14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek The Motion Picture

SPOCK: The Intruder has been attempting to communicate. Frequency over one million megahertz, and at such a high rate of speed that their entire message lasts only a millisecond. I am now programming our computers to transmit linguacode at their frequency and rate of speed.

Spock calmly programs the computers to do this even as V’ger’s second and unsurvivable weapon closes on the ship. Naturally, Spock saves the day by transmitting a “linguacode friendship message” just in the nick of time.

But whoa, hang on a minute. Just what was V’ger trying to communicate? What was the content of that super fast message? Well, we’ll never know because as soon as the attack is averted the message is completely forgotten.

Excuse me, but if an entity of such incredible power texted me on its way towards my home I’d sure as hell try everything to decipher the message. They know nothing about the Intruder, and yet the script renders the Enterprise crew so inept that they neither try to decode it nor even transmit more messages in hopes of eliciting a response. Heck, it would have given Uhura something to do in the story.

Imagine how creepy it would have been had the message translated to something as simple as “Are you alive?”