Star Trek VI

[Anonymouse]

Star Trek VI - A Critical Analysis (even if it's 35 years overdue!)

Let's get something straight. True fans of a franchise have 3 qualities:

1) We love a good parody. Case in point: the Robot Chicken sketches. I used to take part in blasphemous mickey-takes of Blake's 7 at the Redemption convention. Many focused on the alleged homoerotic elements (never saw 'em myself).

Example: we have Tarrant on one knee before Travis, with a posy of flowers, in Dayna's pink leather outfit. Avon comes in, and...we got stuck.

Until I came up with something which only makes this funny if you've seen the very last episode: Avon cries, "Is it true?! Have you...betrayed me?!"

Cue hysterical laughter. Then the moderator (that's a joke!) points out that it's not clear whom he's addressing, so both turn to him and cry, "No!"

We love the show. I for one am praying for a reboot. Yet for all our love and respect, we were making Terry Nation spin in his grave at Standard by Fifteen!

2) We welcome change within canon. Though I wasn't keen, I suppose the Star Trek reboot might fall into this category.

3) Most importantly, we are not blind to flaws.

The Undiscovered Country is a case in point. Flaws:

1) How was Excelsior close enough to Praxis to pick up on its destruction and offer 'assistance'? Neutral Zone, anybody?

2) The Federation and the Klingon Empire were fighting the only war they could - a cold one - since peace was forced on them by the Organians. Where were they, I'd like to know? Where were they when Kruge fired on the Enterprise? Or Klaa?

3) Starfleet wouldn't cease to exist if there was peace - contrary to what Admiral Cartwright seemed to think, Starfleet was not a military body. Oh, it used to be, true, but over time its scientific and exploration interests became far more important. Starfleet vessels were armed and shielded because, as Izlyr put it, "to preserve peace, it is first necessary to survive" - a starship's armament is meant to sort out those who don't understand that yet.
They wouldn't stop exploring just because there was peace. If anything, there would be more opportunities - surely there are strange new (to the Federation) worlds in the Empire. Smillie had it right.

4) The notion of having a language without its most basic verb, to be, is absurd. Marc Okuda really should have known better.

5) Surely someone on Kronos One would've seen the torpedoes coming from under the Enterprise?

7) Chekov saying, "If they fire, with our shields down, we will not be able to respond" - was understatement a 'Russian inwention', too? Bit difficult to respond to an attack if you're dead.

7) For Colonel West to use a paper chart to explain Operation Retrieve is also absurd. Computers, anybody?

8) Don't even get me started on the idea of refuse aboard a starship. Or uniforms kept in drawers. No need for either - they have synthesisers for uniforms and food, and recycling. Even on a starship, space is at a premium - they haven't room for such things. I couldn't stop my wince at that.

9) Ludicrous to suppose the gravity boots couldn't be disposed of undetectably. On a starship? Please. Doubtless there were several ways.

10) Speaking of detection, how come alarms never went off before when a phaser was fired?

11) And - chefs? Using pots and pans? A galley? On a starship with food synthesisers?! Oh, come on!

12) 'Valeris' is not a typical female Vulcan name; they usually begin with a T and an apostrophe, e.g. T'Pau or T'Pring. The novelisation does a better job, giving context to what sounds like a Klingon name. Saavik was so named because she was written to be half-Rihannsu (I liked Carolyn Clowes' translation of it, 'Little Cat', in The Pandora Principle).

13) No Vulcan (especially not one trained by Spock!) would make such a stupid mistake as trying to frame Crewman Dax, a Zeosian, with the boots. Intended as comic relief, true, but IMO too absurd to be funny.

14) Nor would a Vulcan fall for Kirk's ruse of pretending Burke and Samno (who, come to think of it, would never even have gotten into Starfleet with such racist attitudes) were injured but alive. There are several ways to kill a human without using weapons...and a Vulcan would have made certain both were dead.

15) Spock's treatment of Valeris - a forced mind-meld - would be considered mental rape by Vulcans. He would never do such a heinous thing, even for "the needs of the many". Again, the novelisation says he asked her, rather than forcing the issue - much more in character.

16) Uhura was way out of character. She is much more than a mere switchboard operator; I refuse to believe an expert linguist like her couldn't speak Klingonaase (to use the more correct term established by John M. Ford). That scene, too, made me wince (plus a real book, with paper? Nonsense - Kirk has them, but only because he's a traditionalist). They should've explained, as the novelisation did, that the computers had been got at by Valeris.

17) Related point - no way would a computer programmed by Spock be so vulnerable to subversion.

18) And while we're at it, shouldn't Morska Outpost have detected that Enterprise was very far from being a Klingon ship? For that matter, how did they evade the border patrol?

19) "He was just about to explain the whole thing" - oh, come on. Were they seriously saying someone as smart as Kirk hadn't worked it out already? An obvious member of the old guard like Chang?
Though I did like Chekov saying incredulously, "You want to go back?!"

20) The equipment to catalogue gaseous anomalies - wasn't that on Excelsior?

Not that it still wasn't a good film; it was. But still.

[Jaymoss]

cheesy as hell but it is one of my fave Star Trek Movies although I love em all except the God one

[Anonymouse]

Oh, V. Let's not. Too rushed. They didn't make enough of a passionate Vulcan. SFX were terrible, so obviously CGI. The only thing at the centre of our galaxy is (we think) a supermassive black hole.

The first has, a little unfairly, been called The (Slow) Motion Picture. The Director's Cut is an improvement. II was good (though I do think that something as dangerous as Genesis would be more strictly controlled by Starfleet). III had its points. IV was pure fun. Generations, Insurrection, Nemesis - all had their points. First Contact - brilliant except for shooting itself in the foot re the Borg Queen.
Marina was terrific comic relief. "This is no time to argue about time! We don't! Have! The time!" (pause) "What was I saying?"
Data played the Borg Queen like his favourite violin. Classic strategy - pretend to go along with the baddie. Even I was convinced - until the torpedoes missed the Phoenix. If he weren't virtually certain to fail the Bridge Officer's Test, I'd say he should be promoted.
Of course he would. He would logically deduce the true purpose of the Test - to determine whether or not the candidate has the moxie to sacrifice a crewman, like the submarine captains in WWII - and refuse to do any such thing. With his engineering knowledge he would analyse all possible solutions...and realise that the only viable one was to sacrifice a crewman. Of course he would fail it.