MovieChat Forums > Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) Discussion > Gaping Plot Hole

Gaping Plot Hole

posted 10 years ago by Ohio9
19 replies | jump to latest

Just saw this movie today for the first time in over a decade. I still love this film, but I noticed a major plot hole that I had not realized before (major spoilers below)

When the crew investigates the ship for evidence connected to the murders, they find the Klingon blood, assassin uniforms, and magnetic boots only after a thorough search of the ship, finding these things in very remote locations.

But they somehow miss the dead assassin bodies lying in a hallway? Seriously, it shows Kirk and his pals just stumble into the corpses lying in the middle of a hallway!

First of all, I would think the ship would have sensors to detect important things like dead bodies. Second of all, if they were enterprise crewmen, how did no one notice them missing? Do they never take role call? Were their absences from their duty stations unnoticed?

But even discounting all that, what I really want to know is how they hell did it take so long to find dead bodies lying in a hallway in plain sight, especially after the crew was practically tearing the ship apart looking for evidence.

Like I said, I still love this movie. It's easily the best film in the series with the exception of ST2. But come on, a plot hole this big is practically unforgivable.

[–] kerryedavis 10 years ago

Obviously they weren't lying there dead all that time. It just means that Valeris didn't kill them until she started to worry that they might give themselves away, or possibly crack somehow under pressure or questioning.

[–] Ohio9 10 years ago

Well I suppose that would make sense. Perhaps she panicked when the boots were found. Still pretty sloppy just leaving them in the hall for anyone to run into.

[–] kerryedavis 10 years ago

Once they were (presumably) dead, she wouldn't have cared about them being found. And clearly Valeris or one of the cohorts, PLANTED those boots in Crewman Dax's locker, since Dax - with those FEET - wouldn't have had any use for them.

[–] Ohio9 10 years ago

I think she still wouldn't want the bodies found. Finding them proved they had come from the Enterprise and not the hidden Klingon ship below them. It also proved there was at least one other conspirator operating onboard the Enterprise. Up to that point, they couldn't be sure of anyone in the crew being involved other then possibly the two assassins (for all they knew, the assassins could have been the ones who planted the phony data about the ship firing the torpedos before they transported onto the Klingon ship). The discovery of the bodies was the big break that blew the case wide open.

Obviously the boots were planted, but the point is that they were hidden with the intention of preventing them from being found, same with the uniforms. That was my point. All the other evidence was hidden as carefully as possible, while the bodies are just laying in an open hallway for anyone to see.

[–] kerryedavis 10 years ago

Overall, especially considering other problems with the movie, that still seems like one of the lesser "plot holes." And it wasn't logical to expect that the boots wouldn't be found eventually, same with the uniforms and the bodies. The issue was just to keep them from being solutions to the overall puzzle. Hence, putting the boots in Dax's locker, and killing the guys who had worn the uniforms so they couldn't reveal anything even if/once the uniforms were found and led to them.

They still didn't know how many other conspirators might have been aboard, and it would have been foolish to have assumed, before even finding the bodies, that there was only ONE. And Valeris even said that her associates would block communication with Starfleet. She might have been lying, but there was no reason to think so at the time. So the actual number of conspirators was always unknown, at least up until Spock's "interrogatrion" of Valeris.

[–] Ohio9 10 years ago

Of course one wouldn't assume there was only one conspirator onboard the Enterprise, seeing as how there were two assassins. But it was a big breakthrough to discover proof that there were more then two.

But yeah, what you say makes sense. I suppose when you put it that way, it isn't really a plot hole after all.

[–] kerryedavis 10 years ago

But even with two assassins, as Spock initially mentioned, only whoever fired the torpedoes or altered the log, had to have been on the Enterprise. The assassins could have been beamed over from the hidden ship, or initially beamed to the Klingon ship from the Enterprise but then beamed from there to the hidden ship... That is, before the fact of them having beamed from and then back to the Enterprise was discovered. At first, they were only CERTAIN of ONE "agent" having been aboard the Enterprise, but it would have been foolish to assume that there was ONLY one, or ONLY even THREE, once the bodies of the other two were found. And unless Valeris was just lying, there were still more on the Enterprise even after the other two were killed, if SOMEONE was going to make sure that communication with Starfleet was impossible.

[–] TheGremlinKing21 9 years ago

She couldn't vaporize them because it would have set off the alarms. She didn't have time to hide them more than likely. She panicked once they got closer to finding them. Or she possibly planted the boots AFTER killing them. She didn't have to hide them without the intention of them being found.

The best thing she could have done was of found a way to have them killed before they made it back to the spaceship, if you want to get technical. It would have actually been more sensical. Simply have the Vulcans in on the plot 'kill' them before they had a chance to get off the ship.

[–] Gonzo84 9 years ago

The two crewmen beamed onto the ship from The Enterprise ("you men have work...then snap to it") killed the Chancellor and most of his crew, while Valaris presumably altered the data banks on the Enterprise computer (I think that could also have been done from Chang's ship, but l've already mentioned that on a different thread, so let's move on). The two men get back on the Enterprise (at no time were the Enterprise's shields up) and plant the uniforms and gravity boots in pre-planned areas (by the way, how cold was it that they stashed the uniforms in the very dining hall that the Chancellor, his crew and the Enterprise crew ate in the night of the assassination). Valaris just happens to be in the room when the gravity boots are found to give herself plausible deniability with Spock (thankfully he didn't buy it). The minute that Kirk and McCoy are beamed off of the gulag, Valaris decided to kill the assassins earlier than she had planned ("the first rule of assassination, kill the assassins"), which is why it was made to look sloppy-- again, plausible deniability. Valaris panicked when she heard the ship wide announcement about the crewmen, and went to sickbay where she was exposed as one of the conspirators.

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." - Spock

[–] frosted_one 10 years ago

I think Bones even said "they haven't been dead long"

[–] kerryedavis 10 years ago

And while Spock evidently told Kirk that the two men - or one of them, anyway - might POSSIBLY have survived the close phaser stun, which led them to set up the trap for Valeris, it seems very likely that Valeris would have checked to be CERTAIN they were dead, before leaving the bodies to be found.

[–] hoochiemoochie 10 years ago

Yea...LOL...those bodies were not laying there the entire time.

=Last time I taught, I was like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society...by which I mean I got fired=

[–] TheSolarSailor 10 years ago

The OP takes the prize for being the first person in twenty-four years to think the crewmen were laying there dead and undiscovered the entire time! 

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[–] green_dog 9 years ago

I was always under the impression that the two assassins were killed at some point between when crewman Dax turned out to be innocent (after Valeris tried to frame him by putting the gravity boots in his locker), and right after Kirk and McCoy were returned to the Enterprise. I doubt they were killed before that.

[–] kerryedavis 9 years ago

It seems more likely that Valeris knew very well that Crewman Dax couldn't have worn the boots, and so they were simply put there to get them out of the way. As Spock said, they couldn't simply be thrown out, but putting them in Dax's locker was just as good.

[–] bjlevine 9 years ago

It's all moot. The transporter data should have been able to tell them exactly who beamed over to the Klingon ship, down to their specific DNA. Doubt Valeris could just wipe all the transporter data without leaving some kind of footprint.

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

[–] marty1968 9 years ago

Ya never know; she was stupid enough to make a bee line right to Medical when an announcement for a court stenographer was made ship wide.
She must have been half romulan and half hysterical idiot.

Oh, and a ship with ZERO security cameras... especially a training ship, to review the cadet's actions, nah, just put them in engineering only and only for transference of Katras

[–] Gonzo84 9 years ago

The Enterprise was no longer a training ship. I think Starfleet learned that lesson when they had to explain to dozens of friends and family that their twenty something year old cadet was killed because of a madman's obsession with the captain of the ship.

Plus the cameras wouldn't cover every inch of the place. I'm sure the area of the ship the two assassins were killed was done where there would be no recorded proof.

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." - Spock

[–] magolding-94772 8 years ago

The Enterprise was no longer a training ship. I think Starfleet learned that lesson when they had to explain to dozens of friends and family that their twenty something year old cadet was killed because of a madman's obsession with the captain of the ship.

Starfleet didn't learn that lesson at the time of "Menagerie Part 1"

[quoteMENDEZ: You ever met Chris Pike?
KIRK: When he was promoted to Fleet Captain.
MENDEZ: About your age. Big, handsome man, vital, active.
KIRK: I took over the Enterprise from him. Spock served with him for several years.
SPOCK: Eleven years, four months, five days.
MCCOY: What's his problem, Commodore?
MENDEZ: Inspection tour of a cadet vessel. Old Class J starship. One of the baffle plates ruptured.
MCCOY: The delta rays?
MENDEZ: He went in bringing out all those kids that were still alive. Just wanted you gentlemen to be prepared.][/quote]

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/16.htm

The age range to enlist in the US military services is 18 to 35, and 17 year olds can enlist with parental consent. Most cadets enter military academies for four year courses aged 18, but the legal age range is 17 to 22. So starfleet cadets or midshipmen might usually be age 18 to 22, but could range in age from 17 to 26.

Charles Evens is called seventeen years old several times in "Charlie X". There is a scene where the years older Yeoman Janice Rand introduces him to Tina "Lizard Girl" Lawton.

RAND: Oh, Charlie. I was looking for you. I'd like you to meet Tina Lawton, Yeoman Third Class. Charlie Evans.
TINA: Hello, Charlie.
RAND: I thought you might enjoy meeting someone your own age.

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/8.htm

So Tina should be 18, possibly only 17, and has already been enlisted and gone though training and been assigned to a starship on a five year mission and not a training mission.

So the trainees in the training cruise in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan could be enlisted recruits ranging from 17 to 35, and Academy cadets ranging in age from 17 to 26, if Starfleet age limits are the same as the US military in 2016 or back in the 1960s.

In Wrath of Khan Midshipman Peter Preston seemed rather small and young to be in starfleet at first. Then I recognized the actor Ike Eisenmann (born July 21, 1962) who I figured should have been about 18 or 19 when his scenes were filmed (production was between November 9, 1981 and January 29, 1982).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ike_Eisenmann

Vonda N. McIntyre's novelization of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan describes Peter Preston as fourteen. Maybe she wrote it from an early draft of the script that described him as fourteen. I have a copy of the script for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that describes Peter Preston as fourteen in his first scene.

So was Peter's age raised to his late teens by the time Ike Eisenmann was hired to portray him, or as Ike considered to look young enough to pass as fourteen?

Jane Wyatt was 57 when she appeared as Spock's mother Amanda in "Journey to Babel" in 1967. Amanda was described as 58 in my copy of the script. Thus the visit to Talos IV approximately 14 years earlier should have been when Amanda was only about 44. And yet her son Spock was already the third in command of the Enterprise during the visit to Talos IV.

So we might suppose that either Amanda was a teenage wife and mother or Spock entered Starfleet Academy and graduated at a very young age to already be third in command when his mother was only about 44.

In the altered timeline Pavel Andreievich Chekov was aboard the alternate universe Enterprise as an ensign at the age of 17 in Star Trek (2009). As far as I know there is no rule allowing even the most brilliant prodigies to enter or graduate from service or be commissioned younger than the minimum legal age.

Possibly Nero's interference with the time line changed the minimum legal age to be commissioned in Starfleet. And possibly Starfleet's minimum legal age for enlisted and commissioned personnel is younger than that of the present US military in the prime timeline as well as the alternate timeline.

So if Starfleet's minimum ages are the same as in the present Us military some of the cadets and trainees killed by Khan could have been not twenty something but as young as seventeen, while if the hints that Starfleet's minimum ages are lower those of the present US military are correct some of them could have been years younger than seventeen.