Recommendations for the best Star Trek film?

A different scenario, though, would be if you're travelling at warp -- as the official tech-guides explain it, if you're at warp speeds, energy-based phasers (generating visible light) run smack into Einstein's c-limit, and become useless; a warp-velocity starship firing them "foreward," for example, would instantaneously surpass the beam it just emitted, by physical law.

This is pretty much why you almost always see torpedo usage in FTL on the shows and in the films, as they can be accelerated to warp speeds even faster than the starship firing them, if need be.

 

Phasers = fast recharge time, accurate, low-mid damage
Torpedo = slow reload time, high damage, explosion radius.

 

For those of you who have Universal HD, Star Trek III was on earlier, and First Contact is currently on, my favorite of the trek films, looks great in HD!

 

During TOS tv series, phasers were fired more (I think) than torpedoes.
What would have really helped the series is if the writers had been told to obey a set of standard rules. Except for WoK, torpedoes are always ready instantly, even though they have to load the tube, run it down a track, then fire it.
In the game Star Fleet Battles (FASA), Photon Torpedoes take 2 rounds to charge, and are direct fire weapons. Phasers and Disrupters can fire every round.
Plasma Torpedoes and Drones are seeking weapons--they are launched and track the target.
Also, phasers have a max damage of 9 points (unless they're the starbase size ones), where an overloaded photon can rack up 16 pts. Overloaded disrupters only do 8, but you can fire them every round instead of every other round, so there's game balance. Plasma torps take 3 rounds normally and do different damage based on size & distance travelled (anywhere from 0-50 pts) while drones--get complicated.

Mind you, using that logic, it would have been impossible to solve the problem of trek6, but at least some thought of consistency would have been added.

Nemesis had more than 2 phaser banks firing from the -E? at once? In different directions? realy? wow. I only saw it once, so I don't remember. may have to put it on my netflix cue again.

In other words: NX1701 had 5 phasers and a couple drone racks until it was upgraded with photon torpedoes. 1701 _-e had photons and phasers, and ditched armor plating in favor of shields.

 

It's not unreasonable for the torpedoes to be ready instantly. Even today, on submarines, it is standard procedure to immediately load at least two torpedo tubes when you go to battle stations, if you don't keep them loaded as a general rule.

As soon as you call for a yellow or red alert, you should immediately be loading torpedoes.

Kimball Kinnison

 

I agree. And that was also a mechanic within SFB: alert status. But the reload time seems to be non-existant. But still, some mention of that would have been good.
Also, in SFB, Phasers can be charged from any source, but the torpedoes have to be charged from the warp engines... something to do with using anti-matter.

On the other hand, a glowing red dot of light is a lot cheaper effect than the charge-up & fire sequence used for the phaser banks in TNG and beyond.

 

I always wondered what caused the red light of the torp, as we know the warhead is within a black outer casing.


And on the reload time: I think by TNG the reloading of torps had become computer controlled (hence worf just pressing buttons and then saying 'torpedos ready')

Like a gun, once one is fired and the ship is at red alert, the computer just preps the next pair or however many the tactical officer programs in to fire.

 

Torpedoes have long been automated.

The dramatic "prepping the torpedo" scene in WOK...that was a manual arming method, probably used in case of systems failure.

one positive of torpedoes over phasers...you can launch them manually like that.

This notion is supported by the fact the Enterprise with a NOTHING crew fires torps at the bird of prey in Search for Spock.

And then don't forget the torpedo drama in IV...if it wasn't automated, then all they command staff would need to do is interrogate the "arming team" who would have to be on station to load the tube at some point.

torpedo automation is a standard of the whole franchise, not just TNG.

As such, torps tend to be very fast firing...especially when there is a moment to prepare.

phasers on the other hand, especially in the TNG period, take a moment to charge...critical miniseconds.

Thus why torpedo "spreads" got increased prevalence in TNG and then the advent of the quantums.

Heck...even the hand-held phasers got outmoded to something more in line with a standard discharging round.

Phasers = outmoded, underpowered, and crippled far to quickly by damage taken to the ship.

It's not surprising it's almost vanish from the franchise...even as they go back in time.

 

Hmmm... We're contemplating/debating/arguing the mechanics of the startrek world... You know what that makes us?

NERD ALERT!


Oh well. It's not like Rodenbury actually had a coherent blan for the series--it was a serial epic with no plan beyond "sell the next season to the network" and "entertain."

 

After you're done, go to Youtube and look up Red Letter Media. In addition to reviewing TPM and AotC (70min and 90min of everything that it wrong with those movies), he does a great send up of all the TNG movies, detailing what's wrong with them, stupid mistakes, and general problems with the flicks. He also did Avatar, JJA StarTrek (which I disagree with) and a few others.

 

I did enjoy his review of Abrams Trek (sorry Koohi-I agreed with him ) because many of his points showed some ways the movie worked.

I did not enjoy the prequel reviews simply because it was too intermixed with odd humor and things like that.

Back on topic, I enjoyed Generations, but I will still hold to my opinion that Star Trek VI is the best Trek movie.

 

You are probablly the only person I know who likes Generations, certainly the only one who would rank it above TWoK.
Go to YouTube, and look up "RedLetterMedia" and find the Generations commentary. Then the other NextGen movie commentaries.

 

Wrath of Khan by a large margin.

The only ones I don't like are The Search For Spock, The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country.

 

Oh, and as for images of the Iconic ship crashing/being destroyed, I'd suggest you check out Blake's 7. Not so hot a job with Liberator, but Scorpio's ending is... Quite something.

Trek2-3-4 is really 1 movie. The problem is that the only part worth keeping of 4 is the scene at the beginning, with the vote to return, and the scene at the end from the trial onward. 3 would have been better with the same Savik.

There's a great motivational poster:
Yours is the only ship in the sector: Only you can pick of the milk and kitty litter on your way home.

 

I found Four to be a refreshing break from the ultra-seriousness of II and III. It was neat to see Kirk and the rest as somewhat fishes out of water.

 

Agreed, Star Trek IV is a fun little film.

 

There has already been more than one person who said they liked Generations in this thread alone.

 

With a TV series, a humor episode as a break works.
With a movie series, with an minimum of 2 years between movies, it turns into a weak-ass, dated, lame movie.

 

Except... the only thing really 'dated' about it is maybe a few bits about CHekov. Other than that, it's fun. And after II and III, damned necessary to make sure you don't hit a despair event horizon.

 

The only problem was that they tried to continue in that direction with Star Trek V. As a result William Shanter's original concept, which was basically Dante's Inferno in space, got watered down into a weak-assed imitation of what had the potential to be an amazing Trek film.

Star Trek: Insurrection suffered from the same problem with the added complication that there was no attempt to explain why Picard was running around the Briar Patch when the Enterprise is a capital starship and the Federation is at war.

 

Yeah, but you can't blame that on IV.