Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Corrected entry: The Excelsior detects the incoming shockwave from the exploded Klingon moon Praxis and is hit seconds later. Assuming that the Excelsior in these times isn't operating within Klingon borders (or even the Klingon solar system) and is monitoring the neutral zone light years away, the Excelsior cannot be hit or even be surprised by a shockwave coming from so far away. Gravitational shockwaves or explosions (even huge ones) are not faster than light. It would take years to reach the Excelsior.

Goekhan

Correction: It's described as a "subspace shockwave" so by Star Trek parlance this is some type of disturbance that can indeed travel faster than light.

TonyPH

Corrected entry: During the mashed potatoes scene, Lt. Valeris demonstrates that it's impossible to fire a phaser on board the Enterprise without setting off a ship-wide alarm. However later in the film, she murders the two assassins, Burke and Samnoe using, according to McCoy, "a phaser on stun at close range." Yet no alarm sounded in the ship, alerting the crew that a phaser had been fired on board. (01:20:50)

Correction: That was the whole point he was making when he said it was set to stun. When the phasers are set to stun, they don't set off the alarm, but if fired at close enough range they're still able to cause enough trauma to kill. Checkov also explains this when another crew member asks why it wasn't just set to kill.

envisaged0ne

Corrected entry: In the prison, Kirk is being accosted by the huge alien that wants Kirk's clothes. The alien shouts angrily at him, yet the voice you hear doesn't match the alien's lip movements. In fact, most of the time the alien's lips don't even move.

RJR99SS

Correction: He's an alien and doesn't conform to human attributes (like the alien with his genitals on his knees).

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: At the end Sulu knew where the secret meeting was but didn't think to notify Enterprise, knowing full well what the situation was with the ship and Kirk etc.

Correction: Sulu didn't know about the bird of prey that could fire when cloaked, so didn't know the importance of them getting there.

Corrected entry: If only two months went by between the explosion of the Klingon moon and the meeting at Starfleet Headquarters, when exactly did Chang and his cohorts have the time to construct the bird-of-prey that can fire while cloaked? Two months would not have been long enough to build such a vessel, and since there was no reason for the peace talks until after the moon exploded, there would be no reason to have such a vessel being built before the events of the movie happen.

Correction: No reason? Seriously? Up until the destruction of Praxis, the Klingon Empire has been in a state of cold war against the Federation for over twenty years - while outright conflict was banned under the Treaty of Organia, this certainly didn't prevent a number of incidents from occurring. And the Federation is only one of their neighbours who could potentially threaten them. Developing the technology to allow a ship to fire while cloaked would be of obvious interest to the Klingon High Command, so it's not remotely unreasonable that a prototype could exist that Chang could commandeer to disrupt the peace process.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: Why would Valeris leave the bodies of Burke and Samno in the halls to be discovered so easily? Wouldn't it have been better to stow their bodies away to delay discovery as long as possible (at least until after the Peace Conference)? (01:23:50)

Teru_Kage

Correction: Because it would be illogical. She had to do away with both of them at the same time (if one goes missing, the other might get suspicious and talk) and perhaps she didn't have the time to plan an arrangement where she could meet with them and arrange a hit. So her best bet was to sneak up on both of them and shoot them. It's a lot easier and faster to shoot two people and run away than it is to drag two bodies through the ship's corridors and risk discovery.

Corrected entry: At the start of Kirk and McCoy's trial, the clock on the Enterprise shows the time to be 11:15:07, but when the trial is over and the crew discuss the sentence, the clock shows 10:45:17. (00:45:40 - 00:53:05)

Teru_Kage

Correction: This was not a ten-minute trial and actually took several days.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: Valeris informs the crew that her comrades will make sure to jam ship to ship transmissions, yet minutes later the Enterprise is able to contact the Excelsior. In addition, why wouldn't the Excelsior contact Khitomer to warn them of the impending assassination attempt? (01:27:40 - 01:30:35)

Teru_Kage

Correction: Valeris specifically says "ship to shore" not "ship to ship." Different communication protocols and hence one could be jammed without necessarily causing a problem with the other. And as to why Excelsior didn't contact anyone, that may or may not be an error. It would depend on how the ship to shore transmissions were being blocked. In order to block the Enterprise's communications at all without an active agent on the ship anymore would require blocking the transmission at the receiving end. In this case, they probably had communication to or from Khitomer blocked, since that is infinitely easier than blocking all communication in the whole quadrant. And if that's the case, Excelsior would be just as unable to warn Khitomer and stop the assassination as Enterprise was.

Garlonuss

Corrected entry: After the cloaked Bird of Prey attacks the U.S.S Excelsior, Chekov turns around and informs Kirk that "Excelsior's been hit," but it is not Chekov's voice or accent saying it. The accent sounds American.

aamovielover

Correction: Chekov doesn't say anything. He turns to look at Kirk in shock, but if you look at his mouth, his lips don't move. It's someone else entirely announcing that the Excelsior has been hit.

Garlonuss

Corrected entry: After Spock and McCoy rig the photon torpedo to lock on to plasma discharge, why did the torpedo only detect Chang's vessel and not the Excelsior's? (01:41:10)

Teru_Kage

Correction: They 'doctored' the torpedo specifically to track the exhaust trail generated by a Klingon Bird of Prey's warp drive signature.

Quantom X

Corrected entry: When Lt. Valeris is exposed as a conspirator, she states to Kirk: "'Let them die' you said. Did I misinterpret you?" However she could not have known this, because when he said it he was alone with Spock (after the original mission briefing at Starfleet Headquarters). (00:11:05 - 01:23:45)

Correction: Plenty of time after he said that for Spock to pass along that information to Valeris; it would have been logical for him to advise her of Kirk's feelings since they had a direct impact on the mission. Even if Spock didn't tell Valeris you must remember that she was part of a huge conspiracy to keep the war going between humans and Klingons. It would have made sense for someone to be listening in on the conversation in the briefing room. In fact, during the scene where Kirk says that, there is a shadow in the back of the room that many believe to be Valeris listening in. This is best seen in the widescreen version.

BocaDavie

Corrected entry: Towards the end of the film, the Enterprise is getting an audio/visual transmission from Captain Sulu on the Excelsior. You see Captain Sulu on a big screen. Female Vulcan, Lt. Valeris, is standing right in front of the screen. You can see a ledge at the bottom of the screen, and her shoulders are even with the ledge, and she's near the middle of the screen. Then they switch to a shot of Captain Kirk, and then back to a closer shot of the screen. This time, Lt. Valeris has disappeared. You can see the bottom ledge and the middle of the screen. Then there's another shot of Kirk, then back to the screen, with Lt. Valeris magically back again.

Correction: The shots of the screen without Valeris in front are shot from her position (but not her view) to give the audience an uninterrupted view of the screen. It's obvious we are closer to the viewscreen for those shots. In all the further shots, Valeris is in place where she should be.

johnrosa

Corrected entry: In the scene where Lt. Valeris finds the gravity boots, at the end of the scene she attaches them to the locker door. Just before she places the boots on the door, you can see velcro or some other kind sticky material on the locker door.

Correction: There are scratches on the door, not velcro or glue.

johnrosa

Corrected entry: When Valeris slides down the pole, the corridor wall shakes when she bumps it.

Correction: There is no reason a flexible panel can't be used to conceal a compartment of some kind, nor to assume the panel must be a totally rigid support structure.

johnrosa

Corrected entry: After the first conference with the president of the Federation, all the men file out of the room, save Ambassador Sarek, who can be seen sitting in a chair beside the president's desk. In this shot, the president reaches for his eyeglasses. The very next shot cuts to the president taking off the glasses, showing the side of his desk where Sarek was sitting - but Sarek isn't there, and nor is his armchair.

Correction: Carefully comparing the two shots, the second angle has moved to the opposite side of the desk so that Sarek (and his chair) are just off camera.

johnrosa

Corrected entry: After Spock orders the search for the gravity boots, there is a scene of a crewman removing a wall panel. As he swings the panel past the camera, the dimensions of the panel are seen on the back in black magic marker.

wizard_of_gore

Correction: There is no reason that panels can't have their dimensions written on them in anything that looks like magic marker.

Corrected entry: In his log entry at the beginning of the movie, Captain Sulu mentions that he has been commanding the Excelsior for three years on a mission in Beta Quadrant. In the next scene, as they walk into the briefing at Starfleet Command, McCoy asks where Sulu is. Kirk has to remind him that Sulu is now a captain, and on assignment. It seems odd that McCoy wouldn't have known that, or that he would have expected Sulu at a briefing taking place very far away from the location of Sulu's mission.

Correction: In any large organization not everyone knows where everyone else is at all time. Kirk's reminder may have been a way of saying that a captain is not always able to be where he would like to be. He may have orders to be elsewhere.

papajim

Corrected entry: When the court is listening to the playback of Kirk's personal log stating he never could forgive the Klingons for the death of his son, General Chang is standing behind Kirk and several meters away. He asks Kirk if those were his words. Kirk says, "Those words were spoken by me." When Kirk's defense counsel objects, we see a wide angle shot of the room behind Kirk, and Chang is no longer there.

wizard_of_gore

Correction: Chang is standing by the technicians operating the audio equipment, below and to the right (from the judge's perspective) from where the judge sits. The view of this section of the courtroom is obstructed by the ledge in the shot where the defense counsel objects.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: Enterprise hits the prototype Bird Of Prey with a torpedo they build with the equipment they're carrying for categorizing gaseous anomalies. At the beginning of the film, we hear that its actually the Excelsior that is out on a mission categorizing gaseous anomalies. Considering Enterprise was at dock and the crew decommissioned, its unlikely they would have had the equipment on board.

Correction: There are any number of reasons why the Enterprise could have had this equipment on board. Perhaps it was there for a long time, and they were waiting to transfer it to another vessel. Also, the crew was not decommissioned at the beginning of the film, considering they were sent to escort the Klingon ship through Federation space.

wizard_of_gore

Corrected entry: When Praxis explodes, it's real bad luck that the Excelsior is on the same level as the two-dimensional expanding shock wave. Couldn't the crew bring the ship easily out of the way by moving it "up" or "down"?

Correction: Excelsior is not using long range sensors at the time, so they don't detect the shock wave until it's almost upon them. First, they don't have time to react and, second, the ship can only move vertically using thrusters, which are not fast enough.

wizard_of_gore

Continuity mistake: When Captain Kirk and the shape shifter are fighting on the planet (the shape shifter looks exactly like Kirk). They are rolling through the snow about to roll over Bones. In one shot, it looks like they will roll over his feet first, and then the rest of his body. In the next shot, it is a little closer and they roll over Bones' right arm first and not his feet first.

More mistakes in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Captain James T. Kirk: Spock, you want to know something? Everybody's human.
Captain Spock: I find that remark... Insulting.

More quotes from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Trivia: Originally, this movie was going to be a prequel about when Kirk and Spock first met at Starfleet Academy.

More trivia for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Chosen answer: There's a limit as to how much the shields can protect the ship. Depending on the force of the explosions, the ship still suffers some damage from any weapon blasts. Also, the shield only holds for so long and gradually loses it protectiveness with successive attacks, causing increasing damage to the ship.

raywest

Answer: The depiction of the shields in this movie is actually interesting because it seems they deliberately tried to show how the ship could plausibly take damage while the shields are up. Here the shields seem to be "on" the hull (or perhaps emanate from the hull itself) and their function seems specific to preventing hull breaches. In TNG and onwards the shields appear as a kind of energy bubble wrapped around the ship, and accordingly they seem to absorb much more impact.

TonyPH

More questions & answers from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

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