Corrected entry: When they discover that the Genesis device has been activated, Kirk volunteers to beam over to stop it. Even though he is told it can't be stopped, that would indicate the transporters are still working. Why does nobody suggest beaming the device itself off of the Reliant and out into space with the widest possible dispersion, like they did in "Wolf in the Fold" to Redjac?
TonyPH
29th Apr 2004
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Correction: If they can't even get a lousy phaser lock or a clear picture on the view screen inside the nebula I have an extremely hard time buying that the transporter would've worked out for them in any capacity. Seems likely to me that in his haste and desperation Kirk simply blurted out the first thing that came to mind. For all we know David's "You can't" was actually him reminding Kirk that they can't just beam aboard the Reliant in their situation.
Correction: The source would be "Star Trek." Anytime the crew needs something to get out of danger, it's inexplicably unavailable. ST: TNG Season 5 Episode 18, Cause and Effect, the Enterprise tries to back from the anomaly, the maneuvering thrusters are suddenly non responsive, with no explanation.
29th Apr 2004
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Corrected entry: Doesn't it strain credulity that the Enterprise is (once again) "the only ship in the quadrant"? In Star Trek terminology (all series), a quadrant covers one fourth of the galaxy (smaller regions are "sectors" and the boundary runs just about right down the middle of the Federation, right by Earth to be exact. Are we to believe that there is no other starship in that entire half of the Federation?
Correction: Before ST:TNG, "quadrant" was a term used somewhat loosely. In the Wrath of Khan, quadrant does not refer to one quarter of the galaxy.
Look up the term "quadrant." In every single applicable variation it is some form of "one quarter of a circle."
According to memory alpha, the star trek wiki, a quadrant is a major region of space encompassing a portion of a galaxy. There are apparently major and minor quadrants. The major quadrants are the 4 quadrants dividing up the milky way. Minor quadrants of course encompass a smaller part of said major quadrants. How large is seemingly quite inconsistent though. I think it has been settled upon that a minor quadrant is a couple of sectors (4) large.
Sulu also mentions that Reliant (which is in visual range, approaching at half impulse power) is in the same quadrant, which going by the post-1987 definition would be like saying the car approaching down the street is on the same continent. It's pretty clear that when they mention a "quadrant" in this movie, they are not referring to a quarter of the entire galaxy.
7th Nov 2002
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Corrected entry: When the Enterprise first encounters the Reliant, we see several screen shots of the Reliant on the Enterprise viewscreen, and several shots of the Enterprise on Reliant's viewscreen. The puzzling thing is, if you watch very closely to the shots of the Enterprise on the Reliant's viewscreen, you will notice that the stars are actually moving BACKWARD, as if the Reliant were in a slow reverse. Obviously this is an editing blooper since Khan just ordered that the ship slow to one half impulse power, which still moves the ship forward.
Correction: Trek canon has shown the viewscreens are not the same as windows, and that the screens can show us views from vantage points where no camera exists. These vantage points also do not need to be stationary. As such, the views of Enterprise on Reliant's screen are taking Enterprise's speed into account, and the 'vantage point' is backing up to keep her 'in the shot' while Reliant is still moving forward.
This would work except the stars continue moving when the film cuts to exterior shots where the Enterprise and Reliant are both in view, even when they are nearly parallel with each other.
14th Apr 2004
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Character mistake: While Khan is "interviewing" Chekhov and Terrell, he stated, "On Earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince, with power over millions." The official date for this movie is 2285. That would place Khan on earth around 2085 by this statement. However, it is made clear in the episode "Space Seed" that Khan and his followers escaped earth in the year 1996: nearly one hundred years earlier. Quite a way off to be a rounding error. (00:21:45)
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Suggested correction: I don't believe the earth year had been established when this movie was made and it was something the franchise applied to itself retroactively later on.
3rd Aug 2019
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Corrected entry: Khan has the ultimate weapon on his ship. Certainly Kirk must have known he would use it. Why not destroy the Reliant before Khan got the chance to destroy both ships?
Correction: Far too much speculation on this. Kirk was under stress of the situation and they also just inflicted heavy damage to the Reliant's bridge. As you saw, Khan was almost dead from that, and moments after activating the Genesis he in fact did die from his wounds before it detonated. Kirk didn't know that Khan survived the attack. And not guessing that Khan might use the device is just an error in human judgment. Not a mistake, and not really stupidity either.
Well, they had to have a way of killing off and bringing back Spock, and as plots go, coming back by the use of the Genesis planet, was not a bad idea. But given Khan's homicidal tendencies from the Original Series, and how other enemies, such as the Romulans would blow up their ships, it would seem prudent to put as much space as possible between ships, and being unable to do so, remove the threat altogether.
Which is exactly what they did. The Enterprise was badly damaged, and Khan was out for blood. The reason they didn't jump to warp speed sooner was the system was damaged with Scotty working to try and fix it. They went into the cloud to level the playing field between the two ships and for Kirk to be able to outsmart Khan and get the upper hand. Khan was not going to stop until he saw Kirk and his ship destroyed, and the Enterprise had no way of escape before they would be destroyed. Once they were able to get the literal drop on the reliant in that nebula, Kirk himself had a moment of pride staying there to show off to Khan that he won, that he had best him. That and to survey if they did actually defeat the Reliant or would it start going after them again. By this time, Scotty was then close to finishing the repairs on the warp drive, and they then detected that Khan activated the device. Kirk was full of adrenaline and rivalry with Khan. How they handled the situation and only turning to run when their sensors picked up the Genesis being activated, was human. Was natural. And lucky for them, Scotty was then able to get the warp drive fixed. But before that point, it wasn't fixed, so they had no reason to even try to put distance between them and a ship that could easily overtake and destroy them.
Correction: Kirk underestimated how nuts Khan had become and didn't anticipate that he would destroy himself and what's left of his own people out of spite. Kirk arrogantly thought he still understood Khan's motivations. Note he dismissively cuts off Terrell with "I know what he blames me for" when he tries to explain, but Kirk doesn't even know what happened to Ceti Alpha V and what Khan had been through, and because of this he leaves himself wide open for Khan's final move.
26th Aug 2003
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Plot hole: Why doesn't Reliant know that Khan is exiled here? The Federation is so terrified and opposed to genetic engineering that it's still illegal 300 years after Khan. So why is there no warning along with the data on the Ceti Alpha system? Kirk logged what happened with Khan and his solution of marooning him. Starships use nav data to navigate star systems. Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, yet the helmsman or computer never noticed that there is one less planet than there was when Kirk was there? There is no debris from the explosion? Ceti Alpha 5 is the exact same size and was conveniently blown into the exact same orbit as Ceti Alpha 6 used to have? So there is nothing whatsoever to make the crew even suspect that it's not 6? Enterprise would have to have scanned the planets in the system to know that one was habitable for Khan. Did Ceti Alpha 6's destruction somehow magically turn Ceti Alpha 5 into its exact duplicate? If Starfleet ships have been there to map after Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, none of them bothered to check on the exiles? Pretty callous for Starfleet, don't you think? With the technology and amounts of information available to Starfleet vessels, there is NO logical reason for the Reliant to think that this planet is Ceti Alpha 6. Finally, would the Federation be willing to test a device whose exact effects will be unknown on a planet so close to another inhabited one? (00:21:00)
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Suggested correction: The answer is yes: against all known laws of science, the inexplicable explosion of Ceti Alpha VI led to Ceti Alpha V conveniently taking its orbit and making it easy to mistake for its former sister planet. A mistake would've been to give an explanation that can be debunked. By leaving it to "somehow" the movie leaves it open to a million possible rationalizations. You can even make a whole other story about the crazy circumstances that led to this incredible result.
18th Feb 2020
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Factual error: It is long-established in Star Trek canon that onboard diagnostics can detect any animate intruders on Federation vessels. Any living thing that exists upon a Federation vessel can be identified, and its location specifically noted on Federation property. How is it, then, that there are rats aboard the Regula I space station (as observed by Doctor McCoy) that haven't been eradicated?
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Suggested correction: It is not established that Regula 1 has the same internal sensors that a starship has.
It is definitely established, however, that the Regula 1 space station is conducting the most highly-classified technological research and development in the entire Federation: The Genesis Project, which entailed re-engineering whole worlds to create new ecosystems where no life existed before. If anything, Regula 1 should be equipped with even more sensitive and discriminating biological sensors than any starship in the Federation, for the express purpose of preventing biological contamination of their experiments. So, Regula 1 must have necessarily possessed the most sophisticated biological sensors available. As Dr. Carol Marcus emphasized, the Genesis Project couldn't risk contamination by so much as a microbe, nevermind foot-long rats creeping around the space station.
None of the scanning shown in the film was done by the Regula 1 station. The Reliant is what scanned the planet where Khan was found. Even if Regula 1 did have highly advanced sensors there is nothing to suggest anyone has the time or need to regularly scan for pests on the station itself. The presence of a pest in the Genesis cave itself would have been an error, but not on the station. A pest on the station has no bearing on the Genesis project itself. There are too many assumptions for this to be considered a movie mistake.
The rat was not shown in the Genesis Cave, it was shown aboard the Regula space station, where the Genesis Device itself was constructed before it was beamed inside the planetoid for a test run. The point you're missing is that the space station had rats crawling around inside, but a rat infestation wouldn't be tolerated at an ultra-top-secret research and development facility for a project that was highly sensitive to biological contamination.
Regulus One was a scientific research laboratory, the rats seen roaming the passageways were lab rats that had escaped in the earlier confusion. Genesis was their current project, but I'm certain there were many other experiments going on. Bear in mind, Carol Marcus retorted that "they waited until everyone was on leave to do this." They only had a skeleton crew aboard at the time Khan boarded the station and killed those still present who were not transporting equipment to the cavern.
Suggested correction: It was most likely a lab rat that was inadvertently freed when Khan and his followers ransacked the station. The sensors probably pick it up just fine, everyone on the station is just too busy being dead to do anything about the stray rat scurrying about.
It's the 24th Century. After all the "animal cruelty" activism of the 20th and 21st Centuries, I very seriously doubt they are still experimenting on lab rats in the 24th Century. That practice would be deemed medieval, at best, and barbaric, at worst.
Suggested correction: When was this established? There are a number of episodes of the original series where the plot depends on them not being able to detect intruders. "Court Martial" for example.
"Court Martial" is probably the worst example you could use for your argument. In that episode, the vengeful Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney repeatedly sabotaged the Enterprise main computer (changing ship's chronological data records in order to fake his own "death" and frame Captain Kirk for a murder that never happened). Finney also sabotaged the computer and caused the Enterprise to fall out of orbit. Indeed, Spock discovered that the ship's computer was malfunctioning due to sabotage. So, Finney was more than capable of sabotaging the ship's bio-scanners, as well, to conceal himself from a whole-ship scan. In fact, they had to resort to a very sensitive audio-scan of the Enterprise, selectively eliminating the audible heartbeats of every known person aboard the ship. When all known heartbeats were eliminated, just one unknown heartbeat remained, and its owner couldn't be identified. Therefore, Finney had certainly tampered with the bio-scanner to conceal his whereabouts. It's very doubtful, however, that foot-long rats hacked the bio-scanners aboard the Regula research station to conceal their whereabouts.
Every time the Enterprise computer system reported an "intruder alert," and every time they asked the computer for the location of specific individuals and lifeforms anywhere aboard the ship. This was all well-established in the Original Series.
It's a big leap to go from that to they can detect any living being. It is explicitly established that under many circumstances they can't even detect a full grown man if they are in hiding. This is the whole basis of the plot of "Court Martial." Even as late as The Next Generation it is established that it is difficult to find someone if they're not wearing their communicator badge.
Yet they can detect single-celled organisms on a planet's surface from thousands of miles away. The technology certainly exists in the Star Trek universe, and especially for the highly-classified Genesis Experiment. In "The Wrath of Khan," Dr. Carol Marcus stipulates that the Genesis Experiment cannot be contaminated by so much as a microbe, and complete sterility is a condition for selecting a test planet. Yet they have foot-long rats scurrying around the Genesis research facility? That is a plot hole, a continuity problem and a factual error all rolled into one.
Reliant scanned the planet to search for any life forms. That scan was inaccurate and it read Khan's entire group (and presumably the Ceti eels) as non-specific, potential life matter. Reliant's crew speculates that it could just be some speck of matter and they are completely shocked to find multiple living humans there. If they were using these highly advanced sensors you claim they were using they would not have been surprised by the presence of humans at all. And even if they could, there is nothing to suggest they should also use those sensors for pest control on their space station.
Suggested correction: Obviously the first thing the rats did was chew through the cables to the lifeform scanners.
Which would set off alarms like crazy aboard the station because preventing biological contamination of the Genesis Experiment was a No.1 priority for Dr. Carol Marcus. Undoubtedly, the station was bristling with redundant bio-scanners.
All of which had been also chewed through! No, you make a good point.
Suggested correction: Someone on the Reliant had a pet rat and one of Khan's henchmen brought it aboard Regula I to torment the lab techs. (Yes, this sounds silly, but the point is that strange and unlikely things actually happen quite often and it's exactly what makes stories interesting. As long as an event can be rationalized, unlikelihood alone isn't enough to qualify as a mistake. If it really bothers you, you might get more mileage putting it under "stupidity" since it's obviously just a lazy horror cliche).
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Correction: The Genesis wave forming was interfering with transporter lock, making this solution impossible.
Grumpy Scot
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