Goofs for
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) More at IMDbPro »

• Revealing mistakes: When the cloaked ship lands on the grass, a trash can is crushed. As the earth (grass) moves down under the pressure of the heavy ship, the grass blades remain pointing up.
  
  
• Continuity: The candle and beer in the restaurant.
  
  
• Boom mic visible: After the President gives his warning, Kirk gets up to talk to Spock.
  
  

• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The president tells the Klingon ambassador that "Admiral Kirk has been charged with nine violations of Starfleet regulations." In the courtroom scene, the crew was collectively charged with six violations.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The shot of the whales swimming away at the end of the movie was set in San Francisco, but the footage was filmed off the coast of Hawaii (The Big Island is visible in the background).
  
  
• Continuity: The hand that Kirk uses the phaser with when rescuing Chekov.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Sound stage wall visible through the hatch that Kirk blows after the Klingon ship crashes into San Francisco Bay.
  
  
• Continuity: The Klingon ship is shown hovering above the whaler with the whaler deep in its shadow. When they cut back the bridge of the whaler, they're back in the sunshine. They cut back to show the Klingon ship hovering over the whaler, and it is once again in shadow.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During landing of the ship, garbage cans are "blown over" into the prevailing wind, and can be seen being kicked over by garbage man.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end when the camera pans the crew just before their pardon, Scotty wears the rank pin of a Commander. This is despite his being promoted to Captain in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), being listed in this film's credits as "Captain Montgomery Scott," and wearing Captain's pins in the next film, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).
  
  
• Continuity: When Dr. Taylor drops off Spock at the park, the ignition switch of the Chevy pickup is shown in the "off" position, yet engine idling sound continues and there is no sound of the engine starting up again.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Just before Spock checks the bus map at a stop, you can see several crew members are visible through a large glass window of a restaurant - one of them even clearly wears a Star Trek IV security badge, and all are wearing walkie-talkies.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Sulu accidentally turns on the windshield wipers of the helicopter, the wipers were broken so a grip had to move the wipers manually. Look closely and you can see his finger holding on to the blade as it moves back and forth.
  
  
• Continuity: The pizza box Kirk holds after Gillian drops him off at the park is smaller than the pizza they had ordered "to go" in the previous scene. Then, when Kirk beams aboard the ship, the pizza box is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: The painted-on "HMS Bounty" on the Bird-of-Prey is visible only when Kirk asks his crew if they will stand trial with him.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the Klingon ship is descending towards the whaling ship, there is a shot of the whales immediately following a quick shot of the harpoon. At the extreme right-hand side of the underwater whale shot you can make out a diver from waist up.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Scotty is typing on the computer in the plexiglas factory and his hands are shown the sound effects of typing to not match up with his hands, which are moving much slower. In addition, the there is no way a single keystroke as demonstrated by Scotty could create the level of graphics shown on the 1986-vintage Macintosh computer used in the scene.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: Immediately after the whales' transponders are located in the Bering Sea, Gillian can be seen to mouth "How did you do that?" without sound, then she is immediately seen and heard giving the same line from another camera angle.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the end credits, the role of Marine Sergeant is misspelled as "Sargent."
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Kirk and Spock are riding the Muni bus, a crewmember with a camera is reflected in the window behind them.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Gillian arrives at the institute and finds the whale tank empty, in the windows you can see reflections of swimming pool umbrellas (the empty tank was superimposed over the swimming pool area at the Hilton (note the door handles), where the scene was filmed).
  
  
• Factual errors: Checkov states that the nuclear vessel they find is called the Enterprise. It is actually the USS Ranger (CV-61), the two vessels are quite different structurally.
  
  
• Factual errors: Ships in the opening sequence that are affected by the probe lose power and come to an almost complete stop. In the vacuum of space, air friction does not exist, so they should keep going the same speed they were before.
  
  
• Errors in geography: Kirk and Spock are seen walking as Dr. Taylor drives up. She asks where they are going, Kirk replies "Back to San Francisco." The scene is shot in the Marina District of San Francisco. Kirk and Spock are already in San Francisco, Sausalito is on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge which is behind them. While it is possible that Kirk may simply made a mistake being from the future, Dr. Taylor later even mocks him at dinner saying that they couldn't even get back to San Francisco without a lift.
  
  
• Factual errors: When trying to get in to the treatment room with Chekov, Dr.McCoy says Gillian has "Acute, postprandial upper abdominal distention", which he later says means "cramps". It would actually mean "gas": "acute" = (of disease) brief and severe; "postprandial" = after a meal; "upper abdominal" relating to the area of the stomach; "distension" = the state of being stretched beyond normal dimensions.
  
  
• Plot holes: The crew at Starfleet HQ in San Francisco shout and point, "There, There!" as to indicate the descent of the commandeered Klingon Ship as Kirk and crew return through the clouds, yet the cloud cover is so thick that nothing past the bridge can be seen, so how could the Admiral see the ship, let alone know that it was coming?
  
  
• Factual errors: The USS Enterprise was deployed throughout 1986 to support Operation Eldorado Canyon in the Mediterranean Sea.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Spock is being tested by the computer, some camera angles are shot through the display screens. The text when viewed from the back is still displayed forward, which can be explained as a feature of a holographic alien device from the future rather than a goof.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After the final trial, two Vulcans in traditional clothes come up to congratulate Kirk and Spock. Both of them are grinning broadly in a most un-Vulcan fashion.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Sulu says "9.3" during the first time warp, Kirk says "We need breakaway speed!" However, his lips continue moving afterwards; presumably he says "We need breakaway speed, Mr. Sulu!"
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After the trial in which Kirk is demoted from Admiral to Captain, the crew are shown in a shuttle craft heading for their next ship. If you look closer at Kirk's uniform, he is wearing the correct rank of captain, however he is still wearing the gold pin-striping on the front of his tunic (jacket) which is part of the admiral decoration. This was removed for Star Trek V and onward.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: At the end of the scene with Kirk and Jillian in the Italian restaurant you can hear someone laugh at Kirk's remark about not using money in the future.
  
  
• Factual errors: As the Bird of Prey accelerates toward warp factor ten when headed toward the sun, the ship would be traveling at nearly 21000 times the speed of light. At that speed, being that close to the sun (as can be inferred from the size of the sun) in the times it took to say their lines the ship would be well past, or though, the sun.
  
  

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