Star Trek by the Minute 061: Spock Beams Down
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 writing came from people who get paid for this dreck is the real excitement. Perhaps they were going for a "more dramatic" effect by more repetition? At this point I swear: Kirk responds "Now, now, now, do it now! Now, now, now, now." Dear reader, can you GUESS what Chekov says AGAIN to his free-falling comrades? That's right: "Hold on." Unbelievable. Another potentially suicidal mistake these geniuses have been making is for them to stay together in freefall. By separating, they can increase their surface area and gain valuable time by slowing their descent. Another potentially suicidal mistake was Sulu not bothering to try his communicator at all. In a worst case, it would give a signal to which the ship could lock-on.
Finally, his stuttering comes to an end, and he says: "Compensating gravitational pull and…gotcha!" They materialize just above the transporter pad – yet still falling. Apparently the transporter can filter out really big relative velocities that would puree any mammal, but when it comes to an object falling it's completely flummoxed.
In homage to the love between George Takei and the Shat, Sulu and Kirk fall to the deck in each other's arms – quite "touching". "Thanks" says Sulu, "No problem," pants Kirk. Spock strides in strapping on a black holster style belt and orders "Clear the pad, I'm beaming to the surface." Apparently, the 7 spaces on the transporter have fewer controls than a Tivo. Kirk, stepping down with Sulu asks another set of nonsensical queries: "The surface of what? What're you going down there? Are you nuts?" I would only guess this was thought to be humorous. Spock checks a phaser and crouches, for some reason. Kirk yells: "Spock, you can't do that!" which is obviously untrue, unhelpful, and meaningless. The former skipper orders "Energize!" To which Kirk yells his next incomprehensible line: "Spock!"
Spock materializes in a landscape that reminds me of Oblivion from Elder Scrolls IV, but is really a computer enhanced Vasquez Rocks. He looks around at the collapsing cliffs, stands up (why was he crouched again?), and bolts off running down into the Mentakan valley.
No women utter a word or appear in this segment.
Next time, we wonder why Spock beamed down so far from his destination, in Star Trek by the Minute 062: Katric Ark Escape.
Comments
Meanwhile Chekov (the youngest cadet on board) assumes command, Sulu falls off the drill, Kirk dives after him, catches him, the transporter operator fails to lock on, Chekov decides he could do it, relinquishes command, runs to the transporter room, takes over, establishes lock, and beams Kirk and Sulu up, all before Spock arrives with his special belt and phaser. Shouldn't Spock have arrived much sooner than Chekov?
The following scene has Spock's mother falling to her death seconds before beamout. Considering he was beaming down to a known friendly planet to retrieve people known to be friendly did he REALLY need that phaser? Considering retrieving the phaser and belt cost his mother's life it's no wonder the dude hates himself later in the movie.
If you're going through the whole thing, I look forward to your feedback.