What Are The Real Plot Holes In The Movie?

[Captain MAJ]

According to the maps I have…man I cannot believe I’m arguing this with the aid of f-ing maps…there is no way for the Hobus Star, the Neutral Zone, and Klingon Space to be near each other. Romulus is nearer to Earth on the far end of the Empire from it’s Klingon border. So the mention of the Klingons is a plot hole, or just a stab in the dark by a desperate officer grasping at straws.

I would like to think that the Klingon scenes were cut because they make absolutely no sense, spatially, in reference to a supernova on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Klingon Empire. But, I’m sure they were just cut to shorten the movie and beef up DVD sales.

I agree that they are not close to one another. However, consider this: they enter the black hole at the same point in spacetime, say near the Hobus star in 2387, they are each thrown out at diffeing points in spacetime, the Narada near Klingon Space in 2233 and the Jellyfish in the Romulan Neutral Zone in 2258.

From the time Uhura hears the transmission from Rura Penthe to the lightning storm event in the neutral zone, there could have been ample time for the Narada to warp there. It would've only taken a few days, maybe a week at the outside, especially with a Borg-enhanced late 24th century warp drive. He could then still have enough time to get to Vulcan. Recall too, from the comics, the Narada had a cloaking device and could fly undetected.

Well, I guess you’re right here…but I haven’t studied fourth dimensional calculus since 1991 and I doubt a dude who flies a mining ship would have ever studied it. The four-variable astrophysics required to accurately predict the precise time and coordinate of the appearance of Spock Prime’s ship would presumably be out of reach of 24th century people, otherwise they would be using black holes to travel all the time (no pun intended). It’s a plot hole in and of itself that any of the miners aboard the Narada would be able to predict Spock Prime’s appearance.

I don't know how they figured that out either.....

As an engineer myself I just presume Nero has his own Scotty…

Which field of Engineering? I'm an Electrical Engineer myself, so I get way to technical in my analyses. Of course, I would never presume to be an expert in astrophysics....not even close. But I would like the think I'm an expert in Trek.

Also, on another point, the planet Delta Vega..... Recall from the original version of TMP, the large planetary body in the Vulcan sky. Also, the Novel Spock's World where this body is given the Vulcan name T'Kut IIRC. It was never defined as an ice planet, but it wasn't said that it wasn't either, at least not on screen. Why couldn't this be what the Federation called Delta Vega? From it's surface, the destruction of Vulcan would certainly be visible.

However, this creates other problems in astrophysics. T'Kut and Vulcan are supposedly a double planet, ie gravitationally linked. The immediate gravitational effect of the destruction of one body in such a system on the other body could be catastrophic. Either the body left over would be thrown into a hyperbolic orbit and leave the system, or a parabolic orbit into the Vulcan Sun, or an extremely long elipitical orbit, or any other number of possibilites, but it would otherwise be bad for that planet and anyone on it. Not to mention tidal force effects felt on the planet's surface.

The only way around this is that perhaps the black hole lingered for awhile and provided a gravitational balancing for the system temporarily. There is no evidence to support this, however.

And again, I'm no expert.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Or Nero was just going to take out the Federation and THEN take out the star that would have gone nova in the over 100 years since he had an entire CENTURY to do all this stuff in.

If it was so easy to "take out the star" (whatever that means), why was the Romulus of the future - with access to all the technology Nero had and more - utterly unable to lift a finger to do so themselves? Why would Nero sitting around in a mining ship for 100 years do any better?

Was he going to kill the star's parents before it was born?

Actually he had a pretty big supply of red matter and only 150 or so planets to destroy, so with one drop each that would still leave a sizable amount considering the size of the big red matter ball thing so I think he had it covered.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Becuase he was only a Captain not a Commodore or Admiral, do you seriously think Picard knew every important Starfleet mission or fact that DID NOT need him to be there in some capacity. Captain of the Federation flagship does not equal Commander of Starfleet.

Do you think every Captain in the US Navy would not know of even 1 Russian aircraft carrier being destroyed within a matter of hours..let alone days/weeks and a significant number more than 1? My attempt at humor re: Anderson Cooper aside, I would think that at a minimum the senior officers in Starfleet would know that such a blow was struck to the Klingons in very short order, even if the civilian population didn't learn about it. I would expec the same here in real life.

The US Navy also wouldn't allow Kirk to stay captain of the Enterprise, or let a crew stay together for 27 years, or have must of its admirals be a bunch of dumb fucks, or let terrorists do their dirty work for them. Plus the Starfleet admirals being the dumb fucks they are probably classified this for some reason or other and just didn't tell Pike cause they didn't feel like it.

Um you know what the Klingon homeworld and Romlus have in common their a stonethrow away from Earth, so not much of a problem plus withan unstable time vortex its just as likely Spock and Nero could have ended up on different sides of the frikkin galaxy.

No, I don't know that, but perhaps my map is wrong? Source: www civfanatics net/uploads9/Star_trek_map2.jpg

I take it you misses the pilot to Enterprise where it was established that the trip from Earth to Qu'nos would take a week or so at around warp 4 on the TOS scale. I think the map in balance of terror shows Romulus being close to Earth or at least the Neutral Zone.

As for the unstable black hole, it cannot be too unstable because of the predictablity of Spock Prime's appearance. To say that the black hole is unstable and unpredictable is fine, but such an explanation infinitely expands the possibile location/time of Spock Prime's appearance making Nero's ability to find him less and less believable...a plot hole.

For Nero to have been able to know when Spock Prime would appear but not where due to the unstable black hole, and then for him to have intercepted a Klingon transmission about a lighting storm in space which he then presumed was Spock Prime, whom he proceeded to go rescue (destroying 47 Klingon ships in the process) would have been a more believable plot contrivance than to have the apparently omniscient Nero sitting there waiting for him.

Not if he had some 24th century advanced computer that had no trouble calculaqting that stuff.

 

[dcbpe]

The US Navy also wouldn't allow Kirk to stay captain of the Enterprise, or let a crew stay together for 27 years, or have must of its admirals be a bunch of dumb fucks, or let terrorists do their dirty work for them. Plus the Starfleet admirals being the dumb fucks they are probably classified this for some reason or other and just didn't tell Pike cause they didn't feel like it.

Points conceded.

I take it you misses the pilot to Enterprise where it was established that the trip from Earth to Qu'nos would take a week or so at around warp 4 on the TOS scale. I think the map in balance of terror shows Romulus being close to Earth or at least the Neutral Zone.

Nope. Sadly, I was one of the many millions sitting in the comfort of my home watching that train of canon violations. The map I linked is the one I've used for some time now...it appears to pre-date ST:ENT.

Not if he had some 24th century advanced computer that had no trouble calculaqting that stuff.

My point was I doubt the 24th century tech PC could even do it, much less a group of burly miners on a mining ship.

 

[dcbpe]

Which field of Engineering? I'm an Electrical Engineer myself, so I get way to technical in my analyses. Of course, I would never presume to be an expert in astrophysics....not even close. But I would like the think I'm an expert in Trek.

Civil...I design targets for your advanced guidance systems.

Also, on another point, the planet Delta Vega.....

Stupid, stupid name for them to use...

<experiencing deja vu moment>

Damn, I seem to recall posting a significant reply to this from the office earlier today. I guess I never posted it. Oh well, it's too late for me to remember it now.

 

[Scout101]

Biggest one for me is that Spock doesn't know how to fix the timeline, (or for some reason doesn't care) and just shrugs, tries to put things "close", and just make the best of it.

How many different ways does Spock know how to time travel? 5, at least? And if Ican figure out how to fix this problem in 10 seconds or less, seems like the Vulcan supergenius that has spent half his CAREER on little adventures through time fixing things ought to be able to come up with it pretty quickly.

Just like how Doc explains to Marty in BTTF2, Spock can't go forward and save Romulus anymore. What seems like an easy, obvious fix, though, is that he CAN travel backwards to the point where Nero arrived in the past, and blow up the ship. George Kirk and company report an odd lightning storm, followed by an explosion, and then shrug and go back to normal, timeline fixed.

Could slingshot around a sun, there's the trick with the dwarf/black hole thing, the Guardian could take care of it, etc. Take your superweapon or bomb of choice, and appear in/on/next to Nero's ship when it arrives in the past. It'll blink back out of existance just as quickly, especially if Old Spock doesn't care if he lives through it or not. Having just watched his mother and planet blown up, and his future screwed with, seems like he'd make that trade.

Instead, mostly because the writers want to be able to pillage old stories and characters at random, Spock shrugs and walks away from an obvious solution, one he's personally used several times before...

 

[SalvorHardin]

Could slingshot around a sun, there's the trick with the dwarf/black hole thing, the Guardian could take care of it, etc. Take your superweapon or bomb of choice, and appear in/on/next to Nero's ship when it arrives in the past. It'll blink back out of existance just as quickly, especially if Old Spock doesn't care if he lives through it or not. Having just watched his mother and planet blown up, and his future screwed with, seems like he'd make that trade.

Instead, mostly because the writers want to be able to pillage old stories and characters at random, Spock shrugs and walks away from an obvious solution, one he's personally used several times before...

I'm sorry but I don't care to see any of that.
I'd rather have them forgotten or ignored and to hell with the reset button or canon.

If you are going to make a decision to destroy Vulcan or Earth or Qo'nos or Romulus or whatever, you better stick with it.

 

[Broccoli]

See, I know I'm probably regarded as a curmudgeon on these boards but I feel that a good movie should be able to hold up without supplemental material.

And there is absolutely no evidence given in the movie to suggest he had been in the prison. 25 years is a long flipping time for a supership to come rescue their captain.

Here's something that could be entertaining.

Since presumably Nero's ear was injured while on Rura Penthe in the original version, what is a good explanation for it in the context of the canon of the movie?

You know that Old Wife's Tale that says if you masturbate too much, you go blind? Well, for Romulans, it's different...

 

[Scout101]

I'm sorry but I don't care to see any of that.
I'd rather have them forgotten or ignored and to hell with the reset button or canon.

If you are going to make a decision to destroy Vulcan or Earth or Qo'nos or Romulus or whatever, you better stick with it.

I didn't say it would make for a more compelling story, just that it was an obvious fix that Spock should have seen, in-universe.

And I'm fine with the whole "if you want to blow something up, have it count" bit, but maybe they shouldn't have wrapped it around a DIFFERENT timetravel/reset button in the first place.

Other than blowing up Vulcan (and old Spock, who wasn't really needed), no reason the rest of this story couldn't have been told as a regular reimaging of the franchise/origin story. Soft reboot, all that.

This just gives them an 'out' for why we're going to get another warmed-over Wrath of Kahn storyline at some point (not that TWOK and NEM weren't enough already)...

 

[EnsignRicky]

Leading the audience to believe that a mere six foot long serrated spear could possibly have left Captain Robau with anything more than a flesh wound.
They could have at least included a scene where he refuses a band aid.

 

[startrekrcks]

Why do you think there was plot holes in Star Trek XI

 

[Fish1941]

Is this thread supposed to claim that the plot holes spotted by some fans are not to be taken seriously . . . or just a figment of their imagination?

 

[number6]

Is this thread supposed to claim that the plot holes spotted by some fans are not to be taken seriously . . . or just a figment of their imagination?

I would say that some of the issues certain fans might have are not plot holes at all, just events that disagree with a predisposition of fan assumptions, nothing more.

 

[Sci]

Which would mean that Nero captures Spock Prime somewhere near Klingon space,

I don't recall anything in particular establishing where the Jellyfish entered the nuTrekVerse.

#1 Romulus is about as far away from the Romulan/Klingon border as you can get. The Hobus Star is near Romulus, and therefore the blackhole the Narada and Spock Prime travel through would be very far away from Klingon space. There is no reason for Klingon's to be near the spacial location of Spock Prime's entrance to the Nuverse...

And there's no reason to think that the black hole created by the Red Matter would only be able to transport the Narada and the Jellyfish through space rather than time.

The line by the Kelvin officer at the beginning of the film establishes that the Narada appeared at the edge of Federation space near the Klingon border. This puts them significantly anticoreward of Romulus.

Why wouldn't he just destroy Earth first?

Because, apparently, he blames Spock for Romulus's destruction and wished to target Vulcan as a way of victimizing him.

Why didn't anyone notice him passing through?

A number of possibilities present themselves, including that the Narada has a cloaking device, that the Narada was able to evade 23rd Century sensors from vessels that had not visualized the ship and therefore did not know what to look for, or that it was detected and managed to evade or destroy all Federation vessels that tried to intercept them, or that Federation defenses simply weren't capable of detecting and intercepting every ship that entered Federation-claimed space.

Bear in mind that even today, ships and planes can enter airspace or naval space without necessarily being detected. The idea that the Federation would have perfect sensors capable of perfectly detecting and tracking every vessel that enters UFP space is somewhat unrealistic.

#3 If Nero was near/in Klingon space when he destroyed the Klingon ships...say after he had broken out of Rura Penthe...then his vector to Vulcan would not have passed near Earth or Romulus, making an attack on Vulcan before Earth logical, but still leaving the question of the lighting storm unanswered. Why would Spock Primes ship appear in Klingon space clear across the galaxy from the vicinity of Romulus/Hobus?

Presumably it was random. I would infer that the Narada was able to do some sort of scan on their terminus of the black hole, or on the remnants of their terminus, after the Kelvin attack that allowed them to calculate when and where the Jellyfish was likely to appear.

Also, on another point, the planet Delta Vega.....

Stupid, stupid name for them to use...

No, not a stupid name to use. A deliberate allusion to "Where No Man Has Gone Before." They knew full well the one in "No Man" was located on the edge of the galaxy and didn't care, because they considered the tip of the hat to be more important.

You may disagree with that creative decision, but this does not make it stupid.