Star Trek Into Darkness

Corrected entry: Admiral Marcus ordered Kirk to fire all 72 torpedoes at Khan, because he secretly wanted to kill Khan and all of his crew members which he knew were hidden in the torpedoes. Given the fact that each of the torpedoes had their fuel containers removed and replaced with the cryotubes containing Khan's crew coupled with Scotty's statement that "photon torpedoes run on fuel", none of these modified torpedoes would have had been able to propel themselves after being launched from the Enterprise. So how would they have been able to navigate the distance from the Enterprise all the way to the planet? On the off chance that "fuel" referred to the warhead rather than propulsion, then the lack of fuel would have meant that the torpedoes wouldn't have been able to detonate as they did during the climax of the movie.

Teru_Kage

Correction: The torpedoes have not had their fuel containers completely removed and replaced. What Carol Marcus actually says is that the fuel container was 'removed and retrofitted to hide this cryotube'. Use of the phrase 'retrofitted to hide' indicates that the fuel containers were reinserted after the modification. This may mean that the torpedoes now hold less fuel than they would have otherwise (part of the modification), but does not prove that they have none.

Aerinah

Corrected entry: In San Francisco as Khan is beating up on Spock atop the flying vehicle, Uhura transports and shoots Khan repeatedly. Spock gets up and hits Khan, then there is a long shot and Uhura suddenly is not there on the vehicle, then when it goes to close up she shows up again. (01:58:50)

Correction: She is there behind the fin of the ship, If you look closely you can see that her gun pokes out.

Corrected entry: Benedict Cumberbatch, asked who he is by the young Captain Kirk, responds with "My name is Khai!" In all dialogue that follows throughout the remainder of the film his name, when used, is properly pronounced by all other characters as "Khan." (01:09:20)

James G. Mason

Correction: I'd blame the sound system of whatever you're watching it on - in the clip of the scene here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Sa6oUUByE at 1:08, there's a distinct N sound at the end of the word.

Corrected entry: Enterprise and Vengeance's battle forces the Enterprise to drop out of warp 237,000 KM from earth. If the Vengeance hadn't damaged the Enterprise, when were they planning to drop out of Warp? At light speed, even a few more seconds of travel would have taken Enterprise way past Earth. (01:17:05)

Correction: We have no way of knowing how much longer they were going to spend in warp if the Vengeance hadn't damaged the Enterprise. For all we know the Enterprise was only going to spend another half second in warp. That could have easily gotten them right next to Earth.

Casual Person

Corrected entry: The process used to neutralize the volcano on Nibiru is repeatedly referred to as "cold fusion." Cold fusion is actually the process of initiating a nuclear reaction at room temperature, which means starting a cold fusion reaction would have obliterated the inhabitants rather than save them. Even if this movie takes place in the future, it doesn't make sense for scientists to apply this existing term to describe a totally unrelated thermodynamic process.

Teru_Kage

Correction: Pike says that Kirk used a cold fusion "device", which presumably merely refers to the power source, not necessarily the mechanism by which it stops the volcano.

Corrected entry: Spock announces that the Enterprise's gravity systems are failing and, from that point on,"down" is no longer towards the bottom of the ship, but is instead towards whichever side of the Enterprise happens to be nearest to Earth as the ship spins out of control. This would make sense except that the ship is in freefall and therefore everything on it should not be experiencing any gravity at all. A correction for a similar mistake supposes that the shifts in gravity are due to fluctuations caused by the malfunctioning gravity systems as they attempt to come back online. The main problem with this excuse is that, if the gravity systems are attempting to restart, then there must be intervals between each attempt wherein they are NOT started - moments where they are offline during which there should be no gravity aboard the Enterprise. These moments never occur, and so the gravity systems cannot be attempting to restart. They are simply down, and the inevitable result of such a situation was misrepresented in the film to increase the tension for the audience. (01:41:15)

Phixius

Correction: You are assuming that any malfunction of the Enterprise's gravitational systems must necessarily involve moments, however brief, when these gravitational systems are entirely offline, and therefore the crew and contents of the ship should be seen floating in freefall. There is no evidence in the movie (or in the other corrected entry referring to the ship's gravitational fluctuations, that you mention in your submission) that this has occurred, or that it must occur, as you assume. Why can't the problem be exactly what we see in the film - that the ship's gravity is experiencing serious fluctuations in direction and strength, as the ship's power weakens and has to be diverted among several critical systems?

Aerinah

Corrected entry: As the Enterprise plummets to Earth, Sulu comments that unless the shields come back online, the Enterprise will burn up upon re-entry into the atmosphere. Yet by the time power is restored and shields are back up, the Enterprise is well within the Earth's atmosphere, as indicated by all the clouds above and below the ship. So how did the Enterprise survive re-entry without shields?

Teru_Kage

Correction: Because even though the Enterprise had entered the atmosphere, it doesn't burn up immediately, it takes time. Even so, you can see damage occurring to the Enterprise during re-entry, it wasn't unscathed.

rswarrior

Corrected entry: It is established that the Khan in the film and the one in the original series are one and the same (given that Khan originates from before the timeline divergence, he's just been woken up differently in the new timeline). If that is so, how can Khan be so resistant to phaser hits? He is hit with a blast multiple times, and not even knocked out. In the original series, Kirk knocked Khan out by hitting him in the head once with a small object. Khan should not have been able to take those phaser blasts.

Correction: First, what Kirk hit him with was intended to be something large and heavy. The prop used was obviously light plastic, probably to protect the actor. Second, he didn't "hit him on the head once." Kirk struck him multiple times with it, not stopping until Khan was finally unconscious. Since we never see Khan hit with a phaser in the original episode there's no plot hole here.

Corrected entry: Scotty entered the Jupiter construction site of the USS Vengeance without anyone noticing. Given that the base was a top secret facility run by Section 31, it is highly unlikely that it wouldn't have security system on high alert monitoring all approaching ships. And Scotty didn't know ahead of time what he was looking for, so it's not likely he would have had the foresight to mask his approach.

Teru_Kage

Correction: "Highly unlikely" does not constitute a mistake; Scotty spots the construction site from a distance, just as he clears one of Jupiter's moons. Knowing that something was amiss he would logically mask his approach.

BocaDavie

Corrected entry: Scotty only has to shoot Khan once to stun him completely on the bridge of the Vengeance, but Lt. Uhura shoots Khan seven times attempting to stun him and he still doesn't fall down.

Correction: Khan is not "stunned completely" after Scotty shoots him once; as you can see from the fact that he's lying there with his eyes half open, he is actually wide awake and waiting for the right moment to take Kirk and the others by surprise.

Aerinah

Corrected entry: In the opening sequence, it is revealed that the Enterprise is hiding on the bottom of Nibiru's ocean to avoid alerting the indigenous population to her presence. However, given that the natives appear to be in an early tribal state of evolution and have no knowledge of space flight, there is no reason the Enterprise couldn't have stayed in orbit and conducted shuttle maneuvers from there without ever being detected.

Correction: Simply because the tribe only recently discovered the wheel doesn't mean they're stupid or blind. The Mayans never discovered the wheel, but they were a very advanced culture. The tribe could have been advanced in astronomical observation, and would have noticed a new "star" suddenly traveling around the planet. Hiding the Enterprise in the ocean may have been the best choice to remain undiscovered.

Corrected entry: SPOILERS: Towards the end, Kirk places his hand on the glass separating him and Spock. As he dies, his hand falls off the glass, and then is back again in closeup, where it falls off the glass again.

Brad

Correction: The shot simply shows Kirk's hand slipping down the glass door, it does not show it falling off. In the next shot, his hand is further down the door. This is not a mistake, but shows that he has died by his hand becoming limp and slipping down the door.

Corrected entry: Given how close the Enterprise and Vengeance were to Earth, the fact that Uhura can get a communications signal to New Vulcan to reach Spock Prime but not one to Starfleet Command which is literally outside their viewscreen window is preposterous.

solarpilot

Correction: At no point does anyone say that they can't get a signal to Starfleet Command. Spock chooses to try to contact Spock Prime because he may be able to offer valuable advice on dealing with Khan. On the other hand, Spock is probably reluctant to contact Starfleet Command at this point because he doesn't know what Marcus (who is, remember, in charge of Starfleet) has told them about the situation (remember, Marcus' story is that the Enterprise crew 'went rogue in league with Khan, leaving him no choice but to destroy them'). Right now Starfleet Command will almost certainly take Marcus's side, and Spock doesn't have the time to persuade them to side with him instead.

Aerinah

Corrected entry: As Kirk realigns the warp core to restore power and save the USS Enterprise from crashing to Earth, Sulu tells Spock: "Without power, we'll incinerate on re-entry." It shows Kirk restoring power after it plummets below the clouds, which is well beyond the point where they would have been incinerated.

tedloveslisa

Correction: Kirk restores the power before the ship goes below the clouds. They were using the thrusters to slow their descent well before they broke the cloud barrier.

Corrected entry: *Spoiler* After Kirk is irradiated when realigning the reactor core and Spock visits him at the reactor door, they place their hands on either side of the glass. Spock forms the Vulcan salute ("V" sign) which is visible after Kirk's hand slides down in the shot from Kirk's side of the glass. The next shot is from the outside (Spock's side) and Spock's hand remains flat against the glass but no longer in a salute.

Correction: Both shots from inside and outside show Spock's hand in the V salute. At no time has Spock removed the salute.

XIII

Corrected entry: Spock stated that Vulcans "embrace technicality" but there was nothing technical about the violation of the Prime Directive when the crew decided to stop the volcano from destroying Nibiru. Given Spock's insistence on following rules and regulations, there is no way he would have agreed to render the volcano inert, as doing so violated the Prime Directive (as stated by Pike, under the Prime Directive the Enterprise crew was "supposed to survey a planet, not alter its destiny").

Teru_Kage

Correction: Spock is half-human and that part is often at odds with his Vulcan side. Despite following the Vulcan way of life, this internal conflict at times causes Spock to do things other Vulcans would not. He is also affected by his friendship with Jim Kirk and his loyalty to him, and can be swayed by that. Spock may have agreed to go along with Kirk's plan as long as they remained unseen by the indigenous people, though the plan went awry. It would also go against Spock's logical nature to let a civilization die when it could be saved without altering its destiny.

raywest

Corrected entry: When Kirk left the bridge to lead the away team to Kronos, he gave the conn to Sulu. It only took a short moment for Sulu to walk from his seat to the captain's chair, but in that short time frame Kirk and company had somehow managed to change into civilian wardrobe and make their way to the shuttle bay hanger.

Teru_Kage

Correction: They don't show every second of everything that's going on. They're not going to show the entire time it takes the team to change clothes. Or everything Sulu might be doing in that time frame.

envisaged0ne

Corrected entry: During its fall to Earth, the Enterprise rotated wildly out of control, which tossed people and machinery throughout the ship. Yet after the ship was stabilized the dead tribble is sitting in the exact same spot on McCoy's table as before.

Teru_Kage

Correction: There was enough time after the ship was stable for someone, maybe McCoy, to have picked up the tribble. Considering he was conducting an experiment on it, its reasonable that he'd put it back on the table. There were a number of other objects that presumably had also fallen off that were sitting on the table as well.

raywest

Corrected entry: How is it that the battle between the Vengeance and the Enterprise took place for so long without anyone on Earth providing assistance? Shouldn't Starfleet have some sort of planetary defense contingency against a starship (or fleet of them) appearing within the Earth's orbit?

Teru_Kage

Correction: Admiral Marcus was still in command of the Vengeance during the initial battle; he had the authority to order all ships to stand down - something he would need to do so that no one could come to the aid of the Enterprise.

BocaDavie

Corrected entry: When Kirk and Scott are racing to repair the engines and the ship's gravity is breaking down, the characters should begin to float rather than plunge hundreds of feet to their deaths.

Correction: If the ship's artificial gravity had completely shut down, then the characters might float as you suggest. But it's not completely off; it is malfunctioning and keeps trying to come back online as the ship tumbles toward Earth. This situation is much more likely to create the kinds of gravity fluctuations that do in fact occur.

Aerinah

Factual error: Enterprise and Vengeance come out of warp near the moon, 237,000km from Earth. Due to their altercation. They lose power and proceed to fall freely toward Earth. The scene plays as though it takes a matter of a few minutes, too fast to get the situation under control. At that distance, the gravity acceleration from Earth would only be .01 m/sec/sec. This means that they should have had approximately 2.52 days before crashing, especially given their apparent relative stop as per the visible moon.

More mistakes in Star Trek Into Darkness

Bones: Jim, you're not actually going after this guy, are you?
James T. Kirk: I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, I only know what I can do.

More quotes from Star Trek Into Darkness

Trivia: The library that is bombed is called the "Kelvin Memorial Archive," a reference to the destruction of the U.S.S. Kelvin seen in the first film. (00:18:05)

More trivia for Star Trek Into Darkness

Question: Why does Khan have to be alive for McCoy to use his blood to save Kirk? The blood will be removed from its supply anyway when drawn.

Quantom X

Chosen answer: McCoy has no real idea how much blood he's going to need to bring Kirk back - given the catastrophic radiation damage to his body, there's every possibility that he might need multiple transfusions over a period of time, which would be much easier if Khan was still alive. Plus there's also the issue that killing Khan could well involve spilling some of the blood that McCoy so desperately needs. Bringing Khan in alive is the best way to maximise their chances.

Tailkinker

More questions & answers from Star Trek Into Darkness

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