ST: IV - The Voyage Home.

[Dave]

------------------------------------
Creating topic, remember you
can only discuss this film
inside this topic. Reviews of
the film are encouraged
------------------------------------

[Highlander II]

Just watched this one too - (skipping work is fun - i may have to do it more often!)

This is my personal fave, has been since i saw it in the theatre when it was released (my dad had this thing about the ST films - we had to go) anyway -- i like the time travel thing -- (anyone know if you could really do it that way?? )

Time travel - hey, don't ask me, physics was NOT my strong subject -- but i think the idea is really cool

the Whales -- nice idea that they showed what could happen to the planet if some things aren't corrected (lots of movies did this) - humans killed all the whales, and now this probe has come and may destroy the planet b/c it lost contact w/ it's 'missionaries' or 'officers' -- depending on how the structure of 'their world' was set up --- and Kirk and co have to fix the problem by taking their Klingon bucket back in time to find some whales --

then the whole scene in 1984 - the 'colorful metaphors' that Spock doesn't understand, and the 'nuclear wessels' and such -

i'm sure there are continuity errors in this one too - but i didn't catch them, or if i did, i don't recall them at the moment --

might i just say that, at least in this movie, DeForest Kelley is about the skinniest person i've ever seen? very weird ---

[Dave]

It's still my personal fav too.

I also saw it at a huge cinema in Leicester Square (this was before I lived in London)

I'll add some of my favourite bits here sometime when I have more time.

[msr709]

I've got to agree with both of you, this was my favorite of all the movies yet. Besides the fact that I enjoy scifi so much one of my other passions is marine mammals, and whales and dolphins are the greatest of beasts. I don't know the quote by heart but I love when Spock says that only humans would be so arrogant as to think that they would be the only intelligent life forms on our planet. I personally agree with that! LOL! Love that Spock!
One of the things I like most about Star Trek is that they are constantly reminding us that just because the being (animal, humanoid or whatever) is not like us it does not mean that they don't have feelings or intelligence, and most of the time they seem to have more sincere motives for their actions than we do.

[Dave]

There are so many good little set pieces in this film:

McCoy and Scotty (the Scottish professor) with the Transparent Aluminium formula. And trying to speak into the mouse.

Uhura and Chekov looking for the nuc..le..ar wessels. "Of course he's a Ruskie!"

McCoy growing a new kidney for the old woman.

Spock using the colourful metaphors -- double dumb ass on you -- using the neck-pinch on the punk rocker.

There was so much more. So much more fun than the previous three!

[msr709]

Just reading your post makes me want to go home (I'm at work now) and see the movie. Tonight, I think I will. I agree with all you said!:rolly2:

[Dave]

As the probe wreaks havoc on Earth, a Starfleet communications officer gives a readout on various cities around the world. One that he mentions is Leningrad.

Is this a new city built in the 23rd Century and named after that great Russian leader who is currently out of favour?

Or is it the city that used to be known as Leningrad, until it reverted to it's former name of St. Petersberg, shortly after this film was made, but reverts back again sometime before the 23rd Century?

It must be a challenge to write science fiction that stands the test of time.

[Technomage]

This was one of my favourite movies, it had everything you need to make a good sci-fi film - time travel, interesting characters, a great story and lots of subtle humour.

Although fish-out-of-water stories have been done to death, I still think this one stands out as one of the better examples of the 'genre' - I especially liked how Spock reacted to 20th century Earth, plus he looked really hip with that headband.

[Brit Chick]

I see no one has posted to this thread in like - years !!!

this is still my fave ever ST film - by miles. Maybe cos of the good times in my life when it was out, and maybe just cos its a fantastic film

It has one expression that I use on an almost daily basis

'Just one damn minute admiral'

Totally versatile - can use it at work to the boss - and at home to the husband. In both uses they just know that you are being a sarcastic **** but it sounds almost polite

Ooh and the ' did too much LDS at Berkeley'

[ray gower]

Originally posted by Dave
As the probe wreaks havoc on Earth, a Starfleet communications officer gives a readout on various cities around the world. One that he mentions is Leningrad.

Is this a new city built in the 23rd Century and named after that great Russian leader who is currently out of favour?

Or is it the city that used to be known as Leningrad, until it reverted to it's former name of St. Petersberg, shortly after this film was made, but reverts back again sometime before the 23rd Century?

It must be a challenge to write science fiction that stands the test of time.

I think they probably changed the name of the city again (probably several times). In the main thay seem to take delight in changing the name of the place every thirty years or so, thus it went from StPetersberg to Stalingrad to Leningrad and back again (They have a committee who's task it is to change names). Must be murder for the post office. I am also told, by my Georgian aunt, that there is another Leningrad out in Siberia.

My thought for tonight is. The race that sent the probe, could they have been the Acquatic Xindi?

[Dave]

Originally posted by ray gower
My thought for tonight is. The race that sent the probe, could they have been the Aquatic Xindi?

I hadn't thought of that but it makes perfect sense.

I have proof that Scotty and McCoy did visit our Earth and hand over that formula for Transparent Aluminium:

from physicsweb
http://physicsweb.org/article/news/8/8/9

Glass breakthrough
11 August 2004

Scientists in the US have developed a novel technique to make bulk quantities of glass from alumina for the first time. Anatoly Rosenflanz and colleagues at 3M in Minnesota used a "flame-spray" technique to alloy alumina (aluminium oxide) with rare-earth metal oxides to produce strong glass with good optical properties. The method avoids many of the problems encountered in conventional glass forming and could, say the team, be extended to other oxides (A Rosenflanz et al. 2004 Nature 430 761).

Glass is formed when a molten material is cooled so quickly that its constituent atoms do not have time to align themselves into an ordered lattice. However, it is difficult to make glasses from most materials because they need to be cooled -- or quenched -- at rates of up to 10 million degrees per second.

Silica is widely used in glass-making because the quenching rates are much lower, but researchers would like to make glass from alumina as well because of its superior mechanical and optical properties. Alumina can form glass if it is alloyed with calcium or rare-earth oxides, but the required quenching rate can be as high as 1000 degrees per second, which makes it difficult to produce bulk quantities.

Rosenflanz and colleagues started by mixing around 80 mole % of powdered alumina with various rare-earth oxide powders -- including lanthanum, gadolinium and yttrium oxides. Next, they fed the powders into a high-temperature hydrogen-oxygen flame to produce molten particles that were then quenched in water. The resulting glass beads, which were less than 140 microns across, were then heat-treated -- or sintered -- at around 1000°C. This produced bulk glass samples in which nanocrystalline alumina-rich phases were dispersed throughout a glassy matrix. The new method avoids the need to apply pressures of 1 gigapascal or more, as is required in existing techniques.

The 3M scientists characterised the glasses using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and thermal analysis, and tested the strength of the materials with hardness and fracture toughness tests. They found that their samples were much harder than conventional silica-based glasses and were almost as hard as pure polycrystalline alumina.

Moreover, over 95% of the glasses were transparent (see figure) and had attractive optical properties. For example, fully crystallized alumina-rare earth oxide ceramics showed high refractive indices if the grains were kept below a certain size.

Author
Belle Dumé is Science Writer at PhysicsWeb

[Whitestar]

Originally Posted by Highlander II

Just watched this one too - (skipping work is fun - i may have to do it more often!)

This is my personal fave, has been since i saw it in the theatre when it was released (my dad had this thing about the ST films - we had to go) anyway -- i like the time travel thing -- (anyone know if you could really do it that way?? )

Time travel - hey, don't ask me, physics was NOT my strong subject -- but i think the idea is really cool

the Whales -- nice idea that they showed what could happen to the planet if some things aren't corrected (lots of movies did this) - humans killed all the whales, and now this probe has come and may destroy the planet b/c it lost contact w/ it's 'missionaries' or 'officers' -- depending on how the structure of 'their world' was set up --- and Kirk and co have to fix the problem by taking their Klingon bucket back in time to find some whales --

then the whole scene in 1984 - the 'colorful metaphors' that Spock doesn't understand, and the 'nuclear wessels' and such -

i'm sure there are continuity errors in this one too - but i didn't catch them, or if i did, i don't recall them at the moment --

might i just say that, at least in this movie, DeForest Kelley is about the skinniest person i've ever seen? very weird ---

I just wish to add that the Probe had no intentions of destroying Earth, it was boosting its signal because it wasn't able to hear the whales' response, which inadvertantly caused major destruction on Earth.

Whitestar

[Highlander II]

I didn't say the probe was intentionally destroying the planet - i said it 'may' destroy Earth b/c it had lost communication contact with it's own. I knew it wasn't there to cause problems.

[Dave]

You didn't say that Highlander II, but most film write ups I've read actually do miss that distinction, so I guess it's fair for Whitestar to point it out.

From Amazon.com
...Failure to respond to the probe will result in Earth's destruction...

From IMDb
...Plot Outline: To save Earth from an alien probe...