Sunday, November 29, 2009

"Star Trek": Black Holes and Plot Holes

Ok, I watched the new Star Trek movie twice more over vacation, and I still really like it. The first 10 minutes are absolutely sensational.

Unfortunately, after those first 10 minutes, I am left with many, many questions that have only multiplied after repeated viewings. I would appreciate fellow dork assistance. If there are answers to these seeming plot holes, please enlighten me. If you have other questions, pile on.

Mild spoiler alert!

1. Why does Nero's mining vessel have so many weapons on it?

2. What does Nero do for the 20+ years between destroying the Kelvin and attacking the Klingons/Star Fleet?

3. Why does he attack the Klingons?

4. What is the "lightning strike in space"? Is it the ship appearing through the event horizon/time warp, or is it destroying ships with their advanced weapons? Because in the Kelvin's case, it seems to be the former, but in the second Nero spotting (attack on Klingon warbirds), it seems to be the latter.

5. The biggest one: How does he know the exact time that (old) Spock will reappear through the rip in space? He's right there waiting for him, even though theoretically it could be any time, right?

6. Why doesn't he go back to Romulus and warn them that their planet's going to be destroyed in 100 years instead of being such a colossal prick about something that hasn't actually happened yet? Granted, he's not all that rational, since he blames Spock for little-to-no reason in the first place.

7. If one drop of red matter is enough to destroy an entire planet, why is Spock traveling around with a giant ball of it?

2 comments:

g00n$lapz said...

Two words for you nerds....
STAR WARS

Andy Criner said...

Hate to say it but I have all the answers X_X

1. According to the prequel comic book that came out before the movie, after Romulus was destroyed, Nero made his way to a secret Romulan starbase that was sort of an Area 51 for the Romulans. It held all of this great technology that they were developing just in case something happened (like their planet being destroyed). One of those technologies involved Borg nanoprobes (if you don't know, the Borg are a race in Star Trek that are basically "space zombies". They assimilate you into their collective with nanoprobes that are injected into your bloodstream. You join their hive mind with the nanoprobes, and therefore they remove your free will and make you a "drone"). These nanoprobes are able to do amazing things like repair and build at molecular levels. Basically the Romulans used their captured nanoprobes at their secret base to augment Nero's ship as it was one of the last Romulan ships intact. This would also explain the odd appearance of Nero's ship since Romulan ships are usually shaped like birds.

2. So I guess you saw the special features that explain this. Nero was supposed to be locked up in Klingon prison for 20 years.

3. Same as #2, he attacks the Klingons to escape prison.

4. The "lightning storm in space" was from Spock's emergence from the black hole, which happened to occur just after Nero's escape from prison. I guess you emerge from the black hole in a lightning storm anomaly.

5. This one's a mystery for me too, but it's possible that with the advanced technology Nero had on his ship, he was able to somehow calculate when Spock would emerge. Or, he was just waiting around for Spock because he seems crazy enough to do that. OR, it was simply fate/coincidence that they ran into each other. Obviously fate is involved somehow because of the astronomical probability of Kirk running into Old Spock on that ice planet. It had to be fate.

6. Like you said, he's not all that rational. He seems hell bent on getting revenge rather than preventing disaster.

7. Who knows. It's possible that it might have taken more than a drop to destroy the supernova, or the Vulcans gave Spock more than enough to make a couple attempts at destroying the supernova in case one drop didn't work. Supernovas are millions of times bigger than planets, after all.

That's all I got for ya.