Sunday Mashup: Even More Star Trek Mistakes

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”
1x1x1x1=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.

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.

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.