* BeamMeUpScotty: This is the closest the franchise comes to actually featuring the Trope Namer, though it's phrased "Scotty, beam me up."
* CaliforniaDoubling:
** Despite most of the film being filmed in and around San Francisco, the Cetacean Institute was actually filmed in Monterrey Bay, more than a hundred miles from Sausalito (where the institute supposedly was located), with the San Francisco skyline added in later.
** The conventionally powered USS ''Ranger'' (CV-61) stood in for the USS ''Enterprise'' (CVN-65) as the ''Enterprise'' was deployed at the time. This was the second time ''Ranger'' stood in for ''Enterprise'', as she had also stood in for some scenes on the ''Enterprise'' in ''Film/TopGun''.
* CastTheExpert: The marines who chase Chekov on the "nuclear wessel" are real marines, and many of the background characters in that sequence were the actual crew of the vessel it was filmed on.
* {{Defictionalization}}: Within three years of this film coming out, there was a formula for transparent aluminum.
** Transparent aluminum oxide--also known as synthetic white sapphire--has existed since the early 1900s, but not typically in large glass-like sheets as opposed to the aluminium oxynitride referenced above.
* DeletedScene:
** A scene which was originally filmed to give Sulu a look at his great-grandfather whom he met as a young boy while in a backstreet of San Francisco was excluded from the final movie. The boy who was cast to portray Sulu's ancestor was so unsettled by his mother, who was also on set that day, that Harve Bennett decided to cut this scene because of the unacceptable acting ability of the boy.
** A short scene between Sarek and Christine Chapel, set before the first Federation Council scene was filmed, but cut from the final film. Sarek arrives to the council chambers, escorted by Chapel, hoping he's not too late to testify in behalf of Kirk and his crew. Chapel tells him that things are not going well.
* DescendedCreator: Associate producer Creator/KirkThatcher played the Bus Punk and also provided the voice for the computer testing Spock on Vulcan (with some electronic modulation).
* DirectedByCastMember: Creator/LeonardNimoy again.
* EnforcedMethodActing:
** The Navy and Marine personnel used in the film were very gung-ho, leaving Walter Koenig in some doubt as to what would happen if he failed to outrun them during the chase scene--so he ''really'' ran.
** As stated below, the random cop Uhura and Chekov ask about "nuklear wessels"? An actual cop who had no idea what was going on and [[ThrowItIn ended up in the final cut.]]
* ExecutiveVeto: Even though Creator/{{Paramount}} liked the film's storyline, the studio was dissatisfied with the first screenplay. In response, its head of production Dawn Steel asked Creator/NicholasMeyer to help rewrite the film from scratch.
* InMemoriam: The film was dedicated to the memory of the ''Challenger'' astronauts.
* IronyAsSheIsCast: Retroactively thanks to this film. [[spoiler:Brock Peters, civil rights activist, playing a [[FantasticRacism virulently anti-Klingon bigot]].]]
* PropRecycling:
** The look of the alien probe may remind science fiction fans of another classic BigDumbObject. The probe model prop was actually built for an intended movie based on Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''Literature/RendezvousWithRama'', a film project that has been in and out of DevelopmentHell since TheEighties. Hollywood warehouses store many props and items that were made for aborted film projects and this one was probably altered and used in the interests of keeping costs down on this film.
** The USS ''Saratoga'' is a reuse of the Miranda-class USS ''Reliant'' model from ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''.
** Parts of the Bird of Prey exterior set were made from bits of the Regula 1 set.
** The dilithium crystal is the lid of the reactor core Spock lifted and realigned in ''Wrath of Khan''.
* RealLifeRelative: Creator/WalterKoenig’s wife Judy Levitt appears as a doctor.
* RealitySubtext: At the end of the movie, when the crew are speculating what ship they're going to get:
-->'''Sulu:''' I'm counting on ''Excelsior''.
-->'''Scotty:''' ''Excelsior''? Why in God's name would you want that bucket of bolts?
** This is a twofer: Harve Bennett, producer and writer of the film, had initially wanted the crew to end up commanding the USS ''Excelsior'' (which had been seen in the [[Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock previous film]]) but was overruled; and Sulu himself ends up as captain of the ''Excelsior'' [[Film/StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry two films later]].
** Ironically, the crew of the ''Enterprise'' ''did'' command the ''Excelsior'' in the interim between ''The Search for Spock'' and ''The Voyage Home'' in the Creator/DCComics series, but were promptly tossed out to match the movie.
* RecycledSoundtrack: "I Hate You", the song listened to by the punk on the bus, later wound up in, of all films, ''Film/BackToTheBeach'' (also a Paramount production); funnily enough, Kirk Thatcher later stated [[https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/02/10/interview-with-kirk-thatcher-part-1-of-2 he got paid more for the song's usage there than in this film]].
* RoleReprise:
** Creator/MajelBarrett returns as Christine Chapel seven years after ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture''.
** Creator/JaneWyatt returns as Amanda 19 years after her appearance in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''.
* TechnologyMarchesOn:
** Gillian mistakes Kirk's communicator (when it beeps in the restaurant scene) for "pocket pager" and inquires if he's a doctor (the most obvious kind of person to be using such a device). That is, before he starts talking through it. Nowadays, it could simply be passed off as a rather odd-looking cellphone set to speaker.
** While keyboards, mice and [=WIMP=] interfaces are still the norm for desktop [=PC=]s and Macs, Scotty's futile attempt to talk to a Mac Plus is now even more HilariousInHindsight now we have Siri. Likewise as smartphones and tablets seem to be almost taking over, so is his description of the keyboard as "quaint" (well, almost).
** Kirk and Spock have trouble taking a bus because they don't understand what "exact change" means (they had just gotten $100 that, presumably, comprises larger bank notes). Today, MUNI buses support prepaid [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_card Clipper cards]], making carrying the correct coins and bills no longer necessary.
* ThrowItIn:
** They actually had Creator/NichelleNichols and Creator/WalterKoenig asking real San Franciscans where the nuclear submarine in Alameda was, although they were all employed as non-speaking extras. However, Layla Sarakalo, the woman who answers, "I don't know if I know the answer to that -- [[CaptainObvious I think it's across the bay, in Alameda]]", wasn't an actor at all: she had woken up that morning to find that her car had been impounded as part of the traffic reorganisation surrounding the movie shoot. Determined to make enough cash to get it back, she approached the film crew, got herself hired as an extra and deliberately ad-libbed so that they'd have to pay her. Her line ended up in the movie and, as a result, she had to be inducted into the Screen Actors Guild. See details [[http://web.archive.org/web/20070519051542/http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/14344.html here]].
** That cop staring at Uhura and Chekov suspiciously? That's a real SF cop who had no idea what was going on.
** Leonard Nimoy was trying to crawl out of the water during the final scene, but the rest of the cast members just dragged him back in.
** The scene where Spock nerve-pinched the punk rocker originally ended with Spock turning the punk's radio off manually, but they went with the take where the radio shuts off from the punk's head falling on the button.
*** The idea that the punk, while passing out, should turn off the stereo with his own head, came from the actor who played him, Creator/KirkThatcher, who was an associate producer on the film. The generic PunkRock that the punk is listening to (it's a song called "I Hate You") was composed and recorded by [[TheCastShowoff Thatcher himself]] and Mark Mangini, a member of the sound effects team.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/StarTrek See the page]].
* WriteWhatYouKnow: Kirk and Spock are on a bus where they encounter a punk loudly playing his boombox before Spock nerve-pinches him into unconsciousness when he refuses to turn down his music. According to Creator/LeonardNimoy, this was inspired by an actual incident while visiting New York City, where he saw a punk loudly playing his music while walking in the street, saying afterwards, "[I was struck] by the arrogance of it, the aggressiveness of it, and I thought if I was Spock I'd pinch his brains out!".
* WrittenByCastMember: The first instance of someone, namely Creator/LeonardNimoy, being both a cast member and a credited writer in a ''Star Trek'' film or TV episode. While Nimoy had actually done both in the previous film as well, his writing contribution went uncredited and he only appeared on-screen for the last ten minutes of the film, and though Creator/WalterKoenig had previously wrote an episode of ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'', he didn't lend his voice to that or any other TAS episode.
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