Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) - 20 mistakes

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Sulu flies the helicopter and accidentally turns on the windshield wiper, look closely at the bottom of the wiper and you can see the crewman's finger manually moving the wiper.

Continuity: Gillian's Chevrolet pick-up truck is obviously two different trucks, depending on its location. When near the aquarium, the grille is a series of large, rectangular openings. But when at the park, where the Bird of Prey landed, the grille is a much tighter series of more numerous, smaller rectangles, made up of much thinner bars. This difference is consistent through the entire film.

Other: When Kirk uses his hand phaser to melt the lock on the door in the hospital operating room, the phaser is not pointed directly at the lock. The beam leaves the phaser at an angle, which is probably not how the phaser would have been designed to operate.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Mr. Chekhov is being interrogated on the USS Enterprise (the aircraft carrier) after being caught on board, a studio microphone being used for the shot is visible hanging above him.

Continuity: In the second last scene when the bird of prey crash lands under the Golden Gate bridge, Kirk orders Spock to blow the hatch so the crew can escape. The camera is pointing up inside the ship to the outside of the ship and you can see the top of an industrial shed

Revealing: When the Bounty takes off from Vulcan and flies away, no shadow is visible despite the fact that it is a very sunny day.

Continuity: Notice the candle on the table in the Italian restaurant scene during Capt. Kirk and Dr. Gillian dialog. It changes height depending who is talking.

Factual error: The humpback whales are about to be returned to Alaska for release back into the wild. Dr. Gillian Taylor tells Kirk and Spock that Gracie is "very pregnant." In that event, the whales should be released in Hawaii instead of Alaska. Humpbacks give birth in warm, south Pacific waters during the winter and later migrate north for summer.

Continuity: In the operating room, when Kirk uses a phaser to melt the lock, the hand he is holding the phaser in switches hands in the closeup shot. Additionally, the arm holding the weapon in the closeup is no longer in hospital scrubs, but a similarly colored sweatshirt.

Factual error: When Chekov and Uhura first see USS Enterprise and then later beam aboard, the carrier shown is not USS Enterprise (a nuclear aircraft carrier), but rather USS Ranger (a conventional or oil-fired carrier). The most obvious clue is the "island", the huge structure that sits on the deck of the carrier. USS Enterprise has the most distinctive and unique island of all the USN carriers, being totally cube-like in appearance. The carrier in Star Trek IV has a more conventional style island. [It is true that the USS Ranger was used in lieu of the USS Enterprise for the movie. This is because the Enterprise was on deployment at the time. However, the give-away is NOT the shape of the superstructure on the island. By the time the movie was made, the Enterprise had its distinctive pagoda-like island totally rebuilt by Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 1980 to a more conventional looking box structure.]

Continuity: The crew wrote 'HMS Bounty' in large red letters on the side of the Klingon Bird of Prey, but in all subsequent flying shots, the large red writing is never seen again. It's not burned off as you only get heat entering the atmosphere if the speed is sufficient, and it's not wind resistance either, because the lettering is missing just after they take off.

Audio problem: When Gilliam slams on the brakes, the tires make a screeching sound, but the wheels come rolling to a stop, ergo do not skid.

Continuity: It is established at the start of the movie that the Klingon Bird of Prey is the same one that they flew to Vulcan in Star Trek III: Search for Spock. The bridge of the ship however is totally and utterly different to the one shown in the previous movie. There can be no claim to suggest they remodelled it in their time on Vulcan, because everyone still uses the controls with a degree of caution, which they wouldn't do if they modified it to suit their needs.

Other: During the inquiry at the start of the movie, the Klingon Ambassador is going over the footage of the destruction of the Enterprise from all the exterior views. This is very nice, but how would they have access to all of these different viewpoints of the destruction? Bearing in mind no-one was there to film it. It couldn't have been the Klingon Bird of Prey that filmed it, because in most of the destruction scenes, the Bird of Prey would have been no-where near or in a position to film it, and was of course captured and still being commanded by Kirk during the course of the inquiry.

Revealing: When the whales first swim past the now submerged Klingon Bird of Prey, if you look to the right where the water is supposed to meet the distant horizon, you can see an exposed edge to the 'horizon' as the water moves up and down. This is the edge of the pool they are in, and the exposed edge is the bottom of the painting of the sky behind them.

Continuity: In the scene where Kirk and Spock are walking down the street after Spock has been in the tank with the whales it is clear that it is a windy day. Both of them have their hair blowing in the wind and yet as they are offered a ride in the truck and the shot leaves them for a moment their hair is suddenly fixed again.

Other: When Kirk sells his "18th Century" reading glasses, a close-up reaveals that the ends of the stems are made of clear plastic- not possible in the 1700s.

Factual error: Scotty is listed in the credits as Captain Montgomery Scott. At the end when the camera pans the crew just before their pardon, Scotty wears the rank pin of a Commander (the same one worn by Commander Sulu, Commander Chekhov, and Commander Uhura).

Factual error: They are about to perform major brain surgery on Chekov, but he is not nearly prepped for such a procedure. His head is not shaved, the area is not marked or masked and it has not been swabbed with Betadine.

Continuity: When the 'Bounty' materializes right above the whaling ship, it casts it into shadow. But the close-ups of the captain and navigator as they frantically turn the ship around reveal no trace of a deeper shadow on their faces and the surrounding waters; the lighting remains the same as in the scenes when they try to catch the whales.