you know something always puzzled me in trek...

[Atolm]

In TMP (movie) warp drive couldn't be engaged within the solarsystem for fear of stellar bodies and possible damage to the system(whatever that means)...kirk even states in his log that they would have to risk engaging the warp-drive while still in the solar-system...(now I dunno if this has to do with the engine "imbalance" or not...)
Now, in ST: FC, Cochrane engaged warp 1 (at least lightspeed mind you) not only in the solar system (w/o a deflector or debris shield), and only got a bit past the moon!)...also in every subsequent trek flic after tmp warp in a system was fine...hell in ST:IV voyage home, they warped while still in the Earth's atmosphere!
Am I missing something here? I mean yes its fiction, but shit.

Any insight on this?

[Chris Johnson]

I haven't given it a whole lot of thought, but from what I recall (and I'm not sure whom exactly and the exact explanation), that the risk involved was brand new warp engine technology that they could possibly do harm in a given solar system with. I'm not quite sure if they ignored, I think, Kira's concerns of having the Defiant engage its warp engines within the solar system in one episode, but... *shrug* My best guess is different technologies, and perhaps the refitted E's new engines weren't refined or tuned for best performance (it did suck them into an artificially-created wormhole)...

That's my best guess. But I can't exactly tie it all together.

A better question, I think, is why, with long range capabilities up to hundreds of thousands of kilometers and warp maneuvering in TOS, is combat in the hundreds-to-thousands of meters in sublight speed with every which way shot mostly ignoring important targets. But given that's not the subject of the thread, I'll leave it out there.