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Mert says:

I could swear he says siberious

the old man says:

One of the things to keep in mind is, that even a space warping field would have to push against something to get lift, in this case the ground. Which is perhaps as good a reason as any not to use a warp field just anywhere. Like over inhabited areas or buildings. Everything literally slips down into the gravity well that the planet creates, if you create a counter-well either everything in or under that well slips upward or gets crushed as the mass of the ship pushes against the planet. Either way you look at it I wouldn’t want to be under it!

In TOS and the other series there are plenty of instances where some device was counteracting gravity.
Anti-gravity has been a slippery subject in the “Star Trek” universe, as well as dis-integrator guns, and even though science has advanced quite a bit since the 60’s, I don’t expect them to be any clearer than they have been in the past.

vitaboy says:

@the old man

“One of the things to keep in mind is, that even a space warping field would have to push against something to get lift, in this case the ground. ”

I am rather enjoying this thread. :-)

But I’d like to point out that rockets don’t move by pushing against the ground. Rather, it’s just a matter of conservation of momentum. All the burning propellent escapes out the nozzles at high velocity, and momentum is composed for mass times velocity. More velocity equals higher momentum. Since momentum has to be conserved, the momentum of the exhaust is transferred into the body of the rocket, causing it to move in the opposite direction. The ground has nothing to do with it – otherwise, how would missiles fired from jets ever work?

In fact, most scientists before rocketry believed space travel to be impossible, since in the vacuum of space, rockets would have “nothing to push against.” That was quickly proven wrong, as it was based on incorrect assumptions.

In any case, the way warp fields are supposed to work in Star Trek is that space itself is folded in front of the ship, i.e. expanded. Space behind the ship remains normal. Because the space ahead of the ship is expanded and is thus less “dense,” the ship is driven forward naturally, like compressed air in a bottle rushing out into a low density atmosphere outside the bottle. Again, pushing against the ground has nothing to do with it.

Besides, if warp field involved pushing against bodies, star ships would never be able to get close to anything, never mind docking at space stations, cause they would obliterate them every time they disembarked.

So, I see the Enterprise being constructed on the ground as 1) a tribute to the romanticism of ship building and 2) laying to rest the old canard of starships not being able to fly through the atmosphere of planets.

David says:

At first I thought the “mild sex scene” was with Kirk and Uhura, but its a different room than the one with just Uhura. I don’t care if Uhura takes her top off ;) I’m just glad she has some screen time of her own. She was always my favorite character. As for the film being too racy; I doubt that’ll be a problem since Star Trek was always about the “human condition”, even if the sensibilities of the time allowed little more than a pressing of lips together. Remember Kirk used sex and had sex used against him (unsuccessfully) on more than one occasion.

Kirk was always a shoot from the hip, damn the torpedos, full speed ahead kind of captain. I hope that won’t change too much. Breaking the rules was never a problem for him if the situation seemed to be something the rule makers could not have foreseen. Spock was prone to yelling on the bridge and did smile in one of the earliest TOS episodes (’Where No Man Has Gone Before’ I think.). He smiles again at the singing plants on Talos IV in “the Cage” if I remember correctly. So his control being a little loose is not unprecedented.

To lift the Enterprise into space I just assumed that since they could generate gravity for the decks of the ship they should be able to reverse the effect (like the police bike that chases young Kirk.).

tudza says:

Okay, even if you can lift the whole damned Enterprise into space with your special built ship lifting anti-gravity unit, it still doesn’t make sense. Unless of course, energy is completely free.

If it isn’t then I argue that it would make more sense to build the Enterprise in space since most of the materials she is built from would be mined in space. You’d be paying to drop them down to the earth and then lift them up again. Why?

And why do we want huge starships to be able to land on planets anyway? Ever heard of cargo ships, ocean liners? No expects them to cruise up the local stream to drop off their goods. No, there’s a whole infrastructure of dredged harbors, docks, tugs, freight handling equipment.

Gary says:

Wasnt there An Orion Slave girl in the original pilot ?
Granted ,She wasnt completly nude but still Sexuality has been a part of Star Trek from the get go.

David says:

@ Vic & vitaboy;

I do not recall which story it was (some twenty years ago) or the actual details of the effect and I’m sure its not cannon. But in one of the Star Trek novels Kirk almost ends up in prison for lighting up the warp drive of a starship in close proximity to a planet. It devastated the surface and killed more than a million people. Again, I don’t remember the actual effect, just that I thought it was extremely bad what a warp drive could do to a planet.

David says:

@ tudza;

Cruse ships and cargo aren’t built 200 yards off shore are they? Even if the raw materials are shipped in from a different location. Construction costs and safety is better maintained in a location chosen to minimize risk, like terra firma. Besides, as this thread has proven, one thing everyone wants to know is how the #@** they get that ship into orbit!!

@ daviedave;

Remember where Uhura sat (right behind Kirk), how she sat (to one side with those beautiful legs in full view), and that the camera often included her in the shot of Kirk?

vitaboy says:

@David,

I don’t doubt that, even if I can’t remember that particular episode myself. But this is supposed to be a reboot of the franchise. Which means that the movie might establish new movie physics that are more “realistic” (as sci-fi physics could ever be) versus arbitrarily established at some point in the past.

What I’m saying is that I’m hoping for more self-consistency in Star Trek physics. You can’t argue that warp drives are dangerous near planets when the Enterprise zips in and out near much smaller objects without ill effect. Don’t forget the famous “Picard Manuever” involved warping point-blank in front of another ship, yet the other ships were never devastated by warp effects. It’s just not self-consistent, even if was accepted in the old Trek universe.

Clearly, any ship that has the power to easily accelerate out of the gravity well of stars much more massive than our sun EASILY has the power to hover in the relatively insignificant gravity of Earth. There’s just no comparison between Earth gravity and the kinds of gravitational forces the Enterprise or any starship experiences in outer space.

Maybe the explanation of no planetary entry was good enough in the TOS when budgetary and technical reasons prevented them from ever showing Enterprise fly through the atmosphere, but in the context of a universe where warp drives, artificial gravity, inertial dampers (to prevent people from being squashed into jelly when a star ship accelerates instantly to warp), and antimatter power sources, a starship not being able to fly through the atmosphere is just plain silly. Damaging warp effects is clearly a concocted reason since warp drives damage neither nearby shuttlecraft, starships, star bases, asteroids, Jupiter size planets, Dyson spheres, or stars.

Only Earth-size planets? All I’m saying is, come on, it just doesn’t make any sense.

David says:

@ vitaboy

I concede your point! It is very inconstant! Plus the trailer we’ve all been watching shows the Enterprise going to warp about a mile or so from some large space station, that happens to be in orbit. So they have to change (or drop) the whole too dangerous to warp near a planet, star, ship, etc. thing.

In the TOS episode “Tomorrow Is Yesterday” the Enterprise hobbles back into orbit under impulse power only. Perhaps that’s the plan :)

the old man says:

Your going to hate me for this one vitaboy. Why not just beam-it into space? They beamed everything up in all the shows. There is a space station in the picture. Whether it’s in pieces or whole, why not just beam-it up?

vitaboy says:

@David,

Haha, I think broken tech makes for much better drama than ultimate tech. That’s why Wrath of Khan remains the best Star Trek movie to date – you had two powerful starships both severely disabled right from the beginning of the battle. No magical tech solution – just sheer guts and tactics.

I still get chills watching as Khan activates the Genesis device with his dying breath, and Spock detects an unknown energy pattern emanating from Reliant. Enterprise has no warp drive, as it slowly turns around to race away on impulse power only. And when Kirk calls out “distance from Reliant,” Sulu answers something like a mere 4000 kilometers, and a few moments later, when the bridge is completely silent with anxiety, simply says, “We’re not going to make it, are we?”

I found that kind of drama was severely lacking in TNG in the latter years, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise. When Spock sacrifices himself to restore warp power, it’s a true sacrifice. Nothing in any of the series or any of the movies comes CLOSE to the raw emotion and quiet power of his death scene and subsequent funeral, but it’s time for Star Trek fans to ask, “Why not?”

My greatest fear from the trailer is this apparently way-too-complicated plot to destroy Vulcan with some space elevator contraption. In the 23rd century, there should be far easier and more cost-effective ways to destroy a planet – heck, dropping 100,000 nukes on a planet should be more cost effective and carry a greater element of surprise than building a space elevator. So hopefully, there’s a believable explanation of why the Vulcans would allow a Romulan to build this planet-destroying space elevator on their homeworld.

If you think about it, overly complicated, contrived universal-Armageddon scenarios brings out the worst of Star Trek, e.g. Generations and Nemesis. Unfortunately, the Rick Berman team never understood that Wrath of Khan wasn’t really about the Genesis device at heart….

By the way – I note the new movie already varies from canon significantly by making the main villains Romulan. In the TOS episode “Balance of Terror,” Spock explains how the Federation-Romulan war fought a hundred years prior was one in which neither side ever saw each other face to face. No one even knew what a Romulan looked like until that episode. Clearly, this new movie completely ignores the canon.

Daniel says:

@joshi

I dont know if anyone said it yet, but Star Trek Voyager had an episode with a Space elevator, so it has been done. Anyone think that maybe a transporter of some size and power could beam up the whole thing or the whole thing in parts? I remember hearing somewhere that it was built in San Fransico Ship yards and assembled in space dock. Cant remember where and i could be wrong…

nowhereman says:

No,no,no…waitaminnit…maybe they just transport the whole planet somewhere else and BANG! The enterprise is space born…nahhhhh…I GOT IT! They construct a massive slingshot using all the earth’s mineral resources and…um…nope. Guess that wouldn’t work either…I suppose we’ll just have to tough it out until the release…sigh.

David says:

@ vitaboy;

Its probably forlorn hope. Only One TOS episode achieved that level of drama: “the City On The Edge Of Forever”. There again a purposeful sacrifice as surely as if Kirk had pushed her in front of the truck himself.To a lesser degree “All Our Yesterdays” was another one, Spock gave up feelings he truly felt for the woman to save a man who may not even have liked him.

Todays movies seldom deliver that level of character complexity. Sci-fi even more so. Opting instead for the quick attention deficit camera moves, mind numbing eye candy action, clever verbal banter, and the obligatory one-liner catch phrase.

That was never a major element of Star Trek and I hope it doesn’t become that way now.

Robert says:

Man oh man, look at the comments. I am one of those “so-so” fans who don’t own a single prop of the franchise but have watched every iteration (series and movies) that they came out with, in fact I even have one book “Imzadi” (spelling) taken from TNG. (Side note: Enterprise series was too forced)

Anyway this whole thing about the Enterprise not being able to enter a planets atmosphere, am I mistaken or did that not do that exact thing in the episode from TOS where they went back in time to the 40’s 50’s and beamed up the fighter pilot? If I recall the fighter pilot was beamed aboard BECAUSE he saw the ENTERPRISE flying through the sky. Furthermore, as at least one person has already pointed out, they can change the shape of the field surrounding the ship tomake it more and less dense and to make it more “aerodynamic” so I don’t think this is that big of a deal regarding building it on land. But I am confused, didn’t the teaser tailer make it look like it was being built in space? I recall asking my wife, “Hey how do they get a blowtorch to work in a vaccum?” Perhaphs I am wrong on that. Shoot, I could be wrong about the entire posting. Like I said, I am not a “hard-core” or “die-hard” fan but I do enjoy a good story and Sci-Fi and most of the time the Trek series provided that.

As for Kirk not being a “rule-breaker” , my rear! Of course he was, from the very beginning he was that way. Recall that the Federation was still rather new, in comparasion, and space was still the “wild west” ad Kirk was all about breaking rules if the situation called for it. How many times did he break the Prime Directive? Oh yeah, don’t forget about stealing an entire starship and then blowing it up. Kirk is as close to the “bad boy” that you could be in a military unit and that is why he got the chicks.

@Robert
“am I mistaken or did that not do that exact thing in the episode from TOS where they went back in time to the 40’s 50’s and beamed up the fighter pilot?”

The ship did not have Warp drive engaged, that’s the issue, not whether it can enter the atmosphere. :-)

BTW gang, I just realized… I’m in comic book/sci-fi geek heaven. Back to back years in which both of my favorites in each genre are turned into movies: Iron Man in ‘08 and Star Trek in ‘09.

Woo Hoo!! :-D

Vic

Rob Keyes says:

I just read on the Totally Rad Show forums some user posted about Kirk not being able to drive standard.

From Masherscf:
“HUGE continuity error. James T. Kirk did not know how to drive a standard transmission automobile. In the original episode “A Piece of the Action” he demonstrates this lack of skill in quite a humorous fashion. “

Andy S says:

@Daniel, I doubt that in the time that the Enterprise is built that they have a transporter capable of beaming the entire ship into space. First, remember how hard it was for Scotty to beam the whales with the water into the cargo bay in TVH? Also, I’m sure that the antimatter in the engines would make transport impossible…unless they add the antimatter afterwards. I think they get the ship into orbit using the impulse engines, easiest explanation.

Andy S says:

@Rob, wasn’t that episode set in the 1920’s era Chicago on a foreign planet? I think that the episode Amok Time when he has to let Edith Keeler die, Kirk also shows that he can’t drive standard. However, a standard transmission on a 1930’s Ford is VASTLY different from a highly tuned Corvette transmission. I can drive standard and I would have a hard time driving that old Ford!!!

Guys, we’re going to have to accept that a lot of minor “canon” details are probably going to be ignored. I mean seriously, (and I’ll reiterate I’m a HUGE classic Trek fan) is it THAT important to adhere to whether or not Kirk could drive a manual transmission car?

I mean, seriously.

Another item I just learned is being tossed out is the use of transporter technology in “Star Trek: Enterprise.” Apparently in the movie transporters are not yet commonly used to get from ship to planet and vice versa.

Personally, I’m happy with this because I thought it pretty retarded (and nothing more than an “easy out” plot device) that transporter technology had already been around for 100 years by the time Kirk and Co. came on the scene.

Vic

Daniel says:

@ Andy S
Ah, but Scotty was using a Klingon transporter to transport huge animals. Plus they already had power issues. Purpose build a larger transporter and juice it full of power and I dont see why they couldnt beam up a piece at a time :)
Plus I really think the guy above who talked about moving it piece by pice had it, remember “assembled in spacedock” as oppossed to built in.

Neurotic Nomad says:

@Vic

“Clearly, this new movie completely ignores the canon”

No advertisement of a Trek story with a time travel plot can “clearly” be anything.

a) Ads are often misleading as to plot points.
b) Has anyone officially called this a reboot? Are we instead getting a retcon-via-time-travel?

The only official word from Paramount is that this is a “re-imagining”. Well, both RetCons and Reboots allow you to reexamine and reinterpret past events, but reboots are start-from-scratch stories, and retcons are change-the-past events.

A retcon-via-time-travel plot allows one to ignore all kinds of chronology; from simple things like dates certain people meet, to the date transparent aluminum was invented, to even technological advancement time tables. (Some tech could be lost, taking longer to invent because the problems it was invented to solve weren’t as big of a problem and they were looking in the wrong direction due to mindset.)

Perhaps Spock goes back in time and convinces Young Kirk to do things that alter the time table, things that lead him to meet Young Spock in much different conditions, sooner than before – forever altering their relationship.

Perhaps Spock alters the history of ALL of the Enterprise crew members, not just Kirk, making sure they were all on board on a certain date and depending on their potential as a team to save the day.

Then again, for all I know, Spock travels through time so they could go see God again.

Neurotic Nomad says:

Re: Kirk Can’t Drive.

Has it occurred to anyone that we are perhaps witnessing the REASON Kick doesn’t drive at an older age.

Almost driving off a cliff would put ME off of operating a vehicle for a while.

Zero says:

I wonder… so for all the differences and screaming about adherence to the past, why isn’t this another quantum universe? It’s well established that there are infinite realities in Star Trek. Why are we limited to only living in one? Who says the one we’ve been watching is even “ours” – my God, WWIII would already have to have happened in Star Trek canon… and I don’t recall Khan ruling Asia anytime last century.

Also, have you guys noticed that Kirk is serving with Captain Pike there in several of those shots? I think this retcon or version, or whatever, will have Kirk assuming command after Pike is killed.

@Neurotic Nomad

Whatever you want to call it, this new Star Trek movie is to past Trek what Batman Begins and Casino Royale were to their respective franchises.

Vic

Neurotic Nomad says:

How sure are you that this is a “Batman Begins” situation versus a “Crisis on All Earths” situation?

Neurotic Nomad says:

Brainfart. Make that: Crisis on Infinate Earths

People keep bringing up the “Enterprise built ON earth, how do they get it into space?” thing. I dont think they will show it. We probably see it for the first time half built, then next time we see the good ship it will already be in ornit.

In 6 i was expecting a launching ceremony and whatnot for Enterprise-E, didnt get it, instead we are introduced to the ship already in service, and i loved it.

huntthejest says:

Hello, Uhura! This looks friggin awesome! As far as rebooting Star Trek and making it cool for a new generation, mission accomplished. However, one casting problem for me- John Cho- does not equal Mr. Sulu. I thought if anything they should have the guy that plays Ando in Heroes. The guy’s great, and definitely seems much more like George’s son than Hiro.

@huntthejest

Oh man, EXCELLENT pick for Sulu! Unfortunately it would be too weird to have TWO actors from Heroes on the bridge of the Enterprise. :-P

Vic

Mat D. says:

I am not a Star Trek fan by any means…but it’s nice to see Trek come down off that pedastal and try to appeal to more than just the fans….and anything irritates the Trekkies, Trekkers, or whatever they call themselves these days is fine by me

@Mat D

No need to be insulting to fans that have kept the franchise alive for decades – without whom there wouldn’t BE a new Star Trek movie.

Vic

Mat D. says:

sorry then….

@Mat

Hey, happy to have you contribute to the conversation, bud – just do it nicely. :-)

Vic

Lynn says:

I watched the original series on NBC when it first started. Some of the movies and series incarnations since have had things I would have wanted to happen differenty but the whole idea of the vision of a future where there is hope and improvement in mankind is amazing to me. I have loved Star Trek my whole life and as long as it is basically following the dream we should not sweat the details. I am just thankful the idea is still alive. With any relationship we have to decide what really matters, Trek in some version or no trek at all. The choice is easy for me to make.

John "Kahless" Taylor says:

@vitaboy
And when Kirk calls out “distance from Reliant,” Sulu answers something like a mere 4000 kilometers
That was Chekov that reported 4000 kilometers, not Sulu. Sulu did say “We’re not going to make it are we?”.

@Andy S
I think that the episode Amok Time when he has to let Edith Keeler die, Kirk
You mean “City on the Edge of Forever” where he has to let Edith Keeler die. Also, he doesn’t drive a vehicle in that episode. Amouk Time was when Spock hit his 7 year itch. :-)

I have read this whole thread and most of it is about the ship and how is Starfleet going to get it into space. I kept thinking while reading, “How do we know this is not just a mockup, an illustration of a new Starship design”. While watching the trailer in Quantum of Solace, I kept thinking that the ship Kirk was looking at was too small for over a thousand people. Also, if it is the ship, why can’t they just use thrusters to get it into space, like in Voyager?

About warp fields on planets; I’ve always thought that forming a warp field inside a planets atmosphere would create horrible atmospheric conditions. But in Star Trek IV, they went into warp after transporting the whales aboard the Bounty (Klingon ship), so what do I know.

I’m a huge Trek fan and these little continuity issues don’t bother me. Why? Because JJ Abrams said this was a re-imagining of Trek, so we should expect some differences. Let’s just hope it is as good as the trailer shows.

KEL says:

ROTFLMAO!!!!! That was great, Vic!!!! :-D :-D :-D

dooley says:

Quite frankly, I was not a fan of TOS, but I was a way too young to get it. Lost in Space was more my speed then. But I saw the first movie directed by Robert Wise and I’ve been hooked ever since. Loved the collaboration between the Star Trek folks and NIcholas Meyer. Star Trek II, III, IV were good, V not so good, but VI was back on point. Next Generation films First Contact and Insurrection were pretty good but I didn’t care for Nemesis. Really looking forward to this new one.

X man says:

I didn’t notice anything wrong with the latest trailer when I first watched it. The second time however I thought the young Kirk tell the cop his middle name was Siberius. I played that part a couple more times and I am sure he says Siberius and not Tiberius. I made my way to this site by Googling that mistake. I agree with some of others that there is a mistake in that scene. Hopefully, they fix that.

X man says:

Ok. I have been replaying the car over the cliff scene many times and it sounds more like the kid does say Tiberius when I listen close. When not listening closely it sounds like Siberius.

Mall Cop says:

To all those out there comparing this to the original television series, it’s time to move on. JJ Abrams is not making TOS – he has reinvented it. That being the case, can’t he reinvent how to get the ship up into orbit? How the bridge looks?

We all need to take this for what it is – an original take on some classic characters. I can’t wait!!!!

Johhny-O says:

@ Neurotic Nomad:

You are absolutely right, my friend! The Enterprise was constructed on the ground, and then disassembled into smaller, more manageable sub-asemblies to be beamed up into LEO (low-earth orbit) with powerful transporters, thence re-assembled in space. Even in the 23rd Century, this would be much easier than transporting everything up to LEO, let alone, as you so eloquently stated, the workforce; not to mention, safer…How many men died building the Golden Gate Bridge, something like 22, 23?

All anyone has to do, if you can find one, is get their hands on a Star Trek background document, some created before the original series was even on-air (’The Making of Star Trek’, the ‘Star Trek Bible’, ‘The Star Trek Technical Manual’, etc). The Enterprise, we are clearly told, was built at what even in Century 23 still called the ‘San Francisco Navy Yards’ (nice nautical touch, doncha think?), or more specifically, the Mare Island Shipyards, just outside of San-Fran proper. This, I expect, is where we see the big scene in the trailer, and believe me, it is not inconsistent with the background. These also say repeatedly that the Big E was ‘assembled in orbit’, totally consistent with what you just said, since she is, after all, a creature of space.

Having said that, as someone already pointed out very adroitly here (forgive me, I forget who), it would nonetheless be quite possible to launch – although not land (unless in water, I guess) a Constitution-class vessel (the ‘Connies’ someone cleverly tagged them, here, lol), just with the use of a powerful warp field to mitigate the ship’s mass, hold it all together with the SIF (structural integrity field), and make VERY sure the inertial dampeners are at FULL – never can predict what effect variable gravity will have on humanoid flesh – and then simply cut loose with the Enterprise’s main impulse fusion plasma thrusters (Impulse, btw, is a term used today, having to do with a certain quantity of fuel consumed over a specific period of time, expressed as a ratio – say, 100-1 for the chemically fueled Space Shuttle, as opposed to, I expect, 100,000-1 for the Enterprise – specific impulse). This may be an excellent test to see how the lady holds together under the even stress of 1 G to achieve escape velocity, co-ordinating several different systems at once…Hmmmm…

On the other hand, this just might be too dangerous, even if everything was charged, spun up, and tested before hand. The Earth’s rotation, after all, will not change between today & then; America’s east coast might be a good place to launch Supercarrier-sized payloads, by taking advantage of the planet’s spin and launching a payload safely out over the Atlantic, but not from San Francisco! My God, if anything went wrong she might come down in Missouri, f’Chrissakes, that’s where I live! AAAACCCCKKK!

No, the Enterprise was ASSEMBLED in space, but as you pointed out, Nomad, in pre-built sections, couldn’t have said it better myself. Kinda like the superlifts they prefabricate to assemble into a carrier or any other sea-going vessel today. The only difference is a matter of a couple of hundred miles – straight up. It’s just safer. But by then, all the parts have been pre-fitted, plugged in, and tested under gravity, so you KNOW the whole system works.

Besides, this is all part of a corrupted timeline anyway, as cool as cool-on-a-T-shirt the Enterprise would no doubt look flying through the sky (and yes, areodynamics could easily be handled by the shields), so Abrams can do just about whatever he wants, as long as he remains consistent; remember, the original timeline, as well as the original Enterprise and crew profiles, might very well remain intact. This is a new direction, literally, no matter who served with whom or when, in the original uncorrupted timeline…Confused? Me too!

THEN, LET’S GO SEE THE MOVIE ON MAY 8th!

Love to ya,

JOHN

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