Corrected entry: After realizing that the Jellyfish was on a collision course, ordering the Narada to open fire wouldn't have helped at all; destroying the Jellyfish would have led to containment breech of the red matter, which in turn would have swallowed up the Narada as well. A better option would've been to simply warp away. From the previous scene, the Narada was able to jump to warp in a matter of seconds to pursue the Jellyfish, meaning that jumping to warp is a relatively quick and easy task. Even after the missiles were fired, Nero still had plenty of time to order a warp retreat.
Corrected entry: If Spock had not shown up at the end of the movie to offer his services, Kirk would have left spacedock without a First Officer. Starfleet wouldn't allow the flagship of the Federation to go on a mission without a complete command crew.
Correction: In the pilot episode of The Next Generation, the Enterprise picks up its First Officer, Commander Riker, at Farpoint Station. Captain Picard even makes reference to this in his log, that they will be picking up 'Key Personnel' also including their Chief Medical Officer.
Correction: Why not? They did it in The Motion Picture. Clearly it's no big deal to pick up an officer for an empty post after leaving Earth.
Corrected entry: Nero claims that Starfleet has border protection grids surrounding its planets, hence his need to capture Pike and interrogate him. Yet earlier, Nero's ship managed to get past Vulcan's defenses with nothing but his ship's weapons. Yes, they're advanced weapons, but Nero needed Pike's information to get past Earth's defenses, so there's no reason he'd be able to get past Vulcan's.
Correction: There's any number of ways Nero could have obtained the information he needed about penetrating Vulcan's defenses and not Earth's. He could have posed as a Vulcan [if this timeline follows TOS timeline, then no one is aware of what Romulans look like]. Or he could have captured a Vulcan ship and interrogated one of its officers.
Corrected entry: We know that the only thing that is keeping the Enterprise from being sucked into the black hole that destroyed the Romulan ship is the warp engines, whose force keeps them away from it. However, when Scotty ejects the warp core, there would have been nothing to stop the Enterprise from being sucked in as well, because there was a few seconds between the core being ejected until it exploded inside the black hole.
Correction: Not according to the Star Fleet Technical Manual. The warp core provides a stream of high-energy protons that power the warp engines. Once the core is ejected the warp engines would continue to function until the supply of high-energy protons contained within the nacells is depleted. Think of it this way - your car engine will continue to function for several seconds after the gas tank is removed by using up whatever gas is left in the fuel lines.
Corrected entry: Considering the time it took for the fleet to travel from Earth to Vulcan, coupled with the fact that Vulcan had started feeling seismic activity even earlier, we can conclude that it takes a fair amount of time for the Narada's drill to penetrate a planet's structure. There should have been plenty of time for Vulcan's defense force (or even a shuttle craft) to fly up and shoot the drill, as Spock did at the end of the movie. For that matter, why didn't the Enterprise shoot a torpedo or fire phasers at the drill? Same goes for Earth.
Corrected entry: Before dropping out of warp near Vulcan, Pike orders Enterprise to red alert and its shields up. He's acting on a hunch from Kirk that the planet is being attacked. First, the ship's sensors should be able to detect the wreckage in orbit, but that would negate the drama of dropping out of warp amid the debris. Second, the shields should protect the Enterprise against the floating hunks of metal, yet several bounce off the Enterprise hull, and a destroyed saucer section of another ship scrapes the Enterprise nacelle and damages it as if the shields were never up. Shouldn't the debris bounce off the shields? As is typical for the Star Trek franchise, the effectiveness of the shields is only as strong as dramatic license permits.
Correction: Historically, the shields have generally not protected the Enterprise from large, slow moving debris. They are designed to protect against energy based attacks. The shields would not prevent the Enterprise from slamming into another ship, for example.
Corrected entry: While running from the cop, young James Kirk barrels towards a cliff in his stepdad's car. He is able to slow down some before reaching the edge, and jumps out, barely grabbing the edge to keep from going over himself. The car is still going a good speed as it slides sideways and goes off the cliff. But as the camera follows its movement over the edge, it is seen falling almost straight down. The momentum it had, from its still considerable speed, would have had it moving out away from the canyon wall as it went down, not just going straight down. (00:14:00)
Corrected entry: When the Admiral announces they have received a distress call from Vulcan, Spock prematurely reacts to the name of the planet before it is spoken. (00:35:15)
Correction: He is not initially reacting to the name Vulcan when he turns. Just before that name is said, the words distress call are said, and it is that moment when Spock turns his head, coincidentally before the name of his planet was spoken. Just about anybody would react to the words distress call by instantly looking at the person who said it.
Corrected entry: When the cadets are preparing to enter the shuttles to take them to their ship. Uhura confronts Spock. Spock refers to her as Lieutenant despite her only being a cadet (which is confirmed by Captain Pike when he relieves the COMMS officer).
Correction: Starfleet Academy is a training facility for officers. Upon graduation, cadets will receive their commissions, generally at the rank of ensign, but exceptional individuals may be commissioned as a lieutenant. With the crisis on Vulcan, the Academy's graduating class have been commissioned en masse and assigned to the relief fleet. As such, while still technically a cadet, Uhura legitimately holds the rank of lieutenant.
Corrected entry: After older Spock does a mind-meld with Kirk and shows him the past, he is shown breathing heavily and dazed. In the next shot, he is completely relaxed and calm like nothing happened.
Correction: Having watched it again, Kirk's breathing gradually returns to normal in all subsequent shots from the end of the mind meld. Not a mistake.
Corrected entry: When Kirk et al are seen walking through the Enterprise shuttlebay, the shuttles are showing the registry of NCC1701A. The Enterprise's registry code, as seen throughout the film on the ship's hull, has no "A" suffix.
Correction: The only shot of the Enterprise shuttlebay interior is the one through the main shuttlebay doors when the ships first land aboard the Enterprise. No one is ever seen walking through the Enterprise shuttlebay. You might be thinking of the shuttlebay in Starfleet headquarters., which includes multiple ships, some of which might have an A-designation. The two Enterprise shuttles I noted show no such A-registry.
Corrected entry: Sulu and Kirk are fighting on the drilling platform. Sulu claims to be trained in fencing, but does not use any real fencing moves or tactics.
Correction: Fencing tactics would not have helped him in this situation. Since the bad guy is using "brawling" fight tactics, fencing moves and tactics are out the window.
Corrected entry: Spock Prime charges out of the wormhole/timewarp and Nero sets about capturing him, which apparently takes some time to accomplish. Spock Prime knows the destructive power of the Red Matter and he would in no way ever allow this substance to fall into the hands of a madman, even though it would cost his life. This was the only logical conclusion Spock Prime could have made.
Correction: Pure assumption. Spock cannot be aware that Nero would intend to wipe out every planet in the Federation; given his experience in diplomacy, he would have every reason to believe that he could reason with Nero. Choosing to attempt that rather than taking the suicide option does not make for a plot hole.
Corrected entry: At the bar fight, Kirk falls on the patterned floor, landing face first, after being punched by a cadet. In the close up of his face, he lands approximately in the middle of the white square. The next shot of the side of his face as he is pulled up off the ground by the cadet, the position of his head in relation to the white square has changed. He has moved left, significantly closer to the reddish square on the floor. (00:22:10)
Correction: The location Of Kirks head is the same relative from one shot to the next. His head is in the aprox. same location. An inch or two does not count as an error. Check time code 22min and 17 seconds and 22min 19 seconds. This is not an error.
Corrected entry: It is illogical for 'new' Spock to destroy the Narada drill when he has the ship with the red matter. The Romulans can't do anything with the hole if they don't have the red matter to put in it; taking time to destroy the drill only gives Nero more opportunity to recapture or destroy the 'squid' ship. Does he do it to anger Nero and ensure the Narada pursues him away from Earth? No, that's pretty much a done deal with or without the drill being destroyed. Maybe to prevent the creation of a volcano in San Francisco? That would be a secondary concern to saving the whole planet from the red matter.
Correction: Spock had no idea if the Romulans had already taken a red matter sample to launch into Earth's core. So destroying the drill was definitely the logical thing to do. Plus the drill was disrupting communications and transporter functions. Not to mention that we've seen that the drill being active interferes with the transporter. Kirk was in process of rescuing Pike. They wouldn't be able to beam back to the enterprise until the drill was destroyed.
Corrected entry: Judging by the attitude of the Vulcan children, Sarek's decision to marry Amanda was not popular on Vulcan. One child calls Sarek a traitor. The head of the Vulcan Science Academy panel even tells Spock his human mother is a disadvantage. Clearly humans are looked down upon by Vulcans in this movie. Yet, despite the prejudice against Spock for his association with humans, Sarek's egregious act of marrying the human to begin with is apparently overlooked. Despite being the Ambassador to Earth, he also serves on the VSA selection committee (shouldn't he be on Earth?) and his human wife is allowed to hang out in the sacred cave with the Vulcan leaders. If they hate her so much, why is she allowed to be there?
Correction: While Spock's human heritage is seen as a disadvantage, it doesn't stop him being seen as a worthy candidate for acceptance to the prestigious Vulcan science academy; as you would expect from the logically minded Vulcans, his ability is seen as being of greater importance than his links to humanity. Sarek's ability was already long-proven, as seen by his selection as the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, when he made the decision to marry Amanda, so, while his decision might be considered strange, it would hardly be logical to demote or overlook an individual of proven talent because of it. As for allowing Amanda into the cave, she's the wife of an elder of Vulcan. Even if they hated her (and after at least 25 years on-planet, she's likely to be at least accepted by this point), excluding her purely on racial grounds would be illogical.
Corrected entry: Old Spock seems to know that it is 2258. Yet he assumes Kirk should be in command of the Enterprise by then. In the prime universe Spock is from, Kirk doesn't become captain until 2265. And if Spock is simply suggesting that Kirk could be captain now, his knowledge of Starfleet should tell him otherwise.
Corrected entry: The establishing shot of the Narada drilling into Vulcan shows the beam is visible from Spock's parents' home, and in fact Spock's mother can see it, and reacts in horror. Yet a few minutes later she is in the cave with the Vulcan leaders, who appear to be praying and have no idea what is going on, and Spock's mom seems rather calm and clueless as to what is happening. Putting aside the fact that Vulcan seems to have no defenses against the Narada, is the Vulcan Science Academy equally inept as to not being able to figure out what is going on? Wouldn't Amanda and Sarek have gotten to a shuttle and escaped? And since Sarek is the ambassador to Earth, why are they on Vulcan to begin with?
Correction: Okay, first you have WAY too many mistakes in one entry. 1. They are praying to save their world. This is not original in the world. There are several world religions on Earth that believe in the power of prayer over science (even ones that approve of scientific advances). She may have no idea what that beam is doing other than destroying her world. 2. There is no indication that they don't eventually figure out the effects/intention of the beam. But that doesn't mean that they have the resources available to stop it. Hence the distress call. 3. They didn't escape because "they are charged with the preservation of our culture" per Spock. This is the same as firefighters/paramedics/cops working during hurricane/disaster conditions. 4. They said he is ambassador. He could have been a past ambassador. And a current ambassador is still allowed vacation time to his home.
Corrected entry: When Sulu uses the parachute to get back onto the drill's platform he cuts the cord as he is being pulled into the venting flame. For some reason the flame cannot burn the cord but can easily incinerate an alien.
Correction: We do not know what the cord is made of. It could easily be fireproof, as opposed to organic matter, which is not.
Correction: Characters are allowed to be fallible, to make wrong choices without it being considered a mistake. Nero's angry, he wants to see Spock dead, and, being a miner by profession rather than a warrior, lacks the training to overcome his anger and consider his options rationally. If this leads him to make a wrong call, that's just him screwing up, not a plot hole.
Tailkinker ★