What is THE Worst continuity error in Trek history..?!

[lurok]

My latest bugbear as currently watching TNG is the NEM Troi bit about never kissing Riker with beard before. I've counted at least four or five TNG moments where she does.

There is no such scene in Nemesis. There is one, however, in Insurrection.

There is indeed. My bad Hey, easy to get title-blindness after a while

 

[F. King Daniel]

STXI super fast ride to Vulcan

Erm... that's consistant with STV's trip to the centre of the galaxy, TAS' trip to the centre of the galaxy, the NX-01's trip to Kronos, the TOS Enterprise's repeated trips to the rim of the galaxy, DS9's short shuttle journies from DS9 to Romulus, Cardassia, Earth etc and Spock's stated time/distance ratios in TOS.

So really you should add Voyager for making warp speed especially slow, at odds with everything else

 

[Nerys Myk]

Star Trek XI.

This.

Nah it started a new continuity. We'll have to till the next movie before the "errors" crop up.

 

[Rarewolf]

STVI, according to the clock on the Enterprise's bridge, they intercept Chang and stop the assassination attempt on the Khittomer Conference at 9 something in the morning. They cut scene back to the bridge, at the end of the movie, and the clock states its now 17 hundred hours, or 5pm. If you don't notice the clock, you'd think they simply beamed back after saving the day.

That round of applause always did seem to run on for hours...

 

[Therin of Andor]

So, a quick recap on the thread's most discussed errors (apologies for any missing...):

male Spot has kittens

Mmmm. I had a female guinea pig who fathered 14 babies across two litters before we could prove what had happened.

We also took a young male cat to the vet's one time, to get it desexed, and the vet asked if the cat had had a litter yet. Later he said it had the smallest testicles he'd ever seen on a cat.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Poor kitty.

 

[Kirby]

The Borg. They won't attack you if you appear harmless to them, but they just let you walk right on by and leave you alone despite the fact that their job is to assimilate you.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Borg. They won't attack you if you appear harmless to them, but they just let you walk right on by and leave you alone despite the fact that their job is to assimilate you.

The Borg assimilate civilizations, not individuals. Therefore, a small group of non-threatening people can pass by the Borg with nothing to fear.

 

[Kirby]

The Borg. They won't attack you if you appear harmless to them, but they just let you walk right on by and leave you alone despite the fact that their job is to assimilate you.

The Borg assimilate civilizations, not individuals. Therefore, a small group of non-threatening people can pass by the Borg with nothing to fear.

Yeah, sure. An assult force could really take advantage of that: "nothing to see here, just passing through, how ya doing drones, lovely day, isn't it?"
And as soon as you get close enough and their backs are turned pull out your hidden weapons and start slaughtering them.

 

[Rom's Sehlat]

For some reason the Borg never have internal sensors that detect weapons signatures... the Federation ships do (when its necessary for the plot).

 

[Cyke101]

The Borg. They won't attack you if you appear harmless to them, but they just let you walk right on by and leave you alone despite the fact that their job is to assimilate you.

The Borg assimilate civilizations, not individuals. Therefore, a small group of non-threatening people can pass by the Borg with nothing to fear.

Yeah, sure. An assult force could really take advantage of that: "nothing to see here, just passing through, how ya doing drones, lovely day, isn't it?"
And as soon as you get close enough and their backs are turned pull out your hidden weapons and start slaughtering them.

I'm with Wormhole on this one, it doesn't seem to be a continuity error so much as it is a retcon. The difference between Q Who and BOBW is even addressed by Shelby and Crusher, implying that the writers willingly and knowingly made the change. When you start killing them, they definitely take notice. (by definition, it can't be a continuity error if that "error" is fully addressed and explained).

As well, Voyager also had a few instances when a boarding party could sneak by a few drones out in the open much like in Q Who? It's only when the Borg have a specific reason to be concerned with the crew that they notice and take action.

 

[Green Shirt]

The superfast Earth-to-Vulcan ride in XI.

So you wanted them to show the entire several hour journey?

I think we're supposed to assume that it had been several hours before Chekov's message was delivered

I must have shown it a hundred times already. The way the scene is edited, there can't be a timespan in between. Sulu reports they have reached maximum warp, and in the very same scene, Chekov makes the announcement. Unless the acceleration to maximum warp takes several hours, the journey to Vulcan as seen in this movie takes 5 minutes. One of several cases in the movie where the writer's/director's intention wasn't properly executed. We are supposed to assume that it takes several hours (that's the intention), but the editing doesn't support this (that's the execution).
Had Sulu reported maximum warp before they cut to McCoy and Kirk walking into sickbay, or had they removed Sulu's report altogether, then it would have been right.

A graphic insert with a guy in a French accent saying "Three Hours Later" would have been appropriate at this point.

 

[ngc7293]

So, a quick recap on the thread's most discussed errors (apologies for any missing...):
* = possible explanations offered

ENT series as a whole
Romulan cloaks in ENT *
young Picard hair/no hair
Q Reproduction
timeline first contact with Borg *
male Spot has kittens
TNG Scotty not remembering Kirk death
Klingon ridges *
WNMHGB headstone
Janice Lester & female captains
Hugh vs Seven borg individuality/Borg assimilation
Trek XI superfast ride to Vulcan

No matter what others think, I don't think that 'TNG Scotty not remembering Kirk death' is a continuity error. As I have said, the TNG episode was done in 92 and Generations was done in 94. It does not matter if Doohan got into Generations or not. Once the TNG ep. was made it was set in stone. Even when Generations was done, they couldn't just reshoot STNG. Although I am pretty sure someone thought of it.

 

[Kaziarl]

So, a quick recap on the thread's most discussed errors (apologies for any missing...):
* = possible explanations offered

ENT series as a whole
Romulan cloaks in ENT *
young Picard hair/no hair
Q Reproduction
timeline first contact with Borg *
male Spot has kittens
TNG Scotty not remembering Kirk death
Klingon ridges *
WNMHGB headstone
Janice Lester & female captains
Hugh vs Seven borg individuality/Borg assimilation
Trek XI superfast ride to Vulcan

No matter what others think, I don't think that 'TNG Scotty not remembering Kirk death' is a continuity error. As I have said, the TNG episode was done in 92 and Generations was done in 94. It does not matter if Doohan got into Generations or not. Once the TNG ep. was made it was set in stone. Even when Generations was done, they couldn't just reshoot STNG. Although I am pretty sure someone thought of it.

Additionally, if it had been the other way around, scotty had been stuck in that transporter for several decades. They said there was signal degradation, which could have had any number of effects. So I don't see why, under those conditions, it wouldn't be possible for his mind to go "Enterprise=Kirk" and overlook the fact that Kirk was dead since thats probably the most familiar association with the ship he knows. Like those tests some shrinks do where they say a word and you say the first thing that comes to mind.

 

[Kirby]

WNMHGB headstone

Meh, I can't remember all of my friend's middle names. Add the whole psychic, sparkly-eye/crazy thing going on, I can understand making a mistake on the headstone.
Plus it was the pilot too, lots of things change after the pilot.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Borg. They won't attack you if you appear harmless to them, but they just let you walk right on by and leave you alone despite the fact that their job is to assimilate you.

The Borg assimilate civilizations, not individuals. Therefore, a small group of non-threatening people can pass by the Borg with nothing to fear.

Yeah, sure. An assult force could really take advantage of that.

And we have seen assault forces take advantage of that. The Best of Both Worlds, First Contact, multiple Voyager episodes...

 

[Rom's Sehlat]

WNMHGB headstone

Meh, I can't remember all of my friend's middle names. Add the whole psychic, sparkly-eye/crazy thing going on, I can understand making a mistake on the headstone.
Plus it was the pilot too, lots of things change after the pilot.

But he was supposed to be all-powerful or almost, anyway. He should have been able to read the records on the ship or something. Or read Kirk's mind (if anything can...).

So that's how the Q got their powers- travel to the edge of the galaxy and survive the insanity. That would also explain Q's insanity.

 

[AntonyF]

No matter what others think, I don't think that 'TNG Scotty not remembering Kirk death' is a continuity error. As I have said, the TNG episode was done in 92 and Generations was done in 94. It does not matter if Doohan got into Generations or not. Once the TNG ep. was made it was set in stone. Even when Generations was done, they couldn't just reshoot STNG. Although I am pretty sure someone thought of it.

Additionally, if it had been the other way around, scotty had been stuck in that transporter for several decades. They said there was signal degradation, which could have had any number of effects. So I don't see why, under those conditions, it wouldn't be possible for his mind to go "Enterprise=Kirk" and overlook the fact that Kirk was dead since thats probably the most familiar association with the ship he knows. Like those tests some shrinks do where they say a word and you say the first thing that comes to mind.

It's a continuity error, pure and simple. Of course the movie was the main thing, they weren't going to complicate matters in a movie storyline because of an old TNG episode that only diehard fans would recognise as a problem.

And the degradation thing is a way of trying to counteract the continuity error, which is fine, but it's still an error.

 

[Satyrquaze]

Compared to the rest of Trek, isn't TOS just a long string of continuity errors?

 

[F. King Daniel]

WNMHGB headstone

Meh, I can't remember all of my friend's middle names. Add the whole psychic, sparkly-eye/crazy thing going on, I can understand making a mistake on the headstone.
Plus it was the pilot too, lots of things change after the pilot.

But he was supposed to be all-powerful or almost, anyway. He should have been able to read the records on the ship or something. Or read Kirk's mind (if anything can...).

So that's how the Q got their powers- travel to the edge of the galaxy and survive the insanity. That would also explain Q's insanity.

You might want to read the novel Q-Squared, where the barrier at the edge of the galaxy is Q (noncorporeal after a fight with Trelane), and WNMHGB takes place in an alternate timeline (where Kirk's middle inital really is "R") leading to a TNG era where Picard is first officer of Jack Crusher's Enterprise-D.