Dumb things in TMP

[JonnyQuest037]

It takes a rather serious situation makes it far less serious.

I dunno. I think the seriousness of the threat still comes through. YMMV. But TMP as a whole takes itself WAY too seriously, IMO.

But Kirk was an impetuous asshole the whole movie so it shouldn't come as any surprise to me.

True dat. It would be more tolerable if Kirk had a definite "I know nothing" moment of clarity late in the film, similar to his "I've never faced death" moment in TWOK or his "It never even occurred to me to take Gorkon at his word" moment in TUC. But the "Kirk is an asshole who cares more about getting the Enterprise back than the mission itself" arc, like most of TMP's subplots, just sort of peters out rather than actually resolving.

 

[BK613]

There's no reason to assume some other form of scanning, since only the one form of scanning is ever shown and ever discussed. The jeopardy is all about avoiding the reduction of Earth to data patterns, which everyone understands to mean the destruction of all life on Earth. From everything that is said and shown, storage as data patterns necessitates the dematerialization of the object being scanned. If some other form of scanning was intended to be implied, it should have been mentioned or shown in some capacity.

We see V'Ger gather info in three ways in the movie. I don't see why both 1 and 3 below can't produce the imagery.
1. Scanning from afar.

SPOCK: Captain, we are being scanned.
KIRK: Do not return scan, Mister Spock.​

2. Sending probes that can interact/interface with objects.

CHEKOV: Mister Spock? Can that be one of their crew?
SPOCK: A probe from their vessel, Captain. Plasma-energy combination.
...........
KIRK: It's running our records. Earth defenses, ...Starfleet strength,​

3. Pattern objects for data storage, the effect of its 'weapon' use.

ILIA PROBE (on viewscreen): More data concerning this functioning is necessary before carbon units can be patterned for data storage.
DECKER (on viewscreen): What does that mean?
ILIA PROBE (on viewscreen): When my examination is complete, all carbon units will be reduced to data patterns.​

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@JonnyQuest037 What annoys me is just how incompetent it (the transporter accident) makes everyone look.

 

[fireproof78]

But TMP as a whole takes itself WAY too seriously, IMO.

I agree on this point.

True dat. It would be more tolerable if Kirk had a definite "I know nothing" moment of clarity late in the film, similar to his "I've never faced death" moment in TWOK or his "It never even occurred to me to take Gorkon at his word" moment in TUC. But the "Kirk is an asshole who cares more about getting the Enterprise back than the mission itself" arc, like most of TMP's subplots, just sort of peters out rather than actually resolving.

Indeed. Kirk goes from a jerk to just kind of OK with no real resolution.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

@JonnyQuest037 What annoys me is just how incompetent it (the transporter accident) makes everyone look.

Yeah, no one looks especially good in that scene. Rand seems overwhelmed, Kirk is a control freak who pushes her aside as soon as there's a crisis (He'd never do that with Scotty. Lend him an extra hand, maybe, but push him aside? Never!), and then there's the sheer stupidity of not shutting down the transporter system while they're repairing it.

Not to mention that TMP implies that the transporter needs both a sender and a receiver to function properly, when the TV show showed us people beaming down without a receiver every week. While I agree that the sender/receiver notion makes a lot more scientific sense, the fact remains that it was a definite retcon from what TOS consistently showed us.

 

[BK613]

@JonnyQuest037 "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Court Martial" do show us receiving pads. I could see that as a safer form of beaming.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

@JonnyQuest037 "The Trouble with Tribbles" and "Court Martial" do show us receiving pads. I could see that as a safer form of beaming.

Yeah, I know. I wasn't saying that the show never showed receiving pads, just that it was much more commonly shown the other way.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

We see V'Ger gather info in three ways in the movie I don't see why both 1 and 3 below can't produce the imagery.
1. Scanning from afar.

SPOCK: Captain, we are being scanned.
KIRK: Do not return scan, Mister Spock.​

2. Sending probes that can interact/interface with objects.

CHEKOV: Mister Spock? Can that be one of their crew?
SPOCK: A probe from their vessel, Captain. Plasma-energy combination.
...........
KIRK: It's running our records. Earth defenses, ...Starfleet strength,​

3. Pattern objects for data storage, the effect of its 'weapon' use.

ILIA PROBE (on viewscreen): More data concerning this functioning is necessary before carbon units can be patterned for data storage.
DECKER (on viewscreen): What does that mean?
ILIA PROBE (on viewscreen): When my examination is complete, all carbon units will be reduced to data patterns.​

Yes, that's true. But to clarify, what I meant was that the objects that Spock can specifically recognize on his spacewalk are only objects that have been destructively digitized. What I meant by the type of "scanning" under discussion was "brought into the memory array that Spock goes through on his spacewalk." That's where the galaxies are seen. For example, we don't see anything there from the bridge, such as the console that the V'ger light rod probe activates, besides Ilia. We see no overall image of the Enterprise herself. The things that Spock mentions seeing on his spacewalk where he also sees the galaxies are Epsilon IX and Ilia, only things destructively scanned. In other words, that's where the things that have been destructively scanned go. We're given no reason to suppose that any other kind of image is stored there.

(edit - Whatever Spock sees during the mind meld isn't stuff necessarily stored in the array, but also includes stuff on V'ger's "mind," broadly speaking, such as the Voyager probe itself.)

So, it's also therefore highly probable that one of the things that V'ger did immediately after being created on the Machine Planet was to destructively reduce the Machine Planet itself to data patterns for storage in the memory array!

 

[BK613]

@CorporalCaptain Did V'Ger digitize its "home" planet (i.e., the machine planet that built the vessel itself)? I find that unlikely.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

So, it's also therefore highly probable that one of the things that V'ger did immediately after being created on the Machine Planet was to destructively reduce the Machine Planet itself to data patterns for storage in the memory array!

That's a very neat idea that's never occurred to me before! I wish they'd stuck that into the movie.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

@CorporalCaptain Did V'Ger digitize its "home" planet (i.e., the machine planet that built the vessel itself)? I find that unlikely.

I think so, based on what is shown in the film, and I find it ironic.

It's a rather dramatic indication of the limitations in these machines' collective ability to comprehend the universe. They have evidently no understanding of themselves beyond digitizable information. They cannot discern more to their own nature than what they can apprehend by their instruments. Perhaps the machines that built V'ger had no objection to being destructively digitized in this manner. Whatever programming (no doubt digitally expressed) they had, whatever functions they could perform, all of that no doubt lives on inside V'ger's memory array, perfectly preserved in ideal form. Perhaps they even prefer it, because it's so perfect, since there are no physical defects in the realizations of their mechanisms.

But there's more to human nature than that. Perhaps this is why V'ger had so much trouble understanding the carbon units. Perhaps it couldn't reproduce all of their functions inside its memory array.

 

[BK613]

@CorporalCaptain Agree to disagree then. Not everything that V'Ger zapped is on Spock's spacewalk (no Klingons) so other things scanned need not be there as well (especially those like the Enterprise that is still undergoing investigation.)
Besides, V'Ger is overpowered as it without giving it the power to digitize stars, much less "whole galaxies".* THAT'S a Starkiller-base level of 'dumb' I'm not willing to ascribe to.

*(Given the speed we see V'Ger travel, is there even enough time since the Big Bang for V'Ger to digitize whole galaxies?)

 

[TedShatner10]

So it's possible V'Ger digitized the AI civilisation that created it like a Reaper does in Mass Effect? Or, more plausibly, it's the uploaded memory of the AI planet from many millennia ago, when V'Ger was more modest in size and abilities? Only during its eons long odyssey across the Universe did it expand and upgrade into such a vast, unrecognised form, a nomadic AI civilisation in of itself.

 

[FcukTWOK]

[Besides, V'Ger is overpowered as it without giving it the power to digitize stars, much less "whole galaxies".* THAT'S a Starkiller-base level of 'dumb' I'm not willing to ascribe to.

*(Given the speed we see V'Ger travel, is there even enough time since the Big Bang for V'Ger to digitize whole galaxies?)

V'ger likely analyzed the visible universe during its trip across the Milky Way via remote sensing. If it was still in contact with the Machine Planet during its voyage it could have employed some form of subspace VLBI (with a baseline maxing out at ~60,000ly) to vastly increase imaging resolution. Furthermore, the synthetic aperture effect caused by its motion through the galaxy would have boosted it even more. Applying assumptions of cosmological mediocrity and isotropy, there would have been absolutely no need for V'ger to have directly patterned extragalactic objects to generate a sufficiently isomorphic internal model of the global spacetime manifold for the machine to perceive that there was, indeed, something beyond it.

 

[BK613]

@FcukTWOK Preaching to the choir....

 

[CorporalCaptain]

*(Given the speed we see V'Ger travel, is there even enough time since the Big Bang for V'Ger to digitize whole galaxies?)

I already basically gave my opinion on this, which is, to clarify, that V'ger was perhaps with its power field turned down and in galaxy-cruising mode when we first see it. That's also why I said it was strongly necessary for the black hole to have thrown Voyager 6 back in time as well as across the universe.

Not everything that V'Ger zapped is on Spock's spacewalk (no Klingons) so other things scanned need not be there as well (especially those like the Enterprise that is still undergoing investigation.)

My main point is this. If V'ger can completely scan and digitize objects to the smallest detail for storage inside its memory array without destroying them, then there is no need whatsoever for it to be dematerializing things in order to "learn all that is learnable," especially things that are no threat at all to it. The dematerialization of objects is therefore evidence that their destruction is essential for their preservation in its memory archive.

@CorporalCaptain Agree to disagree then.

No worries.

---

Here's another dumb thing. I've noticed that in the past several posts I've been citing key dialog passages. It seems like most of those passages were delivered by Decker. Decker drives a lot of the action, connects a lot of the dots, and makes many of the key decisions. In many ways, this is his story. I know this has been pointed out by others, but I think it bears repeating. It's dumb (from a story-telling perspective) not to have made TMP more Kirk's story than it was.

 

[fireproof78]

Here's another dumb thing. I've noticed that in the past several posts I've been citing key dialog passages. It seems like most of those passages were delivered by Decker. Decker drives a lot of the action, connects a lot of the dots, and makes many of the key decisions. In many ways, this is his story. I know this has been pointed out by others, but I think it bears repeating. It's dumb (from a story-telling perspective) not to have made TMP more Kirk's story than it was.

I think I've stated this before elsewhere but it bears repeating that in any other episode Kirk would be the antagnoistic admiral that Kirk argues with.

 

[David cgc]

The thing that drives me nuts about both the transporter accident and the engine imbalance/wormhole thing is that they're both setups with no payoff. Neither one ever comes back into play or plays any sort of role in the plot. It's just "Aw geez, those two crewmen are dead, oh well, we've replaced them now! Cool!" and "The Enterprise isn't working right, oh wait, we've got it fixed now! Cool!" and then neither one is ever even mentioned again. So why waste all that time in the first hour of the movie establishing either issue, then?

Neither one of the transporter casualties is anyone that we particularly know or care about. There's never even a shot of Commander Sonak getting into the transporter on his end to remind us that he's the same guy we saw in the tram station scene that introduced Kirk. I doubt that a lot of people even remembered Commander Sonak's name on their first viewing, and the female navigator who dies never even gets a name in the finished movie. And less than ten minutes later, the deaths are all forgotten about so we can the flat joke of "Oh look, McCoy still hates the transporter, isn't that cute? He's so irrational and eccentric!"

And then engine imbalance thing, same deal. It never comes back into play later, like when V'Ger is transforming and the Enterprise has to get out quickly. If the engines failed again at a critical moment during the mission, that could've added some more much-needed suspense and jeopardy to the film. Not of the vague "That thing is 20 hours away from Earth" variety, but of the "Scotty! I need warp speed in three minutes or we're all dead!" variety. TMP needed a lot more of that.

It's a metaphor. The ship doesn't work without Spock. It really is Spock's story, even more than Decker's (and, of course, far more than Kirk's, which is part of the reason he can have the exact same arc in the next movie, since in TWOK, it's the focus).

 

[BK613]

My main point is this. If V'ger can completely scan and digitize objects to the smallest detail for storage inside its memory array without destroying them, then there is no need whatsoever for it to be dematerializing things in order to "learn all that is learnable," especially things that are no threat at all to it. The dematerialization of objects is therefore evidence that their destruction is essential for their preservation in its memory archive.

Or it's just a feature of the weapons. V'Ger's defenses destroy the external threat* but doesn't waste the data that can be learned from the threat. The weapons seem to act like a transporter, only without the arrival part.

*(Or in the case of Ilia, the individual that tried to intercede between the plasma probe and Spock.)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

It's a metaphor. The ship doesn't work without Spock.

I get that. But when a subplot works only on a metaphorical level and not on a literal level... That's a problem.

...far more than Kirk's, which is part of the reason he can have the exact same arc in the next movie, since in TWOK, it's the focus).

I wouldn't say that Kirk has the exact same arc in TWOK.

Kirk knows what he wants in TMP. He wants his command of the Enterprise back at all costs, and McCoy warns him that it's becoming an obsession. In TWOK, Kirk is out of sorts and depressed about getting old. He worries that his best days are behind him and that he doesn't have any purpose left in his life. It's his friends Spock and McCoy who tell him that he needs to get his command back. Before that, Kirk doesn't seem to have any idea how to pull himself out of his funk.

 

[Timo]

As regards the transporter mishap, I see it as basically Kirk's fault, and one of the first things to go badly wrong when he forces himself upon the center seat.

Decker was leading the team putting the transporter back together when Kirk came down with that arrogant "you're demoted for greater good, this being my good" speech. It's because Decker isn't attending to his duties that Headquarters isn't properly informed that the latest fix that was supposedly bringing the transporter back on line had just gone up in a puff of smoke. Or even that a fix was being implemented. And it's not solely Decker's fault that he forgets to do that when he's in the process of being pissed on.

Kirk keeps on making bad calls, and those come in many forms. He meddles when he shouldn't; he takes risks like he did in TOS but this time fails to roll a seven; and he goes up against an invincible foe and doesn't win outright. But he's on an upward curve, and losing Ilia is just bad luck rather than a true error of judgement. Kirk doesn't simply turn into a good guy at a snap of fingers after the wormhole incident, but he does get better. Which I guess is superior to an instant conversion, but not conductive of compact drama. The movie simply embraces "drawn out" like no other.

Timo Saloniemi