Posts

Showing posts from December, 2009

Star Trek by the Minute 066: Sewer Interrogation Begins

Image
STbtM Posts: First – Previous Uhura continues to look at Spock, and nearly breaking into tears says "OK." She then plants a kiss right on Spock's mouth to which he responds, and they separate as the lift comes to halt. The door opens and Uhura watches Spock exit and walk down the corridor. Speaking of which: where is he going? It must be someplace important for the acting captain to leave his post in the middle of an emergency, failing to hand off command to anyone or give anyone on the bridge a clue as to what was going on, where he was going, what he was doing, when he'd be back, etc. It seems reasonable that simply a normal viewer might want to know who was in charge of Starfleet's most advanced vessel and best weaponry, to say nothing of the crew aboard the ship. Apparently we will never find out, because the film cuts immediately to a scene of the Narada zooming through some sort of energy conduit or hyperspace with a blue-white light reminiscent of the sig

Star Trek by the Minute 065: Uhura's Kiss

STbtM Posts: First – Previous As the segment opens, Uhura puts down her earpiece and arises from her chair to follow Spock who is walking to the aft bridge turbolift. The precognitive door sensors demonstrate they are still functioning, as they patiently wait for just the right moment to do anything: first Spock enters, then stops, presses a button, waits for a moment, and then Uhura to clicks her go-go boots across the bridge, joining Spock in the lift. As soon as she enters, the doors begin to close the instant her first foot hits the lift deck – while she's still moving. The pair gazes meaningfully into each other's eyes, before Uhura reaches over and presses a button to stop the lift. Spock, having read the Starfleet Seduction Manual section on "quick privacy", is well aware her actions have elevated the sexual situation status to yellow alert at the very least. Perhaps having spent too much time listening to Chekhov, she declares (no kidding): "I'm sor

Star Trek by the Minute 064: Endangered Species

Image
STbtM Posts: First - Previous As the planet Vulcan collapses, we have an opportunity to see more examples of bad science, lazy writing, and an inconsistent plot that doesn't maintain even a semblance of coherency with itself. First, the bad science relating to the setup of the plot: the story is that a drop of red matter has been injected into the planet or so that it can create a singularity, or black hole. As discussed previously, there's absolutely no reason to drill to the core of the planet to position a singularity in some kind of central location, except as a poorly thought out plot device to enable lots of special effects scenes like those we just witnessed in this case featuring the giant tentacle drill, skydiving, sword fights, and professional wrestling moves worthy of the Insane Clown Posse. If we suspend disbelief regarding the need for red matter delivery to the core of the planet and simply assume that this has occurred, then the planetary collapse shown in t

Star Trek by the Minute 063: Amanda Dies

STbtM Posts: First – Previous As the segment opens, it has been 8 seconds since Spock alerted the Enterprise to begin the beam-out. Let's think about that: our team is in the middle of a catastrophic disaster with the Enterprise on split-second standby for the refugee call for rescue and the instant they are in a safe zone for transport, they request emergency evacuation. Tick, tick, tick goes the timer on their survival, while our 23 rd century technology on the Enterprise takes longer to start than a hand-cranked 1912 Henderson , and whorls of glowing plasma surround the survivors. The survivors patiently wait for evacuation while some more cliffs collapse around them, more whirling plasma and nothing happens. More time goes by. More cliffs collapse as the survivors watch with increasing worry through more transporter special effects. The characterization that during this time no one does anything is not quite fair, because Amanda does actually teleport from the safety of Spoc

Star Trek by the Minute 062: Katric Ark Escape

STbtM posts: First – Previous As the segment opens we see Spock running up the large sloping mountainside that leads up to Katric Ark entrance. It seems to be quite a ways and we wonder why he would want to beam down so far away from the entrance. The planet is collapsing, everyone has mere seconds to survive, while Spock is doing some kind of weird crouching beam-in position, and has decided to try some mountain jogging across dangerous & unstable terrain for what, sightseeing? We know that everyone on the planet, everyone on the ship, and the Enterprise itself have only a few seconds. Since we later see the evacuees transported from just outside the Katric Ark entrance, we have to wonder why, in the Vulcan hell, ( Thx Muser ) would anyone would ever consider beaming to the bottom of the mountain they need to get inside? Eventually making it into the entrance tunnel, he shields eyes from falling debris and sprints into the temple chamber door and up some stairs to a gigantic s

Star Trek by the Minute 061: Spock Beams Down

STbtM Posts: First - Previous With Kirk and Sulu tumbling in an uncontrolled free-fall, Kirk yells: "Enterprise, where are you?" Again, what Kirk chooses to shout is not only pointless, but in the real world this shouting would be impossible as well. Any experienced jumper can tell you, just breathing is difficult enough when you have winds over 100 MPH hitting your unprotected face head on, try enunciating anything intelligible with this kind of turbulence blasting your mouth and lips. The effect can be simulated by having a competent friend drive over 100 MPH, while one sticks their head out the passenger-side window, and you'll see what I mean. Next, try holding a microphone 1 meter out to the side (like a cellphone) and get an understandable message to it. Good luck. Naturally, you would not hear anything from the device because of wind interference, yet Chekov repeats "Hold on, hold on, hold on." Forget about the unbelievable story, the fact that this wri