Lum
141
Start crying.
(Edit: d’oh, beaten by the need to provide a link!)
As for the Kobyashi Maru, it was pretty clearly Kirk had a personal interest in the matter. His father had died in a similar situation, and that drove his intense, almost religious distaste for no-win scenarios (which Wrath of Khan explored as well). So I could totally see him being a raging dickhead in that sequence.
Early 1990’s, actually - Khan was supposed to have been dictator of Asia by 1992. Ironically, they had never edited that in canon. Even after the 90’s came and went. It was just dealt with using ‘eh, whatever’ handwaving, which resulted in an episode written in the 21st century specifically invoking the Eugenics Wars as taking place in the 20th. (Admittedly, one in a series of Enterprise’s more huh-inducing writing decisions…)
Athryn
142
I see your Fourth season episode and raise you a First Season one.
They totally would have gone further with that whole Data/Yar thing if the actress hadn’t made the dumb choice of bailing after the first season.
XPav
143
I think she was afraid it would ruin her career.
GOOD MOVE
They actually did it more than once. He got busy with Tasha Yar, and had a brief relationship with an Enterprise crew member.
EDIT: Damn, should have known better than to try to be the first to post geek facts in a Star Trek thread.
Dude, they’re Romulon. I wouldn’t be surprised if their baby carriages had photon torpedoes.
Also I’m willing to bet the Romulon mining ships don’t care if someone is living on the planets that they strip mine so the probably have weaons on board to deal with the locals.
Editer
147
A couple of nits unpicked:
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Spock’s ship could take out the mining platform because it’s the fastest ship in the galaxy. A normal ship would have been torpedoed into nonexistence by Nero before it got close enough.
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Nero’s mining ship, per Countdown, was enhanced by Romulan “use only in case of doomsday” super-tech. It was originally much smaller and less pointy.
Case
148
I just thought of a big plot hole, albeit one they could have worked into the plot. I know this was more of a “character origin” story, than plot driven, but…
I’m Nero. I’ve just emerged into space 130 years in the past, after watching my planet blow up. Why don’t I just hightail it to the Romulan Empire to tell them what happened?
The way this could have worked into the plot was simple. At this point in Federation history, the Romulan Empire is highly militaristic and expansionist (eg, “Balance of Terror.”) The Fedreation and Romulus face each other across the neutral zone. The Romulans, believing Nero, could have launched a massive surprise attack, tying up all major Federation fleet assets while Nero goes on his rampage. You could even have a throwaway line about a Romulan physicist telling Nero they believe Spock Prime would show up around a particular date, based on their calculations.
Nero gets his revenge and the Romulans get their revenge (over the earlier Federation-Romulan war), as well as emerge as a superpower to counter what’s left of the Federation and the Klingons.
With most of the fleet tied up, beating back the Romulans (instead of the Klingons, as alluded to in the movie), it would explain why only a handful of officers and some senior cadets were available for the Vulcan rescue mission.
That would have been somewhat more believable than Nero waiting, Ahab-like, for Spock Prime to emerge at some unknown time, from the anomaly.
I was wondering during the movie why they never tried to shoot the platform since Spock took it out so handily, but then it dawned on me that it could be explained away by the fact that the older tech didn’t seem to be effective at all against the ship. The only two times the platform was disabled weapons from the future were involved (although that begs the question, why the hell did Kirk decide to linger around the event horizon of a black hole shooting spitwads at a doomed ship when he should have been hightailing it the hell out of there?).
One inanity semi-solved, hundreds to go…
Much as it pains me to defend this movie, it was made clear that Nero would only be satisfied if he captured Spock before going on his rampage, and since he had absolutely no guarantee that Spock wouldn’t pop into that past a few seconds after Nero started warping to Romulus there was no way he would budge.
I agree that’s a stupid-ass way to run a Romulan planet-smashing mining vessel from the future, but within the context laid out by the movie it was one of the few things that actually made sense.
It ultimately doesn’t help Nero though. Even if he warns the Romulans his wife is still dead and everyone he knows is still dead etc.
Yeah I took Nero’s refusal to go warn the Romulans as basically a sign that he was a) not very bright and b) very selfish. Essentially a very common sort of man coping with an extraordinary tragedy in a very petty way.
Star Trek villains (and sci-fi villains more generally) are usually shown off as being extraordinary in some fashion so I found it interesting that Nero deviated from this mold pretty bluntly. He was a product of an extraordinary circumstance but otherwise basically an angry thug.
bloo
153
Spock and Uhura making beautiful music together:
Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I was never a faithful watcher of Next Gen or the previous ten Star Trek movies. I saved myself for JJ Abrahms!
They have 130 or so years to prevent the destruction of the Romulus with such advance warning. Hell, they have Spock’s ship and red matter too!
Equis
156
I think Nero is more pissed about his wife’s death than the destruction of his planet. He’s a man on a revenge quest, not a noble plan of salvation. He’s a miner, a thug, not a high-minded aristocrat with the affairs of his people at heart. It’s the key difference between him and Spock, who lost his mother in the Romulan attack.
The dichotomy could have been made clearer but it would still have been lost amidst the operatic space battles.
Yeah, and even if they managed to save his wife (and Romulus) in this alternate future, he’s still not going to see her again, because he’ll be dead by then.
Rywill
158
I don’t see why. Spock lives from this time to that time. It’s just another big plot hole, but I guess they fill it by saying that Nero is insane (that’s why he’s named Nero! He’s fiddling while Romulus burns!) over the loss, and I guess we assume the entire crew of his ship is as well, or something. It really doesn’t make a lot of sense.
noun
159
Something else I really liked: Kirk gets bloodied a lot. This actually makes total sense. It doesn’t matter how much of a badass you are, if you routinely get into fights out of your weight class in real life (multiple opponents, opponents significantly stronger than yourself) you are going to get badly hurt. I’m glad they took this route and didn’t make Kirk a superninja fighter.
