The planet in the prelude of the film is called Nibiru. This
may be a reference to the alleged "twelfth planet" of the
ancient Sumerians (twelfth because the Sumerians supposedly
counted our current 8 planets of the solar system, plus
Pluto, the Moon, and the Sun) called Nibiru, according to
the theories of Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010), a scholar on
ancient Mesopotamia who went on to write a number of books
about his theories, centered around ideas of ancient
astronauts playing pivotal roles in human history. At the
end of the prelude sequence, the primitive aliens have seen
the Enterprise and begin drawing its image in the
ground, seeming awed and worshipful, a callback to Sitchin's
own theories.
After jumping off the cliff into the sea at 5:33 on the DVD,
notice that Kirk and McCoy have shed their disguising robes,
which are now floating near the surface as the two swim off
to the submerged Enterprise.
Notice that at 6:44 on the DVD, a blob of falling lava from
the erupting volcano destroys the natives' temple structure
and is witnessed by the natives who were pursuing Kirk and
McCoy. It's possible that, in addition to the awe-inspiring
sight of the Enterprise lifting off from the sea
and into the sky, they also interpret Kirk as a god who
has saved their lives by luring them out of the temple just
before the catastrophe.
Attempting to discourage Kirk from breaking the Prime
Directive in sending the Enterprise to the volcano
to rescue him, Spock states "the needs of the many outweigh
the needs of the few". In the 1982
film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Spock-Prime
quotes these words from the Vulcan philosopher Surak. The
current Spock also used similar phrasing in
"Countdown" Part 4,
The Assassination
Game, and the novelized elements of
"The Vengeance of Nero".
At 10:36 on the DVD, notice that the Nibiran holding the
sacred scroll simply drops it to the ground in favor of
observing the outline of the Enterprise the
elder is drawing in the dirt, a further indication that
Kirk's actions have altered this alien culture.
The scene of the Harewoods waking up in London is said to be
stardate 2259.55.
At 11:17 on the DVD, what would seem to be an antique analog
clock is seen on Thomas Harewood's nightstand.
The view of London outside Harewood's window at 11:39 on the
DVD shows a futuristic cityscape with the exception of
St.
Paul's Cathedral on the right side of the screen, an actual
historical landmark, and the
London
Eye on the left, a Ferris wheel on the River Thames
erected in 1999. The Eye seems to be too close to the
cathedral in comparison to where it is located currently; I
suppose the Eye could have been moved for some reason in the
intervening centuries.
Also, the sun is rising in the west in this shot! I
don't think anybody changed the Earth's rotation in the
intervening centuries!
Again in this same shot, is it just me, or is there
a Viper (from
Battlestar
Galactica) flying through the shot on the
right-hand side of the screen? It's distant, so it's hard to
tell, but it appears to have two downward sloping wings, a
dark (hollow?) nose, and banks into a turn, just like a
Viper.
The Harewood's go to visit their terminally ill
young daughter at Royal Children's Hospital. This would seem
to be a fictional facility, since the only
Royal Children's Hospital in the
current day is in Melbourne, Australia. It's possible the
Melbourne hospital has added facilities in other countries
in the centuries since.
At 13:25 on the DVD, we see a phonograph and, possibly, an
old two-dimensional chess set in Kirk's quarters on Earth.
This may be an early hint of his fondness for antiques, as
originally revealed in Star Trek:
The Wrath of Khan. The record on the phonograph
turntable is playing "Body Movin’", a 1998 song by the
Beastie Boys. Kirk was also presented listening to the
Beastie Boys ("Sabotage") in
"Parallels".
According to co-writer Damon Lindelof, the two cat-tailed women
Kirk wakes up with at 13:33 on the DVD are Caitians, the
same felinoid species as M'Ress, a character seen regularly
in the animated Star Trek series of 1973-74.
As Kirk and Spock head to Admiral Pike's office, not knowing
what awaits them there, Kirk speculates that they are going
to be given the new 5-year deep space mission. In the
original Star Trek TV series,
the Enterprise was said to be on a 5-year mission
to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and
civilizations. Although they do not get the assignment here
as Kirk expects, it is awarded them at the end of the movie.
Kirk reminds Pike that he has not lost a single crewmember
since he took command of the Enterprise. But, in
"Where No
Man Has Gone Before" Part 2, Ensign Kelso was
killed by Gary Mitchell and then Mitchell was killed by Kirk
himself!
The medical readout at 18:20 on the DVD reveals that Thomas
Harewood's daughter is named Lucille. For some reason, her temperature
shows as very low to start with, 32.5° Celsius, much lower
than the human norm of 37° C. If her ailment was causing the
low temperature, you'd think the doctors would be using some
artificial means of keeping it up, instead of just having
her lying in bed; perhaps her body temp is being kept
deliberately low for some reason to keep her alive. As
Khan's blood enters her system, the temperature starts to
climb back up.
At 18:41 on the DVD, notice that a flag of the United
Federation of Planets sits in between the two Union Jacks on
the Kelvin Memorial Archive building.
|
As Kirk looks through video footage of
the aftermath of the Kelvin Archive
explosion at 25:27 on the DVD, two
people walking through the wreckage
are identified on the screen as
Corey Turner and Stephanie Ito. Corey
Turner is the name of the executive
stereographer (3D photography) on
the film.
Stephanie Ito is a production manager;
though not credited on this film,
it's likely she had some involvement. |
 |
Khan uses a transwarp beaming device to escape Earth and
hide out on Kronos. Scotty invented transwarp in
"The
Vengeance of Nero".
The coordinates on the transwarp beaming device show that
Harrison beamed to the Ketha Province on Kronos, the Klingon
homeworld. The Ketha lowlands were also mentioned as the
birthplace of Klingon Chancellor Martok in the ST: DS9
episode "Once More Unto the Breach".
At 32:23 on the DVD, Admiral Marcus walks past a set of
models in his office detailing the history of manned flight. From right to
left are: the Wright Flyer I (the first successful airplane
flight by the Wright Brothers, 1903); the Spirit of St. Louis
(first non-stop flight from New York to Paris, by pilot
Charles Lindbergh in 1927); a V-2 rocket (1943);
the X-15, a joint USAF and NASA experimental aircraft (1959); a Russian Soyuz spacecraft (1960s); U.S.
Apollo spacecraft (1960-70s); U.S. space shuttle
(1981-2011); NASA Ares V launch vehicle (early 21st
Century); an XCV 330 ring ship (first seen in an
illustration of a previous ship called Enterprise
on the recreation deck of the USS Enterprise in
Star Trek: The Motion Picture); the Phoenix
(Earth's first warp-drive ship, first seen in Star Trek:
First Contact); the NX-Alpha (first seen in flashback
in the ST: Enterprise episode "First Flight"); the
USS Enterprise NX-01 (Captain Archer's ship in
ST: Enterprise); the
USS Kelvin (destroyed in battle with Narada in
"Rebirth"); and the USS Vengeance
(later shown to be the new military ship commanded by Marcus
and designed by Khan).
If the Vengeance is still supposed to be a secret
at this point, why would Marcus have a model of it in plain
view in his public office?
It's possible that the writers named the
USS Vengeance
after the original title of the script for
The Wrath of Khan,
which was The Vengeance of Khan.
Admiral Marcus reveals that the Kelvin
Memorial Archive was not really an archive. It was a top
secret branch of Starfleet designated Section 31. This was a
covert organization seen in episodes of
ST-Enterprise and ST-DS9.
At 34:07 on the DVD, the shuttlecraft that carries Kirk,
Spock, McCoy, and Carol Wallace to the Enterprise is seen to
be called the Takayama.
At 34:30 on the DVD, Dr. McCoy is seen to be wearing a pinky
ring on his left hand. This is in homage to the one worn by
actor DeForest Kelley (1920-1999) at all times, including
during his tenure as Dr. McCoy in the original TV and movie
series. (At 34:37, the ring is missing, but back again in
the next shot in which his hand is visible.)
Carol Wallace is later identified as Carol Marcus, the
daughter of Admiral Marcus. "Wallace" was her mother's
maiden name. Carol Marcus, of course, was one of Kirk's
ex-lovers (and the mother of his son, David Marcus) in the
original timeline in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
The Carol here speaks with an English accent, while the
original timeline version did not.
The name "Wallace" was borrowed by the screenwriters
from the first draft of the
Wrath of Khan script. There, the character of Carol
Marcus was originally Janet Wallace, an old flame of Kirk's
who had first appeared in the original series episode "The
Deadly Years".
When Kirk reassumes command of the Enterprise, the
ship is docked at a space station in Earth orbit. It looks
as if it is probably Starbase 1, first
seen in "The
Vengeance of Nero".
Scotty refuses to sign for the new top secret photon
torpedoes since they are shielded and Starfleet will not
release the specifications for them to him, and he resigns
his position, returning to Earth, along with Keenser,
stating that Admiral Marcus' actions are essentially
illegal, just as Spock has also told Kirk. Kirk then
promotes Chekov to the chief engineer position. So, it would
seem that Chekov signed for the torpedoes. Is Chekov
something of a Yes Man? Or is it merely a symptom of his
youth and inexperience?
 |
At 40:45
on the DVD, one of the Starfleet
ships docked at the space station as
the Enterprise leaves
appears to have only half a disk in
its saucer section. Is this an
unknown class of Starfleet vessel? |
When Kirk heads down to the surface of Kronos with Spock and
Uhura, Sulu remarks this is the first time he as been given
the conn. However, the
later-published-but-earlier-chronologically novel
The Unsettling Stars
has Sulu taking the conn shortly after the events of
"The
Vengeance of Nero".
Kirk and his away team take a trade ship confiscated during
the Mudd incident "last month" to the surface of Kronos in
order to avoid being identified as Starfleet. This ship was
intercepted by the Enterprise in
"Countdown to
Darkness" Part 2, piloted by a woman who would seem to
be the daughter of Harry Mudd who appeared in two
popular episodes of the original TV series, "Mudd's Women"
and "I, Mudd", and the animated series episode "Mudd's
Passion", as well as a number of appearances in comic books
and novels.
At 45:25 on the DVD, we see a shuttlecraft called the
Warrant. It is later used by Drs. Marcus and McCoy to
take one of Admiral Marcus' new torpedoes to the surface of
a planetoid in order to disarm it and discover its true
cargo.
At 46:01 on the DVD, as Kirk, Spock, and Uhura head to the
surface of Kronos, we see what appears to be Praxis, the
moon of Kronos, half blown apart. In the original timeline,
Praxis was destroyed due to careless overmining of dilithium
in 2293, as seen in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country;
our current story takes place in 2259.
"Khan" Part 4 reveals
that Khan, as John Harrison,
implemented a plan for Section 31 that brought about the
destruction of the moon.
The Klingon D4 class vessel that pursues Kirk's trade ship
over the Ketha Province appears to be a smaller version of
the Klingon ship that menaced the Enterprise in
"Countdown to
Darkness" Part 4.
During Uhura's conversation with the Klingons after landing
in the Ketha Province, note that the translated subtitles
shift colors as the lighting in the environment around
them
does.
At 52:55 on the DVD, notice that Uhura pulls a knife from
her Klingon assaulter's own armor and stabs him with it.
Klingons are known to hide numerous weapons on their person
and it may be that Uhura knew of likely locations for
another blade to be concealed.
|
At 54:29 on the DVD, notice that one
of the Klingons is carrying a
bat'leth, the traditional Klingon
sword of honor seen in stories of
the Next Generation era
Star Trek TV series. |
 |
Khan gives Kirk some coordinates in the Earth system to
investigate, which turns out to be the location of a secret facility of
Section 31 orbiting Jupiter's moon Io.
|
1:00:50 on the DVD, the entrance of
the Port of San Francisco is seen at
the bottom of the screen. It appears
to still have the same design as the
facility used today. |
 |
 |
| Port of San
Francisco (Star Trek) |
Modern day Port
of San Francisco (photo by
Celeste Carswell) |
The song playing in the night club where Scotty and Keenser
are hanging out is the 2005 song "The Growl" by Conway in
the U.S. release of the film. Some other countries have a
different song playing in this scene. (See the song list at
Memory Alpha.)
At 1:01:31 on the DVD, Scotty appears to have a bottle of
Budweiser sitting in front of him at the club. The
Budweiser brand was also seen in the
"Parallels"
study of the Abrams Star Trek movie.
At 1:01:50 on the DVD, notice that Keenser steals one of
Scotty's full shot glasses.
Carol Marcus mentions to Kirk that she is a friend of
Christine Chapel, who has transferred to the outer frontier.
Carol gives the impression that Chapel was one of Kirk's
past conquests; she was mentioned briefly as being a nurse
aboard the Enterprise in "The
Vengeance of Nero". In the original timeline, there
was no indication that Kirk had ever been romantically
involved with her.
At
1:04:42 on the DVD, notice that when Carol tells Kirk to
turn around after he stares at her in her undergarments, as
his head quickly turns away, a swishing sound is heard in an
amusing bleed-over from the next scene, which reveals the
sound to be the opening of the turbolift doors on the
bridge.
Dr. McCoy tells Dr. Marcus that he once performed an
emergency c-section on a pregnant Gorn. The Gorn were
previously seen in the new timeline in
the Star Trek video game that came out shortly
before this film (see
"Gorn, But Not Forgotten"),
and McCoy mentions this off-screen birth over the
communicator to Kirk during the course of the game.
Notice at 1:08:49 on the DVD, that Scotty, upon seeing the
USS Vengeance in the mysterious space dock over Io,
seems about to say "holy shit", getting out only "holy"
before the scene cuts to the swish of opening doors on the
Enterprise in the next scene.
|
The medical tunic worn by McCoy at
1:08:54 on the DVD is vaguely
reminiscent of the one worn by him
in the original TV series. |
 |
 |
Khan seems to imply that his sleeper ship (the Botany
Bay) was discovered when Starfleet began searching deep
space for a new Vulcan homeworld after the destruction of
Vulcan in "The
Vengeance of Nero".
72 of Khan's followers have been placed in stasis and hidden
inside Khan's specially designed photon torpedoes. This is
the same number of Khan's followers who survived their
cryo-suspension on the Botany Bay in the original
series episode "Space Seed".
Khan ridicules Spock as unable to even break a rule, let
alone bone. Near the end of the film, Spock breaks Khan's
arm.
|
R2-D2, the little droid from the Star Wars
films, appears once again as a piece
of debris (as he did in
"The Vengeance of Nero") at
1:18:10 on the DVD. |
 |
Here, Scotty sabotages the technologically superior
Vengeance. In Star Trek: The Search for Spock,
he sabotaged the
technologically superior Excelsior.
After Scotty sabotages the Vengeance long enough to
prevent the Enterprise's destruction, Kirk calls
Scotty a miracle worker. Scotty was often referred to as
such in the original timeline.
Justifying his collusion with Khan against Admiral Marcus,
Kirk quotes the adage, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Spock claims the adage is an old Arab proverb coined by a
prince later beheaded by his "friend". This does not appear
to be true in our current accounting of the phrase's
origins, which acknowledge the Indian philosopher Kautilya
(370-283 BC) as the originator of the progenitor phrase,
"The king who is likewise situated close to the enemy, but
separated from the conqueror only by the enemy, is termed
the friend (of the conqueror)."
Khan tells Kirk that the Vengeance is a
Dreadnought-class ship, twice the size and three times
the speed of the Enterprise. "Dreadnought" is a
term used to describe a heavily-armed type of battleship.
McCoy experiments with Khan's highly regenerative blood by
injecting it into a deceased tribble. I orginally speculated
in this study that it's possible that the
dead tribble is one left over from the Enterprise's
tribble adventure in
"The Truth About
Tribbles". An article at the
end of Star Trek #50, "Continuing Voyages in a
Four-Color Frontier", seems to confirm this, revealing that
the dead tribble that McCoy resurrects with Khan's blood
here is the same tribble that died of old age in
"The Truth About
Tribbles" Part 2.
After taking command of the Vengeance, Khan tells
Spock he will target the Enterprise's life support section,
depriving the crew of oxygen. In "Space Seed", Khan took
over the Enterprise by cutting off the oxygen,
disabling the crew.
At 1:34:59 on the DVD, Dr. McCoy says, "Dammit, man, I'm a
doctor, not a torpedo technician!"
Notice that the bridge, corridors, and other sections of the
Vengeance are all dark colored, unlike the white
coloring of the Enterprise interiors.
As the Enterprise is being tossed around in the
plunge through Earth's atmosphere, McCoy admits to Carol
that he gets seasick.
During the plunge through the atmosphere, we see that the
bridge crew has deployable harnesses built into their chairs
to hold them in their seats. During episodes of the various
TV series of the original timeline, the starships seemingly
had no harnesses or seat belts and personnel would
frequently be thrown all around during space battles.
Notice during Kirk and Scotty's run through the
Enterprise as it plunges through Earth's atmosphere
that they run along the walls at times as the ship twists in
its fall.
At 1:45:10 on the DVD, notice that several shuttlecraft are
falling through the lopsided hangar bay in the background.
In order to enter the radiation-drenched warp core chamber
uninhibited, Kirk knocks out Scotty with a punch, just as
Spock knocked out McCoy (with a nerve pinch) to repair the
warp drive in
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
At 1:47:09 on the DVD, the platinum-haired woman on the
bridge may be Lt. Zahra.
I point out in other Star Trek studies how Lt.
Zahra started out
as a young, black lieutenant, gradually becoming more
Caucasian in appearance with each new appearance in the
comic book series until becoming the white, platinum-haired
woman who currently appears.
At 1:47:18 on the DVD, Sulu's and Spock's harnesses have
vanished, but are back again in the next scene.
Kirk sacrifices himself to restart the Enterprise's
warp core, while Spock mourns his death. In
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan,
it was the opposite, with Spock sacrificing his life.
Dying in the radiation chamber after bringing the warp core
back online, Kirk asks Spock how the ship is and Spock
replies, "Out of danger," similar to dialog between Kirk and
Spock, but oppositely, in
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.
When Kirk and Spock press their hands against the
transparent barrier within/without the radiation containment
chamber, notice that Spock places his fingers in the form of
the Vulcan salute and Kirk then spreads his fingers to match
the gesture. The salute means "live long and prosper" or
"peace and long life". The salute was originally devised by
Leonard Nimoy as Spock in the original series episode "Amok
Time" and it was a Jewish gesture he learned as a child,
which stands for "the Almighty", i.e. God.
At 1:53:34 on the DVD, a structure in San Francisco Bay
appears to be the San Francisco Bay Stadium, first seen in
the ST: Enterprise episode "Home".
At 1:53:42 on the DVD, the Vengeance takes out
Alcatraz Island in its crash into San Francisco Bay. This
may also be a reference to the J.J. Abrams produced 2012 TV
show Alcatraz which lasted only one season on the
Fox network.
The Vengeance crashes into San Francisco Bay.
Kirk's commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey also crashed in the
bay in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.
The Vengeance comes to a stop just short of the
Transamerica Pyramid.
The transporter officer on duty when Spock beams down to San
Francisco to capture Khan was played by Christopher Doohan,
son of James Doohan who played Scotty in the original TV and
film series.
At 1:56:09 on the DVD, what may be an Orion woman is seen on
the streets of San Francisco (note the green skin).
At 1:56:20 on the DVD, a San Francisco trolley car is seen
on the left of the screen. The city's trolleys have been
famous since their inception in 1873 and are a well-known
tourist draw today.
|
At 1:56:21 on the DVD, an "M"
is seen on
a traffic signal post. "M" is
traditionally a symbol of a metro
transportation line, a rapid transit
railway within a city and
neighboring ones. San Francisco does
have a metro line today, but the "M"
seen here is actually representative
of Los Angeles' metro, not Frisco's! |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Metro |
|
L.A. Metro |
|
SF Metro |
The behind-scenes-featurettes on the Blu-ray disc reveal
that the hover vehicle on which Khan and Spock fight is a
trash truck.
At 1:57:58 on the DVD, notice that Spock appears to have
green blood on his left hand as he attempts to nerve pinch
Khan.
When Kirk is regaining consciousness, he hears snippets of
dialog from the first movie.
During the memorial at 2:02:05 on the DVD, the ships that
fly overhead are in the missing man formation, used to honor
fallen pilots.
During Kirk's speech at the rechristening of the
Enterprise, he tells us that it is taking place nearly
one year after the film's previous events. The implication
is it that it took that long to repair all the damage
suffered by the Enterprise in the course of our
story.
The captain's oath spoken by Kirk at the memorial is the
preamble that appears at the beginning of episodes of Star
Trek: The Next Generation, with "where no one has gone
before" instead of the original Trek's "where
no man has gone before".
|
As the refurbished Enterprise leaves Earth at the
end of the film, notice that the impulse engine array on the
rear of the saucer section has been modified from the
smaller one seen in the rest of the film, suggesting a new,
improved impulse drive.
|
 |
 |
In the closing credits, the character of Lt. Hendorff is
listed as Cupcake; this was the nickname given to him by Kirk
just before their bar fight in
"Parallels".
Unanswered Questions
Why does the Enterprise still have Mudd's trade
ship aboard? Shouldn't it have been offloaded to some kind
of spaceship impound yard by now?
Why has the Ketha Province of Kronos seemingly become
essentially uninhabitable? Clearly it was once inhabited as
evidenced by the ruins and structures covering the region.
In
the ST: DS9 episode "Once More Unto the
Breach", the Ketha lowlands are said to be a farming area.
We don't hear Spock-Prime's answer to Spock's question as to
how Khan was defeated in the prime timeline. What was it? By
appealing to Khan's ego? By giving Khan what he wants and
then using it against him?
Now that McCoy has a tribble resurrected from death by
Khan's super-blood, will it reproduce like crazy and produce
more tribbles with super-blood? Would this make the
tribbles' reproduction even harder to stop than it was in
"The Truth About
Tribbles" and the original series episode "The
Trouble with Tribbles"?
For that matter, will the Federation use the
blood of Khan and the other augments to resurrect the
recently dead in the future? What about other medical
applications of augment blood? Of course, since this type of
genetic engineering is now allegedly illegal, the use of
existing augment blood should be also. Shouldn't it? Has
McCoy committed a crime (or a breach of medical ethics) by
using it?
