Continuity mistake: When Khan contacts the Enterprise after Reliant's opening attack, Kirk has his uniform jacket unbuttoned to about mid-chest level (a little above his stomach). When Khan demands all information on Project Genesis be turned over, and Kirk responds with 'Genesis? What's that?' his jacket is now unbuttoned all the way down to his belt.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
1 video
Directed by: Nicholas Meyer
Starring: William Shatner, Kirstie Alley, George Takei, Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Ricardo Montalban
Continuity mistake: The blood stain on Kirk's jacket keeps moving around.
More quotes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Trivia: Early script drafts featured Khan gaining psychic powers with the ability to create illusions in the minds of others. One draft even replaced Khan entirely with an original villain who better suited such fantastical mental powers. By the time Nicholas Meyer wrote the shooting script, Khan was reinstated as the villain and the psychic angle was dropped.
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.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
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.
Grumpy Scot
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.