Why The Huge Gap Between TMP & WOK?

[DeepSpaceYorks]

I've been more than a little obsessed with this period lately and am pretty staggered by the huge temporal gap between TMP (very early 2270's) and WOK (very early 2280's). Has this ben discussed anywhere or does anyone have any theories or knowledge on why they decided to leave such a large gap narratively between the two films?

 

[Khan 2.0]

to account for the actors aging (it was kind of bizarre to set TMP not too long after TOS)

 

[wayoung]

TWOK had to explain why the Enterprise was no longer the star of the fleet but an old vessel relegated to training missions and it wanted one of its themes to centre around the ageing of Kirk, so instead of ignoring the gap between TOS and TMP like TMP did, they presented the gap as occurring between TMP and TWOK. Which, according to special features on the blue ray, was a bit of a fight - Shatner did not want to be portrayed as his actual age.

 

[J.T.B.]

A couple of things...

One, we don't know much about the time gap between TOS and TMP. All we are told is how long Kirk had held his latest Starfleet Command job and how long since he had logged a "star hour": two and a half years. There could still be plenty of time between the end of TOS and that.

Two, we don't know if Enterprise was a superannuated ship relegated to training, or if she was an up to date ship that happened to be assigned to training duties. Both types have been used historically for naval training.

 

[wayoung]

Dialogue in TSFS would suggest the former.

 

[Christopher]

The main reason is that the makers of TMP wanted to overlook the actors' aging, while the makers of TWOK wanted to embrace it and use it.

One, we don't know much about the time gap between TOS and TMP. All we are told is how long Kirk had held his latest Starfleet Command job and how long since he had logged a "star hour": two and a half years. There could still be plenty of time between the end of TOS and that.

But Kirk also cited "my five years out there," which means his last "star hour" can't have been more than a couple of years after the end of TOS (or more than a year after the end of TAS). And Scott, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov were only one grade higher in rank than they'd been in TOS, suggesting that not a lot of time had passed. By TWOK, not only had Sulu and Uhura jumped up one more grade to full commander, but Chekov had jumped up two grades to equal their rank, and become a first officer, a major step up in responsibility from his security-chief posting in TMP. That makes it pretty clear that there was a larger interval between TMP and TWOK than there was between the 5-year mission and TMP.

Also, we know from later canon that the 5-year mission ended in 2270 (per Voyager: "Q2") and that the TWOK-style uniforms were in use by 2278 (per our glimpse of the Bozeman in TNG: "Cause and Effect"). So we know TMP must have happened sometime between late 2272 and 2278. TWOK would be 2282 if it were 15 years after "Space Seed," but the Okudachron puts it in 2285, presumably since TFF has to be close to 20 years after "Balance of Terror" to account for Nimbus III's backstory. This date is supported by GEN, where Kirk ends his period of retirement with Antonia and goes back to Starfleet in 2284.

 

[DeepSpaceYorks]

The upshot of all this is that the time elapsed between the end of TOS and TMP seems too short and the gap between TMP and TWOK seems too big. Or at least it does to me anyway.

 

[mos6507]

Because WoK is kind of a do-over of TMP, and to prevent it from feeling too repetitious when watched back-to-back they had to create a missing gap of years (which some presume to mean a 2nd 5 year mission) plus back to desk duty.

 

[J.T.B.]

Dialogue in TSFS would suggest the former.

Good point, but OTOH dialogue in TWOK suggests that with an experienced crew back aboard Enterprise could be "galloping around the cosmos."

But Kirk also cited "my five years out there," which means his last "star hour" can't have been more than a couple of years after the end of TOS (or more than a year after the end of TAS). And Scott, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov were only one grade higher in rank than they'd been in TOS, suggesting that not a lot of time had passed. By TWOK, not only had Sulu and Uhura jumped up one more grade to full commander, but Chekov had jumped up two grades to equal their rank, and become a first officer, a major step up in responsibility from his security-chief posting in TMP. That makes it pretty clear that there was a larger interval between TMP and TWOK than there was between the 5-year mission and TMP.

I don't really disagree, I'm just saying TMP doesn't have to be 2.5-3 years max after TOS as is often stated. I always took Kirk's "five years out there" as a reference to the OS mission which may have set him apart from other captains or admirals whose experience was more routine. And Kirk had apparently advanced two steps, or three if fleet captain is a standard grade.

 

[Galileo7]

The main reason is that the makers of TMP wanted to overlook the actors' aging, while the makers of TWOK wanted to embrace it and use it.

But Kirk also cited "my five years out there," which means his last "star hour" can't have been more than a couple of years after the end of TOS (or more than a year after the end of TAS). And Scott, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov were only one grade higher in rank than they'd been in TOS, suggesting that not a lot of time had passed. By TWOK, not only had Sulu and Uhura jumped up one more grade to full commander, but Chekov had jumped up two grades to equal their rank, and become a first officer, a major step up in responsibility from his security-chief posting in TMP. That makes it pretty clear that there was a larger interval between TMP and TWOK than there was between the 5-year mission and TMP.

Also, we know from later canon that the 5-year mission ended in 2270 (per Voyager: "Q2") and that the TWOK-style uniforms were in use by 2278 (per our glimpse of the Bozeman in TNG: "Cause and Effect"). So we know TMP must have happened sometime between late 2272 and 2278. TWOK would be 2282 if it were 15 years after "Space Seed," but the Okudachron puts it in 2285, presumably since TFF has to be close to 20 years after "Balance of Terror" to account for Nimbus III's backstory. This date is supported by GEN, where Kirk ends his period of retirement with Antonia and goes back to Starfleet in 2284.

Agree.

 

[Christopher]

I don't really disagree, I'm just saying TMP doesn't have to be 2.5-3 years max after TOS as is often stated. I always took Kirk's "five years out there" as a reference to the OS mission which may have set him apart from other captains or admirals whose experience was more routine. And Kirk had apparently advanced two steps, or three if fleet captain is a standard grade.

Based on that alone, perhaps not. But since we have an absolute latest date of 2278, and since the junior officers have only gone up one rank grade (which probably happened as soon as they got back from the 5YM anyway), that cumulatively suggests an earlier time frame.

For what it's worth, only the movie itself is ambiguous about this. Roddenberry's novelization makes it clear that Kirk was promoted to the admiralty immediately after the end of the 5-year mission.

 

[FormerLurker]

A couple of things...

One, we don't know much about the time gap between TOS and TMP. All we are told is how long Kirk had held his latest Starfleet Command job and how long since he had logged a "star hour": two and a half years. There could still be plenty of time between the end of TOS and that.

Two, we don't know if Enterprise was a superannuated ship relegated to training, or if she was an up to date ship that happened to be assigned to training duties. Both types have been used historically for naval training.

Dialogue in TSFS would suggest the former.

Good point, but OTOH dialogue in TWOK suggests that with an experienced crew back aboard Enterprise could be "galloping around the cosmos."

If you have an older ship in good working order, "galloping around the cosmos" is not a problem. If, however, you have an older ship that just had the S**T kicked out of it, they're more likely to want to retire it.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Promotion levels are not always an accurate gauge of time passed. People can be promoted, demoted, then promoted again. Though nobody wants to believe that any of Kirk's senior staff were ever demoted as a result of bad behavior.

 

[F. King Daniel]

TMP ends with them triumphantly setting off together on a new mission. WoK opens with the crew having mostly moved on to (mostly) the twilight of their careers, training the next generation of Starfleet. It would be kind of strange for them to be close together chronologically.

Also perhaps the most important factor, according to an (unsourced) quote HERE, director Nick Meyer completely ignored The Motion Picture when he made Wrath of Khan ("the other film doesn't exist")

 

[J.T.B.]

Promotion levels are not always an accurate gauge of time passed. People can be promoted, demoted, then promoted again. Though nobody wants to believe that any of Kirk's senior staff were ever demoted as a result of bad behavior.

As a general rule, commissioned officers are not demoted; if they screw up bad enough they just take a very unrewarding route to their new position: civilian.

 

[Galileo7]

TMP ends with them triumphantly setting off together on a new mission. WoK opens with the crew having mostly moved on to (mostly) the twilight of their careers, training the next generation of Starfleet. It would be kind of strange for them to be close together chronologically.
Also perhaps the most important factor, according to an (unsourced) quote HERE, director Nick Meyer completely ignored The Motion Picture when he made Wrath of Khan ("the other film doesn't exist")

So basically, Meyers treated WOK as if it was the sequel to TOS/TAS and that TMP never happened? Bypassed.
Interesting, I did not know.
Similar to the soon to be made Alien 5 will be a direct sequel to Alien/Aliens and that Alien3/Alien:Resurrection did not happen.

 

[ItIsGreen]

So basically, Meyers treated WOK as if it was the sequel to TOS/TAS and that TMP never happened? Bypassed.
Interesting, I did not know.
Similar to the soon to be made Alien 5 will be a direct sequel to Alien/Aliens and that Alien3/Alien:Resurrection did not happen.

And Superman Returns, which is a direct sequel to Superman II and ignores III and IV.

It always surprised me how much the actors seemed to visibly age in the 3 years between TMP and TWOK (real time, not in-universe time, obviously). Shatner/Kirk passes for early forties in TMP, yet looks all of his 50 years in TWOK, and Nimoy/Spock looks much the same as he did in TOS in TMP, yet has become the jowly old-man Spock by the time TWOK rolls around. It makes the 10 or so in-universe years between the two believable in my book. Though it does disappoint me to see the shiny new Enterprise we saw in the first film suddenly outmoded and relegated to training duties in the very next one.

 

[Christopher]

It always surprised me how much the actors seemed to visibly age in the 3 years between TMP and TWOK (real time, not in-universe time, obviously). Shatner/Kirk passes for early forties in TMP, yet looks all of his 50 years in TWOK, and Nimoy/Spock looks much the same as he did in TOS in TMP, yet has become the jowly old-man Spock by the time TWOK rolls around.

I dunno, I think Nimoy did visibly age a good deal between TOS and TMP. (Must've been those harsh desert conditions at Gol.)

Then again, what's struck me about the two is the aging of Shatner's voice. In TMP, he didn't sound that different than he had in TOS, or at least in TAS. But in TWOK, his voice sounded older, deeper, rougher. And I think that may have been acting -- because when Shatner did Saturday Night Live in 1986 and performed the classic "Star Trek V: The Restaurant Enterprise" sketch, he did an amazing job recreating his TOS-era characterization of Kirk, as opposed to his movie-era characterization.

 

[ItIsGreen]

I dunno, I think Nimoy did visibly age a good deal between TOS and TMP. (Must've been those harsh desert conditions at Gol.)

When Shatner did Saturday Night Live in 1986 and performed the classic "Star Trek V: The Restaurant Enterprise" sketch, he did an amazing job recreating his TOS-era characterization of Kirk, as opposed to his movie-era characterization.

I said much the same, he's clearly older but nowhere near as old as he appears in TWOK.

I've never seen the Saturday Night Live sketch, but then I was only born in '83. And we don't really get SNL over here in Blighty.

 

[wayoung]

I dunno, I think Nimoy did visibly age a good deal between TOS and TMP. (Must've been those harsh desert conditions at Gol.)

Then again, what's struck me about the two is the aging of Shatner's voice. In TMP, he didn't sound that different than he had in TOS, or at least in TAS. But in TWOK, his voice sounded older, deeper, rougher. And I think that may have been acting -- because when Shatner did Saturday Night Live in 1986 and performed the classic "Star Trek V: The Restaurant Enterprise" sketch, he did an amazing job recreating his TOS-era characterization of Kirk, as opposed to his movie-era characterization.

I'd say part of that is due to Meyer - there's that old story of how he'd do take after take after take of Shatner as Kirk to wear down the over the topness of his performance, tiring him out to provide a more natural peeformance. The "It's coming through now Khan" bit being the biggest example, where Shatner kept trying to telegraph the trick and Meyer didn't want it telegraphed.