A missed opportunity.
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 12:15 am
So I was thinking about the end of Star Trek IV, and something always bothered me about it. The ending.
We see Kirk and the others in Spacedock in a shuttle after they are exonerated, discussing what ship they will get. And Sulu suggests the Excelsior, much to Scotty's disgust. And then we see the shuttle fly over the Excelsior and there is another Constitution class Starship, relabeled USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A.
Only, this always struck me wrong. For one, it's pretty obvious that this is supposed to be a new ship. Yes, later on they would come up with the idea that this was the old USS Yorktown rechristened, but that seems like a bit of a retcon to me. The ship itself looks new when they go aboard, with a different and much more "modern" bridge. And the "jump to warp" effect is different... rather souped-up compared to what we see earlier when the Enterprise goes to warp. If you go behind the scenes, you find that the bridge control graphics included references to transwarp drive, which the last film established is a brand new and highly experimental thing. This is obviously meant to be a new ship.
And that fits well with Star Trek V. Consider this dialogue :
Scotty : U.S.S. Enterprise, shakedown cruise report. I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!
Or this :
Scotty : All I can say is they don't make 'em like they used to.
Kirk : You told me you could have the ship operational in two weeks. I gave you three. What happened?
Clearly this indicates a new-build ship.
But it's senseless to build another Constitution class. It's a decades old design in a time when a brand new design is just going into production. It would be like the US Navy saying "Screw the new Ford class carrier, just build another CVN-65 Enterprise! It's so historic!"
And that's ignoring the fact that it would surely take a year or more, perhaps several, to build a new Constitution. Are they really keeping the Connie production lines running right up to the very day the Excelsior is ready for trial runs? And fitting them with transwarp engines, to boot!
And even if we go with the retcon idea of a rechristened Yorktown, that doesn't sit right with me. It's horribly disrespectful to a ship which has been in service for many years to just rename it like that... the ship has it's own history, it's own heritage, and they just trample all over that. Not to mention the crew that they would have to yank off the thing to give it to a bunch of heroes. Ugh.
Here's what I would have done. Play out that last scene exactly as before... but instead of revealing a new Enterprise behind the Excelsior, reveal that the Excelsior itself has been renamed as the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A.
Now the scene works on every level. Kirk being given a brand new ship is a suitable reward. Styles being relieved of command in favour of Kirk works on a dramatic level, because the movie clearly doesn't want us to like that guy, AND it works on the practical level, because he's just coming off a major and extremely public failure inflicted on him by Kirk right in front of half of Starfleet. You can argue that it wasn't really his fault, but "it's not fair" only goes so far in saving a career from something like that.
Then the transwarp stuff also makes sense. And it ties so much better into Star Trek V, since a brand new Excelsior class Enterprise-A could very believably be a bit of a kludge with a lot of minor kinks to work out. And it owuld have given Scotty a lovely character arc, showing him coming to respect the new ship and its abilities throughout the film. And it even, dare I say it, would have made sense of the fabled trip to the galactic core which the transwarp equipped Enterprise-A could plausibly have done in a small fraction of the expected time. You could even have made a point of Sybok seeking to capture this particular Starship as it would be the only one fast enough to get there. (Though you'd then need a plausible way the BoP could follow).
All in all, I think this would have been a far better ending. What say you?
We see Kirk and the others in Spacedock in a shuttle after they are exonerated, discussing what ship they will get. And Sulu suggests the Excelsior, much to Scotty's disgust. And then we see the shuttle fly over the Excelsior and there is another Constitution class Starship, relabeled USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A.
Only, this always struck me wrong. For one, it's pretty obvious that this is supposed to be a new ship. Yes, later on they would come up with the idea that this was the old USS Yorktown rechristened, but that seems like a bit of a retcon to me. The ship itself looks new when they go aboard, with a different and much more "modern" bridge. And the "jump to warp" effect is different... rather souped-up compared to what we see earlier when the Enterprise goes to warp. If you go behind the scenes, you find that the bridge control graphics included references to transwarp drive, which the last film established is a brand new and highly experimental thing. This is obviously meant to be a new ship.
And that fits well with Star Trek V. Consider this dialogue :
Scotty : U.S.S. Enterprise, shakedown cruise report. I think this new ship was put together by monkeys!
Or this :
Scotty : All I can say is they don't make 'em like they used to.
Kirk : You told me you could have the ship operational in two weeks. I gave you three. What happened?
Clearly this indicates a new-build ship.
But it's senseless to build another Constitution class. It's a decades old design in a time when a brand new design is just going into production. It would be like the US Navy saying "Screw the new Ford class carrier, just build another CVN-65 Enterprise! It's so historic!"
And that's ignoring the fact that it would surely take a year or more, perhaps several, to build a new Constitution. Are they really keeping the Connie production lines running right up to the very day the Excelsior is ready for trial runs? And fitting them with transwarp engines, to boot!
And even if we go with the retcon idea of a rechristened Yorktown, that doesn't sit right with me. It's horribly disrespectful to a ship which has been in service for many years to just rename it like that... the ship has it's own history, it's own heritage, and they just trample all over that. Not to mention the crew that they would have to yank off the thing to give it to a bunch of heroes. Ugh.
Here's what I would have done. Play out that last scene exactly as before... but instead of revealing a new Enterprise behind the Excelsior, reveal that the Excelsior itself has been renamed as the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A.
Now the scene works on every level. Kirk being given a brand new ship is a suitable reward. Styles being relieved of command in favour of Kirk works on a dramatic level, because the movie clearly doesn't want us to like that guy, AND it works on the practical level, because he's just coming off a major and extremely public failure inflicted on him by Kirk right in front of half of Starfleet. You can argue that it wasn't really his fault, but "it's not fair" only goes so far in saving a career from something like that.
Then the transwarp stuff also makes sense. And it ties so much better into Star Trek V, since a brand new Excelsior class Enterprise-A could very believably be a bit of a kludge with a lot of minor kinks to work out. And it owuld have given Scotty a lovely character arc, showing him coming to respect the new ship and its abilities throughout the film. And it even, dare I say it, would have made sense of the fabled trip to the galactic core which the transwarp equipped Enterprise-A could plausibly have done in a small fraction of the expected time. You could even have made a point of Sybok seeking to capture this particular Starship as it would be the only one fast enough to get there. (Though you'd then need a plausible way the BoP could follow).
All in all, I think this would have been a far better ending. What say you?