posted
Who here thinks Riker was an idiot for making Deanna, Miss lets state the alien's obvious intentions, take the helm of the saucer section just as the battle section's warp core exploded in Generations?
quote: Fate protects fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise- Commander William Riker
-------------------- Fry- How will we get out of this? George Takei's head- Maybe we can use some kind of auto-destruct code like one-A, two-B, three-C... (Bender's head blows up) Bender- Now everybody knows! -Futurama's obligatory Star Trek episode
Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
A bunch of extras, Data and Worf. IIRC, everyone else was busy fighting the Klingons and wetting themselves.
He could've taken the helm himself, but he was in command and needed to focus on the whole situation not one job. Deanna was really the only choice. And apparently she knew the basics of the job.
posted
On the bridge were Riker, Troi, Worf, Data, and extra man at tactical, and another one or two people at the portside stations. When the helm console shorted, the helmswoman was thrown backwards. The officers at the starboardside stations helped move her out of the way and (presumably to Sickbay). The aft station officers likewise did the same for whomever fell back there.
It was not a bad choice to have Troi take the helm. She had just passed her bridge officer certification test a year or so earlier. She was a full commander. She knows the basics of flight control, and Riker wasn't planning on special maneuvers. He wanted to retreat to a safe distance and (later) move the saucer away from the stardrive section.
Now, the movie made the crash seem like Troi's fault. I have also read the novelization of Generations, and there it is not Troi's fault. The Enterprise had not made it that far away from Veridian III. When the core breached, the shockwave damaged the saucer's attitude control and thrusters. This caused the saucer to be picked up by the planet's gravity well and be brought crashing down to the surface. Watching Generations now, I can see that this was attempted to be conveyed in the movie with lines like "Rerouting lateral thrusters" and "Attitude control offline." The movie just didn't make it clear enough, plus Veridian III disappeared during the separation sequence and parts of the battle sequence.
In short, the crash was no one's fault and could not be prevented, in my opinion.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
posted
Sure, blame a woman on crashing the Galaxy Class saucer! But I've always imagined that the saucer was moving to orbit when the stardrive section blew up. The shockwave just destablelized the orbit and threw the ship in for one fun ride.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
That's exactly what was going on by the novelization. Troi was moving the saucer into orbit and trying to get behind the planet to shield them (if I remember correctly). She just didn't have the time to do with the damaged equipment available.
Of course, you won't believe the number of times I've gone a critique of Generations and read the exclamation: where the hell did that planet come from that Troi crashed the ship on!?
::sigh::
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
posted
I never thought the movie made it seem like it was Troi's fault. I thought that was just something that came up when someone made the old "see what happens when you let a woman drive?" joke.
If anything, Troi was the one who saved them. Do you really think they would have done as well if the saucer had landed on its rim and flipped end over end a few times, rather than just sliding across the ground?
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
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posted
Really people, do you honestly think that anybody actually piloted the thing down?
Your talking about an ellipse hundreds of meters across coming in from orbit. Not to mention that the saucer is not a lifting body - in fact its almost the opposite of a lifting body.
Maybe Troi was in control while still outside the atmosphere perhaps - but for a large part of the descent, there wasn't even a helm console left.
Astronauts today take years to learn how to bring down the shuttle in a detailed checklist. I'm willing to concede unimaginable advances in computer technology, but not in the piloting skills of newly flight certified psychiatrists.
The computer brought her down - Troi was just an in joke.
[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: Stingray ]
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
To make it more clear everything was off line - they should have had Troi continually punching in commands into the helm control - with that buzzer noise that happens when something isn't working and then actually banging her fists on the panel in desperation, to show that it was a hopeless situation! It just looked as if she let it sorta happen - not that she did it was just that she just sat there?? I loved it when Deanna took the helm it fitted in nicely with what we had seen just a year earlier. With FC and Insurrection it has been as if they are separate movies to the series!
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
posted
Uh...last I checked, they were seperate movies. I can't see a four hour "First Insurrection" doing well at all.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Sol, I think Andrew means that the TNG movies seem detached from The Next Generation series. There was a feel of wholeness from The Original Series into the TOS movies (not all of them, certainly). Generations did manage to carry some of the TNG spirit with it onto the big screen, but that's kind of been lacking a bit with the last two.
Anyway, Andrew, I agree that the entire fifteen minutes of the movie in that area should have been reworked for better flow and better understanding of what was happening. What you suggest would have done a bit to stop people from thinking Troi is a bad driver. However, there would still be people going, "TroI sux she crashd da saucer n is a bad pilott. Butt i like her TITTITTTTITTTITITIIIIES!"
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
quote:Originally posted by TSN: Do you really think they would have done as well if the saucer had landed on its rim and flipped end over end a few times, rather than just sliding across the ground?
shit that would be cool as hell. lets say they used the escape pods then the hull went flying downward dumbling into pieces, knocking down small mountains on its way down... sweet
posted
That sounds like something that should have happened in Voyager's Timeless episode. The last few posts got me into thinking though that Deanna should have punched a few more LCARS buttons to make her look like she was doing something. As I recall, she just looked at the readouts as if the saucer was the one doing the thinking...that or Data.
[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: Michael_T ]
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
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posted
The only thing that probably kept the saucer section from flipping end-over-end wiping out mountains and forests was that after entering the atmosphere, Data managed to get the lateral thrusters back online and use them to level their descent.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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