Corrected entry: In the scene where they spray paint the ship, you can see the ship is suspended on landing gear. then later when it lands in the park cloaked, the special effect shows the garbage can being compressed under the ship, and the outline of the entire ship indenting into the ground, as if the entire ship is making contact with the ground,but really only the small area of the landing gear should be compressing the ground and only at certain points.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the helicopter is flying, the plexiglass is much smaller than the size they had previously stated (60 by 10 feet).
Corrected entry: The humpback whales are about to be returned to Alaska for release back into the wild. Dr. Gillian Taylor tells Kirk and Spock that Gracie is "very pregnant." In that event, the whales should be released in Hawaii instead of Alaska. Humpbacks give birth in warm, south Pacific waters during the winter and later migrate north for summer. (01:04:30 - 01:21:20)
Correction: A specific date or time of year is never mentioned, however the weather in San Francisco, as well as the clothing of its denizens suggests that it's not winter and may very well be the height of summer. If so, dropping the whales off in the Alaskan waters where they are more likely to encounter a pod to join is completely justified. Yes, whales typically birth in the warm Hawaiian waters over winter, but George and Gracie were in captivity. The situation could very well have altered their natural cycle.
Corrected entry: Immediately after the whales' transponders are located in the Bering Sea, Gillian can be seen mouthing, "How can you do that?" without sound, then she is immediately seen and heard giving the same line from another camera angle.
Corrected entry: In the chase scene where Checkov is being rescued from the hospital, there is a shot where the crew bursts through some doors and knock over a man on crutches wearing a cast. As he falls, Bones grabs him and the camera pans off. Once the camera pans, you can hear Bones say to him, "Great shot!" This was on the video version of the movie. I haven't seen the DVD.
Correction: As the shot opens, when McCoy holds the door open for Kirk (who pushes Chekov's gurney through the doorway), McCoy turns around just in time to see the man with a leg cast (being assisted by a candy-striper) lose his balance and fall backwards directly onto the bench beside the wall, right next to another man. McCoy is pleased that the man landed perfectly on the bench, when he concernedly rushes to him and says, "Great catch" as he leans down.
Corrected entry: In a scene with Norwegian whalehunters, the sailors speak Finnish not Norwegian. They are also using somewhat obscene words, maybe all sailors do.
Correction: There is a minority people in Northern Norway called the Kvens. They originally came from Finland, and the language they speak, the Kven language, is still quite close to Finnish even though it has adapted at least some lexical aspects from Norwegian. Being a Finn, I understand what the whalers say, but can recognize some words that are more Norwegian than Finnish.
Corrected entry: When Spock announces "Gracie is pregnant," Gillian slams on the brakes and stops her truck. Look at the convex mirror on the passenger side next to Kirk. Despite the fact that there are joggers and other things moving in the background, there is no movement in the mirror; at that angle the viewer should have seen lots of movement in the convex mirror. (00:58:50)
Correction: In the brief moment the convex mirror is shown as the car stops, its reflecting side is not visible. The rest of the scene is an interior shot, the mirror is not visible, and there is plenty of action in the background.
Corrected entry: In the operating room, just after Kirk welds the lock shut, Bones is leaning over Checkov, he reaches out his hand and we assume Dr. Gillian hands him the piece of equipment that he puts on Chekov's forehead to heal him. How did she know what equipment to give him as it was from hundreds of years into the future and Bones doesn't actually ask for it?
Correction: Bones says to Dr. Gillian "We're going to have to look like physicians." He could have explained the device to her while she was telling him how to look like a 20th century physician.
Corrected entry: In a scene early in the movie where Spock is being tested by 3 computers the computer output is being displayed on clear screens that look like teleprompters. One of the camera angles is looking up at Spock from behind the screen. To the viewer the words in the question are backwards (forwards to Spock), but when the word "Correct" is displayed it is forward to the viewer (backwards to Spock).
Correction: There are 2 screens for each computer, one facing Spock, the other facing away from him. Everything that appears on Spock's screen appears exactly the same direction on the other screen, and both the questions and the word "correct" appear forwards.
Corrected entry: When Kirk, McCoy and Dr Taylor escape from the hospital with Chekov, they are "beamed out" of the elevator and "beam" back in at the park next to the Bounty. My understanding is that the transporters can "beam" people from the transporter itself to another place, or from another place back to the transporter, but not from another place to yet another place. I realise that this is required in the movie, because when they arrive back at the Bounty, Kirk tries to tell Dr Taylor she can't come with them, which would have been awkward if they were on board at the time, but it is still a small mistake.
Correction: Transporters are quite capable of doing what's depicted in the film - it's generally referred to as a site-to-site transport. It's not something that happens terribly often in the films and series, for the simple reason that it's not often required and it takes up a lot more power than a simple transport to or from the transporter pad itself. But they've always been capable of doing it.
Correction: We have seen this in TNG, DS9 and I believe Voyager. Most commonly it's a Doctor with a critical patient being beamed from their current location, directly to Sickbay, The Infirmary, etc.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Gillian picks up Kirk and Spock as they are walking back from the Cetacean Institute, Gillian asks, "Where are you going?" to which Kirk replies, "Back to San Francisco." They are already back in San Francisco, walking along the Marina Green. In fact, if we assume they are walking back to their ship in Golden Gate Park, they're going the completely wrong way.
Correction: The expression "Back to San Francisco" from where Kirk and Spock are standing is completely appropriate. The Golden Gate Bridge is at the edge of the city, and the downtown area and attractions are several miles to the east, along the northeast edge of the peninsula. So, while they are legally within the city limits, they have quite a ways to go before getting to the main part of the city.
Corrected entry: Between ST3 and ST4, the bridge set of the Bird of Prey changes from a two-level room with the captain on a raised platform and the crew in front of him, to a one-level room with two stations behind the captain and a console in the front.
Correction: During the crew's exile on Vulcan, between ST3 and ST4, Scotty made a number of changes to the Bird of Prey. Presumably, these included changing the bridge configuration.
Corrected entry: In the scene where they are landing the cloaked Klingon ship in Golden Gate Park, it crushes a garbage can and depresses the ground several inches. However, after the ship lands you can still see grass blowing in the wind under where the ship is supposedly sitting.
Correction: The ship itself is not sitting on the ground - the landing gear are holding the ship up, much in the same way they would hold up an airplane. Thus while the legs are in contact with the ground, there's open air under the hull.
Corrected entry: Didn't the crew notice on their sensors that there was a garbage truck with two garbage men in the park, right next to where they landed?
Correction: The crew are in a alien vessel that they learned to fly themselves so they don't know everything about it & they're also in a time that they're not familiar with. They may not have known what the garbage truck was & didn't see the men as they were too busy landing for what was probably only the second time.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the ship lands in the park, a garbage can is blown around, and then crushed by the ship. But a ship landing would cause things to be blown away from where it was landing, and the garbage can is blown from outside where the ship lands to directly under it, almost as if the landing ship was sucking the can under it, which would not happen.
Corrected entry: The reactor compartment can be seen though a window and billowing steam or smoke is visible. While a neat effect, the steam produced in a reactor is contained in piping. Smoke or steam visible is a very "bad" thing - like 3 mile island or Chernobyl.
Correction: I can't find any smoke or steam. Which reactor are you referring to? If you are referring to the nuclear reactor on the Enterprise, then a timecode would be greatly appreciated. However, if you are referring to the reactor on the Bounty, that is a Matter/Antimatter reactor mediated by dilithium crystals and does not necessarily follow the same rules as a nuclear reactor.
Corrected entry: Chekov and Uhura beam aboard the USS Enterprise (air craft carrier) to collect radiation to recrystallise the dilithium so they can leave. When I served aboard a nuclear powered ship, we normally shut down the reactor after we came into port. There is negligible amount of radiation produced from a shut down nuclear reactor.
Correction: True, but Star Trek technology is far in advance of ours, so they were able to get what they needed even from a shut-down reactor. It would be like using a lighter to start a caveman's cold fire after he gave up rubbing sticks together.
Corrected entry: In the scene near the end of the movie where the crew is celebrating in the San Francisco Bay after the probe has left, Spock appears to be smiling and laughing as everyone frolicks in the water. Doesn't this go against his Vulcan suppression of emotions, which historically only came out when something was wrong with him?
Correction: Spock is half human, half vulcan. Maybe his human half reacts in that moment very strongly and he can't hold his emotions.
Corrected entry: When Kirk and Spock go to get money, Kirk sells the glasses that Bones gives him for his birthday. Spock questions him about this, and Kirk says that Bones will give them to him again. That would I suppose would be theoretically possible except they return to their time moments after they leave, not before they leave.
Correction: This is not a mistake. This is an example of a "temporal causal loop" phenomenon. Chain of events: Bones buys or receives glasses. Bones gives Kirk glasses. Kirk sells glasses to antiques dealer. Antiques dealer fixes lenses. Glasses go through a chain of people through the intervening years from the antiques dealer to Bones. Bones buys or receives glasses... You get the idea. While Kirk won't have the glasses back when they get home, he will still be given them for his birthday in the future.
Corrected entry: In the last quarter of the movie Kirk is beaming on board the "bird of prey" and Doc Gillian is clasping him so she beams on board too. She wants to travel into the future and tricks Kirk out. So long so good, but why is Kirk beaming on board in the first place? One minute earlier the sick Checkov and 3 other crew members walked in using the ship's ramp. Did they close the ramp knowing that Kirk is still standing outside? And the trick with clasping Kirk is OK, but they could just as easily beam her out again or kick her out using the ramp.
Correction: It's plausible that they started to close the ramp as they boarded the ship, presuming Kirk was walking right behind them & wasn't going to stop to talk to Dr Gillian. It's also plausible that Kirk, being distracted by Gillian's insistence to come aboard, grabbed his communicator to beam up since that was 2nd nature for him. Or he simply didn't want to walk up the ramp, fearing she'd just follow him in. Then he underestimated her leaping onto him during a beam up. As for them just beaming her back to the park, they would wait for Kirk's order, but he gave in & decided she would be beneficial to them if she stayed aboard, thus never giving the order.
Correction: There's any number of reasons the ramp could've been down (loading things for the aquarium) but I always took it as he stayed behind to say goodbye and that they wouldn't want the ramp open for too long in broad daylight, so he beamed up. I also took it that when she grabbed on that was showing she had feelings for him as well and that's why he didn't kick her out.
Correction: At no time do they ever show an entire indentation of the ship in the ground. Even when Scotty is looking down through the invisible ship while loading the plexiglass the only indentations in the ground are from the landing gear.
BocaDavie ★
And it's also plausible they hovered the ship during certain times in 'cloaked' mode so people did not collide with it. Would take a minimal amount of energy just to hover surely.