'Relics'

[Trekker4747]

Well let me think about it for a sec. A drink, or a warp capable shuttle? Hmmm. I'll go with the shuttle and get my own drink from the replicator.

I hear what you all are saying, but I always saw it as Picard and Company giving Scotty a second chance at doing what made him feel good. Keep in mind that he was just hitching a ride on the Jenolin to his retirement destination. I think that between figuring out how to survive in the trasporter combined with finding a way to save Enterprise by using the Jenolin, Scotty realized he wasn't quite ready to be put out to pasture, and I think Picard understood that as well. Scotty sure didn't seem too upset about being given a shuttle.

Yeah, but they could've given him the shuttle at another time or in less of way that suggested they were asking him to leave right then and there. But, I guess, at the same time Scotty jumped to conclusions and instead of saying, "Thanks for the shuttle! Let's all share a drink the 10-Fwd!" he pretty much said, "Thanks for the shuttle! I'm taking off now!"

Very true. Plus, what we don't know is perhaps 10 minutes later Scotty could have hailed Picard and asked for permission to return to Enterprise briefly. Maybe have that drink with the senior staff, glow on how well the shuttle handles, thank them again for the gift, and entertain them all with stories from the old days before leaving for good. Ah, but that's the stuff of fan fic. We just never know.

Yeah, hell he may have left the shuttle right afterwards, he just needed to go in and check the radio pre-sets and adjust the seat.

 

[Tomalak]

^

Another valid point. Don't get me wrong, I love TNG, but I grew up on TOS, and the simplicity worked. There's a certain charm to "I'm givin ya all she's got, Sir. She canna take much more.", as opposed to something like, "Captain, I've pushed the anti matter injectors to 27% past safety limits, if I try to push them much further, we could breach the warp core." I guess call me old school.

It also tells us about Kirk and Scotty's relationship. The captain completely trusts his engineer, and knows he's doing everything he can. He doesn't need the specifics, it's extraneous information. Scotty's got it under control, and there's nothing Kirk can do to change things. They both need to get on with their jobs, not trade percentages and tetryon manifolds.

 

[Mr Nighttime]

My only gripe was that Troi never got to say one word to him on screen and yet she is saying goodbye in the shuttlebay.

 

[LCARSGFX]

Regardless of what technobabble is/was appropriate or not, the poignancy of the episode has tripled since the passing of James Doohan and DeForrest Kelly.

I'm happy with the episode as is. It was made for TNG during TNG by TNG cast and crew. The technobabble fits.

 

[Hofner]

For those of y'all who hasn't thought of it.

I don't think O'Brien was in this ep but Scotty could potentially have recognized O'Brien and Worf from his younger TOS days when they were in the same bar at the same time. In fact IIRC, Scotty was right there when O'Brien lied through his teeth in the legendary Captain Kirk's face..

Robert

 

[Santaman]

Anyone else besides me digged the Jenolin?

I am very fond of the Sydney class, I love the design, its the only convincing freighter in the entire run of Star Trek its just perfect.

As for the episode, liked it, its indeed a different Scotty then we're used to but considering what he's been through and suddenly be 70 years into his own future its understandable.

 

[CaptainStoner]

Perhaps. But Scotty should have had sprouted out some techobabble besides "She can't take it any longer, Captain!"

Why? That's all that we--the audience--needs to know. All that we need for the drama of the story is to know that the engines are at their limits. Does it matter if the Warp Core's magnafoozle is reading 10.9 and if it hits 12 the containment field with collapse and kill us all? No, not really.

Well, the magnafoozle can be used to build the tension, the best example I can pick off the top of my head is Sulu reading off the warp speed before they go to time warp in STIV.
As for me, I don't mind the technobabble if it's delivered well. Spiner & Burton were pretty good at it, others make it sound like it's a Greek poem translated from its original Klingon.

 

[Alrik]

I guess I should clarify my point. I don't mind most of the technobable in TNG. (Okay, sometimes it did go a little overboard.) But it was just kind of odd hearing it come from Scotty, because TOS didn't depend on it as much.

 

[CaptainStoner]

I guess I should clarify my point. I don't mind most of the technobable in TNG. (Okay, sometimes it did go a little overboard.) But it was just kind of odd hearing it come from Scotty, because TOS didn't depend on it as much.

Ahhhh yes I do remember him getting a line or two of it, and yes. It sounded pretty jilted coming from Doohan. Better to have given him lines more in line with classic Scotty, for instance:
GEORDI: The <technobabble> needs a <technobabble> to get it on-line!
SCOTTY: Aye, or if that fails, hit it with a hammer!

 

[Alrik]

^

Now that would have been freakin awesome.

 

[CaptainStoner]

^ we reach.

 

[Red Ranger]

One of my faves, too. My favorite part is when Scotty meets Data, who helps get him a real drink. Scotty notes he's not human, and Data says, "No, sir. I am an android. Lt. Cmdr. Data." Scotty replies, "Synthetic scotch, synthetic commanders." Ha! -- RR

 

[Tomalak]

Well, the magnafoozle can be used to build the tension, the best example I can pick off the top of my head is Sulu reading off the warp speed before they go to time warp in STIV.
As for me, I don't mind the technobabble if it's delivered well. Spiner & Burton were pretty good at it, others make it sound like it's a Greek poem translated from its original Klingon.

The thing is, "warp factor 9" is very mild technobabble, and it's easily understandable. It's speed. It's like if Sulu said they were going at 9000 mph we would get it. It's used to great dramatic effect because it's simple.

A lot of the TNG stuff was deliberately obscure, unless you happened to have a theoretical quantum physics doctorate. It slows down the action, and makes the audience scratch their collective heads.

 

[Red Ranger]

^Eh, I don't mind the technobabble so much. It's kind of amusing. I do prefer the TOS approach, where they used generic terms for all manner of devices, the most famous being the sensors (a group of devices that analyzed things -- simple). But it did remind me of a part in the novel The Caine Mutiny, where young Ensign Keith attempts to interpret naval jargon as a fresh new crewmember, and Herman Wouk comes up with some gibberish that's supposed to represent how Keith heard it. -- RR

 

[LCARSGFX]

Well, the magnafoozle can be used to build the tension, the best example I can pick off the top of my head is Sulu reading off the warp speed before they go to time warp in STIV.
As for me, I don't mind the technobabble if it's delivered well. Spiner & Burton were pretty good at it, others make it sound like it's a Greek poem translated from its original Klingon.

The thing is, "warp factor 9" is very mild technobabble, and it's easily understandable. It's speed. It's like if Sulu said they were going at 9000 mph we would get it. It's used to great dramatic effect because it's simple.

A lot of the TNG stuff was deliberately obscure, unless you happened to have a theoretical quantum physics doctorate. It slows down the action, and makes the audience scratch their collective heads.

Gotta say I do not agree with you.
Never once did I get the impression that the technobabble slowed things down.
It just made the technology on the Enterprise D sound plausible.
They used advanced sounding words to describe technology more advanced than is/was currently available.

 

[Finn]

Right. Even a sailor from the 18th century would be confused by the dialogue on a modern aircraft carrier from the bridge to the deck to the engine room.

So it's silly to expect us to understand everything Scotty says while on the job which involves technology much more advanced than what we have now.

And if you ask me, I'd have written him that way, not bumping his head on a bulkhead.

 

[Hober Mallow]

It's a good episode, but the last time I saw it I found myself annoyed at the amount of technobabble they gave James Doohan. It was the same in Generations, and sounds absolutely terrible. He's not Data. Even Spock never came out with phrases like that. It was so incongruous.

That was my only problem with "Relics." In that episode and "Generations," the writers kept giving him 24th century dialog, stuff we would never hear come out of his mouth in TOS or the movies. I found it more jarring in "Generations." You could just tell TNG writers suddenly took over the movies in the opening scene on the Enterprise B.

 

[Timo]

I doubt it was the result of that, really. It was more the result of those lines having been written for the character of Spock originally. Just like Chekov's lines were originally written for McCoy.

Spock would be well within his rights to say "However, I have a theory" even in TOS; Scotty wouldn't, although the Scottish accent does help soften the line a bit...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

Yes, that's obviously part of it, but even so I would question the writers giving Spock dialogue about a "resonance burst from the main deflector dish". Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't recall him saying things like that very often.

 

[Shazam!]

Like putting too much air in a balloon!