YT300000wrote:
They have been explained earlier in this thread, except for the Nemesis one (Italy pointing the other way). The two scenes were a few minutes apart, for some reason the station could have turned by then.
Let's take a look at those explanations:
In TOS "Friday's Child," there's a space shot where the E-naught's registry number is backwards (mirrored). Maybe so you can read it in your rearview mirror.
No canon-friendly explanation attempted.
In TOS "The Doomsday Machine," stars are visible through the machine's neutronium hull in several shots. Clear neutronium? I like it, but...
Explained as an error on Spock's part, or hull reflections. Both satisfactory.
In TOS "Day of the Dove," Scotty knocks a Klingon unconscious by hitting him on the elbow. Strong SOB...
Explained as:
1.) Dumb Luck (TM) on Scotty's part - he hit a preexisting injury and the Klingon passed out. Okay, but this is on the order of Jerry Seinfeld trying the roommate switch and stumbling into a threesome opportunity. You'd think Scotty would also be able to defy the laws of physics and save the ship every time by sheer will...wait a minute...
2.) Scotty hit a pressure point. But in Star Trek 6, he didn't know that Klingons don't have tear ducts. Well, the one doesn't require the other. Okay. Satisfactory.
In TNG "Encounter at Farpoint," the Captain's Yacht is the source of a phaser beam.
Explanation:
The Captain's Yacht may not be canon. If any of the tech manuals depicting the Galaxy class are canon, then the Captain's Yacht is too. Satisfactory unless tech manuals are canon.
In TNG "The Dauphin," Dr. Pulaski calls security to sickbay and they show up in less than five seconds. Best response time I've ever seen from any security detail ever.
Explanation:
They were assigned to Anya's governess (Salia or something), and waiting outside. Satisfactory.
In TNG "The Host," the Trill have builtup foreheads, and their symbionts completely subdue the host personality. This as opposed to Jadzia Dax. A perfect example of the viewer having to extrapolate - say, that there are two humanoid races on the Trill homeworld, both compatible with symbionts. This in the absence of a "we don't like to talk about it" ala Worf's explanation of Klingon magic forehead ridges. Maybe it's the same thing that turned Klingon blood red after the events of ST6?
Explanations:
Trills are multiple races or altered their own foreheads. Satisfactory.
Klingons altered their own foreheads. Satisfactory.
Some environmental factor about Kronos One changed the crew's blood to pink. Satisfactory.
In TNG "In Theory," a female crewmember walks past LaForge around a corner and a scream is heard. But when LaForge goes to investigate, the woman (who has fallen halfway through the deck) is facing back the way she came. Guess she was able to turn 180 degress as she fell, so we could see how scared she was.
Explanation:
The woman turned around for some reason before she fell. Stretches canon, but doesn't contradict it. Satisfactory.
In TNG "Darmok," the forward photon torpedo tube fires a phaser beam.
Explanation:
The forward photon torpedo tube is also a phaser bank. Unsatisfactory.
The phaser banks carried by the Enterprise-D were all too wide for the same mechanism to be hidden inside the torpedo tube, and this placement makes no sense.
In TNG "The Game," the forward photon torpedo tube emits a tractor beam.
Explanation:
The forward torpedo tube is also a tractor beam emitter. This would be unsatisfactory, but tractor beam emitters are small enough that the beam may only appear to come from the torpedo tube, but actually come from just above or below it.
In TNG "The Next Phase," phased people can run and breathe and hear each other and sit in chairs and...
Discussed 'at length' elsewhere on SDnet. I'll look for this.
In "The Final Frontier," the turbolift shaft that Spock, Kirk, and McCoy use to evade Sybok's cronies is much wider than any turbolift, and over 80 decks high according to the numbering, which increases and actually decreases again as they keep flying upward.
No canon-friendly explanation attempted.
And yes, they DID go to the center of the Galaxy. Perhaps via a "warp highway" that's no longer there, but they did go. It doesn't matter that it looks wrong, any more than we can ignore Khan based on the fact that the Eugenics Wars haven't happened. It's fiction. Apparently the galactic core simply looks different in Trek.
Explanation:
Warp highway that no longer exists, or the "great barrier" is hundreds/thousands of lightyears across, such that it is barely beyond Federation space's 23rd century borders. The former is (barely) satisfactory. The latter is unsatisfactory - such a huge barrier wouldn't even colloquially be referred to as being at the center of the galaxy.
In "Generations," the Veridian sun dims seconds after Soran's probe is launched. I'll not even comment on how fast the probe must be, but what happened to the speed of light?
Explanation:
Federation "FTL" sensors recorded the image. This is not canonically stated, and would contradict the visible lack of a Starfleet officer on the platform from which the shot appeared to be taken. Picard could not have placed a recording device on the platform, as he could not reach it in the timeline that saw Veridian's destruction. Assuming the shot is actually from a slightly different location than the platform, this would still require another person or recording device. A person would have helped Picard. A device being beamed down is a possibility.
EXCEPT - all canon-friendly references to a Federation recording device become impossible in light of the fact that this timeline is erased (presumably with any recordings of it) by Picard and Kirk. Picard did remember both timelines, and could therefore have ordered a reenactment. He or the production crew could have made a mistake in depicting the launch. Convoluted as hell, and would likely require that all of Star Trek is in-universe footage, which is impossible. Certain timelines were completely erased. And other events that would not merit reenactment take place in locations with no Federation recording devices or sensors present.
SirNitram's amusing supposition that TNG was Federation propaganda runs into problems in light of this.
TNG "Cause and Effect" and VOY "Year of Hell" cannot be Federation footage OR reenactments based on eyewitness observations. Both involve timelines that were erased with no chance of recordings or memories surviving the erasures. "All Good Things" involved multiple timelines being viewed by Picard, but only his consciousness moved between them. He could not take recordings with him. But he could retell the story. Star Trek: First Contact may be Fed-filmed or generated from Fed sensor readings, as the Enterprise-E was protected from the changes in the timeline by a "temporal wake."
TNG "Clues" can still be Federation footage if Data transferred his memories of the Paxans to B4, which is unlikely.
TNG "Thine Own Self" can't be Federation footage or Data's retelling, since he doesn't remember any of it.
VOY "Unforgettable" is probably not footage (Kellen supposedly erased all computer references to her from Voyager's computer with a virus), and it is highly unlikely that Chakotay's written memoir was complete enough for such a detailed reenactment.
Various people have also had scenes that ended in their deaths and the destruction of their ships (presumably with any recordings): Capt. Ransom of the Nova, Lt. Cmdr. Data, Khan Noonien Singh, Lursa and B'etor, General Chang.
Another possibility, SirNitram, that may span every timeline, is that Q recorded everything. But if this were the case, there would be no inexplicable production mistakes.
In "First Contact," sparks that fly in the deflector dish scene immediately fall back towards the dish. Does it have external gravity that affects sparks but not drones or its own components?
Explanation:
An electromagnetic field that drew the sparks back to the hull. Unlikely (the acceleration looks wrong and some of the sparks bounce), but not impossible.
In "Nemesis," the Enterprise is facing east in the shot (Italy is in the background) just before Picard's last conversation with B4. In the next space shot, the Enterprise is facing west. Did they have to turn it around so the repair peeps could reach the other side? Or maybe Italy was upside down and they fixed it.
Explanation:
The shots could easily be hours or days apart, allowing the rotation of the drydock for one reason or another. Satisfactory.
Darth Wong wrote:
The visuals vs dialogue issue never ends because too many people are ignorant of the following facts:
1) Visuals are objective. Dialogue is subjective.
Inarguable.
2) Rational, objective conclusions can only be based on rational arguments from objective data.
Also inarguable.
3) VFX "errors" are easily distinguished from deliberate VFX choices.
This ignores the limitations of FX technology and assumes that things can always be depicted as the creators wish. Certain things (especially in TOS) were depicted not as they were imagined, but as the FX techniques of the time allowed. Sometimes the best FX choice available still forced flaws on the image. And does this mean we shouldn't try and explain the FX errors canonically?
4) Sci-fi TV and movie producers pay far, far more attention to visuals than they do to the details of technical dialogue.
This is obviously true of Trek and Wars, so I'll not look for some moot example of someone taking a different approach to a production.