Line #65 Headscratchers/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier


1	[[foldercontrol]]
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3	[[folder: The creature has been imprisoned for an eternity in this place]]
4	* Couldn’t he bluff a while longer before going all Armus on the away team?
5	** The entity's appearance in ''Literature/TheQContinuum''- which identifies the entity as 'The One', the alleged inventor of monotheism- establishes it as a very arrogant entity who likely didn't have the patience to play along when it saw it as easier to resort to threats.
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8	[[folder:Romulan ships need not apply]]
9	* Sybok's whole reason for invading Paradise City and holding the population for ransom was to get his hands on a starship. The thing is, a new Romulan Ambassador showed up on the planet minutes before the attack. Why didn't Sybok and co. just nab that one? There was a good chance it was still orbiting the planet, since the Ambassador didn't seem to have time to tell her ship that she'd met up with her Federation and Klingon counterparts and all was well. Or, if it had left, shouldn't it logically have been the first ship to arrive at Nimbus III when the distress calls went out, since it couldn't have been all that far away, even at high Warp?
10	** Nimbus III was not a great assignment; in fact, ''Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry'' shows that the Romulan government actually has an ambassador on Earth, so Nimbus III representative was completely useless. It's unlikely that anybody who was given the position of ambassador to that world was particularly favored by the government that sent them there. Add that to the fact that the Neutral Zone is a DMZ, and it seems unlikely that the Romulans would assign a warship to drop her off. Sybok needed something fast and powerful like a cruiser to get where he needed to go, and to get anyone to send one, he needed a crisis. He's just lucky that Starfleet responded first, as the Romulans or the Klingons probably would have resolved the situation with much more violence.
11	*** The novelization does state the Romulans had already decided not to negotiate or otherwise intervene, and that Ambassador Dar was expendable as far as they were concerned.
12	** Which makes the plan even more foolish since Sybok's only hope is to steal a Starfleet vessel, because if the Romulans or Klingons get there first then they'll all be killed.
13	*** The Klingon ambassador, Koord, has explicitly been given the Nimbus III assignment because he's out of favor. The Klingons were hardly likely to rustle up the cavalry for his sake.
14	*** They might have... it's Klingons, after all, they'd probably be pretty big on the principle of the thing. ("You dare threaten one of our people, even if it is that miserable pah'tok Koord?!") Sybok may have just planned to do or have one of his acolytes do some really fast talking if it was the Romulans or Klingons that showed up.
15	*** In addition to the above, Sybok may have been planning on using his grief-relieving mind-meld technique to pull over any other rescue party to his side should the Klingons or Romulans have arrived first. He had several hundred people following him. All he would have had to do is order them to crowd around the captain of whatever vessel arrived, and stealthily place his hand on them. Once their pain was gone, they would be so thankful to him that they would immediately order their crew to stand down.
16	** Given that Romulans are portrayed as being sneaky and use cloaking devices, it's entirely possible that a Romulan warbkrd was at Nimbus 3 and went, "Oh, Klingons and Starfleet are already here? Let's wait and see what happens."
17	** Most importantly the plan relied on Starfleet sending an undercrewed ship without functional transporters so they had to send a shuttle with a party that could be captured and brought to the ship for an easy take over. If that happened the hostages would have just been immediately beamed up and taken to safety with Sybok and his men left on the planet with no way up. And even if Sybok ordered them to try a takeover there's no way three people could take over a fully crewed starship before they were arrested.
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20	[[folder:Gone to Center of Galaxy, Be Back in a Sec]]
21	* In Star Trek V, the Final Frontier, the Enterprise travels to the center of the galaxy in just a few hours. For the sake of my argument, let's just say they did it in 3 hours. That's, more or less, 26,000 light years in 3 hours. Now, on Voyager, Janeway and the gang get displaced 70,000 light years. And it's going to take them 70 years or so to get home. If this is the case, why in the hell didn't Janeway travel at the same speed that Kirk did in Star Trek V? She could have gotten back to earth in less than 10 hours. Plus, she's even in a more advanced ship than Kirk's.
22	** You thought ''Film/{{Star Trek V\|The Final Frontier}}'' was actually supposed to make sense?
23	** God did it. Kirk killed him.
24	** This is precisely why this editor does not view Star Trek V as canon. There has been a theory on [[http://www.ditl.org this website]], somewhere that there was a "warp highway" to the centre of the galaxy, a warp highway being a region of space where your warp engine power is enhanced so you go faster with less fuel. And the reason Janeway and co couldn't use it? They only exist for a finite amount of time.
25	*** Canon is not what you choose or not it is what´s official.
26	** Who said it was "The centre of the galaxy"? A crazy person with a messiah complex and people who had been mind controlled by said crazy person. Personally I wouldn't trust his directions to the head.
27	*** I know this isn't really what the movie had in mind, but maybe it can be ret-conned as saying that it wasn't the physical center of the galaxy, but what the Vulcans used to believe was the "spiritual" center, a region of space mysteriously blocked off by the Great Barrier. If there's a discrepancy in the Star Trek universe between the visible galaxy and the dark matter halo around it, maybe the Barrier surrounds the halo's center, which happens to be a whole, whole lot closer to Earth than the real galactic core
28	** This is just one of the more egregious Star Trek speed errors. TNG had the Enterprise end up over 2 MILLION light years from Earth and Data says that it would take approximately 100 years to get home. By contrast, Voyager going 70,000 light years would taken 70 years. That means the Enterprise D could go 20 times faster than Voyager... it's fair to say that writers really need to try and leave distances out because they ALWAYS screw them up and end up traveling at the speed of plot.
29	*** Warp 10 = 1,000c; the Designated top Speed applies WITHIN the Galaxy. 2M ly is empty space BETWEEN galaxies. Maybe you can go faster if there ain't all these frackin stars in the way?
30	*** Exactly this. Going to Warp 10 ''within'' the Galaxy means you could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova... Sorry, wrong franchise!
31	*** Four days from Earth to Qo'noS at Warp 5. 'nuff said.
32	** Remember the TNG episode "The Nth Degree?" An alien species living near the center of the Galaxy, who just appeared as incorporeal giant floating heads, contacted a single, very special mind and gave his brain a boost, so he was able to bring the ship there in no time. Maybe "God" was an insane, criminal member of that species, imprisoned behind the Great Barrier by his fellows?
33	*** That, or they knew the location of a stable wormhole that would speed up the trip, [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine such things]] being [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality common]] in Star Trek; of course, the key difference being God was on the other side of this one as opposed to [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien inside it]]...
34	** Also likely a mistake, since according to the other wiki, it had been known since 1974 (and perhaps postulated for some time prior) that there was a black hole with about 4.31 million solar masses at the centre of the galaxy, as well as a lot of stars densely packed together surrounding it, so travel there in real life would be suicide anyways.
35	*** Did anyone on the Enterprise say "exact center"? "The planet at the center" could just mean whatever is closest to the mathematical[=/=]exact center.
36	** Surely though, as Star Trek V came first, the mistake is with Voyager and not this film? And in regards to the black hole, just because it exists in the real world, doesn't mean it has to exist here. It may have started out as just ''the future'', but even if you want to retcon the eugenics wars in 1996, 2024 will see the sanctuary districts of San Francisco and 2026 will see world war 3.
37	** In the seventh season of ST:TNG, a scientist discovered that conventional warp drives were causing serious damage to the fabric of space, and all ships were put on a Warp 5 'speed limit' until the problem could be solved. Supposedly Voyager had a newer engine that didn't cause the damage (or, at least, not to the same extent). But as there was an alteration to the way that Warp Speed was calculated between TOS (where Warp 12 was a possibility) and TNG (where Warp 10 was supposed to be 'infinity', we can't conclude altogether that the same speeds by the same names apply. We have no real way to calculate how Voyager's speed relates to Enterprise's speed, though no doubt several Trekkies have attempted it.
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40	[[folder: Do Not Use Toilet In Spacedock]]
41	* There is a toilet in the brig that warns: "DO NOT USE WHILE IN SPACEDOCK". So... why ''would'' there be a problem with this? Maybe it's just sadistic SchmuckBait for the rule breakers in the brig? And nobody [[{{Pun}} gives a crap]] when they ''[[PottyEmergency need]]'' to take a crap, of course.
42	** However, this might be a joke. In the Netherlands you are prohibited to use the toilet in the train while it is parked at a station. Because of the fact that you are crapping down a tube down straight onto the tracks.
43	** Possibly that's when they detach and clean the pipes which would otherwise connect the ship's toilets to a replicator/recycler.
44	** Once you get to Spacedock, whoever is in the brig is taken to the Spacedock's brig. There shouldn't be anyone except maintenance in there anyway, so not flushing could mean the difference between sucking Ricky Redshirt out into space.
45	*** Presumably there must be some working lavatories onboard for those maintenance crews to use--hopefully something more comfortable and private than a fold-away prison toilet.
46	*** It might be that the toilet simply ejects waste matter out into space, and maintenance-guy-in-spacesuit doesn't want to be hit by random person's flying faeces in such a confined environment such as spacedock. Of course, this method of waste disposal would be highly inefficient for starships on long journeys when some sort of recycling might be in order.
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49	[[folder: George? Who's George?]]
50	* After the death of Sybok, Kirk offers Spock comfort in what should be a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment\|s}}, saying "I lost a brother once. I was lucky to get him back." Kirk's obviously referencing Spock, and the events of Star Trek II and III, and when Kirk says that he lost a brother, both [=McCoy=] and Spock give a small look of surprise before they realize who Kirk is talking about. The thing is, Kirk ''did'' loose his actual brother, George Kirk, who died horribly in ''[[Recap/StarTrekS1E29OperationAnnihilate Operation Annihilate!]]''. In fact, both Spock and Bones were with Kirk on the landing party that found George's corpse. Doesn't that kind of move Kirks statement to Spock from heartwarming to borderline sociopathy?
51	** It's quite possible that Kirk was [[HoYay MUCH]] closer to Spock than he ever was to George. It's not sociopathy to be distant from your nuclear family.
52	** The way the quote is delivered and phrase is also rather specific. It's not denying the fact that George existed or even forgetting about him, it's simply referencing Spock's death and rebirth.
53	*** Exactly. Kirk could hypothetically have said "I lost two brothers. I was lucky to get one of them back." But no doubt that would be confusing for audience members without long memories. But nothing about the wording as is excludes losing a second brother.
54	*** I thought that Kirk was referring to the loss of his biological brother and implying that Spock had replaced George in his life. However, this slights [=McCoy=]. Kirk should have said "I lost a brother once. I was lucky; I got him back. ''[Looks at Spock and then [=McCoy=]]'' I got him back twice."
55	* WordOfGod says Kirk was talking about ''memorializing'' him, not actual resurrection.
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58	[[folder: Here's a Warship, Go Do Whatever]]
59	* What's going on with Klaa, the commander of the Klingon bird-of-prey? He's introduced to us when he destroys Pioneer 10, which WebSite/SFDebris points out will only be barely outside our solar system (Starfleet headquarters and the capitol of the Federation) by the 23[[superscript:rd]] century. He takes on the mission to Nimbus III just because he's bored, and on his own initiative, he launches an unprovoked attack on ''Enterprise'' which was engaged in rescuing diplomats (including a Klingon official) from a hostage situation. Then, he follows ''Enterprise'' literally to the center of the galaxy just to launch another unprovoked attack. Does Klaa answer to the Klingon military? If he does, why would it allow Klaa to so casually risk war with the Federation ''and''--considering the Romulan ambassador aboard ''Enterprise'', and their eagerness to kill Klingons at the slightest provocation--the Romulan Empire?
60	** Pioneer 10 being as far out as it was could be an example of SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale. Even Voyager 1 hasn't left our Solar System yet (as of 2013), but ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' had a fictional Voyager ''6'' far enough out of our solar system to be sucked into a black hole.
61	*** Well, if I remember correctly, Star Trek: The Motion Picture had a wormhole appearing smack-dab between Jupiter and Saturn all due to a warp imbalance.
62	*** Of course the use of warp drive in any sense could have led to any number of things happening to those old space probes that could have dragged them wildly off course and/or much further away than they were supposed to be. The probe could have accidentally been trapped inside some ship's warp bubble and dragged along for the ride, or such.
63	** At the end, Klaa is seen apologizing to Kirk for his actions (with Koord looming over him intimidatingly) and emphasizing that his actions were taken without approval of the High Council. Basically, since he didn't actually manage to hurt anyone, and his following of the ''Enterprise'' led to the rescue of Kirk, he wasn't executed for his violating his orders (probably something along the lines of "here's a sector, stay here and patrol it"). If you look closely in the [[{{Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry}} next film]] you can see that Klaa has been removed from starship command and put on translation duty, so it's obvious that he pissed someone off, but not enough to get executed for it.
64	** To the Klingons, Kirk is a wanted criminal who basically got away scot-free for killing a Klingon lord and capturing a Bird-of-Prey. Maybe Klaa figured that delivering his head on a silver platter would get him a promotion.
65	** Assuming ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'' is anything to go by, Klingon houses seem to either have their own private fleets or ships which the Imperial[?] fleet has withdrawn from service.
66	*** That was more-or-less confirmed during the Klingon Civil War on ''TNG''. You could even argue that it was heavily implied as far back as ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'' -- notice that Kruge's subordinates address him as "Lord," a title of nobility, rather than any military title or rank. Many of the Klingon great houses ''do'' seem to have fleets of their own, which are presumably levied to the Klingon Defense Force in wartime.
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69	[[folder: We need James Kirk]]
70	* Kirk protests the Enterprise being sent on the mission since its a mess. He says that there has to be other ships and the admiral says that they have working ships but no experienced captains. Why not just have Kirk take command of one of those ships for the duration of the mission?
71	** Maybe Starfleet is a little over-sensitive about Kirk taking over command of a starship from its regular captain, since whenever he does it the former captain inevitably ends up dead? Sure Spock got better, but Decker has never been heard from again.
72	*** They don't die ''every'' time. Christopher Pike was only crippled and horribly disfigured, not killed.
73	*** As it stands, Kirk didn't take over command of the Enterprise from its regular captain; Pike was promoted to fleet captain, and Kirk transfered to the Enterprise as his replacement, as opposed to the other two instances where it was as Admiral Kirk, thus their superior officer. Also, Decker x Ilia x Voyager evolved into a non-corporeal life form, so I'd hardly call him dead. Still, the point is taken.
74	*** Honestly what I thought the obvious answer is simply this. Kirk was just demoted to Captain for committing a several breaches of conduct and disobeying orders, and while saving the Earth from the Probe and his general character and heroism caused them to just kick him back down to what he was best at, Starfleet was likely still a little sore at his flagrant disregard of the rules and/or not wanting him to get a big head about breaking rules and getting both away with it and everything he wanted from the situation as well. Thus it was basically hazing. Kick him off shoreleave in a crappy not fixed ship to go negotate with or get into a shootout with a bunch of poor farmers on a planet nobody cared about, for the sake of a bunch of politcians that also nobody cares about. A rather unpleasant but easily doable mission just to remind Kirk where he stands at the moment. The Vulcan having magic mindcontrol powers to brainwash everyone to serve him wasn't something they were counting on.
75	*** Given that the politicians, albeit ones who were ReassignedToAntarctica, are representatives of governments that the Federation has tense relationships with, it still seems like a risky move politically, especially considering the recent controversy with Genesis and the Klingons, and based on the Klingon Ambassador's threat, it seems that there are extremists within the Klingon government who are itching for any excuse to avenge the fallen Klingons. It's unknown if Gorkon or any other cooler heads were in charge at this point. The fact that Kirk, in this scenario, would have been the one in charge seems like another risky move, given his part in the Genesis situation.
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78	[[folder: Leaving the Caitian to drown]]
79	* When Kirk first enters the bar in Paradise City, he's attacked by a Caitian woman. Of course he's able to fend her off, and at the end of the fight she's left unconscious face down in a pool of water, her last breath bubbling out of her. It seems very uncharacteristic for Kirk to leave her to drown like that, and for Spock to not intervene either.
80	** "Uncharacteristic" is certainly the word. The movie is full of uncharacteristic characterization, which is why the fans don't much like it. Maybe everybody knew that Caitians (if that's what she was) are actually fully amphibious, and she'll be fine once she wakes up.
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82	[[folder: Why Redecorate the Bridge?]]
83	* The Bridge of the ''Enterprise-A'' in this movie looks totally different from the bridge of the ''Enterprise-A'' at the end of ''IV''. Scotty implies that they left spacedock and were immediately in trouble. So with Scotty having more than enough to do to get the ship working, who decided to completely remodel the bridge? Incidentally, it looks totally different again in the next movie.
84	** It probably wasn't a remodel, exactly. I don't know if there are any references to it in canon, but a lot of background material suggests that the bridges on most Starfleet ships are replaceable modules that can be swapped out relatively easily; which is what presumably happened between movies.
85	** That would explain ''how'' they did it, but not really ''why'' they did it. Did Scotty think swapping the bridge module would solve the ship's problems? If so then he was wrong.
86	** That would be my guess. Scotty was hoping that the new bridge module would interface with the ship's systems better--he just underestimated how much of a lemon the new ''Enterprise'' is at this point. As for the reason the bridge changed again between this movie and the next, the ship clearly goes through a pretty major overhaul in the interim (the warp core and engine room become visually identical to that of the ''Enterprise''-D by ''The Undiscovered Country'', for example[[note]] Which was due to time and budget constraints that made redressing the ''TNG'' engineering set impractical--you can even spot a ''TNG''-style computer console that they apparently forgot to cover with the movie-era graphics.[[/note]]), so swapping the ''Star Trek V'' module for the seemingly more advanced version from ''The Undiscovered Country'' may have just been a part of that general upgrade.
87	** In the book ''Captain's Log: William Shatner's Personal Account of the Making of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier'' by Shatner's daughter Lisabeth, it was explained that all the sets from the previous movies had been scrapped requiring the construction of a new bridge set and other ''Enterprise'' interiors (when they didn't outright reuse sets from TNG). Also the book explained that the previous bridge set had been hard to film in, and the chairs were quite uncomfortable for the performers. The new bridge set was designed to address these shortcomings, and it was then decided to rationalize the different appearances by stating the bridge was a self-contained, replaceable module.
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90	[[folder:Why Didn't Ya Just Shoot God?]]
91	* ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'''s SealedEvilInACan proves to be easily destroyed by a single torpedo, so you'd think anyone who could seal off the center of the galaxy could have dealt with him with ''much'' less fuss.
92	** Maybe he used to be more powerful, but he spent so much in time the center of the galaxy cut off from his power source that his power waned considerably.
93	** Or whoever sealed him off didn't want to kill him. Not every culture has capital punishment, even for a NegativeSpaceWedgie with a God complex.
94	** Maybe he would have deflected the torpedo quite easily, had he not been blinded by rage at a pesky Starfleet Captain.
95	** The torpedo didn't kill him. He reforms a minute or so later and continues attacking Kirk, until the Bird of Prey (which could fly down to surface level unlike the Enterprise) appears and blows "God" up again with it's disruptors. Presumably it also reformed from that again a short while later, but by then both ships were out of it's range.
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98	[[folder:So Many Galactic Barriers, So Little Time]]
99	* ...and wasn't that barrier at the ''edge'' of the galaxy?
100	** Different barrier. And why assume that the barrier was made by someone? It could just be a natural phenomenon that someone took advantage of to trap the BigBad. Or Fake God got stuck in some cosmic flypaper and managed to smuggle out rumors of "paradise" to the outside galaxy before he was fully entangled. Likewise, we don't actually ''know'' that Fake God was destroyed, he might be merely indisposed.
101	** The Main/ExpandedUniverse tells the story of the villain ''that'' barrier was made to protect the galaxy from, sealing the evil ''out'' of the can, and references his underling from The Final Frontier.
102	** It could be the same barrier, just that it envelopes the entire galaxy three-dimensionally in the shape of a flat torus with a small gap in the middle.
103	[[/folder]]
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105	[[folder: The Other Middle Of The Galaxy]]
106	* No one's ever been to the center of the galaxy... Except for, you know, James T. Kirk and his crew during their original 5 year mission, according to WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries, specifically The Magicks of Megas-Tu. They even meet Satan there, keeping the theme!
107	** Shows how much they cared about TAS at the time (or continuity in general, really).
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110	[[folder: How many of Sybok's followers were on that shuttle?]]
111	* It doesn't appear that there were that many of Sybok's followers on the shuttle for their trip back to the ''Enterprise''. Aside from Sybok and the ambassadors it looks like only a few of his soldiers were on the shuttle, not nerely as many as were on the ''Enterprise'' as she raced towards the Great Barrier. It appeared that after they left Nimbus III they went straight to the Barrier without swinging back to Nimbus III to pick up some more followers.

Context Headscratchers / StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier