Isn't Picard's little list about the people present at Riker's party a bit weird? I mean, would our Picard really toss out a comment not all that much different from "Riker's party had three blacks, two hispanics and one queer with a really ugly nose"? Do Andorians, Tellarites and Gorns still hold such a high freakiness value that the mere mention of their races will make the 24th century audience snicker and giggle?
It's a bit too late for safety belts now, after two or three centuries's worth of crews have done without them (the TMP-ST3 thigh restraints being a short-lived exception).
The E-E should have saucer separation, since separation is the only reason for having a saucer in the first place. This would be an one-off maneuver, as with Kirk's ships, naturally.
Algeron was said to "have kept the peace for seventy years" in "The Pegasus". This need not mean the treaty was signed seventy years prior, only that it had had the desired effect for that length of time. Perhaps it was blatantly violated for the first 150 years (or rather the 50 years between the Romulan return in "Balance of Terror" and the re-isolation after Tomed)?
Den*b being unvisited sounds like a really silly thing for Logan to write, considering he must know very well the references to Deneb in TOS and TNG. Or then Logan is smart enough to know that Deneb is really far away and *ought* to be out of reach of Federation ships, and he's got some sort of a master plan to rework the universe and put right what once went wrong...
Otherwise, there's a lot of good in the movie if the spoilers are accurate. The part I really hate is the central motivation of the bad guy. He has to meet and kill Picard for - technobabble?!? It all sounds awfully convoluted and unintuitive. Why should somebody's life depend on getting a substance from one's identical twin, when Trek medical and synthesis technology is so full of wonders? Why would extracting that substance be lethal to the donor?
A simple "This universe isn't big enough for the two of us" would have been far better. Or perhaps he would have hoped to actually *become* Picard, to swap places to carry out a cunning plan. THAT would make him a tragic hero-villain - he has to murder a person he respects since it is the only way to attain a greater goal, possibly a goal the audience would sympathize with. In the current version, all he'd have to do would be to send email to Dr Crusher and ask her to cure his illness.
quote:The E-E should have saucer separation, since separation is the only reason for having a saucer in the first place.
Er, what? This is post-TNG revisionism at its worst. The E-D had a saucer, the saucer could separate, thrown in a vague line from "A Taste of Armaggedon" and you arrive at the conclusion that any ship with a saucer can separate, and therefore ships were designed with saucers to make separation easier? Your logic does not compute.
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No, actually I mean that the only reason there should ever be a saucer-shaped object flying through space (be it attached to a starship, or comprising a starship all on its own) is for the object to be capable of atmospheric entry. The saucer shape is pretty much useless for anything else.
A sphere would offer a better volume-to-surface ratio for things like armoring or heat loss. A narrow, oblong structure would offer a lower silhouette for the volume in 3D combat, unless you are fighting one-on-one and are agile enough to always turn edge-on. If neither of these is a concern, then build a cube for ease of deck arranging. If you have Trek-style artificial gravity, that is. If you don't, build a cylinder for combined rotation/thrust gravity.
OTOH, a saucer is ideal for atmospheric entry. You can generate lift with it. You can turn it to generate formidable maximum drag or negligible minimum drag. When you land, you can skim on water or level ground using ground effect, and then rest assured that when you stop, your vessel will be perfectly upright and remain so. The possibly landing-damaged structure will lie flat to the ground and won't have to fight against gravity.
I'm rather sure that Matt Jeffries thought of planetary landings when he included a saucer in the Enterprise designs. Probably he didn't know of transporters at that point yet.
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GR and MJ were NOT thinking in lines of aerodynamics and space mechanics when they designed the E-nil. They just wanted something that didn't look like your average, everyday rocket ship. If they were thinking like that, then the Ent WOULD have looked like a missile. Vogon is right, you're drawing a faulty conclusion.
-------------------- The flaws we find most objectionable in others are often those we recognize in ourselves.
Registered: Jun 2001
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Trektoday.com has a new review of the script for Nemesis - saying it just looks like a rehash of many other movies... go take a look - the reviewer was personally disgusted - again calling for Berman to get out.
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