Sunday Mashup: Even More Star Trek Mistakes September 28, 2008
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Humor, Trek Franchise , trackback
If there is one thing that Trekkies love to talk about it is ‘continuity’ (or the much more biblical sounding ‘canon’). Although the history of Trek holds together pretty well, the record is not spotless, as was highlighted in two past ‘Star Trek Mistakes’ mashups posted here last October. Now Roman B (aka GeneralGrin) has let us know about parts three and four of his ongoing opus.
Part 3
Part 4
…and if you missed them last year, here are Parts 1 and 2
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Cool, I always love these videos. Keem ‘em coming! And, for those of you who haven’t already read them, try to pick up Phil Farrand’s “Nitpicker’s Guides”… always fun!
A few of these are great finds! Some are real nitpicks, but hey, we’re Trek fans!
“Suits me, I just bought a boat!”
“We can boost that capability on the order of 1 to the 4th power”
1×1x1×1=1
Admirals: “hmmm…..”
ROFLMAO
I love these videos
It’s hard to imagine blog sites without Youtube.
#6 – Ha… I’m looking at this at work and they have youtube blocked. This article is mostley blank webpage!
Alot of these are very very tenuous
Agreed #8, for example, the medical instruments on the sickbay wall were obviously displayed as antiques mounted on a frame. I enjoy genuine nits as much as anyone but this is one nit I’ll nit right back.
I don’t agree the if the instruments were for display why weren’t they behind a glass? they were obviously there for the doctor to use.
these compilation are spot on
Nitpcking makes my mind explode.
I found a few errors in the mistakes footage. Although most were entirely accurate, and are always amusing to see mashed up together like this, there are a few that were mashup mistakes.
1) The “Fire Suppression System” mashup mistake: If I recall correctly, it was stated that the Fire Suppression System was offline in the episode where Riker and Worf entered the room to rescue Alexander and the wildlife.
2) Worf sleeping in Bed mashup mistake: Worf had spent most of his life living among humans and had simply acclimated.
3) The Phaser issue was simply done for dramatic license. As were the survival suits.
Otherwise the mashup is perfect. Star Trek, nor any other show, is 100% perfect. The “does the Federation have money or not” has been debated for quite a while, remember in DS9 the Starfleet officers were able to “buy” things in Quark’s Bar too, and Quark only accepted money in some fashion. In fact, Ronald D. Moore apparently often disliked how the TNG era had “no money” as they clearly did in TOS. Even in the games, they could never come up with a way for the Federation not to have money and they always called the monetary unit Credits, which is what the unit was called in TOS: “The Trouble with Tribbles” (seen in mashup video).
It’s always fun to see these mistake mashups. Gotta love them.
11, good point but it’s always fun to see these videos.
Great fun……..thanks!
12 LoyalStarTrekFan
“It’s always fun to see these mistake mashups. Gotta love them.”
Agreed
Some good points there…
I am pretty sure most of the Star Trek mistakes can be solved with a little bit of creative writing.
To add to #12;
It seems a nitpick is made in how the moon looks different with 50 million inhabitants on it, even though in other shots in the 24th century, it still looks the same.
Well, in the real world, even with 6 billion people on Earth, you can’t really tell they’re there just by looking at it!
Riker is in error, but not in the way we think.
“…why did they always had trouble finding Data?”
Did the LolCats handle the captions?
No find Data. Find cheezburger.
And in Space Seed, I think McCoy’s cutty thingies were antiques.
#10 If they were behind glass and inaccessible, then we wouldn’t have had much of a story for Khan would we? ;-)
Although I always thought that having these, very sharp instruments, uncovered and easily removed in the same room as say where there might be disturbed patients was not exactly showing the starship designers high IQ… ;-)
But it is fun to nitpick, n’est-ce pas?
even if the medical knives were just for show… that means that Mccoy respects ancient medical history… so why was he so angry (and surprised) over the doctors in the 20′th century using those instruments? it still makes no sense.
On Kirk’s Enterprise, every galactic speedbump makes people fly around the room… so sharp cutty things going flying would not be a great idea. But hey — we really are talking about 1960’s TV here.
“Sound doesn’t travel through the vacuum of space” – OH WELL, WE KNOW THAT (:
I wonder: Does anyone know any SF-movie/-franchise BESIDES “2001: A Space Odyssey” which ever bothered about that?
21- Kirk’s… emphasis… doestravelthrough… a vacuum.
Some of this stuff is spot on, and pretty funny. Some of it is a little nitpicky though, and you can come up with your own explanation. Picard saying he doesn’t dance early in the series, doesn’t mean it’s a law of physics that’s unchangeable.
22- Yeah, let’s make this the canon-explanation for any sound effect on Trek!
…. and any other SF-movie… besides 2001… oh well, whatever…
Mission to Mars (which was 2001 Lite anyway)
Silent Running (coincidentally enough)
Countdown (dated, but still worth a look to see Robert Duvall, plus Ted Knight in a serious roll)
we can assume picard lied when he said he doesn’t dance. but then crusher said she also thought he didn’t dance.. then in insurrection she said that he used to be a good dancer in his youth…
as for sound through space, its one thing to have sound effects, but its another when someone tried to talk to someone else through a space suit and in space (and we didn’t see him activate a comlink or something, so it does seem very odd for him to do that)
#21 – Does anyone know any SF-movie/-franchise BESIDES “2001: A Space Odyssey” which ever bothered about that?
Yes. Serenity did a good job of it.
A few nit-picks about the nit-picks.
Paris says “New world economy” not “New Federation economy”. Perhaps money is not needed on earth but other federation planets still use it.
Picard said “I don’t dance.”, not “I can’t dance.” It has been said many times that a captain must remain aloof from his/her crew. The times they showed him dancing were either in private or at an official function where it was expected of him.
The removable ears segment showed ears removed from the other head, not Data’s. Soong said “virtually identical.”
Starfleet Captains don’t know earth history? I don’t remember everything I was ever taught and I wouldn’t expect a person I am meeting to turn out to be a historical figure from 200 years ago even if he had the same name. “Hi, I’m Tom Jefferson.” he said. “THE Thomas Jefferson?” I asked. “No dummy, he died 200 years ago”.
I was a vegetarian for a while like Chakotay but now I eat meat sometimes. It’s not a binding contract.
Safety protocols on the holodeck–different ship, years later. Rules can change. I know on a military base the commander has discretion over certain rules even if they conflict with state law. For example the drinking age on one base was 18 for beer and wine (that states law was 21) but on another base the age was 21 for all alcohol. Believe me, 18 year olds away from home for the first time, under a lot of stress and allowed to drink, thats a questionable safety protocol, and it was real; not TV!
Borg baby–Riker does not know where the baby came from. He is speculating. Perhaps it came from a recently assimilated world.
Bashir didn’t know about klingon transformation. Perhaps to keep the peace starfleet didn’t want to embarass the klingons by letting everyone know they had tried to improve themselves with human DNA.
Perhaps that individual “Euridian” didn’t have thumbs. Cut off as a punishment for making fun of the klingons for trying to improve themselves with human DNA.
Ancient medical instruments in sick bay–The fact he has the instruments on display could be a reminder of how far they have come. I work with electricity and keep a section of heavy guage cable that is melted, from a mistake I once witnessed, as a reminder to have respect for electricity. Not exactly the same, but you get the idea.
Sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum but don’t the suits have built in communicators? I guess what we were hearing was Kirk’s transmission and Spock didn’t respond because he was unconsious.
I know its all in fun and most of it is spot on. Don’t get me wrong, I am not upset by these things I pointed out and honestly, I could be wrong. I’m just offering up some possible alternate explanations. These mash ups are a lot of fun. We talk about the movie makers being true to the canon, but as you can see, theres a lot of wiggle room. We should all just relax and have fun with it.
#25 – Oh, Silent Running – yes, how could I forget about that. That one certainly has its flaws but IMHO it’s still easily one of the best 70’s Sci-Fi flicks.
#27 – Serenity? Really? I remember watching that (only the movie, not the TV-show, unfortunately) and when I wrote my post it came to my mind, too! But I wasn’t shure … oh well, but I guess you’re right then…
Okay, then let’s just say it’s common practice in Sci-Fi to ignore the silence of space (having a look at the bigger franchises: Trek, Wars, BSG, Babylon 5, Alien, etc.)
28. Leatherman
Good stuff, my thinking exactly!
The only one I can’t really think of an answer for is data’s cat, is it a he or a she? Maybe it’s a different cats and he just keeps calling them Spot?
Worf says they didn’t have phaser in the 22nd century and then we see Archer’s crew has them, maybe what they refer to as a phaser in Archers time isn’t the same as a phaser in the 24th century just as the way warp speed is measured differently in the 23rd and 24th century. The velocity and acceleration – original Cochrane Unit (OCU) warp scale was set differently until after 2312 after which time Starfleet adopted the modified Cochrane Unit (MCU) warp scale.
Yeah its fun to see what appears to be a mistake, and I love to see how people explain it away. Like I said earlier I am pretty sure most of the apparent mistakes in Star Trek cannon can be solved with a little bit of creative writing.
After 700 hours or so of Star Trek, there are bound to be a few continuity errors.
One of the most obvious ones deals with when the original series is set in the future. Sometimes they referred to contemporary events as 200 years ago, other times 300 years ago.
What is more obvious to me than continuity goofs is when they use a plot device to get out of a jam, then never use it again. Such as reconfiguring something in order to disable an enemy, then never using that trick again on another enemy. Or using the transporter or replicator to create an object or fix a problem, only to later have another problem that could have been solved with the same solution.
And the obvious one is sling-shotting around the sun in order to go back into time. Any hero or villian can just warp around a star and change any outcome they deem needing corrected. The timeline would be Swiss cheese, because everyone with a warpdrive would be doing it to “set things right” from their perspective.
#30 – Creative writing is fine but regarding ENT there certainly was a lack of it. I mean: The whole show was a giant retcon and therefore the writer’s staff should have kept TWO eyes on what once was stated as canon and not be coming up with stuff like “Oh, we desperately need a Borg-episode, just don’t let them say what they are”.
The only respect in which the writers staff really showed some imagination was the solution to the whole klingon forehead-dilemma.
# 32 Agreed. The klingon forehead explanation was extremely well done IMHO. Other than that, most of ENT was a mess. I still watched it, after all it was mostly “trekish”. But as my wife likes to point out, it was marketed to the 13 to 15 year old audience with all the near nudity and sexual situations that only appeared occaisionally in the other trek series. I had really hoped for a worthy addition to the franchise but it fell short. As you said, as a prequel, they paid less attention to canon than the other series when they should have been even more careful than the others.
Part 3 was very VERY good. About to watch part 4.
However the body is roughly 98% water, not 70%. McCoy was right.
Our brains are 76% water, lungs 90% water, blood is 84% water and blood plasma is 98% water.
the shield diagram in nemesis shows an early design from john eaves that was never used. this design was 6 years old, so they could have known… it’s the same that playmates used in 96 for the wrong toy :D
To all Canonites……nothing is perfect….These videos just go to show that dramatic liscense is needed sometimes….I am sure we will see it in the new movie but I bet it will be minimal on the major aspects (aka…no BSG re-envisioning) but we need ST to come into the 21st century and bring some new fans along the way….lighten up and try to enjoy the movie for what it is….whatever it is….
#36 Whenever there is a discussion on “canon”, someone always has to say “lighten up.” I don’t think anyone here is over the top or angry. We are just discussing our observations and most of us have said the mash ups are fun. Please don’t try to make us feel that we are over reacting just because we exchange opinions about it.
In fact I agree with you about the new movie. I hope they felt somewhat free to re-invent, even though they don’t like that word. Their fear of the “re-” words (re-invent, re-imagine, re-invigorate) may be based on not wanting to scare away the canonites, as you call them. But I think Trek needs a good shot of re-imagining to make it new and interesting for the modern audience. Times have changed and so should Trek. If they don’t reflect themes that today’s audiences can relate to, they won’t last.
It’s not like I was a huge fan of ENT (it was OK), but the perceived canon violations are far from the reason that ENT wasn’t as good as it could have been (and, off topic, neither was the fact that it was a prequel).
ENT failed simply because its story-telling was not well executed. As proven here, occasional canon violations are not enough to make a Star Trek series fail.
^
^^#38
That should say “not enough to make a Star Trek series or movie fail.”
In Part 2 when Data shows LaForge the picture of the Enterprise on the sheet of paper, LaForge would have been shown it upside down LOL. As when he spins in to show Data it is the correct way up.
How come no one mentioned that HAHA!
Decloaking . . .
I’d argue that Continuity and Canon are different things.
The above videos are really about Continuity.
The Continuity record is not bad, all-in-all, considering a hundred or so writers doing their thing undertight deadlines strung across 40 years.
Ultimately though you still need to tell an interesting and dramatic story.
Recloaking . . .
biggest continuity error… Chekov getting promoted but still just drivin’ tha’ Enterprize through space… same wit’ Uhuru et all…
Look, ye’ gunna have a Commander warpin’ ye’ aboot? He shoulda been standin’ behind an ensign repeatin’ Kirkie’s orders… least Sulu got a ship… Uhuru wuz like makin’ yer admin assistant a Vice President but still havin’ her type yer letters…
Oh, I just be funnin’… if ye’ were aboard tha’ Enterprize, ye’d never leave either… and it wuz that pink suit that held Chekov back…
Arrrrrrrrr…
I am completely over the differences in Klingon make up. To my knowledge how a Klingon looked never impacted a story on TOS. However… how the ROMULANS looked actually did impact the BALANCE OF TERROR episode and when the Romulans looked different on TNG there was no fan outcry like this Klingon business.
Where’s the crazy convoluted explanation about that?
#44 ” when the Romulans looked different on TNG there was no fan outcry like this Klingon business.”
Oh yes there was, at least in the circle of Trekdom here in my own personal part of the world. The ridiculous Spock wigged, Frankenstein foreheads drew a hug collective “WTF??”.
I’d say the martini and scotch “mistakes” were more a matter of the characters’ tastes rather than a real inconsistency.
I love these videos. Most of them are spot on but some can be explain f.e. . Sound doesn’t travel through the vacuum of space” we know but It is pretty clear Kirk has to be using spacesuit com-link to try talk to unconscious Spock.
#34 nope McCoy is wrong. When babies are born both male and female are about 78 percent water. As the body ages this changes dramatically. The human male at maturity is about 60 percent water and the adult human female is typically 55 percent water.
More money references:
McCoy to Spock in ST VI re: Chang quoting Shakespeare once too often:
“I’d pay real money if he’d shut up!”
Lt. DeSalle (TOS “Catspaw”) re: countering an alien force field:
“Maybe we can’t break it, but I’ll bet you credits to navy beans we can
put a dent in it.”
That’s all I can think of right now.
A lot of these are genuinely funny, but some are waaay too picky, and subject to interpretation.
No offense to #47, but you’re not me ; )
#38 and 39 is one person, #47 is another person.
Agreed, #48. Fun for YouTube cruisers, but as evidenced here, most Trek fans can take these ‘goofs’ and “blow them out of the stars”.
Chekov, who is this man! LOL
#38: Well, that’s exactly wat I intended to say: If the writers hadn’t suffered from a lack of imagination, they wouldn’t even have had to put any borg or Ferengi in the series (thereby ADDITIONALLY violating the canon … or – perhaps even more pathetic – desperately trying not to violate it). So, that so-called canon violation-issue wasn’t exactly what I was pointing at.
Anyway: canon-discussions are fun, aren’t they (:
They make us the proud geeks that we are. Aren’t we? AREN’T WE?
>> 38. Jackson Roykirk – September 29, 2008
It’s not like I was a huge fan of ENT (it was OK), but the perceived canon violations are far from the reason that ENT wasn’t as good as it could have been (and, off topic, neither was the fact that it was a prequel).
ENT failed simply because its story-telling was not well executed. As proven here, occasional canon violations are not enough to make a Star Trek series fail.<<
I have to agree. My kids were introduced to Star Trek via Enterprise. We were only able to watch part of season 4 (where we lived in season1 thru part of 4 didn’t have the show on TV). But the kids liked it. Now we’ve purchased the entire show (seasons 1 thru 4) and only have 6 episodes left to go before we’re done! Enterprise to say the least had some poor writing styles and redundant story telling styles. What I did find most often, is they would attempt to “smear” the canon, especially when the Augment’s story line was going. It wasn’t a full on attack on changing canon, but it wasn’t exactly as was told in TOS and other Trek entities.
After these 6 episodes are over is when I get to introduce my teenagers to three seasons of TOS. I think that will probably spark an interest in the movies and TNG, DS9 and possibly Voyager. . . The jury’s out if they’d want to see TAS. What will this create? Canonites. . . No doubt about it!
Sound doesn’t travel through vacuum, but it does travel through bodies and fabric. Kirk and Spock were in physical contact at the time, so the vibrations would’ve been transmitted through the suits. Indeed, Kirk didn’t say a word to Spock until they were in contact, which is evidence that this is the idea behind the scene. There are countless SF novels and stories with descriptions of spacesuited characters pressing their helmets together in order to hear each other without needing to transmit over radio. Of course, Kirk and Spock didn’t have their helmets in contact, just the more flexible material of the suits, which would transmit sound more poorly, so that could be considered an error.
A lot of these “contradictions” are easy to explain. Worf said Klingons don’t take hostages because the Klingon culture as he defined it was too honorable for that. Kor came from an earlier century, a different culture. Differences in opinion and interpretation can’t be taken as factual contradictions.
I’ve always maintained that it’s the second duty of a good Trekkie to explain away inconsistencies.
1. Money
Just as we use archaic terms like “getting down to brass tacks” in non-literal senses, it’s no surprise to learn
that people in the 23rd century might use the word “money” to refer to any term of trade or commerce, even if what
we think of today as currency is not involved.
2. Picard doesn’t dance
He wouldn’t be the first person to use that old line to avoid dancing when it didn;t suit him to do so
3. Data’s good at some things but not at others
Anyone who’s sat in on a Mac/PC debate knows that this is true of any complex machine
4. Why is Data afraid of a stun setting?
It looked to me like he was afraid of collateral damage
5. Starfleet captains don’t know Earth history?
Yes, and sometimes Vice-Presidents can’t spell “potato.” Anyway, he may just not have realized that the man standing
in front of him was the same Khan, especially since they didn’t expect to find him there.
5.5
Cloaking devices in the mirror univers
I got nothin’. I hated those episodes.
6. Chakotay’s a vegetarian
Didn’t Tasha and Riker have a conversation about this early on in TNG? The meat that comes from the replicator isn’t
actually animal flesh. Therefore, I’m not surprised to see a vegetarian eating it; as a vegetarian myself I’d do the
same.
7. Disabling the safety protocols
Different ship/equipment would call for different procedures.
8. The Borg are born as a biological life form
Well, they ARE. That doesn’t mean that that biological life form comes from the mating of two Borg. What Riker found
was a baby in the process of being assimilated.
9. Klingon Kultural Inknosistencies
Well, I wouldn’t expect WORF to know every single nuance of Klingon kulture, no mater how hard he studied it. I’ve
done a lot of study of eighteenth-century Londond, but I’d probably stick out like a sore thumb if I tried to live
there.
10. How come Bashir didn’t know about the Klingon transformation
See #5. Not everybody pays attention to the same thing in history class.
11. Eurydians don’t have opposable thumbs?
My Uncle Pete was missing a thumb, and I’m pretty sure we’re still the same species
12. How much we know about the Trill
OK, I agree on this one. Stupidest attempt at retcon ever. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t like DS9. “The Host” was one of the best hours of TV I’ve ever seen, and DS9 spat on it every week for no good reason.
13. Center of the galaxy
Maybe the map of the galaxy was altered. Or maybe different engines and equipment change the time it takes to traverse it.
14. Organ regeneration
Maybe McCoy’s treatment only works with kidneys, and Bashir’s talking about other organs (if kidneys are commonplace, then it stands to reason he wouldn;t include them in his study). Or maybe McCoy’s treatment was found to have problems and was discontinued. Or perhaps the medicine McCoy gave the patient just repaired her failing, but still intact, kidneys.
15. The tools in McCoy’s sickbay
I always thought they were just there for decoration, not that he actually used them.
16. Blood samples for DNA
Wasn’t Crusher running other tests at the same time? Or perhaps the blood tests have a lower margin of error than the tricorder scans.
17. Finding Data
I thought they couldn’t find him in that episode because of the raditation.
18. What about the shields?
Well, everybody knows shields aren’t infallible. And we’ve seen tricky coordination of dropping the shields and transporting out at the same time mon many occasions.
19. Transparent aluminum
So, the skylight was obviously made out of something else.
20. Fire containment system
It must have been on the fritz in the second scene
21. Wide-beam phasers
There are lots of different styles of handguns today; why not different styles of phasers in the future? But I agree that DS9 was the worst abuser of continuity.
22. Speed of light
I dunno, but it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the laws of physics worked a bit differently in the Nexus. Or maybe seveal minutes DID pass before they saw the explosion, and it was just cut from what we saw. You don’t usually see all the events of a movie in real time.
23. Cold below absolute zero
Geordi probably mixed up his Celsius with another scale.
24. 70% water vs. 96%
I cut McCoy a little slack on this one, because seeing somebody reduced to a pile of moth flakes would be enough to rattle anyone into getting a number wrong,
25. Baby Troi’s DNA
I think when Pulaski says the genes are like Troi’s “in every way,” she didn’t mean down to each individual chromosome. If she had, she’d have said it was a clone.
26. Sound doesn’t travel through the vacuum of space
I always assumed they were wearing some form of communicator.
27. 200 years later suit is worse
Times don’t always change for the better. You skimp on the containment suits and splurge on something else.
Sorry for the atrocious typing. This damp weather is playing hell with my arthritis.
Sound doesn’t travel through space but transmissions do. That was how Astronauts spoke to each other on the moon, or did you not know history?
Also with the Genolan’s shields, They were 75 years out of date and possibly damaged. The weapons of Enterprise could have been powerful enough to get through them. As for them having trouble finding data, different time, different ship, technology progressed, it does that you know.
Yes about the Vulcan moon thing. If you watch TMP Director’s cut, They cut those out probably because they remembered that line. And What was wrong with the last scene of Part 4. As for T’Pol and the touching of the chips, remember she changed a lot as the years went on from being among humans, this was one of them. As for Chakotay and the vegetarian, you got me on the lamb, but as far as I know, they do eat chicken and fish.
I agree with everybody who says that some of these are a stretch. And some can have perfectly acceptable explanations, if you take the care to come up with them.
That doesn’t mean the videos aren’t fun. They are. :)
By the way, I have no problem nitpicking. In video one: It’s spelled “Yridian”, not “Eurydian”, and “Troi”, not “Troy”.
;)
#58
Some people who call themselves “vegetarians” do eat chicken and fish, but a real vegetarian wouldn’t eat any animals. (My wife is one.)
Now, a VEGAN wouldn’t eat animal products of ANY KIND. This includes milk and eggs. (I’m really glad my wife isn’t one of those.)
Oh, God, I’m nitpicking again…..
“Tell me Captain… have you compleatly recovered with your experiance with The Borg?”
6 years Later:
“NOOOO!!!”
Lol… Never noticed that before!
I love these, what frightens me is that I knew almost all the scenes and many things were in my subconscious! I didnt realize the conflicts until I saw this! lol
GREAT!
Way fun.
About Bashir not knowing about the change, probably because it was never recorded and soon forgotten.
With Picard and the Borg, I don’t know, haven’t you ever said or heard from somebody that they were over something and then find out later that they weren’t as “over it” as they thought?
I think people need to tell the difference between a canon-busting change and small, inconsequencial inconsistancy. Small things like Data’s cat changing it’s own species are fine – understandable considering the flaws that show up in every television production. But making a change such as, say, making Picard a Chinese man instead of a French dude (with a British accent) is a completely different thing. And it’s those big sort of differences that we’re talking about with JJ Abram’s new movie (at least as far as we’ve seen).
McCoy had scalpels, etc. as a museum piece. Duh.
As much as these parodoxes look silly (and many could be explained away) it made me think about how truly awesome StarTrek has been. Even though there were many hundreds of episodes you would think that they would have a fact checking QA group at Paramount.
But having said that, other than Lost, there is nothing on TV that comes close to the hope and wonder that StarTrek brought to me. Well that is unless you count SouthPark.
LONG LIVE TREK – My dream would be 25th cent Trek with JJ at the helm, some decent Cameo’s and a wave of innovation that is as exciting as the holodeck seemed. There is no reason why not, enough time has passed now between Enterprise that the fan base is ready for more.
I always wondered how they could explain away bi-ped life forms on other planets that look a lot like humans. Then a few years ago I saw a documentary about something called “convergence” which actually does a really decent job of explaining how creatures would more than likely evolve to be very similar on completely different planets. If you look at a human brain and a dolphin brain they had very different evolutionary paths and started out looking completely unlike what they do now, but now look extremely similar. So I guess while Trek takes this concept to an extreme it at least has some scientific basis. Of course there is a pretty decent chance that there was some episode that explained all this and I just happened to miss it.
BTW – Underpants Monster – great post – you are a critical thinker.
OMG.
Shatner was right. It really is just a TV show!
Dammit!
#68 – Great point! With all the stuff they managed to pack into every episode, only having a few continuity slips here and there is pretty damn good, I’d say!
#70 – TY very much! It’s fun!
#55 Underpants Monster –
You could probably apply that kind of thinking to ENT’s perceived canon violations (the ones that are supposedly the reason that fans didn’t like ENT) to show that most of those can be explained also.
the question, does the federation have money. the answer is yes. but not currency. most transactions are done electronically. the basis for federation economics is cooperation across 100’s of worlds.
Money exists in the Federation, just not on Earth where all basic needs such as housing, clothing and nourishment are absolutely free thanks to replicators that can mass produce all kinds of stuff for virtually no cost.
It would have been cool to see that abolition of Terran currency in Enterprise, to see if they could have made it work
@66. TOS Purist Dude: “Small things like Data’s cat changing it’s own species are fine”
Dude, Spot didn’t change into a dog (changing species), it went from being male to being female (gender). :P
Also, I never noticed before, but the gender-bent feline was clearly portrayed by at least two different cats (one with short, sleek fur and a smooth tail, the other with longer fur and a very bushy tail).
I knew there was a lot of canon-contradictions in Trek.
As long as Abrams honors the themes and the characters, I won’t complain too much.
I always liked this explanation of the Pepto Bismol Klingon blood in ST6:
In early communications with the MPAA, it was suggesteted [threatened] that the movie might get hit with a PG-13 [verboten by Paramount at that time] or perhaps even an R rating if the blood blobs were red, hence the supposedly less-offensive-to-the-kiddies-and-their-mommies purplish pinkish thick goo.
In ST Generations, a momentum-killer for me was Walter Koenig’s un-Russian accented ‘My God !’ while surveying the wreckage on Enterprice B. It was almost as bad as Shat’s flat delivery of ‘Oh my God…’ in STTMP after the transporter incident.
- I really like the mashups …so..now i’m asking myself why the new movie is not just a simple remake and not an another weird prequel…or a sequel…whatever…
The part about the scratches on Evil Kirk’s face switching sides was explained a while back. It happens because there are times when a close-up shot is filmed at a seperate time than a Wide shot. The actor sometimes forgets which way they were facing or doesn’t know which way they are supposed to face. So for it to make more sense, rather than waste the time to reshoot it, they simply flip the film over, hence the switching of sides.
lol i think its really funny to see how people make mistakes in the tv-series :)
there are so many good eplanations for the a lot of the ones pointed out in these videos. why they were included in here was probably to fatten up the vids.
In regards to Spot, I just thought they actually were different cats – Data simply named them all Spot.
I am NOT a merry man!
Pretty Denise lady
Mongo see convention pictures and can verify. Denise not man of any kind. Mongo need sit down for awhile after seeing Mirror Denise lady.
Mongo say ARRROOOOOO!!!
MONGO#85- Sweet MONGO… and I was not even lying nude on a bed cuddling with a pink faux fur comforter…
Pretty Denise lady
Denise lady make Mongo smile. Big smile. Denise make Mongo wish he a pink faux fur comforter. Mongo have nice dream.
I always thought the “self-sealing suit” was Reed’s blood freezing up around the punctures. Legs bleed a lot around there, and last I heard space was cold. As in, REALLY EXTREMELY cold. (Just look at one of the Augment episodes where he nearly freezes to death when he’s in space for a second before transport.) If it was a self-sealing suit, whatever. It was convenient for them in that episode, and I thought it was kind of interesting to have them in that perilous situation.
Some of these nitpicks are absolutely ridiculous, though. Though I think Data’s changing emotion chip and access location stuff was handled pretty poorly, I always figured his mechanical “skull” was simply an aesthetic upgrade in First Contact. After all, there are still blinking coloured lights and grey metal, and it wouldn’t be the first time Trek has subtly made things more detailed or better suited to the screen.
There are countless examples of this. T’Pol’s changing eyebrows. The TNG tricorder getting some lights in front because the camera faces it more than the screen (so something interesting needs to happen). Heck, the entire TNG bridge set!
Oh yeah, he missed the part about doctors in the 22nd century supposedly wearing masks when operating. I guess Denobulans are naturally antiseptic. Hahaha.
The reason Quark says “Gold is good” is because there was nothing of better value in the 40’s Quark could think of, he’s trying to black mail humans in that episode. Gold was what THEY found most valuable, so Quark used that. So in the episode where Quark says “Nothing here but worthless Gold. He said that because HE thought it was really GOLD-PRESSED LATINUM. Expecting something of great value only to get something not so great would get me upset too. It’s funny because at the end of that episode Quark mentions to Morn about a group of people who find gold very valuable. Referring to the human’s from the 40’s. Just thought i’d mention that. The videos are funny to watch though.
#88 Jovan I felt the same about the emotion chip for a long time but I just saw a scene on Youtube, cut from Generations, where Dr Crusher explains that she could “unfuse” the emotion chip but she would have to dismantle a portion of Data’s cranial “thingamajig” (insert techno babble here). I guess they planned for the possibility of removing it at some futute date but the plan got left on the editing room floor.
# 90 Andy Good find!
Top 5 things that disturbed me about Generations:
5. Riker and Worf agree that the Big E has only seconds, from planet launch to star impact, to locate and destroy a chemically-propelled rocket. For perspective, it takes 8 minutes for light to travel from Sol to Earth.
4. The reuse of “trilithium” after Starship Mine. Where was Richard Arnold?
3. Maybe they got permission. Maybe they didn’t need permission. But to have a high-ranking officer experimented on, while on duty and without any idea what might happen, seemed kind of irresponsible and certainly not very military. Instead of a controlled environment, Data was sent on missions. Weird.
2. Shatner’s demise. I won’t beat that dead horse.
1. The death of Rene. The narrative from Family about Jean-Luc’s relationship with Rene and Robert was a wonderful storyline that evoked a lot of hope for the future, and I secretly harbored a desire to see Rene Picard join Starfleet one day. That devastating news mere minutes into the first TNG film was a real downer at the theater, and I’m still upset about it. Yeah, I know that one of Stewart’s conditions was that he have situations of significant import to emote against. But still.
PS: 55. Great post, thanks!
#10. I have seen a few things that were for display and not behind glass. like a sword collection. Do they ever intend to use them when they have a sword mounted on a wall?
#10 Also If you have seen surgical tools today, when they are not in use, they are in a jar of sterile liquid or in a drawer, not on a wall.
“We are ageless.” Well Q may be ageless, but John DeLancie isn’t. So that video is irrelevant.
[...] pile of things to attend to. So while I put off writing something deep and original for this blog, enjoy yourself watching these very amusing Star Trek mistakes. True fans know most of them already, of [...]
[...] admit, I find Star Trek Mistakes rather fascinating. A few of them are just little continuity goofs — a photograph used for a [...]
My nitpick is with eagle219406
Vegetarians DO NOT eat chicken and fish … unless the word changed meaning over the 200 or so years in which case “Make it so” might mean you are all under arrest for mutiny for falling over despite the inertial dampener field ?
I eat a largely vegetarian diet, but I do eat meat, so I am not a Vegetarian.
Vegans don’t eat milk and eggs either.
4. Why is Data afraid of a stun setting?
It looked to me like he was afraid of collateral damage
He may have decided that not getting Riker shot was a better move. If he had lunged, Riker would probably have followed.
[...] Sunday Mashup: Even More Star Trek Mistakes | TrekMovie.com [...]
These are great. Yeah, I think the pinnacle of nerd-dom is the no-prize, so the explanations in the comments are prize-worthy, IMHO. Yet it doesn’t excuse the original error. Pay attention, writers! Continuity is not your enemy!
At least 80% of this can be explained if you watch the episode and isn’t contradictory. The Chakotay eating meat, for example, was a holographic simulation and not really him.
[...] The TrekMovie fansite has posted a collection of video compilations of Inconsistencies in the Star Trek Continuum. [...]