wsl@eosp1.UUCP (Warren Lobel) (06/11/84)
I have a few comments about the plot lines for ST III that will be a SPOILER. (Though the Star Trek diehards who wouldn't want to read a spoiler have had to see the movie by now). The way Spock was resurrected was very obvious from the ending of ST II and the effects of GENESIS (though it would have been interesting to see how Spock would have been regenerated if he had been Phaser'ed instead of offing by radiation poisoning). A more interesting plot would have been for Kirk to use the Guardian of Forever to return back to the moment of crisis and either repair the warp drive himself (via radiation suit) or leave the suit lying around for Spock to use. Of course time paradoxes would result but recall in the original episode (The City on the Edge of Forever) Kirk talked to Spock about trying to prevent McCoy's hypo accident using the Guardian. The objections of the time (i.e. the speed the centuries passed was too quick to allow arrival at an exact moment desired) of the episode have go to be overridden by now in that it has been quite a few years since Kirk discovered the time portal and the Federation has had more than enough time to learn enough about the portal to use it effectively. This brings me to another point in that the time portal was not mentioned again in Star Trek (except for the cartoon series which one may or may not include as part of the 'real' Star Trek universe) even though it represented the greatest scientific discovery of all time. A usable time machine. Of course the Enterprise also went back in time itself during the original 79 epsiodes at least three times (in 'The Naked Time' albeit just a few days, in 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' and in 'Assignment: Earth'). The ability to travel in time would be an attractive enough possibility for Kirk to try to use it in order to save Spock's life. Another method of Spock regeneration could have been to use the transporter (which according to several cartoon episodes) has the ability to retain a person's molecular structure and recreate the person using a different mass). This may have worked but it would have been exceedingly boring to film. To respond to two critiques of ST III: Kirk and gang will obviously not get into trouble with Starfleet for the following reasons: (1) Though Kirk disobeyed orders he prevented Genesis from falling into the hands of the Klingons. (2) Though the Enterprise was destroyed it was going to be decommisioned anyway and Kirk did bring back a state-of-the-art Klingon scout ship capable of destroying a Federation Science vessel (by the way the name of science ship Grissom I though was a nice touch in that Virgil Grissom was one of the only three US astronauts to die in a spacecraft accident though it was a fire in the capsule during a test). (3) Also as in 'Amok Time' T'pau is handy to pull strings to prevent any retribution. Well thats about all I have to say. I would appreciate any response to these comments via mail or the NET. Warren Lobel Exxon Office Systems Princeton Forrestal Center 500 College Road East Princeton, New Jersey 08540