10 Dumbest Things In Star Trek Into Darkness

4. Location, Location... Location?

Star Trek Spock Scream
Paramount Pictures

Like its predecessor, the script for Into Darkness has no sense of spatial geography, and its depiction of warp travel makes the universe seem very small indeed.

Kirk’s orders were to park on the edge of the Neutral Zone and fire the 72 stealthy long-range torpedoes at the Klingon homeworld, Qo’noS, to kill Khan. But the Marcus-ordered sabotage knocked the Enterprise out of warp 20 minutes short of their destination, so the ship shouldn’t even be at the edge of the Neutral Zone, yet. If that’s the case, then why does Sulu say it’s “twenty minutes in enemy space we weren’t counting on”? And then why does Khan say the ship is stranded on the edge of Klingon space, and then refer to them being in Klingon space?

Which is it?!

When the warp core finally gets repaired and Kirk orders the Enterprise to hotfoot it back to Earth, only minutes appear to pass before the Vengeance overtakes them and blows them out of warp within Mark I Eyeball range of Earth. That would make Qo’noS farther from the Enterprise’s stranded position than Earth was. How does that make any kind of sense?

And speaking of Qo’noS…

 
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Maurice is one of the founders of FACT TREK (www.facttrek.com), a project dedicated to untangling 50+ years of mythology about the original Star Trek and its place in TV history. He's also a screenwriter, writer, and videogame industry vet with scars to show for it. In that latter capacity he game designer/writer on the Sega Genesis/SNES "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — Crossroads of Time" game, as well as Dreamcast "Ecco the Dolphin, Defender of the Future" where Tom Baker performed words he wrote.