerated, unless, it was supposed to be, his molecules were rescambled and a NEW being, spock, was formed.
not to go back to TWOK.. but who was in/near tears in spocks funeral and when he was in the radiation... boy you had to have stone cold water in your veins not to get choked up when amazing grace started and when kirk ended his parting words to spock.

sarek is always good to see . on Christopher Lloyd as Kruge, it takes a while to get past Lloyds former roles, like in Taxi, and see him as a Klingon Warrior, he was pretty good (he's no Martok!)

i never liked David, he was always to cheesy to be Kirks son...

i plan on watching ST III sometime this weekend, maybe tonight, i just got the SE and wanna take a look at the special features, dealing with speaking klingon, how the language was invented, some interviews, costuming.. and real life genesis... interviews with NASA people about the possibilities of terraforming planets (we gotta travel space first).

Good start, Olorin.

I've always quite enjoyed Search for Spock, and quite frankly I've never understood why this movie was lumped in with the traditional odd-numbered movie curse of the Star Trek movie franchise. Sure it was number 3, and thus an automatic candidate for the infamous curse, but I just don't see the problem.

Aside from the highlights already pointed out, here are some of my favourite things about the movie: I always quite enjoyed the way it picked up right after Wrath of Khan. It made me feel like we had hardly missed a beat and that the story just kept flowing... very nice indeed (this was also well achieved with Voyage Home and these three movies seem to be three parts of a greater whole.) From a starship fan's point of view, I quite enjoyed a look at two new vessels, namely the Grissom and the Excelsior. To this day I still love the design of the NX-2000. I also really liked the scene where Admiral Morrow informs Kirk that the Enterprise is to be decomissioned, though I was e xp ecting and hoping for a more forceful reaction from Kirk and Scotty in particular. Other great moments included the breakdown of the Excelsior and Scotty's smugness at his own cleverness, the brief but impressive fight with the Bird of Prey, and the best line in the entire movie, after Maltz says "I do not deserve to live," and Kirk replies "Fine, I'll kill you later."

I also agree with the downsides pointed out by Olorin, in particular the scenes involving David and Saavik. I was extremely disappointed that Kirstie Alley did not return to reprise her role... I thought she was great and ever so beautiful in Wrath of Khan. Robin Curtis was a poor choice and effectively doomed the character to subsquent Trek movie oblivion. I didn't mind Chris Lloyd too much as Kruge, I think he played an appropriately ruthless klingon commander, but the character's judgment and sanity were very questionable at times and that detracted from the whole e xp erience for me.

Then there are the minor quibles and continuity errors: at the end of ST II, the Enterprise is en route to pick up the Reliant's marooned crew. What happened to them between movies? Then we have the computer recording of the Genesis invention. Did anyone notice that all of Carol Marcus' lines and images were replaced with Kirk's? Obviously the actress did not return for this movie, but where did the character go? It seems clear that some time did pass between the two movies, as evidenced by David and Saavik's transfer to the Grissom, but a fuller e xp lanation for these gaps would have been nice, though not necessary to the main story. Lastly, not to demean Scotty's impressive engineering genius, but would it have really been possible for him to fully automate a starship that normally requires around 430 people to crew, and do it from one mere console in so little time?

Here is one final question. What do you suppose ever became of the Genesis project and all associated data? Obviously it was a failure, but still a weapon of incredible power by anyone's standards. Did Starfleet erase all traces of the project, or did they stow it away somewhere safe? I wonder if Section 31 ever got a hold of this one. I know there was a Trek novel recently with the TNG crew that dealt with the resurgence of the Genesis project. Anyone read it? Does it answer these questions?

To answer BC's questions on Spock and Genesis: I do believe the corpse's molecules were indeed taken apart and reconstructed into the newborn Spock. It would make sense given comments made by the Grissom crew that the Genesis planet and its star were brand new celestial bodies, essentially in their infancy. Since Spock's torpedo only entered the atmosphere in the latter stages of the Genesis wave, his molecules did not become part of the Genesis planet's matrix like the Reliant, but rather a regenerated entity of its own. My question though is, would the torpedo casing itself and Spock's burial robe not be affected in a similar fashion, or did they remain untouched because they were originally inert matter? I'm sure someone with more knowledge in this field could poke a few holes in the movie's premise, but hey... it is science fiction after all.

I watched the making of the Klingon Language on the STIII special features disc... it is really really cool how they came out with it. its about a 25 minute pretty detailed description, but heres a quick summary.

well in ST TMP, James Doohan created the sounds for the Klingon Language, so those sounds to those words were canon. For star trek III, Marc Okrand created a more elaborate language based on the little snipets from ST I. he originally just invented words for the script that said "spoken in klingon", if it wasnt said in the movie, he didnt create it. after creating sounds and words, he had to come up with grammar, which the basic sentence structure is opposite of english and most other earth languages, which is "subject - verb - object" klingon is "object - verb - subject"... the language was changing daily on the set, because if an actor mispoke it, but nemoy didnt wanna reshoot, okrand would just change the grammar rules at that time, and make those changes to everything from then on. the hard part was when he had to apply those rules and words and grammar, etc to english spoken lines, because during the making of the movie, they decided to have more klingon, so Okrand had to match english lip movements with klingon grammar rules and sounds (thats the same thing they did with the Vulcan in ST TMP)

I am sure most people have seen it if they own ST III SE, but i thought i write a little synopsis. its very interesting, and of course they go into more detail about how and why he decided to pick certain types of sounds and things, but as we all know, klingon has blossomed into a full language with dictionaries.

I'm not sure when the silly odd/even thing started. The first time I even heard of it was probably V, or maybe VII. So lumping III in with the bad ones, besides being wrong, is probably hindsight, since I don't think the odd curse was established in the group mind yet then. If so, it would have been the genesis of it (sorry!). The first movie was weak and the second was good, creating a presumption that they're going to be good from here on out, but then III was not as good as II, and the odd curse e xp lanation is born. It's so silly, because there are good things about ALL the ST movies, and there are bad things about ALL of them too--even II and VIII. OK, maybe nothing bad about IV, but we're not done talking about III yet.

I also never cared for the character of David Marcus. He was far too whiney and generally obnoxious. You might say he was the Anakin of his day. The main purpose he seemed to have served was to give Kirk more of a story arc for II and III, and to point out that for Kirk, much like for Roz on "Frasier," all that hanky panky can catch up with you. A sidebar here, which some of you may not know, is that the actor who played David, Merritt Butrick, died of AIDS a few years ago. Prior to that, he appeared in a first season TNG episode, the infamous "Just Say No" episode (can't recall its real title right now).

Relative to the Reliant's crew, I assumed they were off-loaded along with the squeaky-clean young cadet crew on the Enterprise itself. Kirk's log makes reference to the trainees being reassigned. The Reliant crew were probably dropped off at some starbase.

I didn't like the Excelsior at first. Somebody associated with the show described it as looking like a pregnant guppy, and that image stuck in my mind. I ultimately came to like it, which is fortunate, considering how often Excelsior class ships have turned up in ST over the years.

I think the reason why Kirk replaced Dr Marcus as the voice and face on the tape, at least in terms of an in-context reason, is that he was filing his report on the Genesis incident--and this was his report.

The movie did have a lot of good lines. "I'll kill you later" is probably the best, but Scotty's "Up your shaft!" to the smarmy elevator voice was pretty good too.

I'd never seen Christopher Lloyd before this movie so I didn't have any preconceptions to get past. I just though he was too over-the-top and apparently took his diction lessons from Shatner.

What happened to Genesis is a good question. In III, David said using protomatter was the only way to get it to work, and that obviously had bad consequences. Since there would then be no way to get it to work properly, Starfleet probably locked away all the data on it to prevent its use as a weapon. I've seen the books in the bookstore, but haven't read them (the TNG Genesis books). I gave up reading all Star Trek novels about the time Voyager started. A lot of them were just bad, and once they started doing Voyager novels, it was obvious I'd have no time to read anything else if I continued reading ST novels.

Good points, all.

Olorin, I would be really interested in your take on the Saavik issue, if you have one. In the excellent official novelization of ST II, it is revealed that Saavik is actually half-vulcan, half-romulan, therefore e xp laining her more obvious slips of emotion. I don't believe this is ever e xp lained in the movie, but I think Kirstie Alley did a bangup job in delivering a very memorable secondary character within one single movie. I once read an interview with Robin Curtis who said she approached the character as if it were new and it is obvious no trace of this possible romulan heritage is left as Curtis' Saavik seems to be 100% vulcan. Unfortunately, I didn't connect with her portrayal of Saavik as I did with Alley's. Having the actor change is one thing that sometimes cannot be avoided, but when the character itself changes also, then that ruins it for me. I wonder if this had any part in her being pushed out of the franchise in subsquent movies.

I didn't know Merrit Butrick had died of AIDS.... that's sad.

I didn't care for David Marcus either. As the son of an iconic hero like Kirk, he sure was a letdown. Probably why the writers decided to off him.

In the Special features of ST III they talked about Saavik, and how Nemoy directed her every move, especially when it came to things as saying "David is dead" without no emotion, Robin Curtis said she wanted to have a little snippet of emotion, but Nemoy said no, that he wanted the no-emotion vulcan type e xp ression. and to this day, no one but Shatner knows if he fell down on purpose or not, but I thought it was excellent, it "felt" real.

That TNG episode was "Symbiosis" from season 1 that featured Merritt Butrick

I find it surprising the source of Saavik's new 'vulcanness' came from Nimoy himself. Perhaps he wasn't happy with the way Alley portrayed her in the first movie, or the direction Nick Meyer took the character in the second movie?

Which fall by Shatner are you referring to? If is the one where he stumbles back and falls down beside the command chair when he hears David is dead, I really liked it because I thought it was a brilliant piece of acting. I bet Shatner probably intended to fall heavily into the seat of the chair rather than beside it, but as is often true in unscripted moments like this, they often turn out better than planned. If so, I applaud Nimoy for not reshooting the scene.

BTW, did you catch the bit where Shatner reveals he heroically helped put out a real fire on the Genesis planet set? Now that's Captain Kirk for you!

yea i saw that about shatner putting out the fire.. i found it kinda funny, especially how shatner was making it comical, saying he saved the day and stuff and it was because of him the studio didnt burn down

I also thought Kirk missing the chair and falling to the floor was a good bit. Whom else have we seen do that lately, in a very similar circumstance? Could it be...hmmmm...DENETHOR? (Apologies to Dana Carvey.)

Saavik....I do have an opinion, which I didn't want to bring up. I met Robin at a convention years ago and she was VERY nice, so I am loathe to say anything that reflects bad on her. Yes, the backstory of Saavik is that she's half-Romulan and didn't have a typical Vulcan upbringing, hence her more-than-usual-for-a-Vulcan emotions (in ST II) and her non-typical name. However, that's only established in the novelization and is therefore not really canon. (That novel [or maybe III] also had the Excelsior's transwarp drive a success, and it was off e xp loring the Magellenic Clouds, small satellite galaxies of our own galaxy. That would certainly eliminate the premise of the Voyager series, wouldn't it?) Perhaps that's why Nimoy decided to take a different approach with Saavik in ST III. Anyway, I didn't care for Robin Curtis's take on Saavik. It came off a bit weak and clueless. Perhaps they didn't give her much direction for the character.

In all honesty though, I didn't think too much, either good or bad, about Saavik in either II or III. Remember the Simpsons episode where Homer got a job doing the voice for an animated dog character to be in the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons, and they joke about adding characters so late in the game being a last gasp for shows (at which point a new character in the context of the show stops in, and they act like they all know him)? I suppose I felt something along those lines about Saavik, at least in terms of her being anything more than a one-off character. They had her in 3 movies, but after that, she just sort of disappeared. I think they realized ST was about the Big 7, and they dropped her.

According to the rumor mill, if they could have gotten Kirstie Alley back, Saavik would have been the co-conspirator in VI, instead of Valeris. I'm glad that didn't happen. Even though I wasn't smitten w/Saavik, I hate to see an ok character turned into a bad guy and thrown to the wolves. Like "Tom" Riker in DS9!!! Another good Saavik story is that if they could have gotten Kirstie Alley, Saavik was to have been Captain Morgan Bateson's first officer on the Starship Bozeman, which collides with the Enterprise D over and over again in a very good TNG ep whose title escapes me (my memory normally isn't this bad, particularly about ST, but my neighbor has been loudly playing Marilyn Manson or someother godawful horrible dreck, and my nerves are little frayed right now). Again, money-grubbing Kirstie was a no-show, even though ST gave her her start--no gratitude.

The thing about the Excelsior sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't recall which novel exactly it was in. Did they ever fully e xp lain why the Excelsior's transwarp drive was a failure? Is this official or just accepted by fans as common sense? Did they just kind of brush that one under the rug once they decided it would screw up too many storylines to give Starfleet that kind of mobility?

Anyhow... the episode with the Bozeman was called "Cause and Effect." I don't quite understand how Saavik would have fit into that, however. Was it to be a brief cameo only? Because as I recall, the crew of the Bozeman is onscreen for only a few seconds at the end of the episode, so unless they had an original different script which gave Saavik a greater role, that would have been a throwaway guest star, really... much as Kelsey Grammer was as Cptn. Bateson.

I knew about the Saavik/Valeris connection and am also glad it didn't turn out the way it was originally planned because I think it would have been badly out of character for Saavik. It was easier for the audience to jeer Valeris since she was unknown to us, and there was no character fanbase to anger.

i dont think they ever mentioned why the transwarp was a failure in that particular movie, it was just that Scotty took it apart i thought and sabatoged it. I forget episodes, but wasnt there one, shoot, i cant even remember the series, it may have been voyager, where they established that transwarp had harmful side effects to people.

in season 1 of TNG, with the Travelers help, they were zipping all around, i believe even as far out as 1 billion (with a B) light years.

Transwarp would open a lot of doors for trek, they could colonize neighboring galaxies, go to Andromeda (there was a series called Andromeda right?, maybe they should go somewhere else), they could go to the star wars galaxy (dont attack me, it was a joke! )

there should be no reason for trek to run out of ideas, space and the universe is limitless... sorry to get off topic a little, back to ST III.

As far as I know, the failure of transwarp was NEVER e xp lained in a movie or episode. Thus, it's basically fan inference that it did fail. It almost leads you to believe that after Scotty sabotaged the Excelsior, Starfleet failed to realize it was sabotage and just said "Hmmmm--didn't work. Better scrap it." Yes, I know that's not the case, because the charge of sabotage was mentioned in IV.

On VOY, they modified a shuttlecraft to be able to travel at Warp 10, which may or may not (presumably NOT) be the same as transwarp. It caused Paris' and Janeway's DNA to mutate into some futuristic evolved form of post-human (which oddly looked like large salamanders). They bred and had little salamanders, then were rescued and restored. Janeway essentially told Paris, it never happened. To me, that was the episode where Voyager jumped the shark. On the featurettes for that DVD set, the producers pretty much acknowledge that also. Anyway, the theory of Warp 10 was that it was infinite velocity, causing you to simultaneously be at every point in the universe. A pretty silly idea.

Then there was the Borg transwarp network. Borg ships were only capable of normal warp in the high 9s on their own (like a Federation ship), but if they entered one of their transwarp conduits, they could be anywhere in the Galaxy in short order. These conduits were first introduced in the TNG Season 6 cliffhanger, Descent Pt 1. Of course, they were more extensively discused in VOY, and ultimately Voyager destroyed the entire transwarp system. Of course, they've now done a Borg adventure for the ST E xp erience in Las Vegas, so obviously the Borg (and the Queen) restored their capabilities and are back.

The TNG episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" had the Enterprise D travel to the edge of the universe, where the fabric of space-time was frayed, and thoughts could become reality. However, this was solely the Traveler's mental powers at work. His insufferable cohort's work was nonsense and didn't work. By the way, I mean Kazinsky, not Wesley. Although obviously he was insufferable also. I thought that was one of the better episodes of the generally weak first season.

Saavik's appearance in Cause and Effect would have been a two-second shot of her standing beside Captain Bateson. They got the idea of doing this because it would have been a mini Cheers reunion. It's as well they didn't, because they would have introduced a big continuity error, unless they changed the dialog. When Picard asked Bateson if he knew what year it was, he said, "Of course--it's 2278." The movies in which Saavik appeared were set in 2285-2286. So either they would have had to change the dialog or implied that somehow after the episode, Saavik was returned to the past.

i've never seen but a few episodes of Voyager, i hear Spike is picking Voyager up and showing them along with Ds9 and TNG next fall, so i can finally see it in full. could someone e xp lain the borg transwarp conduits, could the federation build their own? i am pretty much guessing that they are like mini wormholes, or are they kinda like on those racing games where you hit the blinking arrow and you go really fast for a short time?

maybe thats how the Enterprise in ST V got to the center of the galaxy so fast.

I'm not sure if the transwarp that Starfleet was working on is exactly the same as what the Borg used. To my mind, it was the same name for two different applications of technology with the same end effect - faster than warp travel. It may be possible for Starfleet to one day either perfect their own design or adapt the technology that the Borg used for themselves (bit of irony there.) As far as how they actually did it, that is far beyond my knowledge, but from what I saw I can hazard a guess: I think the transwarp conduits worked on the premise of artificially created wormholes that enabled travel from origin to destination. Basically, the transwarp drive on a Borg cube is able to open a conduit on a vast, Borg-constructed network of waypoints and allows it to travel at speeds faster than warp. The transwarp on the Excelsior, as I understood it, was merely the next step up in engine design and allowed faster travel without the use of conduits, but that is mere speculation on my part.

This brings up an interesting question that I just thought about with regards to ST III. It is a well established piece or Trek lore that a starship cannot (or should not, in theory,) go into warp within a star system. It's been done before, but always at great risk, the problem being the gravity well created by large planets and stars distorting the warp field. However, during the scene where the Enterprise is stolen, we see it go to warp almost immediately after exiting the enormous Spacedock, not to mention the fact that they are in orbit around Earth. Not only that, Captain Styles seemed to have no qualms about powering up the Excelsior's transwarp drive to give pursuit. So what the hell happened to safety regulations there? I can see Kirk risking it in order to get away, but what about Styles and what was admittedly an e xp erimental technology? Wouldn't it have made more sense to pursue on impulse or even low warp to a safe distance and then unleash the transwarp? Just didn't make sense to me. Of course, the scene wouldn't have played out as dramatically that way, but I think they really ignored the no-warp in a star system rule on that one.

As I recall, in the first movie, Kirk had to wait until the Enterprise was clear of the solar system before engaging the warp drive, so at least they were following the rules then.

PS. How did the Enterprise get to the centre of the galaxy in ST V? That's a very good question and one which the writers have admitted to fudging up on from time to time. We have to understand that Star Trek is a constant work in progress and that things sometimes change and get reworked to make more sense. In the old series, the original Enterprise achieved warp 12 in one episode. However, later we are told that warp 9.9 is the max and that warp 10 is theoretically impossible. So which is which? E xp lanations have come forth that the process for measuring speed and distance has been refined since those days, and in order to make all the series internally consistent on the subject, it has been suggested that the warp speeds that the old Enterprise travelled at should be halved in value in order to make it compatible with what we see in TNG and newer series. So when Kirk ordered the Enterprise to go to warp 8, they were actually going at warp 4 by TNG standards. This e xp lanation works out fine until the new Enterprise series came along. The NX-01 is the first warp 5 capable ship and it comes way before Kirk's more advanced ship, so does Archer's ship really travel at warp 5, or merely warp 2.5? Who knows...

Side note: the term 'quadrant' is also used in the old series and movies in manner which is inconsistent with TNG-era specs. We commonly think of a quadrant as one of only four cubic regions that divide the galaxy. However, in earlier Trek, a quadrant was a much smaller cubic measure within a space sector.

I think starships can go like 9.9 ..9.99...9.999 etc... (well i know there are scales for the different 9.9's)

as far as ST TMP... i watched it the other night and Kirk jumped to warp inside the solar system, right after he passed jupiter, then he had to drop out because they got trapped in that wormhole created by the plasma feild from the engines.

i remember the Excelsior being told to stop the enterprise at all costs, so i assumed that meant, dont even give them time to get ahead start, and like you said Valkrist, the scene wouldnt have been dramatic... i liked the clanking sounds the excelsior made... kinda cheesy but funny.

BladeCollector wrote:as far as ST TMP... i watched it the other night and Kirk jumped to warp inside the solar system, right after he passed jupiter, then he had to drop out because they got trapped in that wormhole created by the plasma feild from the engines.

I think you are correct because I seem to remember Kirk musing that he is going to risk warp drive while still within the solar system due to V'ger's imminent approach. However, I think he knew what he was doing because if you think about it, given the orbits of the planets relative to each other, it is very possible that at that time, Jupiter was the outermost planet along the Enterprise's route out of the solar system, and thus going to warp wasn't so bad because the other planets were on the far side in relation to the sun.

i remember the Excelsior being told to stop the enterprise at all costs, so i assumed that meant, dont even give them time to get ahead start, and like you said Valkrist, the scene wouldnt have been dramatic... i liked the clanking sounds the excelsior made... kinda cheesy but funny.

I don't recall Styles receiving orders like that. In my recollection, Styles is in his cabin when the general announcement comes that the Enterprise is being stolen in Spacedock. The next we hear of it, Chekov, who is monitoring communications, tells Kirk that the Excelsior is powering up with orders to pursue. I don't remember hearing at 'all costs,' and even if it was so dreafully important to stop the Enterprise, I don't think the fleet port authorities would have been so reckless as to issue such a command with obvious disregard for safety. I think in reality, and as is shown on screen, Styles was simply overcome by his overbearing arrogance and was willing to risk transwarp just to show off for his superiors.

While on the topic of security, if Genesis was such a sensitive and secretive issue, why was it that only an unarmed science vessel was present at the Genesis planet? Would it not have been wiser to have a couple of warships there also to provide security? Granted some may have felt this would have drawn unwanted attention, but it is obvious that the cat was way out of the bag already if even the Klingons knew about it. I think it was rather dumb of Starfleet to send the Grissom in alone.

maybe i dreamt up those orders. maybe it was because of Styles pompousness(is that a word, he seemed rather pompous to me) i'll watch the movie again here in a day or so.

was that starbase armed? they coulda blew a nacelle out (i know that wouldnt have been very kosher to fire upon the enteprise, but you gotta do what you gotta do,)

I'm not trying to jump ahead because I do want the previous discussion and points to keep going, but I want to write down these following thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind so please bear with me.

I finally cracked open Season 1 of the TOS last night and watched the episode 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' first because it is the second pilot for the series and its stardate places it as earlier than all the other episodes except the 'Cage.' Anyhow, while watching it, it occurred to me how many remarkable similarities or connections this episode has with the premise of ST V: The Final Frontier.

- the ship hits the galaxy's energy barrier
- ship goes to a desolate planet
- Kirk struggles with a god-like being

Of course there are obvious key differences also:

- this energy barrier is the one at the edge of the galaxy, not the centre
- the planet is Delta Vega, not Sha-ka-ree
- the god-like being is transformed crewman Gary Mitchell, not some nameless entity

However, I found myself thinking... did the writers of ST V miss a golden opportunity to revisit a TOS episode like they did with Wrath of Khan? Imagine that instead of leading the Enterprise to Sha-ka-ree, Sybok takes it back to Delta Vega. In the episode, it could be very easily said that Gary Mitchell wasn't killed. After all, we see him fall into a deep hole and though a massive rock falls on top to cover the hole, it could be left open whether he was crushed or not. Given enough time and his enormous powers, might Gary not have survived and freed himself? Throughout the episode he was already suffering delusions of godhood, and even mentioned that the Enterprise would be a vessel to carry him to new worlds. Does any of this sound familiar?

As Gary frees himself, he finds that for all his massive power, he is trapped on a unhinhabited and remote world and longs to free himself to exert his dominance over lesser beings. This sounds like a very plausible background for the entity we see in ST V. I think it would have been extremely cool and made a lot of sense if the Enterprise in ST V had returned instead to Delta Vega (with Kirk probably having forgotten about his old friend, much as he had forgotten about Khan,) and found to his horror that Gary Mitchell had survived after all.

What do you guys think? Or do you feel that then there would have been too many similarities to Wrath of Khan? I realize the movies should be more about breaking new ground rather than revisiting old episodes, but ties with the past are also very important, and given the astounding similarities already there (coincidences?) I wonder if it might have made for a better movie which would have resonated more with fans of the old series? If you think about it, even the titles of the episode and the movie are intricately connected in their theme.

Sounds good to me Valkrist. I like when they tie into previous episodes and storylines, its kind of being rewarded for being a fan when they put in a subtle (or even very blatant) nuance (sp?) of something from the TV series.

on a side note, you mentioned "stardate"... in TOS, werent stardates just some random number they picked... there wasnt a "canon" stardate system back then. Star Trek went from being Gene Roddenberry's dream TV show in the 60s (TOS looked like a disco with all those bright colors and flashing lights) to something with a huge entire backstory and e xp anded universe (to steal a term from star wars). sorry i didnt mean to get off track about the current topic of discussion.

Actually, there was a canon stardate system in place as early as that episode. During the voiceover, Kirk states in his captain's log that it is stardate 1312.4, and if you watch the episode with Mike Okuda's text commentary, you will find out that that stardate was eventually translated to the year 2265. That stardate is also accurate in dating that episode with relation to others in the series.

Here is where the confusion comes in (also e xp lained by Okuda):

Roddenberry originally intended for the time setting of Star Trek to be obscure and imprecise in relation to our own real time, and thus the stardates were invented. The problem was further compounded by them airing episodes out of sequence in relation to stardates. While 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' was actually the first episode (second pilot) of the series and has the earliest stardate, it was aired third in sequence, causing some confusion among viewers who e xp ect some kind of continuous flow. Furthermore, because some things in the show were still in a state of flux and some standards had yet to be agreed upon, various references made by the characters appear to place the events of the series anywhere from 200 to as much as 800 years in our future. Thankfully, they later decided to stabilize this and to have the stardates correspond to actual years in a consistent fashion. Hope that clears up the confusion.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

Valkrist wrote: The problem was further compounded by them airing episodes out of sequence in relation to stardates. While 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' was actually the first episode (second pilot) of the series and has the earliest stardate, it was aired third in sequence, causing some confusion among viewers who e xp ect some kind of continuous flow.

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

maybe thats it... they showed them out of order according to stardates, and yes, back to the movie discussion!

Transwarp:
I think they used it a little inconsistently on VOY. There was an episode where the crew stole a transwarp coil from a Borg scout ship. The impression I had from that episode is that they were able to use it as what amounts to an engine upgrade, and it wasn't for opening the existing Borg TW conduit system. Then along comes the final episode, where they concretely establish the concept of the conduit system. So who knows?

Warp factors:
In doing TNG, they decided they had to set 10 as a max. The e xp lanation given (never in an actual ep, but just in the ST encyclopedia etc.) is that the warp scale was recalibrated, but not necessarily linearly. In other words, Kirks' warp 1 is the same speed as Picard's warp 1, but the scales diverge as you go up. This whole issue hadn't occurred to me in the context of Archer's ship. I think we have to believe that his warp 5 is maybe like Warp 3 or 4 for Picard.

Going to warp within a solar system:
My impression was that this ban was only from the novels, and that Kirk's feelings about "risking" it in STTMP is only because of the ship's new, untested warp drive. In TOS, they're almost ALWAYS warping out of orbit. In TNG, I think they warp out of orbit pretty much all the time, too.

Going to the center of the galaxy:
This was a lapse of reason on the script writers' part (one of many in ST V). If the Enterprise A could do that within the implied time span, then Voyager should have been home from the Delta Quadrant in about a day.

Quadrants:
Used interchangeably with "sectors" in TOS, but the modern era shows have standardized that to mean quarters of the galaxy. A sidebar: Earth is exactly on the border of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, according to "Star Trek Star Charts" (a good book to get if you don't have it). So all VOY's talk about getting back to the Alpha Quadrant is a little simplified and inaccurate.

ST V/WNMHGB similarities:
Hadn't thought of it, but it would have been interesting to revisit that world. The TOS ep I thought V bore the most similarity to was "The Way to Eden," the worst ep (IMHO) of TOS. Not a good sign, when they base a movie on the worst ep.... Trivia question: did you guys know that Sybok was played by Lucille Ball's son-in-law? Laurence Luckinbill (what a name) is or was married to Lucie Arnaz.

As far as going to warp in a solar system, i know in DS9, the episode where they find out there is a Bashir changeling and he steals a runabout and is heading for the sun to blow it up and blow up the system, kira tells Jadzia to follow and go to warp, and Dax says something like "warp in a solar system???"


For the warp scales, i would think that the NX-01 is using the same warp scale as TOS... i thought the idea of Warp 10 simultaneously occupying all points in space was a real theory. but if you broke that barrier, you could travel at warp 11-19, then the barrier exists at 20, then if you break that barrier you can go war 21-29, etc. i know thats not star trek canon, but i thought i read that is was part of some current theory about warp travel.

For voyager, did they have to go 70,000 light years (i think it was ~ 70k light years) to get to the quadrant or get back to earth, because it is a big difference... the corner of the alpha/delta quadrant is still a ways off from earth itself.

i think someone on these threads, i couldnt find it, once said if you say the plot of the movie in a sentence or so and it sounds dumb, it pretty much will be... think of this "Star Trek V: The final frontier: the crew of the enterprise are kidnapped by a mad-vulcan on a search for god" sounds like a cheesy B-sci-fi movie plot.

As I said when comparing the Excelsior's transwarp to the one used by the Borg, I don't think the two methods have to be mutually exclusive, and perhaps what we see in Voyager supports this theory. Yes, the Borg use a system of conduits but perhaps that only facilitates transwarp rather than enable it altogether. When Voyager gets a hold of a Borg transwarp coil, they are able to do what Starfleet failed with the Excelsior, which is to upgrade a warp engine to the next level. An example of two technologies coming together to achieve a different means to the same end.

On the matter of warping in solar systems, I know they did it in the shows sometimes, but I still think it was mentioned outside the novels that this was a dangerous practice. Then again, just like that rule that ships were prohibited from travelling above warp 5 because it damaged the fabric of space was dropped, so perhaps too was this ruled eventually ignored. Star Trek is infamous for not adhering to continuity.

I saw the galactic map and realize that Earth is on the Alpha/Beta quadrant border, and I grant you things were a little simpliefied in Voyager. However, as BC pointed out, depending on the original arrival coordinates of Voyager in the Delta quadrant, the straight line back home may have precluded any mention of the Beta quadrant and thus it is not figured into the calculations. As for the Enterprise reaching the centre of the galaxy so quickly in ST V, yeah... that was an obvious blunder. Not only did we already know even then that our solar system is actually quite far removed from the centre, scientists today are nearly certain that the centre of the galaxy is an incredibly dense massive cluster of black holes and collapsed stars. To have a planet there surrounded by an energy barrier was a bit silly.

So, are we ready to move to ST IV?

i think i have discussed ST III enough for now... i plan on watching it one day soon, but i'm up to moving to ST IV.

BladeCollector wrote:i think someone on these threads, i couldnt find it, once said if you say the plot of the movie in a sentence or so and it sounds dumb, it pretty much will be... think of this "Star Trek V: The final frontier: the crew of the enterprise are kidnapped by a mad-vulcan on a search for god" sounds like a cheesy B-sci-fi movie plot.

Yeah, that was me. The quote was along the lines of imagining what TV Guide's synopsis would be, and whether that would make you want to watch it. I can't claim credit for the concept--I read it somewhere else once.

Totally off-topic, but topical for me. Since the "hometown team" just lost the national college basketball championship, I'm wondering if I'm going to drive thru riot wreckage going to work tomorrow. Weeks ago the city governments started making plans for dealing with possible riots. That was primarily in the context of an Illini win, but since the bars were packed to capacity at NOON already, who knows? One thing's for sure--there's going to be a lot of puke to wash off the sidewalks tomorrow. They'll probably have to call in e xp erts from New Orleans.

Yeah, I know well what hometown loss/riots are like. Pity there is no accounting for sheer ignorant behaviour in this world.

So... back to Star Trek and ST IV: The Voyage Home.

As previously, let's start by going over what we each liked and disliked, though there is very little to dislike about this film.

Like before, I love how this movie picked up shortly after the previous one, adding once again to the continuous flow of events established by ST II and III. Saavik's cameo was forgettable, but Jane Wyatt as Spock's mother Amanda was a joy to see once again. The humourous tone of the movie is set right away with McCoy painting 'Bounty' on the side of the Bird of Prey, and it just keeps going from there. The threat from the space probe was mysterious enough at first to keep everyone in suspense, though I was e xp ecting a more profound revelation at the end of the movie. The main message though, well verbalized by Spock when he said "to hunt a species to extinction is illogical," sums up well the folly of present-day mankind. Once the gang arrives on Earth, the laughs just keep coming and watching their too-numerous to mention antics in San Francisco was pure joy. It felt as if they were finally able to just let their hair down and have some fun with their roles, and it was a pleasure seeing each actor being given ample screen time.

Here are some favourite moments:

- "Everyone remember where we parked."
- "What does it mean, exact change?"
- "And a double dumbass to you!"
- "Spread out... you look like a cadet review!"
- "We're looking for nuclear wessels."
- "Do you guys like Italian?" "Yes." "No." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "We love Italian."
- "He did a little too much LDS in the 60's."

lol... I'm laughing just remembering... and let's not forget Spock giving the punk rocker the nerve pinch on the bus, and the look on Kirk's face when he sees Spock swimming in the whale tank. Priceless!

What didn't I like about ST IV? I wasn't quite comfortable with the ease with which time travel can be achieved in the movie. If you all remember, this was the same method that accidentally threw the Enterprise back in time in the episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday." That it can be done again so easily with just a few calculations really trivializes what is in fact an incredible feat, and raises a host of problems. Did Kirk and his crew keep this knowledge to themselves? Obviously not, since he tells Starfleet that he is going to attempt time travel. Since Starfleet didn't react with surprise and there didn't seem to be an inquiry conducted afterward, it can only be assumed that the process is known to Starfleet. One would have to think that there were strict orders in place not to attempt this then, sort of like an early version of the Temporal Prime Directive, otherwise what was to stop anyone from using the process to travel back and change history? Obviously the Enterprise was able to return to its own time by simulating the accident, but I feel the entire incident should have been confined to the that episode, though in that case, the writers of ST IV would have had to come up with another way when there was one already handy in Trek lore.

Lastly, I spoke earlier of being somewhat disappointed with the resolution of the movie, and that involved not being more informed as to what exactly that probe's mission was, and what transpired in the communication between it and the whales. Granted this is only a personal nitpick, but these little mysteries tend to bother me because I am naturally so curious. I can only assume the whales told the probe they had been rescued by humans, and thus the proble rationalized that humans shouldn't be exterminated at all, otherwise why did it begin destroying Earth in the first place if not in retribution of some kind? Too much left unanswered here for my taste.

PS. A piece of ST trivia: the Japanese couple that Sulu sees arguing loudly on the street were actually supposed to be his ancestors.

well, the borg creating a temporal vortex could be something they very well could have done, who knows what kind of technology they have. as for them just deciding to go back in time, well i always figured that was a last minute idea, i think they wanted to assimilate the 24th century earth, but after being defeated, they decided, instead of assimilating earth for technology, they would go back and stop the creation of the technology, because starfleet/federation is the only (pretty much) group that can defeat them.


but back to Star Trek IV: VH

i like how they picked up were III left off (making II,III, and IV) direct sequels. i also wish they would have e xp lained the probe a little more clearly, was the probe sent by a humanoid-whale race that are decendents from the humpback whales?

i liked the premise... the comedy was great, especially bones in the hospital. and when uhura and chekov are going around asking "where are the nuclear wessels" ( a bit of trivia, the people they were asking were random, so to them they just had some people asking them were the nuclear "wessels" were. the only problem was the crew had to chase the people down to get consent signed)

back to the time travel, if you listen to the dialogue, the method wasnt that easy and they implied that they were lucky to make it back to the 80s and back to the 23rd century. maybe time travel techniques were becoming easier to accomplish, so starfleet created the temporal prime directive. there are many reasons to make the temporal prime directive after this movie:

a. scotty happens to give some random scientist guy the formula for transparent aluminum. (the person he gave the formula to may not have been honest or something and sold the formula to some evil power)
b. they bring the whale biologist to the future (she could have had a really important decendent and if she didnt have children or something, that could have altered the future)
c. they decloak in front of the russian whaling ship.
d. bones uses futuristic medical equipment in front of the doctors they lock in the closet. and he gives medicine from the future to cure the womans kidneys.

thats all i can think of now, but i did like this movie, its one of my tops. very very funny, good story... i hate they even/odd thing, but this one puts the evens up one

I think the implied difficulty in ST IV to time travel was more associated with the 'rust-bucket' state of the Klingon Bird of Prey more than anything else necessarily. However, you do make some excellent points about several glaring infractions that the crew commits with regards to possibly altering the future. They tampered with a lot of things and if they ever filed a full report of that mission for Starfleet, some admiral probably crapped his pants on the spot and began to draft the beginnings of the Temporal Prime Directive. It would have been fitting if, at the end of the movie when all the charges are read during the crew's tribunal, they had added an extra conviction for tampering with the timeline. Of course they would have been exonerated for saving Earth, but someone should have still taken notice... unless Kirk is like Archer and neglects to file full reports. It is strange and inconsistent that Kirk was so careful in "City on the Edge of Forever" and "Tomorrow is Yesterday," yet they didn't really give a hoot in ST IV.

RE: The Borg and time travel - it's no secret the Borg are more technologically advanced, and if they didn't come up with time travel themselves, it would only be a matter of time before they assimilated some culture that did. So, in First Contact, it is very possible they are only attempting it then and not before because the tech is brand new to them. As for the Enterprise following, I can go along with that because perhaps that was a side effect of the temporal vortex opening that a nearby foreign object or ship could get pulled in before it closed. What I found a little implausible is that the Enterprise can so easily fly back to its own time at the end of the movie, again trivializing the whole concept of time travel and making it seem all to easy to do.

ST IV---my favorite! I have very few nits to pick with it. When Scotty gives the transparent aluminum formula to Dr. Nichols, it would have been more credible if he'd said "he's the guy who invented it," instead of "how do we know it's not the guy who invented it?" IF memory serves, in the novelization, it was said my preferred way. Of course, novelizations are usually written off earlier versions of the script, so either later on somebody decided the other way would be funnier, or Jimmy Doohan blew his line. Also, I don't think the concept of the Temporal Prime Directive was formalized by that name until late in DS9's or Voyager's run, although the general concept was around since TOS. ST IV could have taken a BIT more care to e xp lain or tidy things up, but they probably felt that would get in the way of FUN. So, they dumbed it down a bit. I don't hold that against this movie. The dumbing down is pretty tame compared to what awaited us in the next two movies. But that's another discussion.

I thought if Chekov's nuclear "wessels" scene were half as long, it would have been twice as funny. At least he pronounced "nuclear" correctly, unlike certain unnamed American politicians (I cringe every time I hear "nucular").

It was a bit of a stretch that the probe's transmissions are audible in Earth's atmosphere. I don't remember that they ever said how they were transmitted--probably not radio!--but it would have had to be something that would impinge both on ships in space and have an effect on a planetary environment. Of course, there's also the suggestion they were "audible" in space, which nothing is. We have Star Wars to thank for that. TOS was pretty good about using only musical cues to accent e xp losions etc in space, where there'd be no sound, but since Star Wars, everything has to have all these whizzes and booms and splats in space.

I don't necessarily know that the arguing Asian couple was supposed to be Sulu's ancestors, but what I do know is that they scripted and attempted to film a scene where Sulu talks to a little boy, then after he walks away, says "that was my great great (etc.) grandfather!" The little kid they hired to play the part had his terrible stage mother hovering nearby, and they could not get the kid to perform right for some reason. I don't remember if he got camera fright or what. Eventually, they lost daylight, and there was no room elsewhere in the shooting schedule, so the scene was scrapped. Takei felt it was a tragedy of course, and I also think it's very unfortunate that such a cute little scene didn't make it. The whole story is told at length in Takei's memoirs. He also discusses at length growing up in one of our internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II. If you've never heard about that, you should read the book for that alone, to see a side of (rather recent) American history you were unaware of.

Rememer when the whale biologists woman clinged onto kirk when he was being beamed onto the bird of prey... i know data was to do in Nemesis, but couldnt data and picard have held on to each other? i guess it could be say that the little portable transporter thing wouldnt have been strong enough to keep 2 peoples signatures from being jumbled. sorry to get a little of topic. and get into nemesis, we have a few movies to go before then.

Yes, quite a few before we discuss Nemesis....