MovieChat Forums > Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) Discussion > When they are beamed out of the hospital...

When they are beamed out of the hospital elevator....

posted 9 years ago by sendjunk
7 replies | jump to latest

...the sequence of events makes no sense.

First, they re-materialize just outside the ship. Why not re-materialize INSIDE the ship?? You see the ramp opening for them to walk up almost as soon as they beam there. Only thing that makes sense (although not much) is that they materialized there in order to not beam the doctor on board, seeing as she wasn't supposed to go with them (although they could have easily beamed her anywhere on Earth once aboard).

Then, after everyone walks inside except for Kirk, he tells Scotty to beam him up? Why? Just to be a big shot? Why didn't he just walk in like everyone else just did? In fact, Kirk makes weird and cavalier decisions the whole movie, but this always irked me.

Has anyone else ever thought about this?

[–] bjlevine 9 years ago

Purely plot device. Gillian needs to be left out, Kirk needs to explain it to her and then Gillian still has to end up on the ship.

I wondered if Gillian's surprise move might cause a problem with the transporter, but we do have precedence for such a move in the episode The Enterprise Incident, when the Romulan Commander tries to stop Spock from transporting to the Enterprise and she gets caught in the beam.

👷👳
Bob the Builder and Hadji walk into a bar...

[–] ManuelManipulation 9 years ago

Exactly... even a Klingon transporter would have been able to discriminate between all the people and leave Gillian outside or have beamed her to Cetacean Institute with Kirk saying "smell ya later" ...Kirk and Gillian are lucky because if the Klingon transporters had been substandard it could have ended up in some BrumbleFly... Krillian ?

[–] bjlevine 9 years ago

The whole Harve Bennett era transporters are a bit weird, since they seem to be able to talk to each other while transporting.

17 Fake CJs Ignored (and counting)

[–] DirtyThirty 9 years ago

Yup, and beaming off a moving elevator and they don't lurch to a stop as if the elevator suddenly stopped moving [they do] or beaming someone off who is sitting, but beamed back standing.

TNG and after weren't that better: beaming back as kids, animals, tiny size, aliens in the beam, reverse aging are just of the few cack up I remember off the top of my head from the TNG series

...and then there's Nü Trek with their constant "I can't bean them up, but I can beam you down" and beaming several star systems away

😩😫😨😠😡

[–] Dukat-4 8 years ago

Yes.

This sequence bothered me the more often I watched it. Poor Chekov, who was on his deathbed mere minutes before, has to WALK up the ramp, helped by McCoy, but still. Whereas fatass Kirk BEAMS himself in? Jerk. ;)

There's no sensible in-universe explanation. It's pure out-universe plot device. At some point someone said: "Wouldn't it be cool if, when Kirk beams out, Gillian jumps into the beam?"

And then it NEEDED to happen, even when they didn't manage to write the lead-up to it properly.

Besides, I think the reason why they didn't beam onto the ship was simply that the Klingon transporter room set was not large enough to fit all of them. Did we even see the transporter room? Maybe there even was NO set they could beam into.

There are some other oddities in this movie. There's the scene where Sulu steals the chopper. It was intended to have this fight scene where Sulu knocks down the pilot. But Takei had participated in a marathon the day before, and did not recover enough to be able to film a fight scene. So they simply skipped it. They didn't even film a suitable dialog replacement scene. There's just Sulu small talking with the pilot, and then he's flying away. Not even a simple lure away *beep* scene as they did regularly on "The A-Team" when they needed to get something.

[–] DirtyThirty 8 years ago

Maybe this Sulu was good with his mouth.... If you know what I mean 😋

[–] 8 years ago

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