Star Trek

Question: How are Kirk, Sulu, and Olson able to parachute from space to Earth without burning up in the atmosphere?

raywest

Chosen answer: Vulcan has a thinner atmosphere than Earth. That, combined with the special dive suits they're wearing and the lower speed than space vehicle re-entry makes it possible.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: How did Kirk and Scotty manage to teleport onto the Enterprise, through its shields, when it had obviously traveled many light years? It is safe to say that Kirk was marooned on the planet at least an hour before teleporting off it (in reality it would have taken much longer to walk 14km in the snow, meet Scotty, figure out the equations, etc), so the Enterprise would have traveled an extreme distance at warp speeds in even one hour, as the ship can go much faster than the speed of light. Even if Scotty figured out how to teleport onto a ship moving at warp speeds, it doesn't explain how they managed to teleport such extreme distances.

Answer: Scotty mentions early in his first scene that he believes distance is not a factor in teleportation, contrary to popular belief. He uses an example of transporting a grapefruit from one planet to another (a pretty massive distance), and this is before Spock gives him the formula for mid-warp transport. After looking at it, Scotty says he never thought to consider that space is the thing that moves. If he's already certain he can transport between planets, and then he sees a formula that lets him bend space, distance shouldn't be a factor at all.

Question: What was Nero doing for the 25 years between his attack on the Kelvin and the one on Vulcan? Additionally, how did he know when and where Spock was to appear? Did he sit his ship in front of the black hole for 25 years? And why was his ship armed to the teeth? It's supposed to be a mining vessel.

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

Question: Why would Nero insist on drilling to the core of Vulcan and Earth to deposit the red matter, when it could just as easily envelop the planet by creating a black hole on the surface?

Answer: Since we don't know much about the red matter in question, its tough to say, but it stands to reason that they wouldn't have done it without a reason. It is conceivable that a small amount of it would only be able to create a black hole and destroy a planet if exposed to enough heat and pressure, say at a planet's core. They make reference to "igniting" the red matter, which is what causes the final black hole, and that only happened by igniting all the remaining matter.

roboc

Question: Why would Nero need Earth's defense codes if his weaponry was so much more advanced?

Answer: It makes it even easier to attack and would lessen Nero's losses by disabling Earth's defenses as much as he possibly can.

raywest

Continuity mistake: At the end of the film when Kirk is being awarded his medal, behind the Federation Counsel you can see 3 flags in the background- the center flag is the California state flag. After Kirk shakes Pike's hand, and the camera pans up and back, the California flag is hanging significantly different so that it is no longer recognizable, seeming almost blank white. As the ceremony is indoors and all attending are standing motionless, this flag should not have moved. (01:56:25)

wizard_of_gore

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Trivia: During the Battle of Vulcan, as Sulu goes under a piece of another starship, you can see R2-D2 go flying past just over his shoulder. (00:47:35)

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