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: 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: 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 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 Chekov explains to Kirk his plan to hide behind Titan, Saturn's moon, Spock rejoins the group and tells them he will beam aboard Nero's ship. As he approaches, watch Scotty. The shot of Spock walking to the group shows Scotty has his head nearly straight, and his mouth closed. The shot changes to a close up on McCoy and Scotty is seen beside him. Suddenly, Scotty's mouth is open, and his head is leaning slightly more to his right. (01:35:40)
Continuity mistake: After Spock chokes Kirk and then relinquishes his command due to being emotionally compromised, Kirk takes command of the Enterprise. As he sits in the captain's chair, he is still winded from the assault and is panting. Uhura walks up and says she hopes he knows what he is doing. As she says this, the side shot shows Kirk is looking straight ahead with his mouth open and leaning forward, panting. The shot then changes to Kirk in a close up and suddenly he is sitting back in the chair, looking more towards Uhura's direction, and his mouth is open less. (01:33:00)
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: Scotty is whizzing through the liquid-filled glass tubing and Kirk opens the release valve, saving him from his doom. When Scotty hits the floor, the camera pans across a piece of machinery, obscuring him for a second or two. When the camera picks up Scotty again on the other side of the machine, his arms are in a different position, bent closer to his body. Obviously a cut in the film where they removed the stunt person and replaced him with the actor to finish the scene. (01:28:40)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk and Sulu are beamed aboard the Enterprise they land hard on the transporter pad, breaking the glass and it goes across the floor. When they get up and Spock uses the transporter, the glass on the floor is gone and the glass is unbroken.
Continuity mistake: Just after Nero's ship goes into warp speed to chase after Spock, the scene cuts to Kirk being confronted by one of Nero's men. Kirk jumps off the ledge of the platform and lands on another ledge. His arms grab onto the ledge with his arms stretched out. The next shot shows his arms now next to his body. He then stretches out his right arm to try and climb on some more. The next shot shows both arms stretched out. (01:46:20)
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)
Answer: There was a scene cut from the movie that shows Nero being held in Rura Penthe, the klingon prison planet that was attacked in the transmission that Uhura intercepted and translated. The attack was the Narada crew coming to free their commander. And if you were to read the Countdown comic book that is used to give back story to Nero and his relationship with Spock, you'd see that the Narada originally looked nothing like what we see in this film. It was more utilitarian. But after the destruction of Romulus, Nero and crew come across a Romulan space station that is taking in refugees from the doomed planet. They had been working on some technology reverse engineered from Borg technology. Nero offered his ship as a test candidate as they were looking to start field testing it on a ship at that time. And as far as waiting for Spock, it could have been a simple thing to calculate the time and place of Spock's arrival using temporal mechanics based on the size and intensity of the singularity that sent them there, and an educated guess of when Spock entered the anomaly based on the telemetry they had at the moment they entered in themselves. They've had 25 years to wait and calculate what they needed to know.
Garlonuss ★