Corrected entry: Certainly there must be some regulation about how to deal with personnel who have been under the control of the enemy. So unnecessary for Terell to have died and Khan to have discovered the location of Genesis, not to mention the death of another scientist.
Corrected entry: Khan has the ultimate weapon on his ship. Certainly Kirk must have known he would use it. Why not destroy the Reliant before Khan got the chance to destroy both ships?
Correction: Far too much speculation on this. Kirk was under stress of the situation and they also just inflicted heavy damage to the Reliant's bridge. As you saw, Khan was almost dead from that, and moments after activating the Genesis he in fact did die from his wounds before it detonated. Kirk didn't know that Khan survived the attack. And not guessing that Khan might use the device is just an error in human judgment. Not a mistake, and not really stupidity either.
Well, they had to have a way of killing off and bringing back Spock, and as plots go, coming back by the use of the Genesis planet, was not a bad idea. But given Khan's homicidal tendencies from the Original Series, and how other enemies, such as the Romulans would blow up their ships, it would seem prudent to put as much space as possible between ships, and being unable to do so, remove the threat altogether.
Which is exactly what they did. The Enterprise was badly damaged, and Khan was out for blood. The reason they didn't jump to warp speed sooner was the system was damaged with Scotty working to try and fix it. They went into the cloud to level the playing field between the two ships and for Kirk to be able to outsmart Khan and get the upper hand. Khan was not going to stop until he saw Kirk and his ship destroyed, and the Enterprise had no way of escape before they would be destroyed. Once they were able to get the literal drop on the reliant in that nebula, Kirk himself had a moment of pride staying there to show off to Khan that he won, that he had best him. That and to survey if they did actually defeat the Reliant or would it start going after them again. By this time, Scotty was then close to finishing the repairs on the warp drive, and they then detected that Khan activated the device. Kirk was full of adrenaline and rivalry with Khan. How they handled the situation and only turning to run when their sensors picked up the Genesis being activated, was human. Was natural. And lucky for them, Scotty was then able to get the warp drive fixed. But before that point, it wasn't fixed, so they had no reason to even try to put distance between them and a ship that could easily overtake and destroy them.
Correction: Kirk underestimated how nuts Khan had become and didn't anticipate that he would destroy himself and what's left of his own people out of spite. Kirk arrogantly thought he still understood Khan's motivations. Note he dismissively cuts off Terrell with "I know what he blames me for" when he tries to explain, but Kirk doesn't even know what happened to Ceti Alpha V and what Khan had been through, and because of this he leaves himself wide open for Khan's final move.
Corrected entry: During many of the scenes of the Reliant in space, you can see stars through the dark parts of the engine nacelles.
Correction: It's the reflection of stars.
Corrected entry: In the scene in the small cave inside Regula, Savik tries and fails to communicate with the Enterprise, then says that all frequencies are "still being jammed." However, a short time later when Kirk contacts Spock from the Genesis cave, his signal goes through.
Correction: Long distance communications are jammed. Savik is unaware that the Enterprise is nearby and waiting in silence until the signal from Kirk.
Factual error: It is long-established in Star Trek canon that onboard diagnostics can detect any animate intruders on Federation vessels. Any living thing that exists upon a Federation vessel can be identified, and its location specifically noted on Federation property. How is it, then, that there are rats aboard the Regula I space station (as observed by Doctor McCoy) that haven't been eradicated?
Suggested correction: It is not established that Regula 1 has the same internal sensors that a starship has.
It is definitely established, however, that the Regula 1 space station is conducting the most highly-classified technological research and development in the entire Federation: The Genesis Project, which entailed re-engineering whole worlds to create new ecosystems where no life existed before. If anything, Regula 1 should be equipped with even more sensitive and discriminating biological sensors than any starship in the Federation, for the express purpose of preventing biological contamination of their experiments. So, Regula 1 must have necessarily possessed the most sophisticated biological sensors available. As Dr. Carol Marcus emphasized, the Genesis Project couldn't risk contamination by so much as a microbe, nevermind foot-long rats creeping around the space station.
None of the scanning shown in the film was done by the Regula 1 station. The Reliant is what scanned the planet where Khan was found. Even if Regula 1 did have highly advanced sensors there is nothing to suggest anyone has the time or need to regularly scan for pests on the station itself. The presence of a pest in the Genesis cave itself would have been an error, but not on the station. A pest on the station has no bearing on the Genesis project itself. There are too many assumptions for this to be considered a movie mistake.
The rat was not shown in the Genesis Cave, it was shown aboard the Regula space station, where the Genesis Device itself was constructed before it was beamed inside the planetoid for a test run. The point you're missing is that the space station had rats crawling around inside, but a rat infestation wouldn't be tolerated at an ultra-top-secret research and development facility for a project that was highly sensitive to biological contamination.
Regulus One was a scientific research laboratory, the rats seen roaming the passageways were lab rats that had escaped in the earlier confusion. Genesis was their current project, but I'm certain there were many other experiments going on. Bear in mind, Carol Marcus retorted that "they waited until everyone was on leave to do this." They only had a skeleton crew aboard at the time Khan boarded the station and killed those still present who were not transporting equipment to the cavern.
Suggested correction: It was most likely a lab rat that was inadvertently freed when Khan and his followers ransacked the station. The sensors probably pick it up just fine, everyone on the station is just too busy being dead to do anything about the stray rat scurrying about.
It's the 24th Century. After all the "animal cruelty" activism of the 20th and 21st Centuries, I very seriously doubt they are still experimenting on lab rats in the 24th Century. That practice would be deemed medieval, at best, and barbaric, at worst.
Suggested correction: When was this established? There are a number of episodes of the original series where the plot depends on them not being able to detect intruders. "Court Martial" for example.
"Court Martial" is probably the worst example you could use for your argument. In that episode, the vengeful Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney repeatedly sabotaged the Enterprise main computer (changing ship's chronological data records in order to fake his own "death" and frame Captain Kirk for a murder that never happened). Finney also sabotaged the computer and caused the Enterprise to fall out of orbit. Indeed, Spock discovered that the ship's computer was malfunctioning due to sabotage. So, Finney was more than capable of sabotaging the ship's bio-scanners, as well, to conceal himself from a whole-ship scan. In fact, they had to resort to a very sensitive audio-scan of the Enterprise, selectively eliminating the audible heartbeats of every known person aboard the ship. When all known heartbeats were eliminated, just one unknown heartbeat remained, and its owner couldn't be identified. Therefore, Finney had certainly tampered with the bio-scanner to conceal his whereabouts. It's very doubtful, however, that foot-long rats hacked the bio-scanners aboard the Regula research station to conceal their whereabouts.
Every time the Enterprise computer system reported an "intruder alert," and every time they asked the computer for the location of specific individuals and lifeforms anywhere aboard the ship. This was all well-established in the Original Series.
It's a big leap to go from that to they can detect any living being. It is explicitly established that under many circumstances they can't even detect a full grown man if they are in hiding. This is the whole basis of the plot of "Court Martial." Even as late as The Next Generation it is established that it is difficult to find someone if they're not wearing their communicator badge.
Yet they can detect single-celled organisms on a planet's surface from thousands of miles away. The technology certainly exists in the Star Trek universe, and especially for the highly-classified Genesis Experiment. In "The Wrath of Khan," Dr. Carol Marcus stipulates that the Genesis Experiment cannot be contaminated by so much as a microbe, and complete sterility is a condition for selecting a test planet. Yet they have foot-long rats scurrying around the Genesis research facility? That is a plot hole, a continuity problem and a factual error all rolled into one.
Reliant scanned the planet to search for any life forms. That scan was inaccurate and it read Khan's entire group (and presumably the Ceti eels) as non-specific, potential life matter. Reliant's crew speculates that it could just be some speck of matter and they are completely shocked to find multiple living humans there. If they were using these highly advanced sensors you claim they were using they would not have been surprised by the presence of humans at all. And even if they could, there is nothing to suggest they should also use those sensors for pest control on their space station.
Suggested correction: Obviously the first thing the rats did was chew through the cables to the lifeform scanners.
Which would set off alarms like crazy aboard the station because preventing biological contamination of the Genesis Experiment was a No.1 priority for Dr. Carol Marcus. Undoubtedly, the station was bristling with redundant bio-scanners.
All of which had been also chewed through! No, you make a good point.
Suggested correction: Someone on the Reliant had a pet rat and one of Khan's henchmen brought it aboard Regula I to torment the lab techs. (Yes, this sounds silly, but the point is that strange and unlikely things actually happen quite often and it's exactly what makes stories interesting. As long as an event can be rationalized, unlikelihood alone isn't enough to qualify as a mistake. If it really bothers you, you might get more mileage putting it under "stupidity" since it's obviously just a lazy horror cliche).
Corrected entry: Khan says he doesn't know Terrell, but remembers Chekov. Chekov wasn't a part of the crew at the time of "Space Seed", when Khan was first introduced.
Correction: This has been submitted and corrected in the past. Chekov was not part of the bridge crew during this episode, but it's entirely possible that he was part of the Enterprise crew in some other capacity.
Corrected entry: Kirk's birthday visit from McCoy in his personal quarters overlooking San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is soundtracked by an audible foghorn, though there's no fog. Atmospheric as though this may be, I know for a fact [as a resident of this place] that no foghorn will sound when there's no fog and the sky's full of stars.
Correction: This film is set in the 23rd century. There is no way to know it was a fog horn. It could merely be a similar sounding alert for something else. With the technology available, fog would hardly impair the ability to detect what is around them.
Corrected entry: When they discover that the Genesis device has been activated, Kirk volunteers to beam over to stop it. Even though he is told it can't be stopped, that would indicate the transporters are still working. Why does nobody suggest beaming the device itself off of the Reliant and out into space with the widest possible dispersion, like they did in "Wolf in the Fold" to Redjac?
Correction: The Genesis wave forming was interfering with transporter lock, making this solution impossible.
Correction: If they can't even get a lousy phaser lock or a clear picture on the view screen inside the nebula I have an extremely hard time buying that the transporter would've worked out for them in any capacity. Seems likely to me that in his haste and desperation Kirk simply blurted out the first thing that came to mind. For all we know David's "You can't" was actually him reminding Kirk that they can't just beam aboard the Reliant in their situation.
Correction: The source would be "Star Trek." Anytime the crew needs something to get out of danger, it's inexplicably unavailable. ST: TNG Season 5 Episode 18, Cause and Effect, the Enterprise tries to back from the anomaly, the maneuvering thrusters are suddenly non responsive, with no explanation.
Stupidity: Reliant's prefix code is 16309. This code prevents an enemy ship from ordering a friendly ship to lower its shields or something similar. Five digits with no symbols. We know that symbols and letters aren't used since Spock uses a 10 digit set of switches to input the code. This is ludicrous. In 2016, a high powered server could crack a 6 digit password in approximately 0.0224 seconds (at 100 billion guesses/second). Any starship computer would have to far more processing power then a 2016 server. The prefix code protecting a starship from cyber attack would have to be insanely complex in order to be useful.
Suggested correction: Keep in mind the era that this movie was made in. This movie was made before PCs really existed. Computers at this time were typically huge devices or box like containers. Their data storage capacity was minuscule and there certainly wasn't any form of AI logic programs built to "hack" passwords. I know this movie is about space and set in the future but there's a lot of stuff in Star Trek movies that based on our technology or development currently, we would expect something bigger, smarter, etc. We still have problems today with people using archaic password structures like 1.2.3.4. or actually using the word password for/in their password. Back in '81-'82, I'm sure that most people would not have thought about codes being hacked. This is not to mention that in many movies, which I don't know if there is a specific reason for using 16309, codes, passwords, numbers for addresses/apt#/room#/etc and other info frequently come about as tribute, honoring, or coming from something in the lives of a film's director/producer/actor/etc! So sure with today's technology, which could have been accomplished more than 10 years ago as well, using a single string of numbers as security measures for anything is foolish and can be hack by a self running password-like cracker program... But they made this "code" back in the very early 80s when computer hacking was barely unconscionable (MAYBE) so unless these #s were a tribute or to honor something, I'm pretty sure no one was even thinking of hacking back then... We all aware of today... all about the hacking threats and YET we still have people using 1.2.3.4., the word password, or other horrible predictable password choices that can easily be broken by a password cracking program... And we know that there's a huge hacking threat requiring strong security measures but don't do so while back then, there was little awareness of the threats of hacking much less the concept of hacking altogether.
OR... in this future they have limited the number of password attempts to one a day and the ship automatically goes to red alert after a failed attempt until the right code is entered. That way it would take 7,327 years or so to try all the codes with the crew on notice and plenty of time to address the threat.
Corrected entry: In every battle that results in major ship damage getting warp drive back on-line is always a priority. If it was so easy for Spock (in the sense that he did not need any tools and not easy in the sense that he died) to get warp drive back on-line why didn't somebody else (with full protective gear) do exactly what he did a lot earlier? Also, what did he do?
Correction: Spock is faster and more intelligent that anyone else on the ship - what he does to the warp drive is a very quick and dirty fix to get them moving. Had anyone else tried it, they would undoubtedly have got it wrong, resulting in the destruction of the ship - remember that the Enterprise is largely crewed by trainees at this point. The only other person who might have pulled it off, namely Scotty, is out of commission, leaving Spock as the only one left to do the job.
Correction: Sorry, I kinda disagree with this as Spock's solution/fix is just to open the top of the warp drive, swirl out a load of sparkly, floury gunk, and replace the lid on. How hard would that have been for ANYONE to have done?
Warp drive isn't real. We don't see exactly what Spock does, but we must assume it was a complex repair. The fact that Leonard Nimoy just appears to take the lid off and swish his hands around is due to the fact that the prop is just a plastic bowl with a light bulb and a fog machine inside. Suspension of disbelief. Also, the issue was the entire compartment was flooding with radiation, and there wasn't time to put on a full safety suit AND make the repair.
Corrected entry: During the first battle between "Enterprise" and "Reliant", the Enterprise destroys the dome above the impulse engines on Reliant's saucer-section. This dome is then shown to be undamaged in the very next exterior shot of Reliant as it moves away from camera.
Correction: The center section of the dome is smashed, leaving some of the "glass" intact around the edges. The shot of the Reliant leaving only shows a side view of the vessel and a very tiny section of the glass dome that stayed in place along the port side. They never show the dome fully intact.
Correction: And there is nothing to say a force-field wouldn't have replaced the broken glass, or indeed some self-repairing substance might not exist in the future. Has happened in other Trek films and indeed in other sci-fi.
Character mistake: While Khan is "interviewing" Chekhov and Terrell, he stated, "On Earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince, with power over millions." The official date for this movie is 2285. That would place Khan on earth around 2085 by this statement. However, it is made clear in the episode "Space Seed" that Khan and his followers escaped earth in the year 1996: nearly one hundred years earlier. Quite a way off to be a rounding error. (00:21:45)
Suggested correction: I don't believe the earth year had been established when this movie was made and it was something the franchise applied to itself retroactively later on.
Plot hole: Why doesn't Reliant know that Khan is exiled here? The Federation is so terrified and opposed to genetic engineering that it's still illegal 300 years after Khan. So why is there no warning along with the data on the Ceti Alpha system? Kirk logged what happened with Khan and his solution of marooning him. Starships use nav data to navigate star systems. Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, yet the helmsman or computer never noticed that there is one less planet than there was when Kirk was there? There is no debris from the explosion? Ceti Alpha 5 is the exact same size and was conveniently blown into the exact same orbit as Ceti Alpha 6 used to have? So there is nothing whatsoever to make the crew even suspect that it's not 6? Enterprise would have to have scanned the planets in the system to know that one was habitable for Khan. Did Ceti Alpha 6's destruction somehow magically turn Ceti Alpha 5 into its exact duplicate? If Starfleet ships have been there to map after Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, none of them bothered to check on the exiles? Pretty callous for Starfleet, don't you think? With the technology and amounts of information available to Starfleet vessels, there is NO logical reason for the Reliant to think that this planet is Ceti Alpha 6. Finally, would the Federation be willing to test a device whose exact effects will be unknown on a planet so close to another inhabited one? (00:21:00)
Suggested correction: The answer is yes: against all known laws of science, the inexplicable explosion of Ceti Alpha VI led to Ceti Alpha V conveniently taking its orbit and making it easy to mistake for its former sister planet. A mistake would've been to give an explanation that can be debunked. By leaving it to "somehow" the movie leaves it open to a million possible rationalizations. You can even make a whole other story about the crazy circumstances that led to this incredible result.
Corrected entry: When Enterprise finally defeats Khan in the Motara Nebula, Uhuru starts transmitting the order to surrender for one minute and 18 seconds before Khan activates Genesis. That was more than enough time for the Enterprise crew to beam Khan on board the enterprise and either arrest or kill him. (01:28:48 - 01:30:06)
Correction: The nebula interferes with a lot of systems. The sensors were not functioning and they could barely get a clear visual on the viewscreen. The transporters would not be able to lock onto Khan.
Correction: I fail to see what you mean here. Kirk and crew didn't know Chekov or Captain Terell had the Ceti Eel's inside their heads until it was too late. And Terell turned the weapon on himself and took his own life in order to resist the Ceti eel making him shoot his allies. And also, by what you said, you expect a Scientific Military operation like Star Fleet to have regulations about how to handle people under mind control?
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Chekov told them they put "creatures" into their bodies to control them. That should have been enough to convince them they could still be under the influence of their previous captor, Khan. But, then if Khan did not find Genesis, that would have changed the whole storyline.
Again, how would Starfleet know to have something in place to mean, if a person mentions creatures being put in their bodies for torture, that they might be mind controlled? It wouldn't be logical to jump to those conclusions.
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