Continuity mistake: The Bird of Prey is the one captured by Kirk's crew in ST III. That ship's bridge showed Klingon Cmdr Kruge in his elevated command chair with his helmsmen arrayed circularly below him, and nothing else. ST IV has this same ship; however, the bridge now resembles The Enterprise layout with Kirk's command chair behind Sulu and Chekov at their rectangular helm, with Spock, Scotty, and Uhura at their usual positions.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Trailers
Directed by: Leonard Nimoy
Starring: William Shatner, George Takei, Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Catherine Hicks
More trailers
Suggested correction: According to the captain's log at the beginning, they have been on Vulcan for 3 months. As they prepare to depart, we see several Vulcan technicians moving equipment in and around the ship. It's quite conceivable that the bridge was reconfigured according to the crew's specifications to facilitate their use of the ship. This may seem a bit excessive, as the remodel includes the door onto the bridge, and the frame of the door, and possibly most of the rest of the ship. But it's not outside the realm of possibility. The real mistake, though, is why they would go to the effort of installing new workstations on the Klingon bridge and marking them with Klingon labels, instead of standard Federation text. Interestingly, though, the "Starfleet" style bridge layout of the Klingon ship is being used by the Klingons on the Bird of Prey in Star Trek V.
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.
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.
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."
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.