Star Trek is undeniably one of the most prolific pop culture franchises in the world. It stretches multiple television series across the decades, as well as thirteen different films, so there’s a great chance that anyone you meet has been exposed to Star Trek in some way, shape, or form. But whenꩵ you have fifty years of content, it stands to reason that not all of it is goiꦕng to be perfect.

Of course, its important to note that studio executives initially doubted the potential of The Original Series, and thus it was troubled by plenty of issues that stemmed from its low budget and lack of support. It was difficult to use special effects or reshoot 🏅over any errors that may have been discovered after filming.

Later series episodes would occasionally retcon over information established in previous seasons. And that’s not even to mention the confusion that stemmed from the introduction of high concepts like multiple ♔timelines, because it became easy to mix up events. Fortunately, it’s common nowadays for major geek franchises to hire lore experts whose only job is to identify potential ♔errors in writing and filming.

Other episodes just… didn’t hold up to the high standards that Star Trek writers like Gene Roddenberr♉y a🐲lways sought to adhere.

But despite it all, Star Trek is a series that manages to hold together its charm throughout the fifty years of content. It was groundbreaking in terms of diversity, and strove to always represent the highest ideals that humanity could be. It tapped into our deeply-ingrained desire to explore beyond the cosmos during a time when we were just beginning to explore outside of o🎃ur own little blue-and-green marble, and it sympathized with our yearning to answer some of the great questions of the universe.

30 ඣ Tiberius Starts With An 'R,' Right? 🍌

The phrase “Captain James T. Kirk” has become a household name. It’s been used throughout The Original Series and its subsequent movies, and is even referenced in other pop culture franchises. People more familiar with the Star Trek series might know that the ‘T’ ♒stands for Tiberius.

The third episode of season one of The Original Series, famously titled “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” has Kirk face of🌟f against an Enterprise crew mem𒉰ber who is suddenly bestowed with psychic abilities and goes mad with power. The crew member shows Kirk a projection of his tombstone, but it actually says “James R. Kirk”.

Since “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is only the third episode in the series, and was actually filmed with the intention of being a secondary p🦩ilot, it’s more than likely creators just assigned a random initial, and added Kirk's "official" middle name in later episodes.

29 Magical T🍎echnicolor Armbands

Towards the end of the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture, there is a shot of Kirk, Spock, and Bones standing next💟 to each other. Spock and Bones’ uniforms ha🍒ve armbands— Bones is wearing a blue armband, and Spock’s is orange. However, in the very next camera shot, these colors are switched.

Costume snafus are actually very common in the Original Series and its film🎶s. It’s possible that reshoots were required for t🐼his scene, and costume designers lost track of which character wore which color.

28 No Navigational Defl♉ector

Star Trek Beyond is the second film in the Star Trek reboot series, and Kirk is already Captain of the USS Enterprise. During an attack by Krall and his swarm, the Enterprise’s navigational deflector is reported as damaged. A minute later, Kirk orders 💖Lt. Sulu to jump to warp speed to escape.

The navigational deflector is the shield that keeps the ship from colliding with asteroids and other space debris while travelling. If you’ve ever had a pebble cause a chip in your windshield while you’re careening down the highway, imagine the amount of damage that can be done while𓄧 the ship is going at the speed of light. In the vacuum of space.

It’s a very important device, and it doesn’t seem likely that the Enterprise would be able to successfully navigate warp speeds without it. Then again, the Enterprise was already damaged𒆙 by the attack by Krall, sꦺo maybe the damage caused to the ship while going at warp speed without a navigational deflector is irrelevant.

27 ๊ Dimensional Costume Discrepancies

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Yesterdays Enterprise” shows the viewers an alternate reality where the war with the Klingons never ended. This turns Starfleet into more of a military-minded organization— not the humanitarian and exploratory organization we all know and love. To emphasize to viewers how different this reality is, the Enterprise🦩 crew members are given entirely different uniforms.

The timeline is eventually corrected, and everything resets back to normal. However, during a scene betweenꦺ Geordi La Forge and Guinan, we see that La Forge is still wearing his uniform from the other dimension, even though everyone else’s costumes 𝔉have changed back.

26 Captain Pike Doesn't Underꦗstand What The Federation Is

During the 2009 Star Trek film reboot, we see Captain Pike having a discussion with a young Kirk, before he’s enlisted with Starfleet. Pike tells him, “You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada."

That’s actually not what the Federation is. The Federation is a massive interplanetary governing force,💃 similar to the United Nations or the European Union today. The “peacekeeping and humanitarian armada" that Captain Pike is describing is actually the Starfleet, which is the force under the Federation umbrella. You’d think he’d know this, considering he’s a Captain within Starfleet itself.

25 🍸 Data's Cat Chang✱es Breeds

To provide humor and to help humanize the synthetic AI life-form Data, Next Generation writers gave him a cat named Spot. Throughout The Next Generation series, we see Da🌳ta carrying Spot around and doting the cat with affeꦗction (and even, at one point, .)

In early episodes, Spot appears to be some kind of long-haired breed. In later episodes, Spot has magically turned into an orange tabby. The reason for this change is never explained or acknowledged by other crew members of the Enterprise.

24 Khan and Chekov Shouldn't Know Each Other ꧒

During the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Chekov gets in an altercation with Khan, the antagonist. The dialogue between them implies that they remember each other from Khan’s previous appearance in the Original Series episode “Space Seed”.

However, this shouldn’t be possible. “Space Seed” was a season 1 episode, and Chekov’s character wasn’t introduced until season 2.ꦓ Chekov wasn’t present during “Space Seed”, so their altercation during The Wrath of Khan would have been the first time the two characters actually met.

23 𓆉 Visible Crew Members 🐲

The low-budgeted Original Series is plagued with visible crew members and equipment, but one of the most glaringly obvious cases of this is actually in an episode of The Next Generation. During the season 5 episode “Unification II,” a crew member’s entire face is very obviously seen in the reflection of a large crystal. The reflection is so clear that the crew member was able to💙 be identified as .

This reflection was edited out of the Blu-ray release of s🐈eason 5.

22 Tu♏vok The Lieutenant... Commander? ♔

Tuvok is a young Vulcan featured in all seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager. He holds the rank of Lieute🉐nant and is referred to as such, but his uniform actually sports the insignia of a Lieutenant Commander throughout most of season 1. It’s eventually fixed, and his uniform reflects the correct rank for the remainder of the time that Tuvok remains a Lieutenant.

The costume error being fixed actually cau🌼ses problems later on. In season 4, Tuvok is promoted directly to Commander, meaning that he s🥂kipped the Lieutenant Commander ranking altogether.

21 🌺 We Use The Metriꦑc System Now

It’s mentioned several times throughout the Star Trek series that Earth is now ruled by one World Government, and that they all use the same units of measurement. In this case, it’s the Metric system, because it's already by far the most commonly-used system of measurement. It may also be because the Metric system is considered best for scientific purposes, and Earth is now a technocracy. Writer Gene Roddenberry me𒀰ntions this was an intentional decision by him and the writers.

However, given that most of the Star Trek writers and actors at the time were American, there’s still the occasional slip-up. For instance, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Scotty💦 mentions that t🍸he transporter is about “sixty feet”. Old habits can be hard to break.