It seemed like a strange thing to include. How does it move the story forward?
share
It also addresses the idea that transporting human beings is not foolproof, something later Treks would exploit in stories.
Why show the transporter process at all, we all know how transporter works.
shareBut we didn't all know what happens when it doesn't work properly.
shareWhen transitioning a TV series to film, production teams are often mindful of new fans who might check out a movie with little knowledge of the original property. They have to write and create their film with the idea that not everything will necessarily be familiar to the audience.
A great example of this is the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where legions of fans were brought to Tolkien's universe through the films, not the books. While this isn't TV-film, it's still one medium to another, and the analogy applies.
Well they had to kill off Sonak the Vulcan science officer Kirk requested. IMO a stupid move just another lets do some SFX shot in the film.
share
I thought it was a significant scene. I watched this when it came out in the theater, and that scene shocked and awed everyone there. In a movie that tended to drag, that was one of the few scenes that was actually gripping. In fact, there wasn't an awful lot by way of action after that amazing opening scene when the Klingons attacked the V'ger cloud.
Good point about killing off the science officer. I understand that Nimoy accepted the role late in the process. That science officer got screwed by the transporter and the production.
shareThis scene was only included to:
1) show something they couldn't show in the TV series, and
2) make the film darker/more serious, rather than a joyous reunion lovefest.
That being said, this is still the best Star Trek movie - the rest I could take or leave.
It doesn't move the story forward, making a long movie even longer, and it's the worst scene in the movie.
shareI found the scene to be quite fascinatingly terrifying, to be honest:
The beaming process had started even though there was a red line on the transporter system, the operators were doing their best to prevent damage, but then the figures in the beam on the pad started warping and then that hideous distorted screaming... and then the fade-out, where Kirk and Yeoman Rand, the operator, are clearly shocked, and Kirk asks Starfleet "Do you have them?"... and Starfleet responds with possibly the most chilling line possible: "Enterprise, what we got back didn't love long, fortunately" - I mean, imagine the mess that Starfleet themselves witnessed on the pad, they were understating the horror of it.
It just goes to show that transporter technology in Star Trek is not infallible, and indeed, later stories would utilise it as well, even for assassinations by enemy aliens or the Holodeck.