Question: When Khan speaks to Kirk, he tells him that he wants revenge for the death of his wife. Who was Khan's wife?
Answer: This is a reference to the TV show episode that this movie is a distant sequel to. In that episode, one of Kirk's crew falls in love with Khan and helps him take over the ship. When Khan is exiled to the planet, she chooses to go with him. So it would be that after the catastrophic events of one of the planets in that system exploding and causing all sorts of damage to their new planet, she was killed there and Khan blames Kirk for it.
Question: Even though it's meant as a comedic moment, I've never really understood why Kirk would be so nervous about Saavik piloting the ship out of space dock. She's not actually flying the ship, so it's not like she's going to crash it into the wall or something. Plus, Sulu is an experienced pilot, so even if she said something stupid like "Warp speed!", he's unlikely to follow the order. Just something odd that I have always wondered about.
Answer: Saavik destroyed a simulated Enterprise during her Kobayashi Maru test, with Admiral Kirk chiding her afterwards. When Spock invites Saavik to take the real Enterprise out of space dock, Kirk is obviously nervous because he thinks Saavik is unready for command, as she destroyed the Enterprise earlier.
To my original point though, she is not actually touching any controls, only giving orders. The Enterprise was destroyed in the simulation during a Klingon attack, which is very different than guiding a ship out of spacedock. Not to mention the fact that the simulation is designed to make the cadet fail.
The whole scene is about Spock taking a dig at Kirk's ego. Being the only cadet in Starfleet history to ever actually beat the Kobayashi Maru test (albeit by trickery), Kirk has an inflated standard for what constitutes "readiness for command," and it shows in his reaction. Knowing full well that it will raise Kirk's hackles, Spock deliberately invites Saavik to handle the simple space dock maneuver. McCoy also knows that Kirk will over-react, which is why he offers Kirk a tranquilizer.
Chosen answer: He's nervous because she's a trainee and had never done this maneuver before. Even if Sulu is there, she could still possibly make one small error that he would be unable to react to in time. As you point out, the scene is meant to be comedic, and it's being a little over-played strictly for that.
Again though, she is not actually piloting the ship, only giving orders.
Even though Sulu is an experienced pilot, taking the ship out of space dock under power is still prohibited for a reason. If something were to go wrong and a quick decision had to be made, Savick would be the one giving orders to correct the problem. That's what makes Kirk nervous, not the piloting skill involved but the decision making required in an emergency.
Answer: Normally a ship is piloted out of spacedock using thrusters (see ST:TMP). Saavik ordered impulse power.
Question: This isn't technically a mistake per se, but it involves Spock's funeral. Several Enterprise crewmembers are killed during the battle with Khan, and yet only Spock gets a funeral. Perhaps there was a smaller memorial for the others, and Spock got a full funeral due to his status as captain, but why is Kirk only sending Spock's body to the Genesis planet? I imagine he sent only Spocks's body there since in ST3 there aren't dozens of little regenerated human babies crawling around down there.
Chosen answer: I imagine there was a memorial service for everyone killed. Starfleet's policy on corpses is probably to return them to Starfleet HQ where their families can collect them for whatever services or ceremonies they want unless the crewman had left instructions specifying otherwise. There's no telling why Kirk sent Spock's body to Genesis. Based on Sarek's reactions in ST3 he almost certainly went against Spock's wishes, unless of course, Spock left no recorded instructions and Kirk did what he thought would please Spock based on his being highest ranking officer and Spock's closest friend. It also seems very out of character for Spock to just assume that whoever he transferred his katra to would be able to handle it and carry out his wishes (McCoy certainly couldn't!). Ultimately it seems we have to chalk it up to a plot device to base the sequel on.
According to the novelization, Kirk's intentions were to send Spock's remains into the Genesis sun. Lieutenant Saavik altered the trajectory of the torpedo beforehand, due to Spock's desire to see the Genesis effect for himself. The torpedo casing was expected to incinerate when entering the atmosphere. As pointed out by David Marcus in STIII when the pod was detected on the scanners, the gravitational fields were in flux at the time, and the pod had obviously soft-landed on the surface.
Question: Presumably, the Genesis Planet was formed out of the dust and gas of the Mutara Nebula. But where did its sun come from?
Chosen answer: According to the novelisation of the film the Genesis project was initially designed to be capable of creating an entire solar system. While the focus of the project eventually narrowed down to altering an individual planet, the sub-routines necessary to create a star were still in place and were activated when the device detonated within the nebula.
Question: This always kind of bugged me. Why would David think that Kirk murdered everyone left behind on Regula One? Even though they did not have a father/son relationship, surely the heroic exploits of James T. Kirk are well known? At one point, David even refers to him as an "overgrown Boy Scout." I've seen this movie a hundred times, but could there be something I'm missing?
Answer: Because David is working under the assumption that Kirk ordered Reliant to take Genesis by force. Khan had Chekov send a message that Kirk was ordering Regula 1 to turn over the Genesis project. When Carol Marcus attempted to contact Kirk to confirm the order, he had the communications at Regula 1 jammed so the message couldn't go through. This lead David to believe that Kirk was attempting to steal Genesis. The fact that the group that stayed behind never made it to the cave suggested that they were killed. Since David has no reason to believe otherwise, he assumes Kirk is responsible. He has no idea who Khan is and that he is a mortal enemy of his father. Khan's goal was simply to acquire Genesis and bring his enemy to him, having David distrust Kirk was not part of his plan. It just happened that way.
Question: After the Reliant ambushes the Enterprise, Kirk tricks Khan and hammers the Reliant into retreat. As Kirk turns to assess damage to the Enterprise, Scotty inexplicably appears on the bridge, carrying the charred body of Midshipman Peter Preston. Why on earth would Scotty bring the dying Preston to the bridge, rather than to SickBay with all the other injured? He had to deliberately bypass SickBay just to make an unnecessary appearance on the bridge.
Answer: At the time of the attack, most of Scotty's crew were attempting to flee a coolant leak caused by the damage. Cadet Preston (Scotty's nephew) remained at his post in the confusion, and was the reason the Enterprise was able to maintain minimal power with the energizers knocked out. Although he was wounded from the assault while rescuing another crew member, the coolant leak is what led to his ultimate demise, as the coolant was highly toxic. When Scotty brought him to the Bridge, he was himself quite disorientated from the events and was also devastated by his nephew's condition. Agreed it makes little to no sense, but Scotty didn't know what he was doing. His nephew was going to die, regardless of where he took him to. Going to sickbay would not have prevented it at this point. It seems like it was used as a mood breaker for the scene, crews celebrating their escape from death only to be confronted by it again in another form.
Answer: I believe Preston was already dead at that point. An earlier scene was edited out of the film that explained Preston was Scotty's nephew (his sister's son), and which may account for Scotty's rather odd reaction of first bringing him to the bridge.
Yet Preston is shown alive (still dying) in the SickBay moments later. Preston shares last words with Captain Kirk before he actually dies. So, this is a case of bad editing?
What was edited out of the film was an earlier explanation that Preston was Scotty's nephew-this was way before the Enterprise was attacked.
These scenes, which include several of Preston's lines which were cut, were restored in the 2002 Director's Edition. Curiously, when the film is aired on TV they still run the original video cut which has the scenes removed. The editing is really sloppy with the scenes cut out and the scenes establishing that Preston is Scotty's nephew add another emotional layer to the film. It makes Scotty's actions make so much more sense, he's overcome with grief over his nephew and anger at Khan. With the scenes cut what Scotty does makes very little sense.
In the novelization, I believe it is explained that the ship is badly damaged enough that Scotty reached the bridge while attempting to get to sickbay because the computer glitched.
Question: When the Enterprise recovers Chekov and Captain Terrell, they just accept Chekov's and Terrell's false explanation, even though McCoy is standing right there with a medical tricorder. Why didn't McCoy's medical tricorder pick up the Ceti eels lodged in the brains of Chekov and Captain Terrell?
Question: Where would Kahn learn a Klingon proverb? He was marooned on a planet, and before that he was in hibernation.
Answer: Given Khan's heightened intellect, he'd undoubtedly be an information junkie - he's had plenty of time, either on the Enterprise before his marooning or afterwards on the Reliant, to read up on the current state of the galaxy - he presumably found the proverb in some datafile somewhere.
Question: After watching Star Trek: Wrath of Khan recently, something I'd never noticed before... Why does the Kobyashi Maru have 300 passengers? It's an ore-carrier with just over 80 crew. You don't have oil-bearing ships ferrying holidaymakers about now, but maybe in a little over 300 years, things might be different.
Answer: Being that "Kobyashi Maru" is a Star Fleet Academy training exercise for a no-win situation that future officers might face, the details might be somewhat exaggerated for a more dramatic effect. It's conceivable that a civilian transport ship also carries paying passengers. Today's cargo ships also carry some passengers. It's a cheaper, no-frills way for people to travel.
Answer: Lt. Marla McGivers was the crew member.