Goofs for
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: Colors of bands on the sleeves of Spock and McCoy's uniforms upon return to the Enterprise after the battle.
  
  
• Continuity: Lt. Ilia's position when Chekov burns his hand.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Kirk's spacesuit when he makes the EVA to rescue Spock.
  
  

• Revealing mistakes: When Spock is doing his EVA into the interior of V-GER, the reflection we see in the visor of his spacesuit helmet should be the reverse of the image we see when looking over his shoulder, yet they are the same.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Set rigging when Kirk makes the EVA to rescue Spock (extended version only).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: As Kirk, Decker, Spock, McCoy, and Ilia Probe begin their journey to the V'Ger satellite, you can clearly see the outline of a hole in the matte painting of the Enterprise (1979 Version only)
  
  
• Continuity: Kirk's style of helmet for the EVA (extended version only).
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: After the shot of Kirk's shuttle tram flying past the Golden Gate Bridge, there is a shot of the United Federation of Planets logo. During this shot, stage lights are reflected on the floor. (1979 Version only)
  
  
• Continuity: Spock's sideburns are squared at the bottom when he is lying on the diagnostic bed.
  
  
• Continuity: In several shots of the Enterprise throughout, we plainly see a pair of phaser turrets just below "U.S.S. Enterprise" on top of the saucer section. As Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Decker and Ilia emerge from the saucer section en route to their V'Ger encounter, the phaser turrets are completely missing. Not only this, the slope of the hull is far too steep. (this is fixed on the Director's Edition DVD).
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Enterprise moves out of the spacedock, the bracing used to hold the model can be seen silhouetted against the spacedock on the Starboard side of the ship. This has been corrected in the Director's Edition.
  
  
• Continuity: When Spock ejects his thruster pack during the space walk, the initial shot from behind shows it rotating counterclockwise and moving to Spock's right. There is an immediate cut to a shot from in front of Spock, and the thruster pack can be seen in the background to Spock's right (POV left), rotating counterclockwise from this angle as well.
  
  
• Continuity: In the original version, Spock's first scene shows him squinting into bright sunshine - followed by a reverse shot showing a dark sky. This error is corrected in the Director's Edition, with a new landscape and sky on Vulcan.
  
  
• Continuity: In the Director's Edition, when Admiral Kirk's air tram shuttle approaches Starfleet Command in San Francisco, it is seen heading for a building at least a hundred feet up from the water (this is an all new scene, which never appeared in the theatrical version). Yet when we see this scene from the other side, that same building appears to be level with the water's edge.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When the Vulcan Master (Edna Glover) performs a mind meld with Spock during his Kolinahr ceremony, her face drops with obvious disappointment when she learns of the space consciousness calling Spock which is clearly an emotion a Vulcan Master shouldn't be feeling. She also beams with obvious pride earlier in the scene while talking about Kolinahr as "total logic".
  
  
• Factual errors: When flying past Jupiter, several of its moons and the planet itself are lit on different sides. Since the only source of light would be from the Sun, they would all be lit on the same side.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the Director's Edition, during the "Please sit down" scene with Kirk, Spock and McCoy, the starboard nacelle is visible outside the window. But the stars are "moving" port-to-starboard, against the perspective of the nacelle. They should be "moving" starboard-to-port.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the V'Ger probe first comes onto the bridge, the portion of the set around the probe appears to "shrink". For example, the view screen is not as wide in one shot, and the dome in the bridge ceiling disappears and reappears as the probe passes in front of the helm and navigation console. This was due to a distortion effect, done to "hide" the electrician holding the light source used in this sequence.
  
  
• Plot holes: When Epislon 9 was destroyed it was still transmitting an exterior visual of the V'ger cloud afterward, even though the camera and any transmitting equipment would have been destroyed already.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double for Spock during his fall on the bridge when the V'Ger probe zaps him.
  
  
• Continuity: Spock damages his console pretty badly when he bashes the V'Ger probe's "hand". A few minutes later, the console is undamaged.
  
  
• Continuity: As the transporter flies by to dock with Enterprise, it is shown passing in front of a light beam that was pointing at the Enterprise's stardrive section. When the transporter passes in front of the beam, it is lighted. However, there should have been a shadow on the Enterprise when the transporter passed by.
  
  
• Continuity: Throughout the entire run of the movie, the deflector dish - the glowing dish below the saucer section facing forward - changes from blue to yellow between scenes.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Kirk rescues Spock during the spacewalk outside of the entrance to V'ger, an unconscious Spock is floating towards Kirk who catches him. Kirk remains stationary which would not happen in the vacuum of space. Kirk would be displaced by the force of the impact.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Edna Glover's scene as the Vulcan Kholinahr Master was filmed with her speaking English. Only later were Vulcan words (invented by James Doohan) recorded over the original dialogue. The phonetics of the Vulcan words were chosen to closely follow the original English script so that her lips would seem to move correctly, and English subtitles were inserted with the phrasing reworded so the change would not be obvious. For example, when the subtitles say "Our ancestors cast out their animal passions on these very sands" her lips are clearly saying "Spock, on these sands our ancestors cast out their animal passions." Other examples are "Your thoughts... give them to me" [subtitle] versus "Spock... give me your thoughts" [actual] and "Your human blood is touched by it, Spock" [subtitle] versus "It stirs your human half, Spock" [actual].
  
  
• Factual errors: The Voyager probes were actually a renamed Mariner 11 and 12; there were no more in the series - only Voyagers 1 and 2 were ever built.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: (Director's Edition) In the scene when Spock's shuttle is seen docking with the Enterprise from the observation deck, the star field moves in front of, rather than behind, the warp nacelles.
  
  
• Plot holes: Near the beginning of the movie Kirk tells Scotty "...an alien object of unbelievable destructive power is less than three days away from this planet (Earth). The only starship interception range is the Enterprise." While this is of course important for the whole plot of the movie and the reason why the Enterprise should intercept V'ger, it is highly unlikely that in generally and also especially in a time with war conditions with for example the Klingon Empire there is no protective fleet (not one ship apparently) inside the Solar System or within a 3-days-journey of it.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Spock puts the nerve pinch on the man in charge of the suit lockers, the thruster suits in the lockers are those intended to be worn for the original Memory Wall sequence that would have followed this scene originally. The suits worn by Spock and Captain Kirk later on in the movie are of a very different design and have a larger helmet.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where the USS Enterprise is seen leaving spacedock bound for Vger, the Earth is shown in the background as the sun slowly rises behind it. Since it was obvious that this was shot with the stationary camera facing towards the ship, it should not be possible that the sun can be seen 'rising up at dawn' from this position in outer space. Only if the observer is on Earth as the planet spins on its axis can this view of the sunrise be possible.
  
  

• Plot holes: SPOILER: The entire twist of the plot centers around "V-Ger" actually being "Voyager," as demonstrated by the corroded name plate on the Voyager probe. We are left to assume that nowhere in its programming (or anywhere else) did Voyager have its name recorded and that the advanced computer race was unable to scrape off the carbon scoring on the name plate.
  
  

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