This is definitely my biggest gripe. Since Kirk dropped Khan on Ceti Alpha V, that system would’ve been mapped at least at a basic level. The number of planets and their orbits would be stored in the memory banks of all starships. When Reliant arrived at the system, it should’ve been noticed that the configuration of the system did not match what was expected. Not only was one planet missing, the alteration of mass distribution would’ve caused changes to the orbits of the other planets. Nothing about Reliant not noticing any of that makes any sense.

The orbit of Ceti Alpha V was altered, as Khan had indicated, but other points well made.

Totally!

The explanation I've always heard is that the crew of Reliant arrived at the system and started counting from the outer-most orbit inward. Since Ceti Alpha VI had exploded, Ceti Alpha V took its place in the count.

@@jameslynch2399 A bit lazy on the part of the crew, but plausible. It's also possible that the original ceti alpha 6 had an atmosphere similar to the now Orbit-shifted Ceti-Alpha 5. Leading the crew to believe that Ceti-Alpha 5 or some other planet in the system was the missing or destroyed planet.

I felt that way when I saw it. While it is common these days to kill off important characters, back then we had the luxury of keeping them through the whole saga. It did feel to me like I lost a brother, a mentor, and a friend. The gut punch drove home when they played AMAZING GRACE at the funeral.

Yeah, Spock dying gutted lots of folks in the audience. Many stood around when the lights came back on, and just couldn't believe he got offed by Gene!

I was 12 when I saw this in the theatre. I had been watching the original series on TV since the age of 6. I went home crying after this movie because they killed off Spock and had to wait 2 years for him to be resurrected.

I was one of those sobbing…. But I knew I just knew when I saw the torpedo capsule intact on the surface there might possibly be a chance…

@@morganjohnson539 If I saw that scene today - 40+ years later - I'd still lose it.

Lucas changed Jedi's title because he felt Jedi would never take revenge.

Yes, very interesting. I remember well.

It really is.

I'm sorry but I'm one of the very few that don't think warth of Khan is not the best.

Luck is not logical, but then, neither is show business.

I did the same... "Shield! Shields! SHIIIEEELDS!" 😉

@@draconis3606 Why Sulu is a better Captain than Kirk. He went right for the shields when Praxis blew up. :P

@@nitehawk86 well, he was there when Kirk made that mistake, so he learned from it. Also; there’s no real mistaking the intention of a massive blast wave.😆

@@nitehawk86 Did you see the episode "Flashback" from Star Trek Voyager? If not... DO IT! 😀

Yeah, I’m picturing Picard in a similar spot and he would have had shields up at that, no question. Pretty sure TOS Kirk would have, too.

Or his dying, (death) over what he did was so shocking to Scotty, He acted without thinking and brought him to the bridge, showing the Captain the kids' commitment that, as Scotty said, "He stayed at his post" Seeing death and dying affects everyone differently.

This is the "making up explanations" thing that she was referring to. Yes, the scene establishing that they are related was omitted, but bringing him to the bridge instead of sickbay makes no sense since the guy is dying, but isn't dead.

@@jimmyd102000 According to Vonda McIntyre's novelization, Chapter 6, the attack resulted in an explosion that led to a hull-breach which soon was remedied by emergency doors sliding into place to prevent further depressurization. As a cadet named Grenni urged Peter Preston that they both had to get out of there, ________________________________________________- Peter looked up. Right above them, a heat-transfer pipe hissed thick yellow-green smoke through a crack in the triple-layered unbreakable matrix of the tube. Peter watched with horror. Coolant leak was supposed to be impossible.The radiation signal flashed stroboscopically while the noxious-gas warning hooted. The poisonous coolant gas flooded the trainee area. Peter's eyes burned. Grenni grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away as the rest of the group fled. "You're on-line!" Peter cried. "Shit!" Grenni yelled. He broke and ran. Peter fumbled for his respirator. He could barely see by the time he got it on. His chest felt crushed. The primary control panel was damaged, and Lieutenant Kasatsuki lay unconscious on the deck. She was responsible for the auxiliary power main controls that Grenni and Peter were supposed to back up. Now, Grenni's console blinked and beeped for attention. If no one did anything, auxiliary power would fail completely. The gas closed in around Peter as he overrode the hardware hierarchy and brought his own machine on-line. Despite the respirator, his eyes still teared and burned. The screams of pain and fear crashed over him like waves. Commander Scott shouted orders amid the chaos. Peter heard it all, but it was a light-year away; he felt almost as if he had merged with the Enterprise--his actions came so smoothly and he knew so easily and so certainly what he had to do. Back on the bridge [ . . . ] ____________________________________________ From then on, the novelization has the battle waged pretty much as it happens in the film, but then Vonda has Kirk & Spock take the turbolift down to the Engineering level, whereupon they see: _______________________________________________ The engineer stood trembling, spattered with blood, holding Peter Preston in his arms. The boy lay limp, his eyes closed, blood flowing steadily from his nose and mouth. "I canna reach Dr. McCoy; I canna get through; I must get the boy to sick bay--" Tears tracked the soot on his face. He staggered into the lift. Kirk and Spock caught him. Kirk steadied him while Spock took the child gently from his arms. "Sick bay!" Kirk yelled. The turbo-lift accelerated. ______________________________________________________ Obviously, Vonda McIntyre felt that the scene -- as filmed -- made little sense, Scotty bringing Peter to the Bridge, so she changed it in her novelization. She goes on to depict McCoy trying to save Peter's life, but the fact that he had breathed in leaking coolant before the ventilators could clear it made him a goner. _________________________________________________ McCoy cursed. The damned technicians claimed nothing else but this wretched, corrosive, teratogenic, gamma-emitting poison had a high enough specific heat to protect the engines against meltdown. Well, they also claimed its protection was fail-safe. . . . "It's coolant poisoning, Scotty," McCoy said. [etc.] "He stayed at his post," Scott said. "When the other trainees broke, he stayed." "If he hadn't, we'd be space by now," Kirk said. [ . . . ] "We're only alive because I knew something about these ships that he [Khan] didn't." Jim sighed. "And because one fourteen-year-old kid . . ." He stopped. _________________________________________________ My point in quoting Vonda's novelization -- despite her alteration of the scene, having Scotty remaining in Engineering holding Peter in his arms (etc.) -- is to point out that Peter Preston KNEW that he was giving his life by staying at his post, ensuring that the Enterprise didn't lose any possibility of retaining its auxiliary power. He knew that the coolant gas he was breathing in would kill him, that there was absolutely no hope of surviving his selfless act. And, really, it all came down to him doing what he did, because had he NOT done his duty then Khan would have massacred them all. As Kirk says (in the novelization), "If he hadn't, we'd be space by now." Peter's dying words were the question he poses to Admiral Kirk: "Is the word given, Admiral?" To which Kirk replies, smiling (yet anguished inside), "The word is given: Warp Speed!" . . . and then the lad dies. His duty as a cadet trainee working in the Engineering section of the starship Enterprise was to make it possible for its commander to give the order to accelerate to warp speed. I maintain that it makes perfect sense for the dying boy to have begged his grief-stricken uncle to bring him up to the Bridge for the only such glance that he would ever get to have, to prove that his own self-sacrifice had accomplished what he'd set out to do, to save the ship, to keep it operational against all the odds. Scotty knew that exposure to the engine coolant -- a poisonous gas -- was fatal. He knew that the boy had only minutes of life left in him as the poison destroyed his respiratory system. Sure, Scotty COULD have taken him to Sickbay in the turbolift, and gotten McCoy to begin treating his wounds right away . . . but he KNEW it would be all-for-nothing. I maintain that Scotty would have brought the unconscious lad to Sickbay had it been entirely up to him, but Peter had been CONSCIOUS when the ventilators had finally cleared Engineering of the poisonous coolant gas, and the awake and aware lad -- knowing he had breathed in a lethal amount of the poison -- MUST have begged him, made him swear an oath to the effect, that he would take him up to the Bridge for the only glimpse of it he would ever get to have. And Scotty, knowing the boy was moments from an inevitable death, didn't have the heart to deny his dying request. I think my interpretation of this event makes complete sense. It's too bad that Vonda McIntyre didn't think of this same possibility when she was writing her novelization, instead re-writing it so as to remove what otherwise has seemed to Trek fans to be an inexcusably stupid decision on Scotty's part. On the contrary, I think that Peter MADE him take him up there, made him swear to God (or to the Great Bird of the Galaxy) to grant him his dying wish. It makes sense that the dying Peter Preston would wish to see the Bridge before he died, and that he would beg his uncle to help him to fulfill that dying wish. And it makes sense that Scotty would reluctantly agree to it, despite an urge to take him directly to Sickbay out of the impossible hope that McCoy might be able to be as much of a miracle worker in the healing arts as he himself was wont to do regarding Engineering. Peter, you say, was "dying but not dead" -- but when Spock was in the reactor room and Kirk wanted to rush in there to save him, Scotty says, "He's dead already" . . . even though Spock was still alive. He was as good as dead. Lethal exposure to radiation. They all knew it. Even if Kirk could have gotten Spock out of that reactor room right away -- perhaps by intership beaming via the Transporter, from Engineering to Sickbay -- it wouldn't have saved his friend from death. "He's dead already!"

Its a retcon NOW, but since Strange New Worlds if is set on the same timeline (not the Kelvin one) then Scotty should have taken Peter Preston directly to the transporter room and had him stored in the buffer indefinitely, along with all other critically injured crew, since the ability to do that is clearly available for M'Benga to use for his daughter. Scotty himself uses this in the Relics episode of Next Generation, but that's 80 some years down the line, while Strange New Worlds is set BEFORE Wrath of Khan.

@@eugenecho8255 You're assuming that the Enterprise was in a condition where they had plenty of power to apply to the problem, with a transporter system that could be wholly relied upon for the task you suggest. As it is, Peter Preston's actions guaranteed that the Enterprise would not lose its Auxiliary Power, but their Primary Power was out due to Khan's crippling attack. I don't think that Scotty could have mustered the power necessary to do this Transporter buffer trick, even if he had had the knowledge of how to accomplish it at the time (i.e. years before the incident in "RELICS"). Maybe a cryo-storage facility in Sickbay, for severely critical patients, would seem possible, but based on the description of Preston's rapidly-failing lifesigns described in the novelization, even that seems nigh hopeless.

* *Khan*

Yeah, the narrator doesn't seem to realize that anger and rage can make a smart man stupid. In fact, Kirk plays exactly on that trope by laughing at Khan's superior intellect. Even Khan's deputy calls this out.

Could have been smarter and asked captain Tyrell any and all he knows about the computer systems and anything else that may be very needed to be known of , like the prefix code thing.

@@jameserickson6587 how many days would that have taken? Saavik was most of the way through Starfleet training and hadn't gotten to that particular piece of information yet

Guarantee if I suddenly found myself trying to operate a starship we'd all be dead quickly thereafter.

Your analysis seems logical. Kirk explained what the problem was to Captain Spock and didn't bring up taking command from him. He needed proper grounds to do it, which Spock explained existed.

Agreed, but the warp 5 point is perfectly valid.

So true! And I'll have a 2-piece white, extra crispy, Col.🐔

I disagree. It was basically a distress call, he should have ordered to set course immediately and call Spock to the bridge.

@@klopferator It wasn't quite a distress call. And remember, the ship was on a training mission. They weren't fully operational.

Extra kudos to James Horner, who composed the musical score in under 5 weeks.

I still believe that it is the BEST SciFi movie of ALL Times.

You just literally described the process of film making. That's how it works.

The fact that these are the few glitches to the movie shows how good the writing was.

This one was so obvious but Trekculture's writers missed it?

@@Thurgosh_OG Yep. They definitely missed that one.

How do you beam into a location with no scanners or sensors to be able to judge the exact X-Y-Z coordinates? To do it blind would have meant a simple guess, which could have put them in a floor or a wall or who knows what. If the damage was really that extensive, this should have been a shuttlecraft ride.

@@michaelclark737 "To do it blind would have meant a simple guess" But remember that Kirk trusts Spock's guesses, more than he trusts most other people's facts. 😁

@@michaelclark737 it’s likely that transport to standard locations would be handled by a beacon handshake so that it didn’t have to be calculated each time

They still "froze", though.

@@christopherheckman7957 Panic can do this to even well trained people. But then again, that's what the training is meant to overcome.

@@stuartwelch6432 And there really wasn't anywhere to go.

I agree. His primary purpose was overseeing the training cruise, the Enterprise wasn’t on actually duty (as Spock noted). Kirk followed regulations and notified Starfleet right away. It was only after Starfleet told them to investigate did the Enterprise go on actual duty.

I think the biggest hole in all of the movie is the fact that Starfleet sent one ship to guard such a potentially destructive weapon, and then DO IT AGAIN in the sequel.

@@EdgeO419 as usual the enterprise was the only ship in the entire quadrant. Lol

I honestly think it was realistic. He followed protocol, then took a walk to compose his thoughts, then talked to one of his oldest friends before finally making the very large decision to go off mission and intervene. His decision had big consequences for his family and his crew, so I don't see it as a plot hole that he carefully considered whether he should charge in.

Very good point. Deciding to take a ship with a handful of experienced officers and a bulk of cadets on a training cruise into a potentially hostile situation is never an easy decision.

Surprising (and disappointing) that she's unaware of this. It's been written about since 1982, and as you said, it was added back in for the Director's Cut (I'm pretty sure it was restored to the version shown on broadcast TV, also). It's also in the novelization in an expanded form.

Perhaps it's one of the additional four of the "14 Dumbest Things" article.

That still doesn't explain why you don't go straight to sick bay. He isn't dead in that scene since we see him die in sick bay. So maybe instead of going to the bridge he could have saved his nephew's life.

He was in shock and felt helpless. Maybe he thought McCoy was on the bridge.

@@kevinscott3781 Still dumb and the deleted scene doesn't change why it's on the list.

IIRC, it was also explained when Kirk first meets him.

@@PAGoTribe1963 they cut that out of the final release.

In the novel, the dying engineer was also Saavik’s pupil. That’s why there was a quick shot of Saavik being shocked. The novel also had Saavik, near the end of the story, crying over her mentor and her pupil’s bodies in Sick Bay. BTW, she cried because she was supposed to be half-Vulcan and half-Romulan, but this was changed for the movie. This was a good YT clip. Thanks!

It was covered in the star trek comics about him being Scotty's nephew.

@@theiran And in the novelization.

Yeah, it was supposed to be Sulu on Regula...why they changed it to Chekov, I don't remember. I recall that Ricardo Montalban made up a story about Khan needing to use the bathroom and Chekov, newly assigned, was in there with bad diarrhea. Khan just pulled the dunny door open and threw Chekov out, roaring, " YOU! I will never forget that face!!".

My explanation is that Chekov was on the Enterprise during season 1 and was promoted to the Bridge betwen seasons 1 and 2

There’s a great book about Khan on Ceti Alpha 5 that explains that. To Reign In Hell. It’s something about how Chekhov was one of the crew that helped relocate Khan to the planet. He actually says something to the effect, Chekhov, I’ll always remember your help. It’s worth the read for sure if you’re a big fan.

@@GarretGrayCamera yeah, but this is basically a retcon after they realized they fcked up.

@@zaubermaus8190 Yep, it’s a good read though.

"I fart in your general direction."

Perhaps I should add that (in the 80s) some friends and I did a college student film, and I did my own version of this revenge speech (no where near as good as RM). Of that group one went on to work at ILM as an artist, a couple worked at Marvel comics for a time, one is a successful Fantasy author, and one became a Starfighter (The Last...). (Me... I became an accountant )

Spock reminds Kirk: "He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking." Perhaps the Prefix Code was not part of the original Constitution class design. That may have been added as a security measure during the Refit.

Good point. Arguing on the password strength in 1982 from a 2020s standpoint is just ridiculous. A where do the 27216 possibilities come from?

Right? Can’t believe they didn’t use MFA at least!

Military, gov't & big corporate security was probably known to the writers, producers, directors, etc. They worked for 1. Not to mention the Trekkie geeks they corresponded with. They probably knew this but kept it simple for the audience & it worked better in the script.

​@@kjk7611I don't know. Even then I wondered how they got it so fast, even with Kirks Admiralty security codes. You probably wouldn't keep that kind of information in every starships computers, and with computer's that damaged, they probably weren't in contact with Starfleet command computers. This is still my favorite Star Trek movie though.

Naw, better would be: "He's dead Scotty", and that's it! Or "Damn it Scotty, I'm not a magician, I'm just a county doctor!! ;D LOL

No that would diminish the sacrifice Scotty's nephew made. He did something to save the ship that was certain death.

Makes total sense to me , if you can't make a target lock on with your sensors your Phasers are of 0 value at that point , meaning that if I have my sensors working properly I can avoid getting hit by a Phaser lock hopefully

In a fight if you have no weapons you can not win also Kirk had a whole crew of Kahn had 14 to crew a Miranda class vessel

in the book, they were piggybacking off the space station's sensors. this was not explained in the movie.

One reason why he also all of a sudden panicked: "Where's the override, where's the override!?" The design he had knowledge about when it comes to the consoles had been completely changed. And well, Decker also explained to Kirk in TMP, that he did not even know 1/10 of the Enterprise now due to the massive upgrades the ship had gone thrue.

Still, he was able to hit the Enterprise in the vital spots, probably thanks to those technical schematics he memorized. Sadly, the movie doesn't make clear this passage.

@@andreabindolini7452 Remember, 'the more they overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stuff up the drain'😄

Too often in science fiction characters from the distant past too quickly adjust to more modern science and technology. Like someone from the 20th century being able AT ALL to operate a star ship. In the 1979 tv show BUCK ROGERS the main character was a master of 25th century space ships almost immediately. Even if he was the best astronaut in the world for the late 20th century it would be like the best world war 1 pilot instantly having a full understanding of how to fly an F35 or a master level computer programmer for when the very first (filled a whole building and could do basic math) computers were made in the early 1940s almost immediately being able to understand and operate the most advanced computer of 2023 (maybe a quantum computer).

Khan had time to look at Reliant's tech manuals at least getting rudimentary knowledge of ship functions. Khan just didn't have time to become fully knowledgeable.

It's also possible it's a one-shot deal. While having a 4-digit code to take over a starship is insane if you can just brute-force it, if you get one guess and then it locks itself out for hours or days, then that's sufficient.

I think part of the code is memorized by the officers. Not stored anywhere in the computers. The contents of their computers get scanned by strange aliens every few episodes. And sometimes things go badly, there is conflict or deception or escape ... which would be entirely irrelevant if the aliens could just activate the control codes.

Khan might have been a smart guy, but he was inexperienced as a starship captain. He didn't know anything beyond the basic functions and had probably no clue about starship procedures or operations. That's why he was defeated in the end.

More like being transported mid word.

The VOYAGER transporter effect?

You've hit on one of the stupidest stupidities of all time. Talking while materializing. The whole point of materializing taking a few seconds is that until it's done, you're not totally there yet! And if you're not there, you can't be speaking! So they take something that is almost certainly not possible ever, and make it beyond nonsensical for no good reason whatsoever. Biggest movie sin of all time.

>>The parts required to make sound were still being assembled mid conversation.

@@alexmuenster2102 Doesn't make it any better. Apparently the stupidity started with that TV episode. And it conflicts with the final beam up in "Bread and Circuses," where the bullets apparently had no effect, even though they weren't fully "dematerialized" yet. Double bad!

That alternate story makes sense. It always bugged me how David in Star Trek III said that Genesis was a failure because of the planet being so unstable... it wasn't tested properly!

That's what I thought, the planet formed so fast that the gravity started to implode the planet from the inside as soon as it got to it's full size.

After the movie, my Trek friends and I came to the same conclusion. And after ST3 it pretty much confirmed it. Explaining David's statement as "He's nowhere as brilliant as his mother, and was working off very initial data, although the it should have been blatantly obvious from the beginning" Genesis works. When used properly. There is a serious storyline in there.

Yep. Came here to make the same point.

My apologies to you; I wrote that in a post before reading yours. No plagiarism was intended, but plagiarism happened anyway :)

Hey, if my sensors were out, the first thing I'd do is send out a probe. We're getting the view from the probe.

Or it's because they tapped into the space station's own sensors, which is in the novel. Spock likely changed the Enterrpise's own prefix code by then.

Oh oh! The Fun Fact People!

Scotty and Chekov had their accents criticized, but both based their speech patterns off real people they met. interesting stuff.

another fun fact about Chekov's accent: Anton Yelchin didn't have to camp it up. He was born in Soviet Russia.

@@beepboop204 the only stereotypical Scottish Scotsman who lives in Los Angeles (or very near to LA) that I know of is Scott Manley. Oh, Hale & Pace reference. :)

@@beepboop204Yeah, there are over the top bad accents but I’ve been surprised many times over the years when I thought an accent was too outrageous to be real… and it 100% was. Never with anyone I met in person, so I never embarrassed myself about it. Just that it seems like the most exaggerated accents are either the fakest or the realest and you have to be familiar with each kind to know which it is.

The novelisations often add detail to fix inconsistencies in the teleplay

@@ijmad The novelization of TWOK also points out that there were 2 Deltan scientists in Regula 1, and that Khan tried to use the eels on one of them, but they ended up committing some sort of 'mental suicide' rather than be controlled. At least I remember something close to that (as it's been about a decade since I read the novelization).

@@ijmad The novelizations were almost always written by Vonda Mcintyre and she said in an interview she had to write off of script drafts because she wasn't given a copy of the final movie print in time to write the novelizations. So, it's more likely that the teleplay had details that were either omitted during filming or edited out post-production. There's a great piece in ST VI where Kirk is with Carol Marcus and attacked by Klingons just prior to Kirk being recalled to Earth to go get Gorkon, which helps explain why he's so enraged at the Klingons. The novel version of "let them die!" makes a lot more sense and fits with where Kirk is mentally in the moment. I believe that was scrapped from shooting and ultimately the story for a version of Kirk "rounding up" his crew where he was supposed to go get them from various places, and that was also cut and replaced with Scotty saying "that suits me, I just bought a boat" and Uhura's "I'm supposed to be chairing a seminar at the academy." But, as written in the novel, it would have made a great piece of cinema. I believe the same thing happens here, and Meyer believed that nobody would be picking apart his movie 40 years later (he apparently learned *nothing* about Trekkies when he was making a movie for them about an episode from 15 years prior).

​@@AsculaepiusRegarding TUC: Many things from the script, especially in the early parts, couldn't be filmed due to budget constrains. There is even was a story-boarded scene of the recovered HMS Bounty being taken apart.

OOPS... Not too many people knew that (I didn't) So, who on the bridge did he replace?

This is pointed-out in EVERYTHING WRONG WITH.

This has been pointed out since 1982. Credit is given to Gene Siskel, a notorious Star Wars fan.

@@trhansen3244 Didn't know the late Siskel was a Trekkie.

He was aboard. He just wasn't seen in the episode, but Khan had access to a lot of material in the computer. He knew the ship, the crew, and they knew him. Even at Starfleet, they had records on him. That's how they identified him in the episode.

Yep! and like in TMP he didn't know the personnel and needed Spock's input. Like I commented on earlier somewhere, Spock knew Kirk missed being in command and gladly relinquished it with "no ego to bruise."

Plot armor

Definitely agree, it explains Khan not using Ceti Eels as he lost the plot when they didn't give him what he wanted (against Joachim's advice) and also the use of Regular 1 sensors.

And don't forget at the end of the battle when Sulu exclaims you did it sir he immediately snaps back " I did nothing!" "Except get caught with my britches down!" " I must be going senile!" He knew he FKD up and got lucky.

I think you’re on to something. There were two character points that Kirk had to deal with: his age, more specifically, his perspective about his age and what he has lost to show for it; and his cavalier attitude about cheating death due to his sometimes rash actions.

@@luvmenow33 And this scene is particularly meaningful given the fact that in TOS KIrk is frequently just as irresponsible and reckless, but it always paid off, until this time.

In a very real sense, Kirk's arrogant taunting of Khan led to Spock's death. In retrospect, I find it painfully ironic at the end of "Space Seed," when Spock says, "It would be interesting, Captain, to return to that world in 100 years and learn what crop had sprung from the seed you planted today." You don't want to know, Spock...You don't want to know...

We're into fictional character psychology, here, which is among the most inexact of fan theory sciences. You think Kirk's inflated self-confidence outweighs the high stakes we're told about? No one can prove anything to the contrary. You think that overconfidence isn't tempered by all that precedent for Kirk putting safety first? No one can prove anything to the contrary.

Mr. Scott is often called a "miracle worker", so you would be correct that Enterprise's chief engineer IS a super genius, but one from training and experience rather than genetics.

@@davidford3115 Agreed!!

Yes, Scotty is a super genius and one from the 23rd century.

More likely that the ability to override a Federation starship was only known to command personnel. Khan would not have read about it in the technical manuals and cadets would not have been told.

@@RictusHolloweye I'd say that given the level of information Kahn got in Space Seed that he probably got the code, but either didn't know its use or the Enterprise crew changed codes at some point since then. We know the codes can be changed since Spock says it's possible Reliant has changed them while looking them up.

My head canon was that it may not have existed during season 1 tos, remote shut down of a starship might have been added after the m5 took over enterprise, or invaders from another galaxy took over enterprise, ect

@@bclapp2483 I always figured it was a protocol put in place after the M5 debacle. If Starfleet could have shut down Enterprise's shields and weapons, they could've saved so many lives. There was probably a think tank for years afterwards on "How do we stop one of our own ships if they go renegade?" and the command code was the product of it.

Like Akray said above, I always assumed something this dangerous would only be known by command personnel, if not only the Captain, such as the existence of Omega, the particle that destroys warp space in Voyager. Keep in mind that Spock was the actual Captain of the ship while Kirk only took over for the emergency. Both being Captains or former Captains would know about the code while no one else should have knowledge of such a thing, and certainly not a cadet or lieutenant junior grade.

Star Trek has always been bad at math, but I agree with the video that this is pretty egregious. Even if you take warp one as the speed of light, which has commonly been accepted, by definition supraluminal velocity is implied with warp. Impulse cannot approach warp speed as you need a warp envelope, so no matter what definition you choose to use, without warp drive it should have taken them years to reach Regula. Take 300,000 x 60 x 60 x 12 and you get 12.96 billion kilometers the Enterprise would have covered at the speed of light in twelve hours. Now I'm assuming warp 5 is more than 5 times faster, but for arguments sake we'll just say it's 5x the speed of light, which would make it almost 65 billion kilometers (40.39 billion miles) to get to Regula from where Reliant intercepts Enterprise. That would mean the Enterprise would have to be going a lot faster than the impulse limping it was doing to get from Regula to the Mutara Nebula at the end of the movie, *after* they had performed repairs to "partial main power." So it isn't really about comparing warp five versus seven - it's about comparing warp versus impulse speeds (assuming the ship even had impulse power, which wasn't entirely clear after the first battle).

And it’s clear that the cadets may not have taken “Warp Drive 101” yet. Kirk actually calls down to Scotty to tell him the need to go to warpspeed, and Scotty’s reply is …. tentative, like he’s wondering how he’s going to accomplish that with this group. Oh, and warp factor is the CUBE of lightspeed. Warp 1 is 1x1x1c, Warp 2 is 2x2x2c (8 times the speed of light), etc.

@@whiplashfatigue1430 I am aware that the prevailing theory of warp factors is that they are 2^x power, but it was never canonized. Regardless, when Kirk says "can your engines handle a little training cruise" Scott says, "just give the word." When he calls down and says, "we'll be going to warp speed," he says "aye sir." As was clearly demonstrated in TMP, and numerous TOS episodes, Scotty has ZERO problems telling Kirk when warp is going to be a problem. The cadets were more than capable of operating a warp drive. They were in no way prepared for battle.

Yes, the star is the one from the nebula. You can even see it in an earlier scene, when Reliant uses it for tactical advantage.

@Whiplash Fatigue: Warp Factor refers to the %coefficient% to the speed of light, c, to represent speed of travel. Your formula means Warp Factor n gives a speed of (n^3)*c . Asculaepius uses (2^n)*c . Comparing the formulas, I see that, for all n, (n^3)*c = (2^n)*c is true only for n1 and n2, where 0 < n1 < n2 . For n in (n1, n2), (n^3)*c > (2^n)*c . For n outside [n1, n2], (n^3)*c < (2^n)*c . For %mental fatigue%, I solved for the 2 roots: (n^3)*c = (2^n)*c 3*log(n) = n*log(2) log(n)/n = log(2)/3 -log(1/n)/n = log(2)/3 n = 1/W(-log(2)/3) ≈ 1.3734671196961651667, 9.9395351414269045380 . They correspond to speeds of about 2.59092476*c and 981.970001*c, respectively.

I was just coming into the comments to say that!

It's covered in several researched books including one by Nicholas Meyer on why he didn't get his preferred title until Star Trek VI. It takes a little bit more than 30 seconds, but not much.

Not to nit pick, but I believe Scotty said Preston was his sister's youngest, not his brother's.

It's his sister's youngest, "crazy to get to space." And you take people to sickbay (where there are other doctors and equipment to treat people) and not the bridge. I actually completely agree with this video that it's a stupid thing to do. But, I also never even gave it a moment's thought before, which speaks to the excellent pacing of the movie.

@@Asculaepius its there to represent the horror Khan has inflicted on the ship

Why would anyone on a ship take their badly wounded crewmate to the bridge? Ever? It is totally ridiculous.

@@darryls7931 I was just about to make that comment.

Yes, according to my Helminthology course in college years ago, a parasite is not supposed to kill its host, it's just supposed to take up "residence". That's if you are host specific, like the Chinese liver fluke or something like that. They are your "guests" for years, and not particularly good ones, just making you miserable, but that's all. The deadly ones are those that get into you, through drinking bad water, entering your urethra while you are swimming in some river, or something like that, then wandering around in the wrong internal organs looking for a "home" but not quite finding it. An alien bug/creature in a human would have that effect as you said, since Chekov was not an "environment" it had evolved in on a planet several light years for Earth. It will be some interesting stuff to deal with when we try to colonize a world with lots of creatures that we have no idea of their life history. I would not drink any fresh water there, but rather die of dehydration than have a bug in me for the rest of my stay on the alien planet! Might give the old well-known "Chekov scream" I bet! LOL :D

You saw it 17 times?! Did you ever consider giving it the Rocky Horror Picture Show treatment? You could have dressed up like Khan, mimicked the action on the screen, etc. That would have been a blast.

It's an excellent Christmas movie too

I saw it in the theater about five times. Totally different experience on a huge screen, with the surround sound and everything. After the first movie, I wasn't expecting much too. So maybe that made it more impactful. This movie is as great as much as the first one sucks.

@@sigma80 You know the old joke right? 'We don't speak of the odd numbered movies' 😂

@@athrunzala6919 I liked three, "The Search for Spock"". That was very cheesy though, it wasn't a Cinema Tour De Force like "The Wrath of Khan" was. One made my dog, who ate cat turds out of the litter box (Before clumping litter, he would of had a colon blockage with that ), barf when he saw it. I wanna know who approved that script, let alone the movie.

@@athrunzala6919 Yes, just like Die Hard

I always thought the crew, besides Khan & his exo looked way too young.

I always thought TWoK took place in 2282?

@@kjk7611- Then it would have made sense.

It was 15 years since the TV Episode until the Film. Meyer wrote the dialog knowing little about the show to begin with, other that when it aired, and I suspect the actors were also in the same mindset. Kirk is also 50, as opposed to when he was 35 in the TV show. Shatner was really obsessed with it because it was HIS age as well. The stardates were, no doubt, filled in for details, accurate or not. as was Chekov. Meyer mentions most of these things, and other 'inconsistencies' in his 'Director's Cut' commentary, which is well worth the listen. IMO Nicholas Meyer's narratives are the reason films #2 & #6 are the best of all of the Star Trek films to date.

@@gravesclayton3604- Of course, the first part focused on Kirk going through a mid-life crises.

"...I just think it's weird that starfleet also buried any record of the exile there so this movie could happen..." Agreed. IIRC, there was a line of dialogue in the original script that said something along the lines of the Federation fearing that the Augments might gather followers had knowledge of their survival been made public.

This has ALWAYS been Trek, though. Sensors are the McGuffin of every story, movie and TV show. They are amazing when they need to be and useless when they need to be :)

@@plektosgaming Agreed. Funny thing is like "Magic" in Harry Potter, the more you think about it, the less technical it becomes. So for instance, in TNG, they have Worf say something like 'Long Range Sensors pick up a ship approaching, they are 10 light years away'. So... how did you bounce a signal off something 10 light years away and not have to wait 20 years to learn about it?

Well if ceti alpha 6 was right where ceti alpha 5 should be they could assume that ceti alpha 6 was orbiting behind the sun. Logically they should know where the planets are expected to be before warping into the system, or else that would be quite dangerous, so you'd have unrealistically tight tolerances for all this to fit together.

It's likely that Kirk and the others never told Starfleet of Khan's exile in the first place. Considering that Khan is a war criminal from centuries ago who attempted to hijack the Enterprise and kill her captain, If they knew, they would have gone down to Ceti Alpha V and arrested them, not allow them to live their lives in peace on an uninhabited planet.

Where there are stars, there is matter revolving around them. Soon enough to come together in planetary size? At the correct life zone distance? That can be infused with genesis matrix manipulation from a distance? Manipulated in one single planetary size object and not on thousands if not millions of asteroid size objects? Sure. Why not?

Starfleet is fictitious and the USN is not. While they are analogous in rank, they are not parallels. If Kirk felt the situation was dire, he absolutely could have taken command of the vessel, and he did as much via his "by order of Starfleet command as of now..." speech that was supposed to preclude him visiting Spock. But the dialogue in Spock's quarters was rewritten to have an "I'm not Decker" quality to it and the switch makes sense in a lot of ways, but not if you're really worried about the Genesis device. He didn't even need to go to the bridge - they did have comms after all.

Other thing to bear in mind: warp speed factors are exponential, not sequential. Kirk would have ordered Warp 5 because Warp 6 would have wound up overshooting the destination.

Its just the sense of urgency that was missing, especially how slowly he was strolling the corridors toward Spock's quarters. And no use of internal communications either, which would have certainly expedited things

also Kirk was acting with regard to Spock because of Dekker in TMP. When he had to take control of the Enterprize to go to Vger. He did feel bad about taking away Dekker's captain seat. Kirk learned his lesson and was not so quick to take the captain seat from another person without regard.

@@k1productions87 Decorum. In TOS he was shown to have the deck cleared so no one would see him in a weakened state while he struggled to get back to the bridge. Hurrying to Spock makes him look anxious and not 'in control'. So it is in character.

@@danamoore1788 Which is why you use the internal comm to tell someone to rush to his quarters, as there is nothing out of the ordinary in having a subordinate rush to their superior, even in non-emergency situations.

He had a shot of Captain Morgan before beaming down.

We've seen this kind of transporter oddity throughout the Star Trek franchise. Someone gets beamed up while sitting or lying down, for example, and they are only sometimes rematerialized in the transporter room in that same position, and sometimes standing up. So the show producers seem to be telling us that transporter systems have a built-in intelligence that repositions body parts as needed for dramatic effect, without damaging the structure and chemistry of the cells of the body.

They didn't - which is shown later by their fumbling in a nebula. What they did was plug into the station's array. Kahn realized this and moved out of range of the station.

@@plektosgaming- Well, the scanner and sensors were inoperateive in the nebula regardless if they were functional in regular space.

What surprised me is all they could do was lower reliant shields they should have at least been able to disable her weapons and bring her to a full stop and it Khan didn’t surrender they could’ve just override the environment safeties and just space them. They know what happened the last time they tried to contain them.

You should keep in mind this was near the dawn of the home computer era, most people didn't have any familiarity with passcodes and access numbers. Heck, at the time most people still used 12345 as their P.I.N. 😏 So from that perspective a 5 digit number like that seemed pretty high tech ( though strange Saavik didn't know about it, as a command-prospect cadet, she would have been briefed on the basic security protocols involved in bridge operations).

Insofar as Khan not using his superior intellect to use the Enterprise's Prefix Code right back- I'd put money he figured out they took control... the HOW, on the other hand, let alone what the Enterprise's Prefix Code is (or where to find it, what its called, etc) is a completely different issue.

In simpler terms, it's the 80s version of 2-factor. Remember that it hadn't been named as such, yet.

The red uniforms weren't actually new (except for the officers). You can read Nicholas Meyer's book on ST II, but the short version is he had to reuse the pajama uniforms from STTMP and the only color that they would dye well consistently was maroon. So then they made the officers have matching maroon jackets and added black pants to denote officers or important people. But the folks you see (especially in the "loading torpedoes" sequences) are all wearing maroon TMP uniforms.

Hopefully not to 12345, though.

@@christopherheckman7957 "Amazing, I have the same code on by golf bag!" I know, different "universes, but still funny.

@@stuartwelch6432 And it was his luggage, not his golf bag.

@@christopherheckman5392 It was one or the other, I just couldn't remember which it was. (and I think it was 123456, but, it was close enough.)

@@stuartwelch6432 12345. Sounds like you need to watch it again. 8-)

Also audiences don't want to sit there while they input a 500 character passphrase. As a writing challenge, keeping it short and sweet gets the point across. I heard the same criticism of authorization codes in Star Trek the Next Generation, as even Commander data's fake one in the episode Brothers where he steals the Enterprise isn't that long, but those are multi-factor authentication because there is voiceprint analysis

There's also the point that no amount of intelligence will make up for not possessing specific knowledge. Given Khan's history, it's not at all unreasonable to assume he simply did not know that the prefix codes exist.

@@BaalsMistress And the fact that, in the director's cut, Kirk says, "We're only alive because I knew something about these ships that he didn't" to McCoy in Sickbay after Preston's death. Given it was shot on film and Meyer felt the need to put it in his cut, I think he wanted to put that to rest.

Agreed with all of the above. The key word here is PREFIX, suggesting it is a specific code preceding another code(s) or data needed for access. The dialogue could have simply said “access code,” in which case such a short series of numbers would indeed be problematic. Someone was clever and chose to name it “prefix code,” which has a specific meaning and really is not open to interpretation. One could imagine Starfleet routinely updating command codes as well for added security in addition to all the aforementioned multi-factor layers. This scene has never bothered me. The word “prefix” was well considered.

Absolutely!

Agreed. Like if Scotty had got him to sick bay sooner he’d be alive.

'Tis but a flesh wound...

I wish they didn't cut out the fact Preston was Scotty's nephew from the theatrical cut. In the Director's Cut it was restored and helped the bridge scene make more sense

That detail was actually filmed, cut from the theatrical version, included in the ABC Sunday Night movie version, and subsequently the director's cut. He specifically says "My sister's youngest, Admiral. Crazy to get to space."

Odd I saw it in the theater the first time I saw it and new he was Scotty's sister's kid. Maybe there was different theatrical releases.

Hm. He did once detect a Klingon impersonating a human because "anatomy's all wrong." That's precedent for how he could know, though, not why he would. He's got x number of Federation member species whose lives he may be called upon to save. Why would he prioritize study of how to treat the enemy?

@@alm2187 good one! and is a fair point! there's probably a better example out there... like Khan telling Chekhov he never forgets a face even though Chekhov isn't in Space Seed. though, maybe he saw Chekhov's service record in the Enterprise databanks... still fun to poke fun - the characters are only as smart as the writers write them. 🖖🏻

@@erineddy9310 Ha. That's my favorite hole in this whole movie. The first thought I had when I saw it in the theatre 40 years ago, um I'm pretty sure Chekov wasn't in Space Seed and never met Khan. I still love the movie though.

@@bryanlawrence6234 I'm trying to think what my favorite plot hole is... aside from those in Wrath of Khan... but maybe the one that confused me the most is that Tuvok wasn't on the Excelsior in Star Trek 6... *originally. Tim Russ was on the Enterprise B, though not as a Vulcan - then, suddenly Voyager Retcons this. plot hole so big you could drive V'ger through it. lol

​@@erineddy9310 Apparently an episode in which Chekov appears was "dated" before Space Seed. So he was theoretically there but not seen, as happens to Sulu a number of times. The reason isn't clear; maybe it was for some lesser continuity-related reason. Episodes did get produced out of the order in which they were scripted, but that was a big jump.

The Animated Series was awesome

@@mem1701movies I didn't hate it. I just didn't care for the animation style. I know it had interesting stories.

Khan was more familiar with TOS tech, he seems to have not learned much about the refit bridge (compared to Joachim) as when Enterprise lowers Reliant’s shields, Khan panics looking for “the override” and the camera shows a POV shot of him looking across a massive amount of buttons on the console! (Just about the only thing he gets right is later when Joachim argues with him about following Enterprise into the nebula, Khan shoves him aside and uses the impulse throttle sliders.)

The Reliant was a science vessel, possibly a civilian vessel with only a starfleet operations crew , as such that would explain WHY it didnt have the same level of classified information as the enterprise has, both on the genesis device AND the security override codes of OTHER vessels

@@MrSheckstr The Reliant was a Starfleet frigate. Carol makes it clear Genesis is a civilian project and Chekov says, "I'm sorry that you feel that way doctor, Admiral Kirk's orders are confirmed." Khan had already marooned Terell and Chekov by the time of the battle, and even if he knew about the prefix code, he wouldn't have had any way to access Starfleet classified information without them.

Unfortunately, they opted to leave all mention of Preston being Scotty's nephew on the cutting room floor. That's always bothered me.

One is set, two is binding, feels like a false set on three....

Starships in the next generation timeframe had prefix codes, in the episode “the wounded“ the prefix codes of the federation starship “Phoenix” are obtained by Captain Picard from the Enterprise main computer, which are then relayed to the Cardassian starships to give them an advantage over a nebula class federation starship

From a strictly story flow standpoint, Kirk asks Saavik to "punch up Reliant's command," so I don't think you needed to be above a captain, but maybe you needed to be a Starfleet officer, and maybe Khan didn't think to that level of detail before dumping off Terrell and Chekov. Or maybe he didn't know about it from his previous readings, or it was added in after Khan was dropped off in TOS.

Fun fact: in the 2nd season TNG episode "Unnatural Selection," Picard retreats to his ready room, queries the computer for the USS Lantree's prefix code, and executes remote control of said USS Lantree. However, if a captain gets compromised in some way, Starfleet can always revoke an individual's access to codes, and automatically change codes once they've been accessed.

From the way it's presented in the movie, it seems like you have to have an open line of communication for this trick to work. Like opening an attachment in an dodgy e-mail. Kahn found out the hard way that there were, in fact, no hot single MILFs in his area.

And actually we know they do change access codes, because in the 7th season two-parter "The Gambit," Data and Troy (if I remember right) specifically mention that Ryker must know that his access codes no longer work after he was captured and he tried them on the Enterprise.

The TNG episode was set well after the events of the film. In the episode, imposing speed limits in space was presented as a novelty, for Starfleet at least. I wish I could name the episode but my Trekker nerd creds have expired.

As far as the planet forming and have the proper angular momentum to spin the gases could have been coalescing in that pattern while it was forming. But people need to keep in mind that the planet destroyed itself in a matter of days too. The Genesis cave was fairly stable but it was done in a preexisting location. As far as the star that shows at the end, it was probably obscured by the nebula. Nebulas can reach into solar systems.

@@sincitytaoist3883 do you think the Genetically Superior guy who died in Kahn's arms was his son?

@@sincitytaoist3883 In many cases young stars have already formed inside of dense nebulas.

Yah if they were real pirates Joachim would have mutinied against Khan and took command especially if he was able to get enough of his fellow crew on his side. He seemed to make a lot more sense than khan especially since he had no vendetta he simply wanted to take the reliant and find safe harbor. Maybe go to that planet the Botany Bay was originally on course for before the enterprise found it.

Star Trek II is EXACTLY why the Federation later invented the California Class ships :)

@@michaelmiller3012 1. Help me out, what is so much better at them? And what problem do they solve from the movie? Please say a little more?

@@Zurround In Star Trek: Lower Decks, they introduce the California Class of ships as the "second contact" fleet. Essentially, they are tasked with following up and maintaining relations with the cultures and people the "hero" ships and crews meet. Of course, in THAT show that is occasionally played up for comedic effect, but it is a serious and important (if unglamorous) job. They could have followed up with Khan after Ceti Alpha VI exploded.

@@michaelmiller3012 Is "lower decks" even official canon? The 1973 tv cartoon does not fit with canon well and many of the novels and comic book stories do not either.

Pavel had his assignment on the ship so coincidentally he was not at his post at the time of Khans appearance.

If it was any other crew member, but since this was his nephew, I'm going with shock.

Apart from being straight up shock value, I also took Scottie's action as perhaps a message of consternation that he wanted to convey directly to the bridge: "What the *#@ are we doing here? They're just cadets!!" Clearly, Spock (momentarily betrayed by his human side) was equally affected by the unfortunate reality of the situation. (The oft-used "only ship in the quadrant" angle has to be a running inside joke within the Trek universe, making it as much a mark of ST schtick as beaming technology and pointed sideburns.)

"I never forget a face..."

Walter Konig often quipped that Chekov was in the toilet and plugged it before Khan went to use it.