Cryptic because when the computer asked Spock "How do you feel?", Spock said "I don't understand the question." Yet here, Spock is the only person in the entire Federation who understood the probe's question to humpback whales -- "Are you there?"
You prolly dont give a shit but if you are stoned like me atm you can watch pretty much all of the latest movies and series on InstaFlixxer. Have been watching with my gf for the last couple of days :)
Very lovecraftian. The idea of an unknowable, incredibly powerful force that waltzes through the "powers" of the alpha quadrant like they weren't even there and does what it wants. Probably would have been too on the nose to have it want to talk to squids. The fact that the Probe has no discernible power source, and is so alien in design... simply brilliant.
And it was never even treated as a villain. Even as it was risking countless lives and nearly tearing Terra apart, it was always treated as a mystery to be solved and answered, rather than an enemy to be fought. Voyage Home is hands-down the most "Trek" Trek film ever made, right down to its lighthearted adventure throughout.
@@k1productions87 I do actually not like the movie because of that probe thing aswell as time travel, and the fact that Leningrad still seems to be a thing in the 23th century even though it was changed back to Saint Petersburg either at the end of the 20th or the start of the 21th century!
@@Spino2Earth Checkov mentioned Leningrad in the TOS episode "I Mudd" as well. They had no way of knowing at the time that this change would occur, even in 1986. It was still another half decade before the change was made.
@@Spino2Earth - it is quite possible that their trip back changed the timeline such that a seemingly small thing like scaring the heck out of a Russian whaling vessel would lead to the downfall of the USSR and so Kirk and crew would be unaware of Leningrad changing to St. Petersburg until they got back to their own time. Maybe the crew were related to someone important and had taken pictures of the Klingon Bird of Prey, making the Russians believe the US had weapons far beyond what they knew. The smallest thing can make huge ripples years later. Ray Bradbury's butterfly effect.
grizzfan08 Probably the primal fear of dealing with a cosmic horror entity will do that. It doesn’t care, it doing what it wants, and admist it’s prime directive, it creates wanton destruction across Sol Three AKA Terra AKA Earth, along with other individuals in the path of this probe. It’s certain to give anyone who knows ultimate and unknown power would get chills when dealing with this.
She played another queen this time for Disney in animated Lion King as Simba mother which would be her last film role as she died of Leukaemia the following year. Back to Trek she also played Geordi's mother Captain Silva LaForge of the USS Hera in the TNG seventh season episode 'Interface'.
I always imagine that the probe was filled with water and millions of whales were living inside. They oxygenated the water so that they could breath. And they controlled it with their thoughts.
Naturally for the sake of making a TV show, most life was bipedal humanoid. But until we find alien life, we won't know how common that is. But as Kirk and Spock said, whales were on Earth far longer than man existed as a species. People don't like the Halloween episode, "Catspaw" but the aliens (puppets) at the end were the best TOS had to offer for something "totally alien."
6:00 I love how this whole scene is played straight with the back and forth between the whales and the probe, not only leaving it open to guess what was communicated between them, especially since whale song itself is a strange, almost alien thing in and of itself. That and the face that it's never further explored what the probe is or where it came from, suggesting not only whales possessing an intelligence that may or may not surpass humans', but that there are other forms of life akin to whales that ended up on a different evolutionary path. Or that whales are really beings from another planet, I don't know.
I think it very nicely drives home the point that the message "isn't meant for us". Trek has always been about how humanity is small piece of a much larger whole - coming to terms that we are not the center of universe, but that we still have responsibilities and contributions to make to it - and I think that the choice to leave this vague really helps communicates that.
The whales complained to their whale overlords that the humans were giving them names like spermwhale and humpback whale, while also misgendering them.
@@j2kerrigan In his video review of Star Trek IV, Chuck "SHDEBRIS" Sonneberg did his own subtitles for that sequence, and it basically went like this: Whales: Knock it off already! You're f*cking up the whole planet! Probe: Sorry I was just checking in on ya, everything okay? Whales: Yes, not F*ck off!!! Probe: Alright! Fine!
3:15: That always annoyed me. They knew the probe was coming their way. They knew it hours in advance! And yet they wait until its literally on top of them to order space dock to launch all vessels? They could have had every ship full loaded with people, out of the dock and safely away at warp speed before the probe even got close if they'd acted immediately!
It's too bad those of us in the know, meaning those of us who know how to look outside the box, wasn't even the chance to edit the script, seeing what was missing, what wasn't need, and improving on it.
Good point. Yet, they really wanted to keep the sense of danger. There were relatively few ships in orbit, and Earth has billions of people. It's an interesting trope to use the "all or none" as a plot device. I suspect that is why Harve Bennet and the others did not write that in. I suspect every script could use improvement. Yet, like books, one just has to stop the m--teenth editing process, and just put it into play. Again, though, good point.
Maybe the only ships still left in Space Dock were just the Excelsior, which was still an experiment, and a few vessels in maintenance or (depending on what backstory on it you choose to believe) the developmental connie that would later be converted into the Enterprise-A, basically ships not technically in full service, and the announcement to launch all vessels was simply out of desperation to launch "anything that's left". And also, they had already launched "everything we have" so maybe that included some emergency evacuation ships. Even in the 23rd Century I must imagine a planet wide evacuation ain't no joke, it'd be difficult to transport the entire population of a planet as crowded as Earth with even every ship in Starfleet even in the time given.
I got the sense that despite the threat that earth was still operating very much in a state of peace, and the arrival of the probe threw things into sudden and unexpected turmoil. We knew firsthand the damage the probe could cause, but even we the audience didn't know the damage it could cause on such a large scale, even disabling the entire space station. When I first saw the movie, I didn't have a problem with them not trying to do anything until it got close. Maybe there were already plenty of ships in orbit and the station was just ordering the immediate launch of the rest of them once the damage started to get caused - we just didn't see the probe break through any perimeter, if there was one. I didn't have a problem imagining Starfleet having everything in place, just not showing us all of it. I guess I think of it more like an alien presence arriving at modern day earth, and suddenly all traffic lights go out, affecting the common people.
PETA or some sort of activist organization actually once tried to interfere with Paramount's filming of Star Trek IV because they were concerned with the treatment of the humpback whales. It turns out the whales depicted in the movies were actually animatronics. No RL whales were actually used in the production of the movie.
I remember hearing about that. I think it was Greenpeace. They were bucking wrong of course. But it's been nearly 40 years since I saw this over 12 times in theaters.
Eintopf Mitschinken apparently the aliens that created the probe are rather like cetations (i.e. Whales) hence needing/wanting the whales, another note in the sequel novel its reveal that the probe was attacked by tiny men in metal cubes, ergo this thing travelled through the delta quadrant and encountered an earlier form of the borg
In the book "Probe," it is mentioned that Starfleet tried to get more information on the Probe, and Spock was able to successfully mind meld with it. Through this, they learned that the probe was created by a whale-like alien species that went extinct at the hands of the Borg, and the Probe itself had been damaged by the Borg, which it referred to as "mites". It was not supposed to be constantly transmitting its signal, nor was it supposed to disrupt the power of nearby ships with a strong frequency, but the assimilation caused by the Borg resulted in the Probe's malfunctioning.
EasyLee Wouldn’t be the first time that the Borg caused Cosmic Horror level of destruction. This time though it was more indirect than direct in this story.
There is an alternate story where in the Terran Empire, the same probe appeared over Earth. A similar ploy was used as well to retrieve two humpback whales. However, instead of the probe leaving, it learned of what the Empire had done to the whales. So instead of leaving, it "transformed" the two humpbacks into two armored leviathans that wreaked untold havoc on the Earth's coastlines and destroying much of the Empire's manufacturing infrastructure. If you have ever played the game Darius CS (Chronicle Saviours) think of GT (Great Thing). A massively armored space faring and cybernetic whale of immense power and world destroying weapons.
fan lore suggests they were coming to destroy earth since they lost contact with the wales of earth, but George and Gracie told them not too since they not know the errors of their ways
3:45 - Earth Spacedock isn’t small, but it’s positively tiny next to that probe. One of the creepiest, most alluring mysteries of all Star Trek. Who were they? Where did they come from? You have to wonder, considering how easily they disabled Federation and Klingon ships, what would happen if the Probe encountered the Borg or the Dominion.
One wonders why aliens would create something so large and apparently unintentionally destructive just for the purposes of communication. It seems like overkill.
@@axebomber2108l!!!!! “Have you heard of cars?!? Plastic?!? Smart phones?!?!?!? * said all other living creatures on earth* The irony. OH THE IRONY!!!!”
@@Alusnovalotus These are supposed to be super advanced aliens who think whales are more worth talking to than humans, yet they still created a super destructive probe.
RFKFANTS67 Admiral Cartwright faced a Court Marshall for his participation in the conspiracy to derail the peace talks between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
like most people he hated change, especially a peace treaty with the Klingons, that being said NCC-1701 C was destroyed by Romulans saving Klingons but changed when the Enterprise C met Enterprise D which would of been destroyed by the Klingons if Enterprise C did not go back into the rift..."Lets make sure history never forgets the name, Enterprise"
That's the pitfall of trying to guess what the future will be like. You end up coming up with what present-day people think is futuristic, and then in a few years, even that ends up looking outdated. Even when we correctly guess future tech, it ends up only being 20 years into the future rather than 200(like touch screen tech and mobile phones).
@@johnpooky84 Ok, I see what you did there. But I can see the crew of the Enterprise passing the time with a little Pitfall and Donkey Kong. They hadn't invented holodecks yet.
That might be deliberate in a sense. See when you have something as obviously complex and advanced as a starship, the idea of "information overload" probably is thought of with teams of psychologists and researchers. They design these displays and controls with the idea of "less workload, less graphics, but preserving the informative nature of these displays and devices." Pretty graphics and super advanced displays would not work out in an environment where information is essential as fast, and as efficient as possible. So graphics are plain, almost basic, but informative to their operator. IMHO, this is where ST TOS despite no computer graphics, had the right idea. A lot of what you need, not a lot of what you don't. Keep it simple. Easier on the eyes, easier to maintain, and above all? Easier to read and comprehend for fast reporting.
Some people (lovingly) poke fun at it cause it's well, the save-the-whales probe but this thing's always fascinated me personally. We still know nothing (official) about it, and just its very concept is so mind blowing the more you think about it. The idea that even 23rd century people as relatively enlightened (compared to us anyways) and advanced as the this may have had something far more advanced in a way traditional thinking of advancement as we know it might not understand swimming in our oceans the whole time, or were before they went back in time. And that it had a connection to something that isn't even phased by technology capable of teleporting people and warping space for interstellar travel. Or not. I dunno, it's very Eldritch as someone put it. It's like...V'ger represented a potential apex of where technology as we know it can advance to, but this thing and wherever it came from represents a completely different path, one that maybe can be understood one day, but never fully comprehended cause it's just so off our path. All in a movie where Kirk cracks a "he did drugs" joke at Spock's expense.
The bleakest moment in Roddenberry’s perfect future. The notion that even though the future is bright, there’s things people did, that WE did, in the 20th century that cannot be undone……….. without a Time Machine. A very disturbing thought.
We may be in a runaway greenhouse effect that might take us back to the climate of the dinosaurs. Or at least losing two of the three ice caps (Greenland and West Antarctica). But it's _An Inconvenient Truth,_ no pun intended.
Heck, _2010: The Year We Make Contact_ still had the Cold War getting hot with a new crisis in Latin America. It was just inconceivable that the Warsaw Pack would disintegrate and the Soviet Union would break up. I read they had to change Scotty's joke in Russian about "Humpback, people?" because the translation would have been something like Gorbaty (like Gorbachev) and they didn't want to make that kind of joke.
watching this in 2020 as a new watcher & it's already way more exciting than the new Star Trek Discovery. There's something compelling about a good storyline, decent actors who aren't all 20 years old or look like models, and a camera that doesn't wave about trying to create fake drama. Love this
I liked the four movies and had them on VHS to watch repeatedly in the 1980s. But "fake drama" really applies to _The Search for Spock_ as if they parked outside there wouldn't be such a tension for opening the space doors. Of course it's a repeat of Spock stealing the Enterprise in "The Menagerie, Part One." And sacrificing Spock and the Enterprise were essentially undone. They didn't come up with a new idea until _The Voyage Home._ What a wasted opportunity to do social commentary in the 1970s and '80s! _The Motion Picture_ was a repeat of "The Changeling," _The Wrath of Khan_ wasn't just a sequel to "Space Seed" but took elements from "The Deadly Years," "Balance of Terror" and "The Doomsday Machine," with the damage to the Enterprise being the same as that last episode: "Warp drive out, deflector shields down, transporter under repair; we are on emergency impulse power."
Because later Paramount was bragging about Sisko being the first black captain, and Janeway the first female...apparently they didn't remember this movie! lol
Very true. They didn't remember. Thank you for saying that (I am a black dude, by the way). I am glad someone pointed this out. I think what they were referring to was these human tropes/characteristics were part of the central make-up of the core figure in the story, not just some side-attraction that gets an honorable mention, like in ST IV. Yet, in all strictness, you are correct.
Why "racist"? Of course not. A studio finally chose to step outside the normal models and expectations their audiences had created and expected, and portray starship captains as something other than what was expected, looking like the rest of humanity. It was a mega-first for trek (though not the Trek Universe)--Paramount, that is. One does not have to be "a racist" to take notice of certain film & acting molds being broken. Madge Sinclair went un-credited for her role in this. I think that was a brilliant decision she made. She went on to play Jorde LaForge's mother, the Captain of the U.S.S. Hera. All of this was just before the start of that retched "political correctness" that so plagues our society now. I applaud this being done before there was "pressure" to do so. I expect this of Trek, even today.
don't forget there was more then one black captain and one black admiral starting in order Capt. Tryla Scott played by Ursaline Bryant Capt. Donald Varley played by Thalmus Rasulala Admiral Shanthi played by Fran Bennett if i missed any other black characters played by black actors i am sorry and i mean no disrespect but these persons do come to mind
Oh I wish I had seen this in the theaters. Granted I would have only been 5 at the time. Still, it was the first Star Trek I had ever seen, and what effectively got me interested in the franchise. It is a shame my first ever theatrical Trek experience was Final Frontier, LOL
EdMcStinko According to canon, it was f**ked only b/c of the Borg. There’s a comment around here of what happened, claiming that the probe passed through the Delta quadrant, causing once again Cosmic Horror levels of terror by the Borg. This time, more indirect than direct.
@@k1productions87 They made fun of their ad campaign for _V:_ "Why are they putting seat belts in the theater this summer?" So you don't get up and walk out. Even the FX was second rate: they said ILM was too busy to do _Star Trek V_ so they had to find someone else who did a second rate job. They should have done what Lucas did and build their own FX studio.
They need to do a movie about either of the Arthur C. Clarke books that have an alien probe come through the solar system. Rendezvous with Rama or The Fountains of Paradise.
i just love how, no matter what one may say about it, how destructive it acts, how impressively powerful it is, just everything, 'alien' about it... this thing is nothing more then a probe, its only purpose was to reach earth, and try to establish communications with 'whales', whoever/whatever sent that, rendered every ship/station/even an entire planet helpless and all its trying to do is say, without actually knowing... "what's going on, we haven't heard from you in years"
He represents Vulcan philosophy of emotional control and logical thinking, but he is also good at provoking an emotional reaction from "aliens." "This invites illegal mining operations." "Illegal?" "Some of your ships were seen in the Coridan system." "You call us thieves!" "We have the right to preserve our race!" "You have the right to commit murder?"
In another novel, in an AU, you find out what would have happened had Spock never existed and the whales were never resurrected. Also, Earth is NOT the only planet this probe was checking up on.
Gene Roddenberry had said after the movie came out, the Enterprise - A was the Yorktown. Maybe that's why 1701-A had so many problems in St 5. general motors must have joined Starfleet 🤔
That goes against on screen dialogue and reference material published that year. Maybe the old fart was getting senile then [he did let Nimoy alter the original draft of STIII].
I can see that fool of a captain losing his command and his ship after letting it get neutralized. Maybe he fired phasers and photon torpedoes and it responded? Or he just got too close after hearing what happened to the Saratoga. But yeah, Kirk saved the planet, your ship has to get towed home, so Kirk gets your ship. Time for you to take a ground assignment, Captain.
@@sandal_thong8631 In other headcanon, the entire crew of the Yorktown perished. Life support did not hold out long enough for help to arrive. This cleared the way for Kirk to get NCC1701A (ex Yorktown)
I wish we could have seen more of that alien species with the white hair. They showed this species only twice (the helmsman here, and the president in ST: Undiscovered Country). They looked interesting; it would have been nice to see more of them...
The president was called Ra-ghoratreii The Saratoga Helmsman was called Chitirih Ra-Dreii. Both names confirmed from movie novelisations. However despite the novel listing the species as Deltan the production material and one reference book list the species as Efrosian, a once conquered race by the Klingons and an offshoot.
@@develynseether4426nah, the science officer is Chirith Ra-dreii. The Efrosian helmsman remains Unnamed in beta canon. I have seen the fan name of Zi-Hargovtra being used for him.
I was more upset that the Federation Council didn't have the aliens featured in TOS episode "Journey to Babel." I thought it was a clever gag to see the President from the back, thinking he would be the same one from _The Voyage Home_ and then find out he's the same race as the navigator/helmsman/communications officer on the Saratoga.
When they had something to say, Star Trek could be impressive. When not, it was just fighting and laser beams and some jokes. They really wasted the opportunity for social commentary in 1-3, which were either repeats or sacrifices that were undone.
The probe was asking the whales why they stopped being in contact with it. George sadly explained that humanity had been hunting them and drove their race to extinction in the 21st century. He and Gracie are the only survivors who came from the past to speak to it. When the probe learned what happened to the humpback whales, it offered to destroy humanity to help them repopulate their race. George refused and mentions not all humanity are evil. He explains that they're noble and willing to help them repopulate. George uses Kirk, his crew and Dr. Gillian Taylor as prime examples. The probe accepts their wishes to spare humanity and deactivates it's antenna. Thanking George and Gracie for speaking to it, the probe leaves to reverse the damages it done with it's transmission.
ladyfire44 I like that idea. But I also like the idea that the scene itself is played straight with just the whale sounds back and forth, leaving it to interpretation, especially with the way it's never further explained what the probe is or where it came from, leaving that open to interpretation as well. But the animal activist side of me tends to agree with your analysis, and the nature of the probe itself gives the sense of the possibility that whales possess an intelligence that may or may not exceed our own, depending on how you look at it.
I think it’s previous encounter with the Borg is what caused it to do that. At least, that’s what “Word of Mouth” fans are saying. There are notes that might say that it was that was cannon at one point.
The fact that the Kelvin Universe has found Khan, it is only a matter of time before the Probe arrives at Earth. Young Spock won't have the experience of the tests on Vulcan to bring whales to mind. With old Spock gone, there won't be any time travel and no rescued George and Gracie. George and Gracie will die at the hands of the whaling ship. Earth, like Vulcan, is doomed to be destroyed. The United Federation of Planets will hopefully survive without Earth and Vulcan. Only time will tell though.
A few things about this scene surprises me today that might not have stood out when I first watched the movie: Despite Star Trek being depicted well into the future they thought Russia would stick with Leningrad rather than returning to St. Petersburg or Petrograd after the end of communism. Which of course hadn't happened at the time of this film, but they clearly thought the the Soviet Union would fall and become part of the world order or abandon the communist revolutionists as heroes. They use the term Mr. President as if the U.S. simply expanded and replaced all other national governments and the United Nations. So we're not just a planetary democratic republic but a galactic democratic republic with a a president as head of state and head of the military. It would seem far more likely that we would agree in the future to sort sort of secretary or a parliamentary system where much of the power rested in the legislative body and the prime minister. Less power in a sovereign or president. If at the end of this film the USS Enterprise A given to Kirk and his officers really was a refit of the USS Yorktown the damage to the vessel wasn't extensive or difficult to fix. Yet still required a considerable amount of time to update and enhance before their first mission. In addition none of the senior officers or much of the crew was deemed fit to join Kirk and his crew. I guess immediately failing to come up with an answer to a probe when the exiled officers figured it out quickly in a beat up old Klingon ship gets you moved down the list. One thing still stands out from the first viewing to the most recent viewing of this scene; Even though Kirk and his officers were heading for a court martial and expected to be stripped of rank and sent to prison they ran in to save the day rather than run and make a go of it on a federation planet. That's some real loyalty to an organization and a set of ideals. Today we are many people are reluctant to support the great man in history theory or support the idea of great men and woman doing extraordinary things. Star Trek fans do seem to think that we can be liberal, progressive and the best of the best do need a leader willing to lead them to greatness. Just not for their own benefit, riches or rewards. But for ideals. And not at the cost or expense, suffering of others. Not out of some sense of being invalidated or unvalued. History really would be different without great men, great women doing extraordinary things with other exceptional people.
And it is a bit of a failing that Star Trek (or Babylon 5) didn't say how the Earth became united. I suspect the democracies united much like the European Union. So we should probably have a North-Central American Union and Africa could have its union, and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should have reunification and so on. However, right now there's a worldwide movement to install authoritarian far-right regimes using fascist tactics which will seek to put women and minorities in their place.
That's perplexed me too until I suddenly realized that about the lack of whale song for centuries and I literally thought I was on to some cinematic discrepancy haha
And an Indian whats the point? Star Trek sees past the ignorance of today and this movie has a powerful message to it. Race won't matter if Earth dies will it??
I always thought the situation with Spacedock was stupid. They knew the probe was coming and that it would disrupt all power sources they have. Why wouldn't they have done like the Admiral said and launched everything, including the Excelsior and the Miranda class in the dock? Why let those little ships with their limited life support fly around inside the dock? Incredibly stupid. (but great for showing affects)
They should have been evacuating space dock to Earth since the Probe was shutting down systems otherwise the crew would freeze to death unless they have something medical to prevent that.
I agree. They should've launched all available vessels, as soon as the Saratoga was immobilised, and the evacuating ships should have taken all non-essential personnel with them, leaving just a skeleton crew aboard space-dock.
It is possible the ships in Spacedock at the time were down for repair. Perhaps Scotty's sabotage of the Excelsior was more extensive than we realized :P
@02:30 The Yorktown was stranded in space, therefore the E-A really was an all new hull "...they don't build[make?] them like they used to" -Scotty, STV.
russell5078084 Well it was never really made clear as to who or what sent the whale probe and what their actual intentions were. Some just assumed it was some sort of aquatic whale-like alien race since the probe was communicating in whale sounds, and Spok had deduced that some alien species sent the probe after they lost contact with the humpback whales when they went extinct, and they sent the probe to find out why they lost contact with them. But it was never really made clear who they were and why they were communicating with the humpback whales in the first place. I think the mystery of it made it creepier because we didn't understand what their motives and intentions really were.
So many people liked this one but not me - I found it rather dumb - that a so-called intelligent species - enough intelligence to create a space craft and out power all other known craft - do not even realize that they're communications destroy and disrupt others around them. They obviously know that they are causing havoc on the planet with hurricanes, and (what whale would want to surface in that mess?) I don't know. "oh we can't hear the whales so let's destroy their entire world, shall we?" Never mind all the other species on the planet. (humans not-withstanding.) Also the idea that the ship had to turn upright (in space) to communicate with the whale lol. They brought two whales back with them and that is suppose to make everything all better? They can't breed more whales, so it's not like they are going to replace the population. silliness.
And ST6: TUC came out only 20 days before the USSR became history, hence the theme to that film. Although there are possibilities between now and the 23rd Century.
Imagine, you're chillin, not knowing anything about this, and then suddenly you just hear this deep omnipresent sound: *_"WOMWOMWOMWOMWOMWOMWOMW-"_* This is your experience as a nobody on Earth. And then the weather just goes to hell.
If only this prob came to earth during the borg invasion wolf 359 or in first contact lol it would have killed all the borg ships instantly passing by before they got a chance to say resistance is futile
BTW, I firmly believe that this movie and Leonard Nimoy saved this real-life species. In the US, we were killing just as many whales as any other country. This movie brought it to peoples' attention.
The United States was an initial party to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling set up in 1946, which imposed a ban on the hunting of Humpback Whales in 1966. If you're searching for someone to blame, blame Japan and the Scandinavian countries and get out of here with this "AMERIKKKA" bullshit. You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
The most obvious thing ever said: We cannot survive without the Sun. Thank you Admiral Sherlock. Then....you wait until the probe arrives to order all ships out and sound red alert. You Sir are FIRED!!! Turns out he gets arrested and sacked in 6. 😂 how did he make Admiral being so tactically inept? That actor was better off playing Sisko's dad in DS9. Cartwright you are no James T Kirk!!
The Earth is seismically active, so they could use the heat from the interior for some time, even if they couldn't convert it to electricity, had they made the investment of drilling and such.
Our first female captain and Black. Then she gets too close to the probe and essentially loses her ship. Love how her communications officer gives her the stink eye for not reacting fast enough. They say the next starship captain not only had his ship (the Yorktown) neutralized, but lost his command, and they renamed his ship and gave it to Kirk. I guess he's even dumber, because he heard the Saratoga was neutralized and he let his ship go the same way.
"It's difficult to answer when one does not understand the question" good point without a doubt
Cryptic because when the computer asked Spock "How do you feel?", Spock said "I don't understand the question." Yet here, Spock is the only person in the entire Federation who understood the probe's question to humpback whales -- "Are you there?"
If... it's even a question
Hadn’t noticed before - The whales go nose-down vertical when they are singing; and *so does The Probe* when it’s *replying.*
Sarek gets the nod for delivering the movie's best rational response @ 5:38.
5:55 - Always liked Sarek's "while we still have time." That sense of alarm beneath the cold Vulcan exterior.
Well, keep in mind:
While they have them, Vulcans suppress their emotions in order embrace logic
You prolly dont give a shit but if you are stoned like me atm you can watch pretty much all of the latest movies and series on InstaFlixxer. Have been watching with my gf for the last couple of days :)
@Benton Neil yea, been using InstaFlixxer for months myself :D
Under the cold Vulcan logic "We're screwed!"
Yeah, if a Vulcan is scared, you know you're in trouble!
Good thing Oumuamua found our sea mammals intact.
Yup.
Very lovecraftian. The idea of an unknowable, incredibly powerful force that waltzes through the "powers" of the alpha quadrant like they weren't even there and does what it wants. Probably would have been too on the nose to have it want to talk to squids. The fact that the Probe has no discernible power source, and is so alien in design... simply brilliant.
And it was never even treated as a villain. Even as it was risking countless lives and nearly tearing Terra apart, it was always treated as a mystery to be solved and answered, rather than an enemy to be fought. Voyage Home is hands-down the most "Trek" Trek film ever made, right down to its lighthearted adventure throughout.
@@k1productions87 Well said, to you both!
@@k1productions87 I do actually not like the movie because of that probe thing aswell as time travel, and the fact that Leningrad still seems to be a thing in the 23th century even though it was changed back to Saint Petersburg either at the end of the 20th or the start of the 21th century!
@@Spino2Earth Checkov mentioned Leningrad in the TOS episode "I Mudd" as well. They had no way of knowing at the time that this change would occur, even in 1986. It was still another half decade before the change was made.
@@Spino2Earth - it is quite possible that their trip back changed the timeline such that a seemingly small thing like scaring the heck out of a Russian whaling vessel would lead to the downfall of the USSR and so Kirk and crew would be unaware of Leningrad changing to St. Petersburg until they got back to their own time. Maybe the crew were related to someone important and had taken pictures of the Klingon Bird of Prey, making the Russians believe the US had weapons far beyond what they knew.
The smallest thing can make huge ripples years later. Ray Bradbury's butterfly effect.
The helmsman always made me laugh. He looks like he's working on his day off and now it all goes to hell.
Was he the helmsman? He connects to Starfleet Command, so I thought he was communications.
Even though this is my favorite of the films, that probe still gives me the willies.
grizzfan08 Probably the primal fear of dealing with a cosmic horror entity will do that. It doesn’t care, it doing what it wants, and admist it’s prime directive, it creates wanton destruction across Sol Three AKA Terra AKA Earth, along with other individuals in the path of this probe.
It’s certain to give anyone who knows ultimate and unknown power would get chills when dealing with this.
Really? THAT is what does. It for you?
@@Shadowkey392 The sound is unsettling as all hell.
@@The_Burrito It's just whale song
@@TimeTravelincwouldnt call it destruction its just messing with electric power of everything. I dont think anything blew up
Fun Fact:
The actress who played the Captain of The USS Saratoga is the same woman who played Eddie Murphy's mother in "Coming to America"
Ay-Alien! How apropos
She played another queen this time for Disney in animated Lion King as Simba mother which would be her last film role as she died of Leukaemia the following year.
Back to Trek she also played Geordi's mother Captain Silva LaForge of the USS Hera in the TNG seventh season episode 'Interface'.
@@develynseether4426 she played Geordi's mom??
I didn't realize that
Or that she'd voiced Simba's mother in the animated version of "The Lion King"
Madge Sinclair is her name. R.I.P.
The groundbreaking actress Madge Sinclair.
I always imagine that the probe was filled with water and millions of whales were living inside. They oxygenated the water so that they could breath. And they controlled it with their thoughts.
Not unlike the underwater species on the Xindi planet on ST: Enterprise.
Same. A whole ocean like biosphere inside. It was clear that the probe was of immense size many miles long
Naturally for the sake of making a TV show, most life was bipedal humanoid. But until we find alien life, we won't know how common that is. But as Kirk and Spock said, whales were on Earth far longer than man existed as a species.
People don't like the Halloween episode, "Catspaw" but the aliens (puppets) at the end were the best TOS had to offer for something "totally alien."
6:00 I love how this whole scene is played straight with the back and forth between the whales and the probe, not only leaving it open to guess what was communicated between them, especially since whale song itself is a strange, almost alien thing in and of itself. That and the face that it's never further explored what the probe is or where it came from, suggesting not only whales possessing an intelligence that may or may not surpass humans', but that there are other forms of life akin to whales that ended up on a different evolutionary path. Or that whales are really beings from another planet, I don't know.
The novelization does explore the probe's origins a little, it did in fact come from a planet where cetaceans are the dominant intelligent life form.
I think it very nicely drives home the point that the message "isn't meant for us". Trek has always been about how humanity is small piece of a much larger whole - coming to terms that we are not the center of universe, but that we still have responsibilities and contributions to make to it - and I think that the choice to leave this vague really helps communicates that.
The whales complained to their whale overlords that the humans were giving them names like spermwhale and humpback whale, while also misgendering them.
@@brianwesley28lmao I know Im 3 months late but this cracked me up
@@j2kerrigan In his video review of Star Trek IV, Chuck "SHDEBRIS" Sonneberg did his own subtitles for that sequence, and it basically went like this:
Whales: Knock it off already! You're f*cking up the whole planet!
Probe: Sorry I was just checking in on ya, everything okay?
Whales: Yes, not F*ck off!!!
Probe: Alright! Fine!
3:15: That always annoyed me. They knew the probe was coming their way. They knew it hours in advance! And yet they wait until its literally on top of them to order space dock to launch all vessels? They could have had every ship full loaded with people, out of the dock and safely away at warp speed before the probe even got close if they'd acted immediately!
It's too bad those of us in the know, meaning those of us who know how to look outside the box, wasn't even the chance to edit the script, seeing what was missing, what wasn't need, and improving on it.
I meant 'given the chance'.
Good point. Yet, they really wanted to keep the sense of danger. There were relatively few ships in orbit, and Earth has billions of people. It's an interesting trope to use the "all or none" as a plot device. I suspect that is why Harve Bennet and the others did not write that in. I suspect every script could use improvement. Yet, like books, one just has to stop the m--teenth editing process, and just put it into play. Again, though, good point.
Maybe the only ships still left in Space Dock were just the Excelsior, which was still an experiment, and a few vessels in maintenance or (depending on what backstory on it you choose to believe) the developmental connie that would later be converted into the Enterprise-A, basically ships not technically in full service, and the announcement to launch all vessels was simply out of desperation to launch "anything that's left".
And also, they had already launched "everything we have" so maybe that included some emergency evacuation ships. Even in the 23rd Century I must imagine a planet wide evacuation ain't no joke, it'd be difficult to transport the entire population of a planet as crowded as Earth with even every ship in Starfleet even in the time given.
I got the sense that despite the threat that earth was still operating very much in a state of peace, and the arrival of the probe threw things into sudden and unexpected turmoil. We knew firsthand the damage the probe could cause, but even we the audience didn't know the damage it could cause on such a large scale, even disabling the entire space station. When I first saw the movie, I didn't have a problem with them not trying to do anything until it got close. Maybe there were already plenty of ships in orbit and the station was just ordering the immediate launch of the rest of them once the damage started to get caused - we just didn't see the probe break through any perimeter, if there was one. I didn't have a problem imagining Starfleet having everything in place, just not showing us all of it. I guess I think of it more like an alien presence arriving at modern day earth, and suddenly all traffic lights go out, affecting the common people.
PETA or some sort of activist organization actually once tried to interfere with Paramount's filming of Star Trek IV because they were concerned with the treatment of the humpback whales. It turns out the whales depicted in the movies were actually animatronics. No RL whales were actually used in the production of the movie.
So you're saying they used a fake whale to save the Earth. Those sneaky f&cking Iowans....
Typical, if only the dickheads knew how much this film did for the humpbacks cause, brought it to a lot of peoples attention.
I'd heard they didn't get nominated for their whale animatronics/SFX because people in Hollywood saw the movie and thought they were real whales!
Sounds like something PETA would do.
I remember hearing about that. I think it was Greenpeace. They were bucking wrong of course. But it's been nearly 40 years since I saw this over 12 times in theaters.
Never knew a Tootsie roll could destroy the Earth
3:47 i don't think i ever noticed the scale of the probe versus the space station.
I just realized that myself
And nobody pursued this thing. Next time it comes back and wants to talk with dinosaurs. I wonder if this thing went to other planets as well.
Eintopf Mitschinken apparently the aliens that created the probe are rather like cetations (i.e. Whales) hence needing/wanting the whales, another note in the sequel novel its reveal that the probe was attacked by tiny men in metal cubes, ergo this thing travelled through the delta quadrant and encountered an earlier form of the borg
In the book "Probe," it is mentioned that Starfleet tried to get more information on the Probe, and Spock was able to successfully mind meld with it. Through this, they learned that the probe was created by a whale-like alien species that went extinct at the hands of the Borg, and the Probe itself had been damaged by the Borg, which it referred to as "mites". It was not supposed to be constantly transmitting its signal, nor was it supposed to disrupt the power of nearby ships with a strong frequency, but the assimilation caused by the Borg resulted in the Probe's malfunctioning.
Fucking Borg, eh.
EasyLee Wouldn’t be the first time that the Borg caused Cosmic Horror level of destruction. This time though it was more indirect than direct in this story.
That was before Jurassic Park. No Dino DNA in amber ideas yet.
That thing scares the hell out of me every time
if the probe learned what happened to the rest of the whales, it would be pissed off and finish off Earth
There is an alternate story where in the Terran Empire, the same probe appeared over Earth. A similar ploy was used as well to retrieve two humpback whales. However, instead of the probe leaving, it learned of what the Empire had done to the whales. So instead of leaving, it "transformed" the two humpbacks into two armored leviathans that wreaked untold havoc on the Earth's coastlines and destroying much of the Empire's manufacturing infrastructure.
If you have ever played the game Darius CS (Chronicle Saviours) think of GT (Great Thing). A massively armored space faring and cybernetic whale of immense power and world destroying weapons.
That has got to be the biggest volleyball in the galaxy!
Holy crap, the probe is Ouamuamua!
Just brilliant! This is no naive version of alien intruders ....
Protip: Make sure the species you're trying to talk to is not extinct, and don't put EMP generators in your transmitter.
Earth agrees.
fan lore suggests they were coming to destroy earth since they lost contact with the wales of earth, but George and Gracie told them not too since they not know the errors of their ways
3:45 - Earth Spacedock isn’t small, but it’s positively tiny next to that probe. One of the creepiest, most alluring mysteries of all Star Trek. Who were they? Where did they come from? You have to wonder, considering how easily they disabled Federation and Klingon ships, what would happen if the Probe encountered the Borg or the Dominion.
Actually they did. In the book *Star Trek: Probe* published in 1992
One wonders why aliens would create something so large and apparently unintentionally destructive just for the purposes of communication. It seems like overkill.
Even Dominion vessels would be shut down easily. Polaron weapons or no.
@@axebomber2108l!!!!!
“Have you heard of cars?!?
Plastic?!?
Smart phones?!?!?!?
* said all other living creatures on earth*
The irony. OH THE IRONY!!!!”
@@Alusnovalotus These are supposed to be super advanced aliens who think whales are more worth talking to than humans, yet they still created a super destructive probe.
The demoted and disgraced "later" Admiral Cartright
RFKFANTS67 Admiral Cartwright faced a Court Marshall for his participation in the conspiracy to derail the peace talks between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
like most people he hated change, especially a peace treaty with the Klingons, that being said NCC-1701 C was destroyed by Romulans saving Klingons but changed when the Enterprise C met Enterprise D which would of been destroyed by the Klingons if Enterprise C did not go back into the rift..."Lets make sure history never forgets the name, Enterprise"
@@maryhlad5277 I know this Mary I have been following Star Trek all my life age? 55 Live long and prosper
@@RFKFANTS67 Peace and Long Life
He would have been remembered as one of the great admirals of Starfleet if he had retired before Praxis exploded.
gotta love the Commodore 64 graphics on a 23rd century spaceship
That's the pitfall of trying to guess what the future will be like. You end up coming up with what present-day people think is futuristic, and then in a few years, even that ends up looking outdated. Even when we correctly guess future tech, it ends up only being 20 years into the future rather than 200(like touch screen tech and mobile phones).
@@axebomber2108no...the Pitfall would've been if there were Atari graphics on the ship computers.
@@johnpooky84 Ok, I see what you did there. But I can see the crew of the Enterprise passing the time with a little Pitfall and Donkey Kong. They hadn't invented holodecks yet.
That might be deliberate in a sense. See when you have something as obviously complex and advanced as a starship, the idea of "information overload" probably is thought of with teams of psychologists and researchers. They design these displays and controls with the idea of "less workload, less graphics, but preserving the informative nature of these displays and devices."
Pretty graphics and super advanced displays would not work out in an environment where information is essential as fast, and as efficient as possible. So graphics are plain, almost basic, but informative to their operator. IMHO, this is where ST TOS despite no computer graphics, had the right idea. A lot of what you need, not a lot of what you don't. Keep it simple. Easier on the eyes, easier to maintain, and above all? Easier to read and comprehend for fast reporting.
They should have just used still pictures, or had the crew look into a viewfinder, like Spock and Sulu used to do in TOS.
i always love the shear scale of the probe.
_sheer_ (not shear - that means something different - like the shearing of sheep) 😊❤️🖖
Everybody gangsta until a empress uses the whale probe sound doe 😳
why do you talk like a moron?
Some people (lovingly) poke fun at it cause it's well, the save-the-whales probe but this thing's always fascinated me personally. We still know nothing (official) about it, and just its very concept is so mind blowing the more you think about it. The idea that even 23rd century people as relatively enlightened (compared to us anyways) and advanced as the this may have had something far more advanced in a way traditional thinking of advancement as we know it might not understand swimming in our oceans the whole time, or were before they went back in time.
And that it had a connection to something that isn't even phased by technology capable of teleporting people and warping space for interstellar travel. Or not. I dunno, it's very Eldritch as someone put it.
It's like...V'ger represented a potential apex of where technology as we know it can advance to, but this thing and wherever it came from represents a completely different path, one that maybe can be understood one day, but never fully comprehended cause it's just so off our path.
All in a movie where Kirk cracks a "he did drugs" joke at Spock's expense.
He did lds
Too much LSD in the 60s
@@AdrianFahrenheitTepesonly he gets it wrong and says LDS lol 😆
@@Italian69Boi Which is funny because I instinctively think LSD
@@AdrianFahrenheitTepes well prob cuz maybe no one does drugs in future or in starfleet idk or its unheard of or kirk just didnt know abt it
Ty for uploading this
The probe scares the hell out of me even now
The bleakest moment in Roddenberry’s perfect future.
The notion that even though the future is bright, there’s things people did, that WE did, in the 20th century that cannot be undone……….. without a Time Machine.
A very disturbing thought.
And even then with a time machine who knows if fixing that does not make other things worse down the road.
We may be in a runaway greenhouse effect that might take us back to the climate of the dinosaurs. Or at least losing two of the three ice caps (Greenland and West Antarctica). But it's _An Inconvenient Truth,_ no pun intended.
@4:59 "Leningrad has lost all electrical power" - should we expect a Soviet rebirth in the next 200 years?
Leningrad had not been renamed since the Cold War was still ongoing when this movie came out in '86
Maybe its leningrad districts? Lol
@@jimhuffman9434 this goes into, "That line didn't age well"
Heck, _2010: The Year We Make Contact_ still had the Cold War getting hot with a new crisis in Latin America. It was just inconceivable that the Warsaw Pack would disintegrate and the Soviet Union would break up.
I read they had to change Scotty's joke in Russian about "Humpback, people?" because the translation would have been something like Gorbaty (like Gorbachev) and they didn't want to make that kind of joke.
Try 2.
I want the sound of the probe as my ringtone.
I had a whale of a time watching this one!
watching this in 2020 as a new watcher & it's already way more exciting than the new Star Trek Discovery. There's something compelling about a good storyline, decent actors who aren't all 20 years old or look like models, and a camera that doesn't wave about trying to create fake drama. Love this
I liked the four movies and had them on VHS to watch repeatedly in the 1980s. But "fake drama" really applies to _The Search for Spock_ as if they parked outside there wouldn't be such a tension for opening the space doors. Of course it's a repeat of Spock stealing the Enterprise in "The Menagerie, Part One." And sacrificing Spock and the Enterprise were essentially undone. They didn't come up with a new idea until _The Voyage Home._ What a wasted opportunity to do social commentary in the 1970s and '80s!
_The Motion Picture_ was a repeat of "The Changeling," _The Wrath of Khan_ wasn't just a sequel to "Space Seed" but took elements from "The Deadly Years," "Balance of Terror" and "The Doomsday Machine," with the damage to the Enterprise being the same as that last episode:
"Warp drive out, deflector shields down, transporter under repair; we are on emergency impulse power."
Planning on taking a swim? Off the deep end Mr Scott!
What I liked most about this scene is showing the first black female captain, not from a tv series and a South Asian also, maybe, a Captain.
Why? Are you a racist?
Because later Paramount was bragging about Sisko being the first black captain, and Janeway the first female...apparently they didn't remember this movie! lol
Very true. They didn't remember. Thank you for saying that (I am a black dude, by the way). I am glad someone pointed this out. I think what they were referring to was these human tropes/characteristics were part of the central make-up of the core figure in the story, not just some side-attraction that gets an honorable mention, like in ST IV. Yet, in all strictness, you are correct.
Why "racist"? Of course not. A studio finally chose to step outside the normal models and expectations their audiences had created and expected, and portray starship captains as something other than what was expected, looking like the rest of humanity.
It was a mega-first for trek (though not the Trek Universe)--Paramount, that is. One does not have to be "a racist" to take notice of certain film & acting molds being broken. Madge Sinclair went un-credited for her role in this. I think that was a brilliant decision she made. She went on to play Jorde LaForge's mother, the Captain of the U.S.S. Hera.
All of this was just before the start of that retched "political correctness" that so plagues our society now. I applaud this being done before there was "pressure" to do so. I expect this of Trek, even today.
don't forget there was more then one black captain and one black admiral starting in order
Capt. Tryla Scott played by Ursaline Bryant
Capt. Donald Varley played by Thalmus Rasulala
Admiral Shanthi played by Fran Bennett
if i missed any other black characters played by black actors i am sorry and i mean no disrespect but these persons do come to mind
This was the first movie I saw on the big screen.
I was terrified of that fucked up alien ship.
EdMcStinko me too still am
Oh I wish I had seen this in the theaters. Granted I would have only been 5 at the time. Still, it was the first Star Trek I had ever seen, and what effectively got me interested in the franchise. It is a shame my first ever theatrical Trek experience was Final Frontier, LOL
EdMcStinko According to canon, it was f**ked only b/c of the Borg. There’s a comment around here of what happened, claiming that the probe passed through the Delta quadrant, causing once again Cosmic Horror levels of terror by the Borg. This time, more indirect than direct.
@@k1productions87 They made fun of their ad campaign for _V:_ "Why are they putting seat belts in the theater this summer?" So you don't get up and walk out. Even the FX was second rate: they said ILM was too busy to do _Star Trek V_ so they had to find someone else who did a second rate job. They should have done what Lucas did and build their own FX studio.
Does anyone notice that the probe looks a lot like "Omuamua" that passed through the solar system not long ago?
They need to do a movie about either of the Arthur C. Clarke books that have an alien probe come through the solar system. Rendezvous with Rama or The Fountains of Paradise.
I just noticed the guy that plays Admiral Cartwright plays as Ben Sisko's father.
Huh, that never registered.
I saw that too, sounds like him too
Brock Peters - also appeared in the TV series Mission Impossible.
I never realize that.
The captain of the Saratoga also played Silvia La Forge in TNG
This is what the news of Oumuamua in 2017 reminded me of.
i just love how, no matter what one may say about it, how destructive it acts, how impressively powerful it is, just everything, 'alien' about it... this thing is nothing more then a probe, its only purpose was to reach earth, and try to establish communications with 'whales', whoever/whatever sent that, rendered every ship/station/even an entire planet helpless and all its trying to do is say, without actually knowing... "what's going on, we haven't heard from you in years"
Sarek was awesome.
He represents Vulcan philosophy of emotional control and logical thinking, but he is also good at provoking an emotional reaction from "aliens."
"This invites illegal mining operations."
"Illegal?"
"Some of your ships were seen in the Coridan system."
"You call us thieves!"
"We have the right to preserve our race!"
"You have the right to commit murder?"
In another novel, in an AU, you find out what would have happened had Spock never existed and the whales were never resurrected. Also, Earth is NOT the only planet this probe was checking up on.
I don't know what to think if they rebooted the movie with elephants replacing the whales.
LOL XD then they would call it the Elephant probe instead of whale probe xD
Can you imagine the free shrimp buffet these two and only whales have, in the ocean?
Has always reminded me of a giant liquorice allsort.
and that's why from 24th century, federation ships have dolphins or whales on board as cetacean ops
Gene Roddenberry had said after the movie came out, the Enterprise - A was the Yorktown.
Maybe that's why 1701-A had so many problems in St 5.
general motors must have joined Starfleet 🤔
That goes against on screen dialogue and reference material published that year. Maybe the old fart was getting senile then [he did let Nimoy alter the original draft of STIII].
@@LoneBrowncoator mistaken previous Gene Roddenberry lore. He originally intended for Enterprise to be Yorktown.
I can see that fool of a captain losing his command and his ship after letting it get neutralized. Maybe he fired phasers and photon torpedoes and it responded? Or he just got too close after hearing what happened to the Saratoga. But yeah, Kirk saved the planet, your ship has to get towed home, so Kirk gets your ship. Time for you to take a ground assignment, Captain.
@@sandal_thong8631 In other headcanon, the entire crew of the Yorktown perished. Life support did not hold out long enough for help to arrive. This cleared the way for Kirk to get NCC1701A (ex Yorktown)
The interstellar summer sausage with the dangling fuss-ball on a string.
I wish we could have seen more of that alien species with the white hair. They showed this species only twice (the helmsman here, and the president in ST: Undiscovered Country). They looked interesting; it would have been nice to see more of them...
The president was called Ra-ghoratreii
The Saratoga Helmsman was called Chitirih Ra-Dreii.
Both names confirmed from movie novelisations.
However despite the novel listing the species as Deltan the production material and one reference book list the species as Efrosian, a once conquered race by the Klingons and an offshoot.
Deltan is definitely a mistake, @@develynseether4426. Efrosian is the widely accepted name.
@@develynseether4426nah, the science officer is Chirith Ra-dreii. The Efrosian helmsman remains Unnamed in beta canon. I have seen the fan name of Zi-Hargovtra being used for him.
I was more upset that the Federation Council didn't have the aliens featured in TOS episode "Journey to Babel." I thought it was a clever gag to see the President from the back, thinking he would be the same one from _The Voyage Home_ and then find out he's the same race as the navigator/helmsman/communications officer on the Saratoga.
They told it what to go do with itself😊
Imagine dory in this movie
I always loved that "Here he comes now"
That would be interesting if it comes back to chat with another species ....that is extinct it will be up to doc and Marty mcfly to save the world
A future Enterprise will visit the whale home planet one day.
Although STAR TREK normally didn't impress me as much as STAR WARS this was and is a huge exception because of the Humpback whales and the whale probe
When they had something to say, Star Trek could be impressive. When not, it was just fighting and laser beams and some jokes. They really wasted the opportunity for social commentary in 1-3, which were either repeats or sacrifices that were undone.
I always wondered what they said to each other.
Yo! You guys still around?
Hey! Sup bud!
Just checking in, dude. Good yo see you! How you guys doin down there?
The probe was asking the whales why they stopped being in contact with it. George sadly explained that humanity had been hunting them and drove their race to extinction in the 21st century. He and Gracie are the only survivors who came from the past to speak to it. When the probe learned what happened to the humpback whales, it offered to destroy humanity to help them repopulate their race. George refused and mentions not all humanity are evil. He explains that they're noble and willing to help them repopulate. George uses Kirk, his crew and Dr. Gillian Taylor as prime examples. The probe accepts their wishes to spare humanity and deactivates it's antenna. Thanking George and Gracie for speaking to it, the probe leaves to reverse the damages it done with it's transmission.
ladyfire44 I like that idea. But I also like the idea that the scene itself is played straight with just the whale sounds back and forth, leaving it to interpretation, especially with the way it's never further explained what the probe is or where it came from, leaving that open to interpretation as well. But the animal activist side of me tends to agree with your analysis, and the nature of the probe itself gives the sense of the possibility that whales possess an intelligence that may or may not exceed our own, depending on how you look at it.
Alien whale to human whale
so where's Moby Dick 🐳
@@THEBIGMEOW Terran whale not human whale. Are they part human and part whale or something?
As I watched this in retrospect, I find it interesting that this probe looks like ʻOumuamua
2:21 So 😎 that Bond’s MI6 buddy, Vijay, was promoted all the way to Federation Capt. Vijay 🤘🏾
Looks just like oumamua!!! Unless that thing was sueved off of the original Galactic supernova I would sure think it's alien
Ya know for being sector 001 and quite literally the core of the federation i would expect them to atleast try to defend earth
You think? They were still worried about the Klingons and the former Genesis planet.
empress of light
Siscos dad was on a catering mission to starfleet
The Probe completely dwarfs Spacedock: 3:45 Then at 8:35 the Probe is much smaller.
man, imagine this prone vs The Borg
Probe not prone
I think it’s previous encounter with the Borg is what caused it to do that. At least, that’s what “Word of Mouth” fans are saying. There are notes that might say that it was that was cannon at one point.
@@TimeTravelincThere's a book called "Probe", that follows up on this.
Admiral,I need thruster control! Steady, steady, NOW! Not that I’ve watched the movie much!🤔😂
Those damned Klingon crystals!
Space probe was huge ,
73 Kilometers length
12 kilometers height 😊
It turned out that the call was just very aggressive telemarketing for duct cleaning.
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!
tis the aquatics/xindi probe asking the whales on a date
RIP sinclair
RIP Maggie Sinclair
There should have been subtitles between the whales and the probe!!!
ZERO out of FOUR stars. BOMB!
RIP Brock peters
Looking at actress MADGE SINCLAIR:Did Geordi LaForge have 2 female relatives who were both captains of Federation Starships?
Space going chocolate rolls are dangerous things.
Earth has the worst luck with Destructive Alien Probes showing up for reasons unknown.
The fact that the Kelvin Universe has found Khan, it is only a matter of time before the Probe arrives at Earth. Young Spock won't have the experience of the tests on Vulcan to bring whales to mind. With old Spock gone, there won't be any time travel and no rescued George and Gracie. George and Gracie will die at the hands of the whaling ship. Earth, like Vulcan, is doomed to be destroyed. The United Federation of Planets will hopefully survive without Earth and Vulcan. Only time will tell though.
A few things about this scene surprises me today that might not have stood out when I first watched the movie:
Despite Star Trek being depicted well into the future they thought Russia would stick with Leningrad rather than returning to St. Petersburg or Petrograd after the end of communism. Which of course hadn't happened at the time of this film, but they clearly thought the the Soviet Union would fall and become part of the world order or abandon the communist revolutionists as heroes.
They use the term Mr. President as if the U.S. simply expanded and replaced all other national governments and the United Nations. So we're not just a planetary democratic republic but a galactic democratic republic with a a president as head of state and head of the military. It would seem far more likely that we would agree in the future to sort sort of secretary or a parliamentary system where much of the power rested in the legislative body and the prime minister. Less power in a sovereign or president.
If at the end of this film the USS Enterprise A given to Kirk and his officers really was a refit of the USS Yorktown the damage to the vessel wasn't extensive or difficult to fix. Yet still required a considerable amount of time to update and enhance before their first mission. In addition none of the senior officers or much of the crew was deemed fit to join Kirk and his crew. I guess immediately failing to come up with an answer to a probe when the exiled officers figured it out quickly in a beat up old Klingon ship gets you moved down the list.
One thing still stands out from the first viewing to the most recent viewing of this scene;
Even though Kirk and his officers were heading for a court martial and expected to be stripped of rank and sent to prison they ran in to save the day rather than run and make a go of it on a federation planet. That's some real loyalty to an organization and a set of ideals. Today we are many people are reluctant to support the great man in history theory or support the idea of great men and woman doing extraordinary things. Star Trek fans do seem to think that we can be liberal, progressive and the best of the best do need a leader willing to lead them to greatness. Just not for their own benefit, riches or rewards. But for ideals. And not at the cost or expense, suffering of others. Not out of some sense of being invalidated or unvalued. History really would be different without great men, great women doing extraordinary things with other exceptional people.
They couldn't conceive of the end of the Cold War in the 1980s. We had it still going strong in the movie _2010: The Year We Make Contact._
@@sandal_thong8631 I remember it happening really quickly when it was expected to continue on for a long time into the future.
And it is a bit of a failing that Star Trek (or Babylon 5) didn't say how the Earth became united. I suspect the democracies united much like the European Union. So we should probably have a North-Central American Union and Africa could have its union, and India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should have reunification and so on.
However, right now there's a worldwide movement to install authoritarian far-right regimes using fascist tactics which will seek to put women and minorities in their place.
So the Humpbacks have been playing dumb all this time?
As if that's even remotely plausible.
That's perplexed me too until I suddenly realized that about the lack of whale song for centuries and I literally thought I was on to some cinematic discrepancy haha
Whales are very intelligent, we and they simply lack the means for efficiency communication
back when a black femal captain was just a part of the story, and not THE story
Oh boo fucking hoo. Won't someone please think of the white straight males?
Carol Freeman (Captain of the U.S.S. Cerritos) is WAAAYY better as a captain than Michael Burnham.
And an Indian whats the point? Star Trek sees past the ignorance of today and this movie has a powerful message to it. Race won't matter if Earth dies will it??
The first female captain (non-Romulan) we see in Star Trek and she loses her ship right away. Great representation. (sarcasm).
I always thought the situation with Spacedock was stupid. They knew the probe was coming and that it would disrupt all power sources they have. Why wouldn't they have done like the Admiral said and launched everything, including the Excelsior and the Miranda class in the dock? Why let those little ships with their limited life support fly around inside the dock? Incredibly stupid. (but great for showing affects)
They should have been evacuating space dock to Earth since the Probe was shutting down systems otherwise the crew would freeze to death unless they have something medical to prevent that.
I agree.
They should've launched all available vessels, as soon as the Saratoga was immobilised, and the evacuating ships should have taken all non-essential personnel with them, leaving just a skeleton crew aboard space-dock.
It is possible the ships in Spacedock at the time were down for repair. Perhaps Scotty's sabotage of the Excelsior was more extensive than we realized :P
@@k1productions87 what about using shuttles?
@02:30 The Yorktown was stranded in space, therefore the E-A really was an all new hull "...they don't build[make?] them like they used to" -Scotty, STV.
I'm curious how does a species without oposable thumbs achieve advanced space travel?
russell5078084 Well it was never really made clear as to who or what sent the whale probe and what their actual intentions were. Some just assumed it was some sort of aquatic whale-like alien race since the probe was communicating in whale sounds, and Spok had deduced that some alien species sent the probe after they lost contact with the humpback whales when they went extinct, and they sent the probe to find out why they lost contact with them. But it was never really made clear who they were and why they were communicating with the humpback whales in the first place. I think the mystery of it made it creepier because we didn't understand what their motives and intentions really were.
Patrick C. Wonder how they would fair against the Borg?
@@russell5078084Read a book called "Probe".
That admiral is Sisko's father!
The probe on only knocked out power, it knocked the cameras off kilter so that they show everything at a slant.
So many people liked this one but not me - I found it rather dumb - that a so-called intelligent species - enough intelligence to create a space craft and out power all other known craft - do not even realize that they're communications destroy and disrupt others around them. They obviously know that they are causing havoc on the planet with hurricanes, and (what whale would want to surface in that mess?) I don't know. "oh we can't hear the whales so let's destroy their entire world, shall we?" Never mind all the other species on the planet. (humans not-withstanding.) Also the idea that the ship had to turn upright (in space) to communicate with the whale lol. They brought two whales back with them and that is suppose to make everything all better? They can't breed more whales, so it's not like they are going to replace the population. silliness.
I think everyone needs to speak to worf!
4:59 Leningrad? I thought this was in the 23th century?
And ST6: TUC came out only 20 days before the USSR became history, hence the theme to that film. Although there are possibilities between now and the 23rd Century.
Keep in mind:
Star Trek IV:The Voyage Home was filmed in 1986
@@karlsmith2570 I do know.
@@Spino2Earth ......Different universes, TWO Voyager space probes here VS. at least SIX over there.
8:17 'Goodbye ...'
8:16 The probe literally says "Bye bye" to the whales
So... how many actually think the captain's Michael Burnham?
Tounushi Woah!!!
Back during these movies, women used actual women's' names
Well, we never heard what the Captain of the Saratoga's name actually was. That, and there was also "Mister Saavik" from two movies prior
@@LordTalax An men used real men's names. Like Marion. :p
In the novelisation of The Voyage Home her surname is established as Alexander.
That vessel looks like Nimoy's cigarette
The same thing happens when my friends EX WIFE come over to his house to pick up her garbage. Though the probe is a little smaller.
@8:18 all that destruction from a giant tootsie roll
Boca's like songusous says
Imagine, you're chillin, not knowing anything about this, and then suddenly you just hear this deep omnipresent sound: *_"WOMWOMWOMWOMWOMWOMWOMW-"_*
This is your experience as a nobody on Earth.
And then the weather just goes to hell.
If only this prob came to earth during the borg invasion wolf 359 or in first contact lol it would have killed all the borg ships instantly passing by before they got a chance to say resistance is futile
BTW, I firmly believe that this movie and Leonard Nimoy saved this real-life species. In the US, we were killing just as many whales as any other country. This movie brought it to peoples' attention.
The United States was an initial party to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling set up in 1946, which imposed a ban on the hunting of Humpback Whales in 1966. If you're searching for someone to blame, blame Japan and the Scandinavian countries and get out of here with this "AMERIKKKA" bullshit. You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Nimoy is also charged with making & directing the best star trek movie ever made. There be Whales!
Wow stupid much?
At the time of filming their population had fallen to less than 1,000. Now they're up to nearly 20,000
This is pretty much fact as far as I'm aware. Somewhere I read that the trend of decline started reversing around this time.
(This was many years ago)
The most obvious thing ever said: We cannot survive without the Sun. Thank you Admiral Sherlock. Then....you wait until the probe arrives to order all ships out and sound red alert. You Sir are FIRED!!! Turns out he gets arrested and sacked in 6. 😂 how did he make Admiral being so tactically inept? That actor was better off playing Sisko's dad in DS9. Cartwright you are no James T Kirk!!
The Earth is seismically active, so they could use the heat from the interior for some time, even if they couldn't convert it to electricity, had they made the investment of drilling and such.
Our first female captain and Black. Then she gets too close to the probe and essentially loses her ship. Love how her communications officer gives her the stink eye for not reacting fast enough.
They say the next starship captain not only had his ship (the Yorktown) neutralized, but lost his command, and they renamed his ship and gave it to Kirk. I guess he's even dumber, because he heard the Saratoga was neutralized and he let his ship go the same way.