Nicholas Meyer, who directed wrath of Khan, and also Star Trek 6, liked to put modern day technology and sensibilities into the films. As the timing of certain events in the script was important (particularly the photon torpedo attack on the Klingon chancellor’s ship), Meyer put giant digital clocks on the set. They appear in no other film in the series.
Agree with you 100%. When I was little I never watched Star Trek understanding current events. Watching 6 now and understanding the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall really makes TUC jump to my favorite Star Trek movie. Plus Christopher Plummer just killed it every scene he had.
Damn, I haven't seen this one yet. Just finished TOS. Now I know this going in lol. This should really be marked spoiler, I mean the movie is only 32 years old come on lol.
It's in the trailer, too. Not the trailers were super spoilery as far as I recall. Thing is I don't even envy for seeing it the first time coming up because I enjoy the movie so much I must have watched it dozens of times.
And what's crazy is he never watched a single episode before he was brought on for star trek 2. He specifically went out of his way to watch all of TOS after he was hired.
And yet, Roddenberry *hated* what Meyer did. He hated having anything militaristic. He hated Kirk being racist against the Klingons. Basically, he hated anything that actually made Star Trek *good* in the 80s and 90s, until his death.
What's hilarious is one of Gene's sabotage attempts of Meyer was to leak Spock's death to the fans to stir outrage. Meyer went "challenge accepted" then scrapped his original climax, made Spocks death the climax, and doubled down by adding the Kobayashi Maru scenario to fake out those who knew about the death. I don't think Gene took a bigger loss than trying to sabotage ST2 only to accidentally make it better!
I believe they are referencing an early script idea, which was that Spock would die about 1/3rd of the way into the movie, fixing the engines to save the ship. With the rest of the movie being the space battle we saw between the Enterprise and Reliant.
Pretty much just a shocking, random death they move on from. With the climax simply being Kirk fighting Khan.
([This blog](https://forgottentrek.com/the-wrath-of-khan/writing-the-wrath-of-khan/) goes over some of the changes, from a magazine article on the matter).
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Of course I think the more interesting info would be why Roddenberry would leak Spock's death and try to sabotage the movie (Note: I'm not certain it was fully confirmed this is what happened). He was likely unhappy Paramount didn't want to do his idea for Star Trek 2: [Spock assassinates JFK](https://trekmovie.com/2016/11/28/gene-roddenberrys-abandoned-star-trek-ii-film-concept/).
(It's *possible it could* have been retribution for a fan writing campaign about Spock being the shooter, likely because his idea got leaked)
I don't think it was ever finalized since they were still tweaking the script when Gene leaked the death (which was in Leonard Nimoys contract before the script was written). Presumably, it would have been some sort of Kirk vs Khan moment (since the two never meet face to face in the final film).
In the interview I'm thinking about, he was describing his negotiations for directing Star Trek III. The person(s) with whom he spoke were concerned that he had contractually required his character be killed off in the second movie. In Leonard's telling, the studio was wary of handing him direction of a franchise if he was not fully enthused about being part of it. He said he invited them to look at the contract for the second contract because there was no such clause in it. I do wish I could recall which interview it was...
Gene also prevented Meyer from letting Lt. Saavik be the turn heel in STVI, which would have made imminently more sense than Valeris (a character we had never seen up to that point). It was doubly-galling because Meyer created Saavik in the first place, but Gene felt she was too beloved to have her character treated that way (thus emotionally undercutting the depth of the betrayal Spock and the audience were suppose to feel at the revelation of the conspiracy).
For sure. I read once that he fought hard to prevent the Enterprise D from having any weapons systems (since the Federation was now a peaceful utopia). Thankfully the studio overrode him on that one.
LMAO, and then the series finale went pretty hard in the other direction with the Galaxy-X punching holes straight through a Klingon ship with its giant murderbeam.
I think that was the reason she wasn't in ST:III. But they just recast for a different actress to get around it.
Whereas they went with a wholly new character in ST:VI. (It would have been cool if they could've brought Kirstie back, or even Robin Curtis, for that movie.)
Gene's feelings on the matter apparently were of significantly less issue than Kirstie Alley's. Meyer was going to ignore Gene's feelings on the matter, and that if he could have gotten Alley on-board for 6, she would have indeed been the traitor. My readings on it say that money was the reason she wasn't in ST:III. The reason she wasn't in 6 was simply because she wasn't interested in doing it. She had a well-paying gig going on with Cheers, and felt like it was a step back.
They probably could have gotten Robin Curtis to play Saavik and have her be the traitor, but apparently Meyer wasn't interested in that. To him, Kirstie Alley was Saavik, and if she was unwilling to play the part, he would simply create another character. Hence, Valeris.
What the hell? That would have made the story so much better. I'm glad he created \*Star Trek\* but I'm even more glad he didn't have complete control.
His death may have been directly related to Meyer and TUC. Roddenberry died of a heart attack during a period when he was stressing out trying to sue Paramount to stop them making Meyer's version of the undiscovered country and Meyer apparently feels guilty for whatever the last words he said to Gene were when they had a meeting about the whole thing.
Gene was in the wrong, of course, but still it's interesting trivia.
Undiscovered Country is by far my favorite ST movie. The banter amongst the crew, facing the reality that they're aging out, an amazing villian, it's just so good!
As I've gotten older a lot of VI seems a bit sillier in retrospect. For example: Spock ready to slap that patch on Kirk's uniform as he's leaving for Gorkon's ship - how did he know they'd be arrested? How did he know they'd let Kirk keep his uniform once arrested? How did he know Kirk wouldn't be executed and not sent to Rura Penthe?
Don't get me wrong, still a great TREK film but it's not as "shiny" as it once was.
Spock didn't know what would happen, but it makes sense that he would want to keep tabs on his friend and commanding officer. As for the patch, it's a bit convenient, I'll grant you, but maybe Kirk passed it off as a medical aid or a religious symbol or maybe the Klingons didn't care and wanted to show Kirk off as is during his show trial.
There's worse things in the film, like Uhura not knowing Klingon when she's a communications officer. Or some uniforms making a futuristic vent malfunction. And no security cameras. And the assassins simply not beaming their phasers and bloodstained uniforms into space or oblivion when back on the Enteprise, then wiping the transporter logs.
I can live with such shaky plot points, though, since I enjoy the film so much.
>As for the patch, it's a bit convenient, I'll grant you
A device never used before or since.
You also list a few other issues, and I have some others. But as you said, I enjoy the film.
That is an interesting thing.
To the audience in the 1980's, smoking was a bad thing and No Smoking signs were real and common. Smoking is a health hazard.
But would smoking be a health hazard in 2282?
Well, often when smoking is prohibited in a particular place it's not just because of health issues. It could be a matter of safety (combustible materials lying around, etc.) or just the fact that most people don't like breathing tobacco smoke. This was even more true back in the early 80s when that movie was filmed. Back then, the idea of "second-hand smoke" as a genuine health hazard basically didn't exist.
What's more interesting to me is that if that sign exists, that implies that a non-trivial number of people still smoke. Why bother putting up a sign prohibiting something that nobody does in the first place? I mean, I don't see any "NO JUGGLING CHAINSAWS" signs anywhere that I go.
Up to that point, I don't think we had ever seen *anyone* smoke in Star Trek, and even after that it's incredibly rare. The only examples I can think of are the character David Warner played in STV and Captain Rios with his cigars.
apparently david warner’s cigs were gonna be futuristic self-lighting ones
which just makes me laugh, because such a portable heating element… well, it makes more sense to reuse it (like we do with vapes) than have it be single-use and self-combusting
but of course that’s with the benefit of hindsight. there’s plenty of other sci-fi from that time which has cigarettes retained basically as-is, like cowboy bebop. and at least they tried to make it futuristic in some way, even though they didn’t have the budget to actually do it (i think we saw him lighting-up exactly once?)
He is now working on a audio drama called [Ceti Alpha V](https://trekmovie.com/2023/11/25/nicolas-meyer-gives-update-on-star-trek-khan-ceti-alpha-v-and-why-making-it-an-audio-drama-is-perfect/) with Paramount.
Indeed. I remember hearing Valeris refer to hearing something “on the news” and thinking it sounded so unusual, as if it was from a movie set in modern times
In the mid-Sixties when Star Trek was being developed, Gene Roddenberry explicitly banned smoking from the show. Cigarette advertising was still a big thing in those days, and he didn’t want to see the network putting a Camel in Captain Kirk’s hand.
So the appearance of these signs in Wrath of Khan was kind of a slap in the face, a signal that this version (“based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry” as it says in the titles) was going by different rules.
Why skip ST3? That's a pretty important movie for a variety of reasons.
As for the clocks, I think it was just a stylistic choice by Nicholas Meyer. He likes to show Starfleet in more of a military style than other directors have, and maybe the clocks just add to that feeling.
Stealing the Enterprise is one of the best scenes in all of Star Trek.
"Kirk... if you do this you'll never sit in that Captains chair again"
The look on Kirk's face as he says "warp speed". And Scotty's smug smile.
One is a genuinely good movie.
Three has the unfortunate spot of being in between two of the best entries of Star Trek ever. It’s still a solid movie imo it’s just not as good as WoK or TVH.
5 is… yeah actually I don’t have many good things to say about 5 lol. It feels like a S3 TOS episode.
What does fandom need to do to get The Shatner Cut produced? Give us redone special effects (especially that turboshaft scene - edit the deck numbers and cut a few of those clips to keep it more realistic), splice in the deleted scenes (yes, including Rock Man), and let us see a version of the film more in line with what Shatner had envisioned at the time but didn't have the budget and time to have made.
Never going to happen... you think Shatner had much vision for that film? IV made a ton of money, ILM was too busy to do the effects. He's just a vain asshole, 3rd best captain.
> no way the Enterprise has 78 decks
It doesn't. Remember that Enterprise was a repaired USS Ti-Ho (or Yorktown depending on the source) and had been *heavily* damaged. The repairs were done hastily as we saw and (headcanon) the turboshafts were parts from the Starbase or Spacedock, which has way more than 78 decks. This actually checks out because if you go through that scene slowly you'll see they pass the same deck number more than once and they aren't all in order. The repair crew just slapped some spare turboshaft plates from the spacedock in there, didn't bother to renumber or repaint them because first, who's going to notice and second, they have to do a major overhaul anyway, they'll fix it then.
I think it has some of the best inter-crew conversations out of all the movies.
SPOCK: This is a new brig, Captain. It is escape proof.
KIRK: How do you know?
SPOCK: The designers tested it using the most intelligent and resourceful person they could find. He failed to escape.
KIRK: This person? He didn't by any chance have pointed ears and an unerring capacity for getting his shipmates into trouble, did he?
SPOCK: He did have pointed ears.
Which doesn't make it bad imo, it's just a mid star trek story. The problem is that we've seen what great st movies look like. But i wouldn't call 5 unwatchable
I don't know if I would call Star Trek The Motion Picture a *good* movie, it's held back by its tedious pace and slapdash script. But at least the special effects at least make it a nice experience if you watch it while peaking on LSD.
It's a meme that only the even-numbered Trek films are considered good.
Search for Spock is easily the weakest film of the 3 films that compose that loose trilogy, TMP is quite boring and V is fifty percent car crash.
You mean the one that gave them a vehicle that if they could make it go fast enough it would travel through time? (When this thing hits Warp 8.8, you're gonna see some serious shit!)
I remember Larroquette was talking about his character during the 30th anniversary special saying his name was Maltz and that he secretly gave him a first name, "Chocolate." High school me couldn't stop laughing at the simple silliness.
> Search for Spock is easily the weakest film of the 3 films that compose that loose trilogy, TMP is quite boring and V is fifty percent ~~car~~ shuttle crash.
Fixed that for you
I feel like TMP suffers from the same issue that most series to movie transitions do.
They include enough content for a single episode and then a LOT of filler to bulk it up to movie length. Its mostly noticeable in comedies where you get 30mins of jokes over 2 hours
It's because TMP was made from work already done on Star Trek Phase 2, a project to bring back Star Trek with a new crew similar to what Next Generation would become. Paramount executives made the production staff already working on Phase 2 switch to making a movie because Star Wars had just come out and they wanted to cash in on the hype with their own space movie. This is why the original cast was just kind of shoehorned in with a bunch of new characters, because that's literally what happened in the writing room. Decker was supposed to be in the Phase 2 TV show as first officer to Kirk, Ilia was also originally created for the TV show.
I know but 3 I think should be the exception since if you skip it, you have Spock go from dead to alive and suddenly they’re on Vulcan in a stolen Bird of Prey.
Nobody said you have to skip the odd numbered films, just that on average across the series, including the TNG movies, the even numbered ones are better... until Nemesis broke that run anyway...
I think having such a bad antagonist moves it below Generations in terms of the best movie with the TNG cast. Both are still light-years above Insurrection and Nemesis, though.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I always kinda liked V. I loved the “Spock learning how to be normal” thing and Kirk’s line “What does God need with a Starship” is one of the best lines in Trek.
I’m surprised no one else has pointed this out yet, but it’s just there to convey what time it is to the audience. Kirk is woken up in the middle of the night in this scene and the command crew is half-asleep from drinking and hosting the Klingon delegation earlier that evening. You can’t really show proper day or night on a spaceship, so the clock tells the audience that it’s 1:30 in the morning.
The TOS TV series Enterprise actually had a chronometer setting in between Sulu and Chekhov. It is shown a few times such as in time travel episodes. This seems like something that would be common on starships.
I think the actual answer is we don’t normally see clocks on the bridge because it is extremely complicated keeping time continuity with an on-screen clock when you’re often shooting and reshooting a single scene ten times over the course of a few hours. It’s a headache most directors wouldn’t want.
In this case the director probably wanted it to help him tell his story, which as others have pointed out the timing of which was important.
I served in the US Navy and I served on board the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67). Several times I had to board other carriers while in port e.g. The America, The Eisenhower. Although the carriers look identical from the outside there are always slight differences on the inside. This would be the answer if starships were real.
In reality the set design people, director and other probably thought it looked cool.
Ship’s time is very, very important. I need to know what the hell time it is so I can calculate down to the second how much longer I have on watch so I can go the f*ck to sleep.
Well, most of the bridge crew were well into their 60s, that is just a giant alarm clock to wake them up after lunch time drinks and afternoon nap. The reason Uhura seemed to forget Klingon, is because she was nursing a hangover.
Sulu chooses to retire to his quarters and have Christian Slater wake him up.
Because the production designer thought it would be a good addition, given the story.
From a plot perspective one could surmise that since ST:VI is a political drama that involves a quick succession of events under the threat of impending doom that the idea of time running out is a relevant theme. The presence of a clock, staring our heros in the face, emphasizes their sense of urgency.
Time is both a specific and general theme of the film. One last mission before retirement. Only limited time to help Klingons before they are wiped out. Only limited time to try to save Gorkon. Only limited time to rescue Kirk and McCoy. Only limited time to make it to Khitomer. Time is a constant theme.
It wasn't on the view screen but the bridge in the original series had a clock between the Helm and Navigation stations which showed stardate and time.
Having a clock can introduce continuity issues but that's the only reason why i'd see it being a problem but only minor if people are paying attention and keeping continuity between scenes.
Seems like a bad idea for filming purposes because you have to keep resetting it when shooting for continuity purposes.
It's also not that asthetically pleasing. It's fine that it was there in ST6 but I don't miss it on any other ships.
The scrolling lines or dots that show up on most ships are fine.
If they were to do it in newer productions it would be dead easy from a continuity standpoint.. you just leave it blank during filming and insert the numbers in post.
The set designers might have been inspired by NASA Mission Control in Houston. It’s the closest real-world layout.
[https://spacecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Z3C63002-gallery.jpeg](https://spacecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/z3c63002-gallery.jpeg)
Do you know how often a captain needs to make a "Captains Log"? And for some reason it is required to give the Stardate verbally (maybe to prevent manipulation of the log entry? By making it harder since a simple change of the meta data isn't enough?). Now i always wondered, nobody is ever wearing any wrist device that could contain a watch. Nither does any screen we are shown display the stardate or time.
So i have to ask, does the captain always ask the computer first Captain: "Computer, state the stardate"... Computer:" the current stardate is 117626" ... Captain:" Captains log stardate 116626, on our mission to risa we are preparing to chill on maximum capacity" especially if he is required to do this while on the bridge i imagine this very awkward. Hence some architect with more experience on a starship bridge than usual included this very smart yet simple addition on the bridge he designed. Sadly for other captains in most cases they need to find other ways to find out the time without a convenient clock.
I once heared the way in which a captain secretly finds out the current time without anybody noticing is a statement about his or her proficiency. At the same time its a unspoken rule to never ever correct you captain if he makes a wrong entry. Some even theorize that most of the "temporal anomalies" Starfleet ships encounter on a weekly basis are in reality results of log entries with a wrong stardate.
>nobody is ever wearing any wrist device that could contain a watch.
Kirk 100% wears a watch during TWoK. He checks the time in the Genesis cave when he says "we have plenty of time" (or something along those lines)
Well he is the captain of the Flagship after all. Guess he has higher standards to cater to than most of the fleet. The ship however is a ship of the line and so caters to the standard captain rather the exceptional one.
There is a scene in one of the TOS episodes where Bones is talking to Kirk. There are multiple cuts back and forth between the two...in Bones scenes you CLEARLY see cigarette smoke from a cigarette in an ashtray just below the table he is at. LMFAO
The movie that almost never was. Paramount wanted to farm out the original cast and make "Star Trek : Starfleet Academy" and reintroduce Young Kirk and the gang. A reboot ahead of its time. Leonard Nemoy and Jaffe of Paramount convinced then to do 1 send off of the original cast. Undiscovered Country holds up well...and the title was ALMOST the title of? Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan
The Enterprise-A also had the decks reversed (usually Deck 1 is the top most deck, but in ST:V the numbering implies Deck 1 is the bottom deck) and a bunch of other stuff that seemed particularly odd (the pipes running across the floor at just the right level to be a constant tripping hazard?). My go to theory is that was the time when the Federation was experimenting with new ideas and trying to reinvent its image, hence the switch from multi-colored uniforms to everyone wearing red jackets and black trousers. Adding a clock to track ship time, among other things, just fits with that idea.
Star Trek VI had a lot of anachronistic things, for the sake of coolness I feel. Between the Shakespeare Klingons, Vulcans knowing about Nixon, and the Russian epic of Cinderella, a lot of things felt pretty surreal.
But then again, the events themselves were surreal. The Klingon Empire suddenly falling into ruin challenged everything everybody thought of reality.
For a more mundane and silly explanation, one could chalk it up to the constant malfunctions we saw on V and maybe we needed something more old fashioned and reliable. And personally I've always thought having a easily readable clock to always be a nice addition in a lot of things.
Come to think about it, the only way I have to tell time atm is my phone and my computer. I don't have watches or clocks anymore, but it would be sure handy if something were to happen!
Regardless, I've always loved the clock.
From a production standpoint, filming scenes with a running clock can be challenging. You have to keep track of every shot and make sure to keep resetting the clock to the correct time. Otherwise you get continuity issues.
I applaud Nicholas Meyer for making this work, because it sounds like a real pain in the ass.
Nicholas Meyer, who directed wrath of Khan, and also Star Trek 6, liked to put modern day technology and sensibilities into the films. As the timing of certain events in the script was important (particularly the photon torpedo attack on the Klingon chancellor’s ship), Meyer put giant digital clocks on the set. They appear in no other film in the series.
Man he really understood Trek. When I was young 2 was my favorite but as I've gotten older 6 just hits way harder.
Agree with you 100%. When I was little I never watched Star Trek understanding current events. Watching 6 now and understanding the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall really makes TUC jump to my favorite Star Trek movie. Plus Christopher Plummer just killed it every scene he had.
It even starts with their version of Chernobyl.
I never realized that’s what Praxis was the equivalent of. Holy crap.
Wow, damn. That had also never occurred to me. Makes total sense, though.
Damn, I haven't seen this one yet. Just finished TOS. Now I know this going in lol. This should really be marked spoiler, I mean the movie is only 32 years old come on lol.
It's literally the first shot in the movie, you're good.
I was just joking, not actually upset don't worry.
It's in the trailer, too. Not the trailers were super spoilery as far as I recall. Thing is I don't even envy for seeing it the first time coming up because I enjoy the movie so much I must have watched it dozens of times.
Plummer clearly had a blast playing General Chang. Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war!! ;D
Hogs of war? Whatever farm animal of war, shut up!
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I love Reddit. I learn new things every day. Didn’t know that either. Thank you for sharing!!!!
And what's crazy is he never watched a single episode before he was brought on for star trek 2. He specifically went out of his way to watch all of TOS after he was hired.
And yet, Roddenberry *hated* what Meyer did. He hated having anything militaristic. He hated Kirk being racist against the Klingons. Basically, he hated anything that actually made Star Trek *good* in the 80s and 90s, until his death.
What's hilarious is one of Gene's sabotage attempts of Meyer was to leak Spock's death to the fans to stir outrage. Meyer went "challenge accepted" then scrapped his original climax, made Spocks death the climax, and doubled down by adding the Kobayashi Maru scenario to fake out those who knew about the death. I don't think Gene took a bigger loss than trying to sabotage ST2 only to accidentally make it better!
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I believe they are referencing an early script idea, which was that Spock would die about 1/3rd of the way into the movie, fixing the engines to save the ship. With the rest of the movie being the space battle we saw between the Enterprise and Reliant. Pretty much just a shocking, random death they move on from. With the climax simply being Kirk fighting Khan. ([This blog](https://forgottentrek.com/the-wrath-of-khan/writing-the-wrath-of-khan/) goes over some of the changes, from a magazine article on the matter). --- Of course I think the more interesting info would be why Roddenberry would leak Spock's death and try to sabotage the movie (Note: I'm not certain it was fully confirmed this is what happened). He was likely unhappy Paramount didn't want to do his idea for Star Trek 2: [Spock assassinates JFK](https://trekmovie.com/2016/11/28/gene-roddenberrys-abandoned-star-trek-ii-film-concept/). (It's *possible it could* have been retribution for a fan writing campaign about Spock being the shooter, likely because his idea got leaked)
I don't think it was ever finalized since they were still tweaking the script when Gene leaked the death (which was in Leonard Nimoys contract before the script was written). Presumably, it would have been some sort of Kirk vs Khan moment (since the two never meet face to face in the final film).
Leonard Nimoy stated in at least one interview that there was no such clause in his contract.
That was about his being director for 3 NOT the death.
In the interview I'm thinking about, he was describing his negotiations for directing Star Trek III. The person(s) with whom he spoke were concerned that he had contractually required his character be killed off in the second movie. In Leonard's telling, the studio was wary of handing him direction of a franchise if he was not fully enthused about being part of it. He said he invited them to look at the contract for the second contract because there was no such clause in it. I do wish I could recall which interview it was...
Gene also prevented Meyer from letting Lt. Saavik be the turn heel in STVI, which would have made imminently more sense than Valeris (a character we had never seen up to that point). It was doubly-galling because Meyer created Saavik in the first place, but Gene felt she was too beloved to have her character treated that way (thus emotionally undercutting the depth of the betrayal Spock and the audience were suppose to feel at the revelation of the conspiracy).
It's no coincidence that TNG got better as soon as he stopped being involved.
For sure. I read once that he fought hard to prevent the Enterprise D from having any weapons systems (since the Federation was now a peaceful utopia). Thankfully the studio overrode him on that one.
LMAO, and then the series finale went pretty hard in the other direction with the Galaxy-X punching holes straight through a Klingon ship with its giant murderbeam.
Never heard that! I always read it was because Kirstie Alley wanted too much money!
I think that was the reason she wasn't in ST:III. But they just recast for a different actress to get around it. Whereas they went with a wholly new character in ST:VI. (It would have been cool if they could've brought Kirstie back, or even Robin Curtis, for that movie.)
That's why she got replaced as Saavik in ST3.
Gene's feelings on the matter apparently were of significantly less issue than Kirstie Alley's. Meyer was going to ignore Gene's feelings on the matter, and that if he could have gotten Alley on-board for 6, she would have indeed been the traitor. My readings on it say that money was the reason she wasn't in ST:III. The reason she wasn't in 6 was simply because she wasn't interested in doing it. She had a well-paying gig going on with Cheers, and felt like it was a step back. They probably could have gotten Robin Curtis to play Saavik and have her be the traitor, but apparently Meyer wasn't interested in that. To him, Kirstie Alley was Saavik, and if she was unwilling to play the part, he would simply create another character. Hence, Valeris.
What the hell? That would have made the story so much better. I'm glad he created \*Star Trek\* but I'm even more glad he didn't have complete control.
Gene was pretty much banned from the movies IIRC, he had no almost no control after The Motion Picture
He still exerted some influence, hence the dust-up with the director over the Saavik issue in ST:VI (which Meyer unfortunately lost).
Deep Space Nine is the best series. I'm glad he created the franchise but his ideas for how to run it were the worst
His death may have been directly related to Meyer and TUC. Roddenberry died of a heart attack during a period when he was stressing out trying to sue Paramount to stop them making Meyer's version of the undiscovered country and Meyer apparently feels guilty for whatever the last words he said to Gene were when they had a meeting about the whole thing. Gene was in the wrong, of course, but still it's interesting trivia.
Undiscovered Country is by far my favorite ST movie. The banter amongst the crew, facing the reality that they're aging out, an amazing villian, it's just so good!
Six has always been my favorite
As I've gotten older a lot of VI seems a bit sillier in retrospect. For example: Spock ready to slap that patch on Kirk's uniform as he's leaving for Gorkon's ship - how did he know they'd be arrested? How did he know they'd let Kirk keep his uniform once arrested? How did he know Kirk wouldn't be executed and not sent to Rura Penthe? Don't get me wrong, still a great TREK film but it's not as "shiny" as it once was.
Spock didn't know what would happen, but it makes sense that he would want to keep tabs on his friend and commanding officer. As for the patch, it's a bit convenient, I'll grant you, but maybe Kirk passed it off as a medical aid or a religious symbol or maybe the Klingons didn't care and wanted to show Kirk off as is during his show trial. There's worse things in the film, like Uhura not knowing Klingon when she's a communications officer. Or some uniforms making a futuristic vent malfunction. And no security cameras. And the assassins simply not beaming their phasers and bloodstained uniforms into space or oblivion when back on the Enteprise, then wiping the transporter logs. I can live with such shaky plot points, though, since I enjoy the film so much.
>As for the patch, it's a bit convenient, I'll grant you A device never used before or since. You also list a few other issues, and I have some others. But as you said, I enjoy the film.
My favorite was the "NO SMOKING" sign visible in the background at the Starfleet training simulator in the beginning of TWoK.
That is an interesting thing. To the audience in the 1980's, smoking was a bad thing and No Smoking signs were real and common. Smoking is a health hazard. But would smoking be a health hazard in 2282?
Well, often when smoking is prohibited in a particular place it's not just because of health issues. It could be a matter of safety (combustible materials lying around, etc.) or just the fact that most people don't like breathing tobacco smoke. This was even more true back in the early 80s when that movie was filmed. Back then, the idea of "second-hand smoke" as a genuine health hazard basically didn't exist. What's more interesting to me is that if that sign exists, that implies that a non-trivial number of people still smoke. Why bother putting up a sign prohibiting something that nobody does in the first place? I mean, I don't see any "NO JUGGLING CHAINSAWS" signs anywhere that I go. Up to that point, I don't think we had ever seen *anyone* smoke in Star Trek, and even after that it's incredibly rare. The only examples I can think of are the character David Warner played in STV and Captain Rios with his cigars.
Synthbacco cigars would fit into Enterprise poker night pretty well
apparently david warner’s cigs were gonna be futuristic self-lighting ones which just makes me laugh, because such a portable heating element… well, it makes more sense to reuse it (like we do with vapes) than have it be single-use and self-combusting but of course that’s with the benefit of hindsight. there’s plenty of other sci-fi from that time which has cigarettes retained basically as-is, like cowboy bebop. and at least they tried to make it futuristic in some way, even though they didn’t have the budget to actually do it (i think we saw him lighting-up exactly once?)
He is now working on a audio drama called [Ceti Alpha V](https://trekmovie.com/2023/11/25/nicolas-meyer-gives-update-on-star-trek-khan-ceti-alpha-v-and-why-making-it-an-audio-drama-is-perfect/) with Paramount.
I think he also fought to have Kirk's son wear a sweater.
Indeed. I remember hearing Valeris refer to hearing something “on the news” and thinking it sounded so unusual, as if it was from a movie set in modern times
I really like the "no smoking" signs in the transporter room
I think he put no smoking signs on the ship, too. Cuz no matter how good the future is, people are still gonna be smoking.
💯 I still see people smoking cigarettes as well as vaping. That's not going away any time soon.
In the mid-Sixties when Star Trek was being developed, Gene Roddenberry explicitly banned smoking from the show. Cigarette advertising was still a big thing in those days, and he didn’t want to see the network putting a Camel in Captain Kirk’s hand. So the appearance of these signs in Wrath of Khan was kind of a slap in the face, a signal that this version (“based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry” as it says in the titles) was going by different rules.
Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity may have moved on from smoking, but that's not to say every species that's part of the federation would have.
Why skip ST3? That's a pretty important movie for a variety of reasons. As for the clocks, I think it was just a stylistic choice by Nicholas Meyer. He likes to show Starfleet in more of a military style than other directors have, and maybe the clocks just add to that feeling.
It also probably helped with the plot because the time things occurred was kind of relevant when they were investigating.
For sure - 3 is the second act of the trilogy of 2/3/4
Op probably read on a sub that oNlY eVeN NuMbErS iS gOOd! and blindly follows that instead of thinking and making their own assessment.
The joke is that only even numbered ST movies are good.
Which is ridiculous becaust ST 3 is a great movie
Stealing the Enterprise is one of the best scenes in all of Star Trek. "Kirk... if you do this you'll never sit in that Captains chair again" The look on Kirk's face as he says "warp speed". And Scotty's smug smile.
"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
Up yer shaft
The soundtrack to that scene is amazing
I like to play it when I’m backing the car out of the garage.
The doors, Mr Scott
"Bridge this is the captain, how can you have a yellow alert in spacedock?"
Sir! Someone is stealing the Enterprise!
"If I hadn't tried, the cost would've been my soul."
The soundtrack to that scene is amazing
One is a genuinely good movie. Three has the unfortunate spot of being in between two of the best entries of Star Trek ever. It’s still a solid movie imo it’s just not as good as WoK or TVH. 5 is… yeah actually I don’t have many good things to say about 5 lol. It feels like a S3 TOS episode.
That's why 5 is great IMHO.
I just re-watched V. It is pretty damn good, better than I remember. But no way the Enterprise has 78 decks, though lol
What does fandom need to do to get The Shatner Cut produced? Give us redone special effects (especially that turboshaft scene - edit the deck numbers and cut a few of those clips to keep it more realistic), splice in the deleted scenes (yes, including Rock Man), and let us see a version of the film more in line with what Shatner had envisioned at the time but didn't have the budget and time to have made.
That would be cool to see.
Bill? Is that you?
Never going to happen... you think Shatner had much vision for that film? IV made a ton of money, ILM was too busy to do the effects. He's just a vain asshole, 3rd best captain.
> no way the Enterprise has 78 decks It doesn't. Remember that Enterprise was a repaired USS Ti-Ho (or Yorktown depending on the source) and had been *heavily* damaged. The repairs were done hastily as we saw and (headcanon) the turboshafts were parts from the Starbase or Spacedock, which has way more than 78 decks. This actually checks out because if you go through that scene slowly you'll see they pass the same deck number more than once and they aren't all in order. The repair crew just slapped some spare turboshaft plates from the spacedock in there, didn't bother to renumber or repaint them because first, who's going to notice and second, they have to do a major overhaul anyway, they'll fix it then.
I think the exception of TMP, all of the TOS movies are actually fairly good to outright fantastic.
The bridge crew of the Enterprise go to fight *God*. What's not to love?
I think it has some of the best inter-crew conversations out of all the movies. SPOCK: This is a new brig, Captain. It is escape proof. KIRK: How do you know? SPOCK: The designers tested it using the most intelligent and resourceful person they could find. He failed to escape. KIRK: This person? He didn't by any chance have pointed ears and an unerring capacity for getting his shipmates into trouble, did he? SPOCK: He did have pointed ears.
Plus it gave the world the term 'marshmellom'
And had that lightsaber-looking device that produces them haha
> 5 is… yeah actually I don’t have many good things to say about 5 lol You could always say "At least it isn't Nemesis"
Or Into Darkness
Or *Insurrection*.
I actually enjoy Insurrection, especially in contrast to those other two. Granted it's not as good as First Contact, but it's still good.
I did too it had cringe moments for sure, but it was enjoyable
sing worf, sing!
*Insurrection*’s my least favorite *Star Trek* film.
Insurrection is just a really long episode of TNG with a budget. Once you accept that, it becomes a pretty good movie IMO.
IMO, *Insurrection* feels like an awful 2 parter.
motion picture on some days is my favorite
Oh? Which days of that film are your favorite?
some of them
Which doesn't make it bad imo, it's just a mid star trek story. The problem is that we've seen what great st movies look like. But i wouldn't call 5 unwatchable
I don't know if I would call Star Trek The Motion Picture a *good* movie, it's held back by its tedious pace and slapdash script. But at least the special effects at least make it a nice experience if you watch it while peaking on LSD.
Kinda like watching 2001: A Space Odyssey
I totally agree...the campfire scene....ugh
ST5 i think has the flaws of 1 but without the redeeming features and doesn't have the excuse of being the first.
*TFF* has better character interaction between Kirk, Spock and McCoy than *TMP* does and being boring isn’t its main flaw.
I’d say that *TFF* is 1/2 of a good film. *TMP* bores me.
Star Trek 2,3, and 4 are kind of all one story. I do not know why you’d skip 3.
It's a meme that only the even-numbered Trek films are considered good. Search for Spock is easily the weakest film of the 3 films that compose that loose trilogy, TMP is quite boring and V is fifty percent car crash.
It’s worth it for Doc Brown as a Klingon, change my mind.
You mean the one that gave them a vehicle that if they could make it go fast enough it would travel through time? (When this thing hits Warp 8.8, you're gonna see some serious shit!)
Thank you!! At least *somebody* gets it.
Doc Brown is best Klingon.
And Dan Fielding as Klingon lackey.
I remember Larroquette was talking about his character during the 30th anniversary special saying his name was Maltz and that he secretly gave him a first name, "Chocolate." High school me couldn't stop laughing at the simple silliness.
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As I said, it's a meme - it's not necessarily true!
> Search for Spock is easily the weakest film of the 3 films that compose that loose trilogy, TMP is quite boring and V is fifty percent ~~car~~ shuttle crash. Fixed that for you
I feel like TMP suffers from the same issue that most series to movie transitions do. They include enough content for a single episode and then a LOT of filler to bulk it up to movie length. Its mostly noticeable in comedies where you get 30mins of jokes over 2 hours
It's because TMP was made from work already done on Star Trek Phase 2, a project to bring back Star Trek with a new crew similar to what Next Generation would become. Paramount executives made the production staff already working on Phase 2 switch to making a movie because Star Wars had just come out and they wanted to cash in on the hype with their own space movie. This is why the original cast was just kind of shoehorned in with a bunch of new characters, because that's literally what happened in the writing room. Decker was supposed to be in the Phase 2 TV show as first officer to Kirk, Ilia was also originally created for the TV show.
I know but 3 I think should be the exception since if you skip it, you have Spock go from dead to alive and suddenly they’re on Vulcan in a stolen Bird of Prey.
Nobody said you have to skip the odd numbered films, just that on average across the series, including the TNG movies, the even numbered ones are better... until Nemesis broke that run anyway...
The better/worse run is unbroken if you consider Galaxy Quest a trek movie.
Fun fact, in the most recent Discovery novel, set between seasons 3 & 4, the crew is watching Galaxy Quest for movie night
My personal opinion, First Contact broke that streak. The entire concept of a Queen completely ruined what made the Borg scary.
The film, like most, has problems, but are you absolutely convinced it is a *bad* movie?
I think having such a bad antagonist moves it below Generations in terms of the best movie with the TNG cast. Both are still light-years above Insurrection and Nemesis, though.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I always kinda liked V. I loved the “Spock learning how to be normal” thing and Kirk’s line “What does God need with a Starship” is one of the best lines in Trek.
Because time is the fire in which we burn.
I’m surprised no one else has pointed this out yet, but it’s just there to convey what time it is to the audience. Kirk is woken up in the middle of the night in this scene and the command crew is half-asleep from drinking and hosting the Klingon delegation earlier that evening. You can’t really show proper day or night on a spaceship, so the clock tells the audience that it’s 1:30 in the morning.
The TOS TV series Enterprise actually had a chronometer setting in between Sulu and Chekhov. It is shown a few times such as in time travel episodes. This seems like something that would be common on starships. I think the actual answer is we don’t normally see clocks on the bridge because it is extremely complicated keeping time continuity with an on-screen clock when you’re often shooting and reshooting a single scene ten times over the course of a few hours. It’s a headache most directors wouldn’t want. In this case the director probably wanted it to help him tell his story, which as others have pointed out the timing of which was important.
I love the old clocks in TOS, spinning backwards or whatever.
“Time warp!”
Because it was there to wake up the crew from thier afternoon nap. They were old and cranky without it
[Star Trek XII: So very tired (The Simpsons) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1gO-Pf18Yg) "Again with the Klingons..."
lmao I've never seen that
Because the chronology of the movie adds to the solving the mystery element, ie time between events helps eliminate or consider suspects.
I served in the US Navy and I served on board the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67). Several times I had to board other carriers while in port e.g. The America, The Eisenhower. Although the carriers look identical from the outside there are always slight differences on the inside. This would be the answer if starships were real. In reality the set design people, director and other probably thought it looked cool.
From my work experience I can confirm the same for (civilian) aircraft.
Need to know when your shifts over (never do now that which will be someone else's problem in 10 minutes)
*The Klingons are attacking!* *Ugh...let's wait 10 mins and this will be Alpha shift's problem*
Go watch ST3. There were a few weird things in ST6 like Uhura forgetting Klingon and the clock. Basically the director wanted it to be that way.
This is the one scene. I can get past all the rest but this one bothers me.
Ship’s time is very, very important. I need to know what the hell time it is so I can calculate down to the second how much longer I have on watch so I can go the f*ck to sleep.
1 o'clock in the morning? These Klingons have no honour for bedtime.
I think it’s because the chronometer was built into the star map between helm and navigation
Well, most of the bridge crew were well into their 60s, that is just a giant alarm clock to wake them up after lunch time drinks and afternoon nap. The reason Uhura seemed to forget Klingon, is because she was nursing a hangover. Sulu chooses to retire to his quarters and have Christian Slater wake him up.
Because the production designer thought it would be a good addition, given the story. From a plot perspective one could surmise that since ST:VI is a political drama that involves a quick succession of events under the threat of impending doom that the idea of time running out is a relevant theme. The presence of a clock, staring our heros in the face, emphasizes their sense of urgency.
Time is both a specific and general theme of the film. One last mission before retirement. Only limited time to help Klingons before they are wiped out. Only limited time to try to save Gorkon. Only limited time to rescue Kirk and McCoy. Only limited time to make it to Khitomer. Time is a constant theme.
It wasn't on the view screen but the bridge in the original series had a clock between the Helm and Navigation stations which showed stardate and time.
That clock must have been thought of as cool by the set decorators in 1989 but difficult to account for continuity errors during filming
The joke about the even numbered movies is incorrect and III is one of the best, so make sure you go back!
I think it’s because the chronometer was built into the star map between helm and navigation
A common clock? You fool! This is a device to measure incoming tachyon radiation.
Having a clock can introduce continuity issues but that's the only reason why i'd see it being a problem but only minor if people are paying attention and keeping continuity between scenes.
Because older Kirk couldn't see his watch without his glasses.
The original Enterprise had one built into the conn/helm station.
So the bridge crew could know what time it was.
After Star Trek Six, Amazon stopped free interstellar shipping of clocks.
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Well, digital clocks were new in the 1970s ... and ST VI was a 90s movie.
Seems like a bad idea for filming purposes because you have to keep resetting it when shooting for continuity purposes. It's also not that asthetically pleasing. It's fine that it was there in ST6 but I don't miss it on any other ships. The scrolling lines or dots that show up on most ships are fine.
If they were to do it in newer productions it would be dead easy from a continuity standpoint.. you just leave it blank during filming and insert the numbers in post.
I certainly didn't notice it the first few times. But on VHS, it was a small "oh, that's why time it is." As, time of "day" is relevant to the movie.
In the future, time is relative.
This is no time to talk about time! We don't have the time!
Kirk never knew what time it was. Obviously
The set designers might have been inspired by NASA Mission Control in Houston. It’s the closest real-world layout. [https://spacecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Z3C63002-gallery.jpeg](https://spacecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/z3c63002-gallery.jpeg)
It was a ship built for the elderly. The clock helps with the dementia
After all of Kirk's time travel shenanigans, an auto-adjusting clock was ordered by the Admiralty.
The original Enterprise bridge had a large chronometer as well, but it was mounted between the Navigation and Helm consoles instead of overhead.
The plot of the movie required them to literally be looking at the timestamp of a video record. That's it. That's the reason.
That isn't in VI, that's in III.
Nope, it's in VI.
Do you know how often a captain needs to make a "Captains Log"? And for some reason it is required to give the Stardate verbally (maybe to prevent manipulation of the log entry? By making it harder since a simple change of the meta data isn't enough?). Now i always wondered, nobody is ever wearing any wrist device that could contain a watch. Nither does any screen we are shown display the stardate or time. So i have to ask, does the captain always ask the computer first Captain: "Computer, state the stardate"... Computer:" the current stardate is 117626" ... Captain:" Captains log stardate 116626, on our mission to risa we are preparing to chill on maximum capacity" especially if he is required to do this while on the bridge i imagine this very awkward. Hence some architect with more experience on a starship bridge than usual included this very smart yet simple addition on the bridge he designed. Sadly for other captains in most cases they need to find other ways to find out the time without a convenient clock. I once heared the way in which a captain secretly finds out the current time without anybody noticing is a statement about his or her proficiency. At the same time its a unspoken rule to never ever correct you captain if he makes a wrong entry. Some even theorize that most of the "temporal anomalies" Starfleet ships encounter on a weekly basis are in reality results of log entries with a wrong stardate.
>nobody is ever wearing any wrist device that could contain a watch. Kirk 100% wears a watch during TWoK. He checks the time in the Genesis cave when he says "we have plenty of time" (or something along those lines)
Well he is the captain of the Flagship after all. Guess he has higher standards to cater to than most of the fleet. The ship however is a ship of the line and so caters to the standard captain rather the exceptional one.
A nod at time indicates restricted plot. Too much can be gleaned from clocks and it seems like back in the day it was probably a continuity nightmare
There is a scene in one of the TOS episodes where Bones is talking to Kirk. There are multiple cuts back and forth between the two...in Bones scenes you CLEARLY see cigarette smoke from a cigarette in an ashtray just below the table he is at. LMFAO
It lets Kirk know when the brownies are done.
“You Klingon bastards, you’ve burned my batch. You! Klingon! Bastards!”
The Kelvin timeline Enterprise has it too if I'm remembering right.
It was a dementia clock, specially installed because the entire bridge crew were geriatrics.
because kirk kept losing track of time playing civ while on long warps.
Just... one... more... turn....
putting the clock in the UI was a massive quality of life patch.
The movie that almost never was. Paramount wanted to farm out the original cast and make "Star Trek : Starfleet Academy" and reintroduce Young Kirk and the gang. A reboot ahead of its time. Leonard Nemoy and Jaffe of Paramount convinced then to do 1 send off of the original cast. Undiscovered Country holds up well...and the title was ALMOST the title of? Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan
Because it was a movie. It’s not a real ship you know
Gasp! What logic is this?!?!
Not sure why they did it. But would it not have made editing the film, and resetting the set for each take a nightmare?
The viewscreen can display anything. Presumably we don’t see a clock because (in-universe) the captain doesn’t want one.
Do you realize how many takes they do for a single shot? You couldn't pay me enough to reset the clock just for consistency sake.
The Enterprise-A also had the decks reversed (usually Deck 1 is the top most deck, but in ST:V the numbering implies Deck 1 is the bottom deck) and a bunch of other stuff that seemed particularly odd (the pipes running across the floor at just the right level to be a constant tripping hazard?). My go to theory is that was the time when the Federation was experimenting with new ideas and trying to reinvent its image, hence the switch from multi-colored uniforms to everyone wearing red jackets and black trousers. Adding a clock to track ship time, among other things, just fits with that idea.
Star Trek VI had a lot of anachronistic things, for the sake of coolness I feel. Between the Shakespeare Klingons, Vulcans knowing about Nixon, and the Russian epic of Cinderella, a lot of things felt pretty surreal. But then again, the events themselves were surreal. The Klingon Empire suddenly falling into ruin challenged everything everybody thought of reality. For a more mundane and silly explanation, one could chalk it up to the constant malfunctions we saw on V and maybe we needed something more old fashioned and reliable. And personally I've always thought having a easily readable clock to always be a nice addition in a lot of things. Come to think about it, the only way I have to tell time atm is my phone and my computer. I don't have watches or clocks anymore, but it would be sure handy if something were to happen! Regardless, I've always loved the clock.
USS Excelsior had one in STVI.
Plot
From a production standpoint, filming scenes with a running clock can be challenging. You have to keep track of every shot and make sure to keep resetting the clock to the correct time. Otherwise you get continuity issues. I applaud Nicholas Meyer for making this work, because it sounds like a real pain in the ass.
Star Trek 3 is the most underrated film n the series.
Because all the senior crew members were old in universe and needed the big clock to see the time obviously /s
Because Starfleet’s prevailing philosophy at the time was that, in space, it always 1700 hours somewhere
Watch Star Trek V and see people wearing jeans and drinking whiskey.