10 Deleted Scenes That Explain Confusing Action Movie Moments
9. Nero's 20 Year Hiatus - Star Trek
The Star Trek universe changed forever in 2009 with the release of J.J. Abrams' blockbuster. The movie was a huge mainstream success, enough so that two sequels followed, showing the coming together of the familiar crew for their first mission in this timeline against Nero.
The villain, played by Eric Bana, travelled back in time with a grudge match against Spock. His first action was to attack George Kirk's USS Kelvin, which the Captain didn't survive, but his son did. James T. Kirk then took up the fight against Nero 20-odd years later when the villain attacked Vulcan.
The big discrepancy here in the theatrical version is what Nero was doing for the 20 years between these two attacks. Why would he travel back in time only to wait around for two decades? Wouldn't it have just been easier to travel back to when he was actually going to make his move?
There is a very reasonable explanation here that the movie makes no attempts to explain, since the scene that did was left on the cutting room floor. After attacking George Kirk, Nero was confronted almost immediately by the Klingons, who captured the Romulan and kept him as their prisoner until he escaped over 20 years later. No plot holes here.