Continuity mistake: When Captain Robau enters the bridge of the Kelvin he is wearing his Star Fleet insignia. When he sits in his chair it is missing. It re-appears through all of his subsequent scenes. (00:01:30)
Continuity mistake: When the USS Kelvin is attacked by the Romulan ship, there is significant damage done to the front half of the saucer section. However, after Ayel appears on the viewscreen demanding the captain, there is no damage or debris on the saucer section visible through the front windows of the bridge. (00:03:25)
Continuity mistake: When the Captain of the Kelvin is walking through the engineering section, in the background can be seen walls of concrete block. When he ascends a staircase the wall behind him looks like cast concrete. (00:04:20)
Continuity mistake: When young Kirk is driving the stolen car he unhooks the latches to the convertable roof. Cut to a side view when the roof flies off and we see that the car is kicking up a big cloud of dust from the roadway (so much dust that it looks like they cut from the paved road to a dirt road on the side shot, but the grass obscures the road top). Cut to a camera angle behind the car when the roof lands and the dust cloud has instantly disappeared, there is no trace of it. (00:12:40)
Continuity mistake: As young Kirk jumps out of the car, just before it crashes down into the canyon, his right arm is backwards along his body as it opened the door, while the left arm is stretched forward. In the following side shot, both his arms are stretched backwards. (00:13:50)
Continuity mistake: When young Spock approaches the three bullies at school, the shot from behind Spock shows he is at least as tall if not slightly taller than the other three boys. But when the shot reverses to see Spock between two of the bullies, he is instantly much shorter than they are. This isn't a matter of camera angle, but rather the choice to have young Spock positioned lower to make the bullies more intimidating - a choice the earlier angle didn't take into consideration. (00:15:15)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk meets Uhura in the bar, there is an alien nursing his beer between them, and he never takes a sip, yet in one of the following shots, the beer is now significantly lower in the glass. The alien is in shot between Uhura and Kirk for the majority of the scene, and in the intervening shots, there is not enough time for him to have taken a sip of his beer. (00:20:15)
Continuity mistake: After Kirk is in the bar fight, he is sitting down and talking to Captain Christopher Pike. Pike asks him a question and Kirk replies back with "Maybe I love it." The shot just before he says this is behind Kirk's head. Watch his head movements. He turns his head to the right, then straight again and tilts his head back some. Then the next shot where he says that line, he is suddenly looking down to his right. (00:23:30)
Continuity mistake: The first ship seen in the film is the USS Kelvin, which Kirk's father kamikazes into the bad guys' ship to save all the escaping shuttles. Later, Captain Pike is talking to Kirk about his father's heroic action and how he saved 'over 800' people from the Kelvin. So, since several died in the battle, that ship had to have at least 900 crew members. The USS Kelvin, a pre-alternate timeline vessel, is depicted as having a far larger compliment than the largest Star Fleet vessel (Dreadnought class, holding 500 people) from TOS times. Since the timeline had not changed at that point, this violates the "established" history. (00:24:25)
Continuity mistake: During the scene in which Kirk first meets McCoy in the shuttle, watch the safety harness strap over McCoy's right shoulder. As the perspective changes back and forth from McCoy to Kirk, the strap is bunched up, then flat, then bunched and then flat again without McCoy touching it. (00:27:05)
Continuity mistake: When Nero is (lying down? I can't tell during this scene) and waiting for Spock to arrive, we can see that he has a very faint tattoo of some kind beneath his lower lip. However, when he mentions to his first officer that he doesn't want Spock dead and wants him to watch Vulcan being destroyed, the tattoo has become black and very dark and also extends onto his lower lip. (00:28:40)
Continuity mistake: Right in the beginning of the scene where Kirk is taking his third attempt at the Kobayashi Maru, it starts out with Uhura telling Kirk what 'Starfleet' commands. Right as she finishes what she is saying, she cocks her head sideways to her right in an almost mockingly fashion. The very next shot jumps behind Kirk's shoulder with Uhura still in frame and her head is up straight. (00:31:25)
Continuity mistake: When McCoy brought Kirk onboard a shuttle as a patient, they boarded a shuttle with round nacelles near the bottom. Most of the shots of it in flight show this. But the shot that zooms out from their window while heading to the Enterprise shows they're on a shuttle with wings near the bottom and nacelles at the top corners. (00:37:50 - 00:38:55)
Continuity mistake: When Starfleet finds Vulcan is under attack and everyone is assigned a ship, McCoy makes Kirk sick to bring him aboard. Until the Enterprise is ready to jump to warp, we see them both wearing red uniforms, but a few minutes later we see them again and Kirk now wears black clothes. (00:39:30 - 00:41:30)
Continuity mistake: When Spock points out to Sulu that he has forgotten to disengage the external inertial dampener, we see a close shot of Sulu as he corrects the situation on his controls, and Pike can be seen sitting behind him with arms by his side. It then cuts to a long shot where Pike suddenly has his arms crossed. (00:40:55)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk, McCoy and Uhura enter the bridge to tell the captain about the attack on the Klingon ships, Uhura stops right in front of Spock. In the next shot they are standing apart. (00:44:45)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk, Sulu and Olson are space jumping down to the platform, they are shown on camera as falling with Olson in last place. He is furthest from the platform. Yet on Chekov's screen, he is displayed (by the red color associated with his red uniform) as being the lowest and closest, in first place. (00:52:00 - 00:53:00)
Continuity mistake: In the scene on top of the drill, Kirk falls off the edge. When Sulu helps him up, he's holding onto the platform with his right hand and being helped up by his left, but in one shot he's holding on with his left hand, and being lifted up by his right. (00:57:25)
Continuity mistake: Uhura has mascara make up Egyptian style to the sides of the eye, but when she is in a lift with Spock it's gone for a few shots and later reappears. (01:05:10 - 01:06:15)
Continuity mistake: As Kirk and Spock Prime are arguing about Spock meeting his younger self, the shots from behind Spock show his hair, ear, and coat to be illuminated by a blue light. But the reverse angles have no evidence of this light at all. And when Kirk walks away, Spock is still standing in the same spot. Now suddenly Spock is all illuminated by blue lights that they were obviously not standing under moments before. (01:26:00)
Answer: There's certainly no evidence that they're still within the solar system; the Enterprise arrives dropping out of warp, which would seem to be good evidence that they're not anywhere near Saturn any more. While no specifics are given, Spock jumps into warp to get the red matter on board well away from anything it could endanger; as a handy side-effect, this also serves to draw the Narada away to a location where it can be taken out safely. Given that, Spock would most certainly have ensured that he came out of warp well away from any major celestial bodies; the most logical place would be to emerge somewhere outside the solar system.
Tailkinker ★