If they'd put her on the Enterprise for it, Rand would have been a nice twist. As it would have involved the meatiest Trek role she'd had in 25 years, who could complain? "Be careful, laddie...most things in here don't react well to phasers."
Hmph. It's Chekov's brother - why should we trust Sulu here? Remember, Kirk didn't know Spock had a half-brother. Or a fiancee. Or even who his parents were. If Sulu has gotten the impression that Chekov always lacked a brother, it's quite probably a misunderstanding... Timo Saloniemi
I don't think so. The whole point of that bit was to establish that the Glowing Pinwheel of Hate was messing with people's minds to heighten the hostilities, even to the extent of making Chekov "remember" a martyred brother who never existed. We're talking weird alien mind games here, not a simple misunderstanding. As for the clocks, I guess I'll have to look out for them the next time I watch the movie. I've seen it umpteen times and never noticed them before. Then again, I'm usually more interested in the story and characters than the hardware. From my point of view, the tech stuff is just window dressing.