Corrected entry: When the Enterprise first encounters V'ger, Spock determines that they cannot communicate because V'ger is transmitting at a frequency and speed that is too advanced for Enterprise to interpret. At the end of the movie, when they finally encounter V'ger itself, they determine that it cannot communicate with Earth because it is using 300 year old technology and no one on Earth can receive the signal. Which is it?
wizard_of_gore
23rd Jun 2018
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
9th Jun 2018
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Corrected entry: V'Ger considers humanoids controlling the Enterprise as an infection, unnecessary like a virus. On the other hand Spock finds out that V'Ger has travelled the whole universe searching for answers. Why doesn't V'Ger know that biological units are building and commanding spaceships? V'Ger must have already met Breen, Hirogen, and thousand other biological astronauts.
Correction: V'Ger does know this, but still considers humans (or carbon units) to be inferior, even to the technology that they created. As far as other species, we do not know what V'Ger did to them.
If a virus told you that humans were created by viruses and in fact are controlled by them, you would find it hard to believe, too.
Ilia as the drone of V'Ger is asking what for the humans are needed on the enterprise. V'Ger doesn't seem to know the concept of biological units in space ships or has never wondered before even it must've seen this scenario many thousand times in every quadrant of the galaxy. OK V'Ger is a "child", but even the dumbest child could connect the lines I guess.
1st May 2004
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Corrected entry: It must be nice to be the captain. Kirk's chair now has arms that fold down across his lap to hold him securely in place. However, they decided that just about everyone working along the sides of the bridge doesn't even deserve a chair.
Correction: First, the captain is arguably the most important person on the ship, so apparently the engineers felt he warranted extra protection. Second, design choices on the ship's bridge are not movie mistakes.
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Correction: Both. V'ger has been upgraded and has evolved. When they first encounter it, it's communicating with its advanced technology. At the end, it's trying to communicate with "the creator" and so is using its original language.
It still doesn't make sense. V'Ger does not know who the creator is, so why would it attempt to communicate with the creator using only it's original signal type?
wizard_of_gore ★
V'Ger's original programming was quite specific: collect all data possible and return that information to its creator. Neither V'Ger nor the living machines knew who the creator WAS, and didn't know where the creator would be in the galaxy, but did know what the creator's planet would look like, thanks to the plaque with V'Ger's true name on it. That plaque had the continents of Earth visible, so it wouldn't be a stretch to have the added hardware from the living machines scan for that particular configuration of continents to aid V'Ger in finding the creator's home planet. The signal the Enterprise received from V'Ger earlier in the film is because V'Ger did not know who its creator was and thought the Enterprise was a living being, just like it. The radio signal V'Ger transmitted once it entered Earth orbit is because of V'Ger's 20th Century programming compelling it to do so. Remember, the living machines did not alter V'Ger's programming. They simply made it possible for V'Ger to complete its mission. V'Ger achieving sentience was an unintended side effect.