To put it mildly, the Star Trek reboot films are very divisive for fans of the franchise. On one hand, the reboots accomplished exactly what they set out to do: they made Star Trek, a series that stereotypically focuses on basic ideas like exploration and peace, seem like an action series instead. Accordingly, this helped bring in a lot of casual viewers that would never previously have called themselves fans of Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew.
On the other hand, it’s tough for this to not feel like a bit of a slap in the face to longtime fans of the franchise. Part of what makes Trek so cool is that its ideas endure: whether you’re watching The Original Series, Next Generation, or Voyager, you get the same basic kind of show which is arranged around the same basic, Utopian principles of franchise creator Gene Roddenberry. To put it another way, Trek has never tried to focus on being an action vehicle, so why start now?
We’re not here to settle that particular philosophical debate. However, we have pinpointed some moments from these rebooted movies that make no sense.
Just keep scrolling to read all about 20 Things That Make No Sense About The Star Trek Reboot Movies!
Enterprise Size
One of the big conceits of the rebooted universe is that much of what we know and love is still the same on some level. Kirk now has a tragic past, but he still ends up as a cocky captain following his first, best destiny. Spock is a bit more emo, but he’s still an ultra-logical second in command. Then, there’s the Enterprise itself. To casual fans, it looks pretty recognizable—two nacelles, a saucer section, similar colors, and so on. However, Trek fans with sharp eyes noticed right away that the new design makes no sense at all!
The main issue: it’s just too darn big! According to info from the movie as well as the creators, the new Starship Enterprise of Kirk’s era is about as big as the Enterprise-D was under Captain Picard. This is wrong on so many levels. How and why does Starfleet suddenly have enough time, materials, and crew to regularly fill ships that are so much larger than in the Original Series?
The so-called explanation for this is that Starfleet is making them bigger after encountering Nero’s ship, but then why did the general design stay the same? It’s crazy to still make a ship of exploration because you think you need ships of war!
From Cadet to Captain
Some of the items on this list are only frustrating if you are well-versed in Star Trek lore. That’s a polite way of saying that these things made perfect sense to the casual fans who just came to see Trek as an action movie with comedic elements, and it’s only the hardcore fans who notice and complain. However, some things are so egregiously nonsensical that they left the entire theater scratching their heads. And one of those things was Kirk’s sudden promotion.
Part of the new twist that the first Trek reboot film offered was that we saw Kirk and crew back in their academy days - with the exception of the seventeen year-old Chekhov who is inexplicably already an academy graduate, and Spock, who has had years to become the perfect teacher’s pet.
Kirk starts the movie as a civilian, becomes a cadet, and by the end, he is instantly promoted to Captain!
While it’s true that he beat the bad guy and saved the planet, Starfleet apparently decided that Kirk not only could skip the rest of his academy years, but he could skip the decade or more it would have taken to rise up through the ranks. Can you imagine the hard-working commander who lost a promotion so they could instantly promote a cadet above them?
Why Didn't Spock Approach Starfleet?
Once the great Leonard Nimoy was cast in the rebooted film, it was downright inevitable that we would see older Spock interacting with the younger versions of his former colleagues. While those interactions ranged from sweet (as with Kirk) to funny (as with Scotty), pretty much everything about how he meets them is insane.
First, there’s the idea that Nero found a habitable planet close enough to Vulcan that Spock could see his planet destroyed. Then there’s the idea that Kirk would be marooned on that planet by young Spock instead of just sent to the brig. Finally, though, there’s the actions of old Spock himself.
He acts as though he planned to spend his entire life in an ice cave until encountering young Kirk puts him back in the game.
Specifically, Spock takes them both to the Starfleet base that Scotty is on, which forces us to ask: why didn’t Spock go there on his own when he had the chance? You might think he just wants to preserve the timeline, but he wastes no time telling Kirk and Scotty about their future lives. Would it have troubled him to go to the base as soon as he found it and warn Starfleet about Nero?
Why build Enterprise in Iowa?
There are many accusations that fans have made against the Trek reboot films in general and J.J. Abrams in particular. One of the accusations is that these movies often focus more on style than substance. While that may not always be true, there is one scene that really stands out: when Kirk takes his motorcycle out and sees the Enterprise being built in Iowa.
The scene is majestic and breathtaking as it shows off the beauty of the Enterprise. It’s also completely and totally wrong!
One thing that has been consistent about Star Trek over the course of many years is that starships are built in space. There are many practical reasons for doing this: it makes it easier to assemble, both in of small shuttles being able to maneuver around the entire ship and those same shuttles being able to carry materials through the weightless vacuum of space instead of the gravity of Earth or another planet.
As we mentioned before, the Enterprise is absolutely huge— it’s tough to imagine that lifting off would not completely devastate the area, even if they limited themselves to simple maneuvering thrusters! This scene exemplified the issues with reboots pretty perfectly.
Why Is No One Surprised to See Romulans?
One way that the Trek reboots tried to shake things up was by giving us a Romulan bad guy in the form of Nero. While the Romulans made for memorable antagonists in The Original Series, they never played a huge role in the movies based on the original series, and they certainly were not the main antagonists of any of those early films with Kirk and crew. Due to the time-traveling shenanigans of the reboot, we get to see Kirk, Spock, and the others encounter a Romulan for the first time; an encounter that makes no sense.
Back in The Original Series, it was actually a big deal when the Enterprise first saw what a Romulan looked like. Despite Earth fighting a war with the planet, no one had ever seen a Romulan, and so the crew was shocked to see that Romulans looked exactly like Vulcans. However, no one in the Trek reboot comments on this at all.
You might think there is a loophole here (because Nero looks like the later Romulans, complete with some weird forehead ridging), but he still clearly declares himself as a Romulan, and neither the crew of the Kelvin or the crew of the Enterprise are surprised to see what a Romulan for what seems to be the first time.
Why is Spock so Much More Emotional?
The idea that Vulcans experience no emotions is something of a misconception, both in the world of Star Trek and in our own world. Vulcans can feel everything that humans feel, but they have made a cultural choice to suppress those emotions and operate purely in the name of logic. Careful viewers of The Original Series know that even Spock wasn’t always consistent with this: he has been known to smile, exclaim in joy, and occasionally crack some wicked jokes. But the emotions of the rebooted Spock basically make no sense.
In the spirit of giving us younger, more eager versions of all of the familiar Original Series characters, we get a Mr. Spock who is downright erratic.
He smarts off to the Vulcan Science Council, openly grieves over the loss of his mother, and practically chokes Kirk out when he gets angry.
On one hand, there are some huge mitigating factors: Spock is witness to the destruction of his world and the ing of his mother. However, the Spock we know would never act like this - something the movie drives home by showing how older Spock keeps his emotions in check even after the destruction of Vulcan. Basically, young Spock is just constantly angry in that first reboot, and there’s never a good explanation.
Nero's Motivations Make No Sense
On the ittedly generous scale of big screen Trek villains, Nero is actually pretty cool: he has a commanding presence, a scary ship, and he’s driven by a bloodthirsty agenda. Actor Eric Bana sells that bloodthirsty agenda so well that it’s easy to get caught up in his performance. It’s only after the credits start rolling that you’ll find yourself questioning several of the foundational aspects of his plot. Unfortunately, you’ll be left with one inescapable conclusion: Nero’s entire motivation makes no sense!
Basically, he blames Spock for the supernova that destroys his own homeworld of Romulus. We’re going to set aside the dubious science of a supernova that travels the galaxy and focus instead on his motivations. Spock is sent on a mission to stop that supernova and save the Romulans, but he is unable to save them in time and gets sent to the past, same as Nero. This means that Nero blames Spock for something that is not at all his fault (it’s a natural phenomenon), even as Spock was doing his best to help out.
Finally, Spock already pays for his failure by getting marooned in the past. The idea that he needs to suffer more for his good intentions is pretty much crazy talk!
Where are the Time Cops?
The entire notion of “rebooting” Star Trek rests on the idea of the altered timeline. The Romulan Nero (and later, the older Spock) come to the past and disrupt things, creating a timeline that may have familiar characters (like Kirk) but whose events are not necessarily tied in to the Trek world that we know.
While this may work on the narrative level of wanting to create a new sandbox for these movies, there is a pretty big aspect of Star Trek that they are deliberately overlooking.
There are multiple individuals and institutions within Star Trek that monitor the timeline and are able and willing to fix it when things are askew.
Perhaps the most blatant example of this is the Department of Temporal Investigations. In Deep Space Nine, after Sisko and crew are accidentally transported to Kirk’s time, Sisko is visited by these temporal agents upon his return. While the episode doesn’t make it explicit, we think it’s fair that such agents would have a way of protecting themselves from major changes to the timeline— otherwise, one small change erases them from history and prevents them from doing their job. However, no one seems to notice, care, or try to fix the massive changes caused by this “rebooted” universe!
Transwarp Beaming
A plot element from the first Trek reboot that divided fans concerned older Spock and the Prime Directive. Previously, Spock was a staunch defender of the directive and the overall idea that you shouldn’t interfere with the way things are supposed to develop. In this movie, he seems to shrug and determine that because the timeline has already been altered, he can say or do anything he wants to. For instance, he tells Scotty the formula for “transwarp beaming” that older Scotty would later develop. Our question: why do we never see this technology again?
Just to clarify, transwarp beaming is amazingly powerful. Kirk and Scotty are able to beam out from a remote outpost near Vulcan and onto the Enterprise, even while the ship is traveling towards Earth at warp speed. This already seems like a universe-breaking technology (why do you even need ships if you can beam from one sector to another?), but it’s never seen again.
In shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, it’s very clear that people cannot beam onto a ship at warp unless they match the exact speed, and even then it’s tricky. While this is an altered timeline, older Spock insists that older Scotty developed this technology in the original timeline. So why is it never used?
Why Hide The Enterprise Under Water?
Earlier, we discussed the idea that these Trek reboots have an issue with style over substance. This is very clear in the opening of Star Trek Into Darkness, in which we see Kirk and crew trying to protect a primitive alien species from being wiped out by a volcano. Kirk later gets in hot water because he violates the Prime Directive twice on this mission. First, the very act of stopping a natural phenomenon (a volcano) is forbidden. Second, to save Spock, he flies by and beams him out, giving the aliens a clear look at an advanced starship.
We can debate the ethics behind Starfleet’s Prime Directive another day because we have a more fundamental question: why did Kirk hide the Enterprise underwater on this planet?
Scotty warns him of all the reasons why this is a bad idea, and the only good thing about it seems to be that it keeps the primitive aliens from seeing the ship.
However, they are so primitive that they do not seem to have any electronic surveillance equipment of any kind. Kirk could have simply kept the Enterprise in space and the natives would not ever see it. This would have been logical (as Spock might say) but wouldn't have given the movie its precious shot the Enterprise rising from the water.
