Continuity mistake: After the bird of prey first fires on Enterprise, Kirk is thrown right out of his chair to his left and lands on the floor. The camera pans around the bridge briefly, seeing the rest of the crew staggering and holding onto things. In the very next shot Kirk is back in his chair shouting "back off, back off" and the crew back in their positions as if nothing has happened.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Plot summary
Directed by: Nicholas Meyer
Starring: Christopher Plummer, William Shatner, Kim Cattrall, George Takei, Leonard Nimoy, Michael Dorn, Walter Koenig, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Kurtwood Smith, Brock Peters
The Klingon moon Praxis has exploded, and the Klingons face an ozone crisis that they can't overcome without the Federation's help. Spock volunteers Kirk and the soon-to-be-retired crew of the Enterprise to go meet with the Klingon ambassador. But an explosion on the Klingons' ship kills the ambassador, and as Enterprise is the only ship around, Kirk and McCoy are arrested and taken to Rura Penthe (a hard-labor camp on a frozen world). The Enterprise and Sulu's Excelsior then race to save the two from lifelong slavery, while working to intercept an assassination attempt on the former ambassador's daughter at a peace conference.
More mistakes in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Captain James T. Kirk: Spock, you want to know something? Everybody's human.
Captain Spock: I find that remark... Insulting.
Trivia: The Klingon who defends Kirk and McCoy at the trial is Michael Dorn, the actor who plays Worf in The Next Generation. The Klingon makeup is also identical, even though it is supposed to be a different character. (The makeup is actually more subdued than the makeup for TNG [flatter] but it looks similar because he is actually playing one of Lieutenant Worf's ancestors.)
Question: This might be subjective, but why does the Enterprise take so much damage, especially interior damage, long before the shields actually collapse?
Answer: The depiction of the shields in this movie is actually interesting because it seems they deliberately tried to show how the ship could plausibly take damage while the shields are up. Here the shields seem to be "on" the hull (or perhaps emanate from the hull itself) and their function seems specific to preventing hull breaches. In TNG and onwards the shields appear as a kind of energy bubble wrapped around the ship, and accordingly they seem to absorb much more impact.
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Chosen answer: There's a limit as to how much the shields can protect the ship. Depending on the force of the explosions, the ship still suffers some damage from any weapon blasts. Also, the shield only holds for so long and gradually loses it protectiveness with successive attacks, causing increasing damage to the ship.
raywest ★