Continuity mistake: At the end of the film when Kirk is being awarded his medal, behind the Federation Counsel you can see 3 flags in the background- the center flag is the California state flag. After Kirk shakes Pike's hand, and the camera pans up and back, the California flag is hanging significantly different so that it is no longer recognizable, seeming almost blank white. As the ceremony is indoors and all attending are standing motionless, this flag should not have moved. (01:56:25)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk is sneaking about on the Romulan ship, just after Spock takes off in the ship, we see a shot of him walking down a dark corridor, carrying what is very clearly a Romulan pistol (quite long and thin). When the shot changes, he suddenly has his standard Federation Phaser in his hand when he confronts Nero. He doesn't get a Romulan pistol like that until after the fight with the first officer, when his phaser falls over the edge. (01:42:55)
Continuity mistake: When McCoy brought Kirk onboard a shuttle as a patient, they boarded a shuttle with round nacelles near the bottom. Most of the shots of it in flight show this. But the shot that zooms out from their window while heading to the Enterprise shows they're on a shuttle with wings near the bottom and nacelles at the top corners. (00:37:50 - 00:38:55)
Continuity mistake: In the scene on top of the drill, Kirk falls off the edge. When Sulu helps him up, he's holding onto the platform with his right hand and being helped up by his left, but in one shot he's holding on with his left hand, and being lifted up by his right. (00:57:25)
Continuity mistake: When Captain Robau enters the bridge of the Kelvin he is wearing his Star Fleet insignia. When he sits in his chair it is missing. It re-appears through all of his subsequent scenes. (00:01:30)
Continuity mistake: When young Kirk is driving the stolen car he unhooks the latches to the convertable roof. Cut to a side view when the roof flies off and we see that the car is kicking up a big cloud of dust from the roadway (so much dust that it looks like they cut from the paved road to a dirt road on the side shot, but the grass obscures the road top). Cut to a camera angle behind the car when the roof lands and the dust cloud has instantly disappeared, there is no trace of it. (00:12:40)
Continuity mistake: During the scene in which Kirk first meets McCoy in the shuttle, watch the safety harness strap over McCoy's right shoulder. As the perspective changes back and forth from McCoy to Kirk, the strap is bunched up, then flat, then bunched and then flat again without McCoy touching it. (00:27:05)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk, Sulu and Olson are space jumping down to the platform, they are shown on camera as falling with Olson in last place. He is furthest from the platform. Yet on Chekov's screen, he is displayed (by the red color associated with his red uniform) as being the lowest and closest, in first place. (00:52:00 - 00:53:00)
Continuity mistake: When the USS Kelvin is attacked by the Romulan ship, there is significant damage done to the front half of the saucer section. However, after Ayel appears on the viewscreen demanding the captain, there is no damage or debris on the saucer section visible through the front windows of the bridge. (00:03:25)
Continuity mistake: When the Captain of the Kelvin is walking through the engineering section, in the background can be seen walls of concrete block. When he ascends a staircase the wall behind him looks like cast concrete. (00:04:20)
Continuity mistake: When young Spock approaches the three bullies at school, the shot from behind Spock shows he is at least as tall if not slightly taller than the other three boys. But when the shot reverses to see Spock between two of the bullies, he is instantly much shorter than they are. This isn't a matter of camera angle, but rather the choice to have young Spock positioned lower to make the bullies more intimidating - a choice the earlier angle didn't take into consideration. (00:15:15)
Continuity mistake: After their discussion of younger Spock's emotional compromise, Spock Prime stays in the same spot while Kirk goes to the transporter pad. They are still talking as they do. Shots from afar show Spock is illuminated by the blue lights over his head as is the walls around him. But each time it cuts to a close up, he and the walls no longer show any hint of this blue. He also appears to be standing in a different location in the close ups. (01:27:00)
Continuity mistake: When Spock points out to Sulu that he has forgotten to disengage the external inertial dampener, we see a close shot of Sulu as he corrects the situation on his controls, and Pike can be seen sitting behind him with arms by his side. It then cuts to a long shot where Pike suddenly has his arms crossed. (00:40:55)
Continuity mistake: When Nero is (lying down? I can't tell during this scene) and waiting for Spock to arrive, we can see that he has a very faint tattoo of some kind beneath his lower lip. However, when he mentions to his first officer that he doesn't want Spock dead and wants him to watch Vulcan being destroyed, the tattoo has become black and very dark and also extends onto his lower lip. (00:28:40)
Continuity mistake: As Kirk is being choked by a Romulan, he says "I've got your gun", then pulls the weapon and kills the Romulan. As the Romulan falls, Kirk grabs the edge of the platform and begins to pull himself up onto it. From well above, we see the Romulan's gun is lying on the platform pointing directly away from Kirk. But when the camera angle changes to show Kirk's face with the pistol between him and the camera, the gun now points to Kirk's left (our right). (01:46:40)
Continuity mistake: After Nero learns that Spock has stolen the ship and destroyed the drill, the tip of his left ear is missing and his right ear is whole. In all other scenes, the tip of the right ear is missing. (01:44:50)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk, McCoy and Uhura enter the bridge to tell the captain about the attack on the Klingon ships, Uhura stops right in front of Spock. In the next shot they are standing apart. (00:44:45)
Continuity mistake: When Kirk confronts Nero in person for the first time, one of the Romulans hits him and knocks him onto his back. Nero rushes over to attack him. The shot of Nero running over is an aerial view, and Kirk is seen partly trying to recover on his back. Clearly, his right arm is partly stretched up in the air and his left arm moving as he has his head lifted up. But the shot cuts to Nero getting to him in a close up and suddenly Kirk is totally flat on his back with arms down and head down. (01:43:25)
Continuity mistake: While being sucked around through the aquatic gerbil maze of a coolant system in the Enterprise's engineering, there is one part where Scotty is being pulled up. The shot shows him get sucked out of the J pipe and begin being pulled up the shaft rather quickly. The shot cuts to Kirk yelling "No. No!" The shot then cuts to Kirk running off to the right, and it shows Scotty getting sucked out of the same J pipe a second time. (01:28:15)
Continuity mistake: As Kirk and Spock Prime are arguing about Spock meeting his younger self, the shots from behind Spock show his hair, ear, and coat to be illuminated by a blue light. But the reverse angles have no evidence of this light at all. And when Kirk walks away, Spock is still standing in the same spot. Now suddenly Spock is all illuminated by blue lights that they were obviously not standing under moments before. (01:26:00)
Answer: There was a scene cut from the movie that shows Nero being held in Rura Penthe, the klingon prison planet that was attacked in the transmission that Uhura intercepted and translated. The attack was the Narada crew coming to free their commander. And if you were to read the Countdown comic book that is used to give back story to Nero and his relationship with Spock, you'd see that the Narada originally looked nothing like what we see in this film. It was more utilitarian. But after the destruction of Romulus, Nero and crew come across a Romulan space station that is taking in refugees from the doomed planet. They had been working on some technology reverse engineered from Borg technology. Nero offered his ship as a test candidate as they were looking to start field testing it on a ship at that time. And as far as waiting for Spock, it could have been a simple thing to calculate the time and place of Spock's arrival using temporal mechanics based on the size and intensity of the singularity that sent them there, and an educated guess of when Spock entered the anomaly based on the telemetry they had at the moment they entered in themselves. They've had 25 years to wait and calculate what they needed to know.
Garlonuss ★