Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Character mistake: While Khan is "interviewing" Chekhov and Terrell, he stated, "On Earth, two hundred years ago, I was a prince, with power over millions." The official date for this movie is 2285. That would place Khan on earth around 2085 by this statement. However, it is made clear in the episode "Space Seed" that Khan and his followers escaped earth in the year 1996: nearly one hundred years earlier. Quite a way off to be a rounding error. (00:21:45)

Garlonuss ★

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Suggested correction: I don't believe the earth year had been established when this movie was made and it was something the franchise applied to itself retroactively later on.

TonyPH

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Mistakes

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Quotes

Dr. McCoy: Go... Where are we going?
Captain Kirk: Where they went.
Dr. McCoy: Suppose they went nowhere.
Captain Kirk: Then this will be your big chance to get away from it all.

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Trivia

Trivia: Early script drafts featured Khan gaining psychic powers with the ability to create illusions in the minds of others. One draft even replaced Khan entirely with an original villain who better suited such fantastical mental powers. By the time Nicholas Meyer wrote the shooting script, Khan was reinstated as the villain and the psychic angle was dropped.

TonyPH

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Questions

Question: This isn't technically a mistake per se, but it involves Spock's funeral. Several Enterprise crewmembers are killed during the battle with Khan, and yet only Spock gets a funeral. Perhaps there was a smaller memorial for the others, and Spock got a full funeral due to his status as captain, but why is Kirk only sending Spock's body to the Genesis planet? I imagine he sent only Spocks's body there since in ST3 there aren't dozens of little regenerated human babies crawling around down there.

Vader47000

Chosen answer: I imagine there was a memorial service for everyone killed. Starfleet's policy on corpses is probably to return them to Starfleet HQ where their families can collect them for whatever services or ceremonies they want unless the crewman had left instructions specifying otherwise. There's no telling why Kirk sent Spock's body to Genesis. Based on Sarek's reactions in ST3 he almost certainly went against Spock's wishes, unless of course, Spock left no recorded instructions and Kirk did what he thought would please Spock based on his being highest ranking officer and Spock's closest friend. It also seems very out of character for Spock to just assume that whoever he transferred his katra to would be able to handle it and carry out his wishes (McCoy certainly couldn't!). Ultimately it seems we have to chalk it up to a plot device to base the sequel on.

Grumpy Scot

According to the novelization, Kirk's intentions were to send Spock's remains into the Genesis sun. Lieutenant Saavik altered the trajectory of the torpedo beforehand, due to Spock's desire to see the Genesis effect for himself. The torpedo casing was expected to incinerate when entering the atmosphere. As pointed out by David Marcus in STIII when the pod was detected on the scanners, the gravitational fields were in flux at the time, and the pod had obviously soft-landed on the surface.

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