Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Factual error: The "whaling boat" is too small to function as such. It isn't large enough to hold a fin, let alone disassemble a humpback whale.

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. Though by the time the movie was made the Enterprise had had its distinctive pagoda-like island rebuilt by Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 1980, the aircraft carrier served until 2012 with a still-distinctive cube shaped island.] (00:53:30)

Factual error: At two points in the film, the Klingon vessel Bounty traverses the distance from the Earth to the Sun at maximum speed, in excess of Warp 9. The latter sequence requires about 111 seconds from the time Sulu says "Aye sir, warp speed" until they reach the Sun. While there is no real science behind Star Trek's "warp technology, " the Starfleet Technical Manual provides a formula for calculating warp speed, whereby Warp 9 translates to about 136 MILLION MILES PER SECOND. The Earth is only 93 million miles from the Sun. In the apparent time that it takes the Bounty to reach the Sun, a starship traveling at such ferocious velocity would already be outside of our known solar system and deep into interstellar space.

Charles Austin Miller

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). (01:48:55)

Grumpy Scot

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, even though they are about to cut into his skull with a bonesaw. The "they haven't had time to prepare yet" argument doesn't hold water, because the surgeon is already approaching Chekov's head with the saw. (01:24:30)

wizard_of_gore

Factual error: When the Bounty is preparing to slingshot around the sun, the sun is burning a light yellow. From space, it would be white; it only appears yellow when viewed from Earth because of how the visible color spectrum is filtered through the atmosphere.

Cubs Fan

Factual error: The nuke ETs are sitting at a RADAR station, not a power output monitoring station. The RADAR wouldn't give any sort of indication of sudden additional power draw on the reactor. (01:12:00)

wb6vpm

Factual error: As they descend into the park, Uhura gives a bearing and range of 283 degrees, 15.2 kilometers to the whales, which are supposedly in a marine park in Sausalito. 283 degrees would put you in the Pacific Ocean, because Sausalito bears around 360 degrees from the park. Uhura gives a true bearing to the whales, since a relative bearing would be useless once the crew leaves the park.

Other mistake: After they take off from California, Kirk gives a heading to Alaska. He then tells Sulu "full impulse power", and Sulu says "aye, ETA 12 minutes." Full impulse is 1/4 the speed of light. No way they would use speeds like that to go a few thousand miles.

ckstaats

More mistakes in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Spock: Your use of language has altered since our arrival. It is currently laced with, shall we say, more colorful metaphors, "double dumb-ass on you" and so forth.
Kirk: Oh, you mean the profanity?
Spock: Yes.
Kirk: Well that's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays any attention to you unless you swear every other word.

More quotes from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Trivia: When Spock is taking the tests at the beginning, watch the questions he is given, in slow motion. Some are trivia questions about the original series. (00:08:45)

Mark Bernhard

More trivia for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Question: What exactly was Scotty's reason as to why giving the Company boss the formula for the one inch glass wouldn't alter the future? He gave a brief response, but I honestly can't think of any reason why it wouldn't do any future damage.

Gavin Jackson

Answer: They only give him a schematic of the molecule. The man even says, "It would take years to decipher the matrix", or something like that.

Chosen answer: Scotty says "Why? How do you know he didn't invent the thing!" If the man was in fact the inventor, this would only cause a slight causality loop problem - he "invents" it because they gave it to him, but they only know it because he "invented" it. However, since Sulu said earlier in the movie that it was about 150 years too early for transparent aluminum, it would seem they do know this, so it wasn't a smart thing to do. Of course, the real flaw in the plot is that they need the tank to be transparent at all.

Myridon

Answer: The crew is resigned to the fact that their mission forces them to alter history in some fashion or another. McCoy just wants to acknowledge the gravity of their actions before they go ahead and do it, and Scotty's response is a cheeky way of reassuring him, "Hey, maybe it won't be that bad."

TonyPH

More questions & answers from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

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