Star Trek Plot Holes and Issues

  • Posted by flung
  • May 18, 2009

For the average person who normally isn’t into Star Trek, the new J.J. Abrams version of Trek is certainly entertaining. It has all the elements to a summer blockbuster hit. Action, some suspense, special effects, loud booms etc etc.
For the hardcore Trekker like me, I can’t help but feel disappointed with the new Trek film. Yes, it’s exciting to see a new face for Trek but at what cost? BSG got "rebooted" nicely with a challenging story line and wonderful acting. Could the same be said of Star Trek? Doubtful. If anything, using time travel to change the Trek universe simply provides Abrams a clean slate to work with. Damn the cannon he says.. throw it out the window. With that said, here are my list of plot holes, and issues with the new Trek film.Spoilers abound so if you haven’t seen the flick - don’t read this.

1. Technobabble. We all know Trek suffered from too much technobabble through the years - from Star Trek TNG all the way to ST Enterprise. For Star Trek, we’ve got one MAJOR technobabble. RED MATTER. WTH.. this red goo which looks like blood is arguably the most powerful and destructive force known to the Star Trek universe. I mean - IT CREATES BLACK HOLES FOR GOODNESS SAKES. Now with that said.. why in God’s name is Spock carrying so much of it when a simple drop of Red Matter creates the black hole necessary to suck in that supernova anyhow?

2. The Supernova premise. You’re telling me there was a supernova so large that it posed a galactic threat? Excuse me?

3. So Nero sees Romulus get destroyed.. he blames Spock so he decides to go after him at the same time Spock is trying to stop the supernova. They both get sucked into the black hole.. and then each appears in different points in time in the past. You’re telling me that Nero was sooo hell bent on making Spock suffer that he sat around for 25 years waiting for him to appear? You’re telling me he figured out exactly where Spock would appear? Nero is a mining guy right? Guess he’s pretty bright in science too.

4. Uhura orders a Cardassian drink. Uh.. hello.. Cardassians weren’t introduced until the 24th century Trek

5. Speaking of not being introduced yet, at this point in time, Earth shouldn’t be aware of what the Romulans look like. Vulcans don’t even know they’re related to the Romulans mind you (Re: Unification Parts 1 and 2). Starfleet doesn’t first see a Romulan until Balance of Terror episode in ST TOS.

6. I’m sick of Time Travel and all the paradoxes it provides. Sure one could argue this is a parallel universe of sorts but come on now.. Spock goes from one alternate timeline and effects the past - thereby changing everything. Actually it’s Nero who really starts messing thins up. ANYHOW, once Spock and Nero changes things in the past, it affects the future and therefore their own destinies. And hence, we have these time travel paradoxes. LAME!!! Trek continually suffers from overuse of Time Travel stories. Let’s be original Trek.. think of something else

7. OK.. so let’s get this straight. A core dump of the Warp Engine is going to help the Enterprise escape a frigging black hole. And what is the Warp Engine? A delicate balance of matter and anti-matter according to traditional Trek lore. Sure.. combine the two and you’re gonna get a big bang.. but here’s the problem. You dump the core, the Enterprise drops out of warp and guess what? It should get sucked into the black hole IMMEDIATELY. Yet somehow.. it manages to stay just far enough so it won’t get sucked in immediately. Yeah. right.

8. The Space Jump from Pike’s shuttle. Um.. first of all - shouldn’t the more advanced Romulan mining ship have picked up three small blips flying down towards the drill platform? Second.. once they pick up these three small blips - won’t that piss them off and make them attack the Enterprise? If so.. then wouldn’t it have made more sense for the Enterprise to simply fire their phasers at the drill? I mean seriously now.. the Romulans were going to figure out that the drill was being sabotaged.

9. Which brings me to the notion of blocked communications and transporters. Um.. let’s get this straight.. the Enterprise couldn’t impulse themselves to the other side of the planet to get a clear transmission to Vulcan? You’re telling me that single drill was going to block transmissions all around the planet?

10. BTW - where is the vaunted Vulcan fleet? Those of you familiar with Star Trek First Contact and Star Trek Enterprise know the Vulcans have far better vehicles in space. Um.. where are they exactly? Vulcans look a wee bit backwards here don’t they?

11. The poor Vulcan elders.. they’re standing in this cavern that happens to be crumbling around them and you’re telling me that they don’t think at all to escape? It takes Spock to run in to make them realize something’s afoot? Uh lame.

12. Why in the world would Nero need the subspace codes from Pike when his ship is clearly more powerful than anything Starfleet has? He destroys one ship after another and he needs to sneak into Earth orbit? Um. yeah.OK.

13. What’s up with the lame Starship command structure? The first officer and captain are incapacitated and all hell breaks loose?

14. Remember the Kelvin? Explain to me how this starship doesn’t get its arse wiped out of space by the Romulan mining ship? This is the same Romulan ship that destroys the incoming armada of Starfleet vessels in no time (actually in a few minutes since the Enterprise got stuck back at Spacedock to the exterior inertia dampeners). So a starship 25 yrs older manages to survive long enough to ram into the ship. Right.

15. So Spock shows Scotty how to perform transwarp beaming. Why doesn’t he go ahead and show Scotty and the rest of the Enterprise how to make their phasors more powerful.. or their deflectors better? I suppose that would take too long but guess what? Time’s already screwed up so why not screw it up some more?

16. Oh yeah.. the Enterprise goes OUT OF ITS WAY to save the Vulcan elders only to have the elders stay on the ship while the Enterprise attacks Nero’s ship. If the Enterprise is destroyed, bye bye Vulcan elders.

I’m sure there are more.. but that’s it for now.

In a word… Star Trek is full of holes that make the story utterly ridiculous. I miss BSG.

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May 18th, 2009
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  • lee66132000
    Could someone please explain how a cadet in his third year ended up as first officer of Starfleet's new flagship and later captain?  And Kirk didn't even save Earth.  Spock did.  Kirk reminded Pike of what happened around the time of his birth and later, saved Pike (with the latter's assistance).  And when Kirk argued with Spock on the bridge, why didn't Spock simply remove Kirk's temporary position of First Officer and have his ass tossed into the bridge?
  • Donal
    agree with that, it was painfully boring. BSG shows what you can do with some original storytelling, stop looking to the past star trek writers.
  • One thing bothers me was how Kirk, a cadet who hasn't been deployed in space before, ends up as Captain of the Enterprise at the end of the movie. Yeah, he saved the planet but he had help. The movie gives the impression that Starfleet are full of cadets with few senior staff. I don't car for Kirk's arrogance in this movie especially during the Maru Test. This is today's generation Star Trek but not mines.
  • Mark
    Just watched it on Netflix.  Sure it has lots of plot let-downs. Some so oddly large in fact you could drive a truck through them. I've been around the web reading some of the trekkies, (and treckkers evidentially since the documentary) go all "geek raging" over the time travel stuff. Funny as hell, but this guy here on this blog made me laugh out loud with his practicality based statements like number one. 
       I get what Abrams is trying to do with getting rid of the old, incredibly bloated history of the movies, T.V. shows etc.,but the one thing that chipped me off was his getting rid of the Vulcans. I always liked them. I thought they were a good mirror for the human characters. You never know, perhaps the next film will be about having to put the universe right again. 
       As I watched it I thought a better premise might be that the movie opens with the universe already in disarray because of all this. (Wasn't it Star Trek that had an evil alternate universe with Spock in a goatee or something? I think I remember that... I don't know, I'm neither a trekkie or a trekker.) Anyway, We're shown a universe that makes all the die-hards squirm in their seats, but the final scene has the team on the bridge in nice shiny uniforms with everything all right in the universe once again to ride off into the proverbial sunset. If the old guard got more of what they wanted, they might have forgiven the factual, ( theoretical I guess in terms of time travel) stuff a bit more.
    P.S. I thought it was hilarious that Kirk's fighting style is to get his ass handed to him by basically everyone.
  • Poi7
    Your 6th point complete negates your whole critique. Alternate Universe from the day the Romulans appeared on the other side of the wormhole. That's that.
  • Daycrist21
    Number 4: It was a drink there are many other species so the name of the drink and the drink could have been transferred as such

    Number 7: Yes when the Warp Core is Ejected it goes offline.....but there is still a channel of energy running through the Nacelles which does give some time....not alot since they were at high warp but some

    Number 10: When the Federation was formed all the races that joined dismantled their own fleets and put resources and technology towards Starfleet to enhance and build their ships.

    Number 14: I'm not so sure about your explaination here as even the officers on the Kelvin where stating that it was like they didn't even have any Shields up

    Number 15: Why Spock gave them technology well beyond their scope who knows....but I would like to point out that even in TNG they state That Doing Transport during warp is unsafe and mostly They do it before they go to warp and as Undiscovered Country pointed out there is still a Range limit....
  • I wrote up a MAJOR plot hole here: http://davesgeekyideas.com/201...

  • Poppyooooo
    I also had a problem with the idea that when Nero gets to the past he just doesn't go to Vulcan and destroy it right away! By destroying Vulcan he destroys Spock thus saving Romulas in the future. Doesn't this make sense? Nothing about this movie made sense to me!
  • Morgan
    Most of those "plot" holes aren't plot holes at all, they're explained through other media/deleted scenes and commentaries...

    1 - True.

    2 - Supernova, it's stated elsewhere (I believe in the prequel comic that was released), that the supernova was going to cause a chain reaction in other stars in the neighboring area, which in turn would go nova, doing the same to others and so on. It needed to be stopped.

    3 - Mining guy knowing these things, true. Him doing it because he lost his home world and wife and family, also very easily believed, he focused all that hate and sorrow for losing all that on a hatred for Spock, who had promised to save him. How exactly he knew where to be is easy, where they came out before will probably be the same again right? Or at least nearby (I'd have to re-watch the film to be sure).

    4 - Cardassian drinks may have reached Earth through trade way before Starfleet made first contact.

    5 - True, but this is a "mirror" universe

    6 - Time Travel is a staple of Sci-Fi, especially Star Trek, the writer is just banged up because it was a clever and respectable way of Abram's to give Star Trek a new run, without ruining our cannonicity that we all as trekies know and love.

    7 - The subspace bubble formed by entering warp remains stable for a short while when a warp core is shut down without "slowing" first. It could be argued that the warp core ejection should have popped the bubble of course, but without sitting and arguing the finer points of warp-theory this would get nowhere.

    8 - Small objects no bigger than 2 meters in height. If the crew are focusing on the Enterprise I would not be surprised if the crewman on the Narada responsible for watching Sensors did not see it, call it "Human" error.

    9 - I think by this point the Enterprise had been told not to move?

    10 - Good question... but they never let us into the world far enough to see how different this new alternate universe is.

    11 - Stupid Vulcans.

    12 - I still think a large amount of defences would overwhelm the Narada, I may be grabbing at straws but still... a "mounted/fixed" phaser turret platform must have access to far more power than a standard ship mounted turret. And there might be a lot more, along with primary and secondary shield defences etc. Without knowing more about what defences Earth has in this universe it's hard to know... Still, the Narada was bad-ass and proved to kick the butt of the entire Starfleet armada so it's still questionable as to why Nero felt it necessary to sneak...

    13 - It was a mining ship turned pirate ship. Course it was crazy.

    14 - the Narada just came through a fricking black hole!!

    15 - The Temporal Prime directive, is quoted somewhere as stating that you have to minimilise damage to the time line as much as possible. Plus Spock doesn't know how far advanced Starfleet has become since he changed the time line. We already know meeting the Narada caused Starfleet to start developing tech at a faster rate of knots.

    16 - The Enterprise went out of it's way to save Spock's Mother and Father, being on a starship about to go into battle is safer than being on a planet crumbling into a black hole I think you'd agree, I'd favour my chances on the starship thankyou very much.
  • But not the movie. Media books and deleted scenes are not considered canon. The movie should tell the whole story within the confines of the movie. Many deleted scenes have alternated endings that for one reason or another was removed. The scene was shot and exist but not used. We can make up any reason we like to fit the facts hence the countless debates online. It's best to say Abrams didn't tell the whole story in the movie as entertaining as it is.
  • Aliggt
    Even if Spock was able to black hole a sun to save a planet, the planet would go dead from the lack of the sun. Little redundant.
  • rob
    I know this is an old article, but I agree with most of what you say. #10 was the most mind-boggling. For centuries, Vulcan was ahead of Earth up to the founding of the Federation, yet a century after that, they depend on a dozen starships flying all the way from Earth to save them?? No planetary defenses, no starships already in the sector, nothing at all?? Geez. And the planet explodes and creates a new alternative reality that is so different from what all the other shows, movies, books, etc creates that it literally just makes me give up on the whole franchise. :-P
  • I agree. How many times did we see Enterprise leaving space dock to save Earth under less than idea circumstances. Leaving space dock is like rebooting the movie each time and you begin to wander if the Enterprise ever leaves Earth except when it's movie time.
  • Mejensen77
    It was a good action movie, but yeah if you were a fan of star trek, then there are so many plot holes. One big one everyone seems to miss is that if the Romulans have a huge fleet some of which use an artificial black hole as a power source, why in the hell would they need a federation or vulcan, or maybe even a tiny romulan ship depending on where Spock is (Did they ever explain that?) to create a black hole? If the star went supernova close enough to romulus to be a problem wouldn't they have a star map that says hey, this star is getting close to going supernova then maybe we should do something about it or take some precautions? I mean stars go supernova when fusion starts to create iron, and then the force of fusion overcomes gravity throwing all the mass of the star out into the universe, but I guess Romulans have a good enough knowledge of the universe, to conquer vast areas of space, create artificial blackholes, thalaron weapons capable of destroying populations of entire planets, just aren't very good at stellar cartography. Or the other theory that it went Super Nova in federation space, then it could pose a threat to Vulcan or Earth, and the Federation should've done something, so I guess all political leaders in the future have very diminished metal capacities.. They need to do a section 31 movie to fix all these plot holes...
  • D
    1/2: Valid points. The whole "supernova that absorbs matter and becomes bigger" isn't unheard of though, it's similar to the notion behind strange matter, out of quantum physics.

    3: If you saw your entire planet destroyed, and held one person responsible for it, it's likely you'd want to get back at them too. He actually spends a lot of that 25 years in Rura Penthe, in a scene cut from the movie.

    4: Cardassians may be around in the earlier centuries. Just because we didn't see them until the 24th century doesn't mean they didn't exist.

    5: At this point they had enchanted Romulans before (Earth-Romulan War), they just hadn't seen them. So when Nero hails them, well, they see them then.

    6: Not a time paradox. They created an alternate reality. That's the movie's explanation. No paradoxes there - see Picard in All Good Things. Same concept.

    7: The core, ejected behind the ship and towards the black hole, would have reached the blackhole and thereby exploded before the ship would get sucked in.

    8: True, the Enterprise should've just fired on it. But Pike was probably hoping they could disable the drill and escape while the Romulans were distracted - if they opened fire on the drill, Nero would just destroy them.

    9: Subspace doesn't work on the same principles as space. If it was blocking subspace transmissions, being on the other side of the planet would probably not have helped much. That also would've taken time, and risked Nero blowing them out of the sky as they tried to run.

    10: Vulcans likely stopped having the majority of their fleet when the Federation was created, something like 50 or more years before this movie even takes place.

    11: As you noted earlier, the Vulcan elders haven't heard anything from space. All they know is that their planet is undergoing seismic activity. They don't know that there's a blackhole being formed - nor do they have a means of escaping the planet (which is a bit odd, you'd assume they'd have an escape craft).

    12: The Narada is more powerful, but all the ships warping in didn't have shields up, making them easy pickings. Fighting a starbase would probably still tax the ship, since all it has are missiles.

    13: The ship is being piloted by most of a class of cadets. The command structure also broke down because Pike named Kirk first officer, which was unprecedented (and more questionable than anything you've noted past 1 and 2 so far).

    14: It put its shields up before it took a missile to the face. The other ships going to Vulcan probably didn't. Why Starfleet sent a dozen or so ships to Vulcan for a geological disturbance is also a problem.

    15: Spock may give them the tech later. But giving technology without explicating how it was developed and how it would be used doesn't benefit Starfleet much, and while he's very intelligent, he's not an android.

    16: If the Enterprise was destroyed, the elders would die anyway when Earth or wherever else was destroyed by Nero.
  • Xexoxiq
    It is a BLACK HOLE. Not even LIGHT can escape it. Ones the Warp drive goes offline, ZIP. Sucked in there in a flash. Not a hard concept to grasp.

    The Warp Engines have to go offline in order to EJECT them. Your whole anti-list to the original is full of PLOT-HOLES. Go figure.
  • MayaAyala
    Just FYI: It wasn't a full scale black hole.  It was a small scale black hole created by the release of fictional "red matter."  

    Even smaller scale black holes can be created in labs here on Earth (such as with the Large Hadron Collider).  So, theoretically, a warp core (which doesn't exist) might be able to have quite an impact on a small scale black hole created by red matter (which also doesn't exist).  After all, it is science FICTION.

    ;-)
  • Janal
    Fiction or not, the science in Star Trek is based on fact. This Star Trek is not. The Black Hole you speak of is not really a black hole, it is a mimicking gravitational mock-up. It MIMICS the bending and consumption of light, and worked slowly and in some cases poorly. 

    The Black Hole in the movie (Star Trek 2009), is massive, large and once the warp core is ejected, guess what? Nothing is stopping the enterprise from being sucked in instantaneously into the black hole with the warp cores. 

    This is not a hard concept to get.
  • Xexoxiq
    Correction: Ones is supposed to be ONCE. Once the Warp drive goes offline.
  • David
    Very belated comments... Firstly you've said just about everything that needs to be said but I'll toss in a few more that I picked up elsewhere and have myself thought of. I'm sick and tired of time paradoxes and the fact that Abrams relies on this old canard shows how lazy he is... or is he simply "lost". Once can only take this crap so much before you want to scream. "enough already". How is it that a mining ship gets cast back into time and supposedly destroys war fleets on more than one occasion? Why waste decades waiting or screwing off when you already know the future and can possibly save your planet? Drill platform needs to punch a hole in a planet in order to insert a drop of red matter that pretty much doesn't give a damn whether you drilled a hole or not. Why not launch torpedoes with the goop on board! Enterprise engine room scenes look like we're in a warehouse with even liquid lying around the floor! Scotty materializes in a coolant tube and you'd think it would be so frigging HOT it would boil a human alive wouldn't you? Planetary defenses for Earth? Only the ships that were vaporized by a MINING vessel? Jeeez! Here is a winner.... Vulcans have been exploring the galaxy for quite some time but manage to park 99.9% of themselves on the home world leaving a minute number in the tens of thousands elsewhere. Is that for religious reasons? Planetary defenses for Vulcan? Battle Cruisers? Hello! Anybody home?! Anybody? Younger Spock getting his emotional "freak" on with Uhura? Give me a break! Not gonna happen. And so the story goes.... I left feeling as though Abrams, while doing a noteworthy job of turning out an exciting "story" for the ignorant and easily bamboozled, exercised literary necrophilia with the Star Trek canon.
  • glangmead
    I just saw this last night. You certainly captured a lot of the problems I had with the story as well. It was nowhere near as strong a story as we should expect from a serious attempt to resuscitate the franchise. And here's the other thing that bothers me, which is the silliness of this movie. None of the characters are taken seriously by the script! They're mostly one-dimensional. Sulu, Chekov and Scotty are practically comic relief. Except when Sulu and Kirk are on the platform, and then Sulu's a martial arts action hero. And no one seems to have any difficulties in a crisis... Chekov stares at the screen and through his genius manages to transport Kirk and Sulu back to the ship (where their momentum is magically removed and they barely hit the floor very hard at all -- but maybe I just don't understand transporters). Later, Chekov figures out how to hide in Saturn, which is close to typical Star Trek technobabble but still silly. And Scotty with that warp core trick... I mean, are they silly or are they geniuses? Either way, that's not what made these characters interesting before. They had *teams* under them, they had a work ethic, nothing came easily, know what I'm saying?
  • Sinfanti
    Excellent list.

    Addendum to Point #3: Apparently he's not so bright, because in that 25 years of waiting it never occurred to him to travel to Romulus and tell them to evacuate before the calamity 100+ years later. Sure it would create a paradox, but what's one more when the writers don't care about them in the first place.

    An excellent movie, just as long as I don't let myself think too much (which in this case seems to be at all).
  • scorchedearth
    Thank you very much for your thorough criticism of the movie. I had problems with the mediocre plot line and the rehashing of cheap themes. For my opinions, I have been vilified by the insipid masses who know nothing of good complex stories with overlapping plot threads that are coherent and form a larger story - none of which this movie had.

    This movie was moderately entertaining at best. It was certainly not a Star Trek movie. It was an action movie.
  • Ramius
    Double Amen! Agree with all points and Thomas' as well. This is not a Star Trek movie... it is an action movie... that is it. I am not like the hard core Trekkies but for God's sake I like some consistency, good story line and plot development instead of in jokes thrown all around (Red matter - as in from Alias?).

    The movie was good, but doesn't reach Dark Knight levels to reboot the franchise, which in the end is a solely profit-making endeavor that disregards previous story lines and canon. Rebadge the whole thing to Galaxy Quest and change the names and you'd get the same thing..... a good action movie....
  • Thomas
    Amen, brother. I am getting so sick of the rave reviews this movie is getting. I am not a die hard Trek fan. I didn't even notice that Uhura ordered a Cardassian drink, nor would I have cared if I had. But the rest of what you say is spot on. The most that you can say for this movie is that it had excellent effects. Everything else about it was awful. Plot holes galore, poor character development, and way too many coincidences for me to be able to suspend my disbelief. Keep on keeping on.
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