14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek The Motion Picture

6. Kirk's Spacewalk Accessory Faux Pas

Enterprise wormhole Star Trek—The Motion Picture
CBS/Paramount
SPOCK: I intend to calculate thruster ignition and acceleration to coincide with the opening of the V'ger orifice. This should facilitate a better view of the interior of the alien spacecraft.

Okay, so let’s assume there’s some reason the Enterprise doesn’t send probes out to do this. That means it’s up to Spock to actually get off his ass and pull this stunt to get deep into the heart (liver?) of the alien craft and figure out what “V'ger” is.

Kirk suits up and follows him out of the ship. All good except the captain forgot one teensy little thing: an Emergency Evacuation Thruster Pack™ of the type that allowed Spock to penetrate the far off, rapidly opening and closing orifice in the first place. No thruster pack, no rocket ride, no catching up with Spock… Kirk is damned lucky that V’ger conveniently spit out Spock on a course right into his loving arms (awww), otherwise he’d be hanging around twiddling his space-suited thumbs.

And since the thruster packs burn out after 10 seconds, how would either of them have gotten back?

Yes, Kirk is rusty in this movie, but this just paints him as incompetent.

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.