I guess you can assume they have spoilers...but maybe enough people have seen the movie now so it won't be a problem... First, if it only takes a drop of red matter to cause a black hole, why was Spock Prime carrying so much of it? and second...since Spock Prime KNEW there was a starbase nearby, why didn't he send a warning to Vulcan when Nero first stranded him there?
Hello! Good to see you around again I hope all is well. I've wondered about the first question, too. Sounds like it could do much greater damage than the Omega molecule even, and make entire massive parts of space completely untraverseable. Surprising that Vulcans would mess around with something so dangerous, even if they are future Vulcans.
Second question: I don't know if Spock Prime knew the starfleet facility was there until Kirk told him about it.
Theoretically- 1) Maybe whatever creates Red Matter creates X amount of it, so since it was all created in one place, that's what he got. Plus, better to have too much than too little, and since it was presumably a new creation they may not have been entirely aware of its capabilities. 2) I don't think Spock, walking, would have reached the outpost in time to stop the destruction of Vulcan in any case. It didn't seem to take very long. I could be wrong though.
Yeah; I wondered about the amount of red matter too. It would have made sense to say that if Nero only needed a little drop to destroy a planet, Spock would need a sphere about that size to destroy a star (counter the supernova). But they showed Spock using just a tiny drop of the red matter, the same as Nero, so what would have been a nice explanation doesn't work.
Both of those answers sound right to me. We have no idea how long Spock was on Delta Vega when Vulcan imploded.
but he said that to Kirk -- "I believe there is a Starfleet base here" (I'm paraphrasing). they both knew. this is a good catch, btw.
That was a pretty good TV episode, I must admit. For the big screen, I want something new, and genuinely alien/bizarre/out there - it's space after all. They can't just keep stealing from old episodes. What a waste of good celluloid that would be. I mean TOS gave us something new and fresh and challenging, and that was a TV series on a minuscule budget, and they did it week in week out. These new guys now have ridiculous budgets, and sooo much time. I want to see something special! God, I miss Roddenberry - such an amazing crafter of stories.
Since Spock knew what Nero planned to do; the moment he was dropped onto that planet, I would have thought he would have started running for the facility instead of making himself comfortable in a cave. It has to take longer than a couple minutes to drill through to a planet core, doesn't it? As for the red matter, carrying that much around seems to be an invitation to some unscrupulous alien to try and grab it and use it; I hadn't thought of Donlago's point, however, that that was the amount created, so that's what he ended up with. Also, I suppose that trying to just bring a small amount may have ended with exploding the remainder. They DID seem to take a lot of care in extracting only a small amount of it. Thanks for the answers, everyone. oh...to...An Officer...I'm not doing very well, but I'm still ok...I just rarely venture out of the lounge...
These are good questions! 1. Having a big tub of the liquid red goo looks better on the movie screen than having a thimble-full. (how cynical of me!) 2. Lots of possibilities. Maybe Spock was rendered unconscious in the cave and woke up just in time to see his planet implode. Or maybe he saw the ice-creatures and said, hmmm, no way an old geezer like me can make it to the outpost!
It's been hypothesized that Spock was on Delta Vega for only a short time before Vulcan was destroyed. He had arrived via black hole/wormhole from the 24th century only the day before the distress call from Vulcan was received by Starfleet and at about the same time as the reported destruction of the Klingon ships was taking place. Captured almost immediately by the Romulans, Spock was stranded deliberately on Delta Vega by Nero, with the intent that he would be a witness to the destruction of Vulcan, whether visually, as the mind-meld visuals seem to suggest, or by being in close enough proximity to feel, telepathically, the death of its six billion inhabitants. Spock may have been aware or have been able to deduce what planet he was on, but he may not have known where he was in relation to the Starfleet facility (sort of a backwater, at any rate, and not a full-fledged starbase) until Kirk arrived.
No, Kirk knew, because the escape pod computer told him how far away and in what direction the Starfleet base lay. He was already heading for it when the Big Red Monster attack forced him to try to evade it by going into the cave.
Yes ^^ but IN the cave, Spock told young Kirk that there was a base nearby...Kirk didn't tell Spock...Spock already knew.
hi ya ghostie as for the first.. it does bother how much red matter they had.. but it may be they just didnt know how much it would take. the plan might have been to just use a little too start and if that didnt work dump in a lot more. there is also the potential that other stars might have been made unstable and possibly set into danger themselves additonal star systems. so they could have made extra to deal with that. and yeah spock tells young jim he was headed to the base. but i doubt that nero would have left spock with a communicator. so prime elder spock could have been faced with a very long walk to the outpost. even something as short as a 50 mile hike is going to take a long time walking in those conditions. nero probably intended for prime spock to live with his pain and guilt so he would have set prime spock far enough away so he couldnt contact the out post in time by walking but close enough to reach it before he would die. i sorta expect prime spock had taken shelter in the cave until he heard the creatures pass by. his exceptional hearing would be an asset for he and young kirk in the attempt to reach the out post.