Star Trek (2009) Has A Major Story Flaw
March 21, 2011
I was watching Star Trek (2009) on Blu-Ray last night when I realized a major plot hole. One that should undo all the events which occurred in this film. SPOILER ALERT!
First a brief recap of the film: In the distant future, the planet Romulus is destroyed by a supernova. Spock attempted to save the planet by collapsing the star in a black hole using ‘red matter’. Spock didn’t save the planet in time, but he carried out his mission anyways. In doing so, he formed a temporal anomaly, which pulled him and the film’s bad guy Nero into the past.
Nero then went on a killing spree that involved Kirk’s dad and the entire planet of Vulcan before meeting his own demise at the end of the film, courtesy of ‘present-day’ Spock and Kirk and the rest of the good guys on the Enterprise.
Get that? I’m sure you’ve seen the movie. Can you guess the flaw?
Well all the events in this film were triggered by the doomed planet Romulus. Kirk knows this, and one would assume the rest of the Federation knows this too. All they have to do is alert Romulus to their impending doom, and all the events of the film would be undone. Romulus and Vulcan would be saved.
The Romulans and the Federation are enemies. But it would be very uncharacteristic of Starfleet to withhold this information. All it takes is a space phone call: “Hey your planet is going to blow-up courtesy of a supernova in 80 years, maybe make some evacuation plans.” In fact it would be in Starfleet’s best interests to save/restore Vulcan, no matter the cost.
As far as time-travel paradoxes go, this one is simple. They know the future and can prevent the destruction of two planets.
Unfortunately there was this whole spiel in the film that pretty much stated this was a new time line caused by Nero’s actions, forever changing the collective destiny of everyone as a result. I use to just buy that revelation at face value, but seeing this plot hole just undermines everything the film has established.
In fact, any number of things in the new timeline could easily alter the future events in regards to Nero and Romulus and so forth, undoing everything.
Apologies if this paradox is giving you a headache.
A few more ‘what ifs’ for you:
- With Vulcan destroyed, the Vulcan Science High Command would not be able to commission the creation of Spock’s advanced spaceship and/or red matter, stopping that reality in it’s tracks. Nero effectively wiped out many future events in one fell swoop. He should have disappeared like Marty McFly’s siblings in the photo.
- The absence of Vulcan caused a huge ripple effect in the timeline, probably affecting or nullifying Nero’s lineage.
I am such a geek.
Entry filed under: Films, TV. Tags: Entertainment, Films, Technology.
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