I am a fan of the Star Trek universe. I have enjoyed most of the shows and movies in the Star Trek universe. I don’t own a Starfleet uniform, but I wouldn’t make fun of you if you wore one.
Today I was watching the Star Trek movie from 2009 (the reboot) for probably the 10th time, when I noticed something. Obviously there are spoilers so if you haven’t seen this movie, don’t read any farther. You’ve been warned.
There’s a scene in the movie where Spock is in the captain’s chair, and Nero has just dropped some red matter into the core of Vulcan. Chekov points out that Nero is creating a singularity (i.e. “black hole”) in the center of Vulcan. Spock asks how long Vulcan has before it is destroyed. Chekov replies, “Minutes, Sir. Minutes.”
Spock then says he is going to beam down to the surface. He briefly discusses this with Uhura, and then leaves the bridge, giving Chekov the conn at 59 minutes 47 seconds.
Kirk and Sulu fall off the platform, and the transporter crewperson can’t beam them up because they are falling. Chekov realizes that he CAN beam them up, so he is needed in the transporter room. He gives the conn to someone else at 1 hour and 44 seconds. He runs to the transporter room, arriving at 1 hour and 55 seconds. He successfully beamed Kirk and Sulu back to the Enterprise. Then, at 1 hour, 1 minute and 32 seconds, Spock calmly walks into the transporter room, ordering, “Clear the pad.” This is so Spock can beam down to the surface of his rapidly dying planet and rescue his parents and the other Vulcan elders.
If we look at the order of events chronologically (leaving out the extra details), it looks like this:
59:47 Spock leaves the bridge heading for the transporter room
1:00:44 Chekov leaves the bridge heading for the transporter room
1:00:55 Chekov reaches the transporter room
1:01:32 Spock reaches the transporter room.
Anybody else see the problem here? Why did it take Chekov only 11 seconds to get to the transporter room and yet it took Spock (who was in a bigger hurry) 1 minute and 45 seconds? What was Spock doing for that minute and 34 seconds? Going to the bathroom? Eating a donut?
In any case, this just shows that even though you experience something over and over, there’s always something new to learn.
Words of Truth 
They were time traveling… they had to time travel to get back to this era… to save Earth from the whales, to get Ricardo Maltalban (aka KAHNNNNNNN!!!) etc.
The question I have is that once they started to time travel, why didn’t they time travel back, get rid of the bad guy with his squidy ship, and save Vulcan? Maybe despite all their wonderfullness and brains, they’re just not that smart? ;-D
Well, the use of time travel is only a plot device: they only use it when they need to. The use of time travel in Star Trek, to my memory, was always an accidental thing, and not something they started out attempting. In other words, they accidentally ended up in a different time, and then had to work hard to get back.
The only exception, as you mention, is when they went to 20th century earth to get the whales. Which brings up another topic: the last Star Trek movie (Into Darkness) mirrored Star Trek II and III. At some point they’re going to have to address the fact that there are no more humpback whales on earth.