Continuity Errors

[YARN]

A small detail I noticed in the last film was that the turbolift goes in the wrong direction on the Kelvin when the captain goes to the hangar bay.

It is shown moving down to the hangar bay, but since the secondary hull is actually above the saucer, it should have been shown moving up.

 

[Timo]

Not impossible, of course: the lift could zigzag up and down on its tortuous path from the bridge to the shuttles, perhaps jumping over some big piece of machinery in the secondary hull before again descending to the level of the shuttle flats.

We could even argue that Robau had to take detours because the direct lift connection was severed by battle damage. We do see him walking up and down stairways when there should be no obvious need for such activity.

I wonder if the overall design of the starship was already decided upon when the location was chosen, the storyboard drawn and the camera angles set? I'd think so - but I'd also bet the camera angles were a standalone dramatic decision that was not swayed by the design of the ship or by any other factors. Probably the location could not have been efficiently utilized if Robau were to take the elevator up. For one thing, we'd lose the "he's on his way to Hell" aspect of the scene; for another, the location might not have had anything interesting up there, and there would not have been time or budget to build anything there, either.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MvRojo]

A small detail I noticed in the last film was that the turbolift goes in the wrong direction on the Kelvin when the captain goes to the hangar bay.

It is shown moving down to the hangar bay, but since the secondary hull is actually above the saucer, it should have been shown moving up.

Considering the design of the Kelvin, and the location of the bridge, he'd have to go down before he'd be able to go up into the shuttlebay section.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The engineer says "weapons offline" after the first hit, but we see Kelvin's phasers shooting down some missiles immediately afterward.

Also we hear the red alert siren before Robau says "Red alert!"

 

[F. King Daniel]

Almost forgot my favourite: Kirk and McCoy somehow switch shuttles during their journey to the Enterprise! They board a smooth shuttle with nacelles below (personnel transport, according to the art book), and view the ship from the boxy shuttle with smaller nacelles above (the military transport-type).

 

[FormerLurker]

Continuity errors? There are no continuity errors in Star Trek! Wherever did you get that idea?

 

[F. King Daniel]

A number of scenes were flipped/mirrored, which caused a few oddities:

Robau's arrowhead badge briefly vanishes as he sits in his chair at the start (they chose to remove it with CG rather than having it on the wrong side)

Nero's ruined ear keeps switching sides during his fight with Kirk!

 

[Timo]

Continuity errors? There are no continuity errors in Star Trek! Wherever did you get that idea?

Indeed:

The engineer says "weapons offline" after the first hit, but we see Kelvin's phasers shooting down some missiles immediately afterward.

So the repair crews worked really fast.

Also we hear the red alert siren before Robau says "Red alert!"

So the alien at helm was a telepath or a precog.

Almost forgot my favourite: Kirk and McCoy somehow switch shuttles during their journey to the Enterprise!

Or then they got shooed out of the low-nacelle craft on the ground already, after Kirk puked on the pilot (or grabbed her in inappropriate places).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

These are actual good continuity errors, as opposed to "this isn't exactly like that other thing I saw in Trek once, wahhhh!"

 

[Starbreaker]

Kirk was born in space and not in Iowa... oh wait.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Spock makes the fastest turbolift journey in the history of the universe going from the shuttlebay at the very rear of the ship to the bridge at the top in about 3 seconds.

These two should come under artistic lisence, but they are continuity errors too:

The Enterprise more than doubles in size between the shipyard scene and the spacedock one.

The USS Mayflower's saucer, roughly the same size as the Enterprise's at the spacedock, is suddenly much, much bigger when they nearly collide over Vulcan.

 

[F. King Daniel]

At the end of the film, Spock's beamed up while sitting in the Jellyfish's cockpit, hunched over the controls - but he rematerializes on the Enterprise standing up.

 

[Timo]

Spock makes the fastest turbolift journey in the history of the universe going from the shuttlebay at the very rear of the ship to the bridge at the top in about 3 seconds.

Why should the starting point (the hall with the brightly colored diagonal tubes) be the shuttlebay? We don't see any shuttles there.

Admittedly, Pike also stops there on his way to the shuttle after Nero has summoned him, with Spock, Kirk and Sulu in tag - but that again speaks in favor of this location being close to the bridge and distant from the shuttlebay, because Spock has no business going to the shuttlebay at that time.

The USS Mayflower's saucer, roughly the same size as the Enterprise's at the spacedock, is suddenly much, much bigger when they nearly collide over Vulcan.

There's no "USS Mayflower" at spacedock - only nameless starships. Or more accurately, starships plus a long list of starship names spoken out but never seen painted on the hulls. "Mayflower" is not among the names spoken out, and that's a blessing, because the other names already amount to more than seven ships!

The thing its, we don't know what class of starship the Mayflower might have been before she underwent her radical makeover.

In any case, the saucer is not really that much bigger than the Enterprise one in the collision scene. And the early comparison charts do indicate that the Enterprise would have a smaller saucer than the older starships - an idea the spacedock scene can still support if we squint just a little.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

I misspoke. It wasn't the shuttlebay Spock's lift journey starts from, it's the lowest level of engineering/ground floor of the brewery (which would be right behind the shuttlebay). The big vats above are same ones Kirk and Scotty run around on the catwalks later on, and that the warp cores shoot out of at the very end.

And "squinting" doesn't make continuity errors go away. The film is allowed to have them .

 

[Timo]

...which would be right behind the shuttlebay

Or could be right below the neck of the ship, so that Spock would take one "straight up" and one "straight ahead" stretch with the lift.

That's where the warp cores seem to fire up from, at any rate: the stem of the neck.

And "squinting" doesn't make continuity errors go away.

It helps with optical ambiguities, though.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd0969.jpg
http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/xihd/trekxihd1215.jpg

Our only glimpse of the relative sizes of the intact old ships vs. the Enterprise is the first picture above. The second picture shows a saucer basically identical in size to that of the Enterprise. It takes some squinting to see a saucer bigger than the Enterprise one in the latter, really... Or a saucer smaller than the Enterprise one in the former.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

^Except there are other shots where the saucer is clearly much bigger. The pic on page 3 of the "Art of" book shows the Mayflower's saucer is double the diameter of the Enterprise's.

Whatever the exact sizes are, it's obvious they change between scenes. Therefore it's a continuity error (albeit an understandable and forgivable artistic license one) and splitting hairs isn't gonna change that.

 

[YARN]

Not impossible, of course: the lift could zigzag up and down on its tortuous path from the bridge to the shuttles, perhaps jumping over some big piece of machinery in the secondary hull before again descending to the level of the shuttle flats.

Still seems highly unlikely though, doesn't it?

Consider the design of the secondary hull

There isn't a lot of head room there, not a lot ceiling from which a turbo lift could descend.

Now reconsider all those decks we see the elevator traverse before we see the doomed captain emerge at "Turbo C-17".

Your explanation of why the lift is moving in the wrong direction is moving in the wrong direction makes perfect sense, but it still appears to be a minor continuity error IMO.

 

[MvRojo]

At the end of the film, Spock's beamed up while sitting in the Jellyfish's cockpit, hunched over the controls - but he rematerializes on the Enterprise standing up.

This is kinda a general continuity error over all of Trek. We've seen people beamed up while falling and sometimes they're re-oriented and sometimes not.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

And "squinting" doesn't make continuity errors go away. The film is allowed to have them .

Absolutely Right(TM).

 

[Devon]

A small detail I noticed in the last film was that the turbolift goes in the wrong direction on the Kelvin when the captain goes to the hangar bay.

It is shown moving down to the hangar bay, but since the secondary hull is actually above the saucer, it should have been shown moving up.

He's seen going down the turboshaft, and then up a few flights of stairs too. Maybe the corridors were damaged along the flight up?