New Star Trek Movie

[Alias]

I remember reading in one of the technical manuals that each warp factor is 10x as fast as the one before. Hence Warp 1 is the speed of light, Warp 4 is 1000c and seems to be the cruising speed of most ships in the Star Trek Universe. Enterprise NCC-1701 can reach Warp 8 reliably and 9 for brief periods and there seems to be some sort of warp barrier around 10.

So fast, but how fast and how far?

Warp 8 is 10,000,000 times the speed of light.

There are 31,536,000 seconds in a year.

So, at Warp 8 a light year can be crossed in 3.15 seconds.

So Alpha Centauri can be reached in a little under 13 seconds. That's the closest star to the sun.

The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across. A ship going Warp 8 crosses this distance in 315,360 seconds, or 3.65 DAYS.

This is the sort of speeds we see in Star Wars, let alone Star Trek. In both instances vehicles move at the speed of plot. In Empire Strikes back the Millenium Falcon moves across two star systems at "sublight" speed in no more than 6 months...

And Star Trek has similiar inconsistencies for again, the speed the ships go at the speed they need to go for the plot and different sources always conflict. Also it's hard to give an impression of a passage of time in a one hour episode.

[kamikasei]

I remember reading in one of the technical manuals that each warp factor is 10x as fast as the one before. Hence Warp 1 is the speed of light, Warp 4 is 1000c and seems to be the cruising speed of most ships in the Star Trek Universe. Enterprise NCC-1701 can reach Warp 8 reliably and 9 for brief periods and there seems to be some sort of warp barrier around 10.

Hmmm, where did you read that?

The official line so far as I recall is that in TOS-era Trek warp factors were the cube root of the multiple of c, so that warp 10 was 1000c, and so on. TNG-era warp factors had been recalibrated so that speed = factor^(10/3), which gives you warp 8 = 1024c. On the TNG scale, warp 10 is "infinite speed", so the exponent rapidly rises between 9 and 10 - speeds above warp 9 have to be determined based on a hand-drawn curve by one of the technical consultants, not according to any formula. Of course, these speeds aren't consistently adhered to anywhere - except, as it happens, when they talk about Voyager's transit time (but not, of course, within the show itself!).

My favourite explanation for the mess is that the actual speed is determined by an additional factor somehow based on the space being traversed, so that the same warp factor is faster in some places than in others - a pity they never actually make use of this notion in the show, as it opens up interesting story possibilities.

[Dervag]

They're Federation timecops. Chances are that in their time, there's some sort of complicated arrangement or treaty that each power's own timecops don't mess with other powers' business - otherwise the end result would be a continually-shifting time war scenario.

So maybe Nero's out of their jurisdiction. Which means that it would be down to the Romulan timecops to stop Nero. And hey - maybe they don't care!

Or there are no Romulan timecops, because the explosion of Romulus killed them all.

Or the whole thing is an elaborate plot by a bored Q and any timecops who tried to come to the rescue are now caught in intriguing but unescapable temporal knots. Or something like that.
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I agree. I have a couple of personal nitpicks to go along with this. In TNG, there was an episode where the Enterprise had to undergo a 50,000 light year overhaul. This after only 4 or 5 years. Voyager had to go 70,000 lys, so scaling that means they were only 7 years or so out of reach, a lot less drama if that's the case.

Although still some; seven years out of contact with one's home base is a very significant voyage. But it does kill the extreme drama, because you can be pretty confident that they can make the trip. And it still justifies them trying to find clever ways to shorten the trip, having to economize on resources, and so on.
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What WAS a direct problem that somebody on the show should have noticed is with the "geography" of Trek space was in DS9, where DEEP Space Nine is apparently only 1 day's travel from Earth.

Yes, that's a problem, and a serious one.[/quote]

Just in general, they never did a very good job of creating a sense of time and distance, and I always felt that was something that really could have added to the depth of the universe in exchange for just a little work. Some of the writers of the reference books have tried to retcon a lot of it, but since they're working from almost no data, it was never very satisfying.

I agree, the astrography is terrible. But at least there was a definite sense of "it's a big galaxy, the regions we've never seen are much bigger than the ones we have seen, and it's going to take centuries for that to stop being true." You lose that sense when you've got "cross the galaxy in half an hour" FTL travel, but not when it takes half a decade or half a century.
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As well, there's some real fridge logic/wall banger in that the Vulcans have had warp drive for hundreds of years, yet they didn't create a single colony?
I know the Vulcans are more insular then most humans, but it still makes little/no sense.

They did create a colony. It was called Romulus. Look how well that turned out. Maybe it's just as well if the Vulcans didn't do much colonizing. My feeling is that they're a species full of great potential to go horribly, horribly wrong, and that the rest of the galaxy should be very glad that the main Vulcan culture didn't do so. If they were in the business of creating many offshoots of the main culture, things might be a lot less stable.
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I remember reading in one of the technical manuals that each warp factor is 10x as fast as the one before. Hence Warp 1 is the speed of light, Warp 4 is 1000c and seems to be the cruising speed of most ships in the Star Trek Universe.

I do not remember hearing this, and I remember far more sources assuming speeds on the order of 1000c for everything, not just for poky stuff travelling at Warp 4.

I don't think warp factors are exponential (as in 10^x).

Or, put another way, is the Next Generation Enterprise ten thousand times faster than Captain Archer's Enterprise? I very much doubt it. To make matters worse, the original series and the next-generation era use mutually inconsistent definitions of "warp factor." The system got revamped in between somewhere.
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This is the sort of speeds we see in Star Wars, let alone Star Trek. In both instances vehicles move at the speed of plot. In Empire Strikes back the Millenium Falcon moves across two star systems at "sublight" speed in no more than 6 months...

I always figured they either had a backup slow-FTL drive, or that they managed to jury-rig the ship to make a short, slow voyage but absolutely needed repairs to restore full function to the drive and get back to zipping around the galaxy.

And Star Trek has similiar inconsistencies for again, the speed the ships go at the speed they need to go for the plot and different sources always conflict. Also it's hard to give an impression of a passage of time in a one hour episode.

True, but I get the feeling that we have more examples of ships spending days in transit between stars than we do of ships spending hours or minutes. It's not consistent, so I go with whatever I think is most common.

[Muz]

I am reminded of a statement by J. Michael Straczynski which, while referring to a different sci-fi universe, seems just as applicable here: "All ships move at the speed of plot."

[Dervag]

Oh, definitely.

But which makes more sense:

1)Assume no remotely consistent speed, with ships being teleported by Plot in all possible cases,

2)Assume that the few fastest (or slowest) trips seen in Star Trek are the 'real' speed and explain or dismiss the majority of trips as exceptions,

3)Try to find the speed of the majority of trips and explain everything that isn't somewhere in that range as an exception?

I don't like (1). It feels like giving up. And (2) is just silly, because you wind up dismissing the center of the bell curve in favor of the outliers. Which leaves (3).

And if you use the method in (3), Star Trek ships typically move at speeds on the order of 1000c (as in, within a factor of ten of that number).

That has some advantages. If those are typical speeds, crossing Federation space takes days or weeks, which explains why reinforcements aren't always available in an emergency. Starfleet can't just scramble all its ships and send them to rescue Deep Space Nine, or to fight a Borg cube at Wolf 359; all it can do is assemble the ships that happen to be close enough to get there before the battle. And there may not be a lot of ships available, because the Federation is chronically overextended and it has a very large, tenuous frontier.

If some alien force moves a Federation ship to the other side of the galaxy, it will take many years to get home unless they find an equally powerful alien force to send them back.

Travel between any two planets will does take long enough for a crisis to arise on board ship and have to be resolved before getting to the destination. If my ship picks up a strange disease on Planet A, my crew will start feeling symptoms before I reach Planet B. And, once again, I'm outside the immediate reach of help, because other ships are spread widely and it takes days or weeks for them to reach me.

[Simanos]

I really hate time travel.

[RMS Oceanic]

Epileptic tree time!

What if, instead of actual time travel, Spock and Nero were literally thrown into another universe by the black hole, that happened to be set +/- 150 years earlier? That would explain why those 29th century guys didn't pick anything up. It would also explain the little differences.

[LCR]

Epileptic tree time!

What if, instead of actual time travel, Spock and Nero were literally thrown into another universe by the black hole, that happened to be set +/- 150 years earlier? That would explain why those 29th century guys didn't pick anything up. It would also explain the little differences.

Actually, that's what should have happened with all time travel episodes. It is inconsistent in that this is the first time, where time travel creates somekind of alternate reality and everybody's like "yeah, whatever, prime reality's not affected anyway".
Oh, it would have been such a nice movie, if they didn't violate established Star Trek so bad.

[Ravens_cry]

They did create a colony. It was called Romulus. Look how well that turned out. Maybe it's just as well if the Vulcans didn't do much colonizing. My feeling is that they're a species full of great potential to go horribly, horribly wrong, and that the rest of the galaxy should be very glad that the main Vulcan culture didn't do so. If they were in the business of creating many offshoots of the main culture, things might be a lot less stable.

An offshoot that was founded by the near psychotic pre-Surak Vulcans. Yeah, no wonder it's a bit FUBAR. But if there is one emotion the typical Vulcan will indulge in it is scientific curiosity. You would think they would at least have science colonies and research stations on various worlds.

[Haven]

Epileptic tree time!

What if, instead of actual time travel, Spock and Nero were literally thrown into another universe by the black hole, that happened to be set +/- 150 years earlier? That would explain why those 29th century guys didn't pick anything up. It would also explain the little differences.

This has to be what effectively happened, otherwise they lose the neat way they managed to have their cake and eat it too by saying "We still have the original Trek, it coexists with this one!" (Which is what I assume that's what they were going for, rather than "eff you, we used time-travel so that all of Star Trek canon NEVER HAPPENED, and instead of making another movie we're just going to go tape over all your recordings of the original series")

In most cases in Star Trek, though, it seems like time travel doesn't just split off an alternate timeline, it affects the present too. So I think the fact that "Spock Prime" and the evil Romulans weren't just overwritten means that this was different than normal time travel, probably along the lines of what you suggest.

Actually, that's what should have happened with all time travel episodes. It is inconsistent in that this is the first time, where time travel creates somekind of alternate reality and everybody's like "yeah, whatever, prime reality's not affected anyway".
Oh, it would have been such a nice movie, if they didn't violate established Star Trek so bad.

You seem to be inconsistent. First you say the poster above you is right and that this is what happens all the time, and then you say it's the first time it's happened.

[factotum]

My favourite explanation for the mess is that the actual speed is determined by an additional factor somehow based on the space being traversed, so that the same warp factor is faster in some places than in others - a pity they never actually make use of this notion in the show, as it opens up interesting story possibilities.

I'm sure I remember reading a fan-produced theory that stated the warp factor was a measure of how much power the engines were producing, so if there were some sort of "space resistance", the speed WOULD vary depending where you were.

However, it's probably best to assume that the ships travel at the speed of plot, so Spock was unable to reach the star in time to prevent it exploding despite being in the fastest ship around.

[Ossian]

I was born in the late 70's and watched all the series (although at some point DS9 escaped me, simply because of crappy distribution agreements here in Italy). The movies, also, have been important dates in my movies-education. Not a trekkie though, and won't even get involved into technicalities here.

What I feel like sharing, because it is gonna make me feel better, is that I absolutely loved the last ST movie. Spock, was brilliant, and young kirk had all the smug he needed. Sure, there were a couple of details here and there I would have preferred to be different, but it was still overwhelmingly good.

Maybe I am being emotional, these days, but when I watched it in the theater for the second time in 1 week, my eyes still welled up a little bit when the Kelvin's captain says his last words.

More to the point, I have been in the navy, and I was born and raised in a ship-heavy environment. It has been absolutely priceless, and totally worth the ticket, when at some point, navy or non navy, we ALL said, mouthed, whispered or thought the same 3 letters, bot the people in the theater and the actors.

The shuttle clears the orbit, and approaches the Starfleet orbiting docks. Starboard window, and we all, with Kirk and McCoy, went

"w o w".

There she was, so beautiful, against the starry background, ready for the maiden voyage, so packed with history after 40 years of films, telefilms, endless gaming hours, books and comics, that you could almost see it around the hull as some sort of sacred halo.

Again, WOW, I loved the enterprise.

[Philistine]

Actually, that's what should have happened with all time travel episodes. It is inconsistent in that this is the first time, where time travel creates somekind of alternate reality and everybody's like "yeah, whatever, prime reality's not affected anyway".
Oh, it would have been such a nice movie, if they didn't violate established Star Trek so bad.

In fairness, "established Star Trek" is so chock-full of inconsistency and self-contradiction that it's probably not possible to tell a story in that setting without violating something from a previous incarnation of the franchise. I think it's unfortunate that the filmmakers apparently didn't have the guts to go for the full-on, "everything you already know... never happened" reboot, because IMO that's what the franchise really needed; the time travel strikes me as a cheap attempt to have their 'established continuity' cake and eat a 'franchise reboot' too.

[kamikasei]

In fairness, "established Star Trek" is so chock-full of inconsistency and self-contradiction that it's probably not possible to tell a story in that setting without violating something from a previous incarnation of the franchise. I think it's unfortunate that the filmmakers apparently didn't have the guts to go for the full-on, "everything you already know... never happened" reboot, because IMO that's what the franchise really needed; the time travel strikes me as a cheap attempt to have their 'established continuity' cake and eat a 'franchise reboot' too.

Heartily agreed. A proper, reimagined Trek would be a far better proposition than the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" version they went for, which essentially is a reimagining that just pretends it still has the old continuity, like a security blanket.

(This is my view on the notion of rebooting the franchise, rather than the quality of the movie itself. The movie I liked a lot more than I like their decisions around this issue.)

[LCR]

Heartily agreed. A proper, reimagined Trek would be a far better proposition than the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" version they went for, which essentially is a reimagining that just pretends it still has the old continuity, like a security blanket.

I think I would have like that better, too.

You seem to be inconsistent. First you say the poster above you is right and that this is what happens all the time, and then you say it's the first time it's happened.

No, alternative realities are what should happen, whenever time travel is involved.
Only Star Trek never really explored that idea and instead was hellbent on the idea of "fixing" the time line, something obviously nobody ever thought of in the new movie.

[Ichneumon]

I just saw Star Trek yesterday and I am mostly pleased. Never really got much "into" Star Trek, only knew some basic stuff and the only real reason I went was because I wanted to see Zackery Quinto, but I enjoyed the movie very much. Some of the Sci-Fi explenations were far-fetched, but I guess that is what you expect from a science fiction movie. I definately enjoyed it.

[EndlessWrath]

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Kinda was hoping Spock would pull a Scyler from Heroes and just take off kirks head. Woulda ruined the movie, but i would of giggled in fanboyness.

I liked the movie, thought it was great. Just couldn't get Scyler/Spock out of my head.

[Ichneumon]

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Kinda was hoping Spock would pull a Scyler from Heroes and just take off kirks head. Woulda ruined the movie, but i would of giggled in fanboyness.

I liked the movie, thought it was great. Just couldn't get Scyler/Spock out of my head.

I know, when Kirk and Spock were fighting I could only think: Take his powers, use telekineses!

[FoE]

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Kinda was hoping Spock would pull a Scyler from Heroes and just take off kirks head. Woulda ruined the movie, but i would of giggled in fanboyness.

I liked the movie, thought it was great. Just couldn't get Scyler/Spock out of my head.

A Scyler? Is he related to Sylar somehow? Is he a scythe-wielding German equivalent of Sylar?

[Dervag]

An offshoot that was founded by the near psychotic pre-Surak Vulcans. Yeah, no wonder it's a bit FUBAR. But if there is one emotion the typical Vulcan will indulge in it is scientific curiosity. You would think they would at least have science colonies and research stations on various worlds.

Yes, which may help to explain why there are survivors, even though the Vulcans only had about fifteen minutes, tops, to evacuate. Or Spock may have been leaving out Vulcans on colonies, counting only the survivors of his homeworld. Or there may only have been a few thousand of them. After all, the Vulcans will indulge scientific curiosity, but they are also a very isolationist species, with little spacefaring presence visible during the Federation era.

So the answer is "yes, surely there are Vulcan colonies, but none that have population comparable to Vulcan or that are suitable homeworlds for the Vulcan species."

[Roupe]

I found it fairly bad.

It moved with the speed of plot, and then some. It felt that the script writer and film cutter was constantly using the fast forward button while watching or using the skip button. Kinda what i do when i watch a VHS or DVD film I' m bored with.

Several moments in the film would have been better if the tempo was slower or if it had more scene time.To me this tempo caused a whole mess of loose ends.
Sure I can see that much of it was just old star trek reference candy -but it was just thrown, or shown but not used.

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Space battle at the start could have given a epileptic seizure to people.

The interrogation with worm (elegy to Wrath of Khan) nothing was said that the earth defenses got shut down due to this, nor that the prisoner needed to get rid of that parasite.

What did Nero do for 25 years with that black hole planet eating ship?, I dont buy that he sat still in one place waiting for Spock in 25 years. it seemed he actively desired to sabotage the time line. Klingon's were briefly mentioned.

noted.
Spock given Scotty the formula (elegy to The Voyage Home)- Scotty did that regarding transparent aluminum.

So it felt like much action of the movie took part outside it.

[Yulian]

An offshoot that was founded by the near psychotic pre-Surak Vulcans. Yeah, no wonder it's a bit FUBAR. But if there is one emotion the typical Vulcan will indulge in it is scientific curiosity. You would think they would at least have science colonies and research stations on various worlds.

Not to mention all the ships that must have been offworld at the time, exploring and whatnot.

Considering some starships seem to carry almost 1,000 crew members, just a few ships really jacks up the remaining available population.

They're gonna need it, suckers breed slowly.

Don't even try on speed and distance. It's pretty much random to the point of total incoherency. It was never written with any eye towards even vague standardization.

The new movie was great. I liked it from start to finish. I'm afraid I must disagree with the initial battle being hard to follow. I found it quite easy to do so and it conveyed the sense of damage and chaos real battles do very well.

I also really liked the "new relationship". The move from mentorship to a romance was, I think, an interesting but valid take on the characters.

The only problem Paramount has now? They can't do a series with these actors. Too many of them don't do TV work and paying the cast would be prohibitively expensive.

- Yulian

[Ichneumon]

This movie made me buy the DVD of the first season of Star Trek the original series.

[Ozymandias]

I found it fairly bad.

It moved with the speed of plot, and then some. It felt that the script writer and film cutter was constantly using the fast forward button while watching or using the skip button. Kinda what i do when i watch a VHS or DVD film I' m bored with.

Several moments in the film would have been better if the tempo was slower or if it had more scene time.To me this tempo caused a whole mess of loose ends.
Sure I can see that much of it was just old star trek reference candy -but it was just thrown, or shown but not used.

I, for one, disagree. I thought the pace was tightened not because it was a particularly 'breakneck' move but because the writers had to both build up the characters for new viewers and break down how they were different form the old crew for people who'd watched Star Trek, plus have an engaging plot.

Also, an elegy is a mournful poem, usually written after a death. You probably mean "allusion".

[MichelleLBC]

LOVED STAR TREK!! some fine boys up in that movie ;)

[Roupe]

Also, an elegy is a mournful poem, usually written after a death. You probably mean "allusion".

Thanks , though the word i misspelled should have been eulogy /tribute. Allusion works better, but is different meaning than i intended.

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They didnt seem to worry about that nasty supernova, the blackhole goo was meant to prevent. That threat should still be around. Nero (if smart) should have dealt with it, since it will threaten his home world.

[Ditto]

Roupe- They had some material detailing Nero's life between his arrival and Spock's, which placed him on Rura Penthe in the Klingon prison there. He was attacked by some sort of snow beastie, which explains the bite scar across the side of his face/ear which isn't there in the first scene. You can see a snippet of that time in the mindmeld when Spock references him. Dunno if that'll be Deleted Scenes on the DVD.

One thing I didn't like was that the supernova 'snuck up' on the planet. I mean, if a supernova from the Romulan star was going to hit Romulus, there's no point trying to sustain life on that planet any more without a sun. So it's a supernova from some other star, light years away, but oh crap we didn't see this coming and we took our fastfast ship but didn't stop it in time darn? Really? No problem with the usage of redmatter in itself, but the fact that it was involved in the destruction of Romulus was pretty thin.

Overall, fantastic movie though!

[Mitth'raw'nuruo]

It was horrible.

not worth seeing

I got a copy for 2 dollars.

I wanted my money back.

[hamishspence]

While not entirely impressed by it, the prequel book made it a bit more interesting- fleshing out how Nero and Spock got where they did in the first place.

It also brings Data back, sort of- he downloaded a copy of his personality into B4.

[Mitth'raw'nuruo]

Eh; the only prequel part that was any good was that the Enterprise looked correct. Also little Spock acted like Spock.

Everything else? No horrible. Red matter?
Where was the Qunatium Star Fleet Ships which patrol the time line?
Why were they making beer?

Who were the tattooed retards that claimed to be Romulins?
Why were they flying around in a metal porcupine.

Why was Uhura a b....word?
Why did we see more shuttle crafts in ONE 10 second clip then we have EVER SEEN in Star Trek, Next Generation; DS9; Voyager; and what? 10 or 11 other movies?

transport @ warp? For real? And we saw this when? please tell me; during Next Gen? DS9?

Why did Spocks ship spin like a toy? We see no evidence of this being useful in any technology @ any point in star trek history; even the far future. It was bling; like spinning hubcaps. It was dumb.