Which Star Trek movie has got the most plot holes? And the least?

[Lance]

A comment on another thread inspired this.

A lot of the Star Trek movies have got plot holes. But which one do you think has got it the worst? And which one do you think manages to sail through with the least plot holes?

For the most plot holes I think Generations. The nexus ribbon is just one big headache that tears holes right through that script like it's been written on tin foil. Nemesis is a close second thanks to Shinzon's rapid mood swings from one motivation to another.

And which one has the least plot holes? I don't know. Maybe The Motion Picture or The Voyage Home are the most 'straight-forward' of all the movie plots, so neither of them really stretch credibility. Maybe TMP just edges it.

But what do you guys think?

 

[Belz...]

I'd think TMP has very few plot holes if any.

The most ? First Contact doesn't make sense at all, so I'd say that one wins it.

 

[RXTT]

J.J. "plot-holes" Abrams

 

[BillJ]

The Motion Picture, its a pretty straight-forward story.

The rest of them all have massive plot-holes. The only Trek film I actively dislike is Insurrection and it has nothing to do with plot-holes.

 

[Dukhat]

J.J. "plot-holes" Abrams

This topic is about Trek movies I-X, not the Abrams films.

 

[RXTT]

I stand corrected. For me the most plot-holes are in the final TNG movie.

 

[TheMurph]

The least I would say would be TMP, for the most, I would say a toss up between Nemesis and TFF.

Of course I can overlook the ones in TFF more than in Nemesis.

 

[F. King Daniel]

TMP has a HUGE plot hole. A near-god-like living machine, which can digitize entire worlds and star systems and created a near-perfect android duplicate of Illia, never thought to wipe the muck off it's name plate?

Wrath of Khan's entire "two dimensional thinking" thing made zero sense, especially if Khan is the genius he's repeatedly said to be. There are also problems with Ceti Alpha VI somehow blowing up, the Reliant somehow not noticing such a massive change in the solar system (did nobody count the planets?). And why didn't Khan just beam Kirk up for torture and execution when he took the entirely magical Genesis device? Which somehow despite being designed to convert the surface of a barren world into a living planet, managed to build an entire world (and star!) out of a nebula?

Search For Spock is pure Vulcan hocus pocus, with not an ounce of realism or science fiction. Spock's ageing just happening to sync up with them arriving and leaving... uh huh. Also, Excelsior spluttering to a halt totally ignoring the laws of physics.

Bored now. But there are more. Lots more. And people like to pretend JJ Abrams' Treks invented plot holes. LOL!

(and I love the old movies too!)

 

[Belz...]

TMP has a HUGE plot hole. A near-god-like living machine, which can digitize entire worlds and star systems and created a near-perfect android duplicate of Illia, never thought to wipe the muck off it's name plate?

Why would it ?

Wrath of Khan's entire "two dimensional thinking" thing made zero sense, especially if Khan is the genius he's repeatedly said to be.

Intelligence doesn't give you extra knowledge out of nothing, though.

And why didn't Khan just beam Kirk up for torture and execution when he took the entirely magical Genesis device?

He didn't have coordinates, and couldn't see through the rock. When they beamed down from Regula I, they didn't see where the coordinates were leading.

Which somehow despite being designed to convert the surface of a barren world into a living planet, managed to build an entire world (and star!) out of a nebula?

Genesis Magic aside, the star was already there.

Also, Excelsior spluttering to a halt totally ignoring the laws of physics.

I... never noticed that.

 

[Tosk]

So far, the only specifics brought up are just gripes about storytelling choices rather than actual plot holes. I'd have to see a list of real plot holes before deciding.

 

[SeerSGB]

Least: TMP. Like others said, it's a very Point A to Point B story.

Most is a tie between: TFF and FC.
-- TFF relies on Sybok getting a ship he can take over. And given that both the Klingons and Romulans would probably just kill him on sight, that leaves the Federation. And then it has to be a Feddie ship he can take over. Had it been a fully crewed and armed ship (say Excelsior for example), he'd been properly fucked over. Plus Kirk acts like an idiot: Why risk a ground engagement? Ship's phasers to stun (unless the refit did away with that option), stun the city, extract hostages, lock the rest in the brig.

-- FC relies on Data being so hot for the Borg Queen And jonesing to be human that he wastes the whole movie waiting for Picard to show up and have his Die Hard moment before trashing the coolant tanks--which just happen to be completely out in the open and as brittle as glass.

 

[Yeoman Basha]

I agree with the sentiment of TMP having the fewest plot holes. It makes perfect sense to me that VGer would never want to wipe the old name off. It wanted to know more about its own origins.

Most plot holes would go to Nemesis, because to me, Shinzon was one giant walking plot hole. I never bought for one moment that he was Picard's clone, nor did I ever believe that the Romulans would just roll over and agree to make this human/Reman Praetor after a terrorist attack.

All the films have plot holes but one of my pet peeves has to do with Wrath of Khan. Ar the end of Space Seed, we see that Khan was marooned with his crew -- who are all ADULTS approximately Khan's own age. In WOK, which takes place 15 years later, Khan is surrounded entirely by 20-somethings, with not one adult in sight. So ALL of the adults died, except for Khan? And I guess before they died the Augments had a lot of babies in the first couple of years and Augment children just grow up really really fast?

I know they wanted to set Khan up as a mirror of Kirk, who was surrounded by a young crew, but this was just stupid. And the Ceti Alpha 5/6 confusion was stupid, too. Seriously, they don't bother to count the planets?

 

[Belz...]

-- TFF relies on Sybok getting a ship he can take over. And given that both the Klingons and Romulans would probably just kill him on sight, that leaves the Federation.

I still have a tough time believing the Romulans wouldn't send a ship there. Klingons, sure, they don't care. But the skeleton crew 1701-A is the only ship sent ? Why is that planet even important, then ?

Ship's phasers to stun (unless the refit did away with that option), stun the city, extract hostages, lock the rest in the brig.

I forgot they had that. Which episode was that in ?

-- FC relies on Data being so hot for the Borg Queen And jonesing to be human that he wastes the whole movie waiting for Picard to show up and have his Die Hard moment before trashing the coolant tanks--which just happen to be completely out in the opinion as brittle as glass.

I watched FC again the other day and I'm having more and more trouble getting into it. The whole idea that the Borg would wait at the very end of a pussy battle with the Federation to go back in time at a point where they would have a very small window of opportunity to screw over the Federation and assimilate Earth, rather than go back in time in their own space or outside Federation space and assimilate Earth at a time way before it had any means to defend itself, is ludicrous. At least The Final Frontier is unintentionally fun.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Intelligence doesn't give you extra knowledge out of nothing, though.

Except "space" is literally defined as three-dimensional.

 

[Belz...]

Tell that to Khan.

 

[SpHeRe31459]

Ship's phasers to stun (unless the refit did away with that option), stun the city, extract hostages, lock the rest in the brig.

I forgot they had that. Which episode was that in ?

A Piece of the Action. Kirk tells them to stun the whole street area outside the building he's in currently as a non-lethal show of force to get the mob bosses to submit to the Federation as their new "boss."

 

[marksound]

I saw Nimbus 3 as more or less a failed experiment, but none of the govts involved would admit it. So, that left the 3 ambassadors there basically forgotten.

Sybok saw it as an opporunity. He gambled that at least one of the 3 govts would send a ship to rescue the "hostages" rather than lose face. He was lucky and got the Enterprise.

 

[SeerSGB]

-- TFF relies on Sybok getting a ship he can take over. And given that both the Klingons and Romulans would probably just kill him on sight, that leaves the Federation.

I still have a tough time believing the Romulans wouldn't send a ship there. Klingons, sure, they don't care. But the skeleton crew 1701-A is the only ship sent ? Why is that planet even important, then ?

Ship's phasers to stun (unless the refit did away with that option), stun the city, extract hostages, lock the rest in the brig.

I forgot they had that. Which episode was that in ?

-- FC relies on Data being so hot for the Borg Queen And jonesing to be human that he wastes the whole movie waiting for Picard to show up and have his Die Hard moment before trashing the coolant tanks--which just happen to be completely out in the opinion as brittle as glass.

I watched FC again the other day and I'm having more and more trouble getting into it. The whole idea that the Borg would wait at the very end of a pussy battle with the Federation to go back in time at a point where they would have a very small window of opportunity to screw over the Federation and assimilate Earth, rather than go back in time in their own space or outside Federation space and assimilate Earth at a time way before it had any means to defend itself, is ludicrous. At least The Final Frontier is unintentionally fun.

Piece Of The Action, they orbitally stunned the city/city block

 

[Dukhat]

I think Nemesis has the biggest plot hole, and it even has a name: Shinzon.

1. Shinzon was created twenty years before Nemesis to be a clone of Picard. Why? Why would the Romulans of twenty years before have known where Picard was going to end up in the future? He would have just been captain of the Stargazer at the time, just another average officer commanding an average ship.

2. For some reason the Romulans put Shinzon in command of their forces during the Dominion war, even though they seem to hate Shinzon's guts. Again, why?

3. Shinzon and the Remans somehow build this huge battleship in secret under the Romulan overseers' noses. While being slaves. How the fuck did they manage to pull that off?

4. Shinzon somehow finds a Soong-type android, and knows how to reprogram it even though it's been stated in the past that no one knows how to operate Data's systems except Dr. Soong.

5. Shinzon needs Picard's blood to survive. So what does he do? He breaks B4 up into five pieces (why?) and hides them all over a planet with hostile natives who almost kill Picard when he tries to retrieve B4. WTF?

6. As stated above, time's running out for Shinzon who desperately needs Picard's blood. So why does he make Picard wait 17 hours before showing himself? And why does he waste time mind-raping Deanna when he's dying and Picard's right there?

7. Why doesn't Shinzon just tell Picard the truth about needing his blood? I'm sure Crusher could have found a way to give Shinzon what he needed without Picard having to sacrifice his life.

8. Why does Shinzon decide to attack Earth? He doesn't have anything against humans; it's the Romulans he hates.

9. And on that note, why does he let the Romulans who helped him kill the Senate boss him around? Why doesn't he just kill them too?

10. And the worst offender of all: Why doesn't Shinzon have hair?

 

[Maurice]

In TMP:
How does V'ger even know its name? I suppose you could argue that once it zaps Ilia it has access to her memory and can then recognize the letters on its nameplate. Upon realizing these marks mean something, you'd think the first thing it would do is scan the holy fuck out of that nameplate for more information. It is rather a logic problem that the writers didn't consider.

TWOK hangs on a dozen too-convenient coincidences, including: Reliant can't tell one planet from another, Ceti Eels only make victims susceptible to the bad guy's suggestion, Kirk just happens to be on the Enterprise when normally he isn't, Genesis is a Manhattan Project in space with zip security, Enterprise can detect Reliant on the opposite side of Regula but not vice-versa, and when Genesis blows up in a nebula instead of on a planet as designed, it miraculously sucks all the nebula material into a planet which just conveniently happens to be in the Goldilocks zone around a convenient star.

Plot Hole-ier than thou.