14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek The Motion Picture

5. Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Small Universe Syndrome)

Enterprise wormhole Star Trek—The Motion Picture
CBS/Paramount

Think the Star Wars prequels introduced the idea that everyone in the Galaxy knows everyone else? Heck, The Motion Picture (TMP) beat The Phantom Menace (TPM) to it by 20 years!

PEREZ: Carbon based units?
McCOY: Humans, ensign Perez. Us.

Bones has been on the ship for less than two days and yet he somehow knows the name of Ensign Perez, who he hurries past and who—like everyone—wears no nametag. Now, remember, Bones is drafted back into service so he’s presumably been living his bearded new age lifestyle for the two and a half years Kirk was Chief of Starfleet Operations. So just how does he know this kid?

But it’s not just Bones...

CHAPEL: I remember Lt. Ilia once mentioning she wore that.

Like Bones, Ilia has been aboard for maybe two days. She wasn’t previously assigned to the crew, which is apparent because of the mutual surprise she and Decker share, so she’s clearly one of the “final crew replacements” that Uhura mentions. So did she and Chapel just happen to know each other from a previous posting? How likely is that? Or did they become BFFs in the few hours the ship was racing to meet V’ger?

Just how small is Starfleet anyway?

Contributor
Contributor

Maurice is one of the founders of FACT TREK (www.facttrek.com), a project dedicated to untangling 50+ years of mythology about the original Star Trek and its place in TV history. He's also a screenwriter, writer, and videogame industry vet with scars to show for it. In that latter capacity he game designer/writer on the Sega Genesis/SNES "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Crossroads of Time" game, as well as Dreamcast "Ecco the Dolphin, Defender of the Future" where Tom Baker performed words he wrote.