Star Trek Movie Annotations

Alan Kistler

Alan Kistler is a freelance writer who has contributed to MonitorDuty.com and PopCultureShock.com. He is a freelance video editor who occasionally acts in independent film projects. His blog is located at alantkistler.squarespace.com.

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89 Responses

  1. This Romulan who traveled back in time a hundred or so years, sits and waits over twenty years for Spock to pop out of the wormhole! Why didn’t he just go to Romulus Past and save the planet himself or wait for Spock and let him do it thus not only saving his pregnant wife but the whole Romulan race?

  2. Rick Taylor says:

    Jeffrey Hunter, not Jeremy

  3. Michael A. Burstein says:

    I had been thinking of putting together a list of references/resonances like this, but had no idea if I'd ever have the time to do it. Then I realized that if I just waited long enough, Alan Kistler would do it. :-) Thanks.(Further references – Kirk being stranded on Delta Vega is like him being on Rura Pente in Star Trek VI. And Spock finding him reminded me a little of Spock and McCoy being found by Zarabeth in "All Our Yesterdays.")

  4. Keith R.A. DeCandido says:

    The first name "Winona" for Kirk's mother originated in Vonda N. McIntyre's novel Enterprise: The First Adventure, and was later used in Diane Carey's Final Frontier (which focused on George Kirk), long before Shatner and the Reeves-Stevenses used it.McIntyre is also responsible for Sulu's first name of "Hikaru," first used in The Entropy Effect, and then used in dozens of novels and comics before finally being used onscreen in The Undiscovered Country during Captain Sulu's log entry.

  5. Anonymous says:

    The mind-controlling slugs Nero uses on Pike are from ST2.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      You know, I knew that and kept forgetting to note it. D'oh! :-)

      • renfield1969 says:

        No, that scene was at best an homage to ST2. The planet he referenced was not any of the Seti Alphas, the critters looked completely different, and for some reason he sent it in through the mouth instead of the ear (although medically it makes the same amount of sense).

        • Alan Kistler says:

          Very true, Renfield, which is why I have it listed above as being a creature SIMILAR to Seti Alpha V's slug.

  6. Russ Rogers says:

    Alan Kistler's knowledge of trivia and miscellany is staggering. Yowza.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      It is rather shameful, isn't it.

      • Russ Rogers says:

        Hardly shameful. It's like watching a juggler do a seven ball cascade. I don't know how else to describe it. There's a certain amount of respect, awe even, in seeing a skill that I understand in theory, but can't imagine developing to that extent. And it's just goofy fun to see it in practice! Rock on!

        • Alan Kistler says:

          You keep reading. I'll keep rocking. ((Vulcan thumbs up))

          • Russ Rogers says:

            Dude! The Vulcan Tumbs up looks like this://_ _// | |____| |…with the thumbs out, while the fingers make a big V. And then the Vulcans say, "Live long and prosper." Which is like Vulcan for "Rock On," or "See you later, Alligator." I'm surprised you did not know that! It was in at least two or three episodes of the original Star Trek, and I think even one of Deep Space 9!Normally I don't make these little text pictograms. Or if I do, they are kitties.=^.^= Meow!

  7. Cliven says:

    TOS Enterprise was constructed at the San Francisco Fleet Yards, which was orbital, tho it had SF ground offices, likely as Star Fleet Academy/HQ were in San Fran (SF HQ was a HQ in SF, one might say). We are (in the crew interviews) given a reason why the ship was built on Earth in this movie, but not why it was constructed in Iowa (or why cadets from around this and other worlds were there, when they should be at SFAcad in SanFran). perhaps it was cheaper to build in Iowa in this universe, as SanFran would be too expensive as real estate to allocate towards shipyard duty, despite the SF shipyards which TOS probably had it in mind to reference as a "follow through" from the present day to the 23rd cen. Kickbacks to Iowa senators, perhaps? Lowest bidder out in the boonies won the contract? Might go a long way towards explaining this "Big E's" ungainly appearance.

    • Kingman says:

      This was another thing I HATED about this film (other than the fact that they completely pimped out the design of the ship. It is stated in the book about the making of the Original Series that the ships were built in space IN ORBIT above San Francisco. The ships before being powered up would simply be too heavy and awkward to build on a planetary surface and would need to be built in zero grav for this very reason. To assemble the parts with the most ease this only makes sense. About the cadets being in Iowa. In the Trek era you could conceivably wake up in Paris and either beam or shuttle to your classes at the Presidio much like we take a bus to work today. This is touched in the novelization of STTMP when Kirk meets his lover in Rome, I think for a lunch to discuss something or other. (Sorry, it's been over thirty years since I read it.) I would think that cadets would be doing things all over the place in training for space travel.

  8. Mike Maloney says:

    Awesome list. The only thing I was thinking of was when talking about red shirts, it was very clear that during the space jump the writers threw in an unknown crew member wearing a red suit specifically with the intention of killing him off.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      Yeah, it was. Fortunately, there was enough going on to distract me from caring too much.

  9. hessi says:

    Great list, thanks.One more thing: I thought Kirk's encounter with Gaila from Orion is an homage to the kiss between Uhura and Kirk in TOS.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      Why would it be an homage to him kissing Uhura? I mean, Gaila and Uhura were roommates, yes, but that seems like a strange, round-about-way to reference a kiss that happened years later while both parties were under mental control. The two events seem to have nothing to really do with each other.

      • hessi says:

        Alan, the homage is not in-script, but rather between the airing of TOS in the 60s ("damn, they really did it!") and today ("well, black/white wouldn't be special anymore, even green/white is normal…").But maybe it's just me…

        • Alan Kistler says:

          Well, Kirk also kissed an Orion girl in "Whom Gods Destroy" in the third season of the original series and his first inter-racial kiss was actually with Marlena in "Mirror, Mirror", so you could just as easily connect it to that. Homages are intentional references to something before and I don't think the screenwriters were thinking about Uhura's scene in "Plato's Stepchildren" so much as "Man, it would be hilarious to see Kirk with an Orion chick played by Rachel Nichols."

          • Mark says:

            Actualy, Barbara Luna's ethnic backround is Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese and Filipino. Inter-racial? A multi-ethnic kiss perhaps.

          • Kingman says:

            Speaking as a person of color, in the 1960…'s referencing "inter-racial" meant for the most part black and white. There had been plenty of interracial relationships and kisses before TOS though usually with persons of white and Latin backgrounds. (Lucy and Desi anyone?) Latins however were always considered "acceptable" persons of color. Guess the straight hair and light skin was the clincher there. Also, he kissed (and did considerable more with) Elaan of Troyus who was portrayed by an actress of Asian ancestry. No one made a stink of that so I guess the same inter-racial rules apply to Asian women as well. I actually met and spoke with Rodenberry a few times and we talked a little about it. He really wanted to take interracial relationships further but couldn't until Nex Gen.

  10. Doug Ecks says:

    As I recall, Robocop's model number is OCP-001. It was engraved on his dome. I can't think of a place where 924 could come from. Please, let me know if I'm mistaken.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      You are not wrong. TrekMovie.com reported the model number and I took them at their word. I have corrected the matter and cited you. :-)

  11. Kimberely says:

    Facinating stuff !! Great job. I saw the movie and thought that the guy sitting next to Simon was kind of cute, I had no I idea that it was Chris Doohan. By the way, Chris Pine is absolutely georgeous.

  12. Barry says:

    Way back in the early days of Trek fiction and fan fiction, Uhura was given a name, "Penda" which I believe means "Love" in Swahili. This would make "Penda Uhura" mean "she who loves freedom", which I thought to be a nice name. Later on the name "Nyota" came into favor and Penda was largely forgotten. But it was the default first name by the fans for a good many years.Somebody mentions a "Klingon penal colony" during the movie, which I would assume to be a nod to Rura Penthe from Star Trek VI.One wonders if any of the Vulcan masters rescued with Sarek, or any of the other 10,000-ish survivors, are any of the influential Vulcan women we see later in the series. T'Pau from "Amok Time", T'sai from "ST: The Motion Picture" or T'lar from ST III: The Search for Spock". Not to mention Tuvok or his parents.

  13. Anonymous says:

    Farragot not Farragut :)

  14. Gordon Long says:

    The creature going through the mouth is very similar to the 'bluegill' creatures from Next Gen's first season epi Conspiracy, who are seen entering and exiting the mouth, are intelligent, and take over a person's body. Would have been interesting to see if the creature had a 'tail' that stuck out from the back of Pike's neck…I think that the 'lower deck' pipes and columns on large decks was probably a starship construction style that evolved between the construction of the NX-01 Enterprise and the construction of the Constitution-class Enterprise in the prime timeline, when that style was reversed. We never, ever saw anything like those chambers or the water pipes that Scotty beams into–except in the Voyage Home, on the nuclear 'wessel' US aircraft carrier Enterprise, when Chekov and Uhura were teamed up. Interestingly, it would appear that the water is probably used similar to how it is used in modern-day nuclear reactors. I don't remember when, but in either a TOS episode, novel, or record story there was a reference to 'sludge tanks', presumably where the contents of the toilets wound up.Speaking of Scotty beaming into something, there was a reference in The Cage by Spock to finding oneself in solid rock, and later in the novelization of an animated episode Kirk jokes with Kyle about not beaming him into a bulkhead (which had been a concern in TOS Day of the Dove, with the intraship beaming), which Foster's novelization states as being not possible due to modern safeguards in the equipment.On the transporter room design, it echoes the protective wall of the Motion Picture transporter room. Having two operators was something seen specifically as far back as The Cage, but not seen often during any of the tv series, probably to reduce the number of extras who had to be paid. Most likely, the second operator is there because there's about to be a shift change, and we do see in Enemy Within that they don't like leaving the room unattended (you don't want an enemy beaming aboard, after all). On some occasions we see two people working the equipment because of some tricky beaming, usually involving Kyle and Scotty (or in Obsession, Spock and Scotty).The viewers that were present in the two pilots have finally reappeared, attached to various bridge consoles. There are two extra consoles behind the captain's chair before the outer ring of stations. I presume these are tactical stations of the kind we see on the Enterprise D and Voyager. Unfortunately, the user has to stand up; meanwhile, there are chairs for the transporter operators. I think that this is a different, parallel universe, one of the 285,000 mentioned in the Next Gen epi Parallels. The Kelvin is perhaps operating at a time when the Enterprise existed in the original timeline, which is why it looks externally similar–saucer, nacelle, engineering hull–but is dramatically different looking inside. In fact, the computer and bridge controls are strongly reminiscent of the Motion Picture refit. Similarly, Sulu gets to pull some levers to initiate warp drive as was done in TMP.The original ship was supposed to be 20 years old, according to Admiral Morrow in ST 3. But Roddenberry believed that the ship was actually 20 years older than that, giving room for missions under April and Pike. Indeed, April took command 40 years ago according to The Counter-Clock Incident (or at least the novelization, which also indicated that the ship was built in orbit).If the Enterprise is an older ship in the new timeline, then what we are seeing in Iowa is a refit/rebuild equivalent to what we see in the Motion Picture. The original ship went through a slight refit after the second pilot, changing the viewscreens, and the consoles lost the viewers, and the nacelles lost the spike.The mirror Enterprise had its nacelle spikes, indicating that the technology is a bit behind the Federation. But the new timeline Enterprise is actually more advanced than the Motion Picture Enterprise.George Kirk saved 800 people on the Kelvin. Therefore, instead of being smaller than the original ship (or at least approximately the same size) as the ship seen in The Cage (which had 200 crew, but didn't change its size to handle 430 people under Kirk during TOS), it's actually LARGER, maybe close to the size of Picard's Enterprise D. That would seem to imply that the new timeline Enterprise will be large than the tv or film Enterprise (which had 500 crew according to the background information).I loved this film. A perfect blend of Trekgeek continuity moments, humor, drama, and action.

    • Frag says:

      Gordon, I have to agree with you about the creature bearing a strong resemblance to what we saw in the Next Gen episode "Conspiracy". In addition to the reasons you give, the physical similarities are interesting, for example both have distinctive wide crescent mandibles.

    • Kingman says:

      Admiral Morrow was a victim of a screenwriter that was too lazy to check the continuity of the series and films. His line is one that really has bothered me as well as Enterprise would have indeed been more that forty years old. In his defense Morrow states that "Enterprise is more than twenty years old" so the exact age is not specified. Perhaps Morrow is speaking off handed, not really caring how old the ship is but only wanting to retire what he sees as a bucket of bolts. He could also be referencing the age from it's last keel up refit. The reason why they had all those old style pipes and wheels in Engineering was simple. Paramount wanted to save money and shot the sequence in a beer factory. That's why the working spaces of a ship three hundred years in the future looks like the basement boiler room of my apartment building, only cleaner.

  15. Geoff Trowbridge says:

    One minor nit: The person who coined the name "Nyota" for Uhura was science-fiction author William Rotsler.

  16. WetMogwai says:

    Are all of the shuttlecraft named for people on the film crew or otherwise significant people? I noticed the one that takes Kirk to the Enterprise is called Gilliam. Dawn Gilliam was the script supervisor.

  17. Anonymous says:

    did anyone else catch mccoy using the phrase "suffering is good for the soul" during the sick bay part of the movie? That is a reference to an episode in tos where kirk is undergoing a physical and mccoy attributes that phrase to kirk, who states "i never said that'. Can anyone remember the episode and comment on this?

    • Alan Kistler says:

      The only time i remember McCoy telling Kirk "I never said that" was when Kirk asked "Didn't you say you'd like Spock better if he relaxed more?" from "THIS SIDE OF PARADISE."

  18. J Adam says:

    May I comment that the name "Tiberius" had another, earlier explanation? In the novelization of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" Kirk explains that the name was chosen by his paternal grandfather, who had a keen fascination for that Roman emperor. I dimly recall reading in Starlog that Roddenberry, who wrote the novelization, was acknowledging the popular fan belief during the '70s that the "T" stood for "Tiberius." Good article. Thank you for sharing.

  19. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    The best use of Vulcans lying was the recurring motif in Undiscovered Country, where Lt. Valeris (Kim Cattrall) challenges Spock several times with the half questioning, half accusaory "A lie?" which Spock counters with an error, omission, etc. At the end of the film, when she chooses to "forget" what she knows about the plot she's involved in and Spock asks "A lie?", she calmly counters with "a choice".Considering the first place the "Lie" joke appeared was in Khan, it made perfect sense that it woud reappear in Country, which was also directed by Nicholas Meyer.As much as I love continuity in long-form narratives, I truly feel for the people who look at this film, rail against all the things that "couldn't POSSIBLY happen" because of how it goes against what was in TOS et al, and actually MEAN it. Continuity is a tool to allow characters to grow and build up a history to use for new stories. But when it becomes so big that it actually prevents stories, it becomes a problem.

  20. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    Been too lazy to look it up but wasn't Kirk's reaction to the assorted vaccines an allusion (pre-allusion?) to his allergies to tricordrazine, the cure for near-sightedness in Khan? The arguments Spock makes about the importance of the K-M test mirror the arguments Kirk gives to Saavik in Khan. "One more thing: I thought Kirk's encounter with Gaila from Orion is an homage to the kiss between Uhura and Kirk in TOS."Kirk and Gaila (Alias semi-regular and soon-to-be Scarlett Rachel Nichols) is an homage to nothing other to the trope that Kirk will allways get the opportunity to "f*ck a green bitch", as Eddie Murphy so delightfully put it all those years ago.

  21. Simon DelMonte says:

    I am a bit disappointed (but not surprised) that the Kelvin was NOT named for the great physicist Lord Kelvin. Surely within the series, it was.

  22. Gordon Long says:

    Vinnie, I think you are correct about all the shots and the corresponding allergies were alluding to Kirk's allergy to Retinax Five.A second viewing of the film has led me to remember a whole lot more things… I think Mr. Kistler should probably write a book…or at least a web page…dealing with all of these annotations!Two more links to This Side of Paradise: an attempt to rescue people on a world where they faced death, but more importantly, Kirk has to goad Spock into a fight to reveal his emotions.In the fight in the film, Kirk gets knocked into one of the computer screens, and it breaks (you can audibly hear it crack). That is a slight homage when Kirk and Spock destroy the viewers in their quarters in different episodes (I believe The Enemy Within, the evil Kirk, as well as Amok Time), as well as when Spock smashes the computer when the V'ger probe is in it (STTMP) and when Kirk's glasses get broken in Wrath. Very slight homages.From The Doomsday Machine: A gigantic vessel which can destroy, or at least heavily damage planets. A Kirk has to pilot a damaged starship down the throat of said big vessel. There is a split second transporter rescue of Kirk in both stories, too. You can also say Jim Kirk has a narrow rescue in the film as well. Spock has to emulate both Kirks in piloting the jellyfish ship down into the vessel as well. The Doomsday Machine itself was a product of a long-ago war, in another galaxy, while the Narada was a product of a future time in another universe.In Tomorrow Is Yesterday, the Enterprise went back in time after encountering a black star (analogous to the black hole in the film which sent the Narada back in time as well as Spock). The ship wound up in Earth's atmosphere when they finally stopped. Here, the Enterprise would up in the atmosphere of Titan when coming back to fight Nero. The shot of the Enterprise rising up from the murky gases of the Saturnian moon is very similar to a shot of the Enterprise rising up from behind the Reliant in the Battle of the Mutara Nebula in Wrath. Pike also orders the ship to drop down on its Z axis (up and down) 100 meters to avoid crashing into the dead saucer, echoing an order Kirk gave because Spock recognized Khan was only fighting in two dimensions.Gaila might also be a homage due to having an Orion girl in the first pilot, the one with Pike (Vina in a Talosian illusion as a slave girl), and Pike is in here as well.During Kirk's fight against the one guard on the Narada, after he loses his phaser (for the second time!), and successfully surprises the guard with his own guard, there's a brief shot of the guard's gun on the deck. It resembles a cross between a Klingon-style disruptor and a laser pistol as seen in the pilots and re-used in The Man Trap by Professor Crater when he is shooting it out with Kirk and Spock.Uhura was supposed to serve on the Farragut. In this reality, Kirk didn't serve on the Farragut, as he previously had per the mention in Obsession. We don't know if the Farragut ran into the vampire cloud creature in the Tycho star system or not. However, the ship was destroyed in this timeline at The Battle of Vulcan.The debris field at The Battle of Vulcan is reminiscent of the debris field from The Battle of Wolf 359. In both instances, a starship named Enterprise arrived too late to participate and found the remnants of destroyed ships.Kirk's rise to command, after he goads Spock into an emotional display and successfully defeats Nero, shows a similar displacement to what was done to Decker in The Motion Picture. The originally planned captain (Pike, or Decker) are both replaced by Kirk. In both instances, there is a major threat to Earth. We see the drill start working off the coast at San Francisco, but in TMP, V'ger manages to knock out Earth's defenses.The water effect in the film is similar to the effects of the probe in Voyage Home.The overall threat to Earth, and events at Starfleet HQ or the Academy, are also repeated by the Breen attack on Earth during the Dominion War. Earth is also heavily damaged during the beginning of the Xindi story arc in Enterprise. And the Borg go for Earth twice: The Best of Both Worlds, and First Contact.The rogue Romulans echo the rogue Klingons from the third film.The destroyed Klingon ships that Uhura picked up the communications about echo the ongoing Klingon-Romulan wars mentioned throughout various Next Gen-era stories.In some of the shots of Kirk getting throttled by Spock, the camera angle makes Chris Pine's face look a lot like William Shatner's. The positions of the hands around the throat reminded me of the similar positioning of Pike's hands around the throat of the Keeper of Talos IV during the escape attempt, including when the Keeper projected the illusion of the snarling beast-creature.The ride of Kirk, McCoy, and Uhura in the cadet shuttle to the Academy flown by Pike, as well as the later flights up to the Enterprise just before it leaves, are somewhat reminiscent of the crew's trip to the Enterprise-A in Voyage Home.Kirk's tour by Scotty going to the refit Enterprise via the long way around is echoed by how the shuttle with Kirk and McCoy swings around the Enterprise. Here also, Scotty is given a memorable introduction to the Enterprise, although it's really Kirk who takes Scotty (with help from Spock).The corridors resemble those from the movie refit Enterprise. And the photon torpedoes are fired from an area on the interconnecting dorsal above the lower engineering hull, a la the refit. That again seems to be an argument for a refit Enterprise, albeit a decade or more earlier. However, Pike specifically tells Spock it's a new ship. So there wasn't an Enterprise in operation over the last few decades, and that isn't because of Nero's interference, that's because the timeline was separate to begin with, just as the Kelvin is much different than anything we know of from that time in the original timeline. But I did notice this time around that the uniforms of the Kelvin crew were different, so the uniforms were upgraded here and now as well.It's cool that we finally get to explore a different timeline in depth than just the main timeline and the mirror timeline.

    • Alan Kistler says:

      Pike does call the ship new, but wouldn't you if a ship was retro-fitted and massively overhauled to include a crew twice as large? I consider this similar to when in STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK, Kirk's superior stated "the Enterprise is 20 years old." that was very obviously not LITERALLY true since that film took place in 2285 and twenty years ago would've been only 2265, which yes is when Kirk took over and it had just been retrofitted following Pike's command but is still 20 years AFTER its initial construction in 2245. So it's possible Pike means that this is a new ship as far as he's concerned, just as Morrow meant it in a similar way, meaning it's still possible that in this continuity Pike and April captained the same ship before it was rebuilt.

  23. Vinnie Bartilucci says:

    If you want to start talking divergences, They refer to the Enterprise as a flagship, but the TOS Enterprose was not the flagship, the constallation was (indeed, they're both Constellation-class ships, it became the enterprise class in TMP)It all ties back to the fact that this is a reboot, not beholden to every fact of the original series. Adding Nimoy gave the connection to the original stories, but it was really just a way to mollify the fans who bristled at the idea that their exhaustive knowledge would now be diminished in value.I'm really REALLY hoping they don't go near a parallel universe story for YEARS. As much as we all want to see Quinto with a goatee (as opposed to his ever-present stubble…and I thought Vulcans didn't HAVE facial hair…), it'll open a can of worms that will just make you want to put your head through a wall.

    • mike weber says:

      I don't think you mean "flagship", which is the senior ship in a task group, squadron or fleet, where the Commodore of Admiral "flies his flag".What you seem to be talking about is something like a "type hull" or something like that – the first of a class, as, for instance, the nuclear carrier Enterprise, or the Nimitz, the ship that gives a class its name in our navy. The Brits tend to name the class and then give all the ships names somehow related – thus the "Flower" class corvettes in WW2 – Compass Rose, Pansy and Pergola, od the "V" class destroyers, with names like Valourous, Viperous and Victorious.My brother David, in either the "Honor Harrington" series, or in Path of the Fury, refers to a "War God" class, one of which is named after a god in his fantasy series that begins with Oath of Swords.

  24. J Adam says:

    There's another riff on the original series that occurred to me: the main viewscreen in this film is really a window to the outside instead of being a video screen projecting images of the outside. The only suggestion that it's a window is in the episode "Catspaw" when Sylvia shrinks the Enterprise to charm-bracelet size. Kirk bends down and peers into the bridge via the viewscreen and sees his crew frozen in mid-motion. The camera gives us a similar view in this movie in a panning zoom-in shot (reminiscent of the opening shot in the episode "The Cage" that goes in through the bridge dome).

  25. Gordon Long says:

    There were references to the Next Gen Enterprise as being the flagship of the fleet.Some references to Court-Martial (TOS): The person in charge of the cadet review board (Admiral Barnett) is an African-American male, as was the commander of Starbase 11, Commander Stone, who led the court-martial against Kirk. Serving on the court-martial panel, as well as Stone, were three people from Starfleet Command, who I think were all admirals, including one name Chandra. One of the admirals at the cadet board was Chandra. I've seen three names of admirals so far at the review board besides Barnett–Komack, Chandra, and Lui. Most names are too small to see; I hope somebody tracks them all down, just in case there are other connections, and Chandra, Lui, and the rest aren't listed yet at IMDB. In Court-Martial, like in the review board, the damaging evidence comes from an altered computer program. Kirk's attorney Sam Cogley demands to face Kirk's accuser, in this case the Enterprise computer, just as Kirk demands to face his accuser in the Kobayashi Maru event review board.Thinking of Kirk munching on an apple makes me think of the episode The Apple. There's a bit of symbolism here: the giant Vaal head over the entrance to the underground computer complex, and the giant Vulcan statues underground where Spock finds the High Council. But more importanly, there's the talk of McCoy and Kirk at the end of the episode where they cast Spock as Satan (due to his pointed ears), as well as the analogy of the Vaalians being cast out of their own Eden. When pointed-eared Nero kills Captain Robau with that stick weapon, he's a bit like Satan holding a pitchfork (except for the lack of tail, of course)…and the Vulcans are now cast out of their own Eden. I think there was a giant Vulcan statue in the scenes on Vulcan at Gol, where Spock was undergoing the Kolinahr ritual in the Motion Picture, so there's definite homage there. I am very surprised Spock-Prime didn't give Kirk the slingshot formula to save Vulcan, but maybe he thought the Prime Directive was in order here (despite giving him the flashback info via the mind meld). I think the mind-meld was as neat a bit of giving information as well as paying homage to classic episodes.Kirk's fight with Spock takes place in a story where they had recently been to Vulcan, where they had their classic Amok Time fight.Simon Pegg's hairstyle looks a lot like Scotty as he appeared in the third season after James Doohan got that funky and highly noticeable haircut.In order to see the destruction of Vulcan, Spock has to be on a planet in the Vulcan system very close to that planet. So as has been speculated elsewhere at Ex Astris Scientia, he must have been on a moon of the twin planet that is hanging over Vulcan in the animated episode Yesteryear and the original cut of The Motion Picture.

  26. Anonymous says:

    Two of us who watched the movie thought Spock's beaming down to Vulcan looked extremely referential/familiar. Any clue on what that resembles?

    • Gordon Long says:

      It took me a bit to figure out the reference. In The Corbomite Maneuver, Scotty has Kirk and McCoy and Bailey hunker down before beaming to the low-ceilinged chamber on the Fesarius. That was the first episode filmed in regular production, which neatly fits a placement in the first story in the Abramsverse.

  27. Gordon Long says:

    There are a large number of aliens at Starfleet in this film, and there were a large number of aliens at Starfleet in the first film.In the Kobayashi Maru scenario, there are three Klingon ships destroyed with one torpedo shot (each). In the first film, three Klingon ships were destroyed by one energy bolt from V'Ger. In both cases, Kirk and V'Ger, a re-programmed computer built on Earth was involved.Not long after the Kobayashi Maru test in Wrath, a place with a lot of scientists (Regula One), including one from Kirk's past (Carol Marcus), send out a request from help because they are attacked by people long-forgotten by most people in the Federation (Khan's people), after which Kirk takes command from Spock. Not long afther the Kobayashi Maru test in this film, a place with a lot of scientists (Vulcan), including one from Spock's past (Sarek would be considered a computer scientist due to his knowledge of the subject), sends out a request from help because they are attacked by people long-forgotten by most people in the Federation (Romulans), after which Kirk takes command from Spock.Having a lot of shuttles in the shuttlebay is reminiscent of a scene from the animated episode, Mudd's Passion. All shuttle bay scenes in the series had only one shuttle in the shuttlebay.

  28. David K. M. Klaus says:

    > And although various tech manuals and novels have stated that the Enterprise began> construction in San Francisco before it was completed in space, we have to remember that> such tie-in materials are really only canon until a later film or episode decides otherwise.Where it first, authoritatively states this dates all the way back to while the original series was still being broadcast by NBC-TV, in The Making of STAR TREK by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry (Ballantine Books: 1968), in a section lifted directly from the original STAR TREK Writer's Guide: specifically that the ship was "constructed in orbit from components manufactured in the Starfleet Division of what is still called the San Francisco Navy Yard," so, yes, I think there can be no doubt of that canonicity. (That Starfleet Command was later depicted as located in San Francisco is fairly obviously also derived from that statement.)

    • Alan Kistler says:

      That doesn't really alter my point or the fact that, in practice, anything in a book is not necessarily canon until a show confirms it. That's just how tie-ins have always worked, even when they have had the "official" stamp of someone. Is it fair or good? No and that wasn't my point. Just that it's how it is.

      • David K. M. Klaus says:

        I think you miss the point, sir: Mr. Roddenberry's original Writer's Guide was not a fannish "tie-in", but the series Bible, the Ur-source from which "canonicity" originally derived. This was the volume which laid down the series background from which what we saw on the air was taken, with a primary authority unlike any later "spin-off" material. In a sense, the show was the spin-off from this first work. As David Gerrold pointed out in recounting Gene Coon's editing of Mr. Gerrold's early draft of the script for "The Trouble with Tribbles" in the book of the same name, where his draft conflicted with the series Bible (the Writer's Guide), the draft was changed. That Misters Orci and Kurtzman wanted to change where the ship underwent major construction is no skin off my nose one way or the other, as it's their and Mr. Adams' new universe with the rules they choose, not mine, yours, or, clearly enough, the late Mr. Roddenberry's. However, that doesn't change what has up to this point been the established practice depicted in what is now called the "Prime" universe, that in it Earth-built starships underwent their major construction in orbit, and that that practice was first described as a fact when needed to be referenced for story purpose, by Mr. Roddenberry speaking ex cathedra in the original series Writer's Guide.On a lighter note, when you say "…there is nothing in the original television episodes or films that specifically states construction…ends in dry dock," well, when it's established that a ship was built in one, and later stated that the ship cannot land on a planet, as it was until the starship Voyager came along, well, then, I think we'd have to agree that construction would in fact end in dry dock, he said dryly.

        • Alan Kistler says:

          LOL, wow you're taking this way too personally. I agree that if Roddenberry said it, we should accept it as canon. I wasn't defending the practice, just saying that this is how the practice is in the industry. Paramount does not look over the original source material or series bible to make sure things line up with the original vision, they say "give us a story that people will enjoy enough to make us a decent profit for a longer time rather than a short time." It sucks, but that's what happens. The only real exception I've seen is with the new Doctor Who tie-in novels since many of those writers also write for the show (which is very cool and makes for fun shout-outs in a couple of episodes).And I never argued that construction would END in drydock, just that there was no reason to say it couldn't BEGIN on land.There's really no reason to take a bitter or aggressive attitude towards me with the condescension of "sir" or "he said dryly" or acting as if I don't understand who Roddenberry was. Honestly, if it's not that much skin off your nose, why are you spending over a hundred words telling me why I'm dumb? :-) Again, sorry you took it personally, that wasn't my intention. I've said all I'm gonna say on this matter. Thanks for reading.

          • David K. M. Klaus says:

            We have a classic case here of misunderstanding through inability to convey tone over the net.I wasn't taking anything personally in the over-sensitive meaning of the work I think you're implying.I used the word "sir" out of respect and politeness, as we've never met. I use "sir" and "ma'am" every day in normal conversation, as I was raised to do and as I've raised my children to do. I am (and was) not bitter in any way, nor did I mean to sound aggressive. (I wasn't playing Keith Olbermann to your George W. Bush, really, I wasn't!)I explained what I meant and my reasons for it in detail because I had actual, logical reasons, not just the all-too-common-in-fandom attitude of "Star Trek is actually this way, because I believe it is, that's why", something of which I'm sure you're as tired as I am. Again, I went into detail as a matter of respect for another person who actually thinks about the source material, which is how I perceive you. I use "he said dryly" to mean I'm saying something with an attitude of dry humor (visualize me saying it with a smile), and in the context of dry docks, it was a pun. That entire paragraph was a joke, honestly!I don't think you're dumb, I meant you no insult, I regard you with respect as a commentator about television, and I apologize for anything I said which sounded otherwise.

          • David K. M. Klaus says:

            Oops. That last should be "…as a commentator about television and comics…."My error, sorry.

  29. Bryan says:

    This may be blasphemous, but how do we know that the ship Kirk gazes at the night before joining Starfleet is in fact the Enterprise? Of course that would be the only thing that makes sense from a movie making perspective, but why couldn't it be a ship of the same design whilst the Enterprise is being built in San Francisco?

    • Gordon Long says:

      I thought that, as the shuttle that Pike is flying takes off from Riverside, that it showed the saucer top with the Enterprise name and number on it, or maybe on the nacelles. I'm going to see the film again on Monday, this time with my son who really wants to see it, and take a look then.

      • Bryan says:

        Please report what you find. I saw it twice and missed that.

        • Gordon Long says:

          Okay, I saw the film again. This was my son's first real exposure to Star Trek (he's 10), and he loved it! I saw the NCC-1701 on one of the nacelles as Pike's shuttle flies alongside/underneath before the scene ends. I mentioned this to my fiancee when she picked us up afterwards, and she is sure she saw the name on the saucer.

  30. Gordon Long says:

    Oh, in addition, I noticed NCC-1701 underneath the shuttle bay doors. I forgot if it was when the shuttle Kirk and McCoy are in lands just before the fleet launches, or when Pike launches with Kirk, Sulu, and Olson. Also, one of the shuttles has the name Moore on it. This is probably a proverbial in-joke for long-time visual effects coordinator Ronald B. Moore (who also had a 20th-century comedian (played by Joe Piscopo) named for him in the Next Gen episode where Data tries to understand humor). Most likely in-universe it was named for the famous astronomer and tv presenter Patrick Moore, since a large number of shuttles over the years have been named for astronomers.

  31. Bones Rodriguez says:

    Dude- this was amazing… "Winona"… no WONDER they got her to do the part!

  32. Gordon Long says:

    More annotations for the record:The Trouble With Tribbles: Scotty has no food (just emergency rations) and wants a sandwich. Either the tribbles ate all his food, or the rations were part of his disciplinary assignment. Either way, the food shortage can be seen to represent the tribbles getting into the storage compartments and eating all grain on Space Station K-7, or getting into the Enterprise's systems and showing up on Kirk's plate and in his cup, instead of his chicken sandwich and coffee lunch that he had requested.More Tribbles, More Tribbles: The Klingons have an interesting weapon, a stasis field generator. It can immobilize a starship and prevent its movement at warp or impulse, and also interfere with the firing of weapons, so-called 'higher order' technology. 'Lower order' technology, including transporters and communications, are unaffected. This represents the exact opposite effects of the mining drill, as seen in the film: warp and impulse travel are unaffected, as is the firing of weaponry; meanwhile, communications and transporting are out of order. Fortunately, this reversal allows Spock to fly around, shoot the drill's chain and knock it off, and make a short leap to warp which prevents the upcoming black hole creation from swallowing up Earth.It seems fate has drawn our characters together. Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Chekov, and Chapel are assigned to the Enterprise under Pike. Uhura is quickly reassigned (thankfully, as she would have otherwise been killed at the Battle of Vulcan as her roommate Gaila was…a shame, because then both Kirk and Spock could have been in the dramatic conflict of having their girlfriends serving under them on the ship) to the Enterprise. McCoy sneaks Kirk onboard. And finally, the marooned Kirk teams up with the marooned Spock Prime to get Scotty onto the ship. Perhaps this is akin to what Spock once described in City on the Edge of Forever as the theory of time flowing like a river, with currents and eddies…and those acted, in that episode (with the help of the Guardian, perhaps?) to pull Kirk and Spock together with the time-lost McCoy. Fate does protect fools, little children, and ships named Enterprise, as Riker once observed.Kirk's last-ditch stunt works, as happens in a great deal of episodes. The great chase to stop the Narada with a transwarp beaming (which probably won't be mentioned in another film) is also reminiscent of the Enterprise-D's desperate chase of the Borg ship in Best of Both Worlds and a modify-the-deflector oneshot stunt to stop it. In both cases, we are treated to shots of the other planets in the Solar System (Saturn in the film, Mars in the episode).Once again, Spock and Scotty pool their abilities to carry out Kirk's plans or orders. Spock provides a theory, then turns it to an equation, and Scotty makes it work, here with the transwarp beaming. In the episode the Naked Time, Spock provides a workable equation to cold-start the warp engines, and Scotty makes it work after Kirk orders it done. In the episode Tomorrow Is Yesterday, Spock is able to compute the slingshot effect, and Scotty is able to hold the ship together to make it work, based on the need to reverse the accident that brought them there. While we don't see it on-screen in Assignment: Earth, Spock's math expertise and Scotty's engineering expertise team up to successfully send the Enterprise back to 1968 before the episode starts, and back to the 23rd century after the episode ends. And in The Voyage Home, the recently integrated Spock successfully completes the equations that allow Scotty to propel the Klingon ship (nowhere as well known to him as his beloved Enterprise) through the slingshot effect.Spock's ship probably is able to determine that the quantum structure of the universe he finds himself in is different, although I do not know if he has enough time to ascertain this before he is captured by Nero (or more importantly, whether the computer does the work automatically and tells him; it does know that the ship is on a collision course and warns Spock about the danger, and even the Kelvin's computer is able to determine that it is on a collision course and counts it down). In Parallels, the crew eventually discovered that Worf's quantum structure was different, enabling them to find the solution to returning him home. If he has merely traveled back in time, his ship should be able to detect the chronitons from the passage easily enough, as the Enterprise-D and -E as well as the Defiant and the Voyager could detect them. In either case, he seems to deduce that he could be in a position to violate the Prime Directive by giving out information about the future, and does not actively seek out the facility where Scotty is exiled to. However, once he realizes the timeline has been altered by the destruction of Vulcan yet he still is able to remember what he experienced before, he will either formulate his arrival in a separate universe or believe that the timeline (and Vulcan's existence) will eventually be restored. He does not yet know of Nero's tampering with Kirk's personal history (just that Nero told him he attacked a ship when he got here and found he was in the past). However, once he realizes that young Kirk isn't the captain, he knows he has a duty to restore the timeline to something resembling the original by making sure that young Kirk has that chance to defeat the Doomsday Machine and V'ger and the Whalesong Probe and Soran, etc. The Rigel colonies, Earth itself, and the developing culture in the Veridian system will all be destroyed unless Kirk is allowed to fulfill his destiny. This is akin to sending Captain Christopher back to Earth to father his as-yet unborn son Shaun, so he can head the first successful Earth-Saturn probe, as mentioned in Tomorrow is Yesterday. He even helps Kirk by helping Scotty with the beaming, although it was easier to beam Captain Christopher into the cockpit of his moving airplane than to send Kirk onto the Enterprise at warp (and Scotty performed the beaming in Tomorrow, while he was a transportee now). And as Spock once told Kirk, it was his first, best destiny to command a starship.

  33. Anonymous says:

    Spock also spoke the trek monologue at the start of Star Trek 3. I think kirk should have been awarded a five year mission to keep it more in line with the original canon

  34. Scott says:

    Great thread. Just watched the movie a 2nd time. Just want to point out one thing, one of the alien crew members aboard the Kelvin reminded me of a Edosian. That was the species of Arek, a navigator and regular crewman on the animated series.http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/cha

  35. Travis says:

    Loved the references to Iowa – although there are no corn fields in the future. Riverside, Iowa definitely does not look like this but then again in the future it might just become this arid climate. The 'Riverside Shipping Yard' was a great way to tie in the Future Birth Place of James T. Kirk. I don't know of any other Star Trek movie that officially mentions Riverside. (I grew up about 7 miles away from Riverside). This was a great movie – the wife (not a huge fan of the series) will enjoy this movie.

  36. Anonymous says:

    I'm surprised no on has picked up on the similarity of some of the names of characters and/or actors. Chris Pine (the actor playing Kirk) is only one letter different than Chris (Christopher) Pike, the captain of the Enterprise. Uhura's roommate Gaila is played by Rachel Nichols, who's name is quite similar to Nichelle Nichols (the actress who originally played Uhura).

  37. Sue says:

    Saw the movie last night with my husband. (I'm the fan … he's unfamiliar). He enjoyed it in itself, but I could see that the richness of the movie was lost on him.Could anyone hook up for me the connection with past episodes/movies when Sulu has trouble jumping to warp? I'm pretty sure his character mentioned this to some new officer in a movie?Thanks!

    • Gordon Long says:

      In The Motion Picture, Sulu has to use a similar-looking lever (like the gear-shift between the front seats of some cars) to get the ship into warp drive. That was the first time we saw anything like that on a ship. I can't remember if there were any levers on the helm console in the Enterprise tv series, but otherwise we just saw buttons in the original series or touch screens in the 24th century. There were sliding levers on the TOS shuttlecraft controls, which were not quite as long as the levers Sulu shifted in TMP and 2009 films. And there was a problem going to warp in The Motion Picture, because the warp engines weren't ready yet, hence the wormhole incident. Not Sulu's fault, but it was a distinct similarity.In And the Children Shall Lead, when Sulu is taken over by the Gorgan-influenced children, he sees giant swords and scimitars flying at the ship and can't steer the ship except down the middle of the path. Again, not quite the same, but Sulu can't do anything with the ship then, either.Glad your non-fan husband enjoyed the film, at least!

  38. Anonymous says:

    DeForest Kelley mentioned at numerous Star Trek conventions in the 1980's that Dr. McCoy "entered Starfleet after a bitter divorce." It was truly a pleasure to see this sentiment immortalized on film by Karl Urban so many years later.

  39. Cliven says:

    I believe the Iowa-shipyard scene had NCC-1701 on the ship's secondary hull.The ToS Enterprise was a Constitution-class vessel, not a Constellation class vessel. Note that Commodore Decker (Matt Decker's father in commonly-accepted but non-canonical lore) had Constellation as his ship, so perhaps an admiral was in command of the Constitution.Despite a lot of shininess, there is no evidence to support the new "E" being more advanced than the STtMP E.That shiny bright bridge would be a liability, as it would make it hard to focus on monitors. Real life vessels have dark control rooms, from what I've seen.It is nice to see the viewer units added to the bridge as an homage to the original pods. The look ugly tho so maybe this universe will eventually remove them, too. This is likely a completely parallel universe, as Vulcan's sky is *always* blue in this new movie, but was always seen as red or orange in ToS. In the show "Enterprise", T'Pol apparently noted that a blue sky on Vulcan can occur, but that should be a rarity, rather than the rule, which it seems to be here. Vulcans likely would have no reason to artificially change this factor if they didn't in ToS; despite the race's emotional control, the red sky would probably still be soothing to them, a thing they would see little logical need to alter.Vulcan has no moons (as Spock mentioned to Uhura in ToS), so the original release of STtMP was inaccurate (and thus the recent re-release removed this discrepancy) and Spock should not have been able to view Vulcan's destruction by looking up into the sky of Delta Vega in this movie.Why exactly (other than to give an excuse for the drill scene) would the Narada need to drill to a planet's core to deposit the red matter? If the stuff makes singularities (apparently temporary ones) why not just dump it planetside? No need to spend all that time being vulnerable to attack. If mass is an issue, I should think that half a planet should be enough, if all of a planet certainly is! If reactive energy/pressure is an issue, certainly a second, explosive, device could have accompanied the red matter?I also would like to know what the "lightning storm in space" near Vulcan was (the one that tipped Kirk off that this was an attack), since the Narada had not released any black holes near there before drilling. The only possibility I can see is that the movie assumes Spock Prime's squid ship "pops in" near Vulcan, which would seem an odd thing, as Vulcan was nowhere near the origin point (the future supernova) or Vulcan w/have been destroyed in the future, along w/Romulus. Even given objects being in different places over time, the odds of coming out near Vulcan would have quite literally been astronomical. If this is assumed to be a matter of the pilot affecting the outcome, that seems unlikely, even for Spock. If such is possible, one would assume the Narada might have popped in near Romulus, instead of in the Kelvin's path.The reference to the Narada destroying Klingon ships probably is a result of Nero having been imprisoned in Rura Pente in the future timeline (he started his proactive mass-revenge there, before Spock conveniently brought him the red matter to destroy Vulcan).I also wonder why Spock doesn't try to time-meddle and put things "back the way they were", as it is now almost a ST tradition to pull such time-trips when things go awry.About the Kelvin having 800 people on it: I suspect the new E has as many as well, or more. The numbers of people shown running about on these ships far exceeds ToS' comfortable corridors. Roddenberry disliked the Navy' tendency to 'pack in" the crew, but it looks like this universe simply crowds more folks onto the same size ship, probably due to all the clunky manual switches and valves that have to be manned in this universe, as opposed to ToS' ships, which were far "cleaner" as they were more automated.

    • Cliven says:

      EDIT to my previous post: Commodore Matt Decker is generally assumed to be Captain Will Decker's father.Doh.

    • Cliven says:

      FURTHER EDIT: Forgot to mention Delta Vega is at the boundry of the galaxy, and nowhere near Vulcan. It is also not an ice-covered world in ToS, as it seems to be here (even the long shot of the planet from space makes it look that way).

  40. beam me up says:

    Was it just me or did Pike's distinctive 3-note whistle (which Kirk comments on) as he enters the bar after the brawl sound just like one of the sound effects on TOS? Was it the noise indicating a communication from the bridge? Argh, it's driving me crazy…

  41. beam me up says:

    Was it just me or did Pike's 3-note whistle (that Kirk comments on when Pike enters the bar during the brawl) sound just like a sound effect from TOS? Was it the sound indicating a communication from the bridge? Argh, this is driving me nuts.Great article, BTW.

    • Cliven says:

      The 3-note whistle is a real life naval tradition called the bosun's whistle; Trek was always patterned in a naval fashion so continued this tradition.

  42. allankamming@gmail.c says:

    Later novels said that Kirk's father was named "George Samuel Kirk, Sr." while the novel Enterprise: The First Adventure first established that his mother was named Winona.advair diskus

  43. hitcliff says:

    great job, thanks a lot! being an old fan of Star Trek, I liked this film too! my kids did as well (would like to show them the whole old collection I found at http://www.picktorrent.com for them to compare) saw the new film just once, but now, I guess, I'll do it again (and probably not once), now paying attention to all the details mentioned in this great article

  44. Atomic Kommie Comics says:

    Since Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe, Spock obviously meant that the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an ancestor of his.Perhaps…Writers have a habit of taking historical figures and "re-imagining" them.For example, Wyatt Earp, George Custer, Davy Crockett, hell, even Sam Bass of Deadwood, were all REAL. Yet, the fictionalized versions of them are the ones people usually refer to!So Spock's ancestor could indeed be Holmes, not Conan Doyle!

  45. trence5 says:

    Ok, can anyone explain why Romulans' appearances vary so much? In the original series and the Abram's trekverse Romulans are almost indistinguishable from their Vulcan cousins – however in the Next Generation series, you can definitely tell them apart due to their brows. Enterprise explained the Klingons look from O.S. to N.G. as a "deformity" due to a virus and the cure, but what's up with the Romulans?

  46. Sean says:

    how sad can someone be to point out all these faults in the film, some really geeky teen who has no life obviously

  47. Anonymous says:

    LONGEST NERD ARTICLE EVER!!! Seriously. Nobody with a life is ever going to read that.

  48. Anonymous says:

    That was pretty good. Accurate too.

  49. Anonymous says:

    Just thought Id point out that the Memory Alpha website states that Orions are actually matriarchal… its just a charade that the females are slaves.

  50. Miles Vorkosigan says:

    "When a new pilot was to be filmed, Jeffrey Hunter removed himself from the cast…" Well, yeah, but not exactly. Jeff Hunter's wife had a tendency to call the shots when it came to his acting career, and while she didn't object too loudly to his doing a movie that might wind up on tv, she got really strident when he was offered a regular ride on a series; according to, I think, Bob Justman, she said "No, he's not doing a television show, he's a movie star!", or something to that effect. Which is really a shame, when you think about it; Trek would've been a vastly different series if Hunter had played Chris Pike for five seasons, and he might still be alive.

  51. Anonymous says:

    Another cool fact that I noticed is that Leonard Nimoy got to say the very first lines ever in Star Trek in the pilot episode "The Cage", and in the 2009 movie he got to say the very last words at the end ("Space, the final frontier…"). I just think that's so fascinating!

  52. Kingman says:

    One thing that really bothered me about this film and I consider it a glaring hole in the story is this: This Romulan who traveled back in time a hundred or so years, sits and waits over twenty years for Spock to pop out of the wormhole! Why didn't he just go to Romulus Past and save the planet himself or wait for Spock and let him do it thus not only saving his pregnant wife but the whole Romulan race? This insult to blue collar worker's intelligence not withstanding is a stupid plot failure in my opinion and one that screwed up my enjoyment of the film. Anyone have an explanation on that one that I might have missed?

    • Rick says:

      As to the ‘why didn’t Nero save Romulus?’ plot hole…

      Just watched this movie again and Nero quite clearly states to Pike, before he has the ‘torture’ slug put in his mouth, that he has decided to destroy the Federation before ‘saving’ Romulus. And let’s not forget, that Nero has a lot of time (100+ years?) until Romulus is destroyed as well.

      Also the injury to his ear (which he didn’t have a the beginning of the movie) implies that there was a lot of other stuff (ie possibly internal strife on his ship, as his crew is not military) was going on during these 20+ years since his arrival.

      And finally, let’s not forget Nero is barking mad. At the end of the movie, as he is falling into the black hole, he rant’s, after Kirk offers assistance to his ship, (paraphrasing) “I would see Romulus destroyed a thousand times” before accepting aid from Kirk/Spock.

  53. hahaha says:

    uhura wasn’t the only one who got a smile out of spock, nor was she the only one who got away with teasing him. Kirk got a huge smile in amok time from him, and both kirk and bones tease him. He teases back, in a logical way ofcourse.

  54. socal group says:

    LONGEST NERD ARTICLE EVER!!! Seriously. Nobody with a life is ever going to read that.